#the one major downside of reading my stories as they update

[itstimeforstarwars]

I noticed that you noticed something in particular about my fic. I see you are wondering if it is foreshadowing. Well. You see. I love foreshadowing. But this is also going to be one of those 500 chapter series. So um. Just keep that thought in the back of your mind for about 50 chapters ok.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

hi derin! i’ve been following you for a little while, and also bemoaning the nature of publishing fiction (indie or trad) for a little bit longer than that, and i only just realized today that…of course web serials are a thing i can also do!

i really love the idea of publishing serially (though i’m not totally sure i CAN, i’d like to try), so while i add this to my list of potential paths, do you have any advice for getting started? building an audience? marketing? figuring out if writing/publishing this way will work for you to begin with?

i know that’s a lot of questions, and you don’t have to answer all of them! i’m throwing spaghetti at a wall out here. i hope you have a good day though, and thanks in advance!

Getting started in web serial writing

Web serial writing has the lowest barrier of entry of any major method of publishing your story. You can literally just start. There are two steps:

start writing your story

decide how/where you want to publish it

The writing part, I assume you have handled. The important thing to note here is that you gotta see the project through. Start and don't stop until you're done. For publishing, you have a few options:

1. Publish on a website designed for web serial novels

There are a few of these around, they're usually free to publish on (although most offer a paid account to give you ad space or boost you int he algorithm or whatever), and your best choice generally depends on which one happens to gravitate to a niche that best suits your kind of work. The big names in this industry are Royal Road and Scribblehub, which, last I checked up on them (about a year ago) tended towards isekai and light erotica respectively. (You absolutely can publish outside these niches on these sites, it's just much harder to get traction.) Publishing somewhere like this comes with multiple advantages. Firstly, there's a writing community right there to talk to; there's usually a forum or something where people gather to talk about reading or writing on the site. Second, the site itself is designed specifically to publish web serials, and will come with a good layout and hit trackers and 'where you left off' buttons for the reader and all that; generally all you have to do is copy-paste the text of a chapter into the page and the site will do everything else for you. Third, there's an audience sitting right there, browsing the 'latest arrivals' or 'most popular' page of the site; if you can get high in the algorithm, you have to do little if any marketing.

The downsides of such places usually come down to the same things as the advantages. Such sites are a flooded market. Your story absolutely will drown in a sea of other stories, a great many of them terrible, and most of them with the advantage of catering to the site's niche. Gaining an audience there is often a matter of trying to game an algorithm, and the community can be... variable. Some of these places are nice but most of them are a bunch of authors trying to tear down everyone around them to make their own work look better by comparison int he hopes of poaching audiences for their story instead. If you go this route, I'd recommend shopping around for a site that fits you personality and writing style (or just posting on many sites at once; you can also do that).

These places also tend to get targeted by scrapers who will steal your story and sell it as an ebook, which is very annoying.

2. publish on another site

Plenty of people publish web serials here on Tumblr. I do not know why. This site is TERRIBLY set up for that. It makes tracking stories and updates a pain in the arse (people end up having to *manually tag every reader whenever they post an update*), building and maintaining archives are annoying, community building is surprisingly difficult for a social media site, and it's just generally far more work for both writer and reader than it needs to be. You often do have a ready-made audience, though.

This does tend to work better on other sites. Reddit has multiple communities for reading and writing various types of fiction; publishing on these is a bit more work than somewhere like Royal Road, but not very much, and many of these communities are very active. There aren't as many forums around as there used to be, but you might be able to find fiction hosting forums, if that's what you prefer. And of course, many writers who simply want to write and don't mind not being paid choose to write on AO3.

These sites are a good middle ground compromise for people who want a ready-made community and don't mind putting in a bit of extra work.

3. make your own site

This is what I did. You can make a website for free, giving people a hub to find you and all your work, designed however you like. You can also pay for a website if you want it to be a little bit nicer. This option is the most work, but gives you the most control and leaves you free of having to worry about any algorithm.

The obvious downside of this is that there's no community there. If you host your work on your own website, you need to bring people to it. You need to build an audience on your own. This is not an easy thing to do.

Building an audience (general advice)

Here is some general advice about building an audience:

1. Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

If you want people to read your writing, the best piece of advice I can possibly give you is have an update schedule and update on time, always. If you need to take a break, give people as much warning as possible and tell them exactly when you will be back, and come back then. Do not take unnecessary breaks because you don't feel like writing. (Do take breaks if you get carpal tunnel or need time off for a major life event or something -- your health is more important than the story.) If you're taking a lot of breaks to avoid burnout, you're doing it wrong -- you need to rework your whole schedule from the start and slow down updates to make these breaks unnecessary. Two chapters a month with no breaks is a billion times better than four chapters a month with frequent burnout breaks.

Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

A reliable schedule is the #1 factor in audience retention. If readers need to randomly check in or wait for notifications from you to check if there's an update, guess what? Most of them won't! They'll read something else. You want your audience to be able to anticipate each release and fit it in their own schedule. I cannot overstate the importance of this.

2. If you can, try to make your story good.

We writers would love to live in a world where this is the most important thing, but it actually isn't. Plenty of people out there are perfectly happy to read hot garbage. How do I define 'hot garbage'? It doesn't matter. Think of what you would consider to be just a terrible, no-effort, pointless garbage story that the world would be better off without. Someone is out there writing that right now, making US$2,500/month on Patreon.

It is, however, a real advantage if you can make your story good. At the very least, it should be worth your audience's time. Preferably, it should also be worth their money, and make them enthusiastic enough to try to get their friends into it. Managing this is massively advantageous.

3. Accept that you're not going to get a big audience for a really long time. Write consistently and update on schedule every time anyway.

It took me over a year to get my second patron. For the first year, I updated Curse Words every single week, on schedule, for over a year, and had maybe... four readers. One of them was a regular commenter. One of them was my first patron. There was no one else.

My audience has grown pretty rapidly, for this industry.

You're not gonna start publishing chapters for a big, vibrant community. You're just not. And you have to keep going anyway. These days, I have a pretty good readership, and those couple of loyal readers (who I appreciate beyond words) have grown into a much larger community, who hang out and debate theories with each other and liveblog and drag in new readers and make fanart. My discord has over 550 members, with volunteer moderators and regular fan artists and its own little in-jokes and games and readers who make a point of welcoming newcomers and helping them navigate the discord, all with very little input from me. I start crying when I think about these people, who do the bulk of my social and marketing work for me just because they want to help, and my patrons who, after writing for over 4.5 years, have recently helped me pass an important threshold -- my web serial (via patreon) now pays my mortgage repayments. I can't live off my writing alone, but boy is that a massive fucking step.

You're not gonna have that when you start. You're gonna have a couple of friends. And that's it. Maybe for a year. Maybe less, if you're good at marketing and lucky. Maybe longer.

You have to update on schedule, every time, anyway.

Building an audience (more specific advice)

"Yeah, that's great, Derin, but where can I find my fucking audience?" Well, if you publish on a web serial site, then the audience is there and you jsut need to grab their affention using the tools and social norms offered to you by the site. I utterly failed at this and cannot help you there. You can still use these other tips to bring in readers from off-site.

1. Paid ads

I've never paid for ads so I can't offer advice on how to do it. I've Blazed a couple of posts on Tumblr; they weren't helpful. This is, however, an option for you.

2. Actually tell people that your story exists and where they can find it.

I used to have a lot of trouble with this. I didn't want to bother people on Tumblr and soforth by telling them about my personal project. Unfortunately you kind of have to just get over that. Now I figure that if people don't want TTOU spam, they can just unfollow me. If you're like me and want to just politely keep your story to yourself... don't. You're shooting yourself in the foot doing that.

You need to mention your story. Link your story in your bio on whatever social media sites you use. Put it in your banner on forums. Make posts and memes about it. Eventually, if you're lucky, extremely valuable readers will start to talk about your story and meme and fanart it for you, but first, you need to let them know it exists.

It will always feel weird to do this. Just accept that people can unfollow you if they want, and do it anyway.

3. Leverage existing audiences and communities

Before I started doing this web serial thing, I used to write a lot of fanfic. The original audience that trickled in for Curse Words comes from AO3, where I was doing a full series rationalist rewrite of Animorphs. They knew how I wrote and wanted more of it. Nowadays, I still occasionally pull in readers through this route. Most of my new readers these days come from a different community -- people who follow me on Tumblr. Occasionally I bring in people who don't follow me because we'll be talking about how one of my stories relates to something different, and fans of that thing might decide they want to check my stories out.

Your first readers will come from communities that you're already in and that are already interested in something similar to what you're doing (people reading my fanfic on AO3 were already there for my writing, for instance). Keep these people in mind when you start out.

One additional critical source of existing communities is your readers themselves. A huge number of my readers are people I've never been in any group with -- they were pulled in by their friends, relatives, or community members who were reading my stories and wanted them to read them too. This is an absolutely invaluable source of 'advertising' and it is critically important to look after these people. enthusiastic readers, word-of-mouth advertisers, and fan artists are the people who will bring in those outside your immediate bubble.

4. Your "where to find me" hub

If you're publishing on your own website, you can simply link everything else to your homepage, and put all relevant links there. For example, I can link people to derinstories.com , which links out to all my stories, social media I want people to find me on (you don't have to link all your social media), patreon, discord, et cetera. If you don't have your own website, you're going to have to create a hub like this in the bios of every site where you garner audiences from. This is the main advantage of publishing on your own website.

Monetisation

There are a few different kinds of monetisation for web serials, but most of them boil down to 'use a web serial format to market your ebook', which to be honest I find pretty shady. These authors will start a web serial, put in enough to hook an audience for free, and then stop posting and release an ebook, with the intention of making readers pay for the ending. Now, to be clear, I am absolutely not against publishing and selling your web serial -- I'm doing exactly that, with Curse Words. I am against intentionally and knowingly setting up the start of a web serial as a 'demo' without telling your audience that that is what you are doing, soliciting Patreon money for it, and then later yanking it away unfinished and demanding money for the ending.

Monetisation of these sorts of stories is really just monetisation for normal indie publishing with the web serial acting as an ad, and I have no advice for how to do that successfully.

Your options of monetisation for a web serial as a web serial are a bit more limited. They essentially come down to merchandise (including ebooks or print books) or ongoing support (patreon, ko-fi, etc.) Of these, the only one I have experience with is the patreon model.

This model of monetisation involves setting up an account with a regular-donation site such as patreon, providing the base story for free, and providing bonuses to patrons. You can offer all kinds of bonuses for patrons. Many patrons don't actually care what the bonus is, they're donating to support you so that you can keep writing the story, but they still like to receive something. But some patrons do donate specifically for the bonuses, so it's worth choosing them with care.

The most common and most effective bonus for web serials is advance chapters -- if people are giving you money, give them the chapters early. You can also offer various bonus materials, merchandise, or voting rights on decisions you need to make in the future. 'Get your character put in the story' is a popular high-tier reward. If you're looking for reward ideas, you can see the ones I use on my patreon.

Patreon used to offer the ability to set donation goals, where you could offer something when you were making a certain amount total or had a certain number of subscribers. They recently removed this feature because Patreon hates me personally and doesn't want me to be happy, so you kind of have to advertise it yourself now if you want to use these goals. I release chapters of unrelated stories at donation goals, and I found this to be far more effective than I thought it would be.

The important factor for this kind of monetisation is that it's ongoing. The main advantage of this is that it makes your income far more regular and predictable than normal indie publishing -- your pledges will go up or down over a month, but not by nearly as much as book sales can. The main thing to keep in mind is that it's not a one-time sale, which means that however you organise things, you want to make sure that donating keeps on being worth it, month after month. Offering bonuses that aren't just one-time bonuses, but things that the patron can experience every month, helps here. So does making sure that you have a good community where patrons can hang out with other patrons. (Offering advance chapters does both of these things -- the patron can stay ahead in the story and discuss stuff with other patrons that non-patrons haven't seen. I've found that a lot of my patrons enjoy reading an emotionally devastating chapter ahead of time, discussing it, and then all gathering a week or two later to watch the unsuspecting non-patrons experience it for the first time.)

Whatever method you use for monetisation, rule #1 is (in the words of Moist Von Lipwig): always make it easy for people to give you money. The process of finding out how to give you money should be easy, as should the process of actually doing it. And, most importantly, the spender should feel like it's worth it to give you money. This is a big part of making it easy to give you money. Make your story worth it, make your bonuses worth it, make sure that they're happy to be part of your community and that they enjoy reading and supporting you. And remember that support comes in many forms -- the fan artist, the word-of-mouth enthuser, the person who makes your social hub a great place to be, the patron, all of these people are vital components in the life support system that keeps your story going. And you're going to have to find them, give them a story, and build them a community, word by word and brick by brick.

It's a long process.

Good luck.

.

[bg-brainrot]

To start, I’m a huge fan of your writing! Seriously, I’ve been reading your stuff since maybe October or November? I always look forward to updates, and I genuinely think your writing is of top-notch quality. Thank you for sharing your stories with us on the internet. ❤️

I saw your post saying you were in game development, and I wanted to ask what are some good ways to network and work with game studios? I’m actually an artist working in the animation industry now (this is an alt account to save posts for my brainrot lmao), but would love to transition into games sooner or later, just not sure how to find good info or leads? There’s only so many animation studios producing major work so it’s easier to scout info, but the world of games is daunting to say the least, even if I’ve been a gamer my whole life.

Any insight helps, but totally understand if you don’t have a straightforward answer to this question lol. You rock, and hope you’re having a good day!

Ahhh first off, thank you so much for reading my fic <33 You best believe I recognize your username when you like my posts and I appreciate it every single time. C: Second, thank you for asking a question!!! I am unreasonably excited to answer it!

To answer your question, I have a few tips, but I will say it will definitely depend on where you live what resources are available to you (it sucks, and it's honestly a huge downside to this industry :') ). Some tips below, sorted by, like availability ~

Networking from anywhere:

Join Discords! There are a ton for general game developers, a ton for people in specific fields, a ton for specific demographics within gaming, a ton for recruiting or for connecting with mentors-- and honestly, it can seem like a lot, there are a ton of people, a lot of them might already know each other, etc. but everyone is super friendly and super willing to help.

Join GameJams! I cannot stress this enough, but one of the biggest things that will help someone transition into games from another field is experience making games (I know it sounds counterintuitive, but bear with me haha)-- but making games, even if they're small games you make with a group over a weekend, shows directly applicable experience and looks great on a portfolio! GameJams are an easy way to find a group, set aside time, and make a game before you even join a studio. Bonus note: animators are *always* in high demand for those.

Reach out to people whose work you like directly! This is by far the most nerve-wrecking (to me at least), but reaching out to people, like cold-emailing, cold-LinkedIn messaging, is just such a good way to get to know people. As awkward as it is for you, people who like what they do will always be excited to answer questions and help set you on a path forward (like me! I receive messages myself and each time I get excited that someone even bothered to reach out tbh). If you're super lucky, you may even get a mentor out of it!

From in-person locations:

Join local indie dev meetups! I've done this in my area, and each and every time everyone is so willing to talk, to connect, and to give each other advice. The best part of these meetups is that they tend to be very informal, and you may even find teams looking to expand.

(Disclaimer, this one is expensive and genuine connections can be difficult given the sheer number of participants, but it's not impossible) Attend conventions/game dev events! Even at GDC, people from all types of industries attend to try to get their foot in the door, speak with recruiters, get portfolio advice, and learn a bit more about how the industry works. A quick word of warning for this one: be wary of the type of convention! For example, GDC is great for growth and connections, but attend something more press-oriented like PAX or more creator-oriented like TwitchCon and you may be disappointed at the lack of opportunities to just sit and talk. Smaller conventions can sometimes be more helpful to actually network as well.

Attend any local universities/incubator programs game showcases! Again, hyper-specific to this being in your area, but often people will take time to show off their game, host in-person game jams, and more-- usually you'll find these around major universities, major companies, and even places like video game museums. All great places to meet and get to know some mentors or even recruiters.

and some general tips for animation specifically that you probably already know as an animator in another field but are always worth mentioning:

Make sure that you know what type(s) of animation you want to get into (Technical animator, rig specialist, gameplay animator, etc.), which studios rely on which animation types (some studios have one generalist, some split up their animation pipeline very thoroughly, some have only 2D animators, some 3D, some a mixture of both), and which game engines they use-- the more programs you know, the better, of course. I've seen 2D animators spend many a personal hour learning 3D animation for the sake of getting on a game they want to work on, so the sooner you learn the better :')

Again I want to stress the gamejam, but if you don't want to talk to other people or it's difficult to find one, I would recommend at least trying to make your own small game. The reason being that, while animators in general are super highly sought after in the industry, the more you know about game development itself the more sought after you will be! A good animator is fantastic, an animator who knows why their animation breaks as soon as it's in engine is even better (and the best way to figure that kind of debugging is really from trying, failing, iterating!)

Beyond just reaching out to people, find animators you like in the industry and see if they're involved in any mentorship programs, are giving any talks, maybe already have some talks online (old GDC talks end up on YouTube sometimes), or even have guides on how they got their start in the industry. It's definitely not a clear cut journey for anyone into gaming, so there's no one-size-fits-all, but it can give you a gauge for how others in your position got there!

PHEW, I think that's it! I hope some of this is helpful, feel free to like, ask for clarification as I know I can ramble, and thank you again for asking! You rock and hope your day is excellent :D

[bettsfic]

Betts, I’m having a really hard time writing my fic. It’s incredibly long which doesn’t help but even updating the next chapter feels impossible. I’m so amazed—not only by how often you’re able to update, but by the sheer quality of your writing. I have a tendency to get too flowery and incoherent, so I’m scared to rush. But this unfortunately means I update every few months. All of my readers have virtually abandoned my story and I can’t blame them. Can I get some advice on how you’ve built the skills needed to update fast with good writing? Any suggestions you might have?

i can't remember if i've talked about this yet, but i was on a med to help with my sensory issues and it really, really fucked with me. and even though i was like, twitching a lot and had restless legs and fatigue, i stayed on it because it was doing what it set out to do: light and sound didn't bother me at all (i didn't even need to put on headphones when the lawn was mowed), and i wasn't snappish and mean like i get sometimes when i'm not masking. i was able to do everything i needed to do in a day with ease, without even making a detailed to do list (a thing i've done nearly every day since i was 18). i could make difficult phone calls. i could change my routine at a moment's notice or go somewhere when i felt like it without having to gear up for it. in other words, it had taken away a lot of my autism symptoms. for six months it was like someone else was living in my body. someone it turns out i didn't like at all.

i wasn't writing. i couldn't write. normally my brain is so full of words, if i don't get them down it can sometimes become physically painful. i've suspected for a long time i have hypergraphia, because the words don't even have to be coherent, they just have to be out. before i started writing fiction, i wrote a lot of flat-out nonsense. when i was a teenager, i kept long-running notebooks with friends. i was on AIM all the time. i religiously journaled and kept a blog detailing my daily life. and then when texting became a thing, my life got immeasurably better. i have always, always preferred writing to speaking, and i feel like i can't actually know a person until i've read their writing. i remember when i first got an email address and my dad sent me an email, i was like, ah! i can finally see you! and you're way weirder than i thought!

anyway it took a long time but eventually i found fanfic and now everyone who's ever known me can breathe a lot easier since i'm no longer texting them a million times a day with totally banal thoughts.

which is all to say, when i was on that med, my brain was utterly silent. it was terrifying. it felt like i'd had a major piece of me cut off and there was a time i was honestly so scared i'd never write again, that whatever spark i had was gone. i was so bored i contemplated going out, like actually leaving my house, for fun, and i was like, oh so this is why people do things.

because there were no words happening, when i did sit down to write (which was the one thing i still had to schedule, the opposite of how it usually is, and by that i mean i'm writing all the time by default and have to schedule everything else like eating and running errands), it was tedious, because i had to make them up on the spot instead of them just being there. it's the difference between buying apples and picking them yourself. when you buy them, there's a whole little mountain to choose from. you don't have to take a single step. but picking them yourself, you've gotta go out and find them, and it takes a lot longer.

there were other things i couldn't do either, like conflict and scene crafting. i couldn't really see the future of a given story, whereas before, i didn't even have to think about it. it was just all there waiting for me and all i had to do was put it on the page.

of course, there is a horrific downside to this, and that is that i'm virtually unfunctional in day to day life while i'm in the process of writing something. that's why i love residencies so much. they're made specifically for people with maladaptive behaviors like mine, like, here's a room, here's a desk, here's a hundred bucks for groceries, have at it.

i signed my apartment lease in april and i still haven't unpacked. some days i sit down at my desk at 10am and i blink and it's 2am and i don't know what happened, but i have 10k new words that i had absolutely no control over creating. thankfully i've developed good habits to make sure i get all the work done i have to get done, but it's always a struggle and honestly i can't see myself ever being able to work a full-time job again, unless i go back on that awful med.

the point is, for six months i wasn't writing, and because i wasn't writing i fell into a very deep depression. coupled with the fact nothing was in my brain, i wasn't talking much to anyone, wasn't engaging much online, wasn't reading, wasn't cooking, wasn't cleaning. all i could do was sleep and watch youtube videos. the highlight of my day was my coaching calls and the work i was doing for ofic, where i could feel a little like myself again.

as you can see from this very long post, i got taken off that med and put on a new one that's rendered me once more a ball of words and nothing else. my psychiatrist, bless her, didn't even question me when i said i preferred to be an obsessive maladaptive daydreamer who doesn't live in reality than...whatever i'd turned into. a task-doer i guess. i think what i'm going through now, the 200k in a few months thing, is all the build-up of being on that med.

anyway, everyone's brain is different and therefore their relationship and approach to writing is different. i think we have far less control over these things than we think. or at least i do. i certainly know some ass-in-chair 8am writers for whom writing is genuinely work like any other, and they have daily word goals and once they hit them they go outside and run a marathon or whatever.

other than those few people, i don't think any writer is happy with the pace at which they write. i would love to have the patience you do to get flowery with my writing, but my sentences have always been spare and simple. i've learned to make that work to my advantage i think, but it still remains: i am never going to be a writer of pretty things. and that made me sad for a long time, but it also makes me appreciate a beautiful, complex sentence so much more, because it's something i can't really do.

i don't think writing slow is a weakness and i don't think writing fast is a strength. our minds move at the pace they move and there's not much we can do about it. i think a lot about a girl i used to know in the MFA who wrote microfiction, and her daily word count goal was six. six words. i think about donna tartt, one of my favorite authors, and how she's published one book a decade, three books in a career. and i also think about those writers who churn out book after book after book and even if they're good quality, they're all kind of the same, and that's because writing speed is directly related to the speed at which you make decisions. if you're always falling back on the same story structures, sentence structures, scene pacing, and character archetypes, yeah, you can write pretty fast. writing, at its simplest, is deciding what word comes next, over and over and over again. and so i write fic fast because my writing style is just my inner monologue, the characters are already established, and in terms of plot all i really have to do is figure out the happily ever after.

but it also took me 3 years to write my short story collection. i have novels i've been working on for 5 or 6 years now. i have hundreds of thousands of words of prose in various WIPs that will have to be completely rewritten because of how sloppy they are and how they don't get the work done i want them to be doing. so i definitely understand what it is to write slow, and how frustrating it can be when you're just eager to be finished.

i'm sorry your readers have abandoned your story and i'm sorry i don't have more practical advice for you. my only real advice is to relish in the process and enjoy any minute you spend crafting a sentence you can be proud of.

[rococospade]

(Spoilers for Mare's Nest chapter 14 herein. If you haven't read this chapter, you may end up very confused.)

I suspect this question will come, so I'm gonna write a preemptive post:

The major scene in the Mare's Nest update isn't accidentally weird, and you're not imagining it.

Originally, that scene was going to go before we actually saw Letho's backstory, and changing the sequence of the story not only changed how the scene hits but also what information needed to be conveyed by it. While attempts were made to trim out too much of the repeated information, a few things (most notably Laurence's "you aren't responsible for my patients" line) did get left in, because I either judged them too much work to cut out (making the conversations flow is a big chunk of my writing and editing time. I've scrapped and rewritten whole scenes and chapters because I couldn't make the conversation that they hinged on work. I keep the scrapped ones in a cut bin to dig through like a raccoon, so it works out in the long run) or decided that the changed context added something that the line would lack otherwise. (Again, Laurence's line: it could be inferred that he's playing along with Letho's drugged state, but it could also be an expression of forgiveness regarding revelations in previous chapters. Hard to say with Laurence, really).

Another major element that almost got cut/rewritten but didn't: Letho and Mohg's first meeting. After some serious outline rewriting and resequencing, I hit the question of whether I'd be heavily rewriting this chapter and considered the implications of just... not doing that. Like obviously less work is appealing, but a potential downside of it was confusing readers. On the other hand... the fic has pretty well established by now that Letho and Mohg are both big mcfuckin liars. So with that, I think it gives the reader an interesting thing to chew on that Morgott doesn't have: the question of why they're acting like strangers. And that made me feel not only safe leaving it alone, but that it actually served the story more than excluding it would have (by adding interest for readers and showing/reinforcing some personality traits we already knew about). Of course, I don't know if it'll actually land or not until the chapter is already up, so... we'll see how that goes.~

Writing stories out of order or mostly in order and having to shuffle sequences later has pros and cons, and a major con is the amount of editing you have to do depending on when in the process you do your scene-shuffling. And this weighing of effort versus probable effect is how I deal with that con. It is probably neither professional nor recommended procedure, but it works for me, so it's how I'll continue to operate until it stops working.

edit: seems like it landed, and pretty amusingly.

[wholesalemagnesiumoxide]

faq / about

last updated sep. 16, 2022

who are you? magnesium oxide, nice to meet you.

is that actually your name? no :) but that'd be sick.

what's your deal? i'm a twentysomething transfem. i wanted to get into writing, so here i am.

why writing? i read modern cannibals by bavitz and thought "i wonder if i could do that?"

why magnesium oxide? i started taking it before bed a couple months ago. it's supposed to help with headaches, but it also causes this unpleasant floaty-fluffy feeling. i figure that's a good direction to head in artistically.

why tumblr? better than ao3.

why don't you tag your stuff? between the ungoogleable pseudonym and untagged works, i hope to sit here in pleasant obscurity. warnings and such will be above the cut for each story.

do you have an update schedule? nah.

why do you write like that? 99% of my past writing experience is roleplaying. i've probably picked up some bad habits. sorry about that.

this thing contradicts something in a previous chapter. one of the downsides of writing serialized fiction is that you might get to a point where your current plans contradict your previous statements. i do try to go back and edit the past chapters slightly whenever i have to make a retcon, for the sake of the archival readers, but that doesn't really help when reading serially. hopefully i won't have to do this with anything too major.

[markliebrecht]

April 12, 2023 | 14°C | ⛅️ | Status: Functioning

March Recap

After two and a half years, I finally started a new job. It’s a nice change of pace. I work from home one week, and from the office the next. Best of both worlds.

My daughter got to spend spring break playing Minecraft and Roblox. Which is code for: My daughter got my wife and I to spend a week playing Minecraft and Roblox. 

Sadly, we ended the month by saying goodbye to Brewster. We got him in 2009, and he had been a constant presence in our lives for almost 14 years. It’s been a couple of weeks, and it’s still difficult accepting that he’s not here anymore.

April - Up Until Now

I spoke with a printer and got myself some quotes for what it would cost to self-publish a graphic novella. I think I just picked up one of the most expensive hobbies of all time. 

We have spent a lot of time in hospitals and clinics lately. I’m not ready to explain why yet, but I just need to say: it’s exhausting. Hospital waiting rooms are the worst. The absolute worst. The doctor appointments are at least pretty quick. 

I hired an accounting for the first time in my life. My business suffered a pretty huge loss, but I’m hoping the graphic novella will sell well enough to offset some of that financial pain.

Remember that comic anthology I submitted a comic to? Well, that will be getting crowdfunded soon (I hope!)

Because they comic project linked to an old Twitter account that I deleted when the Muskrat took over, I had to reactivate it in hopes of forwarding some of those readers here or to my Substack. 

Speaking of Substack, Twitter pissed them off so they started their own version of Twitter in the app called Notes. It’s delightful. If you want your podcasts, newsletters, videos, blog and social media all in one place, you could do a LOT worse than Substack. I may end up moving everything over there if another goddamn WordPress plugin update crashes my site again. 

Last night we had to have “the talk” with our daughter. The Jesus talk. It’s been a long standing belief in our home that “Jesus has no place within these walls”, aside from me stubbing my toe and screaming the lord’s name in vain. Still, some kid at school has been putting ideas in her head and trying to convert her or something. So I politely told her that the bible is as factual as the story in any Superman comic, only it’s much, much more boring to read, and shames you for living life to the fullest. In the end, I told her it was her decision to join a religion if she wants, but she has to let me investigate it first, just to confirm it’s not a fucking cult. We debated taking her to a church to see what it’s like, but my argument was “Why should I suffer?” So maybe we’ll watch a service on YouTube or something.

We finally reached the double digits and the snow appears to be melting. Hard to believe were were sitting through a blizzard last week. The downside is that the fast melt has revealed every single pothole in the city. The majority of which cannot be seen or dodged until it is too late. I’m gonna needs some new tires after this.

We’re already casually looking at buying another house. I’m enjoying the apartment life. I like that I don’t have to shovel snow, mow the grass or see my neighbours anywhere other than in the hallway or at the bus stop.  But I don’t like the yearly increase in rent, the lack of storage and the fact that my money is going into a corporation, never to be seen again. Retirement is a dream, but it is in view, and to enjoy it, it would be nice to buy a house now, so I don’t have to worry about anything other than maintenance costs, insurance and taxes once that tiny retirement pension comes rolling in. 

My publishing business better take off. I’m gonna need that money to maintain my leisurely lifestyle. 

[nilouthoughts]

“Facebook and Its Power Over The World”

Being someone who grew up with technology, quite literally as I was starting Kindergarten when the first Youtube video was posted, I was never really scared of its power. At the time, the keyword for noting technology and social media was potential. There were so many opportunities to connect with those across the internet, seek information that would otherwise require a trip to the library, or even just to watch music videos since I didn’t have access to cable TV and the much music TV channel. While these benefits were easily prevalent when first consuming the internet and social platforms, the costs/dark side were not. I would have to say it wasn’t until I started looking back at those younger than me, who were growing up with social media as a dominant factor in their upbringing, that I realized just how dangerous it can be. The key difference in what I just mentioned is the age of social media; when I was growing up, platforms like Facebook or even MySpace were not NEARLY as influential as Instagram, Twitter, or even the now-developed Facebook. 

Something that may have had good intentions is almost always corrupted. In this case, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook with the intention of creating a space for community and connection for his Harvard classmates but where did this end up? Being one of the most influential and powerful figures in the world—despite simply being a social platform. Why did things end up this way? There are multiple answers to this.

A quick list that I have gathered includes, but is not limited to:

Not enough monitoring considering the amount of users

Algorithm; this both concerns its power and those who have power to control said algorithms

Profit over people; advertisements and revenue put on a pedestal

Information selling; privacy and user information as secondary

Too many people and not enough challengers; user pool should be diluted through the creation of other platforms. 

For this specific point, I found myself reflecting on the various social media applications that I use. My big 5 include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube. What’s funny about my choices is that I tend to use these apps for different reasons: Facebook for connecting with family, friends, and classmates. Twitter for witty posts, news blasts, and entertaining/informational threads. Instagram for aesthetics and keeping up with friends’ day-to-day/posting about my own life. Tiktok for quick stimulation and entertainment. Finally, YouTube for music videos, educational content, and other video-consumables. What is so funny about my distinction between these 5 media platforms is that there appears to be no longer a difference in the tools that these platforms offer. For example, these short videos that I watch on TikTok are also found on Instagram in the form of ‘Reels’ and on YouTube in the form of ‘Shorts’. Posting an Instagram Story is no longer unique to the platform as it can also be done on YouTube ‘stories’ or Facebook ‘stories’. Even Twitter’s notorious text posting can now be found as an option on Instagram as ‘message board’. The point in this is that on one hand, the different platforms that are mimicking one another and offering similar tools/services are able to challenge the usage of just one application. This being said, the downside of this is that a power-hungry platform like Facebook or its sister Instagram, that has the best of the best working for them alongside great disposable funding, is able to update and upgrade itself to a dominating platform, where no one really NEEDS to go on Twitter or Tiktok, let alone a smaller, independent platform.

Further reading about this can be done at:

Back to the main conversation, I believe that no person should have so much power and influence over the greater world as it leaves opportunity for corruption and abuse of power. This is why majority of people reject dictatorships. The same regard should be held for social media platforms, Facebook in particular. The power and influence it holds, and has proven to hold through various scandals (2020 Elections) proves that it is not as simple as we think it is. This being said, any platform being used at a megascale has the opportunity to slip into dictatorship. Self-awareness is what we can do as individuals who are using these platforms. 

Conversation drawn from:

[princess-pill-enjoyer]

Yet another notice that I aint dead just yet!

That meltdown was.... pretty bad I won't lie. I actually did try that time.. first time in 5 years lmfao

I won't go too in detail. I feel like I talk too much all to say the same two things over and over again. It was a really weird feeling though. My previous attempts throughout my childhood were kinda misguided. Like the intent was there and all but.. ya know. Barely got over the fear of my parents busting through my room with printouts of my search history 😭

Soo although throughout my life I've probably tried to unalive myself 7-8 different times I really only count or mention about 2 of them (and barely that tbh). I never really researched further into what exactly it'd take for all that. I think the good majority of those are random days I'd get upset and just pop a few handfuls of... usually ibuprofen? I mightve tried it with Tylenol as well but 9 times outta 10 we'd usually have more orange pills so it just made sense in my mind

Anyway. Yeah. First time really being 1000% certain about what it'd take. It was kinda scary. Having all the shit just.. lying there. Knowing that it was gonna at the very least cause some actual damage once it was all said and done. It didn't end up mattering anyway. I mean. I'm here 💀💀💀

As far as life updates? Uhh. Well me and R are speaking. Not really but. I at the very least can almost always know she's safe + alive so I'm fine with it for now. I really don't have the energy atp to fight to go back to before her ex dipped

Uhh i think I dipped right before my training really started but today was my first day really doing the job part of it. It was alr. I'm gonna jump ship as soon as I get my preferred place all down pact but for now the only real downsides is A. Having to verbally speak for hours and hours kinda having to throw away my speak-when-spoken-to/tbr... only when needed to keep up with appearances. Hence why 99% of what I say nowadays is just shit I'd expect the person to want to hear. I really want to just get out the conversation as quick as possible for the most part

Side tracked sorry. B. Being that my shit while being pretty easy, is also kinda limited. Like there can fr be someone sitting there boohooing about how they lost all their money in a house fire that killed their whole ass family and blew up all the cars or something and I'd STILL have to ask well is there anyone else I can send the payment to? We can't service you until the payment is authorized. Or possibly even cutting off people if they take too long not to effect my AHT.. I hate that shit. I'm pretty good at just nodding along and taking whatever but I HATEEE that I gotta kinda give af while also not caring enough to fight too hard for them since I can just poof my contract away doing that too much apparently..

Ah shit speaking of above and beyond.. my dumbass prolly just got scammed

🗿🗿🗿

Don't laugh when you read this alr...

LOOK so basically. This woman named noreen came in my dms talking bout some omg bro PLEASE if you got it.. spare like $12 I am STRUGGLING. And I'm sitting there like damn... I only just got this $200 my stepmom/dad owed me annd I just paid off all the small debts I had from this lecture money I end up getting from my mom

The orange section is unrelated but I get "small debts" sounds shady so context

Long story short, was borrowing and putting back thru cash app borrow so I can slowly increase my borrow limit showing ya know like I'm not gon just spend what I don't have and just leave my shit overdue, tho during that period in April-early May I started blowing through any and all money thinking it wouldn't matter. But my shitty spending habits caught up to me when I not only didn't get as much as I was expecting from this one shit, I also balled out depending on said money with the little I had left somehow someway needing to pay off seemingly 1000 things all at once. I got it mostly under control in right after my middle sister's birthday and now it's back to normal.

Basically I told her the last/less dire parts of that and kinda explained I don't really buy too much of anything with it it's just OLD. When another emergency finally came through and forced my hand as far as spending, it finally came to a head where I didnt have enough to borrow so I could pay it off again. She kinda scolded me for letting it carry on for that long and explained the normal stuff. I didn't really let thst lesson sink in tbh. I know I should've but knowing it was moreso my situations putting me there I just kinda.. nodded along and hoped for the best. I didn't think she'd help me tho

Tho... my dumbass. Ack. I really need to get my spending together. I'm a lot better don't get me wrong. I'm not as huge of a fast food person as I was in the past. I'm not as big on balling out on whatever game I happen to like for the month or two I'm hyperfixated on it. I try to stay within my means even knowing damn well I don't really have anything that i urgently need to pay. Not to say I'm completely dependent, I still have a few things I have to keep up with on my end but I know even if I have $0 in my bank acc, I'll have something to eat and somewhere to rest

Whiiich in the past kinda led to me balling just cause. I won't lie.. seeing me blow through my open house money in a year. That switched INSTANTLY. I always thought it was out of never really getting to have anything new so I thought I'd just get everything I wanted and be okay from there. But going through... soooo much money.. yesh. That sure as hell ain't the only reason

Anyway I bring all that up to say Im kinda shocked that even with that, my dumbass still be shelling out money over nothing at times. I don't get why atp.. The woman dmed me and I asked a few things feeling like I could tell she wasn't a bot or anything.

Then I sent like $20 cause I felt bad for interrogating the poor girl in the first place.

Rhen like a day or two later she asked for 10 (£. Pounds are a little more valuable than usd) and I figure well damn. I even gave her some extra the first time. She must be really desperate. So I gave another $15.

But then TODAYYYY she asked for another 10 and that's about when I started to put two and two together. By that point I had already given bout triple the amount she was initially asking for. I get shit being more costly than you thought but like.. bruh. I just gave her another $15 and said that I couldn't give anymore past that. I was pretty polite about it just incase I am just being paranoid.

But yeah.. I'm out $50 cause I tried to help spme random. I don't really regret it. It's not really like I had anything too too much better to do with that. Plus, at thr end of the day, it's $50. It's a lot yeah but its not life changing or anything. I'd rather possibly get scammed out of some petty money like that than being too paranoid and not helping someone I could so easily help. I still feel like an idiot tho lol

Uhh in my addiction news.. I actually unintentionally broke the cycle for a little. I bought these thc disposables to try and give my stomach a break from all the pills. It had already started back burning from it all and my unaliving situation made it really bad. Though it was only for about a week. Then I started mixing em. I've gone back to my once or twice a day habit now. Currently on about 650. There's a small part of me that's starting to care less and less about my problem. It's just been too much. I cant even try to care atp

I'm pretty much never sober. I smoke during training all the time and I almost always take dph during the night. Sometimes, I'll even take both right before my training. It's one of the perks of working online ig lol. I'm gonna try and start scaling it back some since I now gotta stay pretty normal for calls. Once I memorize scripts annd ain't so nervous I'll probably go back go it but for now I kinda cant

Uh yeah but.. that's bout it. I'm finna take a nap. Shits hitting me harder than I expected and I just smoked a before I hopped on here

[dropsofletters]

though you weren’t mine [kmg]

—summary: new in town, with judgement following after every step she takes in life, the least she expects is to find a box filled with cd’s that reads ‘throw away’ written in messy handwriting on its cardboard surface. when looking at the videos, she realizes there is a highlight to her day—as if he was part of a sitcom, and his name is kim mingyu.

the downside? she doesn’t know where to find him. once existing in the same house as hers, no one knows where he went, but his smile remains petrified inside her head.

—title: though you weren’t mine —pairing: kim mingyu x reader —genre: photographer!au ; musical actress!au ; strangers to friends to lovers!au ; videocamera!au —type: fluff ; angst ; suggestive ; romance ; drama ; humor ; slowburn —word count: 25,891 —warnings: mentions of alcohol, death (though briefly), and past relationships. 

Three onions. One head of garlic. Lettuce, clinging to the space in between his teeth and still, her seat companion in the train doesn’t close his mouth for the slightest bit.

As far as she knows—and it has been two hours of conversing with this man, so she’s knowledgeable enough to speak—, he worked in refineries. A little bit over seventy, with a white chemise cladding his body, tucked inside a pair of beige pants. The rounded glasses on the bridge of his nose keep falling, but he keeps playing with them as he speaks about the most miniscule of matters. For one, in 1997, his wife left him for his best friend, and secondly, his youngest is starting to look more like his (please, say ex) best friend with the passage of time.

Now, she is not a DNA expert, neither is she a fortune teller to be able to foresee the future when she got in this train, against her will, only to fulfill her biggest dream.

The city awaits her entrance, and when she gets there, she hopes to take a big bite of the world, mix dance and singing, along with acting, in order to further emphasize her spot in the industry. Break the malicious curse that follows everyone in her blood, only destroying their careers under the weight of their actions.

“And, you know what she did?” Licking the mayonnaise off his thumb after taking a big bite of his sandwich, the older male continues with his story as she lulls her head against the window. For one second, her eyes divert towards the pink clouds accompanied by lilac skies. Trees swing with the harsh wind, three days-worth of spending her time with Jinho over here sounding like the worst of experiences. “My daughter told me she doesn’t want to college after all. Can you imagine that? I paid for her education in four different majors, and she dropped out of all of them…because she wants to be, and hear me out,” As if she hasn’t been doing that for the entirety of the train ride. “A YouTuber.”

“Oh no.” Acting is her forte. Fake crying without a single droplet of water thrown at her face. Elongating words. Dramatics. All of the like—it’s what theater means, but at this point, her tiredness trails after her sentence. “Yeah, all that money…gone to waste…sir, that’s terrible.”

Just as terrible as the way he is eating this sandwich.

Smacking his lips once again, the man shakes his head. “What was your name again?” He asks, for the umpteenth time, and she lets her lips wrap around her name. She may change at this point, something easier, just so this man stops talking about himself and starts to be a proper companion instead. “Yeah, always be sure of what you’re going to do. There are millions of people you can disappoint, and they will tell you they will support you through everything and anything, but it’s a lie.”

“Ah-ha.” She drags, trying her hardest not to scrunch up her face. Instead, she rummages through the pocket of her black coat, looking for the perfect distraction that is her phone. “I think someone is calling me, Mr. Jinho, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Yes, yes!” The old man speaks quickly, taking the last bite of his sandwich only to speak with his mouth full after. “I hope it’s good news!”

After moving his legs from the side, she makes a bee-line towards the bathroom. Brown leather seats on each side of her, with people talking normally, softly, and yet, seemingly happier than her with her train ride. Her friends insisted on this—something of the like of ‘humbleness’ in their whole speech when giving her the train tickets that would take her to her newest pursue in life. Away from her well-known family, and the judgement that weights her down even when she opens the door to the bathroom and closes it behind her.

An unpleasant whiff of air has her sighing deeply. Great. The white tiled walls and sunflowers decorations do nothing to make her feel less like an outcast in this train. Though, she needs to sit down and look through her phone for a while, perhaps pee before getting out of there, and hoping that Jinho’s sandwich did its job in getting him to sleep. Her feet steps forward, putting down the toilet seat in hopes of not even seeing anything inside to compare to the smell in here, before taking a seat on top of the toilet.

Fuck my life, she thinks.

One day you’re at the top of the world, the next, you’re seated on top of a toilet with suspicious contents. Life, some call it.

As if the afternoon couldn’t get any worse, she unlocks her phone, a series of messages from her best friend appearing on the screen. God, she misses her. Leaving her best friend behind while having a medical emergency is one of the choices, she thinks she will never forgive herself for making. What kind of friend does that? She has no idea. Yet, Miyoung practically shouted at her to go follow that dream. The musical’s rehearsals started this month, and she couldn’t miss the opportunity of finally reaching proper stardom. Not word from mouth, but with actions instead.

Earlier, she had asked:

To: Miyoung.

How’s your foot doing?

Though, probably napping, it took Miyoung four hours to answer.

From: Miyoung.

Still connected to my leg, so far, so good.

But…haven’t you seen the news?

News? No. Well, if she’s not counting Jinho’s romantic history—and family timeline, at that—since 1991.

If the child isn’t really his…why would he be telling some stranger in the train?

To: Miyoung.

I was supposed to know any news?

From: Miyoung.

OMG.

Enter my account. Check your ex’s Instagram.

And tell me where we’re hiding the body.

Miyoung, God bless her, is the purest figure skater she knows. The woman follows everyone in social media without caring if they stepped on her heart with all her might, or did something to her friends. Her ex-boyfriend, a very famous comedian, is not the exception. While she had hit headlines for unfollowing him on social media—and vice-versa—, Miyoung does wonders on keeping her updated. Two weeks it has been since their break up, and she has never been readier to move on.

Though, upon opening his social media, she’s welcomed by the usual—parted black hair, curved eyebrows, downturned and bored eyes, with slim lips and a tall frame that bends against its will forward, his stance normally accompanied by baggy, stylish clothes that more often than not rake the smell of alcohol and weed. On this occasion, however, someone else clings by his side and the man does not have the utmost decency to make the picture a little bit less like it belongs to some raunchy college student’s Instagram profile.

His big hand, that linked with hers, and touched her skin in promises of forever, splays on top of the woman’s butt. Gorgeous in more ways than one, with long curled hair and a smile on her lips as he kisses her cheek. The worst part? That she dated someone who captioned this picture, with God-knows-what-kind-of-model, in the worst of ways.

Her stomach churns when she reads: “Here with the main bitch.”

Ugh. Delete all the kisses. Erase all the memories of ever sleeping with him. Create a time-machine so she can slap herself across the face and tell herself ‘he’s not even that funny, wake the hell up’.

To: Miyoung.

Ew.

From: Miyoung.

You don’t care?

To: Miyoung.

Of course, I care.

I kissed that.

I made out with that.

I let that fuck me.

From: Miyoung.

Sid-looking ass.

Fuck him.

All those times Miyoung told her not to date him, and there she was, making a fool of herself.

To: Miyoung.

We don’t judge people by their appearance here.

But he’s trash.

From: Miyoung.

Two weeks, girl.

It took him two effing weeks to get over you.

It shouldn’t hurt, right? Though, her heart contracts a little at the touch of disappointment. Never had she trusted someone as much as she did with her ex, and there she is. Forgotten. Mocked. Poked fun at.

The second bitch.

The ‘no-one-cares’ bitch.

Fuck.

To: Miyoung.

I’ll get over him too, just watch.

From: Miyoung.

Oh, babe, I know.

And you’re on your way to it.

With certainty, even in this goddamned train, with a smelly bathroom and a talkative seat companion, she can do it. Reach her dream. Get a name. Never need a man ever again.

Everything is going to be fine. It always is for her, and this won’t be the exception.

###

Everything is not fine.

Brick walls clad the building in front of her. Tall enough for it to even be considered a skyscraper, creating shadows across her body. The world is much bigger than hers, and yet, sometimes she thinks she is the center of it all. A white screen with black lines showcases the name of one of the newest musicals to be performed tonight at nine, but she can only imagine how her debut in the musical world will look like on her first night. Twinkling lights from the night falling in love with the title of her play—When The Kids Fall Asleep.

When she read the script, she was actually aiming to find some small spot in a TV series, waving in the back or saying three lines. Instead, she came across this piece of magic because of her manager, whom was once her mother’s manager. The story read almost like a book, the demos filling her ears when she asked for a demonstration for her audition, the story of four families that conjoined when trying to reach their dreams without telling the children about the hardships of the real world. For them, everything must be perfect.

Her character, she had fallen in love with. Poor yet leader-like through everything, trying to raise a three-year-old without making her miss a single meal. When she falls asleep, she has to live off earning money by selling meals and, continuously, finding it harder to feed her little family and working as a stripper.

Doing justice to such a role may erase the mistakes lingering in her past.

With a push of the door, the cold metal handle meeting her fingertips, a new world is introduced to her. Rows and rows of burgundy seats, all staring towards the not-so-empty stage. People scatter around, some extending their limbs, others taking sips of water, but the swish of the door closing behind her catches some people’s attention.

The director is someone she knows. The strands of her bleached blonde hair are pushed behind her ears, tightened by a hair-tie to keep it in place. A tall nose, plush lips, and a set of thick glasses meet her enigmatic, yet serious face. A black turtleneck covers most of her body, long limbs and stylized slender body making her look more like a model than a director. Practically glued to her chest is the printed version of the script, and the closer she gets, the more the golden lights scatter across Kaleigh’s body.

“Look at that, if that isn’t our fashionably late rock-star.” The chuckle that rips through Kaleigh’s lips fakes every single emotion that could be mustered in this situation. A sharp breath in makes her curse herself internally. Well, she’s definitely not used to having to take the subway…and definitely not use to people not waking her up. Her manager is there for that, but now he’s too far away from her to actually work as a babysitter, as well.

“Sorry,” She breathes out, hands threading with the straps of her hoodie before smiling softly. “I…I didn’t know how to catch the subway.”

“Are you kidding me?” Kaleigh asks, mocking tone in her voice ever-present, clapping her hands together as if watching the most ridiculous of comedies. “Your family isn’t famous enough for you to act as if you’re out and about in limousines.”

Truthfully, yes. A family of rock-stars, like her mother, that happened to leave the band in search of a better chance, only for her first solo album to fail in the charts. Of models that never went past the runways. Of singers that remained as one-hit-wonders and producers that never got to have names remembered in the world of music. It’s always a peak and then a downfall for her family’s curse.

…But, she does have enough money not to worry for the rest of her life, so there is something good about being criticized throughout her entire life for the family she grew up in. “Well…no, but I’m used to people driving me around. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Upon sparing one glance towards the stage, Kaleigh must understand that she wants this conversation to be over. “Whatever,” She instructs, deep voice lingering with tiredness. “This is your team. You can get to know them as you practice. This is the first time the entire cast is together.”

Her eyes scan towards the groups of people, all of which she had studied from the printed version of the script she read when Jinho had finally fallen asleep on the train. Thank God, she almost thought that man was going to get off the train with her and follow her around. One of the male leads, she recognizes as Jaehyo, tall and over his thirties, short brown hair accompanying widened eyes, almost deep-looking. A vibrato to die for, as she saw per his audition.

“You’re Jaehyo, right?”

The man looks up from his script, a crooked smile appearing on his features that perhaps, gives him the attractiveness of that one friend’s young dad that she would look at when she was a child, unaware of why her cheeks would heat up at the mere sight of him. “You know me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Going up the set of stairs, she looks around the room once again. Small woman, black short hair, a rounded face with speckles of brown across her cheeks, matching her orange blush. The best dancer of the team, definitely. “And that’s Sue. She plays Joah’s character.” Of course, how could she not? Joah is one of the background characters, but thrilling in its own way. The owner of the strip-club, and the one that takes care of the children in the house of the four families, trying to paint a perfect picture of broken shreds. “And you are—”

Upon pointing at the woman seated by the edge of stage, the light wood carving against her uncovered, toned thighs, she hears Hyun’s sharp tone. The main star, the oldest child—twenty-one, that figures out that her mother is a stripper and goes on a rampant of wanting to take over the same steps. She’s a triple threat, that’s for sure—singing like a goddess, dancing like she belongs to the stage, and acting like she lived through the same experience.

“Are you over with your little Wikipedia search revising speech?” Hyun says, moving her long brown hair away from her shoulders to look at her with sharp almond eyes, her plush lips pursed, though still beautiful with the blaring anger inside her casting over her features. “You’re late. We don’t have time for you to play the fangirl character.”

Hyun stands up at the same moment that she shares her anger with everyone else in the stage. Jaehyo, on one hand, is the one to speak up first. “Hey, we weren’t even waiting for that long—”

“So, just because she has money, we have to excuse her diva behavior?” Running her hands over her gray shorts, Hyun gets in position, staring at Kaleigh.

“Look who’s talking.” She spits out, looking up and down at the woman that she had once thought was the best addition to the team, now seems to be up and against her, ready to blare Achilles’ cholera all the way towards her. “The only one making a fuss over me being twenty minutes late here is you—”

“Because my time is valuable, unlike what you think.” Hyun responds just as she gets close, sparing one glance towards Kaleigh. “Right? I’m the main lead. If I can get here early, so can you.”

“Shit, sorry.” She whispers, a frown appearing on her features. “I’ll make sure to get here two hours earlier because your character is so much more important than mine.”

“Well,” Kaleigh interrupts at that moment, hooking her fingers around one of her dangling diamond earrings. “It’s not wrong. Hyun is our star. If she gets here on time, so can you.”

Lowering her head just at the same time that a smile appears on Hyun’s face, she sighs. “It won’t happen again, I promise. I’m sorry.”

Her dream scatters right in front of her, both from her wrongdoings and for the way that Kaleigh looks at her up and down, before nodding. “Doesn’t matter. We can work on various things as you’re here. You have a lot to improve.” Kaleigh answers, a smile reaching her cheekbones. “For now, just stand in the back and watch the professionals do so.” Her hand extends towards Hyun, exclaiming her utmost ambition and hope for her presence in this play.

“For every scene?”

“Yes. You can dance in the back.” Kaleigh finalizes with a tilt of her head. “Ah…does that bother you?”

“Well, if I’m in the back for every scene, I won’t be able to deliver my lines properly—”

“Honey, here’s how this works—” Kaleigh starts, extending one leg in front of her before playing with the edge of her script. Never does she break eye-contact, even when she is stepping on her heart. “You are new, but you aren’t new to the public. You’ve dated a few good names, appeared on magazines since you were a child…and you’re kind of good, but we’re aiming for publicity here. If you’re here with us, we make this play more profitable and, hence, we can continue displaying it for however long they let us. And, with the passage of time, you can step forward and be looked at more…but you’re not as good as the rest, as easy as that.”

Then, why did she get accepted? Once again, the light of her family’s curse casts down on her, creates shadows on the kind of person she can be. Just when her lips are about to part, trying to shelter her pride with the utmost knowledge of how this industry works, Kaleigh claps her hands together.

“In your spots. First scene. The kids are waiting behind the stage, I need you to deliver those lines as if you’re in the verge of hunger. And you better be, we’ll be here the entire day.”

It’s not like how she imagined it to be. So far in the stage that she can’t even see the seats, the light casting down on Hyun even when she is not in the scene. Her voice dulls, every line coming out of her lips with less enthusiasm as the practice passes by. Just a publicity stunt, that’s why she was accepted. Tears weld up in her vision, and they are not exactly her character’s…but now she is here, and she has to make do with her dream.

###

There’s one point of a person’s lives where they can no longer see their friends as much as they hope to. Life gets busy, some create families, others hunt for their biggest professional goals, and then, she’s left in solitude, carrying the boxes that were left outside of her new house by the moving truck. Spacious, perfect for two to three people, and yet only there for her to live in. Somewhere in a suburbs-like spot, with plenty of families staring at her as a groan leaves her lips upon the lumbar ache on her back. Whatever. If normal people can do it, so can she.

The trees on her front yard move with the wind, same as her hair, trying her best to go up the set of white stairs that lead to her gray doorstep, the ‘welcome’ rug in front making her feel less like this is her home. Her friends and family are not here, and the friends that she has here are too busy with their own lives to help her unpack as much as possible. Along with that, she has to go over her lines and avoid delivery in order to use the kitchen as much as possible.

When she drops the last box on the living room, the gray tiles and the white doors giving an elegant vibe in contrast to the cardboard, her hands rest on her waist. The only thing she has managed to do after getting home from practice three days ago was construct some shelves for her TV, and put a bed in the bedroom to sleep in, but other than that, the house is empty. The couch welcomes her weight when she throws herself over it.

Okay. It could be worse. She has a ceiling over her head.

…And a mattress, a kitchen, a TV and a shelf.

But she has worn the same clothes at home for the past four days.

Lifting the white sweater up to her nose, she sniffles deeply. Clean, apparently, but that’s something she has to deal with as well—laundry as soon as possible, because of her amount of outfit changes during practice. Her eyes close tightly, as if she would be able to ease the headache appearing inside her head in the matter of seconds, but when she opens them again, she’s welcomed by the same white shelf she constructed, and the little wood shelf by its side that came with the house.

Though, it’s more like a cabinet, there’s a door to it, and it’s not locked, swinging back and forth with a squeak. Maybe, she should get rid of that before actually starting. Standing up again, each muscle hurting from endless hours of practicing and now for carrying around seven boxes inside her house, her slippers clank against the flooring until she kneels in front of the cabinet, opening the door and sighing out of glee of not having to hear the movement of the wind against it.

A box is inside, the words ‘throw away’ written in capitals and blue marker ink. Better follow what the owners wanted, it could be some haunted doll that she has to get out before it eats her alive at night. Though, just as she lifts the box in between her hands, ready to throw it away or recycle it, the bottom portion opens, letting a bunch of CD’s fall on her feet.

Ouch, but also, huh?

Is this the old owner’s porn stack?

She should just throw them away, but when her fingers wrap around the CD’s, she reads the titles written in the same blue ink. Anniversary. Date. Bed. New York.

Ooh, bed sounds kinky…

Is it an amateur sex tape?

Better check it before she throws it away and people look through it, right?

Thankfully, numbers are scattered across the CD’s, small enough for her to almost ignore them, but upon grabbing her laptop from the coffee table, she slides the CD in. All in order, she starts with number one.

Maybe, a sex tape would be better…it wouldn’t have captured her heart quite like this.

###

01: NEW YORK.

“Ah, Kim Mingyu, don’t leave me behind like that!”

Groups of people scatter in front of the recorder. Tall buildings, in colors from grays, blacks, whites to browns, read out the typicality of New York, as per the title. Bustling, with barely any space from one person to the other, like lovers marching on their way to success. The person with the camera lets it shake a few times with her steps, the tone sweet and melodious as she calls out the same name again. Kim Mingyu. Kim Mingyu. Babe.

Definitely her boyfriend.

Upon reaching a wide back with a navy-blue thick coat thrown over it, the person with the camera expands her free hand on his back, sharp breaths leaving her lips, trying to regain her composure. She moves over to the side, finally showing the face of the culprit of her distress. A car passes by so fast that it swooshes his hair, the brown strands moving away to showcase his gorgeous golden skin. Not only is that gorgeous about him, but the fold of his romantic eyes, one squinted as he holds a camera up his face, taking a few pictures of the Times Square, accompanied by his defined nostrils, straight nose and dried, thin lips that he licks in the matter of seconds before looking over towards his girlfriend.

God has favorites.

“Log number one of the lives of Mingyu and Yoona. We are out here in New York to celebrate our second anniversary, isn’t that right, Mingyu?” Her voice is dulcet enough to compete against popsicles and candy. Mingyu seems to sense that, a twinkle in his eyes when looking down at the person recording him.

But he’s a camera person, she can tell that much. When he turns towards the camera, he extends his arms as wide as possible. “We’re here to celebrate two years of me standing Yoona and not dying in the process.”

Yoona slaps him in the arm for that comment, laughter ripping from his lips. “No, say why we’re really here.”

Mingyu looks around for a second, grabbing her hand before dragging her along through the busy streets. “I’ve always wanted to come to New York, so I thought that coming with you would be the best way to experience it.”

“And why are we recording us?”

“…Because I plan to audition for Hollywood so we can be like Brad and Angelina.”

“…They divorced, Mingyu.”

“They didn’t.” Mingyu replies, though he is clearly in the wrong. “Why would they—?”

“Because people get divorced, Mingyu.” Yoona reasons, far more knowledgeable than her boyfriend. “But be honest, why are we recording ourselves?”

At last, he looks away, the timer of the video growing smaller and smaller as he stares ahead. Slowly, a smile takes over his features, filling his cheeks when he says: “This is log one of the videos we’re going to show our children once we become a family in the far future.”

“Or not so far.”

Staring into the camera, Mingyu shrugs. “You never know.”

And that’s how it ends. With that precious smile of his giving hope to those who don’t believe in love, for it’s clear that he’s in love with whoever is recording him.

###

02: BED.

The door of what is now her bedroom opens up in the video, the same recorder not knowing how to keep the camera upright as she moves toward the spacious bed. Her knees hit the bed, stealing a huff away from the man thrown on the bed as his hands come forward just as his body does, grabbing the culprit that interrupted his sleep by jumping on him.

“Morning, morning, birthday boy!” His face is much more swollen than in the last video, his dark hair tousled everywhere as his eyes squint, try to look at the camera before closing entirely, throwing himself back in the mattress with a sigh.

“I’ll go back to sleep.”

But, Yoona keeps pushing, resting her weight on top of Mingyu, showcasing the pictures of them splayed on their respective bedside tables, before patting her hand against his cheek. “Wake up, it’s April 6th.”

“I know that day it is…” His voice drags, pressing his cheek to the white, comfortable pillow that seems to include a dampened spot created by him.

“Okay, kids. You may watch this ten years from now or something, let’s hope your dad isn’t as grumpy in the mornings as he is right now.” Yoona instructs, jumping a bit on his abdomen only to watch him not relenting at all. “Your dad was born on April 6th, 1997—” Oh, same year that Jinho was left by his wife. What a coincidence. “Shall we sing happy birthday for him?”

The video ends with a smile appearing on Mingyu’s face the more the song goes on in that lulling voice, reaching upwards to steal a kiss from her only for the camera to cut short.

The guy’s charming, she’ll give him that.

###

07: DRUNK.

Mingyu’s flushed face seems a bit older, his hair pushed away from his face as he rests his forehead against the refrigerator. It’s not the same one in her kitchen right now, but the division is the same, so it’s technically still in this house. Only when Yoona comes close to him, stumbling a bit on her steps, does he look up, waving his hand at the camera, the sleeve of his white and red sweater coming down his hand.

“Min…gyu…” Yoona has trouble forming coherent sentences, though Mingyu’s smile is ever-present. Happiness bleeds through him when being with her. “Mingyu, dance for the camera. Make that money worth, baby.”

The man chuckles, lifting his hands in the air and swinging his hips from side to side comically, earning a few whistles, howls and cheers from some people, perhaps equally as drunken as him, only to end up getting close to the camera and saying, with his handsome features pressed up close to the device:

“I wanna throw up.”

This video definitely has a smile plastering on her face. Funny.

###

10: ANNIVERSARY.

“Kim Mingyu, welcome to our log. We haven’t talked here for a while.”

Mingyu looks away from the scenery outside of the car, perhaps a taxi given by the position, moving the hood of his black sweater away from his head and fixing the sunglasses on his face to rest just at the tip of his nose to look at the camera. “You’re recording again?” Mingyu asks, though he is already waving at the camera and by the lack of response, she must have nodded at him.

“It’s October 13th, that means we have been together for three years.” Yoona starts, just at the same time that Mingyu grabs her hand, brings it up to his lips and presses a petal of a kiss to her knuckles. God, she should really stop watching this if she doesn’t want to feel lonelier. Why does she always pick the bad ones? Yoona has good tastes! “What are your thoughts on love, Mr. Kim?”

Mingyu leans his head back, though he looks at her from the corner of his eyes. “Stop calling me Mr. Kim.”

“Okay, go on Kim Mingyu.”

“It’s alright to just call me Mingyu.”

“I’m the one with the camera, shut it.”

Though, the man in question tries to find the right words, a goofy smile appearing on his features before extending his hands, as if further help himself explain. “Love is comfort? It’s what you expect, really. Ah…everyone thinks, at least once in their lives, that they are going to find someone and then, you just do.”

“Mingyu,” Yoona threatens, somewhat of a hiss to her tone. “What a bad answer.”

“It’s an answer!” He replies, widening his eyes and lifting his tone comically.

“And how did you know it was me?”

Mingyu pauses for a second, his lips joining together to give a tight-lipped smile before shrugging. “I just knew.”

###

13: RING.

“It’s recording.” A joyful voice, though belonging to a man, speaks from behind the camera before Mingyu lowers his weight to stand in front of the camera, taking off his black hoodie to wave.

“Hi,” Mingyu instructs, though the busy exterior must be getting him nervous, looking around before smiling sweetly. For one second, he looks like the modern version of a Prince. “I’m here today to buy Yoona an engagement ring. Seungkwan is recording me…and…yeah, I’ll just show you the process of me finding the perfect ring.”

Though, the man recording is more given to being on camera, turning it around and moving to Mingyu’s side so they are both in camera. His bright red hair and innocent features match his overexcited nature. “Welcome everyone. I’m here because my ring size is the same as Yoona’s. Mingyu and Yoona—”

Mingyu chuckles, hiding his hands behind his back before shaking his head. “This is not a broadcast, dude.”

“What do you know, Mingyu?”

The rest of the video displays memories of Seungkwan speaking into the camera and recording Mingyu as he picks the perfect ring. Rose gold with five diamonds, one that says costs him more than he even has and made him ask for money from all his group of friends.

Love has a meaning then.

###

14: I SAID YES.

This video is much shorter, though she can already recognize Seungkwan’s lively voice as he records the lovely couple. Yoona, with her bangs falling across her forehead, thin lips and big eyes stares up at Mingyu when she hugs him, his knees dusted because of his kneeling position in front of her. The ring dazzles against the light of the salon they all find themselves in—perhaps, some event, with pink balloons and golden decorations.

Mingyu, as happy as ever, wraps his arms around her waist, lowering his lips until they connect with hers. Not missing a bit, a smile appears over his features, as per usual with Yoona, but the woman only displays her ring to the camera.

“It’s finally happening!”

###

31: DELETE.

Yoona spends two good minutes talking about the wedding, the decorations, the elegance of her designer dress that she paid too much for. Definitely not in their ordinary room, the city twinkles darkly on the opened, spacious windows of the hotel they are staying in, the beige desk and the champagne curtains matching. Her hair is shorter, her voice different, fixing her eyelashes and her bangs as much as possible whenever she speaks.

Mingyu lowers his weight beside her, resting his cheek on her shoulder just as she is speaking, but she cuts herself off to look over her shoulder. “Mingyu…” Her voice lowers, taking his face in between her slim hands to look at his features. Ready for bed, he seems to be, dark bags surrounding his eyes and the figure of a shadow around his lips making Yoona shake her head. “You haven’t shaved and the wedding is tomorrow. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

For someone’s whose language had been lively and lovely throughout the recordings, this surprises her. What happened to Yoona? Mingyu stares up at her, pushing his hair away from his face. “I’ll shave tomorrow,” His smile falls then, frowning up at her. “If I shave now, it’s not going to be perfect tomorrow.”

“You look disgusting with that rat on your face.”

“It isn’t even noticeable, come on.”

“Of course, it is!” Yoona complains, huffing when she leans back on her seat, bringing her knees up her chest as she has a stare-off with Mingyu. Before he could say anything, she interrupts him. “I don’t even know how I’m going to kiss you tomorrow with that thing—”

Mingyu stands up then, pointing at the camera as he snaps, getting away from the main screen. “It’s not like you do anything remotely nice anymore unless you’re recording us.”

Yoona looks over her shoulder, talking to Mingyu. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The only moment you’re truly happy with me is when you’re talking to these nonexistent children of ours—”

“You said you wanted children, Mingyu.”

“…I do, but it’s—it’s not—to have children, you have to do more than just record the good parts of your relationship to show them just how perfect their parents were.”

Yoona scoffs, rolling her eyes while looking at the camera. “Well, I thought I had a perfect boyfriend, you see, but the more comfortable you get, the stupider you become.”

Mingyu stops on his tracks, moving over to the camera before placing one hand over it. Though, by the ministrations and the movement, Yoona seems to flick it off. “Turn that shit off.” He threatens, voice levelled, only to have her shaking her head. “Yoona, I said to turn that shit off. I’ve recorded every time you wanted, but it’s enough. We already—”

“Did I ask for your opinion, Mingyu?”

“I—”

“I didn’t ask, so keep it to yourself, okay?” The man actually listens, biting down on his bottom lip before rushing his hands through his hair a few times, grasping at his scalp one last time before moving over to the mattress. Yoona checks if he is around one more time before leaning her weight forward, resting her elbow on her desk. “Like I said, my dress is by Belle Epoque—”

Though, she can’t bring herself to watch any more of the last log, meant to be deleted.

###

In the middle of the night, lacking sleep yet raging insomnia like it is her job to blare thoughts inside her head as per musical notes, she figured out something. Nonsense is timeless, and staying in the far back of the stage, along with her companions, only to make Hyun shine the harshest is not what she imagined when moving out here. It’s not what she desired, and it’s not going to happen.

The instrumental of Jaehyo’s first solo runs through the empty stage, three hours earlier than Hyun could ever get to the practice room. The man gives a few steps forward, extending his arms on each side of his body as if to ask for instructions.

When calling her name, he adds: “I don’t know why we’re here.”

Though she pauses the instrumental, there is certainty in her voice, pushing her messy hair back, trying to unglue her eyelids that remain touched to the other because of her lack of sleep. One sip of caffeine should be enough for now. “It’s not fair that we’re getting pushed to the back when we have solos. Hyun shouldn’t be the main dancer of your solo.” She instructs, staring at Jaehyo’s surprised expression. “So, we’re preparing something else to show to Kaleigh.”

Jaehyo chuckles at her words, rubbing his hands against his face. “I don’t think she’s going to accept it.” He tells, letting go of his cheeks to add. “Hyun is, also, too much of a strict main for me to go against her just like that—”

“You’re thirty-five Jaehyo, grow up.” Her words come out harshly, days of standing Hyun’s verbal stabs catching up on her. Take for example Kim Mingyu, the God made Prince in the videos she watched. Gorgeous, elegant, somehow sweet, and yet, following through with a marriage that probably made him unhappy in the long run. She doesn’t have the time to lose the opportunity of shining. “…You’re excellent with choreography, and I can help with some of the vocals—”

“I think she’s right.” Sue says after slipping out from the back of the stage, the red curtains dragging over her body, much more energized than anyone in this room. “Hyun is the most talented of our team, but we are not Hyun and her little group of backup dancers. We are also characters.”

Nodding, she agrees. “Exactly.”

Jaehyo looks back towards Sue, then up again at one of the youngest of the team before rolling his finger in the air. “Okay, start the instrumental again. I think I can make up some new moves.”

Jaehyo’s body moves with precision, professionalism at its finest as he makes every step count into the road of heartbreak that his character finds himself to be in, driven by addiction, stopped by his reality. One arm forward, fingers curling with each word he says, notes hit at the same time that his lines are delivered. The talent in the room palpitates with what Kaleigh can’t see, a trio of people who would love to work with Hyun but end up down-casted by the light of her endless talents.

Hours pass by, and she is reminded why she started liking musicals on the first place. Seated on her grandmother’s lap, on the first row of Broadway musicals, staring at the dancers and the actors, the way a story could come to life with the three best versions of art. A nod of her head, a hum of her voice, a vibrato or two, a falsetto when she’s feeling brave…it all comes together with a version of When The Kids Go To Sleep that the world deserves to see.

Though, the middle of the morning hits with the entrance of another person. The doors open, closing harshly behind the culprit, interrupting the line that she is breathing into the air continued by elongated, quickened steps. When she stares ahead, past the rows of empty seats, she sees Hyun’s small face, her typical sport-like outfit cladding her immaculate body.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, newbie?” Hyun asks, not even conscious of her steps as she goes up the set of stairs and stands in front of her. The music comes to a halt thanks to Jaehyo, whom rushes down the stage with a jump and pauses the Bluetooth speakers, but she isn’t back down. Not with this bitch.

“Practicing, babe. What do you think I’m doing?”

“Ruining the musical, for example.” Her reply has her balling her fists. Not that she has ever been part of a physical fight—oh, but she has been close, and she thinks that if she can land a fake punch for a scene, a real one shouldn’t be that difficult. “…This part of the stage…” Hyun steps forward, tapping her shoes against the spot she was in, jutting her chest outwards to bring her back. “This is mine, and you have to earn this spot—”

“Stop it with the dramatics, God. We’re not in High School Musical, stop acting like a child.” She groans out, throwing her head back at Hyun’s antics.

“You say that because you’re just used to things going your way. So, the pretty little princess can’t get used to being shadowed for once.”

Sue takes this moment to step forward, placing her hands on both of their chests. “Hey, let’s stop this—”

“Fucking whatever celebrity passes by you didn’t work for you, and that’s your fault. Now, this is my dream, and you don’t get to ruin it because you feel like the attention is not on you for once.” Hyun continues speaking, lifting her voice with each moment that passes. Pushing Sue to the side, she gets closer to her, breaths mingling with the nonsense she is speaking into the air. What does she know about her past what the media says? Judgmental bitch.

“You don’t know me. Stop talking as if you do, bitch.”

“Oh, baby, a bitch?” Hyun asks, placing one hand on top of her chest before chuckling. “Ouch. What level of bitch? The usual, level one bitch or level ten, horny bitch like yourself?”

“Regret that.” She pushes, wrapping her fingers around Hyun’s shirt to bring her closer, only to watch the woman chuckle.

“What? You’re going to kiss me like you do with every little celebrity friend of yours?”

Fire bursts within her vision, not counting her breaths when her free hand comes forward and slaps the woman across from her straight on the cheek. Two steps back make her realize exactly what she did, Hyun’s smile faltering with the gasp that leaves her lips. Her chest heaves up and down, hand tingling and burning under the weight of her ministrations…but fuck, it felt good to shut her up for once.

The media has portrayed every mistake, blown it out of proportion, and made a mess out of her life. She was never judged as a normal person, but as the daughter of celebrities instead. It’s not fair for whatever the media portrayed to continue to follow her even when she’s trying to earn a name for yourself.

Sue exclaims at that moment. “Stop it, you two!” Resting one hand on Hyun’s shoulder, she helps her up only to have Hyun walking forward, ready to retreat the precious gift of pain. “Hey, no! Stop it!” Sue tugs Hyun by her small waist, trying to keep her in place.

“Who’s the bitch now?”

“I’m going to fucking kill you—”

“Stop it!” Jaehyo screams from his spot, coming towards the stage again. For someone who avoids arguments, he seems to be angered. “Let’s just…let’s just wait for Kaleigh to get here, practice, and forget this ever happened, okay? We’re a team, we’re not here to harass each other.”

Though, not a single word comes out of her lips, but a glare from Sue tells her that she needs to speak up. “Okay, I won’t do it again.”

Yet, when she turns around, tears weld up in her vision. A broken dream, her pride shattered, and a past that will follow her whether it is true or not…that’s what her life will always consist of, no matter where she runs up to.

###

First month in the new city, and the only thing that keeps her sane is the box filled with CD’s that she keeps inside her shelf, watching Mingyu’s face and smile whenever she needs to remind herself that there are good people in this world.

Sure, flowers don’t bloom in everyone, and what is shown on the recordings could be a bettered version of Mingyu. She knows what it is like to be portrayed as someone else in front of the cameras, after all. Yet, the rosiness of his tanned cheeks and the smile on his features speaks about something inexplicably thrilling. It makes her care about what happened after. Why would they leave all those CD’s behind, and had their marriage work?

Out of her thirteen neighbors, twelve don’t know a thing about him.

It’s a cycle, with the harsh sun confusing the endless wind falling on her back. One door opens, they welcome her into the neighborhood, ask her how she’s doing and they answer her questions.

Do you know who Kim Mingyu is? Yes, of course, he lived where you live right now.

Do you know what he does? No idea.

Do you know what happened to him, per chance? He left one day without saying a thing.

At this point, she may believe that Kim Mingyu was a ghost, and that was the reason why no one ever saw him leaving, or knew why he left. Confusion takes over her—for once, she doesn’t know why she is looking for the man that has brought her comfort for the past month, because nothing would come out of it. It’s not like she’s a fan of him, and will eventually end up meeting him and say: ‘Hey, watching your videos before your relationship fell apart made me feel better because you have such a welcoming, goofy personality’. Yet, there she is, standing in front of the final house of the block, ringing the doorbell on the pristine white walls.

A cat purrs once the doors open, escaping the confines of the home to twirl around her legs. The old woman in front of her, however, does not seem to mind her pet being so sweet, tugging at the edge of her long flowery dress, hunched over as she barely walks, a gray braid falling on her shoulder. A dulcet face, though much older than ninety, accompanies the lonesome woman who smiles at her presence.

“Oh, you’re the pretty girl that just moved in here, right?”

Well, that’s something new. She hasn’t heard much compliments ever since she got here—burn after hit, hit after burn, all coming from her endless hours of preparing for the first night of her musical, and the ones to come. “Depends on who you ask.” She jokes around, extending her hand to greet the woman in front of her. She outs her name into the comfortable atmosphere around them. “Yes, I’m the new neighbor. Nice to meet you…you have such a pretty home.”

“The smallest of the block, but the sturdiest.” The old woman gets out, able to capture anyone with her words. She leans her weight against the doorframe, a tired sigh leaving her lips. “Hye-Eun, that’s my name…and that’s my cat Rose.”

Kneeling down to scratch Rose right on her neck, she hums. “She’s so pretty.” The orange-furred cat seems to understand her, pressing her cheek against her knee before she looks away from her. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Hye-Eun, but I have some questions about the previous owners of my house that no one has been able to answer me—”

“You’re not interrupting a thing. I was just watching TV.” Hye-Eun admits.

“I’m glad.” It’s all she seems to be doing these days, too. Not going out. Definitely not spending her time inspecting the city. Instead, she’s either practicing or tiredly lounging around the house. “…Do you happen to know what happened to Kim Mingyu, the owner of the house?”

Hye-Eun stops for a moment, bringing her hands up her nose to rub at it before smiling. “He was a cute one, wasn’t he?”

Heat takes over her features, for she does not shy away from any man…but the stranger has something in him that puts her heart inside a carrousel and gives it a million twirls. “Indeed.”

“He left the day after his wedding. I’d say…about a year ago.” Hye-Eun, for seemingly being so old, captures the date well. One squint of her eye keeps her going, trying to recall the details. “He didn’t leave with Yoona, though. I remember because he brought me some food before he left. Such a caring boy…”

Her judgement may not be the slightest bit wrong about him. A smile appears on her features when she takes Rose in between her hands, looking at the cat’s face for a second before continuing to rub over her fur. Very calm for a cat, actually. “What was he like?”

“Enchanting, really. He used to greet everyone, play around with the kids when he could…he is a photographer, so he took lots of pictures in our neighborhood.” Mingyu sounds much like the man in the recordings so far. Had Yoona been the only one pretending, or was that just a little fight in their relationship? “A little bit dumb, but the sweetest of men are like that. Though, forgetful, too, he never came around after leaving.”

She doesn’t know him and yet, at times, when she doesn’t see his videos for days, she starts to miss his smile. People around the neighborhood, or the ones that truly intertwined with him, must long for his presence. “Seems like his wife was a lucky one.”

“She was.” Though, Hye-Eun says something else about the woman… “Pretty, but too controlling. Mingyu was just too stupid to notice.”

Those words have the smile on her face faltering. “…Really?”

The relationship that she had judged as normal on the first place, now seems to fall on the weight of Yoona’s wrongdoings. “Yes.” Hye-Eun finalizes, nodding her head before smacking her lips together. “But I know nothing else. Sorry, honey.”

“No worries, Mrs. Hye-Eun.” She finalizes, giving Rose back to her owner before resting her hands inside the pocket of her jeans. A photographer, brand-new feelings blossoming with his marriage, Mingyu sounds like one hell of a picturesque man. “Thank you for your help. I’ll get going now.” With a bow, she turns around, ready to take off to her house, when Hye-Eun speaks from her spot.

“He’s a pretty one, isn’t he?”

She stops on her tracks, looking over her shoulders. “Pardon me?”

Hye-Eun rests a kiss on top of Rose’s old cheeks before she chuckles. “A woman doesn’t go around asking about a man through a neighborhood just because.” Though, she has some reason there, if Mingyu is a married man, why should she care? “…Watch out for that heart, honey.”

“Oh no, Mrs. Hye-Eun, I’m afraid you have misunderstood—”

“I haven’t.” The sweet woman says, a smile appearing on her rounded features. “…Just, be careful, okay? Mingyu is the kind of man anyone easily falls for.”

Crossing her fingers across her heart, she replies: “I promise those are not my intentions, ma’am.”

With a chuckle, Hye-Eun takes a hold of her door, ready to close it when she finalizes this conversation. “It’s not what you intend to do, but what you’re actually doing.” The door closes, and she watches Hye-Eun retreat with her cat.

Why is she looking for Mingyu on the first place? Perhaps, a part of her wants to meet him—see that smile from up close and ask what happened to his relationship.

But that’s not her issue, not her position to be in, and that’s the reality of life.

###

“How many times do I have to tell you not to add new steps to the choreography?”

The baby wipe rubbing against her skin stops her motions along with her hand, looking at Kaleigh’s reflection on the mirror, right next to hers. The white lights cast down on the entirety of the face, one half sporting the bruises and dirt on her character’s face, the other completely void of makeup. Kaleigh, however, looks as put-together as always, moving her glasses, holding her script to her chest and pursing her reddened lips when she raises her eyebrows.

“I thought it’d look better, sorry.” Though, Jaehyo and Sue do it at times as well, choreographies and lines that they have worked on behind Kaleigh. They never get repercussions, aiming to be the very best brand of musical actors, but in her case…it’s always a bad move. With the passage of time, her confidence in her talents has deflated. “It won’t happen again.”

“You say that all the time.” Kaleigh answers, looking down at her script with a sigh before flicking a few pages. “And you, still, can’t go to the front. Hyun has worked on her dancing and her physique more than you have, so…stay back.” Though words hurt her more and more each time, digging against her heart like a sword twisting and twisting, opening the wound with more force than the last time. Yet, she only nods, knowing better than going back home and proving everyone right about the curse that follows her family.

“I will.”

“…I don’t want to tell you this, but another mistake, and I’ll kick you out.” Kaleigh, always strict, finalizes with those words, not knowing how to be softer. Little did she know that she left her figure skater with a broken foot at home, only pushed into the train because everyone insisted on her following her dream. Miyoung is much better now, but she can’t follow after her dream anymore. She keeps going, but at what cost? Showing the people that love her that, for once, she is not just some celebrity’s family member?

More often than not, she wants to package her bags and go back home. Wrap her arms around Miyoung and cry for both of their dreams. Buried deep, aching, bleeding. Instead, she watches Kaleigh retreat towards Hyun, sharing a smile with the woman and words of endless praise that should be for her.

Not to be misunderstood. Hyun is as talented as a person can get, but her outward hate towards her and the rivalry she started out of nowhere affects her. What was once admiration towards Hyun now translates into anger, pulsing envy that has her looking to the side as Hyun downs her fifth energy drink of the night. Her pupils dilate, eyelids blinking rapidly, chest heaving for a second as her fingers twirl one against the other. She stares at herself in the mirror, far away from taking off her makeup, before releasing her lines once again under her breath.

She’ll give Hyun that she’s a hard worker, but more than five energy drinks in just one afternoon practice?

The recital is getting closer, pamphlets thrown around, social media presence starting—and the interviews will inherently come soon. Yet, Hyun seems to be under a lot of pressure, the strain of one of the notes she whispers into the thin air coming from endless hours of rehearsing. Main lead but still very much human.

She shouldn’t give a shit. Hyun can start peeing orange like the color of the energy drinks she is having, and she shouldn’t mind, but what does she do instead when leaning against her seat and looking to Hyun’s lonesome speech?

“I don’t think you should be drinking that many energy drinks.”

Hyun looks different when she looks over to her. Her eyes seem to be unable to close, bottom lip stuck in between her teeth, dragged across the surface before tilting her head to the side. “How about your start minding your own business?”

She shrugs. This is a woman, after all, and they may be miles apart personality-wise, but she can’t bring herself to look at Hyun ruin his own health just to function a few more hours on stage. “Well, it’s minding my business. I don’t want to be the one to take you to the ER when one of your kidneys explodes.”

Hyun scoffs, moving her hair away from her face before looking back at her reflection in the mirror. “I’d rather die than share a car with you.”

Why does she even try with this one? It’s clear that she won’t ever let herself be pampered, even when she worries about her health. “You know what? Invite me when that happens. The happiest day of my life, for sure.” She replies, rubbing on her face harshly, not caring if she takes off the entirety of her makeup before tossing her bag over her shoulder and getting off the chair.

When she gets out of her second home, the city welcomes her. Bustling lights, passing cars, the speech that never stops…and yet, she can’t bring herself to like it. She’s one hair away from losing it all—the opportunity of being in this musical, that is, bringing her character to life, but if she doesn’t lose that…her pride as a person will be stepped on.

God, she really needs to stop caring about the musical for once. Her character is different from who she is, and too much practice is about to make her turn out crazy.

Her phone comes up to her ear as she starts walking to the subway, calling one of her friends that live in the same city as her, hoping for an answer when she says:

“Drinks tonight, babe?”

“For sure!”

###

For once, she feels like herself. Stepping out of a taxi, with the night biting at her naked legs, and fashion cladding most of her body. A tight red skirt rests under her bright pink coat, the low neckline of her white shirt showing a sensual side of her that only the cameras had seen, back when she went out partying in her hometown. Lowering her sunglasses from her head to her eyes, she takes a bite of the pizza in between her fingers when her friend closes the taxi’s door behind them.

“This is the best lounge in the entirety of the city, trust me.” Dasom’s pink hair swishes with the wind in inexplicable ways, but the smile on her mischievous features only highlights when she wraps her arm around hers. Dasom had been having dinner with her just a few minutes ago, over some bottles of beer, when she decided a lounge would be much better for them. Music. Dance. Perhaps some people to talk for the night. “Besides, there’s a lot of high-end people here.”

She met Dasom while in high school, where the woman peaked thanks to a viral video on the internet. To this day, she is remembered for it, but her fame hasn’t gone much further. Education aside, she seems to just enjoy the moment. “Wait, can’t I finish my pizza?”

Taking the slice of pizza from her hands, the cheese and sauce concoction ends up on the sidewalk, thrown there by Dasom. “Stop eating. We’re going to have fun and help you forget about your image for once.”

Upon entering the lounge, clouds of red and blue merge together, music boosting the bass through the walls, people cheering with their glasses up in the sky, bodies clinging to one another in a dance. Somehow, it feels like a party, and Dasom never misses one of those. This night doesn’t seem to be the exception, her heels clicking against the black flooring with white speckles as Dasom moves her through the masses of people.

“You didn’t tell me it was going to be a party.”

“Never trust a Gemini.” Dasom instructs about herself before smiling softly. “We’re going to be fine,” She instructs, wrapping one arm around her shoulder before extending her hands to one of the tables. “My friends are over there. We’re going to grab some drinks. And we’re going to have a good time, isn’t that right?”

“…Well, I guess.” Finally, the hazed nature of her happiness comes through, following after the steps of someone more knowledgeable about nights like this. She needs to let go, feel as though she doesn’t care for one night, and if a few shots and shared laughter aims to do that, so be it.

Motions blur one with the other, alcohol passing by her throat, numbing it with each taste. She winces most of the time, but the smile after the hiss is worth it. Pictures come from the night, though she doesn’t know who she is posing with, loving the pineapple in cocktails and the way her body swings as though the denim never restricted her legs. The night casts its light on her, the starring role of a movie that she doesn’t quite remember—but damn, it’s a good time. For once, she doesn’t have to think.

The bad thing about sudden, palpitating happiness is that it dissipates in the matter of seconds. Shots of alcohol are a distraction, not a source of dopamine.

“Dasom!” She shouts her friend’s name, stomach hunching as she steps away from the groups of people. There are a bunch of people with rosy hair in here, or maybe, she is too drunk to tell who her friend is. Her hands wrap around a handle, apologizing when coming in contact with the steady and strong body of the body guard before stepping on the sidewalk, hurling forward until she empties the contents of her stomach.

Yeah…alcohol is not her thing.

One of her earrings falls down, a wince following the action before she spits on the floor. She doesn’t feel any better, and she imagines she’s going to be here for another second. Her hands rest on her thighs, letting the world see her and the cars passing by on her worst of states. Worst of ideas, it was, but she can’t quite regret it when she’s beyond tipsy.

Someone rests their hand on the sleeve of her coat, pulling it up her shoulder before patting her back. Sobs rip from her mouth, lungs contracting and breaths suffocating with the sickness that revolves her stomach. A soft, yet somewhat confused, voice talks to her, rubbing circles on her back in the process.

“Hey, everything is going to be alright. Just breathe.”

Tears mix with her mascara, touching down to her worn-out lipstick as she breathes out: “I—I can’t…I feel so sick.”

This is a man that is talking to her, she can tell that much, but when he fixes her tangled hair from her earrings and continues to speak words of comfort to her, she can’t figure out anything else. A lisp is there, that’s all she can tell. “Oh no. You’ve drank too much.” Unsure of what to say or do, from her peripheral vision, she can see the man looking around the streets. Brown hair, glasses, and a black cardigan, but she doesn’t remember anything else. “I’m here with you. Calm down.”

Before she could say anything else, her stomach lifts its contents and she brings her weight forward once again.

From the faint distance, she can hear a small ‘ew’ from the man.

“Shit. Are any of your friends here?” With the smallest of nods, the man complies with another question. “W—What’s her name?”

“Kang Dasom.”

“Kang Dasom. Kang Dasom. Okay. Okay, I can do this.” More-so talking to himself, the man retreats from his spot beside her. Gone, like everyone, leaving the drunken, sobbing mess that is herself at this moment, it’s not a surprise that he left her to go find her friend. However, his actions say otherwise. “Hey, guard! Can you go look for Kang Dasom inside? I can’t leave her alone.”

Once again by her side, she wraps her fingers around his taut forearm, lifting her gaze for one second, but unable to make out a figure of his blurred features. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t be.” The man in question instructs, slipping his backpack off one shoulder before taking out a bottle of water, flimsily giving it to her. “Take a few sips, please.”

She does as he says, letting the cold liquid go down her abused throat, the man’s warm fingertips rubbing the tears away from her cheeks before she sighs. “…Thank you. I must look so…wacky.”

At the adjective she uses, the stranger chuckles. “It’s a new fashion trend, don’t worry.”

Smiling lazily, she hears the sound of the door opening, her name breathed out by a worried tone. “Oh my God, sweetie! I couldn’t find you anywhere!”

Dasom’s arms wrap around her body, not caring that she is smelly, just vomited, and that she’s head over heels drunk. “It’s okay…” She breathes out, feeling her stomach calm down at the touch of the lulling water, but Dasom pulls away to look at her.

“It’s not okay! God, anything could’ve happened to you…”

The stranger speaks in a low tone, playing with whatever is hanging from his neck. A necklace? A camera? A bag? She can’t tell. “I have to go back to work. Is everything going to be alright?”

Dasom looks at the man for one fraction of a second before humming. “We’ll be fine, thank you.” Though, she doesn’t get enough time to say anything to the stranger with the familiar voice, instead sucking in a breath when Dasom takes her by the waist and drags her towards the edge of the sidewalk, eyes already trained on her phone. “I’m going to call our taxi. We need to take you back home.”

The night wasn’t so bad, at least, for she realized there are still good people in this world.

###

All her life she has lived in the backseat, now she realizes.

Shadows of mistakes, people in other cars able to see her, but with the motion, she never captured a glance of them. People judged her, but they never stopped to see the real image, the driver and where it was taking her, how the road was and how the breeze could change the trees, the weather, and the time when everything happened. It’s not what she signed up for, but it’s the only thing she has known.

She knew the media before she even knew what a friend was. Learned how to look at the camera even before she learned how to speak to someone while staring at them face-to-face. Her name was said by other people, strangers at that, before she even knew how to spell it or write it. It’s not what she desired, but she keeps going. Her hands extend to continue with her dance routine, stepping forward just for one second, knowing that this is the only moment to shine. One of the few moments she is not the little girl everyone expected the worst from.

Look at what you’ve become, she wants to tell herself. You’re halfway through being an artist.

One day until her first performance in front of the crowd, and she’s ready to take it like a champion. Good or bad reviews, whatever happens is the source of her hard work—rather, it’s outcome. Her sneakers dig into the stage. Her stage that she shares with amazing people, and if twenty seconds of singing is all she gets, it’s what she is going to hold onto.

Upon reaching her mark, she feels a log—a leaf in her road to autumn. Her body proceeds to fall upon losing her balance, knees digging into the wood, creating dents in the skin, burning at the touch when her hands expand to stand her weight. Her chin hits the floor, but the masked laughter that comes from the person by her side shows the culprit. Baby blue sneakers, toned legs, and that malice that conceptualizes.

Kaleigh stops the music, fixing her glasses before sighing deeply. “Are you trying to kiss the floor?”

She sits up at that moment, her fingers pointing at Hyun by her side. Supposed to be her companion in this scene and yet, destroying everything that drives her to her dreams. “Ask the one that jutted her leg forward so I could trip.”

“I didn’t do such thing.”

Kaleigh, as always, backs her up. “I didn’t see her putting her leg forward.” Before she could defend herself any further, let the fire of the stress burn through Kaleigh’s serious expression, the woman is already looking behind her, speaking to the dot of a man that she can’t perceive at the last row of the practice place. “Are the pictures coming out fine? I don’t want people to see our cast on the floor.”

The more she proceeds in life, the more she realizes she is the only one that can bring herself up, dust her knees before anyone could even put a finger over her. It’s better this way. The photographer gets away from the shadows, lowering the Canon from his face before nodding slowly. “I’m getting good shots. Thank you for worrying.”

That lisp. If she moved her head any faster, she would have gotten whiplash. Upon watching the man’s face, she feels as though the Earth swallows her whole. Rounded face, toned body, his ears hidden by his beanie, glasses propped on the bridge of his nose, thin lips and that melodious smile. A bit silly at times, but yet, so enchanting on him.

“Ah,” Mingyu gets closer to the stage, standing by the edge before extending his camera towards her. Yes. Her. Why in the hell can’t she move? Men shouldn’t have this kind of effect on her. Anyone, really. “I want you to check your pictures with me, just in case you don’t like…the way you look or something. The expressions! Yes, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Good, because she almost thought for a moment that he was trying to say: ‘Hey, your pictures are looking ugly. Can you check and tell me if you’re alright with them?’.

Finally, she steps forward, her legs dangling when she rests her bottom on the stage. “Sure.” Mingyu stands by her side, looking at her profile for a second before returning his gaze to his thick Canon camera, flickering through the pictures he had taken. Bright, with good poses, the angles fitting for every subject of his camera. “I like them.”

“This is the one from when you fell,” Mingyu instructs, making a circle around Hyun’s stuck-out leg. “And she did stick her leg out.”

“Well, I’m not crazy.” She says, rolling her eyes in the process before linking her hands over her lap. Mingyu looks at her, and for some reason, she feels like she knows him. After all, she saw a portion of him not a lot of people got to see—more mature, he seems to be, void of a glistening band around his finger. Perhaps, he just doesn’t like rings at all.

Mingyu looks up and down her features, long eyelashes fluttering against the underside of his eyes before smiling briefly. “Not crazy, but very drunk at times.”

Huh?

Drunk?!

“Excuse me?” She asks, because there is no way in hell Mingyu has seen her or gotten to know her, much less be aware of her when drunken—

Mingyu leans his weight against the stage, elbows propped back as he talks to her. “You don’t remember me?”

From the CD’s? Yeah. From a drunk night? Hell no. “…What do you mean?” She won’t quite in fact confess that she does remember him.

Roses grow on his cheeks, shaking his head when looking down at his camera. “Well, we were at the Urban Lounge. I was taking pictures, and just as I was about to head inside once again with my new film, I saw someone throwing up in the sidewalk. Crying, too.” Oh no. Oh please, don’t let this be the truth— “I decided to help you find your friend Kang Dasom, and then, I returned to the party.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh, yes.”

What are the odds that the sweet man that had rubbed her back when vomiting, was also the same man that helped her with her anxiousness each day when getting home from practice? There can’t be that many good people in this world, but Mingyu couldn’t be two of the nice people she had gotten to know in this city.

Or, rather, he was.

“Nothing to be ashamed of. We have all been there.” Mingyu stops for a moment, pressing his lips together, rubbing them, before releasing his words. “Me more than others, but it’s nice to be the one helping for a change.”

More souls like his should exist in this world. “Ugh, I can’t believe you saw me like that.” She groans, lowering her head until her neck hangs it. Mingyu chuckles from his spot, only to build the tension inside of her. The man in the recordings had seen her like a whole mess, and found it funny at that. Wow. “…You know, not a lot of people can say that they have seen me like that.”

“Not a lot of people see someone throw up before they actually know their names, but alas, here we are.”

“What a way to make a lady feel better.”

Mingyu’s smile falters the slightest bit at that, extending his hand before saying. “Hello, I’m Mingyu, but in this occasion, you can call me a dumbass.”

Funny, he is, enough for a smile to rake over her features even when her elbows and knees hurt. She speaks her name out, letting his professional and soft fingers caress against her own in a shake. Long digits, perfect for photo-taking, but horrible to think about when she remembers he is possibly married.

“I was joking. Don’t worry about it.” Instead, she hears her name being called, Kaleigh with her hands on her hips, waiting for her to return to the stage. “…Uh, I kind of have to get back to work.”

Now, she realizes the thing that dangled from the man at the lounge’s neck was his camera, the strip giving him more leverage when he nods at her. “I do, too.”

“Nice to meet you, Mingyu.”

Nice to meet you, again, maybe.

“Likewise.”

Though, she feels someone stare behind her when she turns around and gets back on her spot, she tries not to think much of it. He may be trying to get a good picture of the one figure in the shadows that is her.

###

Fourteen hours for the first performance of When The Kids Go To Sleep.

Fourteen hours and in the solitude of that stage, with only one light on, everyone from the staff gone to their homes, she feels the most like a star. In this stage, right at this moment, it feels like a star will be born.

The lyrics to the final song repeat themselves from her lips. She knows them by heart, the reason as to why she moved here on the first place, and with her hands gathering all the emotions in the air only to press them to her chest, she feels like she is five percent more ready for the night after. Or, actually, tonight—midnight, it is, and she still hasn’t left the practice room.

Everyone is gone, what is the worse that could happen?

Just as she moves to another spot, keeping the tempo and the rhythm of her feet, a thud interrupts her. Loud, clear, as if someone had opened the door and jumped on the floor. She halters her step, watching the locked doors with a frown on her features. If that door wasn’t open, then how had the sound appeared on the first place?

Her vocal cords close, swallowing thickly as she looks around the stage. If this is a robber, she needs to find something to defend herself with. An umbrella rests at the edge of the stairs, the one she had brought with herself on the rainy morning, cladded in Winnie The Pooh logos on a baby blue background. One step down the stairs and she hears it again, that thud, followed by the incomprehensible set of words the robber says.

Fuck. Someone’s here.

Someone is here and she had not even noticed.

Precision in her walk, she goes over to the hallway to the left of the entrance door, where the noises get louder as she gets closer to the storage rooms and bathrooms. One step forward, followed by her next leg, keeps moving her towards the culprit of the noise, both hands grabbing onto the body of the umbrella with a plan inside her head. She’ll knock this motherfucker down for scaring her that way.

The robber has some sense of humor, however. When she stands in front of one of the storage rooms, the door half-opened, the sound of one Eminem song escaping his lips becomes the main source of speech in this room. Who the hell sings an Eminem song when stealing?

The world is made out of colors and opinions. Maybe, this robber found it fitting.

She opens the door with one swing, lifting her umbrella well up in the air before knocking it against the robber’s head, the smack welcomed by a groan and a whine from the stealer.

“I’m going to call the police—” The robber turns around, both hands cladding his head, his brown hair sticking out at certain spots, a confused glance in his eyes. Well, so that is why the robber was singing Eminem…because it wasn’t a robber at all. “Mingyu?”

Blame it on her sleep deprivation. Yes. That’s it.  

“Ouch?” Mingyu utters out, separating the word in syllables just as she reaches forward, rubbing the portion of his head that she just hit.

“I’m sorry. I thought it was someone trying to steal from me and kill me—”

“Who sings while stealing?” Mingyu questions, finally lifting his gaze and straightening his body. His eyes connect to hers, and she finally realizes just how much of a bitch paranoia is.

“I don’t know. I’m sure they enjoy music, as well.”

Mingyu looks at her for a second, blinking, silenced, until laughter escapes his lips. Shortened, at that. “You should consider changing your career path. That arm?” The man flings his arm back and forth, as if pretending to receive the ball from a pitcher in a baseball game. “Perfect for a baseball player.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she grins. “What were you even doing here, oh-so-funny-man?”

The man in question waves his camera in the air, clearing his throat soon after. “Checking the pictures and the videos to see which ones I should take tomorrow.” Right, he probably was preparing for the big night as well. “You’re doing great, by the way. I could hear you from here.”

It’s been a while since she has believed she has done great. Her umbrella becomes her axis, resting it on the floor as she leans on it, a sigh leaving her lips. “I still have a long way before I get to Hyun’s level.”

A bright star under a roof, that’s how Hyun was going to be perceived, while she was going to be one twinkling firelight passing by. Mingyu bites the inside of his cheek, moving towards her with careful steps. “Hey, it’s not a competition…” He tries to make her feel better, as per usual with Kim Mingyu for what she has realized from his videos, but she shakes her head, chuckling in the process.

“God, I’m making it too serious.” She rolls her eyes. After all, Mingyu is a complete stranger. It’s not like he knows that she has seen one of the most private portions of his life in video. “But yes, you’re right. It isn’t supposed to be a competition, but it’s what Hyun has made it so…”

“Then, win.” Mingyu concludes, his lips lifting to the left in a smirk.

She quirks one eyebrow, tilting her head to the side. “Easier said than done.”

“Like everything, but just wait, people will see the same thing I did today.” His eyes trail down her features, chuckling a bit to himself out of awkwardness before clearing his throat. One step back, and the electricity is cut short. “Your pictures came out fine, too. I’ll make sure to do a great job tomorrow.”

“You’re going to be the photographer for the rest of the play?”

“From time to time. As long as I’m not gigged, I’ll be here.” Mingyu replies, placing the strap of his camera’s bag on his shoulder before sighing. “I’ll go catch up on some sleep now. You’re staying here until the morning or do you want me to call you a taxi?”

Tiredness lingers on her body, but she can’t bring herself to sleep. Not when she is one step closer to either fulfilling or destroying her dream. Opening the door for him, she shakes her head. “I’ll stay here until the morning.”

“You sure?”

“I have to practice.”

“If you say so…” He trails, stepping out of the door and walking alongside her before speaking up again. “You know everything is going to be fine, right?”

One look at his profile and suddenly, the warmth that makes place inside her body lets her feel so. Being alright is something she hasn’t considered in the past month of pushing herself to utter perfection, but maybe, it isn’t so far away.

“I think so, too.”

Sprinkles of rain patter against the sidewalk when Mingyu opens the entrance door, swirls of air moving his hair before he places his beanie on top of it once again. Before he could step outside, his hand grabs the handle of the door, sharing a glance with her when saying:

“I hope to see you again.”

With that, just like a leaf through the wind, he flies away.

###

Success tastes like honey.

The magic of being on stage in a musical is that she doesn’t see anybody, but she feels them. The silence that merges into cheers, the faint gasp from someone on row three, or the flash of a camera from someone who wants to capture this moment for when they feel like going back down the stage of nostalgia. Critics scatter around the place, but she can’t vision them, maybe for the better. With shred clothing, bruises and tiredness painted on her skin, she is her character, and whatever her past said about her no longer exists here.

The only thing that lacks are her loved ones, somewhere else in the country, living their lives while she constructs her own. Jaehyo does an imminent job in catching people’s attention with his dance, though not in the center, and Sue does not fall behind with her immaculate acting skills. Hyun, the star of the night, receives attention as deserved. Sure, she is not the most beautiful of people on the inside, but her talent is outraging.

When her bare feet come in contact with the center of the stage, sharing it with Hyun, she spares one look towards the groups of people. First row, with his dark hair absentmindedly pushed away from his face, a black, oversized t-shirt cladding his body and matching his ripped jeans, Mingyu is squatting down to get the perfect shot. The dimmed lights do not let her see the beauty of him, but the camera is pointing towards her, and she relishes on it.

Mingyu’s camera does her justice, after all.

By the time the musical is over, a smile takes over her features, backstage and hearing the standing ovation, blood pumping, hands jittery, and heart on her sleeve when she goes over to Jaehyo and wraps her arms around him with emotions bubbling up on her bloodshot eyes. She really needs to sleep.

The older man’s arms end around her waist. “We did it, Jaehyo! It was a success!” Jumping up and down on his hold, Jaehyo chuckles at her antics.

“Calm down, calm down, it’s only the first night.” Jaehyo whispers, pulling away with a lazy smile on his face. “…But it was one hell of a good first night. Pizza for celebration?”

“You know it!”

The next fifteen minutes consist of taking pictures, trying her best not to concentrate on the photographer or on the hunger that creeps up her body, unable to smile as brightly if it wasn’t for Mingyu. Lacking sleep, needing a nice, fulfilling meal, it’s no wonder that she had not slept a single minute in the past forty-eight hours. Maybe, that’s why she is a bit bummed when Mingyu doesn’t say a thing to her, continuing with his job with utmost professionalism.

Some children gather to take pictures with the cast, unknowingly filling her heart with pride. In one point of her life, she was like them, eager and excited to get the attention of her favorite characters. The magic of theater is that characters, and actors alike, are not unreachable to the watcher. It’s a live source of magic.

Jaehyo is off to greet the deliveryman outside by the time thirty minutes have passed. Her makeup wipes run across her skin, ready to take off the excessive amount of makeup on her skin and exchange it for breathing pores and comfort. She stops looking at her reflection to hunt for someone with the mirror, scanning the room unbeknownst to the rest of the people there. Mingyu’s thighs extend when seated at the edge of one of the vanities backstage, clicking through the pictures as one of the children talks to him. Mingyu seems to be intently listening to the child, but when he looks for something from the corner of his eyes, she feels his gaze on hers.

Her eyes trail down his toned arms, the expansion of his thighs, seeking for the art in him as if she is DaVinci and he is the Mona Lisa. A smile appears on her features, straightening her back and leaning her weight forward to continue to rub her makeup off, not forgetting to make herself look the best as possible. At least, he’s looking.

Yet, she shakes that thought away—he shouldn’t be looking. As far as she knows, he could still be with Yoona.

A hand extends on top of her shoulder seconds after, rubbing at the skin softly, as if giving her a massage, before breathing out her name in that somewhat deep, harmonious tone of his. “…Wasn’t so difficult to steal the show, wasn’t it?”

For someone who is not a good talker in most occasions, the line has her beam widening. “You’re joking.”

“No,” Mingyu says, dragging one seat to her side, the plastic chair making him look smaller next to her, for her artist’s chair is much taller. His legs expand, interlocked hands settled in between his thighs, and she really should stop looking at those—

Her eyes go up.

“Want to look at your pictures?”

She puts the makeup wipe down, running her fingertips on top of her eyelashes to check if there is any leftover mascara there. Clean. All the makeup is off. “Is that the only conversation we are ever going to have? My pictures?”

“We should.” Mingyu mumbles out, frowning his features in confusion before his eyebrows shoot up, realization falling upon him. “Not that I don’t want to talk to you about anything else! Shit, that sounded like such—. Yes, we can talk about something else.”

The smell of thick sauce, melted cheese and corn has her turning towards the red curtains, watching Jaehyo slip inside before giving her the box of pizza that belongs to her. Thanking him softly, she opens it on top of the vanity, pointing at it as she talks to Mingyu. “Help yourself. I haven’t had one of these since the night at the bar.”

Mingyu stands up, hovering over her to be able to get a piece, and she tries her hardest not to bite her lip at the vision of his profile. Definitely crafted by an artist, he is a sculpture made person. “And yet, here you are, eating it again.”

“It may be our thing now.” She replies, leaning back on her seat to watch Hyun downing yet another energy drink, hands contracting against each other, her expression turned somber. “Hey, Hyun!” She calls out, only to have the woman frowning at the sound of her voice and turning her head to the side.

“What do you want?”

“I asked Jaehyo to bring you some pizza. Tell him to—”

“I won’t have it.” Hyun finishes, picking up her purse and throwing it over her shoulder. “…Thank you.” She utters, though she doesn’t stay for long, opening the red curtains and getting away from the actors’ spot.

She doesn’t know why she tries. Maybe, because she thinks the tension between Hyun and herself could be the downfall of the musical, but Hyun is just too thick mentally. “How did this whole rivalry start?” Mingyu says, taking the first bite of his slice before he huffs slightly, trying to cool down the piece that is inside his mouth. Even with his lips half-parted, eyes widened, there is some cuteness to him.

Pressing the pizza up to her lips and biting on it, she shakes her head. “I have no idea.” She replies. “…Are we playing questions now?”

Mingyu shrugs. “Only if you have some.”

“About you? Endless.” She says, leaning forward until she is face to face with Mingyu, taking all in her not to look down at his lips. “When did you start taking pictures?”

“When I was seventeen,” Mingyu says, not backing down the slightest, yet chewing on his meal with expertise. He must have been hungry, as well. “One of my best friends needed some money, so he was trying for modelling gigs. Needed a portfolio and all…so I took pictures of him.”

“Did modelling work for him?”

“Almost.” Mingyu says, finalizing his pizza with one big bite, taking a napkin and pressing it to his lips before continuing after swallowing his food. “Soonyoung is good, my friend. Just…he’s shy, I guess? He didn’t see his potential then, doesn’t do it now. That’s just what happened.”

“Something good came out of it, though. You’re a great photographer.”

“Thank you.” With heated cheeks, he answers. “What about music for you? Or acting…or dancing? Like, musical stuff is just too much. I don’t know how you do it. I can barely walk and talk at the same time.”

Chuckling, she sighs, taking another slice of pizza. A string of cheese follows her first bite. “Uh,” She starts, pondering on exactly what to say. “My family has always been…well, famous. For the longest while, I thought I was going to be anything but famous, like…I don’t know, a teacher or something.” She may like children, but patience is not her biggest of virtues. “But I had no option than to be in the spotlight. Got my first acting gig in a doctor’s show, and I started to like it since then.”

“You were in TV?”

“I was patient number three. That was my character.”

Mingyu laughs joyfully, like he doesn’t care the slightest bit about what the world thinks of him—every particle of this world belongs to him and gives their attention to the beauty of his existence. “Oh, look at that, that’s my favorite character of all time.”

“Want me to give you an autograph?”

Pretending to take off his shirt, Mingyu replies: “On my boobies, please.”

“You did not.” She counterparts, doubling over in laughter at his behavior. “You better have a good set.”

“A good set of what?”

Curling her fingers in the air, she replies: “Boobies, as you called them. I call them titties.”

“Look at me ruining my own joke.”

“Lost the comedic timing, but don’t worry, that happens.” For one second, she inspects the glisten of the cheese on top of pizza, licking her lips with curiousness guiding her actions. “…Your girlfriend must like your jokes, Mingyu.”

Now, let’s see exactly what happened with Yoona. Or Kim Yoona. They should be married at this point. Mingyu runs his free hand through his hair, leaning back on his seat and crossing one leg over the other. “My friends do, but I don’t have a girlfriend to tell my jokes to.”

“…Huh?”

“Surprising?” Mingyu questions, though there is not an ounce of cockiness in his words.

“Very.”

“Why’s that?”

Pointing at the mirror, she says: “Take a look there and then, you’ll know why I wonder you don’t have someone with you.” Also, because he was one day from getting married in the last recording of the box. What had happened? Perhaps, he had been stood up, or they cut the wedding short. Or, even worse, Yoona had been the one left at the altar—

Mingyu chuckles at that moment, grease glistening on his lips, licking them to press them together. “Thank you.”

Sue comes around at that moment, sporting much more simplistic clothes and holding her box of pizza in between her hands. “We’re going to grab dessert and drinks, want to join us?” Jaehyo stands by her side, munching on his meal, and they are two angels at that moment. Kim Mingyu is single, wanting to get to know her, and maybe, hiding the fact that she knew about his relationship a little bit longer won’t do her any wrong.

She looks over at him, shrugging. “I wouldn’t mind. Want to come with us?”

“I have to take care of you if you drink, don’t I?”

“Oh, don’t be too confident.” She says, standing up and picking up her coat, closing the box of pizza in the process. “I may be the one taking care of you.”

Imitating her tone of voice, Mingyu says: “I wouldn’t mind.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Mingyu repeats, looking down at her lips before returning his gaze towards Jaehyo and Sue. “Let me grab my camera.”

###

Exquisiteness is divine. Pearls in the bracelets around her wrists, a nice dress cladding her body, and the taste of the most delicious of meals, washed away by the concoctions of a chef. The summer nights passed long ago, but the newest era of success has come to her now. Third night, not in a row, of her introduction to the musical world, and each time she sees Mingyu, they end up hanging out after. At first, it was with Jaehyo and Sue, then, it was backstage…and now, she has brought him to a four-star-restaurant, one of the most expensive in the city.

The white ceramic of the plate she is eating from leaves imprints of Ratatouille on its wake, interrupting her speech about one of her childhood memories in order to catch a glimpse of the source of the flash hitting her face. This is familiar—whenever she held hands with one of her family members as a child, someone would take the opportunity to bring a camera up her face, judge her for how she was going to turn out to be without really knowing her. Basking in money, she thought she’d never care—but she did. Having people comment on her from the moment she was born played with her mind far more than she comments.

Beauty of the soul is never enough for them. In a world like this, people can’t be pure.

But with Mingyu, she feels the purest. His eye squints as he takes a picture of her, barely touching his food, as he’d say…embarrassed that she is paying for such an expensive meal. Yet, he deserves it. Sent from heaven, bathed in the golden speckles of destiny, bringing light to the most mundane of activities. He petrifies memories, and what an irony it is, that what she ran away from the most as she was growing up is his biggest passion.

She licks her lips, half-laughing at his antics. “Did you just take a picture of me?”

“You get a very pensive look on your face when you think about the past.” Perhaps, because it hurts her. Racing cars, lovers that didn’t last more than a week, memories of self-love that plaster on what other people thought of her. Young, rich and pretty doesn’t cut it in this world. “S—Sorry, I interrupted you, didn’t I? You were talking about the last time you went to Los Angeles—”

“It doesn’t matter.” She whispers, rubbing her fingers together to take the perspiration away from her skin. “Life is monotone when you’re somewhat famous. You do the same thing over and over again, pretending like it makes you happy.”

“Is that why you moved here?”

In reality, it was the addition of a few things. Her break-up. Her dream. Her opportunity. And running away. “What’s funny is that I didn’t even know what I would do once I moved here,” She replies, shrugging her shoulders after. “My best friend, Miyoung, I talked about her with you…she’s a figure skater, and she was supposed to attend the Olympics this year, but she broke her foot two days before I left. I thought that was the big sign for me not leaving.” Thoughtfully, she thinks back to the phone call she received in the middle of the night above a month ago. Miyoung had not rested the slightest, leading to an injury and sooner than later, a broken foot. Turns out that she would not be able to perform the same way she did before. “…But Miyoung told me it was quite the contrary, that it worked as a push-over for me to get here. According to her, it was my only chance to get a name for myself.”

“You’re on your way there.” Mingyu says, though her rests his camera on his lap, tasting the meal in front of him. “…I didn’t know about your family history or about you before, but I think people will start to recognize you as your own person soon.”

Hopefully, she can only think. “You know what?” She questions. Throughout the entirety of her time there, through the videos she had seen with Mingyu starring in them, an idea had crossed her head— “I think I’d be my happiest if I was just another person into this world. Like you.”

Mingyu shakes his head. “You’re crazy.” He tells her. “Exchanging money, power and success for…being like me?”

“I happen to think you’re a very good person.”

“Kind of.” Mingyu confesses, covering his mouth when he laughs: “But the day I’m gone from this world, no one will remember me. You can leave a mark on people’s lives.”

“So can you!”

“Probably to my children in the future, but not—”

“Listen, Mingyu—” Her words cut short then. How can she say this without outing what will inherently make him mad? “You’ve left your mark on people, I am sure.”

“It’s not the same.” His eyes shine under the golden chandeliers. Young ambition takes over him. “You’ll be legendary. I’ll be remembered by my neighborhood.”

“Maybe, we could exchange.”

“Or we could meet in the middle.” Mingyu conquers, and she likes that even more. Two souls that are clearly different but dance in the middle. Her leg extends forward, brushing against his skin, because she has seen this scene a few times in her life—romance in the form of getting to know each other, but for now, she doesn’t want to care about the outcome. Fuck the introduction or the conclusion, the development is always the best part.

“You know what I want to do?” She asks, the music in the background changing into some typical jazz tune, just as she hovers over the table, face to face with him.

You, she wants to tell him, instead, she looks into his eyes, Mingyu’s expression turning serious, cutting the tension with one of his smiles. “I don’t read minds.” He says. “Tell me?”

“I want to take pictures of you.” She replies, hang reaching for the camera on his lap, trying to understand the garment when she goes back to her seat. Pulling it up to her face, she squints one eye just like he does. She only needs to focus on him, right? “And keep them.”

“Why?” Mingyu asks, though, she can see him softly changing his pose, as to look more relaxed and camera-ready. Well, he does like a bit of attention.

“I want to remember the person that makes me believe there are still good people in this world.” The camera flashes when she takes a first picture, leaning back on her seat to capture more of his body in that black turtleneck and the necklace that wraps around his body. Tanned skin, brown hair, and a beautiful smile when she says those words.

“You haven’t known me for long enough to judge that, you know?”

“Then, give me the benefit of getting to know you more.”

A glimpse of his eyes connecting with hers on the camera has her smiling. “I’ll gladly give it to you.”

At the mention of those words, she lifts her eyebrows, another picture and her mind wander towards to possibilities. “What will you give me? The benefit of getting to know you? Just that?”

“You want more?”

“…It’s enough.”

Mingyu leans forward, his face coming in full view in the camera when he snatches it away from her hold, before whispering. “I was going to say I could give you everything you want, but seeing that just knowing me it’s enough…I’ll accept it.”

God. This man will be the death of her.

###

Two weeks in and not seeing Mingyu feels like it’s almost impossible. They gravitate towards each other—polar opposites that meet in the middle. His steps are heard as she keeps her hand to his, dragging him along over the lineal rug of the hotel they visited—for the pool, which Dasom said was the best—, baby blue doors compared to white walls, the faint swish of the pool nearby making music for the two of them to hear.

“Mingyu, hurry up!”

The fabric of her yellow dress caresses her legs, needing nothing more than to feel like she is living in summer, while the wind clashes with its coldness. Hopefully, the pool warms her body. Mingyu pulls her backwards by the white cardigan draped over her body, connecting his chest to her back. With each breath he takes, her own lungs shake, his voice lowering to speak against her ear.

“What’s the rush?” He asks, the few buttons opened of his floral shirt meeting her contracted muscles. “If I really went as fast as I can go, you wouldn’t be able to keep up.”

That’s the thing with Mingyu—he says the worst of things, in the situations that have her skin heating up, her mind going to places it shouldn’t. Not when he makes her feel like nobody else has done, as if scalding her fingertips to touch him would be worth it. Just before he could apologize, like he always does, because Mingyu just can’t say one thing without fucking up, she looks at him from over her shoulder. “Try me.”

A huff escapes his lips, wrapping both arms around her waist when picking her up and starting to rush through the hallway to get to the swimming pool.

“Mingyu—” Cackles leave her lips, legs flaring because he is just not looking forward. At least, not properly. “We could fall!”

“I’ll catch you if that happens—”

“You don’t know that!”

Floating in the clouds, somewhere beyond the universe, she lets her laughter speak for her. Never would she trust someone with this, but this is Mingyu she is talking about. The man that opens his heart without much thinking. “I promise I won’t let you fall. Just tell me when the swimming pool is close.”

Patting his arm, the toned skin coming in contact with her hand, she says: “Now, now! We’re close—”

Mingyu lets go of her after releasing her on the floor with a thud, turning around to watch the smile on his face when he puffs out his chest and adds: “See? I would never let you fall.”

“Not scientifically proven, so I’m not sure if I can believe you.”

“…You’re so annoying.” Laughing, she places her hands on each side of Mingyu’s body. She needs to get back to him, steal chuckles from his lips, so with one step back, she prepares for the biggest surprise of all. “Do you want me to turn around so you can take off your dress or—?”

Another step back and they are both falling inside the pool, dragged by her own weight.

Warm water bubbles around her, unable to open her eyes until her lungs receive air when getting to the surface. There, the droplets of water cling to her eyelashes, watching Mingyu merging up about at the same time that she did. His shirt clings to his body, thankfully wearing his bathing suit, strands of brown hair pressed to his gorgeous skin when he splashes water her way, though she’s already laughing.

“Don’t do that!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Yet, Mingyu keeps splashing water at her, getting closer and closer until he is just mere centimeters away.

“You think it’s funny, don’t you?”

“I’m a musical actress, not a comedian. Sorry.” Taking the damp cardigan in between her hands, she tosses it to the side, landing at the edge of the pool with a clanking noise from its buttons before jutting her chin forwards towards him. “I’m sorry about your shirt.”

“You just wanted me to take it off.”

“You would’ve even if I hadn’t thrown you into the pool.”

“So, you brought me to this pool for that on the first place.” Mingyu says, brown irises darkening when her fingers reach for the edge of her dress, pulling it up until she is left in a one-piece. That’s the magic of him—making her feel like there is not a competition, as if she’s the most gorgeous woman he has seen in a while. Her assumptions about herself are not seen by him.

“So,” She says, letting the dress fall to the side and trying not to cling to her own body, shrinking in order to hide away from him. Mingyu’s fingers hook around every button of his shirt, taking it off little by little to showcase his slim, yet toned body. “Swimming competition and whoever gets to end of the pool buys dinner?”

“I’ll buy dinner either way, but sure—” She needs to look away. The least she needs is that lingering voice inside her head that tells her that she’d do absolutely anything to get a taste of Kim Mingyu. It feels wrong, how he doesn’t know where she lives, what she found out when being there, how the lines of their stories always seemed to connect…but maybe, he’d feel taken off guard if only he knew the truth. That, in retrospect, she had seen the beauty of him before he even knew about her.

Her phone rings from the bag that she had left at the edge of the pool when Mingyu dropped her on the flooring. Incessantly. Even when she starts swimming with him, laughing along and splashing him on the face at the same time he does, it continues ringing.

Mingyu spares one look at her, pointing at her phone when saying: “Want me to get it for you?”

“No,” Worry rises up inside of her, swimming quickly until she got to the edge of the pool, the third call appearing on her screen once again. Mingyu’s presence is felt right behind her, but she can’t concentrate on him when she reads the contact.

Miyoung.

Something happened to Miyoung.

“Hello?” Fear clings to her chest. Miyoung, her best friend, the apple to her eye, could not have her life any worse than what it is right now. She doesn’t deserve it and as her best friend, she won’t let it happen. “Miyoung, are you okay?”

“Of course, babe. I’m fine.” Miyoung speaks in her typical purred out tone. A breath trapped inside her lungs lets go at that moment, leaning her weight forward just when Mingyu presses his hand to her back, rubbing those soothing circles that she knows so much.

“How is your foot?”

“Healed, thankfully. You already know that.”

“Goddamn it, Miyoung, I thought something had happened to you—”

“Haven’t you checked YouTube? I’m not the one you should be worrying about. Worry about yourself.”

YouTube? One or two videos about her musical had appeared, but she hasn’t been in the headlines for a bad reason. “Why should I worry? What are you talking about?”

Mingyu moves over to her side, and she can feel his eyes penetrating into her side profile when Miyoung utters out: “Haseul released his newest comedy special, and the motherfucker mentioned you. People are going crazy with the memes, you need to check it out.”

“What?” Her ex-boyfriend hadn’t crossed her head in a while. After all, remembering what hurt her the most—the obsession of always being right, the lies, the friends that he said he had nothing to do with and the way he passed her every opinion over his ass as if it didn’t matter…is not what she plans on doing. Not when she’s moving on. Yet, it seems like he doesn’t want her to do just that.

“Check it out. I’m—I’m talking to my PR team man to make a statement. I’m tired of his bullshit.”

“Don’t, don’t!” She says quickly. Miyoung’s career has already fallen down, she doesn’t need unnecessary drama. “I’ll fix it. I—I just need to look at it, okay?”

“Babe, promise me you’re not going to feel bad.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Horrible.”

“Then, I can’t promise anything.” With a sigh, she looks down. “I’ll call you later, okay? Let me see what all of this is about.”

When putting her phone down, it takes less than a second for Mingyu to speak, worry dripping from his every tone. “Wh—What happened?”

Well, time for a fraction of the truth. “Before I came here…I was dating some guy. Well, we had been dating for three months at a maximum. Cheated on me. Went out partying. The typical stuff someone of power does in most occasions.” Turning to her side, she takes the phone in between her hands, looking up the comedian’s name. “He’s a comedian. Eo Haseul. I don’t know if you know him but—”

“Yeah, I know about his comedy.” Mingyu’s frown deepens, extending one hand when leaning on the edge of the pool. “Isn’t he the guy who can only make sex jokes?”

“The one and only.” There it is, the video that Miyoung had been talking about, with over six hundred thousand views in four hours. Well, there goes her reputation. The title of his comedy set is shown there, but nothing else is added. “…We broke up before I left. He broke up with me, basically. Miyoung just called me to tell me he made a comedy set about me.”

“No way.” Mingyu whispers, leaning over her shoulder to be able to look at the loading screen.

“I mean, it shouldn’t be that bad, let’s see what he says.”

It was even worse than she had imagined.

Haseul, in what she had once thought was perfection, stares at the laughing crowd as his lips rest against the mic. His hair is sleeked back, thick eyebrows pursed together when he says: “And yeah, man, I learned last summer that you shouldn’t date a famous bitch. Or a semi-famous one. Normal, average women are fine but give someone some money and they think they can do whatever the fuck they please.” A few sets of laughter follow his statement, and he scoffs a bit for dramatics, trying to make himself sound more interesting. “I’m sure you guys know who I’m talking about, but…now that I’m out of that relationship, I can say that she was crazy. Eyes rolled to the back of her head, greedy as all shit, type of crazy.” He says, as if she is not human—as if she had not done everything in her power to make that toxic relationship work. “I would show you all the videos we had of each other fucking, but man, it’s just too crazy. I’d have to be filling all holes, even the bellybutton. When women are given power? They don’t get pleased by anything. I’d have to contort my body and shit, just to be able to make her moan for one second.”

Tears well up in her vision. The intimacy they had, exaggerated and highlighted for the world to see, torn to shreds because she is a woman with apparent power. Why is it that she can never have some source of happiness before it gets taken away from her?

“And the issues, man. God, I would have to hear her sigh on and on about her issues after sex. Just had my dick and she still had the time to think about how her rich, immaculate life was just not enough for her. See what I mean?”

Laughter, even though it’s not funny, people seem to enjoy it. Trying to turn the tables around, Haseul shrugs.

“I can’t even show you the videos because…I have to be honest, I’m not the biggest of men when it comes to that but—” For once, he targets himself, but the smirk on his face says he is not over with it. “It doesn’t matter. I have to cover my back. The bitch blocked me with the same hand she used to jerk me with.”

The subject changes, but her ears are ringing. Burning anger, impotence, and the tears that escape her eyes as she puts her phone down and rests her forehead against the tiles of the pool.

What was she thinking when she got with him?

“None of those things are true…” She whispers, covering her mouth as if to stop herself from talking. Mingyu, however, maneuvers his body to be able to wrap his arms around her. Her face rests against his chest, the cold skin touching hers, too afraid to look him in the eye. What will he think of her after watching that—?

“I know it’s not true.” Mingyu’s voice has turned serious, pulling away only to have her further pushing her face to his chest. “Do you have his number?”

Mind whirling, overheated, she hums. “I do, but I have it blocked.”

“Give it to me.”

“Mingyu—” Finally, she pulls away, bloodshot eyes staring up at him. “I’m tired of the problems around me. I’m absolutely done with people caring about my whereabouts and what I do. I don’t want more drama—”

“I just want to put him in his place.” Mingyu whispers, pushing her wet hair away from her face before breathing out a small: “Please?”

In the light of the pain caused, her lips are paralyzed, unable to connect her tongue to her mind in order to let some words out. Instead, she reaches for her phone, going through the contact list before seeing it:

Eo Hanseul (Do Not Respond).

Mingyu takes his own phone from her purse—he asked to have it there—, jotting down the numbers before bringing the device up to his ear. He gets out of the water, droplets following after his steps to be able to talk in private. Standing by the clear doors of the hallway, Hanseul seems to pick up his call, because his eyebrows furrow and he opens his mouth to speak.

Kim Mingyu doesn’t seem like the type of man to get angry, but he does that night.

Much of what he says is not understood, unable to disconnect her eyes from mixing the water of the pool with the waterfalls of her feelings, but Mingyu’s voice raises, speaks into the void when he says: “…I don’t care, man, you either grow some balls and start respecting her or you’ll have to have a talk with me.” Now, he seems much taller, buffer, as if his words may be able to deflate the softness of him. Rolling his tongue through his teeth, he hears to what the other man has to say, just as she’s getting out of the pool, only her calves pushed inside. “You think I’m some fool you can play with?”

Well, in comparison, Mingyu is much better than Hanseul. Less of a fighter, more of an empath. However, his Adam’s apple bobs up and down when he swallows, a frown taking over his features.

“You either take all the bullshit you’ve said back or I’ll make sure you pay for it, okay?!” Before Hanseul could retort, the man shakes his head. “I don’t know, release some statement, get your tongue up your ass, but you’ll never talk to her or about her ever again, understood?”

Then, the call comes to an end. Radio silence.

Mingyu puts his phone down, extending his arms just to say: “Come here.”

And she does cling to him, feeling his heartbeat against her eardrums as she cries someone else’s ignorance away.

Though, for Mingyu, the picture is different. “You’re more than whatever people judge you for. Don’t forget that.”

###

Act twenty-four. Twenty-fourth time performing the same character. The critics are getting worse.

Perhaps, it’s her fault. Seated on the wooden floor backstage, while wrapping her legs in bandages to be able to stand the aches, ignore the blossoming memories of the falls she has done while practicing, she sees the most destroyed person in the room staring at herself back in the mirror. Hyun looks way more tired than she did when they were practicing, curling her hand against her stomach—perhaps, suffering by the number of products she puts in her body to be able to keep herself energized—, eyes void of the glint of pertinence that had once coated them, bathed in shadows.

Once again, she takes another energy drink, and it’s about this time that she speaks out the certainty in the room. The one spoken secret that she whispers to herself at night. “I’m worried about you.”

Hyun stops at that moment, not even sparing her a glance, and the shutter of Mingyu’s camera comes to a halt when she finally outs the obvious. Hyun may not like her, but she was a fan of her before she even got here. Talented, she is, and her stomach must not be doing good by the number of energy drinks, caffeine and whatever else she has. Her stress is getting to her, cohabiting inside of her body.

The woman lifts her eyebrows, sucking her cheeks in when she says: “You don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”

“Even I’m not fine.” She confesses, standing up from the floor with wobbling legs. Too overworked. “Hyun, stop drinking this. If you aren’t sleeping or you can’t keep up, it’s okay. We’re here to help each other—”

When her hand comes forward to take the energy drink from her, Hyun pushes her body backwards, the anger in her features dissipating. “You don’t get it.”

“Of course, I do.” She says, only to have Hyun bitterly scoffing.

“Yeah, right.” She concludes, putting the can down before resting her slim hands on her hips. “If this musical keep going like it is, on its downfall, I won’t get any other chance to shine. I won’t get a starring role, and I will definitely see my dream die. You don’t go through that. You have a home to go to, and money to spend—”

An inexplicable feeling embargoes her. While Hyun had gained this position with hard work, a part of her existence there was just for publicity—and her mere presence is what is bringing the musical to its conclusion. “Hyun, I promise…you’re too talented to ever do shit wrong. You’ll get a chance when needed.”

“You don’t know that!” Hyun shouts, running her fingers through her hair before sighing. “Mind your business, okay? Stay out of my way, and stop playing the victim here. I’m fine. I just need to practice more.”

“Go home, Hyun.” She tries to reason, taking the woman by the forearms. “I know you hate my guts, and I would, too, if I were you…but please, just…rest for tonight. The show’s over. We can go home.”

“You do this because you don’t want me to practice so you can be better than me, huh?”

Shaking her head, she tries to reason with her. “I would never. Really. I’m over that.”

“Who are you kidding? Yourself or me?” Hyun questions, taking the filled energy-drink can before tossing it in the nearby trashcan. “Happy now?”

“Hyun—”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go home.”

Her body brushes against hers when passing by her, the clicking of her shoes a sound that she doesn’t want to ignore. Hyun, in that moment, becomes a heroine to her. Image of hardships and hard work, someone who would rather tire herself out than disappointing her vision of herself. Perhaps, she had judged everything wrongly, imagined herself to be this immaculate being that did not deserve to be hurt.

No one does. Hyun didn’t either.

Mingyu accompanies her outside, like he always does, ready to go out with her after another show. However, as the wind bites her arms under her dark denim jacket and the taxis pass by them, ready to be called by her, she feels his hand resting over her shoulder, turning around to look at him. Peaceful, yet worried.

Tugging at the sleeves of his pink sweater, the strands of his hair swirling against his forehead with the movement of the breezy night, Mingyu admits: “I think you need to drop out of this musical. Kaleigh does not care about any of you.”

That much she knows. The leader, the director, only cares about the image she wants to portray of the character, not about the actors that play them. Still, letting go would mean going back home…and back home, she’d go back to the same routine. “What if I don’t find another chance to be on the stage?”

Mingyu sighs. “You and Hyun aren’t so different after all.” The more she sees herself projected in that vanity backstage, the more she sees herself turning into Hyun. Though talented, a portion of herself will get lost down this path. The one that hopes for a happy ending. “Sometimes, we have to realize that what we dream of is not always going to be our reality. And this is not to tell you your dream is not valid, because it is, but the more you stay here…the more it will hurt you to leave. You deserve better than what Kaleigh is giving you, and even if you end up with a small role in some show, or get back on stage again…you’re still you.”

“Well, maybe I’m tired of being me.” She replies, letting her weight lean against the side of his body, his arm cradling her shoulders, eyes looking down at her while she connects her gaze with his, down to his lips.

“I like you.” Mingyu rasps out, though, if he knew where she lived…what she saw…what she knew about his past, would he still be open about those words? “Please, never stop being you.”

She thinks, at this moment in her life, she’ll never stop being his. Yours, she wants to tell him, even if this doesn’t work out, my soul will always be yours.

Though, she fears. What if he isn’t hers? Though he wasn’t hers at the beginning of it all, she kept seeking—

And now, mere centimeters away, with his lips parted, she has him. Breaths mingling when she softens her lips against his, drapes a silent confession that she can’t quite get out without feeling guilty. If he knew more about her, perhaps, he wouldn’t like her. The issues of not knowing how to differentiate what people perceive of her and what she perceives herself, but right now, as she’s with him, she likes who she is. Her truest version, delicate, not aching to feel more, to have more of him, just letting their lips meet softly, knowingly, as if she knows every portion of him and yet, to him, she’s only a shadow.

Her arm hooks around his neck, tilting her body to the side to taste more of him, relishing on his perfume, his hands, the way he always seems to make her feel unique, and not to outcast her, but to blend her into the groups of people that fall for each other. The romanticism that falls into monotony, but it’s oh-so-perfect in its own way.

“That’s my answer for you.” She replies when pulling away, awestruck brown eyes blinking back at her when she smiles.

I like you too, Mingyu.

###

When looking at Mingyu, she would have never believed their first official date would come in the shape of a rock concert. Much less would she have imagined that, upon entering Mingyu’s apartment, much smaller than the house he once shared with Yoona, he’d have collectables of memories that he doesn’t have the time to explain, rushing to get out the door and get to the concert. A local band that she has no idea about, but try their hardest to leave their imprint in this world.

Kissing in cars is how the date ends. In some taxi, with sneaky touches and stolen kisses that promise for a better night. Hazed in his smile, in the tight black shirt that clads his body and the way his big hand splays across her thigh, claiming a portion of her body as his. After a month, even more, of seeing each other, Mingyu feels closer than ever, seated on a portion of her heart as if it is his throne, and it may be. A King of Hearts, as she likes to call him.

The band t-shirt he had bought when getting out of the venue rests over her body, halfway pushed inside his jeans as she twists her head to the side and rests fleeting kisses on the side of his neck. His Adam’s apple bobs, a sharp intake of his breath coming with the tightening hold on her tight.

“Something you should know…” He starts, only to have her humming, teeth digging into the skin of his neck as she hums. “I—I’m not really patient, you know?” His voice wavers, enough to have her chuckling when she pulls away from him and rests a kiss on his shoulder.

“I’ve noticed. Quite childish if you ask me.”

“It’s hard to be patient when you’re around.” She looks at him from the corner of her eye, smiling.

“I’ll have to teach you how to wait, huh?”

Though, when Mingyu had gotten on that taxi, she had not thought about the address she gave. The taxi driver parks outside, thanked by Mingyu as he gives him counted bills and gets out of the yellow car. Much to her distaste, however, when she gets off as well, Mingyu is staring ahead at the white house that had once been shared with the love of his life—

Yoona.

The woman who almost married him.

The one person he had never talked about.

Mingyu opened up about a lot of portions of his live. Childhood. Cousins. Parents. Music. Photography. Collections. Love from teenage years, but Yoona was never touched. Never talked about. She never pushed it, knowing better than getting that information out of him, but when she stands by his side, watching his face turn somber, he softly asks:

“You live here?”

Warning signs appear inside her head, blaring red lights leaving her with no emergency exits. The line has cut short, no longer letting her lie to him in order to keep her secret intact. She knew him before he actually knew her, and she had thought of him as charming then. “Mingyu, yes. I didn’t want to tell you because—”

“Wait, why wouldn’t you want to tell me?” His face turns towards her, and she knows at that moment that she had fucked up. He had not assumed that she knew anything, only asked absentmindedly as memories flashed before his eyes. “Do you know something I don’t?”

She swallows thickly. She could lie to him, come up with lines and improvise, but Mingyu is one of those people that doesn’t deserve that. Instead, she tugs at the collar of the t-shirt on her body, sighing deeply. “Listen,” She starts. “When I got here, I found a box that said ‘throw away’ and it had a bunch of CD’s inside…”

Mingyu pulls back at that moment, shaking his head. “No—”

“And I watched them. You were in all of them with your ex…Yoona.” She whispers, looking over to the side, watching the house that had both introduced her to the person she feels like she is falling for, and that may take him away at that moment. “I didn’t want to pry, I swear. I just…I just did and I kept on watching because of you, and destiny did its thing and it brought us together at the bar, and with you as my musical’s photographer.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mingyu asks, and she comes up with nothing. Because she didn’t want for him to close up with her, of course. “You knew more about him than I knew about you, and you didn’t even think about giving those CD’s to me…or just…or just tell me that she had kept them there!”

“Well, I just didn’t want you to think I was stalking you or something. It was all a coincidence!” She replies, only to have Mingyu running his hands through his hair, chuckling at the sky before groaning deeply.

“That’s my privacy!”

“Well, it’s not like I knew it was private before!” She argues back, frowning at him. “Besides, why is it so deep for you? You know about Haseul, why does it matter if I know that you almost married Yoona? It’s not like I’m jealous of a woman of your past—”

“Because you have no idea how long it took me to get over her!” Mingyu replies, voice rising, chest heaving. Then, a pout takes over his features as he explains himself, retreating the tone of voice he had just taken up on.

“If you’d let me know what happened, maybe I could understand—”

“Turns out I had a toxic relationship. She wanted me to be her little puppet, make her fantasy come true of a perfect man, and a perfect family, and possibly a…I don’t know…a social media presence where we showed how perfect we are but…I’m not perfect.” He breathes out, biting his bottom lip as he looks at her. “Can you blame me for not wanting to remember all the turmoil I went through because of her?”

“You can just not talk about it if that’s the case. I don’t mind. But you can tell me about these things—” She entices. “I’m not going to judge you, Mingyu. Our pasts are there for a reason—”

“Don’t give me that.” Mingyu answers, smile lines intensified by the purse of his lips. “You always say you want to change your past, to start again, to not remember—”

“But my past and my mistakes made me meet you!” She exclaims. “I can’t turn back time and change things because, maybe, I wouldn’t have met you if that was the case. I like you, Mingyu, almost married or not. I like you for who you are and who you were.”

“If you liked me so much, you could’ve just told me.” Mingyu mumbles, blinking softly.

“…I was afraid, okay? I get to be afraid, too. Just as you were.”

Mingyu falls silent for a second, deep in thought, walking backwards as he says: “I—I just need some time, okay? I get you, but I need…I need to process this.”

She tries to go after him, shaking her head. “Mingyu, don’t do that. We have to talk about this. I didn’t mean to remind you of a bad time—”

“Just…burn that fucking box and…and I’ll talk to you about it later, okay?” Mingyu whispers out, goosebumps going up her arms when she watches him go. Never had she seen him so shattered, hands shaking as he remembers that one portion of his life he never wanted back.

He had seemed so in love.

And now, he can’t fall in love as easily.

Yet, a new beginning is necessary, so when she retreats to her home, she picks up a lighter, walking far down the street with the box in hand to light it up.

The past makes who they are, but it doesn’t define them. From now on, she is the only one that can decide her future, and so can Mingyu for his own life.

###

“Care to tell me why you ruined every single one of my pictures?”

Last show, but Kaleigh doesn’t know it. Just as she’s applying another layer of purple onto her eye, as if to indicate the bruises from her character, Mingyu speaks to her. Over one week of not talking to each other, texts going ignored, time asked whenever they meet, and she has met more than the middle of the situation. Now she wants to go forward, know more of him than of herself, movement more eccentric in order to fuck up his work.

If that’s what it takes to get his attention…

She shrugs her shoulders, patting the makeup sponge against her eye. If he doesn’t want to talk, she won’t talk either. “Just some new dance moves. I added some popping because the character felt like it needed it.” It’s utter bullshit, and the way Jaehyo snorts from his spot tells her that no one believes her. Even Hyun seems to chuckle at her antics, Mingyu’s lost expression mirrored in the vanity.

“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Kim, I don’t think you can talk to the cast like that.” She answers, mischief painted on her face when she connects her gaze with his through the mirror.

Scoffing, he says: “You didn’t think that when you ruined all my shots from yesterday’s night.”

The makeup sponge now rests against the table, her fingers interlocked as she talks to him through the mirror. Today, Mingyu props some pink sunglasses on his head, a leather jacket placed on top of a white t-shirt. “I’m sure they look fine, Mr. Kim. They always do.”

“They’re all blurry.”

“My apologies. You may have to take some pictures tonight, then.”

“…If you even let me. You’re moving around like you have pinworms.”

“Oh my God!” Sue says from her spot, elbows pressing to the back of her chair to be able to look at the scenery. “Is this a pre-marital issue?”

“I think so.” Jaehyo conquers, but she only throws a look at them.

“He’s the one that doesn’t want to talk to me.” She says, standing up from her spot to be in front of Mingyu, in all his glory, staring back at her with a stoic expression. “So…in order to get his attention, I had to find other ways to do it.”

Mingyu breathes out softly, staring around the room before wrapping his hand around her arm. “You want to talk? Let’s do it in private.”

The storage room in which they had met initially, memory of the umbrella that she hit against his head, now becomes the spot for them to meet in. Far more cramped than she remembers it for, with a tiny chair that Mingyu used to take up on to check his pictures. The man in question locks the reddened door behind him, giving one step forward and hence, ending up pressed to her body, hands placed on his own hips when he asks:

“You have something to say? Speak.”

Maybe, she had tried the worst of ways to get his attention. Annoyance, for once, is not something that pairs up with Mingyu’s face in most occasions. Yet, she finally gets to hear his voice. Angered. Cut short. Yet, unknowing of the reality that breathes through her pores.

“I’m sorry…for not telling you I had seen those videos. It was your privacy and I shouldn’t have looked, but after I did, I should’ve told you and given them to you to get rid of them. I did, but yeah…” Her voice falls into a softened tone, looking into his brown irises, down to his straight nose, a few speckles of facial hair on top of his lip, barely noticeable and those rose-colored lips that she has been missing for the past week. All of him, really, from his voice to his thoughts, to the impatience that takes over him. “Mingyu, I would never judge you for your past. Not when you weren’t the one at fault. We all make mistakes and I don’t think any less of you for being naïve enough to involve yourself in that situation. I like you with or without Yoona in your life. If you want to talk about it, I’ll accept it…if you don’t—”

“I want to talk about it.” Mingyu says, breathing out in a way that has the warmth of him touching her lips. His chest expands, flush against her breasts, when he explains his truth. “I met Yoona when I was seventeen. She was friends with Seungkwan, a friend of mine, and he got us in this blind date thingy because…I don’t know, I was bored, I wanted a date.” He shrugs, though his eyes show that he really cares. “So, we started a relationship…and we started living together soon enough. I didn’t care. I worked two jobs, all to be able to move from our apartment to a bigger house, and then she got other jobs…and we made it. She said she wanted to have a family soon, that she’d start recording us…whatever. You know that part.” His life seemed so much easier than what he described, but that’s just what the video-camera showed. “Turns out that she got out of all her jobs, expected me to pay for everything, and lived the most exotic of lifestyles. If I ever told her we couldn’t buy something, she’d take it out on me…” Mingyu sighs, shaking his head in the process. “We’d fight all the time, but I loved her, so I proposed. Turns out that it didn’t work, and I cut off the engagement the morning of our wedding.”

“As you should have…” She elongates, only to have Mingyu chuckling darkly.

“Yeah. I was reassured that it was a good decision when three days later she started dating a famous YouTube guy and she started vlogging for real.”

“I’m so sorry, Mingyu.” With all the sincerity she can muster, locked away in the depths of her heart only for him to see, she sighs. “…You deserve better.”

“I know I do.” He finalizes. Looking down at her lips before smiling softly. “Glad we sorted that out.”

“Sorted that out? I acted like a spoiled brat just to get your attention. I’m sorry for that, too—”

“Ah, don’t worry.” Mingyu replies, wrapping his arms around her waist before pressing her back to the wall. The dry paint clings to her clothing, rubs against it when his fingers rub against her skin over the fabric. “You always have my attention, even if you ruin my pictures in purpose just to get me to talk to you. I needed some time, that’s all.”

“Yeah…I’m so sorry.”

Mingyu doesn’t utter another word, lips conjoining in a smile before they rest over her own. Much of the like of the type of kisses they had shared in that taxi ride, hands folding the fabric of her clothing when he brings her clothing, breathing against her skin as he slowly takes over the kiss. His lips part, his left hand going down to his hips, towards her thigh before lifting it over, pulling their bodies closer when he settles himself between her legs, head turned to the side just as her fingers rake through his hair.

He doesn’t care. Doesn’t mind having his hair messy, his camera pushed away from his neck and put carefully to the side as she continues kissing him. Though, he does care about her, only pulling away to ask: “How many minutes you have until you go up the stage?”

Staring at the clock on the wall, she breathes against his lips. “Like thirty minutes.”

“May I…?” Mingyu asks, eyes joining desire with worry, pressing his hips forward, abdomen contracting when her hand caresses his jaw, touches his neck and lets her thumb rub over the column of his throat.

“…Of course, Mingyu.”

It’s not the most romantic of places, but it happens with a soul she doesn’t want to exchange. For once, his name becomes a poem, and she will never find a rhyme better than him.

###

Two set of judgmental eyes watch her as she slides the folded piece of paper in her hands towards Kaleigh. Always sporting an all-black outfit, those glasses that hide the malice in her gaze, and before her lips could part to utter one of her simplistic sentences, she bathes on the glow of getting out of her last show. Of trying her best, and yet, not having the best outcome.

“It’s over.” She says, sighing deeply with joined lips as she rests her hands in the depths of her jeans’ pockets. “I don’t want to be part of this musical anymore. Thank you for the opportunity, but I feel as though I don’t fit this team…or your vision of me, whatsoever.”

There, while the rest of the team are taking off their makeups, getting rid of their clothing, children bustling around, overexcited from the sceneries, Kaleigh is speechless. Hyun, on one hand, steps forward, eyes widened.

“She can’t leave.” Turning to her, she shakes her head. “You can’t leave, you’re one of the main characters.”

“I don’t think I will continue down a path of happiness if I stay here. My mental health comes first, and Kaleigh can’t bring me that as a director.” She adds, pointing at the paper in between Kaleigh’s hands, still unopened. “Right there, you can see my resignation letter. I don’t want to be part of this team anymore, and Kaleigh can choose to talk badly about me as an actress if she so pleases.”

Kaleigh scoffs from her spot, nodding at what she says. “Of course, I will. How unprofessional do you have to be to leave the musical like this?”

What hurts her the most is leaving her cast. Leaving her character, ever, that wants to give out such an important message about the reality people live. Instead, she has to let go. Better opportunities will come for a dream that is not yet set in stone. “Very. But I think it’s the best decision.” Pushing herself away from the situation, she starts walking away from the stage. Her home, really, but one that will fall to shambles if she doesn’t leave now.

She doesn’t expect to hear someone’s voice then. “We need you.” Mixed with her name, Hyun speaks. The woman that hates her the most, yet, when turning around, seems to look at her with a plea in her brown eyes. She smiles, because Hyun deserves it. The woman is given, that much she can say.

“You don’t.” She answers, sighing deeply. “The stage needs you, but it doesn’t need me. As long as you keep this story alive, I can be replaced. That, you don’t have to worry about—”

“But you won the audition—”

“No, it was given to me.” Truthfully, the more she thought about it, the more she realized Kaleigh never wanted her there for her talent. “And I don’t want to be there for publicity. I don’t need that pressure on me. So, the real talent should stay.”

With that, she turns around, giving the last few steps until the coldness of the night bites at her skin.

Seated on the sidewalk, Mingyu rummages through his phone, unaware of her presence as he listens to music with his earphones plugged in. The cars pass by, gray concrete matching his dark outfit. Just a few hours earlier, she had seen him without him, but not sedated yet, she kneels until she is hugging him from behind, pressing a kiss to his cheek and humming in delight at the heat of his body.

Not hers. A person can’t be hers. And though he isn’t hers, she doesn’t mind it.

Mingyu takes off one of his earphones, turning around to look at her and asking a silent question with his eyes.

“What?” She puzzles, only to have Mingyu widening his eyes.

“How did it go?”

“Badly. It hurts.” Her heart aches at the idea of not getting another chance, giving all her might into acting tonight…and perhaps, the only night that she will get to act again. “But it’s what I had to do. I’m going to find a better opportunity later on.”

His smile widens, leaning forward to steal a kiss from her lips before joining his free hand with the ones conjoined over his stomach. “I’m so proud of you.”

“If you’re so proud, let me invite you to dinner.” Standing up, she watches as he follows after her steps.

“Let me pay for once!” He whines, only to see her shaking her head.

“Nope. I’m your designated sugar mommy.”

“You’re totally not.” Mingyu denies, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

“Come on, let me live the dream.”

Though, hers will remain paused for now…until a better chance comes about. A real one, perhaps.

###

Bad news always come like a train-wreck. Life is silent for a second, too eerily silent, and the moment she opens her eyes, everything is shattered. This time around, it wasn’t any different. Seated on the counter, Mingyu working on making a set of pancakes, taking his precious time on heating them to utter perfection, she doesn’t think anything when turning on her phone. If anything, she is staring forward, at the way Mingyu’s back muscles contract with the movements of his arms.

Kim Mingyu has this magic of appearing in someone’s life and never giving the person the benefit of asking themselves if they want him to leave. She doesn’t, and that’s factual. A little above a month after she left her job at the musical, she has tried to avoid all contact with everyone from her cast—from Jaehyo to Sue, obviously with Hyun, trying her hardest to show to her family and friends back at home that she can stay here and fulfill a dream. So far, nothing has worked.

But Mingyu has.

Not spoken into the night but fallen into place, Mingyu spends more time at her place than he does on his, giving a piece of his heart to her, while he has all of hers. With each passing day, the comfort of him becomes the sunlight of her days, though the clouds seem to gather in her personal life. Mingyu finds gigs, but the tabloids have forgotten about her after the viral video of her past relationship.

This time around, the headlines in her phone—from the notifications of her favorite magazine—inform her something more.

Han Hyun dies while practicing for new musical. Doctors confirm gastrointestinal bleeding.

When standing up, the chair falls behind her. Fear. Petrification. Perhaps, regret. Hyun had so much life within her—a pulsating need to be the best, and she was. Then, stress took up all of her life. So young, yet now not existing in the same world as them.

The room seems to rotate by the time Mingyu speaks her name into the dense air. “Hey, what happened?” He moves towards her, but she gives a few steps back, uttering the words that hurt her just by hearing them.

“Hyun died.”

One never really thinks about an enemy dying. A rival, really. The fear starts to become palpable when people think of their loved ones dying, but when it comes to someone that they can’t stand…it almost seems favorable. To have them away from this world. Yet, she can’t even utter another word, entering her room and throwing herself into the bed. The sheets are crumpled between her palms, tears blinding her vision as she thinks of all the times, she bumped hands with Hyun.

She was so talented.

It almost felt like she had to take care of her. Each and every single time she told her to mind her own business, she never did.

The door opens softly, her name called once again, though she doesn’t want to listen. Never has she liked Mingyu seeing her crying, but at this point, when he rests his weight next to her on the bed, his elbow resting adjacent to her body as he horizontally leans his weight on her back, she can’t help but let out a little weep.

“Hey…” His fingers trail down her spine, speaking softly. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” She turns around, hair done a mess as she stares into his eyes, trying to stop the hiccups that shake her frame. “She had so much to give, and look at what happened to her. I couldn’t even—I don’t know, say goodbye to her?”

“You don’t have to think about what you didn’t do.” Mingyu replies after a few seconds of silence, bringing his body forward until he is hovering over her, kissing the tears away before pressing a soft kiss to her lips. “…You can only think about what you’re going to do now. Not take people for granted. Get to know people better. Avoid rivalries. That’s all you can do.”

Staring up at him, she realizes one thing. One day, we’re here, the other, we’re not. We don’t belong to anyone—not even ourselves—, but to the world instead. Life plays with us like marionettes, puts us in places that we think we can never get out of, but the road ahead is so much more surprising. Living in a labyrinth, looking for people who understood her, new beginnings and thrilling stories, she found someone. A person that she doesn’t want to lose, and someone whom hasn’t heard the truth. The full and heart-wrenching truth.

Because Mingyu is there. Belongs to the universe, and never to her. One day, anything could happen. He could get tired, bored, could simply move on and call it quits. He could come home one day and say that he doesn’t want to be with her anymore. But now, as his sleepy gaze stares at her with worry, she realizes that she doesn’t want him to belong to her. She wants to be with him. Aches and desires to spill her truth out and enjoy him for the time that life plants him there for her to enjoy.

May the flowers bloom of the seeds her words leave. They could die, but they will get to grow first.

“…I have to tell you something. Before it’s too late to actually say it…” She mumbles, rubbing her eyes and her nose, sniffling softly before looking into his eyes. There has always been this understanding in him, even when he doesn’t always say the proper thing—as if he knows, deep within him, that they understand each other. That no matter how many times mistakes settle on their hearts, they know their deepest intentions. “It may be too soon for you and I know I said I’d wait until you’re ready but—”

“I love you.” He says it first, aware, not shying away, savoring the taste on the roof of his mouth before stealing another kiss away from her lips. “I don’t want to wait. Good things can’t wait.”

He always said he wasn’t the most patient, but perhaps, she was the one that would wait a thousand years just to have him.

There is not an exact reason that she can think of as to why he would love her. Why, out of all things, Mingyu would open up his heart again—and why she does, too. They have been broken, but they grew two new, stronger hearts. Not fixing the old ones, but helping each other craft a new organ. One where he made a home for her, and she has made a throne for him.

“I love you and I want you to know that I’m here for you. For anything. Whatever you need me for.” He breathes out, rubbing his fingers on her cheek before looking down at her. “…If it wasn’t that what you were going to tell me, I’m sorry. Again, my second name is dumbass so—”

“I love you, too, Mingyu.” She tries to chuckle through the tears, though her bottom lip pouts out and Mingyu sighs deeply, wrapping his arms around her and relishing her with a kiss.

Though love is not perfect, it’s much better to meet in the middle. Two people who will either end up together forever, or for whatever long ever decides to stay. Never can be an option, too, but she knows that whatever the outcome is, Mingyu is the one portion of her past that she would never want to forget.

And it’s time for her to learn that the hours of the life clock are ticking, and she wants to spend all of them with him.

[pearlplusau]

Complete Set of Pink Pearl/Coral designs in Unleash the Light style!!

The order of the designs goes by:

Original/Canon

Tripixle's version

Rebellion (Which, I think I did pretty alright!)

Season 1

Season 2-3

CYM

Just to be clear: None of these designs are mine. I simply followed the designs from Tripixle's design reference that is in every single one of the images above.

Anyways, this has been a huge project for me. I really enjoyed drawing and coloring them.

Also, here's a little life update if anyone's interested:

It's been two months since I got my first ever real job. And let me tell you, adapting to the work-life from school life is not as easy as I thought.

Also, the company I'm working for is not exactly local. It's kinda local but the company's main office is in another country. So I need to get used to the policy that is pretty different from where I'm from.

The job itself is probably gonna be the closest thing to my dream than I'll ever have. I'm an Editor and a tutor for Mandarin. For my editing job, they give me topics and I need to do research on writing informative writings about them. Or, I get a pretty general topic and I need to write interesting short stories about those topics.

The write-ups I'm doing are mainly for foreign students who are in the progress of learning and mastering the English Language.

The biggest downside I have is the tutoring in Mandarin. Now, I am Chinese and my first language is Chinese. But my major from University is English Education, so it's still a challenge for me to keep at it.

But hey, a job's a job, especially during these hard times. (*cough*covidandlockdown*cough*) And I'm pretty thankful that I can still land the job.

Hope you enjoyed this little project of mine. Drawing and coloring have been a huge break from work.

If you've read till the end, thank you, I really appreciate it. Thank you for being interested and have a great day.

[writing-prompts-for-friends]

Notes from Stephen King’s “On Writing” 07: The Revision Process

Next, King walks us through his revision process. He makes it clear that this method is not the only method. It is merely a method. 

How Many Drafts?

“For me, the answer has always been two drafts and a polish (with the advent of word-processing technology, my polishes have become closer to a third draft).”

King admits that this number of drafts is not the golden rule. Kurt Vonnegut rewrote each page of his novels until he got them exactly the way he wanted them. This meant that when the manuscript was finished, the book was finished. (I certainly am not that big of a perfectionist, nor am I that patient lol.)

For beginner writers in particular, King offers the following advice:

“Let me urge that you take your story through at least two drafts; the one you do with the study door closed and the one you do with it open.

“This first draft--the All-Story Draft--should be written with no help (or interference) from anyone else. There may come a point when you want to show what you’re doing to a close friend because you’re proud of what you’re doing or because you’re doubtful about it. My best advice is to resist this impulse. Keep the pressure on; don’t lower it by exposing what you’ve written to the doubt, the praise, or even the well-meaning questions of someone from the Outside World. Let your hope of success (and your fear of failure) carry you on, difficult as that can be. There’ll be time to show off what you’ve done when you finish...but even after finishing I think you must be cautious and give yourself a chance to think while the story is still like a field of freshly fallen snow, absent of any tracks save your own.”

Basically, King just wants you to get it all out onto the paper, with no external forces influencing you (for better or for worse). Just get that first draft out, and then open it up for closer examination both to yourself and others.

Let It Breathe and Then Dig In!

Okay, so you finished writing the first draft! Celebrate! Rejoice! Maybe cry!

...And then throw that manuscript into a drawer, lock it up tight, and don’t look at it for a minimum of six weeks. And in the meantime, do something totally unrelated to what you wrote. Get into knitting. Write a short story that is nothing like what you just finished. It’s consumed you for months now--so give your mind and imagination some time to reset and chill. 

King recommends a minimum of six weeks, but even longer is okay. Resist all temptation to peek at it. And once the six weeks have passed, do the following:

“Take your manuscript out of the drawer. If it looks like an alien relic bought at a junk-shop or a yard sale where you can hardly remember stopping, you’re ready. Sit down with your door shut, a pencil in your hand, and a legal pad by your side. Then read your manuscript over.

“Do it all in one sitting, if possible. Make all the notes you want, but concentrate on the mundane housekeeping jobs, like fixing misspellings and picking up inconsistencies. There’ll be plenty; only God gets it right the first time and only a slob says, ‘oh well, let it go, that’s what copyeditors are for.’

“If you’ve never done it before, you’ll find reading your book over after a six-week layover to be a strange, often exhilarating experience. It’s yours, you’ll recognize it as yours, even be able to remember what tune was on the stereo when you wrote certain lines, and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else, a soul-twin, perhaps. This is the way it should be, the reason you waited. It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darlings than it is to kill your own.”

You’ll also be on the lookout for any glaring holes in the plot or character development. And if you spot any of these big holes, you are forbidden from feeling depressed about them. Don’t be hard on yourself. Everybody makes mistakes, and they can all be fixed. 

Generally King goes through the first reading fixing all the superficial issues, like typos and unclear antecedents. But as he’s doing that, he’s also asking himself the Big Questions:

Is this story coherent? 

If it is, what will turn coherence into a song?

What are the recurring elements?

Do they entwine and make a theme?

What’s it all about?

“Most of all, I’m looking for what I meant, because in the second draft I’ll want to add scenes and incidents that reinforce that meaning. I’ll also want to delete stuff that goes in other directions. There’s apt to be a lot of that stuff, especially near the beginning of a story, when I have a tendency to flail.”

I can understand what King is saying here about the flailing at the beginning. Because I do not plot when I write, I have ideas that crop up halfway through that would require being introduced earlier, for example. Or perhaps as my understanding of the characters evolved as I wrote more, I realize that they behaved out-of-character earlier on. This is certainly one downside to not plotting. But isn’t is also kinda liberating to be able to take detours and wind up at a different but equally interesting destination?

Okay. So go ahead and fix all of the issues you found, and your first revision is complete.

Second Opinions and the Second Revision

“Do all opinions weigh the same? Not for me.”

Now you’re done with the first draft. You’ve patched over any plot holes and smoothed out those typos and grammar mistakes. You’ve polished the symbols and themes until they shine.

Once this is done, King gives a copy of work to his wife and several close friends (4-8) to receive detailed feedback. In other words, he has several close friends beta for him. 

“Many writing texts caution against asking friends to read your stuff, suggesting you’re not apt to get a very unbiased opinion from folks who’ve eaten dinner at your house and sent their kids over to play with your kids in your backyard. 

“The idea has some validity, but I don’t think an unbiased opinion is exactly what I’m looking for. And I believe that most people smart enough to read a novel are also tactful enough to find a gentler mode of expression than ‘This sucks.’ Besides, if you really did write a stinker, wouldn’t you rather hear the news from a friend while the entire edition consists of a half-dozen Xerox copies?”

What he gets back is 4-8 very detailed and different analyses of what he wrote. What’s very important to remember is that every reader looks at a work through a different lens. If half of them say a character’s portrayal is far-fetched but the other half say the opposite, than their feedback regarding that point has balanced out. However, if the majority of them say that something doesn’t work, then King goes back and sees if he can improve it. 

Also, different readers pick up on different details. This is the age of internet and now we are able to check facts whenever we like, but it is still nice to have something of a subject matter expert on hand, because they are liable to pick up on details that the writer may not. 

For example, I often beta fanfiction for anime. I am fluent in Japanese, live in Japan, and have studied Japanese culture and history. While I would never claim to be a “subject matter expert” on Japan, I am able to make certain corrections regarding, say, the type of kimono a character should be wearing, that the writer would not have considered. 

It’s very easy to accept feedback that deals with facts (i.e. a beta corrects you on the standard procedures for CPR). However, it’s much harder to handle subjective feedback (i.e. “The ending felt inconclusive.”). Having put as much work as you have into creating this, it can feel like a personal attack because this story is a very dear part of you. What do you do if your beta tells you something like this?

“Subjective evaluations are, as I say, a little harder to deal with, but listen: if everyone who reads your book says you have a problem, you’ve got a problem and you better do something about it.

“Plenty of writers resist this idea. They feel that revising a story according to the likes and dislikes of an audience is somehow akin to prostitution. ... But come on, we’re talking about half a dozen people you know and respect. If you ask the right ones, they can tell you a lot.

“Do all opinions weigh the same? Not for me. In the end I listen most closely to [my wife], because she’s the one I write for, the one i want to wow. If you’re writing primarily for one person besides yourself, I advise you pay very close attention to that person’s opinion. And if what you hear makes sense, then make the changes. You can’t let the whole world into your story, but you can let in the ones that matter the most. And you should.”

I think, especially in the age of prolific fanfiction in which the author usually updates as they write the story, the author feels a lot of pressure from their readers. Readers chomping at the bit for the main characters to have a naughty scene, or demanding to know about that one secret thing that you keep alluding to. A lot of fanfic writers struggle to tow the line of “writing a good story based on reader feedback” and “pandering.” 

My advice to fanfic writers out there is to tell those thirsty readers to read a one-shot if they’re looking for a quick fix of smut, and to have some goddamn patience. You’re trying to tell a story, one that builds and progresses, and that takes time. Don’t give in to those “OMG MAKE THEM KISS ALREADY” reviews. But if a lot of readers say something like, “I feel like this character wouldn’t do that,” then perhaps you should re-evaluate that. 

On Pace and Reducing Glut

“Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft - 10%.”

So now you have your first draft done. You have your feedback from your trusted betas. And now you need to go and make the final changes. 

King states that you should rely on your most trusted betas to gauge whether or not your story is paced correctly and if you’ve handled the back story in satisfactory fashion. “Pace” is the speed at which your narrative unfolds. 

”There is a kind of unspoken (hence undefended and unexamined) belief in publishing circles that the most commercially successful stories are novels are fast-paced. I guess the underlying thought is that people have so many things to do today, and are so easily distracted from the printed word, that you’ll lose them unless you become a kind of short-order cook, serving up sizzling burgers, fries, and eggs over easy just as fast as you can. 

“But you can overdo the speed thing. Move too fast and you risk leaving the reader behind, either by confusing or by wearing him/her out. ... I believe each story should be allowed to unfold at its own pace, and that pace is not always double time. Nevertheless, you need to beware--if you slow the pace down too much, even the most patient reader is apt to grow restive.”

So how can you strike a happy medium? Rely on your most trusted betas and their input. King says, “Every story and novel is collapsible to some degree. If you can’t get out ten percent of it while retaining the basic story and flavor, you’re not trying very hard. The effect of judicious cutting is immediate and often amazing. You’ll feel it and your betas will too.”

On backstory, King issues some opinions and advice:

It’s important to get the backstory in as quickly as possible, but it’s also important to do it with some grace.

A reader is more interested in what’s going to happen instead of what already did.

Even when you tell your story in a straightforward manner, you’ll discover you can’t escape at least some backstory. 

“The most important things to remember about backstory are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don’t get carried away with the rest.”

Source: King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Hodder, 2012.

[wordsnstuff]

Guide To Writing Forbidden Love

This is also available on wordsnstuffblog.com!

Forbidden love is a trope that reaches far and wide, across every genre and every age group. I took what my followers told me their struggles were with writing this dynamic and did my best to explain the confusing and instruct on the often unspoken keys to getting it right. Happy writing!

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Choosing The Right Obstacle

There’s a lot of different things you could put in the way of your characters being together. Choosing these obstacles is not just about what you like to read about most, although that is a large factor. It’s also important to think about your setting and your characters’ backgrounds because these two aspects set up the obstacles to hit them organically.

Internal vs. External Conflict 

A relationship can be prevented from blossoming for many reasons, and not all of them have to do with things outside the characters’ control. Some relationships are forbidden because one or both of the characters see the consequences of them being together as too severe to risk. A good example of this is when the characters are afraid of a longstanding friendship falling apart in the case of a breakup.

The external conflict in a forbidden love story shouldn’t ever be just external. Large cultural differences and major factors will have influenced the characters’ own mindsets, and this should be reflected. They will have doubts about their relationship as well, so show that. It adds depth to the conflict.

Depicting A Healthy Relationship

It’s important that you decide whether your story is meant to be a happily ever after or a cautionary tale. Be purposeful in how you portray your characters and their actions and how you make it come across to the reader. In the case of forbidden love, it’s very easy to romanticize impulse and obsessive behavior for the sake of melodrama and grand romantic profession. If you’re going to depict, say, two characters falling in love with the idea of each other, make sure you also get across to the reader that it’s unhealthy behavior and emphasize the conflict that this will inevitably introduce.

Nailing The Angst

There will obviously be a lot of turmoil and struggle in a forbidden love situation, and the best way to show your characters suffering is by showing how their lives are without each other. Show the reader why the characters are miserable and why they are so relieved when they’re together again. It’s hard to live a life apart from the ones you love, especially when there’s something in your way that you have no power to change. Show that, and the reader will empathize with your characters. 

Avoiding Melodrama

Drama is key with forbidden love, but going over the top can put a bad taste in your reader’s mouth. Be cautious when coming up with plot points. Ask yourself, “is this too much?”, because drama has its place and it doesn’t always have to be super believable, but the suspension of disbelief is important to any work in any genre, so toe that line carefully. 

Common Struggles

~ How do I twist this trope to be original?... Some or a lot of your plot points and story details will be similar to other works in the genre, but my best advice is to take note of the similar details and try to twist them a little to make them your own. Don’t form your story around the trope, insert the trope into the story.

~ How do I show the relationship progressing at a natural pace with a limited number of opportunities for the characters to interact privately?... This is difficult, but can be done. Sometimes forbidden love blossoms over long periods of time through small, meaningful interactions. A lot of my favorite stories with this trope begin when the characters are children, and develop as they grow older and develop more freedom to see each other. Use the time your characters have together wisely and make their interactions as meaningful as possible.

~ How do I depict forbidden love that is in a moral grey area, or straight up wrong, without romanticizing/glamorizing/idealizing it? (For example, cheating, incest, workplace relationships, large age gaps, etc.)... Again, if you’re going to depict unhealthy behavior and relationship dynamics, just avoid framing them in a way that makes them seem desirable or acceptable. Show the issues with these kinds of relationships, and show why they’re not okay. A lot of the problem with things like workplace romances, for instance, in fiction is that it doesn’t show the consequences of the downsides. With employee romances, there can be a large imbalance of power that leads to manipulation or abuse. Show that, rather than glossing over it for the sake of filling your book with steamy moments.

~ How should I approach relationships that are forbidden because of issues having to do with sexuality, class, race, alignment, etc.?... Be mindful of both characters’ perspectives and experiences, because the consequences of these relationships will have different effects on different people with very different circumstances.

~ How should I depict love that is forbidden because it’s one-sided?... This is caused by internal conflict and will mostly lead to drama between the two characters. An important thing to note here is that, even if two people are good friends, any unwanted advances after a character has stated their answer is not okay. It doesn’t matter how the other character feels. If one has made their feelings clear, the other should back off. If it goes any further, be sure to let your reader know that their behavior has become unhealthy.

~ What about lighter forms of forbidden love that is culturally taboo, rather than actually forbidden, like polyamory or generational difference?... That’s a whole different ballpark having to do with the struggle of being an outcast, rather than having major obstacles in their way. I would approach it keeping all partners’ perspectives in mind and be mindful of unhealthy behavior. As long as your characters are all legally consenting adults engaging in healthy relationships, there’s nothing wrong with depicting their relationships in a positive light. 

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[bltngames]

SAGE 2020: The Usual Suspects

Hi, folks! Back when I used to work at TSSZ a lot of people really enjoyed reading my articles where I’d talk about various games at the Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE), and I’ve gotten more requests in the last month and a half to continue doing those types of articles than I think I’ve ever gotten about anything else I’ve ever done before. So, here we are!

But I also need to be real with you: there are a lot of games at SAGE. It was exhausting enough when there were 70, 80, or even 90 games. Heck, the one year I wrote about 85-something games by myself, I sort of felt like I was going to die. This year, there are over 220 games at SAGE. It is physically and emotionally impossible for me to talk about everything, and it may even be impossible for me to play everything. Things will fall through the cracks. Most things, probably. Though I am responsible for basically inventing SAGE 20 years ago, I am also a human. I have my limits, and I am sorry it has to be this way.

Structurally, we’re going to be doing things a little bit differently, and you should expect this to be a little fast and loose. Since I’m not talking about every single game on the show floor, articles are going to be broken up into types:

“Usual Suspects” will be for games that either appeared at previous SAGEs or that I’m at least aware of.

“Fan Games” should be obvious, and it’s whatever doesn’t fall under Usual Suspects.

“Indies” is the same deal, but for original games.

And finally, there will be a “Honorable Mentions” article for whatever random leftovers I don’t cover in the first three articles. Looking forward to me talking about your game, but I don’t mention it? Tell me about it and maybe it’ll end up here.

Without any more delay, let’s talk about those Usual Suspects...

Sonic GT

Sonic GT has always been kind of a difficult game to control, but usually it just took a little bit of getting used to. There was always a period of adjustment, where you had to learn the game’s quirks. But, over time, I feel like the game is also just getting… quirkier. Every time I come back to this, I slam head first into the Sonic GT’s learning curve, and it always feels just a little bit steeper. This is one of those games that tries to fit a lot of abilities into a tiny amount of buttons. It works, but it feels like you have to memorize an operator’s manual. It’s all about figuring out which button to hold when to get what state. But, man… when it clicks into place, it’s still kind of magic. And, at the very least, the levels have all been reworked to take better advantage of Sonic’s high-flying, death-defying acrobatics. You’ve just got to be willing to learn. The real downside of this new version is the inclusion of a proper story mode -- I don’t have anything against having cutscenes in your game or whatever, but for the purposes of reviewing these games, some ability to fast forward through the talking heads so I could get back to the gameplay would’ve been nice. You can skip ahead in cutscenes you’ve already watched, but that doesn’t help when it’s your first time through. Oh well. So it goes. (Update: in the process of getting this article posted, Sonic GT has been patched to make cutscenes always skippable.)

Project SXU (Sonic X-treme Unity)

Another year, another Sonic X-treme recreation. This one’s interesting because it seems to be the most “complete” yet, offering the four most famous levels: Jade Gully, Crystal Frost, Red Sands and Death Egg. Intentionally or unintentionally, this also seems to replicate quite a few quirks we’ve seen in Sonic X-treme’s controls in the videos that have been released of the in-development build. Which means that it, uh, kind of sucks to play. I realize that’s kind of rude, but I’m sort of allowed to say that. 15 years ago, I was basically the only person on the internet that cared what happened to Sonic X-treme, so... I started contacting developers, starting with the game's producer, Mike Wallis. He lead us to Chris Senn, and that broke the dam on information about this game. Now, I don’t claim ownership over everything that came out of this, I’m simply saying I was the one who got the ball rolling. I watched the mystery of Sonic X-treme slowly get uncovered with as much intent as one could possibly have. It is a fascinating piece of lost media, but as a game… well, I think it got canceled for a reason. SXU shows us a clear vision of that, with a game that’s disorienting to look at and hard to control. Heck, if you’re using a controller, you can’t even use the analog stick -- you have to use a d-pad, leading to controls that feel frustratingly twitchy. But that's true to the experience. I probably spent almost as long in this demo accidentally slipping into bottomless pits as I did exploring its levels. Again, this more or less feels accurate to what we’ve seen in videos, though I do think Sonic probably feels a little too sensitive, here. Regardless, it’s still absolutely fascinating.

“Sonic Infinity Engine” Games

I’m cheating a little bit, here. This is technically three entries, but it’s in “Usual Suspects” because there’s been Infinity Engine games at SAGE for a few years now. Listen, it’s my site, my rules, and we’re playing fast and loose, baby!

Adventure Pack 2

This claims to be a “pack” of multiple levels, but the one level I played went on for over 25 minutes without showing any signs of ending. The level is… well, it’s the kind of stuff we’ve seen at SAGE for years and years and years, a space previously occupied by SonicGDK and BlitzSonic before it, where somebody is clearly starting out learning 3D level design, has some prefab assets, and goes to town creating a huge, intricate environment… that doesn’t fit a Sonic game at all. Too many tight spaces, too much enemy spam, and too much labyrinthine pacing. This is “Sonic Visits Anor Londo,” and while it looks interesting visually, it’s easy to get lost, or worse, killed because something isn’t functioning right. Like a lot of Infinity Engine stuff, it’s a bit hit or miss.... And now, also cramped.

Infinity+ Colorful Combat

The primary goal of this seems to be to update the Infinity Engine with extra features, something that I think is pretty welcome. The Infinity Engine is okay, but it’s missing a little bit of polish that the original developer neglected to give it before abandoning the project. This helps tighten some of that stuff up, while also introducing Wisp powers and more playable characters. Some of the new characters could still use some work, yet, but given the project is still in active development, that’s pretty much a guarantee. This could end up being the defacto version of the Sonic Infinity Engine.

Sonic Reforge: Red Ridge (Blockout)

This is what’s called a “Grey Box.” Rather than build out a fully-detailed level, you get a rough estimate on how the stage will flow before you put all the graphics in. What’s here is okay, I guess, but the level loops back on itself in ways that can be kind of confusing. There are a few places where it’s not really clear where you’re supposed to go next, and I spent several minutes running in circles. I’m also not a huge fan of the changes to Infinity’s physics; jumping off of ramps is a key part of the Sonic experience, but there are several places here where that doesn’t work -- to get the height needed to progress, you just need to roll really fast. It works, but it doesn’t feel like the Sonic I’m familiar with.

Sonic World DX

I have a bit of history with this game. Or, well, with a different version of this game. I wasn’t kind to some of the original entries at SAGE many years ago, but over time, they’ve cleaned the game up and streamlined it a fair amount. Now we have the “DX” release, a further cleanup effort splintered off from the main project, but to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what’s different from the previous release. The main version of Sonic World supports an absolutely gargantuan amount of content, with 50 playable characters and at least that many levels. It was big, and weird, and impressive. This demo ships with three or four playable characters and eight stages. Beyond that, there’s not much else to say -- it’s still Sonic World, though this release doesn’t work right with my controller. It picks up the controller binds from the main version of Sonic World, correctly assuming I’m using a DualShock 4, but none of the buttons are correct. When it asks me to press the X button, I have to press Circle for it to properly register. Not only that, but the right stick camera control is completely broken. Switching to an Xbox controller fixes the camera issues, but now the face buttons have the opposite problem: when it asks me to press A to jump, I have to press X. Throws my whole vibe off, like wearing your shoes on the wrong feet. The menus are bizarre, too -- while adjusting the volume, you can’t push left or right to adjust the levels, you have to use controller face buttons for some reason. This whole thing feels like I stepped back in time to 2013 in a bad way.

Sonic Freedom

I feel like I’ve been waiting to see a major development from Sonic Freedom for half a decade at this point. The art considerations for this game are no joke, and I do not envy anyone trying to make a proper high-def 2D Sonic game that looks this good. But, well… it’s another year, and there’s not a lot here. It plays fine, I guess -- the controls are decent, at least. The problem is the level design. Does this level even end? I’m not sure. I know previous demos for Sonic Freedom have had more than one level, but the stage you start out in here is a confusing, empty labyrinth with respawning enemies and a finite number of rings. You climb up and up and up, but eventually I reached what felt like a dead end. Visually it will always look incredible, but I’m wondering if it’ll ever actually become a game at any point in the future.

BraSonic 20XX

Here’s a strange blast from the past I wasn’t expecting. BraSonic is an old fangame from probably more than a decade and a half ago. It was so long ago that I can’t even actually remember if I played the old version of the game or not, but I definitely remember the name. What really throws me for a loop playing the 20XX version now is how much it feels like a game from back in the early 2000’s. The artwork, the sound effects, the locations, all of it makes me feel like I’m 19 again. Thankfully, this doesn’t play like a fangame from 2004; physics seem pretty solid, level design flows pretty well, and it generally seems to be fun, weird, and most importantly, unique. There aren’t many fan games here at SAGE that open with their first boss fight being against Sonic the Hedgehog. If you find yourself getting burnt out from so many Sonic fan games feeling same-y, this could be a good change of pace.

Sonic Frenzy Adventure

Maybe it’s the fact that this is the 20th Anniversary of the Sonic Amateur Games Expo, but here’s another very old fangame coming back out of the woodwork for an enhanced modern re-release. This game was a mainstay of the mid-to-late 2000’s SAGE events, after which it disappeared before being finished. Well, maybe it was finished. Again, a lot of this stuff was so, so, so long ago that this poor old man’s memory just can’t recall it. Seeing Frenzy Adventure back warms my heart, though. It’s an old friend in what has proven to be a very challenging year. Admittedly, parts of it still feel a bit mid-2000’s, but I consider those charming quirks. Throwbacks to a simpler era. At the very least, controls have been improved, so it does play better than the old releases did. Good stuff. Glad to see you again, dude.

Sonic Speed Course

This was a game that turned up last year, but in the kerfuffle I didn’t get around to trying it, even though I really wanted to. This is clearly a game inspired by Kirby’s Dream Course, but instead of Nintendo’s pink puffball, we have Sonic and friends. Whereas Kirby gained abilities by bowling through enemies, this adapts a more traditional Sonic gameplay structure of item boxes filled with shields and other powerups. But here’s my deep dark secret: even though I love Kirby’s Dream Course in concept, there’s a part of me that feels an intense hatred for that game. I have distinct memories of renting Kirby’s Dream Course as a kid and getting really far into the game, but trying to play it as an adult I’m baffled at how difficult it is. The main problem I have is that every stroke you take subtracts from your health, meaning you can only hit the ball so many times before you just… die. This makes for a very, very steep learning curve that discourages play and experimentation. Every shot truly, deeply matters and eventually I find myself caught in a death spiral and staring at the game over screen. All of this is replicated in Sonic’s Speed Course, which, much like with Kirby, I find myself drawn to like a moth to the flame -- only to come away feeling dejected and like I’m just not good enough. For fans of Kirby’s Dream Course, this is undoubtedly good news, as this means Sonic Speed Course is faithful to the tone of that game. But I find myself wishing there was a practice mode or something that let me play these courses without the punitive health system, because I’m ready to love them.

Sonic: Triple Trouble 16-Bit

When you write about so many games at SAGE every year, things start to blur together... a lot. I seem to recall that Triple Trouble 16-Bit last year was good, but had room for improvement. Well, this year, this demo feels… really quite good. I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical about remaking this game. Sonic: Triple Trouble was among the first batch of Game Gear games I ever owned as a kid, and while I liked the game, in my adulthood, I feel like I’ve come to appreciate Sonic Chaos more. But so much has been added to this game that it’s really come into its own. It uses Triple Trouble more as a jumping off point to become something fresh and interesting, and on top of that, this demo is pretty polished. This game was kind of always on my radar, but it’s really turning into something special.

Battle Cross Fever

Every year, I download this game hoping for some kind of single player offering, and every year I’m let down. Battle Cross Fever is a fighting game that plays a lot like Smash Bros., but contains elements that pull it closer to traditional fighting games like Street Fighter. It’s the kind of game that can check with the server to make sure you’re playing the latest version, but doesn’t have true online multiplayer -- instead advertising that you should use a piece of screen sharing software like Parsec to accomplish online multiplayer. In their defense, the few times I’ve used Parsec, it’s basically been magic for how well it works. But I just want, like… anything that I can play by myself. Even if it’s just a super basic arcade mode with brain dead AI, anything is better than nothing. But, I suppose, I am an outlier. Judging by the horrific character select music I landed on, Battle Cross Fever has enough of a community that they could get fans to sing along to “Ghost Town” from Sonic Forces -- which is a fun idea, don’t get me wrong, but when you have loud voices over cheap microphones, well… I hope you aren’t wearing headphones like I was. Anyway, this game’s always seemed solid, but I’ve also never played it with another human being, so really, I’m speaking from the perspective of admiring the diverse roster and all of the fun arenas they’ve ported in. Maybe someday it’ll get some single player content.

I’ll be back with another article… uh, eventually. In truth, I was only going to feature five games here, but it ended up being ten, so we’ll see how many are in future articles when we get there!

[fandom-necromancer]

Let’s write together: Heart Reset

Chapter 1 - Substitute Detectives

Featuring:

@aurea-b with “Don’t tell me you watched me sleep all night.” @thetruefor3stspirit with “Not gonna lie... I’d die for these soft tiddies.” @rufina72 and Spirit with “Gavin’s cat” & “Reed900 cats” A baguette with “Ralph” @sparklingrainbowdragon with “Ralph/Jerrys” An anon with “Connor/Chloe” (more of them in chapter 3) an anon with “Gavin accidentally puts salt into his coffee. Drinks full cup without flinching” an anon with “Maybe an old friend/ ex from Gavin or Nines appears and causes drama™️” (more of him throughout the story)

Thank you all  so much for participating!

[Chapter 2]

-

Gavin was awoken far too early by his alarm clock. He pulled a grimace and groaned: ‘Phhhck.’ Without looking he tried to slap the damn thing off, only succeeding in weakly flopping his arm on his bedside table, annoying the cat sleeping on his chest. Still, the alarm stopped right then. ‘I love to watch your praised Detective brain work’, came the chuckled comment to that from his side. ‘Hey, tin-can, if you can hack my clock, why don’t you wake me up instead?’ ‘Oh, that’s an easy one. I love the way you scrunch up your face being all grumpy.’ ‘Hmm, yeah, I know I’m pretty.’ Gavin smiled sleepily, still not wanting to open his eyes. ‘You do that a few times in your sleep too. It’s cute.’ ‘Hmm, yeah, I’m phcking cute- wait what?’ That made him sit up and actually look at the android next to him. The cat, finally irritated enough, ran off towards the kitchen ‘Don’t tell me you watched me sleep all night.’ ‘Am I not allowed to admire my perfect human?’, Nines asked faking his hurt. ‘Nah, you are allowed to. Just don’t be creepy.’ ‘Oh yes? Well, if I may remind you of the time I was in stasis and you woke me up hugging me and telling me-‘ ‘No, I don’t want to hear it!’, Gavin laughed, covering his face in embarrassment. But Nines knew no mercy. ‘Telling me, and I quote: Not gonna lie... I’d die for these soft tiddies ?’ ‘I was super drunk this evening coming home from the bar with Tina, okay? Alcohol does these things to you.’ Nines just shrugged and got up. ‘Come on, we have to go to work.’ ‘Don’t remind me…’ ‘I’ll make you something to eat.’ ‘Thanks.’

They got to work perfectly punctual, as always. Ever since Nines took over their schedule, they wouldn’t be a minute late unless something happened. He had argued with Gavin so many times, he was tired of it by now and just complied. The toaster had good intentions after all, and Gavin knew he just liked to complain. The downside of this was that people knew when they would arrive and especially those earlier than them seemed to love bothering them when they just got there. One of these people was Connor.

Gavin had just put his jacket over the back of his chair while Nines downloaded the latest progress, when he practically felt the RK800’s eyes fall on him. ‘I’m off to the breakroom, puppy is coming and I need my coffee before that.’ Nines looked up and saw Connor stand up. ‘I’m coming with you.’ They escaped the android for approximately one more minute by this manoeuvre. Gavin had started filling the machine with water and waited for it to cook, while Nines watched him. ‘Ah, good to see you! Good morning to you two! I actually searched for you.’ ‘You mean you waited for us to arrive and the moment we were at our desks you struck?’, Nines corrected him, making Gavin smile to himself. ‘Maybe? Anyways, I need your help. So, me and Hank got this case and…’ Gavin sighed as Connor rambled on, pushing the button of the machine that made it spit out his life elixir, only half-heartedly listening. It was still too early in the morning for such talks. ‘and we have reviewed all evidence, we know nearly everything already, we only need to arrest him when we have enough evidence. And both of that will be possible a days from now, at the theme park just outside Detroit. I planned talking to some contacts at New Jericho who worked there, then plan a trap, but…’ ‘But?’ ‘Well, me and Chloe have our anniversary on that day and… Well I promised her to be there. Why did Browns have to choose that night for it?’

That made both Gavin and Nines give him his full attention, as they both asked simultaneously: ‘You are with Chloe?’ ‘Browns? Jayden Browns?’ Connor looked at them a bit surprised. He answered Nines first: ‘Well yeah, we met at Kamski’s villa before the revolution but after that a few times more and it just worked.’ ‘Honestly I thought you would tend more to Hank…’ ‘Wha- No! I see him more of a dad, I think. And yes, Gavin his first name is Jayden, how did you know?’ ‘Oh, nothing’, he brushed it off, taking his cup and taking a sip just to nearly spit it out. His eyes darted to the two shakers. Were they… Yes. Who the hell had switched sugar and salt around? But damn it, Connor was here, looking at him. And Gavin would never admit and error to the android and pointedly drunk the whole cup without flinching. ‘Old friend of mine’, he choked out. ‘Really? Well, that’s even better then! Because I really need you to take this case over for me.’ ‘What?’, Nines asked. ‘Why?’ ‘My date with Chloe? Also, you are way better suited with Gavin knowing our suspect! Come on, I’ll owe you one. Please?’ Nines looked over to Gavin, who nodded. ‘Fine, we’ll help you out. But just so you know, we’ll take all the credit, too.’ ‘Yes! Thank you so much! I’ll transfer all data we have so far to you!’

And with that he was off, leaving both of them standing in the breakroom. ‘Why did you accept?’, Nines asked. ‘We don’t have an active case at the moment. Also, Connor owing us? Can’t let that chance pass.’ ‘Quick thinking. Did you know you poured salt in your coffee?’ ‘I know.’ ‘Did you know Connor saw it too and chugging it did nothing to mask the error as we are not human?’ ‘I know!’ ‘I admire your stubbornness.’ ‘I know. Come on, let’s go read up on our new case.’

-

New Jericho, the apartment complex given to Markus after the revolution, wasn’t that far from the precinct. The drive there still felt overly long with the lingering silence neither of them knew how to break. It was Nines in the end, who prodded: ‘Who is the suspect, your “old friend”, really? You know him well.’ Gavin ducked his head. ‘Urgh, he’s an ex of mine. Don’t ask. I had a bullshit taste before you came along. Just… I mean I knew he could easily turn to illegal stuff, but mostly with androids and I didn’t care about your kind back then and-‘ ‘It’s okay.’ ‘It really isn’t, I should have turned him in earlier, even if it was just for property damage. But I was more focussed on getting away from him I guess.’ Nines could tell his human was uncomfortable talking about it. ‘He really wasn’t a good pick when even I realised it back then…’ ‘Well, you get your chance to arrest him now’, Nines said, trying to be comforting. ‘Yeah, right. Still can’t believe the idiot made it that far.’

It was impressive really. Jayden had been many things, but not intelligent. According to Connor’s research though, he had gotten his hands on data that could threaten all of androidkind. They didn’t know what it was exactly yet, but every goon they had managed to catch and interrogate had made a point in bragging about what was coming. Apparently, it would change the world as they knew it. Knowing the man, Gavin was sure though that that was an exaggeration. Maybe Jayden was convinced of it, but if he got his hands on it it couldn’t be that much of a danger. Whatever it would turn out to be though, Jayden was trying to sell it to the highest bidder and from what Connor had found out, the sum that was offered could make a man rich easily. The data would be handed over at exactly seven pm in tomorrow over at ArcaneWorld, a closed amusement park. The website stated it was closed for renovations, but Nines had found out the site hadn’t been updated in three years and the park had lost all investors. The owner had vanished mysteriously, likely because of the amount of debt the park had collected. But that would be a case for another time, now they needed to find out where exactly their suspects would meet on the roughly twenty-thousand square metre big areal.

‘You know, on a completely other point, I have never been to New Jericho. Do they even accept humans?’ It was meant as a joke, but Nines answered seriously. ‘There are certain areas you won’t be allowed in, yes. Although the majority is, not all androids have deviated yet. Some will never need to, being given freedom simply by prohibiting people from ordering them around. Those that do naturally without being converted mostly break their chains by trauma. Most connected to humans. You understand you won’t be let in there?’ Gavin laughed nervously. ‘Yeah, I understand that alright. Damn it, with the amount of hate-crime receding to the, well, to the normal levels, I thought that wouldn’t be that much of a problem anymore.’ ‘It got better the last years’, the android answered. ‘I think nowadays it’s just one floor that’s prohibited for humans. When I was awoken, there was only one floor humans were allowed to enter.’ ‘Shit…’, Gavin hissed, looking up towards their destination. The building could already be seen, although it would take a few more minutes to get there. ‘Our contacts, are they-‘ ‘No. One of them spent a lot of time away from humans, but he got better with time. I actually met him in my time there. The others never had a scarring experience with your kind, although maybe that’s also due to their programming. They are designed to be patient, easily forgiving and caring. No matter how drastic deviancy can change us, a few traits stay.’ ‘They?’, Gavin asked. ‘Just one person or how many are we speaking with?’ ‘Two persons’, Nines answered and smiled. ‘Roughly a hundred units. No one really knows how many there are.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘They share a hivemind. It was an interesting thought of Cyberlife as that made sharing information in a theme park much easier.’ ‘You androids are weird.’ ‘Says the human that is partially controlled by his intestine’s flora.’ ‘Yeah okay, point taken.’

They parked the car and went inside. Nines connected to the apartment buildings android network and announced themselves to the other androids. Nearly instantly he got an invitation back he translated for Gavin. ‘They are waiting for us in the gardens. They ask if you need anything.’ A bit phased, the human shook his head. ‘No, I’m good, thanks. Kind of forgot you can simply do that…’ ‘Believe me, it feels strange even to me. I prefer talking, too.’ They moved through the hallways towards the back exit and Gavin was surprised to see how many androids there were. It was normal to see them on the streets now, but without any humans around it still felt weird to him. Some of them didn’t wear their skin, all of them were openly interfacing on a regular basis. Still throughout it all, they acknowledged Gavin’s presence, some even waved or threw him a polite smile before going on with their day. It was so different to what Gavin had experienced with the human-only neighbourhoods that had formed after the revolution and androids had needed police protection entering. Gavin remembered the people living there just too well and how they reacted to Nines as the only android with them.

He honestly had thought of this to be similar for him.

Nines opened the door for him to step into a huge atrium mostly filled by a huge park-like area. ‘Over here’, Nines said, leading Gavin to where and android sat, plucking weeds. As they approached, he stood up, clasping his hands. His face was heavily damaged, Gavin could see that even from a distance. But the other android’s eyes were fixed on Nines, before he awkwardly waddled over. ‘RK900! RK900 is here, Ralph is happy to see you!’ Gavin watched his partner as the damaged android ran at him just to hug him. ‘I’m happy to see you too! Although my name is Nines now.’ ‘You got a name now? That’s good! Ralph likes it, it is a good name.’ ‘My friend here gave it to me’, Nines chuckled and laid an arm on Gavin’s shoulder. ‘Oh, you found a human? The one from the file you told me about?’ Nines blushed a little, refusing to make eye contact. ‘Yes. It all worked out.’ Ralph held out a hand for Gavin to shake. ‘Hello, friend! Ralph knows Nines from when he first got here. We are good friends.’ ‘I’m Gavin’, he introduced himself, not quite sure what to make of the android. Nines had never mentioned him after all. ‘I’m also a… good friend of him, we met at the DPD.’ ‘Oh! Ralph knows! You came hear to ask questions about the case, yes, Connor told me! But Ralph doesn’t know much, he just met Jerry there. Jerry can tell more; Ralph will call him!’

He did not call him loudly, but immediately five androids perked up, all looking exactly the same. They looked at Ralph, then each other, before three of them dropped their tools and came over. One went over to Ralph to hug him, while the other two looked curiously at Nines and Gavin. ‘Hello! Our name is Jerry. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Connor said you needed help?’ Gavin nodded in the general direction, not quite sure which unit to address. But Nines turned to the one who had just spoken, so Gavin followed his example.

‘Do you know the theme park ArcaneWorld?’, Nines asked. ‘Connor told me you would be the best to ask this.’ The unit in front of him nodded. ‘Yes, we were property of the previous park. Pirate’s cove was abandoned but gained the attention after we were found after the revolution. We were happy to leave the place, but we keep it in good memory. We liked working there and making people happy.’ ‘I’m sorry, but how are you an expert on ArcaneWorld when you worked in the previous park?’, Gavin asked. ‘We used the unique android network there. It helped us keep ourselves and not be lonely, much like the one installed here. But we have never been disconnected. And the person who bought Pirate’s cove after the revolution demolished buildings and attractions but kept the network to run the new park. We received regular updates until it closed again, including a detailed blueprint of the entire park and surveillance. Just a moment, please.’ Multiple other Jerrys approached them, pushing their hands together. Gavin had seen the holographic screen Nines and Connor could produce, but never something like this. Every individual screen connected, forming a map of ArcaneWorld. ‘There. What do you need to know?’ ‘We have to intercept a criminal selling off valuable data. We know it happens at seven, but not where in the park.’ A few of the Jerrys nodded in unison. ‘Well, the park is partly still functioning. The whole area here…’ a huge part of the map was marked. ‘This whole area isn’t safe. A huge ride there had been closed due to safety reasons and had to be renovated. That never happened, so now the ride has long collapsed. The old area of Pirate’s cove is still functioning, as well as the main attraction of the new park, a large area of medieval themed rides. Maybe that narrows it down a bit. Oh, and another thing, the surveillance cameras in a large part of the medieval area were shut down lately. May only be a coincidence, but when there are still some working in the collapsed ride, we don’t think this simply happened because of decay. We would search there.’

‘Sounds good to me’, Gavin shrugged. ‘As good a place as any to start.’ Nines nodded. ‘Thank you, Jerry, you helped us a lot. Do keep an eye on the park though and call us if you see anything.’ ‘Of course. Best of luck!’

Nines and Gavin left New Jericho shortly after that. Nines had stayed a bit longer to download the map from Jerry and gain access to the network, but soon they had taken their leave. ‘An old friend, huh?’, Gavin smirked as they walked towards the car. ‘Anything I need to know?’ ‘They really are just friends I made, unlike our suspect’, Nines shot back though. ‘Ralph had been with Jerry from the start.’ ‘Err.. what? How is that even… nevermind, I don’t wanna know.’ Nines looked at him, clearly disappointed. ‘Gavin, please, don’t try to judge them with human terms. I keep one of my processor cores reserved just for you, always. Jerry does the same, but with interchangeable units. It’s not that difficult to understand.’ ‘I said I didn’t want to know that, Nines. If it works for them, fine with me.’ ‘Good. That being settled, let’s get back and find out everything about this park.’

[>next Chapter]

[rpgmgames]

August’s Featured Game: Marinette

DEVELOPER(S): Teal Crown ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Horror, Puzzle, Adventure WARNINGS: Sensitive Themes, Blood/Light Gore SUMMARY: A little girl named Marinette, in the wake of a splitting family and a change of homes, is having a birthday. But this, her eleventh birthday, will present a deadly opportunity to fulfill a special promise. On the night before her birthday, she is drawn into a strange realm; an unnatural dollhouse, populated with dolls who are not quite what they seem. A web of strings lying in wait, and threatening to ensnare the poor marionette; warping her perception, and twisting her every move. Will the strings attach, and force her to become an unwilling puppet, or will she escape this surreal web of strings? What will she have to do to avoid the dangers of the dollhouse, and set herself free?

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *Mitty: "Hello, I'm Mitty! Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in this interview. I'm the main developer of the game and I'm working with a team of friends to make this game a reality. I work mainly on the visuals and programming, and I'll be representing the team, alongside Third! I've been on the community for around two years, even though I tend to not be active very often." *Third: "Hoi, I’m Third! I appreciate you reaching out to interview us. I’m the main composer and writer of Marinette, and I work under Mitty to make the story and soundtrack what we want it to be. I’ve been in the community for little less than Mitt but am even less active in most of my developer discords."

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *Mitty: "The game is essentially about a girl that gets trapped inside a dollhouse. A simple concept really can go far ahaha I've always loved themes related to creepy dolls so I wanted to create something related to that. What pushed me initially to start were obviously the inspiration of seeing other devs creating, seeing how far you could go with these engines and create amazing interactive stories, however the huge support from a friend was what made me actually start past the planning and dreaming!" *Third: "Marinette is a story about a little girl becoming entangled in the complicated family and supernatural landscape she finds herself in on her birthday. I enjoy writing short stories about this kind of thing so it’s fantastic to work on a larger project about one of my favorite subjects. My primary inspiration and introduction to this kind of game in general was Pocket Mirror, and I use it the most as a model for how to do certain things. However, I also draw a lot of inspiration from masterpieces like Aria’s Story, Ib, Witch’s House, and Alice Mare."

How long have you been working on your project? *Mitty: "The project has been in the works for around two years now! The first year was mostly planning and right now we are on the right track with the programming and asset creation for the demo, as well as music and sound design for later development. Planning isn't over yet though, especially for the final game." *Third: "I’ve been working on this for almost two years. The soundtrack possessed most of my earlier attention, but now it’s taken a backseat to writing, now that I’m actively writing the scripts for the game now. "

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Mitty: "Yes! The game has inspirations from plenty of sources, not only strictly RPG Maker Horror games, or games in general for that matter. If I were to mention those, of course games like Ib, The witch's house, Alice Mare, Pocket Mirror, Yume Nikki & .flow, Stray Cat Crossing, Mogeko's games...etc quickly come to mind. When it comes to the aesthetics and visuals, the inspirations come from several different places, including games like Alice Madness Returns, Dofus, Yomawari, The Legend of Mana, Little Nightmares...the list goes on; or other media, like Inu Curry's animation style or video creator nana825763, as well as some anime and music videos. Silent hill is also a huge inspiration for the atmosphere, and hopefully we can pull it off well!" *Third: "My primary inspiration, as I’ve said earlier, is Pocket Mirror, both for its masterful writing and soundtrack. The game’s soundtrack is the main reason I still play piano. Whenever I’m feeling musical, my fingers always hunt out the same kind of haunting, mysterious, and sometimes peaceful and playful melodies that Pocket Mirror is rife with. In the end, our soundtrack is probably going to sound like Pocket Mirror and Aria’s Story’s soundtracks were meshed together. Story wise, commonplace elements in this genre like demons, monsters, mean parents and puzzles that tell the story are commonplace for a reason, and certainly find their way into this one, in their own special way. Every other game I’ve mentioned involves them in some form or another. And young, curious protagonists are also a blast to write and do evil things to and put in difficult, dangerous situations. "

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Mitty: "We surely have! Many of them in different areas ahaha Taking away bug hunting, I am primarily an artist, so programming for me is a secondary thing. Because of this it's easy to get carried away and hard to realise what can and can't be done. I don't want the game to be visually boring if I can make things move and seem alive! The way I'm handling it is programming like an artist: I think in my head what cool things I can do with my art by not having it completely still, and then it's a matter of executing it on the engine. However this comes with a downside. I tend to tweak things a lot, and that takes quite some time, but I honestly think it's worth it ahaha Also I find it hard to start writing, but when I do, I can't stop orz. Other challenges are also finding plot holes. This is fixed with a lot of studying the story, gathering inspiration and talking with the team. I also struggle a bit with communicating with the team, but thankfully they are all very nice and understanding." *Third: "Main challenge is overcoming the sheer weight of how much I have to learn about music and writing in order for this game to be what I want it to be. I’m a perfectionist, and when I care about something, I can’t tolerate it being worse than it could’ve been. Also, writing is getting more and more complicated and there’s more things and details to keep track of so as not to create inconsistencies or plot holes, especially as we try to revise it and make major changes to the story (Mitt will know what I’m talking about). "

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Mitty: "It changed a lot, not only in terms of the story and writing, but visually too. The basic concept is close to being the same, though. You can check out old posts in the blog where I consider different styles of mapping and such. Actually, don't, please. It's too old...and my writing...oh god." *Third: "The writing has come a long way, but now that we’ve fleshed out and written down much of the backstory, it’s a much more complicated story than what Mitt first showed me when I joined."

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Mitty: "Initially it was just me, occasionally having Mia to talk about the story and help develop it. Rindre joined as a voice actress very early on and also helped in other aspects of the game. Then I also talked about it with two friends I know in real life, one helped with organization and the other with some concept art, but they aren't that active anymore, even though I still count them as part of the team (Thank you guys btw if you're reading this). Eventually I met Third, an amazing composer and writer, and I asked him to join in! He brought along a friend who is also an amazing composer and writer, Code, and these two are complete madmen of music and writing and I'm super glad to be working with them, as they are super passionate and it makes me really happy ahaha. Bruno is also a really dedicated composer that is helping with a few tracks as well! Miku and Luccinia are two super talented and kind artists that have also been helping a ton with concept art, and their ideas have certainly improved the game as well. We are welcome to more concept artists, though! More heads, more ideas ahaha Recently we got the voice actresses for a few characters in the game, when we did the auditions, and hopefully soon another friend will jump aboard and help with organization and writing! We are a relatively small team, and sometimes progress goes a bit slowly since we can get busy, but we are all doing our best! I’m glad that I’m not alone. Links for their pages and such can be found on the team section on the blog, go support them if you can!"

What is the best part of developing a game? *Mitty: "For me, personally, I love seeing what my team mates come up with, whether it is music or concept art. I also enjoy the love and support we get, and it makes me excited in the development. As for the creation part, I like programming challenging cutscenes and doing cool things with the assets. Progress updates can also be fun to make when I have the time." *Third: "My favorite part is showing Mitt what I’ve written and composed. Making her happy and excited with my work is extremely fulfilling. "

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Mitty: "Oh, yes! Besides being a cool break from programming hell, it helps me make it less of a hell ahaha I like improvising, though, so I think I play RPG Maker games because I enjoy them for the most part." *Third: "Occasionally, not really. I don’t play many games and I’ve played the heck out of the ones I have."

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Mitty: "Ah I don't know, honestly. I think I can relate to every character in one way or another, and it's hard picking one, especially since the game isn't out yet and I'd like to keep most characters hidden until the demo. Marinette is definitely one of my favourites, though, I just love how innocent and cute she is. Her cheekiness can be made super interesting ahaha" *Third: "My favorite character is definitely Pierre. He’s a complete blast to write, and gives me lots of cool things to describe and say through him, from his magic tricks to his killer lines and quotes."

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Mitty: "Hm...Having organized things better in the beginning would have saved a lot of time now, but I don't think it's been that big of a deal anymore. I don't have any regrets that I'm aware of at the moment since everything until this point was necessary to learn and get to where we are now."

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Mitty: "I'm not sure yet, it depends on the reception and how willing I'll be to continue the story. Even though I would find it fun to make comics, another game or a different midia, realistically I can't tell how willing I'll be to continue developing content about it after the game is finished. Honestly, I hope I can develop more projects on Marinette, we do have content for that, and I absolutely love it with my heart! But it's also equally important to move on to another story. Only time will tell!" Third: "I hope to, but that day is very far away for me. I’ll be gone for quite some time after Marinette is finished, and I hope I’m not forgotten by the time I return. Perhaps I’ll entertain myself with additional short stories exploring the various aftermaths of the game."

What do you most look forward to upon/after the release of a project? *Mitty: "I honestly just want to get the story out there. I'm hoping people will enjoy it if they play the game, and will have a special place in their hearts to keep it on. This project means a lot to me, and having it making people feel things is what I'm looking forward to. I'd love to see other people playing it, definitely. I imagine I'll eventually be relieved to have finally completed it, it'll be a big moment for me to sigh be proud of creating. I'll be able to move on to work on other fun things while I see how this little child of a game is going to do out there in the wild, and that's always nice!" *Third: "Fan reaction, 100%. Having people ask me questions about my work and telling me how much they enjoyed it is my favorite part of writing."

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Mitty: "Yes, I don't want to feel empty with nothing to do when I finish the game. I know it will be great and all, but I've been working on it for so long that it's hard to imagine not working on it ahaha! It's a really fun hobby, but it's also engraved in my heart. I want it to be the best it can be, of course, so I'm scared of bugs, inconsistencies and overall it being clearly a bad game. I'm hoping that people will help with critiques on the demo, so I have a better outside perspective of where we are going. I don't want to drop the game, so I'm scared of having to take a long break from it during the development. I'm worried of being a terrible team leader as well." *Third: "I dread plot holes more than anything, and I dread a dull and overall unimpactful story. I want a tale that will punch the viewer in the gut, hard. I want to make them cry. I want to make them laugh. I want them to draw what I wrote, and explore it further in hopefully-not-too-sexual fanfiction."

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Mitty: "Don't be scared to start. You're going to suffer mid-way if it's a long term project, but keep pushing through, you'll learn a lot and it becomes easier with time. Take breaks and take it easy, step by step. LIST STUFF AND MAKE BACKUPS. Learn with short projects first. Ask for advice from people you admire, but never hold them on a pedestal. It’s always helpful to be a jack of all trades! Try to think from an outsider perspective if you're not sure of how it's going, and if you can, tell people you trust about the game and ask for opinions. Always take criticism well, but don't stress too much over harsher or even meaner comments. Have fun and never forget your starts, the people you meet and the reason you're doing the project for. If you're also an artist, writer, musician, remember this is a great opportunity to add something interesting to your portfolio. Cool visuals attract people, but they are not everything that will keep them hooked." *Third: "The best part of making a game is the people you make it with. The story is the most important ingredient of your game. Prioritize it first, and everything else will fall into place around it. Otherwise, everything will serve some other aspect of your game, and that’s rarely a good thing. Always speak your mind; do not every not say something just because it’ll hurt someone’s feelings. Obviously don’t be a tool, but if you ever have to choose between hurting the game and someone’s pride, pick someone’s pride. It’s much kinder in the long run."

Question from last month's featured dev Froach Club: Have you ever had a moment where you got completely stuck or became intensely frustrated while using RPG Maker? *Mitty: "Yes I have, I think everyone has QwQ Despite silly mistakes, I've gotten stuck several times, but honestly it's usually either us doing something stupidly hard that can be done another way, or we are just not skilled enough yet, and it's better to come back later. You can usually do most things you wanna do if you have the advantage of knowing the programming language your RPG Maker Engine uses I think. Google is your friend always, and sleeping about it also helps. I once dreamt of a whole sequence to fix a problem, and it worked! ahaha Always take it easy and don't give up, but know your limits and the limits of the engine!"

We mods would like to thank Teal Crown for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Marinette if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum