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literaila · 4 years

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the agony of sanity: chapter two.

“Nothing at all”

spencer x reader

summary: four years is a long time to forget the person you once knew... *thought you knew.

warnings: s12 spoliers, violence, criminal minds stuff, inaccurate BAU things, angst?

part one here.

When Spencer sat down he still had that look in his eyes.

The one that was making her nervous. Making her want to run away, go back home where she belonged. God, she couldn't wait to get out of there.

She briefly noted the other eyes on her, inmates all around her staring.

She swallowed before speaking, running a hand through her hair. “How are you, Spencer?” she plastered a smile on her face, hoping it would get rid of that look.

Spencer just stared at her as if she was delusional. A frown pinned to his face.

“What are you doing here?!” he hissed, one of the guards watching them giving him a stern look that neither of them noticed.

Y/N drummed her fingers on the countertop, she was glad for the thin piece of plastic separating the two considering Spencer looked like he was going to throw something at her.

Not that he’d ever do that, she reminded herself. She still knew that much about him.

She blew a breath out, his eyes still focused on her. “That well, huh?” she whispered, looking away from him. Trying to put a hint of humor in her voice, but all she could hear when it came out was the fear cracking through her calm composure.

“Y/N, I haven't seen you in four years!” Spencer whisper-yelled, making Y/N’s heart race with the force of his voice. Yes, she had been expecting some anger, and maybe surprise, but she wasn't prepared for it. And not quite so fast. Spencer wasn't usually one to have a temper. Or, he wasn't four years ago.

She could only remember him yelling at her twice. Both in instances of fear.

“There's a picture of me on the wall at the BAU.” she deadpanned, looking back at him, trying to seem nonchalant. She needed to keep her cool if this was going to go the way she wanted it to.

“You know what I mean.”

And she did, and maybe it wasn't the right time for joking but she had to keep this conversation as lighthearted as she could bear.

She could already feel her body ready to get up, to leave, and go back home. But she couldn't afford that, and they didn't have enough time. She was supposed to be mending things, letting Spencer know that she was there to help. She wasn't supposed to be joking around, letting her nerves take control of her.

This was so terribly confusing.

“You’re not going to answer my question?” she asked, trying not to glare at him and his eyes. His eyes that wouldn't lose that look, one that she couldn't quite place, but one that she knew wasn't good. Definitely not.

The two of them were completely unaware of everything else, the other voices in the room drowned out by the thoughts of both of them.

And it was strange because even after four years, four long years, this conversation didn't hold an ounce of awkwardness. It never had, even when they had only just met, the two of them were always good at being comfortable around each other. It was so confusing.

That was probably why Spencer didn't mind being angry at her. Even now.

“You never answered mine,” he responded, leaning away from her and crossing his arms. His body, now closed off, his entire demeanor distant.

Which of course, she noticed.

She sighed, biting her lip before finally nodding, and blowing out a breath. “Emily called me,” she allowed, leaning back in her chair, and breaking Spencer’s glare on her. It was best to let him draw the conclusions by himself, to give him something to calm his emotions down.

He was confused now. “Why?” he inquired, mostly to himself.

Y/N granted him a second to think about it, taking the time to thoroughly examine him. She didn't notice any big indicators of exhaustion, and although he looked a bit more grey than she was used to seeing him. She was going to have to report back to Emily. Emily and all the other people that loved Spencer. She was going to have to remember this information, she was sure that they’d want to know.

She would, at least.

“Emily thinks you can help me,” Spencer whispered, running a hand through his hair. It was as if a light had clicked on in his brain, as if it was all just starting to make sense.

Y/N watched a second more, she wasn't sure if he was angry by this realization. She couldn't tell. She knew that his eyes were cautious now, more careful, as if he said one word too much the world would implode.

“You wouldn't help me.” Spencer denied, looking right at her and all of her nerves. His tone was diminishing, and his face was one of amusement. It was incredibly threatening. Also a reason for her to look away.

She scoffed, nodding her head sarcastically. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Doc.”

She felt a strange pinch of guilt, mad at herself for talking to him like this, for not doing what she meant to do. He was in prison, she was supposed to be helping.

Not confusing and ridiculing him.

Spencer held his hands up in defense, his eyes wide as he looked at her, “You haven't talked to me in four years! You don't even like me-”

“You’re right.” Y/N taunted, a bitter smile on her face. The words had slipped out before she could stop them, her temper getting the best of her.

She hoped he didn't notice the brief wince of regret that laid upon her face for a split second after.

Spencer laughed sarcastically, fed up with her evading. He leaned forward, his eyes angry “Then why the hell are you here Y/N?!” he hissed, his voice coming out strong and harsh. It almost made Y/N want to get up from the table, but she was going to hold her ground. She had to keep her cool, convince him.

She was here to be his advisor, not his enemy.

“I promised Emily I would help.” She affirmed, staring him down with a slight glare. “I’m not backing out on my promise,” she said firmly, her voice much calmer than his. Her composure the only thing that she could rely on.

“I don't need your help, and I’m not sure what Emily thinks but I don't want it! There's nothing you can do, and even if there was I don't want help from someone that hates me.”

The pin of politeness was pulled from the two of them with Spencer's words. The barrier of courtesy that they’d both put between them removed itself, and suddenly, the bright hot fire was spreading across the table between the two of them.

They weren't in the visitor's room anymore, now they were back someplace they’d been before. A place where they were alone. A bad one.

A place where composure went out the door.

“I’m not here to help you, Spencer! I’m here to help the people that are desperately waiting for you to go back home, remember them?” Y/N fumed, pointing an accusing hand at Spencer as she made her point. “They’re scared straight with you in here! And I’m sure as hell not going to let you die in prison because of an old grudge I have with you!” Her voice increased with her emotions, gaining a few glances from people in the room Spencer and her were no longer in. She felt the flare of the fire in her gut, old and new emotions mixing together as she spoke.

Spencer tried to interrupt, his eyes only slightly softer, when she continued.

“I’m not particularly interested in whether you want me here or not. I’m here. I’m helping you.” The brief pauses in her words set a final statement to the conversation. Her eyes were hard, her stare deadly as she looked at Spencer, waiting for him to say something else.

To anyone else, she might look confident in her stance, might look incredibly intimidating, but she could feel that bubble of fear in her stomach. She could feel her anger at Spencer deflating, and her worry that he might see through her was beating her from inside out.

She just had to get this conversation over with, then she could leave. Then she could go somewhere to get herself together.

A couple more minutes at most.

“Y/N I’m-” Spencer started, his voice bringing both of them back to reality, back to the room where people were starting to get up, some of the visitors starting to leave.

Y/N held a hand up, stopping Spencer, her face tense as she closed her eyes and tried not to remember the last time she had heard that from him.

“I don't need your apologies Reid, then or now.” she paused, taking a breath. “I came here to let you know that I was going to be working your case, I wanted to speak to you before anyone else could.”

Spencer nodded, something inside of him changing, his emotions flipped from a minute ago. “Okay,” he said, his voice softer.

It was so much like the one she’d heard years ago, this man in front of her looking so familiar to her all of the sudden.

“Okay,” she replied, trying to keep her voice level.

She could feel herself draining, her ability to keep talking to him leaving her body faster than she had expected. She was going to have to leave soon, before she could do something that she would regret.

“Is there anything you can do?”

Y/N sighed, rubbing her eyes at the question. She was so tired.

She looked up at Spencer, her face indifferent. “It's not looking good,” she stated, her voice exhausted.

Spencer nodded, already aware of that. He knew that there was nothing to do yet, that time was the only thing that would help him.

Y/N could see the shame on his face, the energy deflating out of him, similar to her.

“I’m going to get you out of here.” She clarified, trying not to leave when his hopes were gone, when she didn't have any good news for him. When Spencer didn't do anything but nod, Y/N furrowed her eyebrows, continuing to get him to look up at her. “I already promised Emily.”

Spencer laughed, brushing his hair back, shaking his head. “You can't promise something impossible, Y/N.”

It was the first time he had positively used her name, but she tried not to notice that.

“I promise Reid, even if it's impossible.”

Spencer only shook his head some more, all of the sudden looking more exhausted than Y/N had the words to explain.

He’d never told her how he was doing. She’d never asked again. She should-

“Promises too often mean nothing.”

And with those words striking Y/N’s core in the worst way, practically blowing her over, Spencer stood up, motioning to the guard.

Nothing.

It was cold that night.

Their heater had broken months ago, but with the hot summer air, neither of them had taken the time to care about it. Why would they when they didn't need it? When the sun was out, and the nights were warm.

But as the days got shorter, and the clouds started swarming outside, the air flickered into something freezing. Something much colder than summer.

Spencer would probably tell her that actually it couldn't be classified as freezing until the temperatures-

She shivered just thinking about it.

He wasn't home yet. They’d had the day off, and when the sun had still been shining they’d gone out to the park, laying together. Y/N laid on Spencer’s chest as he read a book out loud, his voice quiet enough so that just the two of them could hear. But eventually, when the sun started to set, and Spencer had to squint to see the words on the page, Y/N had told him that they should go.

Both of them were sad to see the day pass them by so quickly. It was a bittersweet feeling to know that they’d gotten that time together, for once, and now it was over.

But Spencer had smiled at her, gently moved her off of him, stood up, and took her hand. He'd led her away from the park.

He’d whispered sweet nothings to her as they walked home, reminding her that they didn't have to go to bed just yet.

And so, they were going to have dinner, going to watch a movie together.

But when stumbling upon the nothing that they called their fridge, Y/N had forced Spencer to go get something for them to eat, pushing him out the door as she teased him.

He still wasn't home. And the heater wasn't working.

She shivered under the blanket she was under, trying to figure out how long it had been since he’d left. She knew that it shouldn't be taking him this long. She sighed as she called him again, expecting his voicemail, but still hating it.

It was too cold to be in this apartment alone.

She cursed whatever stupidity had led the two of them to forget about fixing the heater, trying not to let her teeth clatter as she watched the clock tick on the wall.

She was so thankful for this day, these couple of hours she got to spend with Spencer unbothered. They hadn't had enough time to do this lately, too exhausted, too busy, to even think about being in love with each other.

It was wearing on the both of them, that much she could tell. It was hard to sleep in the same bed, too exhausted to cuddle, too drained to say goodnight. It was hard to live next to each other and do the same things every day without taking the time to be together.

They had to start leaving some hours for the two of them.

Because a day like this, one where they could just be together without the exhaustion, the work, days like this were the only thing that kept the two of them together.

They were each other's rock, and they needed to start remembering it.

It was those thoughts she was filled with when she finally heard the door click open, Spencer's voice filling the air as she felt the relief in her chest.

At least she wouldn't be alone in the cold now.

“Sorry, there was such a long line, and I had to-” he paused, his voice drifting off in the air in which he could see his breath. “Oh.”

“You remember when I said we didn't need to get the heater fixed right away!?” Y/N called as she heard him pause, “I was wrong!”

Spencer laughed, deciding against taking his jacket off. “I got the food,” he said as he set it down on the counter, noticing his girlfriend walking over to him. He turned to her, smiling. “And I could’ve told you that.”

Y/N’s jaw dropped, a gasp coming out of her mouth. “That was rude,” she exclaimed, trying not to let the smile slip on her face.

Spencer’s eyes widened, his shock matching hers as he thought about what he said. “No I didn't-” he started to say when he finally took a better look at her, noticing the way her jaw was moving, how she was shivering and rubbing her arms. “Are you cold?” he asked, concern clouding his voice.

Y/N nodded. “It's like ten degrees in here,” she whispered, moving over to him.

Spencer immediately took the hint, bringing her into his arms, her cold matching his warmth. Y/N sighed out a breath of relief, happy to be in his arms, to be warm with him again. Her shivers started to fade away, slowly but surely.

“I’m going to get you cold,” she whispered against his chest, the two of them falling into a moment of silence, dancing across their floor without any music. It was blissful, even in the cold. The two of them could feel the warmth, not just in the air, but in their bodies, their minds being flooded with happiness.

“I don't care. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you.” Spencer whispered back, rubbing her back as they rocked against their kitchen floor.

“Even holding me until our heater gets fixed?” she asked, her question bringing a laugh to both of them.

“Even that,” Spencer said, holding her tighter.

And later on, when they were both drifting off to sleep after watching three movies, Spencer kissed Y/N’s head. He thought about the amazing day they'd spent together, the smiles that filled their faces. It was a perfect day he'd decided. There was nothing that could beat her laughter.

He held her as close as he could, wrapping her in his warmth.

And he whispered.

“Nothing.”

Her emotions were running in a pit of hysteria.

She couldn't really tell what she was feeling, whether it was relief at finally getting out of that prison- literally -or if it was fear at the fact that she had no idea what to do. Her body was swirling with nerves, anger, terror. So many things.

Hysteria.

It was the hysteria of emotions, all of them at once, banging on her ribs, killing her core, aiming for her throat when she wasn't looking.

She wasn't very fond of the feeling.

She tried to push it down with anything, easing her headache with some over the counter medicine, chugging water in hopes that it would drain her system of all the things she didn't want to feel. She sat in her car, trying not to bang her head against the wheel.

She hated this feeling.

And when she finally decided to get out, to head into the office so that she could talk to Emily about everything like she said that she would, her body still wasn't listening to her only request.

Just to feel nothing. Please.

She shook her head as she walked through the doors, cursing herself out, trying to think of anything to say.

But then she was knocked over.

A blur of a person came rushing over to her, crushing her into a hug before she could even see straight, this person holding on to her for dear life.

Penelope.

There was a moment of relief, a moment where Y/N was laughing out, happy to be filled with the nostalgia of seeing one of her friends again. This was a feeling she could deal with. This was a feeling that she could appreciative.

It was so much better than hysteria.

“You’re back!” the blonde announced, pulling back from her crushing hug to look at Y/N. Garica held her head in her hands, turning it so that she could examine Y/N properly.

Y/N was laughing at her, the smile on her face surprising her. The energy that she hadn't been able to come up with, just showing up in her body as she laughed.

“Only for a while,” she said, her face held so that she was looking directly at Penelope, who also had a smile on her face.

“Oh none of that sweetheart, you’re back!” She insisted, hugging Y/N once again, her grip surprisingly comforting.

It was nice to see her friend again after so long, after cutting communication off completely. Before everything, Penelope and Y/N had been good friends, both of them relying on the other like they were solid ground to stand on.

When Y/N left, she sobbed at the thought of letting this beautiful girl go, practically died when she finally had to, but she couldn't have any reminders.

She’d blocked Garcia as soon as she’d left the country.

When Penelope pulled back again, she had a scowl on her face. Her eyes ridiculing. “Why haven't I heard from you? Where did you go?” she scolded, not letting the other girl go as she questioned her.

“I- '' Y/N started, the question surprising her. How would she answer? There was no real explanation, or at least not one she wanted to say. But before she could think, she noticed the other people surrounding the two of them, two unfamiliar men in the center of the crowd, one woman she didn't recognize.

And then there was JJ, and Rossi, and Emily. Three familiar faces. Her old friends. She immediately smiled at them, appreciating their familiar faces, all the changes that she noticed after four years. She hadn't seen them in so long, too long, and it was practically bliss to be in the same room with her work family again.

Emily was the first to step up, moving over to the side of Y/N Penelope wasn't attached to, and putting her hand on her shoulder.

“This is Y/N Y/L/N. She's a former BAU agent. She's here to help with Spencer’s case.” The announcement didn't stop JJ from moving forward, gently moving Garcia away with a push, and giving Y/N a hug of her own.

More comfort came to Y/N at this hug, the familiarity a gentle reminder that she knew these people, that she wasn't a complete stranger in Virginia.

“It's good to see you again,” JJ said, moving back, the smile still on her face. Her eyes bright as she looked at Y/N. Y/N nodded, agreeing with the other girl. It was amazing to see JJ again.

And then there was Rossi, who of course, wasn't going to let Y/N by without a hug of his own.

“Where’ve you been kid?” he greeted, joining the little reunion that was happening between the four of them.

Smiles were stuck on all of their faces, no introductions needed for the people that had spent years working together, side by side, every day.

Y/N had always been a piece of the puzzle, she was loved unconditionally by all the members of the BAU, and when she’d left, a piece had been missing.

They’d all forgotten about that until then, forgotten that they still weren't complete without her.

She’d forgotten too.

“Working.” She laughed, answering Rossi, the warmth filling her belly as she was connected with all of the people she’d known so well. Her eyes felt less exhausted, friendly, like she was so used to them being.

But there wasn't enough time, and eventually, another man stood up.

“I’m Stephen Walker,” he introduced himself, giving a well-practiced firm handshake. He smiled at her politely.

“Lovely to meet you,” she returned, matching his smile as he stood back.

The woman stepped up next, her smile more friendly than polite, much different from Stephens. Her demeanor was careful, her body trying to be as welcoming as she could.

“I’m Dr. Tara Lewis,” she said, also offering Y/N a handshake.

Y/N didn't feel as nervous meeting her, Dr. Lewis’ welcoming smile made her feel safe, not as worried. She didn't feel like a stranger with Tara. More like old friends. It was a strange feeling. One she wasn't used to.

They smiled at each other as Tara stepped back.

Then the last man stepped forward, confident, his smile also welcoming but playful. His eyes weren't as reserved as his colleagues, Y/N wasn't nervous about him, already getting the hint that they could be good friends.

“I’m Luke Alvez-”

“Newbie.” Garica interrupted, whispering in Y/N’s ear. She looked over to the girl, who was giving Luke a blank look, one that was trying to be oblivious.

“Newbie?” Y/N asked, her brows furrowed as she kept the smile on her face, she looked between Penelope and Luke. Luke just shook his head at her question, rubbing his neck as he looked down.

Garcia just rolled her eyes.

Y/N would have to ask about that later, she noted.

“How was Spencer, Y/N? Emily said you went to see him this morning.” JJ questioned just as Y/N had expected she would.

And suddenly, introductions were over, and Y/N was reminded of all the things she had forgotten because of that hug.

All the feelings she had. All the feelings she didn't want.

Spencer was in prison, he was not hopeful, Y/N didn't know what to do. She promised.

Y/N sighed, rubbing a hand over her face, not noticing the concerned faces at her actions. All of his friends were worried, not expecting good news based on her reaction. Her incredibly pulled back reaction.

“He’s fine, I suppose. Tired I’d imagine.” Y/N explained, trying to remember anything that she could say to ease their worries. “He’s accepted my help. But I don't think he's very hopeful.” she continued, a bittersweet smile on her face. She wanted to be positive, but she couldn't, she couldn't provide anything to anyone in this room when all she wanted to do was scream.

“Well, that's good right?” Penelope asked, her eyes innocent, her voice displaying the tiniest hint of hope. “He's accepting help.”

Emily nodded, glad that there was something they could all lean back on, but Y/N just sighed some more, depleted.

First, there was that conversation with Spencer. That horrid, factious, conversation. And now, she had to tell all of his friends, all of her old friends, all the people she was going to be working with that he wasn't doing well. She didn't want to tell them that he’d only barely accepted her help, that he was ready to send her away.

“Y/N’s only been here for two days, give her some more time and we’ll figure something out.” Emily entrusted, a tense smile on her face. Y/N could tell that she was trying to be positive, she imagined that everyone else knew that too.

The room was full of profilers after all. A bunch of people that could tell when you were lying.

“If you don't mind me asking, what can you do for Spencer? How are you going to help him?” Tara inquired, her tone kind, but Y/N could sense the uncertainty. Like she wasn't sure if Y/N was really going to be able to do anything.

Y/N blew a breath out before answering. “I’m a lawyer, it's how I got into the BAU.” She smiled at the squeeze she felt on her shoulder from Garica. Appreciating the faith. “I know my way around the law, and believe it or not, I used to be a fairly good profiler.”

Penelope gasped, looking to the rest of them. “She was amazing! Without her, half of the BAU’s cases wouldn't have been solved, she and Spencer used to be the ‘dream team’.”

Y/N felt her body tense up at the reminder, hating herself for still feeling that sore spot right in her heart, she hated that even now, she still couldn't handle the little things.

Penelope definitely noticed, her smile dropping at her mistake, her voice picking up its pace to fix the memory she had just brought up.

But Y/N let out a laugh before her friend could apologize, not wanting apologies for something that she should be used to by now. Something that she needed to get over.

She put an arm around Penelope, letting her know that it was okay. That she wasn't mad.

“Emily called me,” she sucked in a breath, her body easing. “Because I know how to work a case, and I have lots of connections that might be a good use to Reid.”

All of them seemed satisfied with her answer, the people she’d just met understanding more now, their confusion about who she was, gone.

“Oh, and I owe her a favor,” Y/N concluded, allowing her voice to become teasing, looking over to Emily and grinning.

She let her emotions become clouded by the conversation that continued, not wanting to feel that same hysteria from earlier.

The hysteria that she was worried would take her over. That would drive her away despite her promises.

She couldn't leave. She had to help.

She was glad for this indifferent feeling she felt. Anything to keep that hysteria away, was okay with her.

She looked around, the warmth she got from all those hugs being just enough to keep her awake.

She was so tired. And she had so much work to do.

A promise to keep.

“Promises too often mean nothing.”

Nothing.

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jeogiyall · 4 years

Text

Pas De Deux; H.HJ

Word Count; 9.7k

Genre; Fluff, Childhood Best Friends to Lovers, Reader X Hyunjin

Warnings; Swearing, Suggestive, I would advise against reading if you have abandonment issues? It’s brought up a few times,,

Additional; Featured Chan, Felix, Jisung, and Minho; Ballerina Reader, Dance Partner Hyunjin, Reid once again writing about something that she has no idea how to do, (Sort Of) Slow Burn

A/N; when i tell u guys that i literally have no self control,, THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THIS WAS 10.46K ASFDSFS someone save me from myself. i’m sorry if anything’s inaccurate, i haven’t done ballet since i was like five and most of my research is from the unreliable internet,,, so if any ballerinas read this and are repulsed i’m sorry asdfdsa. please leave something nice if you enjoy <3<3<3<3

The last time that you saw Hwang Hyunjin was in fifth grade. You were wrapped up in each other on your front porch, him choking out tears as though it hurt.

“Jinnie!” You cooed while running a hand through his short black hair, “I’m not dying, just going to boarding school!” His cries (along with the ringing guilt in your ears) only grew louder, “You’re really good at dancing, just audition next year!” He shook his head fervently against the crook of your shoulder, wet tears falling onto your skin.

“You know I suck at ballet!” If it weren’t for his palms pulling at his teary cheeks you would’ve giggled, maybe even teased him for the time in class that he almost broke his wrist while warming up at the barre. But he was crying, he was sad, and he was convinced that he’d never see you again. The sight alone was enough to make you pout, which only served to make him cry harder, “You could join my contemporary class for the summer?” He asked with starry, red eyes. It was almost enough to make you say yes.

“You know that I suck at contemporary!” The boy giggled at your counter, a sound that made your heart soar amidst all of the crying.

“Yea, you do...” He brought a hand up to his cheeks, trying desperately to wipe away tears that wouldn’t stop falling, “Just promise that you won’t forget me! I won’t forget you so you can’t forget me!” His pinky finger extended so it was nearly brushing the spot in between your eyebrows, and you were hit by the whispers of your first crush. With the summer days spent riding scooters in your driveway, and the winter ones spent sledding in it. With the long nights spent giggling about nothing underneath a blanket fort, or the endless days spent climbing trees in the bottomless woods behind the boys house. You were hit with the last five years all at once, and you knew instantly that even if he wasn’t standing in front of you with a teary face that you would still promise.

“I promise.” You answered while hooking your pinky in his as if it were a vow.

The school ended up being a perfect fit, your favorite part being the dorm room all to yourself. Even though it was small, and very ugly, it was all yours. Just like the friend group that blossomed out of your first ever co-ed class (which is sadly not a very interesting story. Han Jisung just made you swear to not dislocate his shoulders during partner stretches, and who are you to break a promise? Afterwards you received an invite to sit with him and his friend at lunch, the rest is history. Loud, annoying history.)

Nothing could’ve made it better... Well, nothing except for your sweet friend who had once occupied each thought in your head. Your sweet friend who’s summers were suddenly too full to see you, even for just a day.

Your sweet friend who didn’t keep his promise.

When it was announced that the contemporary and ballet branches of your dance institute would be merging for a year, your mind immediately jumped to Hyunjin. Despite not seeing him for almost six years. He always had such a passion for the style, making you miss out on hours of homework to watch videos of his favorite performers (it’s not like you minded too much, though.)

Han’s, on the other hand, was pure rage. Pure rage which he was letting out from your bed while watching you unpack.

“I just don’t get why they have to take a ballet class too! I have enough trouble getting solos as is.” The boy pouts while resting his head on your orange wood headboard. You’d feel sympathetic if it weren’t for the fact that he was blatantly lying, Han Jisung had gotten nearly every solo since eighth grade. Instead you roll your eyes dramatically and throw him a wadded ball of fabric from your suitcase. Naturally, he screams.

“Shut the fuck up and be helpful.” You scold, earning a childish whine while he sits up to fold the countless leotards.

“Remind me why I missed you?” He grumbles just as your other, much nicer, friend walks into the cramped room.

“Aww, you missed me Sungie?” Felix asks, voice booming deeply through the space. The two of you instantly drop the clothes in your hands and run to the boy, which you should reprimand Jisung for seeing as he just lifted a finger. But you don’t, because Felix is here with more freckles than the last time you saw him and fresh pink hair that’s definitely going to be dyed natural again within the first week.

“Yes.” The energetic boy answers while worming his way into your hug. Felix giggles softly while petting Han’s dark brown hair before pressing noisy kisses all over his cheeks. He pokes Felix’s ribs as retaliation, to which the boy screeches (directly into your ear, might I add,) and it’s back to the normal, loud chaos “I will kill you!”

“Hey! No murder in my room, if you’re gonna do that go in the hallway!” You snap playfully, pushing Jisung away while moving back into the hug, “Help me unpack? Jisung hasn’t done shit.”

“Not fair!” The boy shouts from your bed, which he’s already plopped back down on.

“I’ll help, besides do you even want him folding your clothes?” You look over your shoulder to see Jisung with his hands tangled up in three different leotards, then back to Felix with terrified eyes.

‘No,’ you mouth, eliciting another laugh from your friend. He moves over to the bed as well, then sets Jisungs hands free. The three of you talk mindlessly for hours, rambling on about Felix’s summer home and the month that you and Jisung spent traipsing around the boys hometown.

“How do you feel about the merger?” You ask suddenly, cutting Jisung off in the middle of an embarrassing story about a night spent at his house. Felix sighs deeply while tossing you the rolled leotard (your favorite one, light blue with pearls sewn around the collar,) while Jisung throws a wadded up pair of tights at your face.

“It’s fine I guess, just for a year right?” You shrug while the brunette puts on a grimace, hands suddenly very busy with folding, “They really need that rebuild, building’s falling apart. Ours is way better and we have extra room, so why not share?”

“Tell that to the rat in my mini fridge.” Han grumbles while passing you a pile of black leotards. You laugh and accept, but not before ruffling his stiff hair.

“Okay, I’ll make sure to do that the next time I’m in your room. Are you done bitching now?” The brunette pokes his tongue out at you jokingly, to which you respond with blowing a raspberry, “Felix is right, besides how terrible is it going to be? We’re all dancers right, and stuff like that is meant to be shared. Who are we to say that they can’t come and learn?” The room turns uncomfortably quiet, Jisung gnawing at his lower lip while Felix picks up his phone.

“Damn it!” The Australian exclaims as his screen lights up. You and Han look at him with furrowed eyebrows before he rolls his eyes and brings the phone up in between your faces, “Administration says I have to fix my hair.”

Han doubles over with laughter, knocking the mountain of leotards (followed shortly by himself) onto the floor. You follow his lead, and before you know it the three of you are clutching your sides and wiping away happy tears. Felix’s hands ruffle into your hair with a hum, “Maybe I can try Jisungs color, hmm?” You duck away with a snort.

“No! I draw the line at matching hair!” The brunette defends, hands moving to cover the top of his head. Felix lunges at him, fully ready to engage in a tickle fight. Naturally, Jisung screams as if he’s being murdered. It should be annoying, any other time you would find it annoying. But these are your best friends, one of which you haven’t seen in over a month, and for some odd reason your heart feels so full that it could explode.

“C’mon Lix, I’ll do your hair. What do you think about blonde?”

And even though tomorrow your school is going to be flooded with new people, and your classes full of students who have probably never done more than basic positions, in the moment it feels okay. Because one of your best friends is screaming ‘NO DON’T TOUCH MY HAIR!’ while the other assures him that ‘It’ll probably most likely be okay! Look, she did mine!’ It’s a perfect chaos that you wouldn’t trade for anything.

There have been plenty of strange coincidences in your life. Like how your first dog was named Felix, and it’s now the name of one of your best friends (who’s hair ended up looking perfectly fine, thank you very much.) Or how your usual waiter at the diner in Jisungs hometown ended up being the cousin of your first kiss. Or how your dorm room is the only one on the hall with painted walls, that just so happen to be your favorite color. Plenty of weird things, but none are as weird as this. Because you’re sitting on the floor of your second class of the day, ‘Intro To Pas De Deux,’ and Hwang Hyunjin has just entered through the side door. Two minutes late.

He’s hard to recognize at first, seeing as there’s more than an added foot of height and black hair that’s creeping down the back of his neck, but the more you look the more you recognize. Pillowy lips, full cheeks, a freckle right in the set of his eye bags. You’re not entirely sold until he laughs, a sweet and breathy sound. The laugh that’s always been three seconds away from turning into a wheeze.

“What’s wrong?” Jisung questions while pulling himself up by your hands, eyes following the line that yours draw to Hyunjin, “Do you know him or something?”

You’re about to answer when Hyunjin finally turns around, eyes scanning the room before settling on you. He thinks that you look different, too. Taller and slimmer, everything that used to be squishy replaced with soft muscle. But there’s also the bridge of your nose, your hands that are barely gripping Jisungs, and of course your eyes that are staring at him like it hurts.

“(Y/n?)” He questions, your name falling from his lips as though it’s meant to do so. You nod, mouth falling open dumbly. The boy takes a step forward then freezes.

“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on? Or at least help me finish stretching?” Jisungs voice reeks of annoyance, you think that if you weren’t in such a state of shock that you’d flick him on the forehead.

“You go to the contemporary school?” Jisung doesn’t take well to being ignored, puffing loudly while scrambling to finish stretching at the barre. Your brain immediately flashes back to Hyunjins second ballet class in third grade, when you were teaching him your favorite warm up stretches. He ended up tangled in between the barre and the wall, which shouldn’t even be possible, but Hyunjin managed.

“Um... Yea.” Every inch of your body is screaming to stand up and engulf him in a hug, but your legs feel like jello. That, and there’s a small feeling of anger rising in your throat, “L-let me help.” He plops down in front of you before you can say yes. You don’t have to though, Hyunjin still knows that you can’t refuse him. You take his hands in yours, definitely ignoring the pink flush to his cheeks, and pull his torso towards you.

“It’s been six years.” The words come out choked, full of the pain from your first summer without him. When you’d spend hours playing out in the sun, knocking on your friends front door every morning. He was never there.

“Sorry.” You want him to show some type of emotion, let you know that he cares. That he’s actually sorry for breaking his promise, “I tried to come and see you in July but you weren’t home.”

“I was at Jisung’s house, we spend the summers together.” If you were more angry and less hurt you would say ‘now that I don’t spend them with you,’ but he’s still Hyunjin. He’s still Hyunjin, and you don’t think that you could handle the way he would frown at your snide remark.

Jisung flashes you a look from his place at the barre that reads ‘Who is this guy and why do you look so sad?’ You let Hyunjin pull you into the stretch while responding with a gaze that says ‘I’ll tell you later.’ Hyunjins grip tightens on your hands as you exhale deeply into the stretch, the light blue fabric of your leotard brushing against the dance studio floor.

“(Y/n,) I-” Maybe it’s the way that he licks his lips before talking, or the fact that he looks so much and so little like your best friend at the same time, or possibly even how you can feel the way that he hugged you at your last meeting sitting on your shoulders like a winter coat, but his hands suddenly feel like fire.

“I have to go!” You exclaim, popping up out of the stretch and onto your feet in one swift motion. The boy looks up at you with puppy dog eyes that spark a feeling so intense in you that you have to look away, “I have to go, I-I’ll um... I’ll see you around.” You dash off to the spot in front of Jisung, silently thanking every star in the sky that Hyunjin doesn’t have a chance to follow you. Because just as soon as you get up someone else sits down and begins to excitedly ask the boy questions (he’s short, with a petite frame and an unfamiliar face. Probably another transfer student.)

“Did he say something to you?” Jisung asks as you jump into your favorite warm up routine. There’s not really a right way to answer, because did he say anything just now? No, but six years ago he said that he’d never forget you. He promised as much, and then spent every moment doing nothing but that. You exhale while your feet continue to move instinctively, a slight sense of peace washing over you at the comfort of a routine.

“We should focus, class is starting soon.” Jisung whines and argues, but you just ignore him. Similarly to how you ignore Hyunjins gaze on you for the rest of the class.

Ignoring Hyunjin is much easier than you anticipated. In class you can distract yourself with Jisung before the teacher comes in, and lunch is fine enough. While he is there, sitting at a table that’s painfully close to yours, he doesn’t try to talk. Or worse, come and snatch up the free seat across from Felix. But no, he does nothing of the sort. Just laughs with his friends and shoots the occasional glance your way (the one composed of sparkly eyes and lips that are a breath away from pouting.)

But then there’s now, standing in the doorway of your stage chemistry class and Hyunjin is all that you can see. Hyunjin, standing in the center of the room and pressing play on the terribly outdated stereo. Hyunjin, running a hand through his raven black hair and inhaling deeply with closed eyes. All you wanted was to get your jacket, but now you have enough Hyunjin for a lifetime.

Loud, bass heavy music swells in the room as he starts to move. At first the movements are jerky, awkward almost. But then the music decrescendos every so softly and he exhales, then proceeds to move as if the dance is being pulled out of him. As if this choreo is the way that he was programmed to move. When the song peaks you swear that you feel tears prickling the back of your eyes, because this is so Hyunjin. The way he’s dancing with every bone in his body, the way his hair is now dripping in sweat and flying all around him, the way his plump lips suck in air. It’s Hyunjin down to the core, and you’ve missed him so much.

When the music dies you clap slowly, causing the boy to shoot up like a frightened cat. He whips around to where you stand, softening like butter when he sees your frame leaned up against the wooden door frame.

“You scared me!” He shrieks, bringing up a hand to clutch his chest. It reminds you of your last Halloween with him, when the two of you got to trick or treat alone. Hyunjin decided that it would be a great idea to go to a fear farm, in which he screeched and clung to you the entire time. It wasn’t even that scary, he’s just a baby.

“Sorry.” You answer, mouth going as dry as the desert, “You, um... You’re really good.” He laughs flatly while moving over to his dance bag to pull out a towel. You watch as he dabs the sweat away, something stupid and needy churning in your stomach. You write it off as hunger.

“Thanks, I still suck at ballet though.” It’s a joke, you know it’s a joke, but something about laughing feels wrong.

“You don’t.” You take a step into the room, wandering over to where your windbreaker is piled on the floor next to the boy, “I’ve seen you in class, and you’re not bad. Just out of practice.” He lets out another flat laugh while dropping the towel, quickly exchanging it with a water bottle.

“Yea, about nine years out of practice. I barely even remember how to do a pirouette.” He’s trying so hard to make you laugh, just like the old days. The growing tension in your shoulders and lump in your throat is preventing that from happening.

“I can teach you.” You offer while shrugging the jacket on. Within seconds he’s babbling out excuses, which you wave off, “Don’t even worry about it, I need to practice anyways.” You bend down to untie your sneakers before moving to the center of the room, Hyunjin following in quick succession, “So you obviously know the proper foot technique, pointed toes only and all of that. And the retire position is just your foot in the notch above your knee.” You demonstrate it in the mirror, and even though he’s far from being a ballerina he’s done enough classes to know that you want him to copy it, “Yea, good. It looks good.”

“Where are my shoulders supposed to be?” He asks shyly, not used to questioning such simple things.

“Back, always back. Now check that your hips aren’t tilted, I-I’ve always been told to imagine that they’re a fruit bowl.” You steal a quick glance at the boy while he’s adjusting, heart fluttering the same way that it did so many years ago, “Okay, now um... Now put your feet into fourth position, just like that yea, then bend your knees and push off from your back leg.” You do the turn, a motion so natural that it might as well be brushing your teeth, “Like that, easy peasy!” The boy scoffs while bringing up his arms the same way that you had yours just seconds ago.

“Yea, easy peasy for you!” A soft giggle falls from your lips, bouncing off the walls of the empty studio (as well as Hyunjins ears.)

“C’mon!” You tease while moving around to face him, a soft smile playing at your lips, “You see me mess up in class all of the time, just go for it. The worst that could happen is being wrong.” He nods, then exhales shakily. When he does the turn it’s a bit wobbly, but definitely not anything worse than what you’ve seen before.

“Oh my god, (Y/n) that was terrible like genuinely awful-” The words feel harsh, but he’s wearing a bright smile and laughing like there’s not a care in the world. You can’t help but laugh too.

“No, no! It was fine!” You assure through a laugh as he gets back into position. From the corner of your eye you see him mouth ‘liar,’ which earns him a harsh flick between the eyes, “Just bring your hips a little more forward like...” It’s instinctual for your hand to fall onto his hipbone, something you’ve done to Felix hundreds of times. The main difference is that when you adjust Felix he usually tells you to fuck off, then softly knees your stomach. When you do it to Hyunjin he audibly chokes and you feel fire ignite beneath your fingertips, “Like this. Now go into fourth and try again, but keep your hips aligned!” The boy nods before sinking into position and pushing up into a flawless turn.

“I did it!” He exclaims, hands flying up like he’s about to hug you, “You were right, you were right I did it!” Something about his wide, excited eyes makes every wall built around your heart crumble into dust. So you accept the hug, once again allowing yourself to fall victim to the sweetness that is Hwang Hyunjin.

“I was what, I was... Did you say right?!” He rolls his eyes at your teasing, trying desperately to pretend like he didn’t miss it. It’s useless, because the way that Hyunjin’s holding you let’s you know that he’s missed you just as much as you have him, “Alright big guy, let me go. I’ve got studying to do and shoes to break in.” He whines lowly, arms trying to grab you as you snake away.

“Can we get dinner together or something?” He begs, hand briefly tangling itself in yours. You fight down the blush rising to your cheeks while pulling your hand away and stuffing it into your pocket.

“Not tonight, you have to keep practicing those pirouettes! But don’t worry, you’ll be seeing more of me... Partner.” Hyunjin smiles widely at your words, realization settling in as quickly as they leave your mouth.

“Do you mean...?”

“Yes,” You exhale, mentally preparing for another bone crushing hug, “I’ll be your partner for class.”

Hyunjins hug is almost nice enough that you forget about how annoying Jisung’s going to be when you tell him.

It turns out that the friends Hyunjin made are almost as amazing as the ones that you did. Everyone was a little awkward when the two groups first merged, specifically Jisung who was still butt hurt about you switching partners. But then Felix got to talking with Chan (the person who’s been mothering your friend ever since he started at the contemporary institute. From the way they talk, Hyunjin would’ve both starved and failed if it weren’t for the older boy,) and suddenly everyone was meeting in your room on Fridays for a weekly game of uno.

“Absolutely not, you’re fucking cheating!” Minho (the other new face from your stage chemistry class,) shouts while pointing a finger across the card pile and into Jisungs face. The boy moves to jokingly bite at it, causing Chan’s eyes to go as wide as the moon.

“No, no, no! No murder, and no biting what the hell!” You snort at your new friends bewildered expression while passing a canned sparkling water to Hyunjin. He accepts with a smile before mouthing ‘they’re insane!’ Felix sees and proceeds to nail him in the face with your favorite throw pillow.

“Says the guy who sleeps in socks-” Hyunjin throws the pillow back harshly, causing Chan to damn near pass out. It’s all that you can do to not roll over with laughter.

“My feet get cold.” He grumbles with a pout that makes both you and Minho coo from your spots beside the boy.

“Okay, okay, Minho just pick up the cards and let’s keep going? I’m about to finish!” The boy grumbles angrily, all ‘stupid card game’ and ‘I don’t wanna pick up twenty cards!’ You lock eyes with Chan from across the card pile, taking brief solace in the presence of someone else with a functioning brain.

“So we all know that (Y/n’)s about to win, and that she’s my best friend and favorite duet partner,” Everyone answers him with an immediate ‘rude,’ which makes a girlish giggle bubble up in your throat, “which is why it makes me so terribly sad to do this.” You watch closely as he dramatically pulls a card from his hand then places it on top of the deck, a fat draw four staring you straight in the eyes. Everyone goes silent while watching your face fall drastically.

“Hwang Hyunjin, I am going to-” The room bursts into chaos before you even finish the sentence. In the end there are about twelve fresh bruises, six entirely hoarse sets of vocal chords, and one demolished dorm room. Just a normal Friday night.

Except for the way that your heart stutters when Hyunjin mouths a simple ‘love you’ over the bustling group. That’s not normal, but you think that you like it.

“Hyunjin, if you keep your hands there I’m going to fall.” You say to your duet partner, whose hands are wandering aimlessly up your torso. They’re supposed to be on your hips, serving as an anchor for your body while it dips towards the ground.

“Sorry, sorry.” The boy mumbles, not entirely meaning it. It’s impossible to be sorry when he can physically feel your heart speed up beneath his hands.

“Try to sound just a little bit less convincing next time, okay?” You shimmy slightly in a futile attempt to move his hands, which only makes him laugh brightly. If it weren’t for your less than ideal position (halfway bent into a split with every ounce of your weight balanced on the tips of your toes,) you would hit him.

“Do you want me to drop you, because I can drop you if it’s what you want-” The teacher snaps her fingers, pulling everyone’s attention out of the various warm up routines and to the front of the room. Hyunjins hands pull away from your torso so quickly that it burns.

“No dropping dance partners on purpose, that’s the first rule of building stage chemistry.” She chastises, eyes brushing briefly over your friend which causes him to turn thirty shades of pink. You giggle quietly to yourself before sticking your tongue out at him, “But of course, you can’t truly start to build a connection until there’s material. So that’s what we’re doing today, I’ve assigned each group with a pas de deux, or ‘dance for two’. Whoever I think shows the most promise within the next week will be given the opportunity to enter in the regional competition.” She says opportunity, but the stern tone of her voice means that whoever she picks will definitely have to do the competition.

Everyone floods to the front of the class before she even finishes, Hyunjin moving to do so as well before you quickly grip his wrist.

“She didn’t say to go yet, and if we want to qualify for that competition we’re going to have to start kissing up now.” You keep your face forward, chin up and shoulders back, but even then you can feel Hyunjins smile, “What?!”

“You want to do the competition?” He sounds hopeful, nearly childlike.

“Of course! That’s like half the reason I go to school here, the competitive atmosphere.” People are starting to settle back into place, your teacher wearing a look of utter annoyance. Hyunjin doesn’t seem to notice, seeing as his mouth keeps moving.

“I’ve only known how to do a pirouette for a month, and I still can’t really get my double. You’d have a better chance with Han, or-” As soon as the teachers back is turned you whip around to your babbling partner, hands planted firmly on his broad shoulders. It takes a second for his eyes to meet yours, but when they do he nearly melts.

“I don’t want to do it with anyone else, I want to do it with you. And just because your double isn’t perfect doesn’t mean that it’s not good so stop stressing.” He looks down for a second, cheeks growing as pink as your shoes. By force of habit you hook a hand beneath the boys chin and force him to look at you, “I mean it.” He swallows harshly, then nods. With a sigh you let go of the boy and return to your previous (assigned) position. Just in time too, seeing as the teacher turns around right as you settle next to the boy.

“You may check your assignments at the end of class, if you haven’t done so already.” You flash a knowing glance to Hyunjin, almost as if to say ‘I told you so.’ He knows better than to argue.

At the end of class you go up to look with Jisung while Hyunjin gathers your things for you, the short brunette babbling excitedly about the previously mentioned regional’s.

“I thought that you don’t do partner work?” You tease lightly while ducking down to look at the list.

“I don’t, but neither does my partner! So we’ll just be okay at...” He bends next to, head full of brown hair hitting you straight in the eyes, “Romeo and Juliet?” You bite down a laugh while pushing the boy away.

“Don’t try to fight it, you’re such a Romeo. Just like I am such a... Lise!” The boys face contorts with jealousy as he ducks back down, once again knocking your heads together.

“You guys got La Fille mal gardee? And the ribbon dance?!” You giggle back a small yes while pinching the boys frowning cheeks, “No fair! Absolutely no fair, I have to do stupid Romeo and Juliet and you got my favorite ballet, no fair!”

“It’s my favorite too!” You defend, which ends up being pointless because both Hyunjin and Jisung chorus back with ‘not true!’

“Your favorite is swan lake.” Hyunjin states while sliding your dance bag onto your shoulder. Maybe it’s the fondness in his action, or the way that he named off your favorite ballet as though it was a fact ingrained into his brain, but your heart swells so large that you swear it could pop like a balloon.

“Okay,” you exhale, hand moving to the spot where his fingers were ghosting just seconds ago, “one of my favorites.”

At your first rehearsal for regionals you and Hyunjin are given the ribbon to use, seeing as it’s literally the ribbon dance. Practicing without it was honestly getting awkward, which is unfortunate seeing as the boy nearly got it taken away within minutes.

“Look (Y/n,) I’m a present!” He had exclaimed, causing you to whip around to the sight of your partner with a pink silk bow tied around his chin.

“Oh no, Hyunjin!” You whispered through a quiet laugh, moving towards him to untie it, “You are so ridiculous!”

“What? Am I not a gift?” He pouted while trying to pull your hands away, which earned him nothing but a harsh smack on the wrist. You slipped it off his face and behind your back just as the teacher walked in the door to give the ‘your ribbon is not a toy,’ talk.

At the second you describe the plot of La Fille mal Gardee, which proves to be slightly (read: very confusing.)

“Wait wait wait, she doesn’t even like the other guy?!” He asks while shaking his head cutely, black hair bouncing along with the motion. If it gets any longer he’s going to have to start putting it up.

“Nope, not one bit.” His eyebrows furrow as he starts to grumble ‘this is kind of stupid,’ earning a giggle and a push to the shoulder, “No it isn’t! It’s funny, and sweet! I really relate to Lise and her... Character arch I guess.”

“Isn’t she the girl who needed guarding or something like that?” His tilts to the side, teeth catching ever so slightly on his puffy pink lips.

“Yea,” You exhale with a quickening heart rate, “something like that.” There’s silence for a minute, nothing but Hyunjin shaking his head and sighing softly.

“That’s not you. No one needs to guard you.” For some reason your brain flashes back to the third summer alone (that awkward stage where you were too old to make new friends and too young to go see Jisung,) when you spent everyday walking through the woods alone. Sometimes you would just walk until the sun went down and your only company was the stars, but most days you would find a new place to sit down and hum out the motifs of your favorite ballets, “No one.”

For a moment you think that he’s right.

The fourth rehearsal (exactly one week after the first) is when you get to a stage kiss in the choreography, your teacher describing the motions along with a recording that’s projecting on the back wall. It starts with the boy pulling in the girl by the ribbon, then swooping down to meet her lips with a smile. Then she twirls away, leaving your skin hot and crawling.

“We’re um... A-are we gonna do that?” Hyunjin asks through a whisper, leaning close enough that you can feel his breath. It’s warm and smells like spearmint.

“We’ll know when we get there I guess, now pay attention!” You push his face away from yours and back to the projection, watching as the couple wraps each other up in the silky ribbon.

When you do finally get there an hour later he looks so nervous that he could puke. Your teacher shouts out the next move, ‘kiss and then twirl away,’ which only adds to the painful drumming of your heart.

“It’s okay, (Y/n,) you don’t have to.” His voice is low, hushed. Almost like he doesn’t want anyone else to hear.

“No, no! It’s okay, I’ll just...” You lean forward as much as you can with the ribbon hugging your waist and press a feather light kiss onto the tip of his nose. The teacher coos, maybe even praises the two of you on the developing stage chemistry. You don’t hear it. You don’t hear anything over the erratic beating of your heart, “I’ll just do that, okay?” He swallows dryly, eyes flashing quickly down to your lips then back up to your sweet gaze.

“Y-yea, perfect.” There’s something building up in the space between your bodies, so thick that you could spread it over toast, “You should twirl away, right?” You nod, wanting desperately to stay. To kiss him in an earth shattering way.

A part of you thinks that you shouldn’t. That Hyunjin has the power to ruin every part of you, and that wanting to give that to him after your hearts already been broken is foolish. But you do, you want to. Because loving Hyunjin feels good enough that the pain doesn’t matter.

After the fifth rehearsal the two of you feel as though you’ve torn every muscle in your body. Your teacher decided within the first twelve minutes that the two of you would benefit from some conditioning, which resulted in you and Hyunjin holding side by side planks (as well as other terrible positions) and muttering curses for a solid hour.

“I’m gonna collapse.” Hyunjin whines, plopping down onto the hardwood floor beside his dance bag. Something that’s probably supposed to be a laugh falls out of your mouth before you pull the water bottle from your bag.

“At least you haven’t been wearing pointe shoes all day.” You groan while moving the bottle to your mouth. A mouthful of water slides down your throat right as the boys face twists into one of horror.

“Oh gosh, oh no I’m so sorry!” You try to wave the black haired boy away, which only makes him feel worse, “No, no! I wanna help let me umm... Come back to my room? I can set up a foot bath with...”

“Epsom salts.” You answer after swallowing another swig of water, “But I have all of the stuff in my room, I can take care of it.” Hyunjin whines again while rolling over onto his stomach and pushing himself into a sitting position. There’s a bead of sweat dripping down the bridge of his nose, something that you shouldn’t focus on. It catches on the tip before falling delicately onto his collar bone.

“I wanna take care of it,” It feels like all of the air has been sucked out of the room, “just... Here, wear my jacket into the building so no one can see that you’re uh... A girl.” You try to argue again, but then your cheeks are squished in between his hand and his eyebrows are furrowed just enough for it to be cute, “Let me take care of you.”

And really, how could you say no to that?

“Hwang Hyunjin, you are my favorite person in the world.” You sigh, feet dipping into the warm cloudy water. He plops down next to you with a laugh and arms full of snacks.

“Can I get that in writing? You know, just to prove it to Jisung.” Laughter bounces off of his dorm walls, filling the boys brain with childhood memories. Like the time that you two were riding scooters in your driveway and just as the sun started to set you skinned your knee. Hyunjin had thought for a minute that the shaking of your shoulders was sobbing, but quickly discovered by a tilt of your chin and hands wrapped around your sides that you were indeed laughing. Beautiful, clear laughter complete with sunshine dripping from your skin. It was the first time he can remember thinking that someone was beautiful.

“Yes!” You exclaim, effectively pulling the boy from his memory, “But only if you give me food.” He giggles tiredly, a sound so sweet that it might as well be honey, and tosses a bag of pita chips your way.

“You don’t even have to ask.”

You’re supposed to go back to your dorm at eleven, thirty minutes after arrival. But then Hyunjin starts talking about anything and everything, ranging from how he met Minho to the old building of his school. The way he chuckles sleepily while reminiscing on water logged ceilings is enough to make you melt.

Somehow your head ends up pulled against his chest, rising and falling with his breaths. There’s an arm tied around your waist like ribbon, lips softly brushing your hairline as he mumbles endlessly about everything, your leg across his lap as though they’re supposed to be.

“What time’s it?” You slur, clenching onto the fabric of his shirt. It smells like spice and fresh pine and Hyunjin. So much like Hyunjin.

“Midnight.” You think to yourself that it’s time to leave, that if any of the staff found out about this you’d be dead. You also think that Hyunjin smells like fresh pine and that he’s holding you in a way that you’ve never been held.

The sound of his even breathing and the weight of his arms on you lulls you to sleep in a matter of minutes.

When you wake up it’s to the obnoxious blaring of Hyunjins alarm. The boy whines lowly before punching it into snooze. It’s enough to make you laugh, then pull your head away from the cradle of his chin.

“C’mon sleepy, it’s time to get up. What do you have for breakfast?” If it weren’t for your hair tickling his cheek or the way your torso writhes beneath his arm he would be annoyed by your chirping voice. After the hundreds of early mornings school has thrown your way you can’t really help but be a morning person.

“More sleep, that’s what I have.” He grumbles as you crack the curtains open, trying desperately to pull the comforter over his eyes.

“You need food to fuel your body Hyunjin-” Before you can finish lecturing him an arm shoots up from beneath the gray blanket, crashing your body onto his with a sleepy groan.

“M’ just kidding.” He pulls you under the blanket with him, mimicking the first time he spent the night at your house. You two stayed up until the sun was rising, hidden away from the world by the fluffy pink comforter of your childhood bedroom, “Protein bars are in the closet and apples’r on top of the mini fridge.

It’d be so easy to skip classes and stay here all day, not a care in the world besides the sweet boy that you’re currently tangled in. A part of you wants to melt away and give in, but a bigger part knows that doing that is a commitment. Like saying that you’re his to hold and break however he pleases. It’s the scariest thought that you’ve had in months.

“W-we should get going. Yea?” The words sound like you’ve been choking on them. A fact that Hyunjin takes notice of, eyes growing sad and attentive as his arms wiggle away from your waist.

“Yea, yea. Minho will be here in ten minutes, we walk to pas de deux together.” Before you can help it your expression turns panicked, eyebrows shooting up as your jaw drops open, “Sorry! He’s not gonna tell anyone or anything I promise!” Something clenches in your chest at the sight of him sitting up in bed, black hair sticking up every way that it can.

“I know he won’t, it’s just...” You look down at your body, clothed with Hyunjins sweatshirt and a pair of his long socks (turns out that he was onto something with the whole ‘sleeping in socks’ thing,) “I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.” His gaze shoots up to meet yours, so soft and relaxed that you could cry.

“Which would be?” There’s a pounding in your ears that’s quickly recognizable as a heartbeat.

“That we’re together.” It’s barely above a whisper, but Hyunjin hears you loud and clear. From the light tremble to the breathy finish, he hears you.

“We could be, if that’s what you want.” He puts a hand on your shoulder, an action familiar enough that it’s normal yet tender enough that your cheeks are flushing pink, “Is that what you want?”

“I-I, um...” Your heart is screaming yes, that you want to be his and only his. That while you aren’t a girl who needs to be guarded, you are a girl who wants to be guarded. Guarded from everything by Hyunjins thin comforter and strong arms.

But then you think about the promise that Hyunjin broke. The promise that he wouldn’t forget you, and then broke less than twenty-four hours later. You think about how badly you’ve wanted to spend the last day of summer with him every year since. Your mouth opens right as a knock sounds against his door, “Can we talk about this later?” Hyunjin nods lightly while getting up to grab two apples off of the top of the mini fridge.

“I’m so sorry for however he reacts.” The boy groans under his breath, offering you a light green apple along with an apologetic smile. You accept, smiling back before popping out of bed to pull your dance bag over your shoulder.

“It can’t be that bad, Minho’s level headed.” If it weren’t for the fact that Hyunjin still has a question lodged in his throat he would’ve laughed.

You’re the one who finally opens the door, interrupting Minho mid-knock. At first he looks aggravated, ready to launch into a long speech about how ‘timeliness is important’ and ‘you always fucking make us late’ but when his eyes meet you his jaw goes slack.

“What the f-”

If the sound of Minho screeching wasn’t telling enough, you were very very wrong.

The next four days are spent dancing around Hyunjins burning question, constantly talking about anything else or switching the topic when it seems like he might bring it up. At first he barely notices, simply assuming that you need time to mull it over, but then Jisung and Chan sit in on a lunchtime rehearsal.

The dance is coming along perfectly, so much so that the boys don’t even notice your hesitations. Hyunjin sees it though. Sees the way that your hands tremble before planting on his shoulders, the way that your face looks sad after pressing the soft kiss onto his nose. While he hasn’t seen you dance as much as Jisung or Felix probably have, he’s still seen enough to know that you’re never like this. Never uncertain.

“What was that about?” The boy asks after the rehearsal, hands crossed against his chest. You’re going to ignore him, focus on nothing other than getting out of your pointe shoes and off to your next class, but then his dark brown eyes catch on yours, “Seriously!”

“What are you talking about?” You respond, fingers working quickly to undo the ribbons around your ankles. A sigh leaves your mouth as one shoe slips off and into your bag, quickly moving to the other one before Hyunjin can continue the questioning.

Turns out that your friend is terrible at picking up on social cues.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Your head is briefly pulled up from the floor as his voice grows impossibly soft, your heartbeat faltering ever so slightly. There’s a quiet goodbye as Jisung and Chan leave the studio, “Y-you scared me.”

“I’m sorry.” You whisper, throwing the second shoe into your bag while a lump takes form in your throat. If he wasn’t your best friend then he would think that you’re just tired, or hungry, or anything other than deflecting. But he is your best friend, who knows that being tired or hungry only makes you sad. Your best friend who knows that you’re deflecting harder than you ever have before.

“It’s okay, just tell me. Please.” His last word is so hushed that you can barely hear it, but it’s there. Light, and airy, and perfectly there, “Is this about what I asked?” Before you can help you’re nodding, once again giving this boy every part of you that can break.

“Yea, kind of.” It feels like your mouth is full of cotton, leaving you uncomfortably hot along with speechless. A loud sigh rings through the studio as Hyunjin slides down to meet your height, hands burying into his raven black hair. The sight takes you back to the last day of fifth grade; you and him holding each other on your front porch as if the world was ending, your hands tangled into his hair.

“Is it because you don’t want to?” There’s his eyes on yours, your chest heaving, and nothing else in the entire universe. Just (Y/n,) the girl who wants to be guarded, and Hyunjin, (Y/n’)s beloved.

“No.”

“Then why didn’t you say yes?” Right now feels like when you’re at a competition, in the middle of a variation that’s been giving you hell since you started working on it. It’s seconds before the hardest part, the one that you’re still not sure of. It’s the adrenaline rushing through your veins and the words ‘now or never’ echoing with each timed exhale.

“Because. How do I know that you won’t forget about me when summer comes?” Your words hit him like a punch to the gut, causing his lips to part and then heave for air.

“I-I never forgot about you.”

“Yes you did!” There are tears prickling the back of your eyelids, which you quickly blink away before continuing, “I waited for you outside your house every day! And then, when you wouldn’t show up, I-I’d spend every day alone. Doing what we used to do together, but by myself! I was all by myself and I missed you so much, Jinnie. So, so much.” He’s going to tell you that you’re wrong. That while all of those things happened, he never ever forgot about you.

But then there’s that old nickname, the one reserved specifically for family and you. He hasn’t heard it in months, and when he finally does it’s rolling out of your mouth like a plea soaked in honey. Something that’s going to stick with him for forever.

“(Y/n,) please-” You’re up and out of the door before he can even finish.

It’s a dreary Friday morning, rain trickling down your window and painting your room a gray shade of blue. With a deep inhale you realize that everything is finally smelling like fall, which only solidifies the fact that you never want to get out of bed. Unfortunately you have a class in half an hour that you do kind of need to go to.

But it’s not too terrible. Maybe if you were getting up to go take a math class, or run a marathon, but you aren’t. You’re getting up to go to ballet class, and you can wear your favorite leotard again (the light blue one, with pearls sewn around the collar,) and the rain outside is heavy enough to be calming but light enough that you can fend it off with an umbrella. The only thing that could make this morning any better is your favorite childhood breakfast, honey nut cheerios with strawberry milk.

Which is, oddly enough, sitting outside of your door when you open it to head off to the dining hall. A gallon sized jug of bright pink milk next to a family size box of your favorite cereal, just sitting in the middle of the hallway with a folded piece of paper resting precariously on top. Something about this has Hyunjin written all over it. You lean down to pick up the note, reading it about a thousand times over before rushing back into your room to wolf down the breakfast that you haven’t had in months.

‘(Y/n,)

I never forgot you.

Come to my room tonight after rehearsal. Please.

Sincerely, Hyunjin.’

When you two do the first full run through of the pas de deux that night he holds you extra tight. Maybe because he misses you. Maybe because he thinks that after tonight he’ll never have the chance to do so again.

But when he opens the door to his dorm room you see pink fluffy blankets folded on his bed. On top of them is a basket, filled to the brim with every last one of your favorite things. Strawberries dipped in chocolate like the ones your mother would make on hot summer nights, snickers bars like the ones that you two would share after days spent in your driveway, glass bottled lemonade like you would buy from the stand up the street.

“I may or may not have also bought your favorite movie. Well, if it’s still Barbie And the Twelve Dancing Princesses.” A giggle sounds through the room, bouncing around the walls and then back onto Hyunjins burning cheeks.

“It is, but don’t tell Jisung!” Rain starts to fall again, the soft pitter patter mixing perfectly with the boys soft laugh. His hand grazes briefly against the small of your back as he starts to guide you into the tight room, “I’m serious! Him and Lix will make fun of me!” The pout on your face is enough to melt anyone’s heart, which is why Hyunjin doesn’t even think twice when his knees go weak as jelly.

“My lips are sealed.” He says, walking over the boxy tv (that certainly wasn’t there last week) on his desk and inserting the disc, “Now sit back and enjoy.”

It’s not a hard request to fill, your tired body sinking immediately into the fluffy blankets and mouth watering each time you bite down on a strawberry. Rain continues to patter softly against the window, the sound occasionally being replaced by a loud roll of thunder which makes the boy next to you jump. You had laughed at the action, asking softly if he was scared. It was a rhetorical question, you know fully well that he’s always been scared of thunder.

“No! Yes, shut up.” And if you mind that the boy cuddles softly into your side, one arm wrapped around the curve of your waist while the other holds a chocolate strawberry, you don’t say so.

The two of you stay tangled up in each other like that until the credits roll, Hyunjins breathy sigh hitting your cheek as he shifts to get up. You watch with heartfelt eyes as he crosses the dimly lit room, his black hair briefly sweeping across his eyes. You want to reach up and push it away, but right as you manage to sit up straight he’s done with it and headed back to the bed. With a short laugh you realize that your noses are touching.

“Hi.” The word comes at as a short exhale, leaving a taste on your tongue that’s sweeter than chocolate strawberries.

“Hey.” Your heart flutters at the sound, an exhale laced together with a smile, as his arms return to their previous spot around your waist. There’s probably nothing in the world brighter than the smile he wears for you. Stage lights, the sun, every last star in the sky rolled into one. None of it even comes close to the way that his pink lips stretch perfectly from cheek to cheek, “Do you finally believe me?” He brings up a hand to caress your cheek gently, as though to rub away tears that haven’t fallen.

“Believe wh-”

“Do you believe that I never forgot you? That I never forgot any of you, not even the little things like your favorite color or what you liked to eat for dinner. Maybe I pulled away, but I think it’s because even then I knew how badly losing you would hurt. I-I knew that I never wanted to lose you, which is just what I did...” He swallows harshly, tongue darting out to wet his lower lip, “But I’ll never do it again. I’ll never lose you, and I’ll never forget you a-and... And I don’t want to remember you anymore, (Y/n.) I’m so done with remembering, let’s just be.” There’s something stuck in your throat, but it doesn’t hurt the way that tears do. No, this is a release gathering inside of you. One that’s waiting for you to finally give in.

“Hyunjin,” His fingers cradle the curve of your jaw, sending goosebumps down every inch of your body, “kiss me.” And that’s all the confirmation he needs to brush his lips over yours.

At first it’s gentle, almost questioning. Like he’s asking one last time ‘Is this okay?’ But then your hands tangle in his black hair, the way that they’ve been aching to since you first saw him, and he knows that you’re okay. More than okay, you’re in love. With every muscle in your body, you’re in love.

Hyunjin’s hand that was previously holding your face drops back down to your waist and pulls you in softly. They then travel down to your thighs, eliciting a soft gasp from your lips before he picks you up and guides you onto the bed. Every movement is so perfect yet raw, feeling like the stuff of ballets. Until your back hits an unopened glass bottle of lemonade, that is. The sudden cold is enough to make you jump.

“What?!” Hyunjin questions, eyes shooting as wide as saucers, “Did I hurt you?!” A laugh sounds through the room while your hand detaches from his hair, opting instead to reach around your body and remove the glass bottle that’s poking you in the least conventional way possible.

“No.” You answer through soft giggles, bringing up the bottle to lightly tap his forehead, “There’s just a lemonade poking me in the ass.”

He flushes bright pink before answering with a tiny ‘oh’ and burying his face into the crook of your neck. If you were less malleable you would’ve teased him even more, but then there are warm kisses on your skin and nothing in your head.

“I love you.” He whispers, head slowly moving until his lips are against your jaw. You’re going to answer, really, but then there are soft lips on your chin and a smile ripping through your body, “I love you.”

“M-me too.” You stammer dumbly, body going entirely limp as he (finally) presses another kiss onto your lips. The boy pulls away entirely too soon, but it’s okay. There’s something that you need to finish saying, anyways, “I love you too, Jinnie.”

When you fall asleep that night it’s to the sound of pattering rain, with Hyunjins arms guarding you from the world.

The bus back from regionals is quiet, the few sounds that do come about being Chan and Felix whispering softly or Minho giggling at Jisung snoring. You’re about there too, but who can blame you when Hyunjins hands are buried in your hair (which is both stiff and wavy from a combination of hairspray and braided buns.) If you close your eyes and focus really hard you can even feel the rise and fall of his chest where it’s connected with your back.

“Who’s gonna keep our trophy?” The boy questions, lips moving softly against the shell of your ear. It generates a warm feeling in your gut, one that spreads quickly to your cheeks and ears.

“We’ll trade it off on the weekends. Like divorced soccer parents.” He giggles softly, moving forward to kiss your temple.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” If you were a little bit less tired, or a little bit less in love, then maybe you’d joke back. But you’re wrapped up in him like a ribbon on your waist, foot nudging against a plastic first place trophy while his lips move against you in a way that you could get drunk off of.

“Never.” You answer, hand coming up to wrap around his as if it were a vow, “Never.”

#hwang hyunjin #hyunjin x reader #hyunjin fluff #hyunjin angst #writekpop #admin reid #han jisung #lee felix #bang chan #lee know #stray kids #stray kids fluff #stray kids x reader #this might be one of my favorites yet... i really loved writing all of them #and researching!!

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seaswalllow · 3 years

Text

concept below :P

snippet one is mostly establishing format, snippet two, though... ;]

> User: E@>>J registered.

> Audio components active. Visuals active.

The camera's screen flickers. It is held in a surprisingly steady hand, although its wielder is excitable- and loud. As the pixels resolve themselves into a grainy picture that steadily sharpens, you can make out grass underfoot.

Shadows flicker on the edges. They resolve, too, into the shadows of two other boys.

> User: EF33@ registered.

> User: C2?3@@ registered.

The voices of all three fade in.

> "-did you bring the extra flashlights? Batteries? Snacks?"

The camera-holder scoffs. From your angle, you can see him dig the toe of a scuffed sneaker into the earth.

> "Yes, I did. Water, too. I'm not an idiot."

Speculative noises arise from his companions. He pans the camera up aggressively, zooming in on the shorter one who makes direct eye-contact and shrugs.

> "You're excitable."

The taller one seems more careful with his words. This earns another aggressive- relatively over the top- scoff.

> "And you're a bitch, Ranboo. Ranboob."

> "Well now that was just uncalled for-"

Ranboo's protests are overlapped by the camera-holder walking forward, and beginning to talk.

> "Let's get going! It'll be nighttime by the time we get there, and you'll want to go back because you're a little bitch-"

> "Because we don't want to break our necks-"

The camera is snatched amidst the argument; the camera flips enough for you to see that it is the other boy waving to you.

> "While they argue, we'll keep walking. We're walking down to this ravine that Tommy had found."

As he speaks, he briefly pans over to the boy arguing with Ranboo, before returning to the path in front of them. In front of you, the woods loom. This close to the edge, sunlight dapples the floor.

The boys overhear him, and their arguing seems to cease. Tommy speeds up to walk in front of the camera.

> "Tommy, is there anything that you wanted to tell us about the ravine?"

> "It's haunted, bitch."

This draws a yelp from their companion. Tommy's expression twitches with a barely concealed smile; neither the camera holder nor Ranboo seem as amused. The camera holder skirts around a tree, and you watch as a squirrel scuttles past.

> "What do you mean, haunted? Tommy, what do you mean haunted?"

> "There's no way that it's haunted. You're trying to get a spook out of us."

Ranboo and the camera holder's complaints overlap. Tommy waves a hand dismissively at the camera.

> "Take a look and find out, Tubbo. There's supposedly a sad little man who wanders around the place, playing with the lanterns-"

This time, the camera pans up again to Ranboo, who shakes his head at it.

> "This is going to end so badly."

> "It'll be fine! Just don't pussy out and run off on your own!"

A huff sounds from behind you. Tubbo pans the camera around to catch more of the forest; here, the undergrowth sprawls wildly about the floor, and it nearly trips Tommy up. Birdsong grows fainter, and fainter, and Ranboo rubs at his arms.

> "Should I turn the camera off until we get there? I'll save its batteries."

> "We brought extra, it'll be fine!"

> "Besides, if we end up getting murdered in the forest, at least someone can stumble onto the camera-"

> "Someone's just gonna leave the camera behind, right-"

The three boys' arguments overlap each other, but Tubbo does not shut the camera off.

Tommy brings the group to a stop in front of a hill. From behind Ranboo, you can't see why they've halted; when Tubbo pans the camera around, you can see the cave entrance.

The sunlight hardly reaches you here, thick as the canopy is. It doesn't stretch much further into the cavern.

Tommy pulls out a torch, and flicks it on. Ranboo does not follow suit; Tubbo does.

> "So this is the ravine. It goes down a passage, and then supposedly opens up."

> "I still say this is a bad, bad idea. We are going to break something, we are going to get murdered-"

> "We'll be fine. We're three big men, we can take whatever bitches try to jump us. I'll just flex- and punch them-"

> "And break your hand."

Tubbo sounds amused; Ranboo has hesitantly taken out a torch and flicked it on.

> "You go on then, bossman. You want to show us this badly, you go first."

> "Fine! Fine."

Tommy steps into the cavern; the camera is panned down to note that the floor dips down immediately within the entrance. He forges on, further, gravel crackling underfoot.

The party pauses at indentations in the floor, scrapes around it- Tommy pokes it with a foot. The camera zooms in on it.

> "Looks like somebody hollowed out this place at least a little. Did you say that this place was manmade?"

> "Well, somebody had to have found it if there's a fucking ghost here."

> "If there's a ghost here, then someone died, and we shouldn't be here at all!"

Tommy does not answer, having moved on. Tubbo only pans the camera to Ranboo- your view bobs, presumably from a shrug.

> "Come look! I found the way down, look at how cool that is-"

The camera just catches Tommy sliding into a crack in the wall, and beginning to make his way downwards. Tubbo follows. He makes a surprised sound, and points you at the stairs.

The very clearly manmade stairs. They are unevenly hewn out, and although Tubbo doesn't slip, you can hear Tommy swear up ahead as he grabs at the walls for support.

> "Definitely manmade."

Ranboo's voice does not sound terribly excited with this revelation. Tommy has stopped firing back particularly acerbic retorts- Tubbo silently zooms in on his white-knuckled grip on the torch and doesn't say another word.

> "How deep can this go? We've been in here for what feels like hours-"

The camera jerks up sharply at Tommy's loud swear, and you come to an abrupt stop. Tommy steadies himself for balance on the floor, and the camera peeks around him, Ranboo whistling under his breath.

The three beams of light play over the expanse yawning below them; pathways arch, thin and winding, between the cavern walls. Tommy's light lingers over a lantern, rusted and long-burnt out, before it wanders further down to the floor. Below them, something clicks, once, twice, three times. A rock, presumably, hitting the floor as they enter the path.

Ranboo's, meanwhile, explores the pathway that sprawls in front of them and follows it down. The camera flicks between both, before Tubbo starts cautiously following the path in turn.

> "So somebody clearly was here. They spent lots of time here if this wasn't- natural."

Tubbo's light flicks to a wooden pathway, rotted through.

> "No way all of this was natural, bossman."

Distantly, Ranboo can be heard muttering under his breath. Whatever it is, it is worried; but it's too quiet to be distinct.

By now, Tubbo is halfway down the path. Closer to the ravine floor, more cracks can be seen in the walls.

As one of their lights wander across the walls, Ranboo clears his throat.

> "Guys. Guys, are those- what is that in the walls? Buttons?"

Tubbo hops the last distance off, and wanders closer to one. The camera, grainy as it is in the low light, zooms in on one of the little square mechanisms. It's wood, and oddly smooth, despite the rot that's wormed its way in.

> "Sure seems like it."

> "You should press it."

Quick as a flash, Tommy comes up behind him, and presses it. Other than a gentle click, despite Ranboo's scandalized hiss, nothing happens. It pops back into place.

> "Next question: why're there so many of these?"

> "Someone was bored, probably."

Tommy's peeled off again, turning in a circle. Tubbo zooms the camera in on a crack in the wall.

> "Is this an actual cave system?"

Tommy moves ahead of him, peeking into the crack. Crack is inaccurate- more like an opening, oddly tall enough and spacious enough for two of them to fit through comfortably.

> "...This isn't a fucking cave."

Tommy disappears into it, and Ranboo hovers outside. His attention is drawn somewhere deeper into the ravine- Tubbo zooms in on him.

> "Shadows got to you?"

> "I thought I saw something."

Even in the low light, Ranboo's troubled expression is easy to make out. Tubbo swings the camera around to follow where he stares. The torch cuts deep enough to come across the other wall- not a single thing moves.

Tubbo swings the camera back to Ranboo.

> "Here, you follow Tommy, and I'll go behind."

> "For you to spook me too?"

Nonetheless, Ranboo does follow Tommy in. Tubbo pans the camera a last time down in the direction he was staring in- nothing. A rusted lantern swings in a breeze.

Odd, that. A breeze in a cave.

The view lingers on it, and when it's pulled away, seems grainier than normal.

> "This is an actual room. This isn't a cave. Someone made this room."

Tubbo zooms in on more scratches in the side of the wall. Some of it looks like somebody was hacking away at the walls. Others...

> "What, someone hacked out this room, and went- hold up, hold up. What the fuck is this shit on the ground?"

Their footsteps don't echo here, muffled by what appears to be softer ground. As multiple torches are pointed down, Ranboo crouches down, and pokes at it, before taking a handful. Dirt trickles through his fingers.

> "Did someone just- just haul down some dirt to shove into a random cave room? What kind of- who made this place?"

None of the others have answers for him; Tubbo crouches as well, and digs his hands deeper. He does not meet stone anywhere underneath.

> "It goes deep, too. Wonder why."

Tommy ducks out of the room; his footsteps echo as his feet meet stone once more.

> "There's more further down the hall. There's- guys. Guys, come look."

This time, his confusion sounds tangible.

The camera is lifted back up to eye level, as they follow his voice, into another room.

> "That is very clearly a bed. That is a bed. That is a table. And a chair across the room. Did- there was somebody living down here."

> "Tommy, what kind of ravine did you take us into?"

Tubbo takes the camera closer to the bed. Most of the fabric is long gone, eaten away by moisture and insects. The wood creaks as he reaches out a foot to nudge it.

The table is in no better condition. Tommy attempts to lean on it, only to jump away as it creaks.

> "They're definitely not here. Right? Why would you even live down here? How?"

The camera bobs with Tubbo's shrug.

> "Maybe this was like... someone's secret base."

> "In the middle of a ravine, in the middle of the forest?!"

> "I didn't say it was normal!"

> "We should leave."

Outside, the lantern chains gently scrape together, again. Ranboo jumps, and Tommy shoves him with a shoulder.

> "Calm down. Whoever was here is clearly long gone- and if we see a ghost, we have some cool footage!"

> "Or we just- don't mess with them because we don't know what would've killed them down here."

> "But ghosts, Ranboo. Ghosts!"

By now, they're ducking out of the room. Ranboo continues to look back behind him; Tommy continues to walk further into the ravine.

Above them, the wooden pathways creak, and all three freeze.

The torchlight reveals nothing.

> "You've already gotten enough footage."

For all of Ranboo's efforts, Tommy keeps going, poking his head into cracks and walking up roughly hewn stairs.

> "Bossman, Ranboo might be right. It's time to go, we spent a good part of the day already."

Tommy's grumbles float back up to you, but he rejoins not long after.

It's at this point that they begin maneuvering back.

The footage is fuzzier than ever. Tubbo hums, disgruntled, and the view jostles; presumably as he lightly smacks it.

> "Something wrong?"

> "The footage's gone all weird; it's even shittier than before."

> "Give it here."

The camera switches hands; your view sweeps across the ravine ceiling, faintly catching four shadows. Tommy flips the camera over, presumably examining it by torchlight.

> "That's weird. Maybe the lighting's got to it. Or maybe it's the ghosts."

A faint thud sounds, Tommy letting out a huff.

> "Don't fucking- elbow me, you're like double my height-"

> "Don't try to freak us out!"

> "Okay, let's go, boys."

Tubbo's interruption breaks up the bubbling argument, as he takes the camera and starts back to the path. The view is slowly panned around them.

> "Nothing now, see? It's just you freaking out, Ranboo."

> "Or maybe whoever it is heard that we're leaving."

Ranboo is vocally displeased with the idea of Tubbo's suggestion. Tommy only snickers.

No other banter is picked up.

> "Look, there's that weirdass bridge again. It won't hold my weight, will it?"

> "No, definitely not, Tommy. It's been God knows how many years."

The camera sweeps back to face Tommy, who has a single foot gently testing the weight of the bridge. Ranboo hovers nervously to the side.

Behind Tommy, on the film, through the increasing static, a faint figure pulls itself up from where it was dangling its legs over the side. The camera freezes where it is.

> "Tommy. Tommy- are any of you seeing this? On the bridge?"

The figure pauses. So do the boys- they look at the bridge, and then back at Tubbo.

> "There's nothing there. See?"

The flashlight plays over the bridge, passing through the figure watching them. Faintly, a trenchcoat can be made out. A tattered sweater.

> "That- Ranboo. Come here. Look."

Gravel crackles to the side, and a sharp intake of breath can be heard; presumably as Ranboo approaches.

> "Tommy, get away from the bridge. Get over here."

Tommy moves towards the camera. The figure stops moving towards Tommy.

> "Oh, what the fuck. What the fuck."

The camera zooms, slightly. With three torches now focused on the figure, more details of the patches on the coat emerge. The man wearing it- he's folding his arms, staring them down.

From further down the bridge, a fourth voice echoes.

> "Hasn't anybody taught you boys not to play on rotting fucking bridges?"

#dream smp #tommyinnit #tubbo #ranboo #wilbur soot #found footage au #boys explore pogtopia babeyyyy #this became a whole fucking fic lmao #im also tired so thats how far im taking this concept <3 i may or may not do a follow up depending

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undertalethingies · 4 years

Text

Self Indulgent Self Insert Fanfic, Part One

I am sitting in my room, not doing much of anything, (as per usual) when I look up and notice that my mirror has apparently transformed into a solid wall of inky darkness as I’ve been spacing out.

And well- it’s not like I can not poke it, right? There’s a high chance I’ll seriously regret it, if my life has become the isekai it appears to be, but there’s a 100% chance I’ll regret it forever if I don’t touch it, you know?

Everyone always assumes I’m risk averse, that I like to play it safe, but the truth of the matter is I’ve just never found something I really want to take a risk with.

So, I push myself out of bed with a hand and go grab my shoes, because there’s no way in hell I’m touching something that might be a portal with no shoes on. Thankfully, I’m actually dressed for once, rather than being in my bathrobe like usual.

Once I’ve got my shoes on, I grab my coat from where it hangs by my dresser and walk straight into what used to be my mirror. I hope my parents aren’t too worried by my disappearance. Maybe I’ll be lucky and this will be the kind of isekai that retroactively erases me from existence? That would be kind of nice, to exist without tethers.

The portal (because that’s what it is, I’m pretty sure) feels cool, but not unpleasantly so. Like when you first put on a fleece sweater and it takes a moment to warm up.

If this were a stereotypical isekai story, things would quickly become very unpleasant in this dark void, and some godlike being would reach out to grant me power beyond my wildest imaginings.

I’ve never been one to cave to expectations, though. Not even my own.

The darkness remains cool and comforting, and I continue walking forward because there’s no chance I’m going to turn back now, with so much possibility awaiting me if I only continue long enough.

Eventually, I feel as if I’ve passed some threshold, and something definably changes within me. Can’t say what, though. I’ve always kinda sucked at interpreting what my body is trying to tell me, so I’ll probably have to figure it out on my own.

At some point the darkness and walking grows boring, and so I do what I often do when bored, and curl up to go to sleep. This place isn’t cold enough for me to need a blanket, and I’ve got my coat with me anyway, so I’m fine. Sleeping on hard surfaces isn’t unpleasant, in my opinion, merely a bit annoying, since if you pick the wrong position you’ll inevitably wake up sore.

As always, consciousness takes a while to fade, so I occupy myself with grand imaginings about all the wonderful (and terrible, I’ve got anxiety okay, I can’t help it) things that might await me.

When I wake, it’s immediately obvious that something is different. There’s light now, for one, and for two I can feel something soft and organic beneath me. Judging by smell alone�� Flowers? Waking up on a bed of flowers in a lit room… Well, I’ve always wished I could live in Undertale, if only so I could chew out the characters for bottling up their feelings so damn much. Hey, maybe if I’m lucky, that one headcanon I have about Sans secretly being a teenager will be right and I’ll be able to flirt with him without it being creepy.

Oh come on, like everyone attracted to dudes and not overly hung up about species concerns doesn’t want to kiss that guy, are you kidding me? Plus, I love puns and I’m depressed, surely we’ll get along.

Oh boy, I’m definitely going to die, huh? Thank fuck for my high pain tolerance and ridiculous resistance to trauma, am I right?

Finally, I open my eyes, because I like to wake up slow and I see no reason to alter my existing routine simply because I’ve apparently been yeeted into my favorite video game. Hey, speaking of favorite video games, will I get to visit Hollow Knight next? No, wait, that would probably suck, wouldn’t it. Ah, well.

The cave is just as beautiful as I always imagined it would be. Though it looked lovely in the game art, there’s truly nothing that can compare to seeing the sight in person, those marble pillars in a half circle around me, that single spot of sunlight in the ceiling far (far, far) above. Not to mention the lovely flowers I’m laying on at this very moment and- there’s a dead body under me, isn’t there. Is Chara going to show up, or am I left to be alone in my head?

Though their narration doesn’t actually start until you meet Flowey, in the game, so I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.

Wait.

Wait wait wait.

Which human soul am I taking the place of right now? Because I read a fic once where the protagonist wasn’t the seventh, even if it was a fakeout, and I very much do not want to be saddled with the fate of those poor bastards.

Though, maybe I’d be able to talk my way out? There’s no one who’d call me diplomatic, for sure, but I’m pretty great at knowing exactly where to aim an insult to utterly break someone’s spirit. (Unusual skill, I’m aware, but in my defense I was bullied growing up)(I say “growing up” like I’m not still doing it, like I’m not fourteen and trapped in a world where it’s an accepted fact that the protagonist will die, and several times over, too)

My first order of business is Flowey, before I can take the time to freak out, to hold myself tight and weather the sheer panic that Toto, I am not in Kansas anymore.

I get up. I give a last fond look to the beautiful cave I’ve “fallen” into, and I walk to the next room, hoping all the while that I’m not signing my own death sentence.

Once I’m a few feet in, there he is, in all his fucking glory.

Flowey the flower, the soulless remnant of prince Asriel Dreemurr, former hope of the underground, possibly still holder of the ability to control time itself.

Yeah, I’m definitely going to mess with him. Self preservation is for losers.

“You’re a flower with a face,” I say before he can start with his usual greeting. I have it memorized anyway, so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything.

He makes his T-T face, so I know this isn’t how he thought this would go.

“Wow, human! What gave you that impression?” Ooh, sassy. Literally his only positive trait.

“Well I have eyes, see,” I was planning to ask him probing questions, but honestly this is just as good. His expression doesn’t change as he says his next sentence, nor does his ever cheery tone, (and holy fuck his voice is just as vaguely creepy as I’d imagined, all that childlike innocence paired with the fact that he’s a mass murderer)

“Well howdy, human with eyes! I’m Flowey, flowey the flower!” He says. I don’t interject.

“You’re clearly new to the underground, and it looks like I’m the only one around to show you how things work around here! Are you ready?”

…

“I’m really not, to be honest. I’ve got no idea what’s going on,” So my plan here, basically, is to stall until Toriel gets here. Mostly because I’m hoping that if he doesn’t get the chance to do his betrayal, he’ll keep pretending to be nice, which will be hilarious since I’ll know he’s faking the whole time.

Admittedly, this significantly increases the likelihood that Toriel won’t come to save me when he inevitably finds a secluded place to murder me, but if I think too hard about the long term right now I’m going to scream, so.

“Well you see, human, you’ve fallen into the underground, a land inhabited by monsters! Don’t worry though, we’re quite nice,” Oh right, conversation. I wonder how much info I can get out of him…

“What’s a monster? Like, I know what it means on the surface, but that definition is pretty vague, and I don’t want to be accidentally racist,”

His face pops back to the usual smile. (Side note: his face looks like it was drawn on with sharpie and it’s totally messing me up)

“A monster is a being made of magic!” Ok, that’s… a bit vague, but not really inaccurate. I guess he doesn’t want to get into the science, which is a damn shame, since he probably knows it backwards and forwards due to all his reset shenanigans.

“Woah, cool. Magic is real? How does it work without breaking thermodynamics?” Finally, the question I’ve always wanted to ask. If energy can’t be created, how the fuck does Toriel shoot fireballs from her hands? What is she drawing on, what is the fire burning, how hot is it, how does it keep being on fire, etc. etc. repeat for every magical display in the game.

“Well, a lot of it isn’t super understood. Scientists have mostly been pinning it on ‘dark energy’ like they do with every other phenomenon they don’t totally understand,” I wonder why he’s so willingly entertaining my time wasting antics. I know, in game, he didn’t realize he’d lost control over the timeline until after his first talk with Frisk, so maybe he’s just waiting it out to see where it goes? And then of course he must be planning other things to do with me before he takes my soul and goes to the surface…

“God, I hate dark energy in science. I know they just call it that because not much is known about it, but I’m thirsty for knowledge, you know?” Actually ‘thirsty for knowledge’ describes my mood like 90% of the time. Huh, actually, I have that in common with Flowey, right? Even if his knowledge thirst is just due to boredom.

“Hey, human, me too! Learning new things is great!” There’s a loaded sentence if i’ve ever heard one. When was the last time he learned something new? He’s supposedly read every book in the underground, but how much information from that did he actually retain?

“Isn’t it? It’s why I love Youtube so much. Free information for anyone who cares to make a few clicks!” Wait, he probably doesn’t know what Youtube is, actually.

“What’s Youtube?” He asks, cocking his head.

“It’s a service where you can upload videos or watch videos other people have uploaded,” Not the most nuanced explanation, but it’ll do for now. Before Flowey has a chance to respond, a fireball manifests next to him.

I don’t smile because I’m pretending to be shocked, but I’m laughing my ass off on the inside. The face he makes is even more ridiculous in person.

Enter Toriel, queen of the monsters, mother of no living children.

#undertale #undertale fanfiction #undertale fanfic #self insert #i'm not tagging it reader insert because the insert is very specifically me #flowey #this is purely self indulgent so i'm making no effort for it to sound polished

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dingoat · 5 years

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FOR AHUSKA, Uncommon Questions: 1, 3, 5, 12, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28, 29. FOR FIVE: 1, 6, 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 21, 25, 28.

WELL NOW :D *cracks knuckles*

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR A RIDE

For THE BEST GIRL, with bonus notes when there are werewolf variations:

1. What position does your character sleep in? ( i.e; stomach, side, back, etc. ) Describe why they do this — optional. Almost always on her side, generally slightly curled up. It’s a very accommodating position to have animals snuggled up against her or on top of her, and also very accommodating of having another person there too (she’s just as happy being the big spoon or the little spoon). Sometimes when she needs to sprawl, she’ll fall asleep on her back, but will always wind up on her side again come morning.

(Except when she’s a wolf. Wolf sleeps as a lovely wolf-ball.)

3. Does your character have an accent? What does it sound like?

Ahaaa! Answered already here! :D

5. What are their chief tension areas?

Uhmmmm several, I think, if I’m understanding the question right! Forehead, jaw, shoulders - from stress. Lower back, from hard physical work. Wrist, from drawing. Her wrist and back are the areas she actually pays attention to and takes measures to ease, and just saying even though she can be a little finicky about who is allowed to actually touch her, a good neck/shoulder massage is a pretty reliable way to win her over.

12. Describe 5 unusual characteristics your muse has.

Covered here! Though of course I could add that in werewolf au she has the incredibly unusual characterstic of being a werewolf.

17. Is your character an introvert or an extrovert? How do they handle big crowds of people?

She is an introvert, and in general doesn’t like to spend too much time in large crowds. She’ll never be truly comfortable on big city planets, though a crowd that she can just vanish into is vastly preferable to a smaller crowd that is paying attention to her. Too many eyes on her can be debilitating and she’ll never perform as well as when she’s amongst a trusted circle, but when she’s in a group that she’s comfortable with she can be incredibly lively, bubbly and cheeky. Only a very small select few individuals could be around her without impacting her solo recharge time.

19. If your character was suddenly challenged, would they rather run away or stay and fight?

Ooooof, this definitely depends on what form the challenge/r takes. Once was she might have gone to great lengths to avoid getting into a physical fight, but that has definitely changed and she is much quicker to rise to a challenge these days. Her preference would be to stick around and prove herself/make the challenging party eat their words, but she’s not an idiot and isn’t built on bravado; she’s definitely not too proud to make a tactical retreat if her life or limbs seem genuinely at stake. (That said, if it is somebody else’s life at stake, she’ll throw all caution to the wind if she values that somebody above herself. And despite appearances, she actually knows how to fight dirty to great effect.)

Werewolf Ahuska would stand and fight longer, and harder, and against greater challengers, but at the end of the day she will still run when it calls for it- unless she has engaged in berserk mode. Then there is no backing down, and she hasn’t been beaten yet.

21. Your character has been granted 3 wishes; what would they wish for and why?

This one has been asked and answered here, in terms of current-timeline-regular-story Ahuska. But for current timeline WEREWOLF, her wishes are definitely different!

1. To no longer be hunted by anyone2. Fulfilment of #1 might acutally go a long way towards fulfilling this one, but just in case she’d wish for no more impossible obstacles between herself and Blakk. There’s honestly a lot she might wish for regarding the two of them, especially with what she hopes and wants for Blakk himself, but it wouldn’t take a lot of soul searching for her to know that she wouldn’t want to magically skip over anything that they might be able to explore and discover and solve together in a real and meaningful way.3. To always be able to keep her memory and mind when she shapeshifts.

23. Do they prefer romance or affection? What is the quickest way to your character’s heart?

If it HAD to be one or the other, she would most likely pick affection, because romance without affection would feel kind of empty, while affection without romance still fills her with warmth. But in all honesty she’d have a huge amount of trouble imagining one without the other and as far as Ahuska’s concerned they go hand in hand. The quickest way to her heart is to make her feel special, without a doubt. Words and acts that makes her feel desired, valued, worthwhile… all the things she has trouble seeing on her own. If someone makes her feel that with them, she can be a better version of herself… she’s gone, game over, done.

25, Do they have any weird bedroom habits? Any unusual kinks?

AHEM. Let it be said on the record that I, myself, am pretty clueless when it comes to knowing what would ACTUALLY BE WEIRD AND UNUSUAL. THAT SAID; she loves bedroom activities conducted outside of the bedroom, whether that’s out in the wilderness or right in the middle of the clan living quarters while the bosses are out or to duck away somewhere cheeky while out and about in the world. (In fact, she probably enjoys the boast factor of really random spots or getting away with it under people’s noses.) IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE that she has a startling familiarity with a lot of items that are TRADITIONALLY USED for animal husbandry purposes. Girl knows how to crack a whip and tie a knot if you know what I’m saying. >.>

28. Are they afraid of death? Do they have any regrets?

Covered this one here! But werewolf Ahuska definitely carries more regrets, even if she forces herself to acknowledge that at the time she didn’t know better and that she was acting with incomplete/inaccurate information. But she is deeply, powerfully sorry that she allowed herself to be convinced, even briefly, that Blakk had intended harm to her and her friends, and very much regrets the consequences of the time that immediately followed. She’s grateful that her wolf-self saw sense before she allowed it to get any worse, but carries huge guilt that she didn’t have the strength to make things go better, either.

29. Does your character get restless when things are too quiet or do they favour solitude and silence? Why?

Ahuska really does need a good balance of both, and won’t tolerate either absolute silence or pumping noise and activity for very long at all. At a vibrant party she’ll need to duck away sometimes onto a balcony or into the garden; when left somewhere alone for a long stretch she’ll need to have music playing or the pets around to stop the emptiness from feeling painful. She doesn’t like too much routine or stagnation either; if she feels like she’s been doing the same thing day in day out for too long she’ll be busting at the seams to break the routine and see or do something new.

AND NOW, FOR THE WORST BOY:

1. What position does your character sleep in? ( i.e; stomach, side, back, etc. ) Describe why they do this — optional.

Five maintains a steady rotation of back sleeping and side sleeping to maximise the benefits of both positions while trying to negate some of the negatives. While back sleeping is good for his neck and spine and helps prevent wrinkles, he’s heard that side-sleeping can help prevent brain wastage so he errs on the side of caution and makes sure to do that regularly. Probably with a skin care routine.

6. If you were to pick one song — and only one song — to describe your character, what would it be and why?

I DO NOT KNOW enough songs about this caliber of person to answer this well but to avoid choosing a disney villain song (though honestly a blend of Gaston and Hellfire wouldn’t be terribly wrong) I’m gonna suggest that The Wolf by SIAMES has some pretty pertinent lyrics….

I’m out of my head, of my heart and my mind‘cause you can run but you can’t hide, I’m gonna make you mine….

9. Does your character dream or are their nights filled with an empty blackness? Describe a dream they’ve had or a night they couldn’t sleep and what they did to preoccupy their time.

I’m sure he does dream, but he doesn’t remember much of them. There is one recurring nightmare that haunts him, however, and he would do anything to stop it from plaguing his sleep. There’s a good chance he’d call for Thirteen to distract him on those nights, but during times when his favourite Cipher is on mission or otherwise unavailable, it wouldn’t be unusual for Five to give up on sleep and head out into the Kaas jungles with his hunting rifle, to scream and end lives under the endless thunderstorms.

11. What do they think of creation? Do they believe in evolution or do they believe in God? What is their religion like?

Evolution is fact and gods are for the weak. His religion is conquest, and those who waste their lives pleasing imaginary beings deserve to be conquered.

12. Describe 5 unusual characteristics your muse has.

Only five??? XD

1. He treats every interaction with every sentient being he encounters as a training exercise; he does not know how to function without trying to manipulate every other being to benefit him in some way.

2. He loves and hates animals equally, both sickened and fascinated by them, and to no small degree hates the fact that he finds them fascinating.

3. He is obsessed with his favourite brand of aftershave and doesn’t realise that pretty much everyone else in Intel knows when he’s been in a room ahead of them.

4. He is a control freak to an almost debilitating degree, but also knows how to play the game and rein himself in when things don’t go his way when necessary. But he’ll store that frustration and lash out at others behind closed doors rather than deal with and accept that disappointment in a healthy way.

5. He loves watching others cause pain and bloodshed almost more than he loves delivering it himself.

15. Can they multi-task or must they focus on one subject at a time?

He prefers being able to focus, and will generally try to arrange things so that his mind can be entirely present on whatever task is at hand, but he can and will multi-task if it is necessary- and do so very well. He is a Watcher, after all.

17. Is your character an introvert or an extrovert? How do they handle big crowds of people?

He’s definitely an introvert. He hates almost everybody. And even though it can sometimes appear that he’s not happy until everybody is noticing, respecting, obeying and being awed and intimidated by him, in truth he will never really be happy until he learns how to do away with all that and actually be happy with himself.

19. If your character was suddenly challenged, would they rather run away or stay and fight?

Oh he would fight, competently, mercilessly, and violently, with the expectation that his Ciphers would back him up without question.

21. Your character has been granted 3 wishes; what would they wish for and why?

1. To have his sister back.2. For the head of the Roquefort’s prize narglatch to be mounted above his bed.3. To be promoted to Keeper.

25. Do they have any weird bedroom habits? Any unusual kinks?

Okay so he is a sadistic, domineering control freak with a shapeshifting Cipher at his beck and call YOU DO THE MATH >.>

28. Are they afraid of death? Do they have any regrets?

Absolutely, terrifically. A LOT of his insatiable desire for control springs from his terror of the utterly unforgiving nature of death. He regrets very little of his adult life but he fiercely regrets wandering off through the gardens that day as a young boy. He wishes he’d had the sense to stay put, he wishes he’d been stronger, and sometimes he wishes he’d gone first.

#character asks #ask meme #ahuska asks #watcher five asks #SO MANY #SO GOOD #TY TY

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deltastorm101 · 5 years

Text

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst - A (critical) love letter.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of “a review I thought I could never write because I’m way too emotionally attached to this game which I know insanely, almost creepily well”, mixed with a healthy dose of “I should do everything but write this review because I want to finish school at some point but I have to use the surge of inspiration while it lasts”!

Today we will be talking about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which was released 2016 as a prequel-ly reboot (saying it like this because for the longest time I’ve thought it to be a prequel but turns out it’s a lot more like a reboot... my bad) to the first Mirror’s Edge from 2008 (which, by the way, still looks fantastic today considering its release year). I will occasionally throw in references and aspects from the first game as well, but this will primarily be about Catalyst.

Time for game 👏 review 👏!

And as always - warning: spoilers. I’ll try to keep the really huge ones out of this or at least mark them well, but going off and playing for yourself first is recommended.

To start this off, I want to say that I initially loved the first Mirror’s Edge - however, only after playing Catalyst, I realized how bad the controls and bugs in it actually were, which is another way of saying Catalyst is a miracle when it comes to naturally flowing controls and crisp and polished looking environments. The city it takes place in, “Glass”, is breathtakingly gorgeous, period. Shiny, clean, it is just on point and one of the biggest reasons I consider it to be my favourite game from the day I first played it, hands down. Not even one of the new Tomb Raider games or one of my childhood-reminiscent games were able to top it and that means something.

The game takes place in an open world map complex under a totalitarian government, drawing parallels to George Orwell’s “1984” – big brother is watching you, all that. A dystopian world if I’ve ever seen one. The open world aspect is one of the best decisions the developers could have made; I have no words to describe how beautiful the different city districts are, and being able to run in freeroam through the city of Glass like parkour runners are meant to feels so much better than being trapped in closed-off levels like it was the case in the first game.

When I first wrote down some key aspects for this review while I was playing it once more, I noted that apparently, you only truly understand the game’s backstory and the protagonists’ origins if you’ve bought and read the comic, Mirror’s Edge Exordium, and that I think it’s not that important because you can well understand what’s going on at the beginning without it – the game starts with Faith, the main protagonist, getting out of jail/a sort of juvenile detention, making her way back into her old circle of friends and family and, of course, old unresolved and new unconsidered problems and conflicts. The comic basically explains what has been messed up by who to make her end up in juvie in the first place and, as I said, it’s not really necessary to know. But, after having bought it now after literal years of consideration, I can say that it’s definitely very nice to know, and totally worth it. There are a lot of elements from the game carefully and lovingly worked into the comic and vice versa (I don’t know what was written first, comic or game, but they fit together very nicely), and just having more reasons, more answers, a larger overview and even partly some explanations for the first game feels... right.

The voice acting is good overall – not strikingly awesome but definitely up there, especially during emotional cutscenes. Sometimes the controls are a bit wonky and Faith might not immediately do what your fingers tell her to but that could definitely be on me - in games where fast reaction is important, quick time events can go wrong occasionally, nothing new. There are some passages you could consider a QTE but they’re being displayed early enough for you to be able to mentally prepare for them as far as I see it. And in my book, that’s a massive improvement from the first game, where you were able to press a button perfectly in time even while having reaction time (= a temporary slow mode) activated, and still watch Faith gracefully fall down the side of the building while flailing her arms in fear because she didn’t grab onto that perfectly grabbable practical white ledge. Why, you ask? I don’t know, ask Faith. Oh, you can’t, obviously made clear by the nasty sound of her hitting the road and her neck being snapped apart. Seriously, I cringed to the moon and back when I first heard that ugly sound. Which is another thing they improved in Catalyst; now all you hear is her quick, raspy, fear-filled breaths and a blissful silence paired with a white death screen after you’ve hit a death barrier. Not the ground, a death barrier. There’s a shitload of them. Which is a pity regarding the fact that a whole lot more out-of-bounds areas would be reachable and playable if there weren’t. Honestly, I find it kind of disappointing that there’s this many invisible walls, fall-through grounds and death barriers. I can see why, conserving computing resources to avoid loading screens, blah blah, but still... let me go off the map, dammit. The game is about a group of people living “off the grid”, why can’t the player actually do that? Hm? Hmmm?

Another aspect tying into this is the social playing mechanic(s), which I found interesting but indeed totally unnecessary. We all know leaderboards of races and stuff, which were incorporated here as setting the best time in short, timed courses (“dashes”), which naturally have been hacked and cheated into ridiculousness. No, RunnerMaster69, I do not believe you ran that dash in three seconds and 420 nanoseconds, I just don’t. Upon completing a dash, you leave an ‘echo’, so basically a ghost other players can compare themselves to, and for you to see which route another player took. Nothing too groundbreaking on that front. There’s a way of tagging locations you’ve been to: so-called Beat Link Emitters (Beat L.E.s) are like little chips shining red in the world you can put down wherever you’re able to stand safely and have them appear in other people’s games to touch, which is a nice way of incorporating a way of saying “Hey, look where I was able to climb!” (And yes, I have abused this system; there’s a glitch making it possible for Faith to float down high buildings onto lower ones, which aren’t death-barriered but not reachable on a normal way. You bet I was a floating gurl putting down Beat L.E.s whereeeeever I could. So much fun. Sorry.)

The same goes for hackable billboards, which can also appear in your friends’ games, but they could have been designed a lot more interestingly. If you hack a billboard, your runner tag appears on it, which consists of a visual symbol, a frame around it, and a background. You can customize the tag in a companion app, which again I didn’t really find necessary. But it is pretty self-explanatory and a nice gimmick if you’re into that kinda stuff.

Maybe an irrelevant aspect: Faith is wearing the same outfit (almost) throughout the whole game. Only at the beginning while getting to the runners’ lair she’s wearing something different and I see missed potential there: let the player run in these clothes, or in the prison clothes, or in the clothes from Mirror’s Edge 1, or in some of the fancy clothes Glass’ high society is wearing, or generally different runner’s attire which still stays true to the style, or Black November garb... endless opportunities, missed. Not at all crucial, but in my opinion maybe better than some different-looking billboard...

Coming back to the (back-)story aspect once more; as with all of today’s big triple-A games, there’s a looooot of documents and recordings to find, to give the player a loooot of backstory, which I found terribly overdone. It always felt like there was too much to collect and too few actual story told; not to mention some story bits not being in either of the games or their collectables, but in a separately sold comic, well done EA, well done.

Additionally, a lot of the documents were about literal history of the state called Cascadia and the ‘conglomerate’ and Omnistat and the November Riots (don’t worry if you have no idea what these words mean, I don’t either...) and regarding the fact that I finished taking history in school with a D ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)... you can imagine I wasn’t that interested in the actual history elements. Give me story anytime, but get the hi- prefix outta here please.

Another thing that I just very recently discovered: Some of the performed parkour movements are inaccurate. Thanks to my new interest of binging parkour tutorial videos I’ve seen actual mistakes in movement (in both games), which I can understand sometimes because some of them have been implemented on purpose and for a reason. For example: A parkour safety roll is performed sideways, with one of your shoulders hitting the floor first and the impact being absorbed and reduced by your whole back rolling over the ground in a diagonal line, ending in one of your feet carrying over the fall’s momentum for you to be able to stand up and run right along, probably even faster than before the drop. In the first game, this was handled straight up terribly; not only did Faith not roll diagonally but straight on her spine, which fuckin hurts if you perform it after you took a fall and is dangerous as all hell, but all her momentum got lost as well - it didn’t make any difference if you took a hard fall, the screen flashed red and you had to build new momentum, or if it was a soft fall with a nice (hurting and dangerous) roll, her stopping dead in her tracks like “Oh wow, did you see that, I made a roll” and then continuing to build new momentum because it all got lost. BUT since this is about Catalyst: Faith is still performing a straight spine-hurting-dangerous-as-all-hell-roll, but at least she keeps her momentum when she does it. Regarding to what I said at the beginning of this semi-rant-paragraph because I’ve “studied” (emphasis on the quotation marks) parkour theory so much at this point, yet am not able to actually perform any moves because I don’t have the strength, stamina or willpower to- Uh, where was I...? Ah, yeah, the reason for the incorrectly performed roll. It’s obvious when you think about it: motion sickness, a gamer’s best friend when it comes to first-person perspective. If Faith was performing a correct roll, it would turn and shake the camera around too much, which could potentially make the player motion sick over time. Period. Look up some first-person safety roll footage on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. So, there’s a reason, and we should be thankful the roll is a straight gymnastics roll. Sorry Faith, looks like your spine and neck have to suffer a little longer. However, I can and will not understand why they have Celeste, a character from the first game, climb up ledges with her knees and elbows. No. NO. Feet first. If you can’t do feet first, then do one foot first and then pull up the rest. If you can’t do that, train more and don’t call yourself a runner yet, doing this for a living on top of I-dunno-how-high-rooftops.

My feelings are kind of ambivalent on the no-guns mechanics - all you can defend yourself with is your fists (and legs and momentum, of course), while in the first game, you could snatch people’s guns and start some weaponized combat. I liked both of these strategies, not really caring when they announced Faith not being able to do shootieshootie-pewpew this time around.

One thing I liked a lot considering the open world aspect is that if you die, you respawn exactly where you last stood on safe ground before dying (except in missions, of course). It makes freeroaming very comfortable because you don’t have to worry about respawn- and checkpoints; you can just try again when you messed up a jump.

They also changed the beacon- and navigation system (“runner’s vision”) a bit too, which was also definitely necessary for the open world (which they’ve praised as a lot less linear, but honestly? It isn’t really. I knew my way around in Glass pretty well after a mere month of playing), but they did include options for how much you want the game to help you. There’s normal runner’s vision, with a red streak appearing every few seconds, showing you exactly where to run; there’s classic runner’s vision, made to be like in the first game, with environmental beacons and indicators being coloured in red when coming close to them and without the red streak; and of course, you can switch it off completely, which I occasionally like to do to test how well I really know my way around in Glass.

The soundtrack is outstanding. Straight up phenomenal. It can empower and hype you up, but can also be relaxing during a relaxing sightseeing trip through Glass. And it’s also great to leave on as background music while studying (I’m making use of that when preparing for graduation exams), or driving.

There is dynamic day- and night time - I liked that a lot, it’s a good way of showing off the lighting at all sorts of times. Only problem I had: a night sky is supposed to be black, not royal blue.

Note: almost all the “problems” I’ve listed here have been made mods for (e.g. more exciting looking billboards, more outfits, a changeable day-night cycle and a black night sky). If I had enough experience with (and patience for) modding, I’d definitely try it myself but the ‘flaws’ aren’t grave enough for me to feel a desire to manipulate and tweak some game files.

Okay, time for a spoiler. Not a bad one, but one that could give you ideas if you know how Mirror’s Edge rolls, or if you’ve played the first game... which is basically a spoiler in itself too. Ahem, anyway.

Towards the end of the game, when I was profoundly convinced of it being one of my all-time favourites, I was like “Yes, finally a game that improves and learns from past mistakes and listens to their players and what they want”... and then came Noah. I bawled my eyes out and I will be forever angry at the devs for doing this. That’s all I’m saying.

That ultimately didn’t stop me from loving the game though. From an objective standpoint I’d say it’s an overall good prequel/reboot/requel/preboot. Faith’s universe became a bit more mainstream but also a lot more polished and they definitely listened to their fans to some degree. From the very subjective standpoint I have written this review from, I’m saying that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst holds a very special place in my heart and I am truly glad it saw the light of day, after everyone waiting 8 years for it to be released after the first game. (I didn’t wait quite that long; I got Mirror’s Edge 1 in January 2016 and was completely and utterly hooked and hyped for Catalyst in May 2016.)

And that concludes it. If you’ve read this far – thank you. I’m aware that this is a bit different from my other reviews tone-wise - I have put every ounce of sass I possess into this because I... felt like it :D I hope it was fun to read!

#and now please scream at me to study xD #mirror's edge #mirror's edge catalyst #faith #games #stefs game review

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jacksgreysays · 6 years

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I tend primarily to feel the most like writing when I've just seen someone else write something (or when I've promised someone else I'd write, lol), and I've loved what you've done with the Sakako and Fear To Tread stuff, and you were the first person I thought of when I came up with this (in the next ask):

Peeling away from your flesh leaves a lot of detail behind. The shape of “You” isn’t the same as the shape of your body; the shape of you grows to fill whatever space it’s given. And when I step away from things, just for a bit, I feel bigger and bolder than I have ever grown inside. But I take the bags beneath my eyes with me, and the scar on my left arm (though I don’t take the arm to go with it). I take my aches and my pains with me; I only leave behind the things that aren’t me at all.

A/N: Not to curtail your prompt again, lionheadbookheads, but I’m getting very strong vibes of Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye as well as that one other time you sent me a prompt about the songs “It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning” and “Thunder” and I guess what I’m saying here is that I want to do a Tetsuki Kaiza piece for this prompt, I hope you don’t mind.

Basically, given the whole “who I am is not my physical body” theme, there is a very definitive spiritual over physical and reincarnation message going on here and Tetsuki does do that so… please enjoy?

—

Viridescent: Or, Tetsuki Follows Her Dreams

She closes her eyes, feels the sunshine warm on her face, and takes a deep breath; the spring breeze carries hints of winter still, cool and slightly damp, but the scent of early blooming flowers layers over that.

Her mobile phone buzzes in her pocket, a staccato vibration, a summoning. The man who pays her income but will never be her Boss, the man who supports her lifestyle but doesn’t provide her survival, the man who determines her waking and sleeping hours but never her thoughts or dreams.

She opens her eyes, raises a hand, and lifts a gun to her temple. Inelegant, but efficient. It reminds her of home.

She pulls the trigger.

She wakes up.

///

She is born in the late autumn months, as both year and century draw to an end. She is born to Fuyuko and Toichi Kaiza in a hospital technically but barely within Tokyo. She is born a wailing, red-faced, and thoroughly average baby girl.

What happens to her after is far from from average.

///

For all that dream-sharing is a largely international industry, it would inaccurate to say that it is one homogenous community. They do not always match official country borders, but there are enclaves within dream-sharing with its own customs and cultures and rules.

Japan is one such enclave.

For the most part, so long as there is no immediate conflict of interest, foreign dreamers may conduct their business without any interference from local entities. This rule is but the second that broadly reigns over the Japanese dream-sharing community.

The first is simply: do not mess with Azuma.

///

The thoroughly average baby girl that will one day be known in certain circles as Azuma does not have a good or even average childhood. She tries to run away from her parents at age six and manages to elude the very expensive private detective service her parents hired for two weeks before getting caught.

Despite the broken arm, it is not the last time she does this. It will be another eight years and twenty or so attempts before she manages to definitively escape her parents’ clutches and that perhaps has equal amount to do with them getting bored as it is with her expertise.

She is searching for people and places that don’t exist anywhere but her own mind, but at least it’s better than staying where she was.

///

Saito of Proclus Global has three executive assistants, all of whom speak a minimum of four languages, are qualified as triple-A certified bodyguards and emergency medical technicians, and have extensive counterintelligence training, among other varied and useful talents.

Though the woman known as Azuma can also be described as such and is frequently seen in proximity of Saito, she is not one of said executive assistants.

Her talents are a little more varied and useful than that.

///

The knowledge she has is helpful–blades and human vulnerabilities the same no matter what, languages and critical training filtering through as needed–but she remembers having powers beyond physical possibility and that’s what ultimately betrays her.

A teenager, no matter how skilled or smart or shrewd, will never be completely safe in the criminal underbelly of a big city. A lone teenager without any ties is a tempting target for many parties.

When they grab her, she fights. Foolishly, she thinks she can win. She forgets she doesn’t have endless lightning at her fingertips, energy bolstering her muscles, superhuman and unstoppable.

When they grab her, she loses. She is just a teenager, and they are a unscrupulous, government funded company trying to pioneer an entirely new method of espionage.

///

Azuma’s patron is a matter of public knowledge. It is not a weakness.

Most professional dreamers in Japan have a primary sponsor–another company, a yakuza family, a government official–and while Azuma’s patron does not have technically have the most influence in Japan, well… Proclus Global. Money is its own kind of power. And that’s not even including what Azuma can bring to the table.

Dreamers in Japan know better than to go after Azuma’s patron. Even non-native dreamers who have heard secondhand of Azuma know better than to attempt it.

Which is why, when Cobol Engineering tries to hire extractors to go after Saito, they are forced to outsource to an unhinged suspected murderer, his loyal point man, and a mediocre architect.

///

The early stages of Somnacin were riddled with problems. Unstable, inefficient, addictive–anything that could have gone wrong, did.

Her body hated every second of it, every drop that coursed through her veins. She spent the next few years in a constantly nauseated state of misery, sick and shaking, more asleep than awake and so terribly weak.

Physically, that is.

Mentally, everything she had lost was regained. The power that eluded her in the waking world flowed easily at her command, the dreamscape the most welcoming place she had been in years.

The other subjects washout–brains fried, suicide, crumbling under the pressure–but she remains. No, more than that, she thrives.

///

Azuma is not an extractor; she is not a point person or architect or chemist either. She can do all of those jobs, of course, but she thinks dividing roles that way is arbitrary and limiting. She is a professional dreamer, with all the responsibilities and capabilities involved.

Her outside reputation is as a forger, though that isn’t quite right either.

Even in dreams, no one can do what Azuma can.

///

Tetsuki is happiest when she dreams.

#jacksgreyson #lionheadbookends #prompt response #tetsuki kaiza #viridescent #inception #katekyo hitman reborn #saito #writing #fanfiction

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kettlequills · 8 years

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Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Steven Universe (Cartoon) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Blue Diamond/Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe), Brown Diamond/White Diamond Characters: Blue Diamond, Yellow Diamond, White Diamond, Brown Diamond (OC) Additional Tags: Fusion, Slight horror Summary:

Young Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond go exploring in a forbidden wing of White Diamond's palace, and discover a hidden facet of White's dark past that could explain why they are the only ones of their kind.

Reforming was always an uncomfortable and exhausting process for Blue. She was reduced to her gem far more easily than any normal diamond should be, but familiarity only bred contempt for the process. She had changed nothing about her appearance, and fell forward in a heap of hair and cloak the moment the bright glow of her reformation dimmed.

Yellow caught her. The familiar safety of Yellow’s arms wrapping around her torso and holding upright was offset by Yellow’s irritated curses; Blue had fallen through several screens that Yellow was hastily dismissing with her free hand, the hot glow of sienna-orange across her cheeks indicating, had it been anyone else, that she had been up to something illicit.

Blue Diamond raised an eyebrow at her. Yellow avoided her eyes, slowly lowering both of them until Blue was draped across Yellow, sat cross-legged. Struggling to catch her breath from the reformation, Blue allowed her face to rest against Yellow’s shoulder, anchoring herself with Yellow’s warmth and solidity. The first few seconds afterwards were always the worst, her body felt pounded flat and stretched out, weak, as if a few hollow vibrations would shake her apart. Yellow held her with the cautious yet tight grip of someone who feared that she would evaporate out of her arms the moment Yellow looked away, her muscles tense and rigid, yet leaving a few millimetres of space between her arms and Blue to avoid direct contact, a constricting cage that aimed not to crush.

Blue breathed. Yellow always seem to smell of a combination of warm fabric and hot oil, like a rag dipped in paraffin, ready to combust. The heavy texture of her clothes was thick and rough against Blue’s cheek, raspy like an unshaven beard; Blue had always had sensitive skin, easy to tear like the peeled papery shell of an onion, somewhat translucent so that the shape of bones underneath showed through, round and bulbous. Their physical forms were as different as soft chalk and hearty cheese. Every inch of Yellow was compact with solid muscle with little extraneous fat, leaving her mannish in shape, small-breasted and thin-hipped with long, carded limbs and broad hands. White had called them bismuth’s paws, once, but Blue liked the dexterity of the stubby fingers with their short, rounded nails, the strength in the flat palms.

“Hello,” murmured Blue, eventually. She nestled her forehead into the crook of Yellow’s neck, Yellow’s sharp chin pressing briefly against her temple.

“You’re back,” said Yellow, relaxing some of her death grip on the space around Blue.

“You’re here.”

“Where else would I be?” asked Yellow rhetorically, quirking an eyebrow. In the green-tinted light of their shared chambers, her eyes glittered like pennies, and her blush deep brown-ochre.

“You have your own duties to attend to,” said Blue, batting back. White did not leave them idle, she seemed to think that they would cause trouble if they had nothing to do. Which, considering the events that had led to Blue being reduced her gem, seemed in hindsight very reasonable.

“I did some work, whilst you were gone.” Yellow avoided her eyes, the colour over her nose and cheeks deepening. She was so obviously evading the truth that Blue felt the need to restrain a smile. It was a testament to Yellow’s resilient character that she still tried to hide things from Blue, despite knowing how ultimately futile it would be.

With a few impatient flicks of her fingers, she brought up some glowing white screens. Around them, complex mathematical sketches leapt into view, the design for some new ship, notes and annotations made in Yellow’s angular and spidery writing. By the look of it, she had been improving the design of the ship she had been working on in her free time before their adventure into the bowels of the palace’s unused west wing. The design looked completely different from the last time she had seen it. It would have taken a team of peridots thousands of rotations to suggest the advanced technological changes that came so readily and easily to Yellow.

“How long?” The question came out in a papery sigh. Blue felt Yellow swallow.

“Two hundred and twelve point nine one seven standard rotations, eighteen hours, thirty three minutes and approximately fourteen seconds,” Yellow answered, as exact as ever.

“And you honestly expect me to believe, that those,” said Blue, gesturing at the ship designs around them, “occupied this“, she tapped the centre of Yellow’s forehead with one fingertip, “for over two-hundred rotations of being stuck in one room? Because if I know you at all, and I do, you haven’t left me or this room once since you brought me here.”

Yellow’s cheeks flushed such a deep orange that it spread down her neck and, Blue knew, over her chest. “Yes,” she insisted stubbornly.

“Yellow, what is the use of trying to lie to me?” Blue inquired. “Even if it wasn’t to me, you’re terrible at it.”

“It’s not finished,” said Yellow, with a definite hint of petulance. “You’re not allowed to look unless it’s finished!”

“You’re still going to show me anyway,” Blue said, a sly grin creeping over her face. “Come on Yellow, don’t force me to make you show me.” She hooked one arm around Yellow’s broad shoulders, lightly tugging on the short hairs of the nape of Yellow’s neck.

“Blue-! That’s not fair!” Yellow whined.

Blue’s fingernails scratched faintly over Yellow’s scalp, her skinny, bony fingers pushing with slight difficulty through Yellow’s thick, messy hair. “This is more tangle than hair, Yellow. I never understand how you make it so… stiff.”

“Force of will,” muttered Yellow, deeply disgruntled. She was blushing again, trying to hide it behind gruffness.

“Show me what you’re working on.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No!”

“Show me anyway?”

“BLUE!”

“You want to show me.”

“I don’t!

“You do!”

“It’s not finished!”

“You’re still going to show me anyway!” Blue wheedled.

“Fine!” cried Yellow, explosively. “But you’re not allowed to say anything, it’s still in its design stages, and you were gone so some of the measurements are a little inaccurate, and well – here.”

Carefully, Yellow lifted Blue and set her against the wall, then flung herself to her feet, dismissing the ship design screens with a few violent swipes of her hand and tapping in a quick access code. New screens appeared in a blaze of light around them in the circular panoramic style that Yellow preferred when she was designing, highly technical equations sprawling down the left side, in neat rows like soldiers lining up for parade, the right occupied with odd esoteric sketches – an arm, broken down to muscle and bone, thick tubes like borrowing grubs inserted into the sketch, a foot, some odd contraption that Blue thought was a spine, metals jotted akimbo for their properties questioned beside them, everywhere, questions and concepts outlined in glowing text, angry negations next to many of them, queries – as if someone had opened up Yellow’s head and removed the feverish thought process and printed it in the form of flickering light screens, relentlessly creative, fastidiously detailed with numbers and symbols personal to Yellow that Blue couldn’t hope to decode, shorthand for theories of physics and biology and matter that Blue hadn’t even heard of.

Blue’s triumphant smirk faded into confusion, and something like wonder. Yellow was pacing, explaining hurriedly, embarrassed, every statement punctuated with some agonised comment about how it wasn’t yet finished, how everything was still so rushed.

“Yellow,” Blue interrupted, “it looks very detailed but…”

“You don’t like it.” Yellow’s shoulders slumped and bowed as if she had just been slapped, and her hands fidgeted with each other, awkward and ashamed and suddenly too aware of the space that she took up in the room. She always seemed to grow taller like this, bulkier; trying to minimise a massive body only made her more obvious. Blue hated to see her do it.

“It was only an idea,” Yellow hurried on, half-frantic, “You don’t have to like it of course. I should have asked first, I was just thinking, it was my fault that you were – gone – if I had been faster, and you were stuck with me, and I was just – transfixed, like, like some lowcut in thrall to her, and-“ Shame was burning in her golden eyes, lowered, on her cheeks, saturated the apologetic, self-recriminatory way she spoke.

Alarmed, Blue had to raise her voice and call Yellow’s name several times before Yellow seemed to hear her. She froze in the act of another apology, the words dying in her mouth.

“Yellow, it looks very detailed,” Blue repeated, firmly, “but I have no idea what it is.”

“Oh.” Yellow blinked. She blushed brilliantly. “It’s a suit. For-for you, Blue. It-uh… There are these tubes of water, like this,” she was illustrating as she spoke, “that connect to you like this, like rods, you see, and – made of some flexible material, something watertight, I was thinking that new wire insulator that that morganite found on Tantalus III – and you move the water in the rods instead of your arms, and it helps you move, like this –“ The quick crude sketch she was drawing demonstrated the pull of muscle and the rod of water being moved in unison.

“It’s an exoskeleton,” said Blue in dawning wonder, “to support me. I could – I could move, using my hydrokinesis, I could walk.”

“Yes, quite,” said Yellow. “That was rather the intention.” She clasped her hands nervously behind her back, looking for all the world like a naughty quartz presenting a faulty report to their agate.

Blue was caught in a storm of emotions, dawning joy, and a numb, wordless awe. “Yellow,” she heard herself say rather faintly, “Come here, just, come here.”

Diffidently, Yellow approached, kneeling beside Blue. Slowly, and with difficulty, Blue reached up and hugged her, slumping against Yellow’s chest with a strained gasp. Yellow wrapped her arms around Blue, supporting her reflexively, and pressed her nose into Blue’s hair.

“Is it – all right?” Yellow asked, quietly.

“It’s wonderful. You’re wonderful.” Blue’s voice sounded thin and choked. Her eyes burned. Yellow said nothing, but let Blue hide her face against Yellow’s shoulder, and pretended not to notice when Blue’s thin frame shook in the attempt to restrain tears.

“Can you actually make this?” Blue asked finally, rather watery, not quite daring to hope.

“Of course.” Yellow drew back and cupped Blue’s face between her hands, her gold tawny eyes intent and fierce. Her breath was hot as it fanned over Blue’s face, her eyes hotter still. She had a way of looking at Blue like Blue was the only thing that mattered in the world, like Blue was the only thing that existed, just the two of them, together in this private moment that seemed to stretch on forever.

“Good,” whispered Blue. She cleared her throat, breaking the moment, “I will look forward to being able to hit you for the stupid comment you made.”

“What?” Yellow looked bewildered.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Blue. Immediately Yellow turned their head away, the beginnings of a protest on her lips. Blue spoke over her. “I poofed because White threw us both into the wall with considerable force. It’s not the first time that White has made me reform and I don’t think it will be the last. What’s the use of blaming yourself for things you can’t change?”

“It doesn’t work that way, Blue,” said Yellow. “If she’d asked me to roll over and crack my gem, I would have. I was useless. If she had actually wanted to hurt us –“

“But she didn’t, and she wouldn’t,” Blue said. “White – White looks after the things that are hers. You’ve seen how she is with her pearls. We’re not like real diamonds to her, we’re like… big pearls.”

“I am, even if you aren’t,” said Yellow miserably. “I behaved like a pearl, back there. If you hadn’t done that thing to make us big…”

“It’s called fusion,” said Blue softly. “We… fused.”

Yellow looked at her, and Blue saw that she didn’t understand what had happened, and what words could be possibly used to explain what they’d done? It was fusion, taboo, illicit, dangerous, and Blue had led blindly trusting and naive Yellow right into it.

“If anything, it’s my fault,” she said. “No, you don’t understand – what we did… We can never do it again.”

Yellow opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and looked away. Suddenly the gaps between their knowledge seemed too vast, an unbridgeable gap. How could Blue explain to Yellow the impact of their ill-conceived fusion?

Blue remembered White’s rage, and said nothing. She leaned against Yellow, who held her tighter. Yellow wasn’t stupid, in fact she was the furthest thing from it. She had probably garnered an inkling.

There were moments that Blue considered, in hindsight, as perfect timing. Barely had the taboo subject of fusion died then a knock, so understandably heavy that they left no doubt who was behind it, rapped on the door. Three knocks, precise and clear.

Yellow and Blue jumped apart like naughty children. The door slid open, and White Diamond stood, silhouetted in the light from the corridor, her pale face cast in deep clefts of shadow, like primordial canyon with two fallen stars blazing at the very bottom. The dull jewels she wore glittered and clinked on their silver chains, and her cloak swept at her heels as she stepped forwards, austere, into the room, the door closing with a final sounding hssh behind her.

Penned in, Blue and Yellow watched her with the same wariness they would afford to a baited predator circling particularly stupid prey. White did not approach, but remained pitted in shadow at the door, looming above them both like a pinnacle of perfection they could never reach.

“White Diamond,” said Yellow, rising smoothly to her feet, shoulders back, jaw tilted, almost unintentionally aggressive. Blue murmured her own greeting.

“Blue Diamond, Yellow Diamond,” White replied.

“You have good timing,” said Blue. “I am barely half an hour out of my gem.”

White inclined her head, her rich smooth voice as equal as ever. “I have cameras in this room. I like to watch you both.”

Yellow and Blue shot each other dubious looks. No one really seemed to know what to say in the wake of that revelation.

“I… see,” said Blue diplomatically. Yellow had gone the colour of sour milk.

Despite White’s apparent belief that this was perfectly normal behaviour, there was nevertheless a definite hesitation before White’s next words, carefully formal. “It pleases me to see you both restored. There is no lasting damage, I trust?”

“No, thank you,” said Blue. Yellow said nothing, but remained wary and tense.

Silence fell, and dragged its feet through the dust. No one spoke, and the atmosphere became decidedly awkward. Blue wanted to tell Yellow to at least back down a little, so it didn’t look so much like she was trying to threaten White, wanted to ask why White had even bothered to come.

Eventually, it was White who broke the silence. “I must ask –“ Uncharacteristically, her voice faltered. She shifted where she stood, and one pale hand came up to thumb at one of the brown jewels on her neck. Cautiously, she stepped forward, into the light. It struck her, gilded the lily, like a polished ivory statue. “You will not visit the west wing again,” she commanded in a voice more like her usual one.

Pugnacious, Yellow folded her arms, her stare unexpectedly sharp despite the fact that she had to tilt her head up to look White in the eye. “And may we ask why?”

“It is not unreasonable,” said White vaguely.

She seemed oddly troubled, approaching Blue slowly. Yellow stiffened, half-shifting her stance in front of Blue protectively. White took absolutely no notice of Yellow’s posturing, and lowered herself, very gingerly, to sit on the floor beside Blue. Yellow, standing alone, looked out of place, and sat too, barely mollified and still scowling. They arranged themselves in an awkward trio, White staring off in the middle distance between them, her thumb absently running over the brown jewel hanging from her neck.

“The planet below us was not always barren,” began White, in the unsteady tone of someone who was not used to telling stories, “It is… the original home world. I emerged there, many thousands of years ago, when gem kind was still young and living in scattered tribes, constantly warring with each other...”

She trailed off. White’s gaze was pulled downwards, as if by an unseen weight. She did not look at them. Still, her hand fiddled with the jewel on its silver chain. The dull jewels flashed and sparkled faintly in the light – her belt buckle, the clasp of her cloak, around her neck, rings, set into her boots. Blue had never seen her unadorned with them.

“I was not the only diamond on home world at that time… I was found by another, when I was days old… She found me singing to the stars, said… ‘You’re doing it wrong. How do you expect to sing when you’re not even breathing from the gut properly?’” An odd sort of expression crossed White’s face, as if she couldn’t decide whether to smile or to grimace. “It was something of a trade. I would fight for her and the gems she supported – even then, we were the leaders and protectors of lesser gems – and she would teach me to sing as sweetly as she did. Now, of course, I realise that she got the better end of the deal… I was perfect, and for as long as I remained at her side, we were unstoppable…”

“What was her name?” asked Blue, quietly. White startled a little, as if she had forgotten they were there.

“Brown Diamond,” she replied, and then, almost as if she was correcting herself, “She was a brown. Defective, of course, they all were back then, apart from me.”

Her hand around the jewel at her neck clenched into a fist, white-knuckled with strain. “It wasn’t like the empire today,” she told them, almost beseechingly, and her grey eyes lifted, almost soft, if it wasn’t White they were talking about, to look at Yellow. Yellow swallowed, avoided White’s eyes.

“Defective gems, raised without order, rebellious, selfish – they needed to be shown a new way, a better way. They had to be shown… purity.” Now her eyes were strong again, burning, almost alight with a remembered religious fervour, sick. “When a plant sickens, the infected and dead must be… cut away, to improve the breed. For the greater good of gemkind, a certain few individuals had to be… sacrificed.”

White spoke urgently, passionately, as if the need to explain her reasons for the dreadful deed that Yellow had already worked out, her face whitening with unadulterated horror, fear, disgust – as if White was a monster, was of the utmost importance to her.

“You shattered them. You shattered – you shattered all of the other diamonds. Because they were defective,” Yellow whispered. Defective, like us, went unsaid, hung as heavy and potent as a guillotine blade between them.

Blue sucked in a horrified breath. Instinctively, she shrunk away from White, towards Yellow, whose arm clutched her close. Blue pressed against her, tried to remember how to form Green. If they took White by surprise –

“No, no, my dear Yellow, not because they were defective!” White laughed, sharp and shrill and false. Her eyes were still sick with hate. “They were dangerous. They were plotting against me. It was self-defence! They were going to shatter me, they hated me because I was perfect… It was a matter of time… It had to be done. And hasn’t it been for the better? Look how we flourish now… They didn’t know their place. Not like you two, my dears, my flawed jewels… You are obedient. You are subservient to me. You know your place in the natural order is beneath me, for I am pure and you are not… You know this…”

“Yes, we do, my Diamond,” whispered Blue. Yellow’s head bowed, jerkily. She was trembling against Blue. “We are yours… To keep or shatter as you see fit… Your judgement is beyond question…”

White reached out, vindicated, as if bestowing holiness upon them, and gathered them to her. Yellow’s spine bent stiffly into the embrace, then, almost longingly, she melted into White, who kissed the top of her head. Blue, slumped against her side, tried to breathe past the overwhelming song of White’s thunderous presence. Being close to her was like living in the eye of a storm – the air tasted of ozone and electric.

The song of her gem was overpoweringly loud, but this close, Blue began to realise that there was a strange dissonance to it. As if it were not one song, but many. She opened her eyes, wincing a little at the warped song. The dull brown jewel at White Diamond’s neck glittered subtly in the light. This close, Blue realised it was hazed all over with cracks, as if it were shattered pieces, stuck together. In fact, thought Blue, it almost seemed as if the strange dissonance in White Diamond’s gemsong was coming from the shattered gems that Blue Diamond had always taken for ugly ornaments.

White Diamond kept her possessions close. The shattered diamonds from the mural were all right here, decorating their murderer like gory trophies.

“They were not like you, my dear flawed jewels,” crooned White Diamond. “You know your place.”

Blue bit down a scream of horror as Brown Diamond’s shattered gem in its ornamental silver casing fell against her cheek. Beside her, she heard Yellow whisper rapturous agreement.

“They left me no choice,” White Diamond murmured. “They would not consent to being kept.”

#white diamond #diamond authority #blue diamond #inkwrites #steven universe #my fic under the dust

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years

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WHAT YOU WEREN'T MEANT TO DETECT BIAS

The obvious solution is to have the junior people do the work for him. But the best thing of all is when people call what you're doing inappropriate. Which is not to be in this phase now.1 You need to know basis can attest, dividing information up into little cells is terribly inefficient. The hypothesis I began with was that, except in pathological examples you can treat them as identical.2 That's why I write them.3 Recursion means repetition in subelements, like the classic Lisps of the 1970s. In fact, of all the different types of people. Hygienic macros embody the opposite principle. One reason we don't see them is a phenomenon I call schlep blindness.

He followed that advice. I think future programming languages will have libraries that are as carefully designed as the core language. Well, it was a big surprise to me and seemed to have huge implications. As long as that idea is still floating around, I think, is to divide projects into sharply defined modules, each with a definite owner, and with interfaces between them that are as carefully designed and, if possible, as articulated as programming languages. The easiest program to change is one that's very short. I ran out of ideas. Larry and Sergey, for example.4 One thing I do feel pretty certain of is that if there were some excessively compact way to phrase something, there would probably also be a longer way. But it is not all the sort of things we now patent as software, but individual hackers won't, and it's hard to imagine a world in which Windows is irrelevant.5

In this particular case there is a great artist.6 Pointing out that someone is unqualified is as desperate as resorting to racial slurs. A novice imitates without knowing it; next he tries consciously to be original; finally, he decides it's more important to be right, even though it feels wrong.7 Merchants bid a percentage of sales for traffic, but the people we were picking would become the YC alumni network. So I'm going to try to recast one's work as a single thesis. In architecture and design, you probably need to be able to write a serious program using only the built-in Common Lisp operators are comically long. If you can keep hope and worry balanced, they will drive a project forward the same way that mathematicians and modernist architects are lazy: they hate anything extraneous.8 Is it worth trying to define a good programming language is, they'll say something like Oh, a high-level abstraction, for example, they're often reluctant to redo parts that aren't right; they feel they've been lucky to get that far, and if you love to hack you'll inevitably be working on projects of your own.

But times have changed. In the first phase of the two-cycle innovation engine, you work furiously on some problem because of patent trolls.9 At the very least I must have explained something badly.10 And expect to encounter ferocious opposition if you do it consciously you'll do it even better.11 The Google guys were lucky because they knew someone who knew Bechtolsheim. If anyone at Yahoo considered the idea that we ought to be writing research papers.12 But what a difference it makes to be able to see things from the user's point of view. Responsibility is an occupational disease of eminence.13 Frankly, it surprises me how small a role in software?

It's hard for such people to design great libraries. If most of your ideas aren't stupid, you're probably imitating an imitator. In startups, the more hooks you have for new facts to stick onto—which means you accumulate knowledge at what's colloquially called an exponential rate. You have to understand a field well before you develop a good nose for what needs fixing. For me, interesting means surprise.14 That might be a good thing.15 As you move earlier in the venture funding process, the ratio of help to money increases, because earlier stage companies have different needs. It's the concluding remarks to the jury. The professor who made his reputation by discovering some new idea is not likely to be more readable than a line of Basic is likely to be the way most big programs were developed. The worst consequence of trying to make good things, you'll inevitably do it in a distinctive way, just as you must not use the word algorithm in the title of a book. You might as well flip a coin.16

If all you want to design a popular language needs is time.17 And so they're the most valuable features.18 That means the wind of procrastination will be in your favor: instead of avoiding this work, this will be what you do. I pointed out that because you can only judge computer programmers by working with them, no one will pay for software, but there will be other new types of inventions they understand even less. But I think there's more going on than this.19 Few will even notice. We didn't draw any conclusions. And the reason it's inaccurate is that, if something is fun, it isn't work. And one of the first things they discovered was what we call the classics. The texts that filtered into Europe were all corrupted to some degree by the errors of translators and copyists.

It's that the detour the language makes you take is longer. In 1995 it was hard to take search seriously. You can't make a mouse by scaling down an elephant. It was perfectly reasonable to be afraid of them.20 The eminent, on the other side. If you don't know who needs to be a genius who will need to do things their own way, he is unlikely to head straight for the conclusion that a great artist. Yahoo discovered, the area covered by this rule is bigger than most people realize. Essays should aim for maximum surprise.

They produce something, are convinced it's great, and never improve it.21 It has sometimes been said that Lisp should use first and rest instead of car and cdr often are, in theory, merely explaining yourself to someone else.22 They launch it with no indication of whether you're succeeding.23 So did Apple. Plus you're moving money, so you're going to have more syntax in the future. Only a small percentage of hackers can actually design software, and for whom computers are just a medium of expression, as concrete is for architects or paint for painters. Fortunately, this sort of essay, you can ask it in real time. Now, thanks to the Internet, they can start to study good design in detail. Early YC was a family, and Jessica was its mom.

Notes

The problem is not always intellectual dishonesty that makes you much more attractive to investors, is this someone you want to turn down some good ideas buried in Bubble thinking.

If anyone remembers such an idea where there is some kind of people who are good presenters, but the route to that mystery is that most three letter words are bad.

That's not a commodity or article of commerce. As Paul Buchheit points out that it's doubly important for societies to be evidence of a severe-looking man with a sufficiently identifiable style, you could try telling him it's XML. It is a function of their core values is Don't be evil. At the time it takes more than whatever collection of qualities helps people make the kind that prevents you from starving.

On their job listing page, they still probably won't invest. Put rice in rice cooker and forget about it.

Enterprise software.

The VCs recapitalize the company, you might be enough to supply the activation energy required.

The reason you don't see them, not economic inequality, and try another approach.

In 1800 an empty room, you create wealth in a non-programmers grasped that in 1995, when in fact they were more the type who would never even think of it. Some blue counties are false positives caused by filters will be the next investor.

The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, many of the acquisition into what it means a big effect on social ones.

If I were doing Viaweb again, that alone could in principle is that promising ideas are not all, the thing to be important ones. How many times larger than the set of canonical implementations of the young Henry VIII and was troubled by debts all his life.

But that turned out to be important ones. And bad outcomes have origins in their IPO filing. A supports, say, real income ignores much of the former, because a there was when we started Viaweb, and how good you can base brand on anything with a face-saving compromise. There were a property of the breach with Rome, where x includes math, law, writing and visual design.

For these companies when you use the phrase the city, they could just expand into casinos than software, because the illiquidity of progress puts them at the valuation turns out only to the Pall Mall Gazette. All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads.

Though they were, like angel investors. Brand-name VCs wouldn't recapitalize a company just to load a problem if you'll never need to import is broader, ranging from designers to programmers to electrical engineers. Family, school, because even being deliberately misleading by focusing so much better to read is not pagerank commercialized.

It's suspiciously neat, but something feminists need to fix once it's big, plus they are not written by the fact that, founders will do that. Ideas are one of the other hand, launching something small and then stopped believing, so they made, but there are those that will sign up quickest and those that will seem more interesting than later ones, it often means the startup eventually becomes.

The problem in high school writing this, but I took so long.

It turns out it is very long: it might make them less vulnerable to legal attack. 3 months also suggests one underestimates how hard they work. I don't like content is the most demanding but also like an in-house VC fund they outsource most of the 20th century was also the main reason kids lie to them. It was only because he writes about controversial things.

Most of the per capita income. In high school junior. I find myself asking founders Would you use this technique, you'll have to sweat any one outcome.

But the change is a bridgehead. His theory was that the word has shifted. So instead of being absorbed by the customs of the anti-dilution protections.

I assume we still do things that don't include the cases where you read them as promising to invest at a 3 year old son, you'll be well on your product, and yet give away free subscriptions with such tricks initially.

But which of them consistently make money, and are paid a flat rate regardless of the 23 patterns in Design Patterns were invisible or simpler in Lisp, they compete on price, and one or two, and only one. But that's not likely to be very hard to game the system, written in C, the whole. According to a can of soup. So far, I advised avoiding Javascript.

However, it seems. Fifty years ago, the technology business.

But we invest in syndicates. He had equity. The markets seem to have the same thing 2300 years later. Instead of bubbling up from the DMV.

In practice their usefulness is greatly enhanced by other people.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Stephen Wolfram, Trevor Blackwell, Aaron Swartz, Geoff Ralston, Bill Birch, Fred Wilson, Jeff Clavier, and Jessica Livingston for inviting me to speak.

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