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seventhcallisto · 7 months

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Chapter ⅰ. "loved by."

— His Cologne.

An/Cw; innocent forehead and neck kisses. Touching. Some arguing. Briefest mentions of domestic violence and scars(other characters). Lots and lots and LOTS of world building. Read prologue, or you'll be v confused. Idk how to word count on here or know how corporate people talk goodbye. (Also I don't have favorites, i love all my men equally)

Wonwoo had another toss and turn night. He's gotten less and less sleep these past weeks than he's ever had in his entire life. His mind can't stop wondering. He's plagued by nightmares of their missing soulmate. The one who begged as she pulled away. Cried like she was being tortured. It transfers into his dreams. Haunted him when he woke up grasping the sheets. Gasping for air every time. Only to realize she wasn't there next to him.

"Hey." Mingyu side steps wonwoo, having just woken up himself, the house was fairly empty, many of the guys were doing their shoots, filming, and/or out. Because of that, wonwoo and mingyu have the house to themselves. The only sound of birds chirping could be heard through cracks in the windows. Gyu pulls a bowl and a bag of cereal, pouring himself some. He glances at wonwoo, occasionally watching him stir breakfast in a large pan. After pouring some milk, he leans against the kitchen counter. Eyeing wonwoos quiet behavior.

"What's wrong?" Yes. He already knows the answer. He can feel something has been awry with wonwoo since.. well. A while. "Nothing.." he lies with a sigh, looking over his glasses at mingyu. Gyu slurps the cereal off his spoon. "Bullsh1t," he mumbles through a mouthful, wonwoo grimaces. "You've been off for weeks, don't tell cheol I'm saying this, but.. You're not telling us either. Not even i know what's wrong.." mingyu looks up through his lashes, stirring his cereal half hazerdly.

Before wonwoo replies, mingyu is chewing through another bite. Wonwoo sighs. His eyes are cast back down to his wrist. The golden goldfish taunts him. "I met another.. one of us, the fourteenth one." it's so casually said. Gyu chokes on his bite. Coughing and sputtering into the sink. "What? Like.." he points to the spot right under his own ear. There's a mark there, small, barely noticeable. It's uncompleted and messy. Saturn, surrounded by its rings.

Wonwoo nods.

You're gonna get fired, but maybe it's what you deserve. Your boss was somewhat upset you left without saying goodbye. Eunha has always been a kind soul to you. You've spent all your time sucking up to her for weeks. Anything to distract you. You mindlessly play with your ear. Caressing your own soul mark. Everyone is born with their own soul mark. It isn't until later their soulmates' mark comes through. You were born with saturn behind your right earlobe, tiny specks of the galaxy shining behind it, the colors vibrant against your skin tone.

You're taking a walk after work. Already dressed to visit some places you had on your bucket list. Not to toot your own horn, but you're feeling better. There's nothing wrong with pampering yourself every once in a while.

"Thank you," you tell the cashier as she checks you out. Bags upon bags lay on your arms when you step out back into the street. Shops line back to back, you glance at each. Taking your time. Spring is almost in full bloom. You find yourself wanting to go out more to enjoy the things you haven't taken the time to before. Your eyes scan every sign, every decoration you enjoy or find adorable. You slow to a stop in front of a bus stop. You glance at the advertisements and help wanted posters.

'Soul mark removal session - book by appointment,' the paper reads. 'Lee Hyun,' the soul doctor in the paper smiles brightly. You want to look away, to pretend you didn't see it for some reason. Yet you reach out and pull off a piece of paper with a number. Turning it over and then shoving it in your pocket.

Not even the next hour you're calling the number, your fingers tap against your marble counter as you wait for the dial tone on speaker. You're on hold for ten minutes. The price of morals is high on your mind. "Hello, this Jane with Soul Surge. How may I help you today?" Your conversation with the desk lady is quick, yet you're still tapping your fingers in anticipation as you continue booking your appointment. "And you will be billed two days after your first appointment. How would you like to pay? Alright.." her keyboard clicks.

"Alright, I have scheduled an appointment for you with Dr. Lee, would you like a reminder? " Before you know it, you're done talking and hanging up. An appointment next week. You sigh, the burden on your shoulder still feels heavy. You have to remind yourself to breathe.

The next week comes sooner than later. You're lacking with work because you're so distracted. You bite your lip and toss before sleep the day before. You stare at yourself in a mirror. The first time you've worn clothes that show the majority of your soul marks. Your face grows ever redder at what people will think. For such a young girl to have so many marks on her? It feels scandalous. You pull a jacket over. Although the weather reads warmer than it has all week.

You're called into Dr. Lees office. You're sat across his pristine white desk. "What can I do for you today?" He starts off, a kind smile on his aged lips. You sigh "well I have thirteen soul marks. And I would like to get them removed. " You emphase with your hands, eyebrows furrowed. "That certainly is a number, I admit I do not think I've had a customer with that many, but that shouldn't be a problem. May I take a look?"

You show him all the ones you can reach on your own. If he's surprised, you can't tell. He throws away his gloves, sliding back into his chair. "I'm able to remove only a few of your soulmates' marks on you at a time, but if I can remove your own mark fully, then with time, the others should dissappear." You nod. There is a solution, after all. "And, sorry but- I've heard that after the mark is removed, the person who removed them feels..lonely?"

He laughs lightly, "No, no, that is a complete urban legend." You let out the air you're holding. It's too good to be true. And you're right. "But the other people involved, the other soulmate or soulmates will go through major discomfort, uhm, it will go away in less than a year, permanently. If you are to get it removed, you will never be able to make a connection with your soulmate." his tone is somewhat cheerful. Yet the dread in your stomach builds as he goes on.

"Oh," you don't have a response to his words. He notices your face dropping. "But, like I mentioned. the discomfort feeling should go away within a year-long period." He uses his hands to emphase his words. "And these - the discomfort feeling. How does it feel for the soulmates involved exactly?" You press, pulling your bag onto your lap to hug it. Comforting yourself.

"Well. The effect should take place directly after the removal process. They'll feel a slight burning, like an ant bite sensation. Eventually, after a few days, it'll turn into an urge to itch the spot. The spot will swell and redden within a couple of weeks, and soon enough, week by week, pieces of it will be absorbed through the skin. The symptoms may vary depending on the person. Nowadays, there are creams to help with the symptoms and process."

You bid the Dr goodbye.

Before your treck home, you decide to visit some more attraction spots while you're in the city. You're happy you can afford the luxuries, but you've already overgone your budget this month. You watch street performers, and occasionally, you'll grab a treat to take home to eat as you walk. One snack won't hurt. Your hands are in your jacket. Enjoying the afternoon breeze. In the back of your mind, you're thinking about the decision you want to make.

"Oh, excuse me!" A lady not much older than you apologizes as she bumps into you, her stomach is wide with pregnancy, two kids sit in a double stroller, no older than a year. She has her hands full. "Oh no, that's my fault," you wave her off politely, looking at the stairs behind her. "Would you like some help?" You offer, she smiles gratefully. "If it isn't too much to ask.." she laughs lightly. You're holding the end of the stroller as you slowly decend the stairs.

Once you reach the end of the stairs, she's bowing her head, thankfully. "Thanks, uhm.." You tell her your name. "What a lovely name, surely to bring good luck, I'm Kim Jiung," you smile. "Are you a shaman, perhaps?" She smiles back, pushing the stroller forward. You follow with a short pace. Stepping side by side. "My husband is," she continues, "when i was your age, he was the most desired shaman on the block." she laughs as she reminisces. "I met my husband asking for advice." she stops the stroller and lifts her long sleeved floral navy blue dress all the way up to her elbow. Scars litter most of her arm.

On the inner curve of her elbow is a crown placed on a perfectly red pillow, the diamonds in the crown shift as she turns it towards you. "That's when I found my soulmate," she cheerily smiles, pushing the stroller once again. Your smile doesn't reach your eyes, yet it's a sweet story. "Because of the law placed for soulmates, i was able to divorce my husband at the time." A sad look crosses her face. "He was a women hitter. And a drunk. It got worse when I told him about my current husband, youngwin. The process took a year to complete." She smiles to herself at the end. "I wouldn't change the hurt for anything," her hand goes to caress her belly.

"Weren't you scared he'd reject you.. because you were married?" You ask suddenly. She's not taken aback in the slightest. "Never," she sighs peacefully. The sun sets to your left, and the sidewalk is void of many people. "He was the most understanding person in the world," she turns to look at you. "My parents never approved of my relationships. They didn't help me when my ex-husband got violent." She smiles sadly. "But my youngwin did," she turns to begin pushing the stroller again.

You stutter to a stop, watching as she takes a few steps ahead. She looks back to see where you are. Then she sits on a bench. She swings the stroller around to look at her babies, wiping her hand against one of their faces softly. "Healing takes a while on your own, but when you have support, it's much easier to get through the days," she coos at the kids softly. You feel sluggish as you walk over and sit next to her, the settling silence nips you.

You watch the children grasp onto their toys and laugh joyously at their mothers' tickles. Her soothing words bring out coos from the twins that make you smile. "How soon are you due?" You ask, turning to face her. She pats her stomach. "Only four and a half more months," she makes a motion, crossing her fingers. You laugh. "A summer baby, thankfully, I can not do any more winter due dates. i already have plenty of winter siblings," she finishes off, pulling out a snack for the twins. You hum quietly.

"I was an only child to three parents, even that was too much for them," you snicker. Leaning back on the bench, you watch the twins messily smack their food around. She turns to look at you.

"Sometimes children can make or break a couple." You know she doesn't mean anything by it. She's just feeding conversation. You're still reminded of that fateful June night. She takes notice of your silence and your distant expression. "I get it,.. it can be hard, but if you're willing to.. you know - talk to each other. That's always the first step to getting better." She smiles reassuringly. Squeezing the hand on your leg. "When my husband and I finalized our soul bond. I was scared of him not liking me - not my past. But me. It was hard for us to communicate." She sighs. Squeezing your hand again. Her eyes fall to your soul marks. Both on your wrists.

"But we got through it because he stayed, and he cared. And I wanted to get better for him, with him." she pats your hand. "Whatever it is, I'm genuinely sure it will work out for you." her gaze is soft and kind like a mother's. You find yourself giving a small smile back.

The week you met jiung your head swirled with unease, she takes some of it away with her advice. She's updated you on her life almost every day. You've become close friends, possibly even best friends in the span of the week. Although older than you she is definitely the more lively and extroverted one in your friendship. You don't mind though, her positivity is a breath of fresh air. Pictures of her twins, Jino and Jina fill your messages. You can't help but adore their chubby faces, their petite pregnant mom holds them up for one photo smiling gleefully, you assume her husband took the photo. 'They're getting bigger than me!' The text after announces.

Your appointment for your soul mark removal is soon. You're not nervous if you don't think about it every second. The man- soulmate you bumped into seemed well off, right? His clothing was designer. His glasses, too. He- and his other soulmates will be able to afford the solution cream.. right? Whenever you think about him too much, your heart flitters. You try to focus on the small things in your life. And not the way he stared at you. The way his name echos in your head every so often. The way your soul mark yearns to be connected with his. What it'll feel like to be connected with the others as well, how they feel, what they're like. Your mind betrays your wishes not to have those thoughts.

In the midst of night, you're cursed with dreams, Tangled into sheets, laughing with him. More than one person is there, every so often the bed sinks in and you can fel yourself pressed against another person. Skin meets skin in soft, innocent touches, just wishing to be close to each other. The sun beats through the sheets, creating an angelic like glow. You can never make out the murmurs and whispers. When he steps out of the blanket, you miss his touch. You feel empty without him. And then, you wake up, usually groaning at your mind for creating such a tantalizing dream. One you can't forget the next day.

Mingyu is no stranger to the looks his members give him. "What do you know?" Seungkwan is the first to ask, jutting his head at the older guy sitting in the makeup chair. He pushes on mingyu's shoulder, biting into an apple slice. "No, it's a secret. I promised Woo," gyu mumbles, crossing his arms. Across the room, wonwoo sleeps in his chair while the makeup artists finish. He's catching up on missed – well deserved – sleep.

"We're tied, remember? I have a right to know. We don't keep secrets," Seungkwan pouts, chewing the rest of his apple slice down. Gyu also pouts, a reactive thing he copies. Seungcheols chin falls on top of mingyu's head, eavesdropping the entire time. An urging look is in his eyes, encouraging mingyu to go on. He almost gives in. "No. I can't, it's something you have to ask wonwoo about." He sighs and turns away from his members.

Seungcheol and seungkwan share a look over mingyu's makeup chair.

The drive back to the house is long, and wonwoo attempts to catch some more zzz's on the drive. The city lights bounce off the glass, it's well past 9 o'clock. Wonwoo gets the farthest window seat in the back. Hoshi and seungcheol are sat next to him. Arms thrown over each other to share warmth, cheol' head falls on hosh's shoulder, the absence of his snores is a tall tell sign he's not really asleep. Hoshi is pressed up against the other window. He's on his phone, scrolling aimlessly through his timeline. Joshua, Dino, and Vernon take the middle seats, each one of them passing their phones around. They laugh quietly. Mingyu sits in the passenger, his eyes relaxed but not yet asleep.

Usually, a drive home like this would make wonwoo feel content. His soulmates being close by is enough to satisfy the need to be curled under a pile of them. He's lost in thought when the van comes to a stop at their building. Everyone begins to shuffle out. Wonwoo and mingyu are the last two to leave the van. Mingyu shoots a look at wonwoo when he steps out, watching his other member rub behind his ear, where the fourteenth soul mark is. Both of them - followed by their manager - walk into the building.

Everyone's already relaxed when they all get settled down. Movie night consists of seats being switched around here and there. Some don't even bother watching. Just lingering around on their phones or laptops, content to just listen in. Everybody needs some soul bonding. Lately, their energy is drained faster, even Jihoon can feel it. He sits on a single armchair, his laptop propped on his lap. His hoodie is rolled up his arm, while the rest of him drapes comfortably in the chair.

Jihoon mindlessly rubs his soul mark, the planet behind his ear. It stings every so often, like it would when he's been away from his soulmates for too long. He sees wonwoo most days doing the same rubbing motion on his ear. No matter how he tries to avoid asking wonwoo what's been going on, he can't help but feel he won't get an answer out of him even if he did. Wonwoo can definitely be secretive and stubborn sometimes. Jihoon glances to wonwoo and mingyu, talking quietly in the kitchen just around the corner. Only he can see them stare at each other, a heated discussion beginning to rise.

He tries to listen in, but it's too loud with the movie. The rest of the members are wrapped around each other on the couch, work clothing and blankets string about here and there, and they haven't had much time to clean up recently. Jihoon slips out of the living room quietly, leaving his closed laptop in his spot. Only cheol blinks an eye for a split second, watching jihoon go.

Jihoon quietly walks into the kitchen, which is dim except for the microwave light that pops popcorn every second or so. Wonwoo stands with his head hung low, defeated. Gyu turns to the sounds of shuffling, glancing between jihoon and wonwoo. Jihoon stares back, a questionable look on his face when he glances between the two quiet men.

"We need to talk," wonwoo says, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes only meet halfway with Jihoons.

Your favorite place on earth was your bed, minus the crumbs. You had spent your first paycheck on it, and you don't regret it at all. It's a king size on the floor. You're perfectly content with it. You can lie and say you're always perfectly content. Today is a lie day.

Your face is squished against your sheets, and your phone is propped up on a pillow. Your appointment isn't until 12. You can feel every one of your soul marks pulse every once in a while. A hearty rhythm you've gotten used to, but you're highly opposed to. A pulling urge to get out of bed and wander the streets til you find who you're looking for. You rub your tired eyes. It was a strange night. Series of dreams plaguing your mind when they're still fresh.

You stand on the sidewalk, golden hues paint every corner. Jiung is no longer pregnant, and her kids aren't currently with her. Surely an image of her your dream made up. She talks mindlessly as you walk. Your eyes never stray from her. "You'll know what to do. The timing will be perfect. Everything will fall into place." She repeats every so often. You're in the most expensive outfit you've ever bought, one you used for clubbing when you turned 21, and you never wore again. Every shiney piece of it sparkles like diamonds caught on flash. In the next moment, you lift your head up to photographers and cameras flashing in your face. You go to shield your face, but you're already being pulled away by your shoulder. You blink your eyes, and you're in an airport now. Faceless strangers shove their phones in your face. A hand tugs on your own, pulling you along, another guides your waist. Both help ease the twisted feeling arising. You're crowded between people escorting you. As soon as you begin feeling claustrophobic, you fall into a weightless state. Floating mindlessly before drifting down into a bed. Your bed. Sheets are neatly tucked in, but blankets strew all of the area. As you continue to look, the bed seems to grow. You can hear the distant sound of clattering in your kitchen, yet you can't see anything pass the bed. Quiet talking and whispers, they're purposeful as if they're trying not to wake you.

You're falling back in, head laid on a broad chest. You can hear their heartbeat through their shirt. Strong and steady. Content. Their voice rumbles a melody, humming soft. Behind you is another chest pressed to your back. Their hand is tucked under your neck, soothing strokes to the base of your hair. Warm lips pressed to your forehead. Another pair falls on your soul mark.

When you wake up. You can't determine your own feelings at the reality of it. No one is pressed by your sides stroking your face and head like you wish. No one is pressing soft, delicate kisses to your forehead and neck. No one is humming to you. After you stretch and yawn, you're doing your morning routine. Humming the melody to yourself.

You crack eggs for breakfast. You tune turning more quiet as you focus on what you're doing. By the time you're done cooking it's 10. You don't have the appetite anymore, but you're obligated to eat something before your appointment. You eat what you can and get ready.

You're taking your time now. When you pull your socks on your finger strokes the infinity mark on your ankle, then each of your hands gently touch the shooting star and goldfish on your wrists. When you pull your clothes up past your thighs, you watch the branch get hidden, you watch It meet just over your hips. Fingerprints, the beautiful figure beneath your belly button, and the moon hide away. Then you pull your shirt over your shoulder. You eye the rose, glancing down at the blackhole on your collarbone. You cant see it but you can feel the pulse of the butterfly and the tiger on your back. You reach up to touch the back of your neck. The dragon shifts when you glide your finger over it. All of these intricate marks will be gone. Including your own. Your soulmates will feel the pain of loosing one of their own. You'll never meet them. Never talk to them. Never know the details about them.

What's gotten into you? Since when did you care?

Why do you care?

You're picking up your phone before you know it, you're breathing hard. Why are you breathing so hard? You take a few slow breaths. Your hands grip the phone tightly while you dial Soul Surge.

"I'd like to cancel my appointment."

The news hits the boys like a train. Wonwoo had not just single handedly refused to tell his soulmates about the woman, but mingyu had hid it too. Their other soulmate. "Why didn't you tell us this?" Seungkwan sighs. "Wait." Dokyeom interjected standing from the couch. "So that light was you two?" Dokyeom grabs wonwoos shoulders, shaking him. "I was right there! How does gyu know before I do?" Wonwoos face shows displeasure, many of the boys are about to intervene. Seungcheol pushes dokyeom back gently from wonwoos space. Kyeom can tell cheol is serious when he doesn't bat an eye at his outburst. He takes his seat next to Dino.

"Well," joshua buts in, he tucks a hand under his chin, his arm propped up on the counter. "Maybe she had her reasons to run." he can buy it himself. It's very possible. The room returns to silence. Cheol shifts from his feet, deep in thought. He stops short, leaning against the kitchen counter. "You two did connect, right?" Seungkwan asks before cheol can, and Wonwoo nods. woozi speaks up. "Then that means she and you will find your way to each other"

Letting the universe and soul connect doing its thing takes too long in mingyus opinion. Everyone decided so anyway. Mingyu was oddly the only one to object. At night, he thinks about it. What'd it be like to finally meet her. What kind of personality would she have? What her likes are. Does she like music? Does she know who they are? Is she a carat? His mind fogs at the number of questions. She's been running around his mind ever since wonwoo told him.

He finds himself restlessly trying to convince his members to step up so they can find her quicker. Maybe he's looking for someone to back him up. Mingyu can be personally driven. And maybe this is something he shouldn't be doing. He's out doing his own thing that day. He doesn't have any filming to do. So his hand reaches for his phone, turning his neck to the side and throwing up peace between his fingers. The fourteenth soul mark is on display. His phone audio shutters when he takes the photo.

Only five slides of him. A tight black tee with a low collar, he's perched on a ledge. One in a black tank in the gym, one of him drinking some type of drink. Mingyu. His name is in Hangul, on the side of the flimsy paper cup. His peace photo. Lastly, it is just a picture of the back of his neck. His head is turned. In every photo, the planet is in clear view. The majority of the time, he can't post pictures with the fourteenth soul mark. The company decided against it.

'It'll cause controversy to the public'

This time, he decides to break some company rules. " 🪐 " is the only thing in the caption.

It's the same day jiung drags you into town. "Girls trip!" She laughs so heartily, clinging to your arm at your front door. On her form is a yellow spring dress. And you're in a drop shoulder oversized tee, a pair of loose pants. She takes you to the most popular jewelry store on the strip, waiting in line. "Why are we here?" You ask, she doesn't tell you. "You'll know soon enough!'" She pouts playfully. And maybe she uses her pregnancy to get your spot in the store faster. You don't point it out.

A young lady tightens a metal of your choice to your right ankle, and the accents blend perfectly. Jiung gets a rose gold color on hers, baby blue accents that look perfect against her tan skin, and lastly, a single seashell pendant to match with her own soul mark. "You don't have to get the pendant," she tells you with a smile shuffling on her one foot as they tighten the bracelet to her. She knows you don't particularly take fond of your soul mark.

"No, I'll get the pendant," you smile back to reassure yourself. You watch now as the younger lady fastens the bracelet to your ankle. Zapping it into place. A permanent ankle bracelet is now tied to you. You're not upset at the decision.

"Thanks for coming with me, I didn't think you'd want to get one, though," jiung smiles, her eyes on her own ankle bracelet as she walks in her flip-flops. "Their designs were too pretty to pass up," you say, you both stop in front of another store on the strip. This one has a couple of cut-out boards on the outside. You don't recognize any of them except for j-hope of bts. It's chained down. You stare in surprise.

"People really steal those?" Jiung laughs like what you said is the funniest thing in the world. "I took the d.o one they had out a year ago," she reminisces. You stare in shock, jaw-dropping. "Jiung!" You scold, she pulls you into the store before you have anything else to say. Once you get over the initial shock of the store decorations, you're wandering around. A couple of albums catch your eyes. Your hand scans over the records.

Here and there are a few people. But it isn't crowded. A couple of young girls, no younger than high schoolers, scroll on their phones, taking pictures of the album section, the laugh boisterously. They switch off to take photos of each other with their newly bought albums. You make sure to stay out of their shots. Not far away, you're at the plush section with jiung. She talks to herself about which plush she wants. "Dwaekki or Quokka.." You zone out when the loud girls squeal.

"Oh! Mingyu just posted!" A confused 'huh?' Follows. Okay. Maybe you're curious yourself. You secretly eavesdrop into their quiet conversation, squeezing a plush you got from the shelf, its a wolf with only a shirt on, a content expression on its face. A notification peaks jiungs interest. It's a jingle pop. Her phone is in her right hand while the plush is in her left. She gasps. Your head whips around towards her, glancing over her shoulder at her screen.

There in bold reads; "SEVENTEEN 14TH SOUL MARK REVEALED!" followed by a collage of zoomed in photos of a guy, his hair is short but on the base of his neck is the planet.

Your planet. Your saturn. Glittered with galaxies behind him. When you go to double look, you can feel your neck crick in protest. Jiung calls your name. Shock on her face. She stares at your neck. Gosh. The one day you decide not to wear something that'll cover your neck AND you forgot your jacket. You slap your palm over your neck.

Your name is called again. Jiung has taken the plush from your hand, putting it back on the shelf. "Let's go," She says, so casually glancing behind you. You continue to stare, nothing coming from your throat. You follow her gaze. The two girls' heads shoot back down to one of the phones. "Doesn't it look like hers?" They whisper. Just your luck. "Ji, I-" she grabs your arm and marches to the front of the store, your head is downturned. This can't be real. How could all of this happen? How does-

The girls stop you. "It's you, isn't it!?" Their tone borderlines obsessive fangirls. "No, please move," jiung speaks for you, her arms hold you defensively by your shoulders. You're starting to regain your senses. The girls push your shoulder, acting playful "gosh I didn't know someone so ordinary would be one of their soulmates." The other girl pouts, "She doesn't look good enough for mingyu." her tongue clicks, both of them shove their hands over their arms.

Jiung goes to defend you. "Hey! Why are you two bothering customers?! This is the third time this month!" An older lady yells, she comes over with a book in hand. The girls look shocked, they bow their heads, and Apologize. Sneaking looks at you two that are heated. It's pretty forced. "ajumeoni! We're just talking!" "ajumeoni! Have you restocked the txt albums?" Their voices get high pitched. Shoulders bumping yours and jiung as they pass.

"Let's get you outta here," jiung sighs. She pulls you out the door.

You're in a state of shock.

Jiungs apartment is homely, fit for a family. Boxes pile upon each other. "Sorry it's messy, we're moving soon," she sulks, pushing a box with her foot. She takes a seat on her couch. Patting the spot next to her. You move from the hallway and sit. "Girl talk?" She suggests. "Or we can watch a movie. The twins are with youngwins' mothers. So I have until tomorrow off. " she shifts with her feet under her.

You don't think about it. "Girl talk," you sigh, staring into her dark eyes. When you explain everything. No, really. Everything to her. She takes it upon herself to rub your arm in a soothing gesture. "And.. then I canceled the appointment." You finished. She shifts to get closer to you. "Oh honey" she pats your hand.

"You are such a sad fool," she sighs. You pull your head up, looking at her. "Excuse me?" She stutters. "t-that came out wrong. What I meant was you're not giving it a chance to work out; I mean. I understand not being ready. I do. I don't know what you went through to have done all of that. And there's not a way to change the past. So you'll have to pull yourself out of this mess." She pats your hand again. "I recommend finding a way to talk to your soulmates, talk about it" you nod at her advice.

You exchange a few more sentences, and jiung is right in all cases and scenarios. "Everything will work out"

News spreads quickly in Seoul. You can't go outside much, and when you do, you always feel like someone is about to find out who you are. You usually grab your groceries as fast as you can. Always pulling at your shirt collar.

"Who are these guys again?" You ask on the phone, on your laptop, you're on naver searching up images. Jiungs kids can be heard giggling and fussing in the background. "They're seventeen. They're a 13 member boy group. You've heard of K-pop, right?" You say a simple 'uh-huh' "you know that song. Aju nice? It was pretty popular a few years back." "Nu-uh, nope," she sighs. "I was in America then," you respond casually. "America? Are you American?"

A notification pops up on your open browser. "BIGHIT Entertainment and PLEDIS Entertainment speak up about SEVENTEENS' 14th soul mark." Jiung speaks up for you. "Bighit and pledis are looking for their 14th soulmate," she mumbles through the speaker. "This could be your chance to talk to the company," she speaks your thoughts. You read the site briefly. "I think I'll email them." You nod like she can see it. Throughout the rest of your night, you fill out a detailed email, it takes you hours to come up with the right thing to say.

Everyone has given mingyu a piece of their mind and the silent treatment. But seungcheol? God. He's the quietest of them all. Mingyu is backstage, and many of the members stand around talking and / or getting their makeup retouched. He's not focused on anything particular, though. A frustrated sigh leaves his throat. He excuses himself from the makeup artist and walks over to cheol. Cheol stands tall, talking with jeonghan. His biceps flex against the stage outfit.

"Hyung" mingyu stops just shy of the two members. Jeonghan shoots a look at mingyu. One he knows says he's still upset at him. I mean, the whole reason they're not on strike right now is because this was pre-planned. Immediately, mingyus post was taken down by the company. His account is temporarily taken away. It's been more than a week. And now they're seeing if the public will let it slide under the rug.

Cheol parts from jeonghan who goes the other way. He stands face to face with mingyu. "I'm sorry," mingyu starts. he pauses. "That's it?" Cheol asks, folding his arms. "Mingyu, have you thought about what's going on?" Cheols' frustrated voice makes mingyu drop his head. "Yeah -" "You don't, though, Gyu. our soulmate is out there, and you know what wonwoo said. She ran away from him. It's possible she's not ready to see us. But we dont know unless she comes to us first." cheols voice turns more melancholic at the end.

Mingyus heart hurts, seeing him upset. He wants to reach out and hide away at the same time. "I'm sorry," he repeats himself. "I wasn't thinking," his voice grows quiet, the quietest he's ever been. Cheol can't help it when he reaches out and rubs his thumb on mingyus cheek. "I wanna see her too," he smiles sadly. Mingyu tilts his head into cheols palm. Wrapping his arms around him tightly. Cheol wraps his arm around him back. Ruffling his hair.

A man stands at your doorstep. Cloaked in normal everyday clothes, you would see on any stranger walking the street. "Hello?" He says your full name to your doorbell camera, leaning in too close. "Hello, this is she. Who are you?" You reply from your phone. You're at work at the moment. Your shift ends in less than 20 minutes. "Hello, I'm Song Jaeho with bighit and pledis entertainment. I have a few questions to ask you if that's alright. Do you happen to be home?"

Bighit-pledis ent..? You slap a hand over your mouth. Who told!? It wasn't jiung! Right!? No... she'd never. She respects your boundaries. Oh.. the girls. The two from that store! Oh wait. You sent an email.

Are you even ready for this?

"I.." You look at the time. 15 minutes. Screw it. "I'm not currently home, but I'm just about to get off work. It'll take less than five minutes," the man claps his hands, pulling back from the camera. "Great, I can wait in the lobby then"

"Eunha! I'm off. My parents had a medical emergency and need me to drive them," you clock out, praying no one notices your blatant lie. "Oh yeah, you go on! Tell them I said hello. " she's never met your parents. But is so kind anyway.

By the time you make it to your apartment lobby, you're just under 4 minutes. Mr. Song stands up and greets you. You bow your head back. "Hello," you smile politely. "Song jaeho." He shakes your hand. "I'm assuming you know why I am here," the hybe employee says. Crossing his hands together. "Is this possibly about my.." You point to the back of your ear. "Soul mark? Yes. Actually, it'd be much easier to talk somewhere more privately. Would you mind accompanying me for coffee?" You look around, and he's right. Many people come in and out of the building, and work for a good number of people is over.

The coffee shop is crowded for the afternoon. A good thing in your opinion, maybe you should have thought before following some strange man to a cafe you hardly know. You're lucky he caught you on a half day. You take the only available seats by the exit. The space is fairly far from the next person, so you'll be able to converse openly.

Once you order, jaeho gets down to business. He slides his card between you and folds his arms. "I am specifically the legal advisor for idols who are soulmates with non idols. I work for bighit and their departments. Now, to start off, I would like to first see your soul mark. It's a precaution, so we know you're -" You stop him there. Pushing your hair away and turning your head, you show him your soul mark. He sits up a bit to lean over, eyebrows furrowed. You scrub at it to prove your point. It doesn't flake or move. "It's genuine," you mumble. He sits back. "It seems so," he says skeptically.

"May I?" He points to your wrists. You sigh and lean your wrists out to him. "Go ahead, have at it," he turns and inspects the soul marks on your wrists closely. You watch the top of his thick hair while his glasses hang off the bridge of his flat nose. It's like he's trying to see if you're a real diamond.

"I apologize for the precautions. You can never be too safe." he lays the folder between you. Legal documents laid out perfectly. "What's this?" Song jaeho crosses his hands together, placing them on the table. He points to each sentence as he says them. "I'm assuming you know of the boys' status. They are celebrities, and we, as the company they are signed under, must take the proper precautions to prevent any harm coming to them. It's nothing personal. Strictly business." He smiles. It's not genuine.

"And you want me to sign this?" You stare. "Yes, I will guide you through all of what you'll be signing," he smiles again. Pulling each paper towards him. As he continues to explain. You get the feeling this is just an nda. You read whatever you can on your own, trying to catch any funny business if you can.

"Once I sign these, what will happen?" He pulls away and closes his folder. "Once you sign the paperwork, we'll be in contact shortly. If everything goes well, you should be able to meet all of them. There is no guarantee or specific date set in stone, though." You hum at that. Looking down at the stamped papers in your hands, you flip through each.

All that's stopping you is some paperwork. Yes, it's not as easy as you wish it was. But you can't run away again. And now, probably, is your last chance of meeting them.

"Could I use your pen?"

You're wringing your hands as you sit in a spacious room. It's been atleast two months since you've see song jaeho, you almost thought you had been scammed until he called and scheduled a meet up. You feel foolish when you say that. 'Meet up'. It's like this moment doesn't determine your future. Set in stone. You couldn't even pick what to wear. Should you have gone in your favorite outfit? Something modest? Sophisticated? Sexy? God, you're going crazy.

You place your head down on the arm of the couch. Sighing into it. Your nerves are shocked. You've got to get a hold of yourself. You take a few deep breaths. You smooth out your clothing, making sure it's pristine. You're lifting your head up to scan the room, it's a giant comfortable room, almost like a living room. It seems homely, it must be a place where the boys rest before makeup. You've caught up on the lore of kpop, thanks to jiung, and figured the rest out yourself, possibly through a series of videos.

Truly, you're trying not to run away. But song jaeho already knows where you live, and you need to get meeting them over with. What's your plan? What are you even doing here?

The door opens abruptly. For some reason, you shoot up. Three men step in first. You only recognize Jaeho. You can hear the footsteps echoing down the hallway. It's a wide amount of them.

You feel your heart thump in beat. It rings loudly in your ears. You want to hide. To run from the center of the room. Anything to get every eye off you. Your lips purse. You lick them gently. Suddenly feeling your mouth dry.

The shoes echos as they stop just outside the open door. You can make out some harsh whispering. Your eyebrows furrowed.

Maybe they're just as nervous as you are. The thought makes your lip quirk. "Get in there!" A louder whisper cuts through. Your lip quirks into a smile. What were you getting yourself into?

One by one, models pass through the door. Why are there mod- it's like your heart leaps. You laugh internally. These guys.. these guys are Seventeen.

You can distinguish every one of them. Features you're fond of, already memorized. There's something so familiar about them. You can't put your finger on it.

Your hands squeeze by your side. Glancing from each guy to the four older men in suits. Each of the suited men talk to each other. "Take a seat, please," one of them breaks off from the secretive circle they had formed.

You plop yourself back down onto the couch, almost falling over from the cushioning. You smile to hide your embarrassment. There's only one other couch, and each guy attempts to fit on it. The shortest of them all takes the single armchair, smiling smugly as a much taller one complains about not having room. "I got here first," he says.

Your lips quirk up into a smile, and you bite your laugh down. The taller guy looks to you, a challenged smile on his face. You stare back with a small, a knowing look that definitely says 'yeah i laughed. What're you gonna do about it?'. He takes his place next to you. Plopping his full weight down. You almost fly forward into him. He grins from ear to ear. When you pull away and he scoots to the edge of the couch to give you some space, you find yourself smiling inwardly.

It's no surprise that all of the guys didn't fit on the couch. Two of them noticed this guy taking a seat next to you, yet playfully rush to take the spot on your left. The guy with hamster like features beats the much taller, otter looking one.

He smiles in victory, and you watch the guy pout and walk away. For a split second, your eyes catch each other, you smile, face scrunching. A tiny laugh erupts from you. He grins from ear to ear. He's not so upset he didn't win the spot anymore. He stands behind the adjacent couch with his arms resting on the top of it.

A shoulder bumps yours. It's from the hamster looking guy. He pouts, and you smile, bumping your shoulder back at his. His pout lifts despite him trying not to. His lips curve upwards.

Finally, once everyone is settled down into their spots. Two of the men in suits step forward.

"On behalf of Bighit and Pledis Entertainment, I will be representing seventeen." The other one speaks up. "And I will be representing Ms -" he says your full name.

You sigh, more legal work?

"If this is about more legal signing, I have already signed everything with Mr. Song Jaeho" You gesture to jaeho, who stands off to your left. The men in suits looked puzzled. Jaeho nods. "If that's the case, we can just begin introductions." The fourth guy says, clapping his hands together.

One by one, you learn the names of each guy. You make sure to memorize it perfectly. Some of them are even foreigners, you really wonder how they all met. They seem to have the closest bond, apparently they've known each other for years.

You've got a lot to catch up on.

Soonyoung and Mingyu are the two that sit with you. Soonyoung on your left and Mingyu on your right. The one who took the chair is Jihoon. From left to right, Jeonghan, Seungcheol, Joshua, and Vernon take the couch across from you. Sitting on the arms are Seokmin and Wonwoo. leaning against the back of the couch is Seungkwan, Junhui, Minghao, and lastly, Chan. The one who lost the race.

"Tomorrow, we're shooting for a video," seungcheol speaks up over the growing silence. "You could come if you want," he nods. Everyone waits with bated breaths.

"I'd love to," you grin.

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yourtouchismidas · 11 months

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Can you write smth about Matty shutting down sexist comments about his family? Like men will be praised for doing the bare minimum with their family while women are expected to do everything as their “job”?

yes ofc i love this idea.

so i think matty walks a line with how much he talks about his children, and you, in interviews. obviously there is a large part of him that wants to keep your privacy locked down, barely any details out there about you, to never be asked. but then there is another part, which wants to tell the whole world about you. to boast. to wax on. to tell funny stories about shay's games, or brag about valley's test scores, or post pictures of the twins chubby cheeks, or to talk about gigi starting a band with her friends. he picks and chooses very carefully and on top of that it is always a family decision. increasingly though, its been hard to keep you all under wraps, because of the sheer size of the family. fans bump into him in the street when he has a baby strapped to both sides of him. shay waves at people and chatters their ears off about "daddys band" until matty has to playfully put his hand over her mouth while the fans all coo at her. names are kept secret, full names at least, but the size of his family and the little army of mattys that follows him around now is a pretty well known fact. you also run a popular book shop in london, where the band have been known to play some secret pop up sessions, and have signed the doors in the toilets which you've then framed, so fans pilgrimage there and take photos with you too, if you're willing.

so when the radio interviewer asks matty, "you've just had some new additions to the family, haven't you?" he is comfortable enough to say, "yes. i have. my twins."

"big family now huh? was that always the plan?"

"oh god no," matty chuckles. "i always wanted kids. but the how and the when and the erm volume of them just kind of happened. love them. they're the best. hi girls if you're listening. they aren't. by the way. they've got better things to do apparently."

the dj laughs. "i'm sure you're a great father. and having a dad in a band that must be pretty cool."

"erm, again, i dont think they really care. like i know to you lot, i mean to some people, im like matty healy oh my god, matty healy from the 1975 but to my daughter's i'm just dad. or if you're my eldest, you call me matty as well."

"does she really?"

"uh huh," he says, "or matthew. dead cute. it's dead cute."

"and how are you finding being on tour without them? does it get hard?"

"of course," matty smiles, starting to get nervous about how long he is lingering on the girls. he knows jamie has briefed them, but maybe not hammered it home enough. "we make it work though."

"must be hard for them to be away from you. and for your wife too."

matty clears his throat, "like i said, we make it work. everyone has a different life. this is ours. wouldn't change it."

"and is your song true?" the interviewer asks, "do you do the nappies?"

matty laughs again, more comfortable. music. talking about music.

"yeah," he says, "of course i do."

"your wife is a lucky woman. to have a hands on dad like you then. she must love it when you're home to babysit."

"babysit?" matty says, his voice hardening.

"well you know, with you being away..."

"i dont babysit, mate. they're my children. i brought them into the world too. they're just as much my responsibility as hers."

"i know i was just...."

"well dont just mate. okay. think about what you're saying. isnt it sad?"

"I mean yeah..."

"isnt it sad that you think she is lucky? she shouldn't have to be called lucky. equal parenting should be the norm. she's not lucky. you shouldnt be... no one should be batting an eyelid."

"i'm sorry matty, i didnt mean to upset you."

"i know you didn't. but think of the women you might have upset. i dont want my daughter raised in a world like that. i think you should apologize to my wife."

"i will."

"no time like the present."

"you want me to.... you want me to. on air?"

"may as well. right your wrongs now. if my girls listen back, which they wont, i need to them to know that you can hold people accountable"

"okay," the interviewer says, his voice small, "i'm sorry."

"and you're sorry to all women?"

"yeah," he says, "i am really sorry. i shouldn't have put it like that."

"by the way, for the record, my wife runs a really successful book shop as well as being a mum. we're both working parents and we both rock it. shout out to heartbeat books, soho. go buy a book everyone. they also have good coffee. love you darling!"

they cut to a song. jamie shrugs at the dj. he must have hammered it home. when they come back they talk about matty's music.

#ruins #ruins behind the scenes #matty healy x reader #matty healy x you #matty healy #matty healy x y/n #the 1975 fanfic #matty healy fanfiction #dad!matty

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littlestarlost · 1 year

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Yellowjackets is a show about trauma. I don't know what else to tell you.

Alright, blood hive, here we go again.

We're about halfway through season 2 at this point, and I remain more convinced than ever that a large portion of the viewing public is not fundamentally listening to what the wilderness the showrunners are trying to say. If you're looking for a singular capital-R Reason for everything we see in the show, you're looking at the wrong stuff. So here are some more thoughts.

(Spoilers for all of Yellowjackets up to S2E5, "Two Truths and a Lie")

One: Yellowjackets is a show about trauma and its relationship to magical thinking.

I get another grey hair every time I see someone trying to puzzle out just what is in the woods.

There's nothing in the woods, y'all. Nothing. Until I'm proven wrong by the show itself, this is the hill I will stubbornly die on. But show has been EXTREMELY consistent this whole time in its ambiguity, and in my opinion anyone using the red string and thumbtacks approach to Yellowjackets is being played for a fool. It doesn’t matter if there’s actually an entity in the woods (there isn’t), or if Lottie actually has powers (she doesn’t); what matters is that the survivors are clinging to any answers they can grasp in a situation full of unknowns, and so are we. Part of what’s so devastating about their plight is that there’s no real reason for any of it. This is the basis for literally every religion humans have ever had; we’ve been grasping at ritual and magical thinking for millennia. We are observing the growth of that dependence and ritual right now, in the second season. We are also seeing the consequences of that situation in the future. We are seeing how the power of thought can provide both comfort and further trauma.

I suspect that we will never learn the meaning behind the mysterious symbol. I've seen theories that it's a witch's mark, or even that it's a miner's signal and that all the weird stuff happening to the Yellowjackets is the result of mercury poisoning because they're inadvertently on top of an old mine. That's a nice theory, but I don't think it's correct, and I also don't think it should be revealed anyway. It doesn't ultimately matter what the symbol meant to the dead guy or his cabin; what matters is what the symbol represents for the Yellowjackets themselves.

Two: Yellowjackets is a show about trauma and the way it twists the unknown.

I am fascinated but frustrated by the apparent age split with fans. It seems to me that there's a pretty good-sized gap between the older fans of the show, who would have been kids/teenagers in the 90s (including me), and the gen Z viewers, the latter of which seem unable to really really understand just how wild the wilderness is. The generational split here is with those who remember how VCRs work because we had them and those who have never needed to know. It's a split between we who went through our primary school years without access to Wikipedia and those who have had the wealth of human knowledge in their pockets since they were children.

I’ve watched people do all sorts of questioning and speculating, and it almost always traces back to whether or not you understand how the world worked before smartphones, AKA most of human history. Let me answer some of those questions right now off the top of my head:

How could the Yellowjackets not be found for 19 months?

People used to just fucking vanish, fam. We did not have GPS, we did not have trackers, we barely had battery-powered walkmen. People vanished all the time, and were never ever seen again. Sometimes they did it on purpose, and a lot of the time they disappeared by accident or malice, and a lot of times they died. 1996 doesn't seem that long ago in terms of technology, but it is. People still go missing to this day, even with all our tech tracking us everywhere. Canada is fucking huge and a lot of it is mostly wilderness. Here's a photo I found from Statistics Canada with the population density of Ontario; the black areas represent places where there's basically goddamn nothing but wilderness.

2. How was there no road to the Cabin Guy's Cabin? How did he get there? How did he get supplies there?

He had a plane, and also, once again: people used to disappear all the time. In his case, he seems to have done it on purpose.

3. How could Shauna possibly deliver a child in those conditions? How could the baby be getting the nutrients it needs?

People did this successfully for tens of thousands of years, you guys. You're literally reading this post because our ancestors successfully birthed children in the middle of fucking nowhere with zero medical aid or support.

4. How could Lottie know about the bear or the starlings or or or...?

Easy: she doesn't. Not entirely, anyway. She's an empathetic person who's really good at dealing with the emotions of other people and has a sense of spirituality that appears brave and confident, and people in dire situations with a lot of chaos will depend on that with their lives.

And speaking of Lottie...

Three: Yellowjackets is a show about trauma and how it forces you to transform.

At the end of last season I believed that we were going to get a Lottie Villain Era, just like everyone else. I do not believe that now.

Everything we have seen of Lottie shows a girl who was subjected to medical abuse and/or neglect from a very very young age. Regardless of her actual powers or lack thereof, she was placed on medication by her parents and didn't come off of it until she was in a super traumatizing situation in the wilderness. During this most recent season, we have seen both Teenage and Adult Lottie struggle with her role as a spiritual leader and advisor; she's good at it, but it drains her. It isn't something she's doing out of a desire for power or control: it's something she's doing as a trauma response. That trauma response is helping others, so she keeps doing it, but it's still a trauma response. Trauma transforms you into somebody new, over and over again. The scars you bear become your armor, and then your mask, and then it's hard to know where you end and the trauma begins.

Taissa, too, is transformed by trauma. Her other self is a trauma response, similar to alters in a DID system. It comes to the front when Taissa can't deal, and it's both helpful and harmful. I'm willing to bet a lot of her college years were spent sleepwalking, as the Other One dealt with exams and soccer games and law school. Any one of us with dissociative trauma responses can speak to the way that dissociation can be a savior and an abuser in the same breath.

Four: Yellowjackets is a show about trauma and how it compounds on itself.

This most recent episode showed Natalie coming to a realization about the last time she saw Travis, and she says the words we've heard in the season trailers: there was something in the woods, something they brought back with them. Or maybe it was in them the whole time.

In my previous essay I talked about how each Yellowjacket arrived in the woods with her own traumas strapped to her back. In my mind, that's what Natalie is talking about. There is no entity in the woods to blame for all of this, no ghost or witch who can be credited with the trauma the girls experienced and inflicted. There is only the trauma itself, in all its many shapes and sizes, in all the ways it fills in the gaps and makes shadows dance by firelight and drives us to the very brink of madness, holding us back by a fraying tether.

Yellowjackets is a show about trauma. The show's theme song rings out every episode: No return, no return, no reason. There is no return to the way things were. There is no return that can erase what you've been through. There is no reason for all of this, except for the one that's been very explicitly outlined via themes and story and dialogue and flashbacks and framing.

Yellowjackets is a show about trauma. It's the only answer we have, and I suspect--and hope--that it's the only answer we're ever going to get.

#yellowjackets

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magnolix · 2 years

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kimetsu no yaiba | tengen x y/n

tw: MDNI!, smut, nudity, cursing, lots of bullet points, Tengen is a bit of an ass, afab! reader, hashira!reader, fluff to smut, mentions of trauma

prompt: Why is the idea of getting in a fight with Tengen when first meeting him so cute to me??😅💚💚

synopsis: I got inspired by my first comment so here's how I think the rest of Tengen and y/n's first meeting would have gone. (PS, I've never done smut before)

when you first joined, you were known for your beautiful h/c and graceful fighting style

everyone who had survived final selection with you all let you have your first choice of ore as well

you were like a big sister

months then went by as you went on mission after mission

you decorated your crow with a tiny little vest

his name was Atsushi, it meant "cordial one"

eventually, after 3 years, you made it to the top of the ranks

you're now the wisteria pillar

your breathing style (wisteria breathing) comes from the wind breathing style

this has its perks as demons don't bother you as much

but it's been difficult getting to your rank because it's hard to track down demons

when you finally became a pillar you had enough trauma to put a therapist into retirement, however, the pay is what made you go to your first meeting

"My children, as you know we have a new member joining your ranks. I would like you to meet Y/n L/n, the Wisteria Hashira."

You could hear Sanemi groan as you received your introduction. As the master went on, you couldn't help but feel a pair of beautiful fuchsia eyes on you. You looked over but the culprit had turned their head too fast. Strange, you thought, I wonder who it was.

By the time the meeting finished, you were already plotting ways of explaining to the master how you could leave, however, a tall glass of water had stepped into your way.

"So, you're L/n, huh?" He said almost as if he were superior to you. "No, I'm the sun goddess." You shot back making him raise his eyebrows. "You should know better than to talk back to me, I've been here longer-" You snapped and drew your katana, however, he was faster.

Your katana was a beautiful mix of matte black and purple with a hilt looking similar to an open lotus. His was two giant swords with large half-circle holes towards the hilt which were currently being used to hold your sword in place.

His grin spread wide across his lips, he looked like a crazed lion. His deep Fushia eyes burned brightly as you two struggled for a sense of silent dominance. He almost looked like he was getting turned on.

Eventually, Sanemi and Gyomei came by and broke you two apart. Tengen walked off with the boys as you walked off on your own. You made your way to the kakushi who directed you to the master's onsen.

The night air was crisp and helped you relax after your confrontation with your future coworker. And with nothing else to do till tomorrow, you took your sweet damn time in the springs. That was until you heard heavy, wet footsteps make their way over to you.

"What's this? The little wisteria hashira all on her own? That's dangerous you know." Tengen said in a playful tone as you heard him drop his towel. "Mind if I join you?"

"Might as well." You said as you scooted over for him to step in. Instead, you saw his shadow leap up before he jumped into the onsen. A wave of hot water washed over you getting your h/c all wet. It stuck to your body and agitated you as you tried to push it away.

You felt the sound pillar's eyes land on you again. The water wasn't the clearest thing in the world, but it was definitely able to display your features to him. You could almost hear him growl from the other side of the baths.

You knew you shouldn't have, you probably should have just gotten out and left, but part of you wanted to test your luck.

You lifted up your arms in order to fix your hair into a bun, along the way, giving him a full view of your bare chest. The way your breasts bounced in circles as you worked with your hair made his eyes bludge. And then you turned around to grab your towel. Your back and anything below looked like heaven to the sound hashira.

You kept your back to him for a little longer and you properly dried your hair. As you did, you could hear him get up and make his way over to you, you could feel him press his hips into your ass, he was hard as a rock. His musk along with the night air cascaded down your back making you shiver and let out a shaky breath.

You could feel his hands place themselves on your hips as you heard him whisper something into your ear, you nodded and suddenly you felt him rocking you. Grinding into your behind as he spoke of sweet nothings and made you even wetter down there.

"Such a minx," he cooed "you should know better than to show off like that..." He kissed your neck and squeezed his waist as he continued to grind into you. Eventually, he lifted you up and sat you on his lap as he submerged himself halfway back into the water.

You squeezed your thighs against his own hips and somehow had the courage to buck into him. That was a mistake. He stopped grinding and took your chin into his hand and squeezed.

"No no no, little flower, not until I say so." You whined as he used his hand to stroke your pretty little face. And as your cunt continued to grow wetter and wetter, you put your hands on his chest and looked at him submissively. You could tell you had gotten to him as you felt his shaft prod against your bare folds.

"Does little flower want daddy to fuck her? Hmm?" He asked like a master would to a puppy. You nodded as he gently grasped you by the hips and lowered you onto his cock.

You were tight. Oh so tight around him, and both of you knew it. He gritted his teeth as you adjusted to his giant size. He felt incredible, he felt like a god.

You moaned into the night as slowly he started to move you up and down his length effortlessly with just his hands. You attempted to cling onto his chest but instead wrapped your arms around his neck.

You felt his pace quicken as you two enjoyed each other's movements. Occasionally, he would bump his leg making you go even further down his member. You cried out making his smirk.

"Are you getting close, little flower?" "Y-yes-"

You could feel your insides getting tighter and tighter as your body started to fail. You threw your head back and squeezed your eyes shut as you felt your stomach burn.

"Cum for me, flower~" You heard him say as a second later something warm swirled around in her belly. It felt amazing. You laid your head against his wide chest and caught your breath as he gently rubbed your back and told you how amazing it was.

"Such a good girl for me." "So pretty." "You were wonderful." "The sounds you made were gorgeous."

As you finally caught up with yourself, the two of you eventually got out of the bath and made your way to the room you were staying in for the night. Before you closed the door, Tengen took your hand, kissed it, and gently licked one of your knuckles.

"See you tomorrow, little flower~"

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beesmygod · 11 months

Note

So TotK seems to be clicking where BotW wasn't. Any insight on what the key differences are that work for you?

note: i played botw up until the calamity ganon fight and then went "yeah ok ive played a zelda game before", put it down and never went back. didnt play the dlc

i dont think anyone would be surprised to know that im a "majoras mask was the best zelda" guy but the reason has little to do with the "darker tone" or the lore but because reusing assets allowed the dev team to greatly (GREATLY in this case holy shit) expand on the actual contents of the game itself. i love gold/silver best for the same reason.

botw is like running around an empty movie set. theres nothing in that fucking game. at the time, due to the proliferation of crafting mechanics infesting literally every AAA game, it felt like nintendo was more focused about hitting all the checks on a checklist of tired mechanics that were included just for the sake of saying they had it. crafting! weapon durability! open world! pbbbbt.

none of these things proved to be enjoyable to me. keeping in mind that ive been playing zeldas since the snes (skipping only a handful of handheld games), the changes felt like steps away from what makes zelda games unique. crafting felt like an arbitrary step between me and potions. i wanted to swing my master sword with power, not experiment with clumsy weapons that stop existing after i finally get a feel for them. and the open world, frankly sucked.

mm rewarded me for my curiosity. experimentation and exploration would lead to interesting or gratifying results (did you know theres a paper airplane in ikana canyon...). botw is like playing in the window xp background. theres barely any landmarks, except shrines, or anything to do outside of getting the yiga clan's ass. theyre easy to pick out because theyre literally the only people on the road. the world is put to waste; i cant play with it, i can just observe and be extremely artificially hindered by its vastness.

this doesnt really fit anywhere else in the above open world rant, but trading the shrines for small and sparce dungeons was a huge let down. i was hoping for a series of cohesive puzzles intended to help my mastery of my newest weapon or ability. you know. like a zelda game

totk fixed this and every other problem in the best way possible; the devs dumped a ton of toys into my playpen, gave me a hot glue gun, and told me to go buck wild. i love to build a horrible contraption to solve my stupid problems or kill me instantly. i love that experimenting with weapons involves actual experimentation if you desire or you can have an inventory exclusively full of spear type weapons with vastly different properties by gluing a bunch of rocks or monster parts to it. but most importantly....the "stock up->head out->explore->return" loop no longer feels like i have to go to the dmv over and over.

sure, the depths are artificially large in the way that the map in botw was; theres not a lot to do except reveal the map and do plot stuff. but the overworld was given a complete overhaul using the empty map as a starting point. theres actually stuff to look at, ruins to explore, caves to investigate, holes to jump into, and all that shit in the sky to explore. the sky map might be sparse but its meticulously crafted so that just the process of explorating the archipelagos feels like a puzzle you need to solve, as opposed to a hurdle you have to jump.

there is so much more to do in totk that im pretty sure im over 20 hours in and havent done any of the regional main quests. ive been running around picking up side quests, uncovering the map, exploring the depths, fucking around in the sky, and dying my clothes. but its not annoying or overwhelming. it feels more alive and less like a weird map in an abandoned gmod server. im having fun.

for crit: imo, one of the biggest criticisms i have for both these games is that the voice acting is horrendous. nintendo has too much money to be tapping people who sound like they just got out of the shenmue soundbooth. zelda was not improved by voice acting and they should probably go back to everyone just having short exclamations like "HEH HEEH!" or "hmmm...".

also link doesnt roll anymore and its really fucking me up. im really struggling here lol. i keep trying to do dark souls shit and every fight involves me accidentally zooming in with the sheikah slate instead of locking on, hitting l1 istead of shield, and whistling for my horse instead of drinking estus.

also nerf rain

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asidian · 5 months

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For Ao3 wrapped, how about 16 and 29?

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

It's got to be Hurt/Comfort. I feel like it's probably Hurt/Comfort. :|a

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

This is hard, honestly. I generally write things and then don't think about them too hard after that, but if I had to pick, probably:

The boy is five when Hermes finds him – or seven – or nine.

One of those, surely, or something else in between. It's hard to tell with mortals, who go through such fits and starts of growth, leaping ahead and then slowing again, from babe to child to full grown in the time it takes for the flutter of a butterfly's wings.

Or sometimes they don't get that far; sometimes Hermes comes along to guide them on their way half-grown, take them down into the underworld before they've ever known a day's work or the touch of a lover's hand. With the winters so long, these days, it's happening more and more.

This boy looks like he's not far from needing a guide, himself.

His eyes have dark circles beneath them, and the bones in his wrist stand out delicate and fragile, like a bird's wing. There's snow on the ground, but the boy has no shoes on his feet and no coat on his back. He's in summer clothes: a simple shirt and trousers, with a red cloth bandana fastened sloppily around his neck.

The boy sits curled at the base of a tree, its branches long dead for the winter. In a kinder season, it might have provided some shelter from the elements, but summer's long gone. All that's left are bare twigs outstretched toward the sky, nothing to keep the snow at bay. There's a lyre cradled in his arms, too large for him, but the boy holds it like another child might hold a stuffed toy. His fingers have dirt under the nails and they're red and raw from the cold, but the melody he plucks is simple and sweet.

Mortals like him, scruffy things on the roadside clinging to their last few breaths, dot the landscape like fallen leaves these days. There's no long autumn and no kind spring; the weather is harsh, either too cold or too hot, and food is scarce and getting scarcer all the time.

And Hermes – Hermes nearly walks on by.

One poor boy is a lot like the next, and this one doesn't look like much, shivering and half-starved.

But then. Oh, then. Then the boy opens his mouth and he starts to sing, and it feels like the sky has opened up and breathed sunlight into a cold winter's day. The boy's voice is like birdsong, lively and bright in the branches; it's like the babble of a creek through vibrant green woods.

He sings about summer – about lying down in warm grass, and about fireflies in the air on a long, lazy evening, and about berries sticky on the tongue. He sings about a child crying all the night long, and a mother taking it into her arms and rocking it, soft and slow, until it settles down to sleep.

He sings, and Hermes, who has been around this old world in his feathered shoes more times than he cares to count, stops and listens. And when the boy stops singing, finally, the world seems younger somehow, and a little less cruel. It seems like the sort of world where a poor boy on the side of the road might just get one more chance.

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oaxleaf · 1 year

Text

mag 200 - last words

this is the first time i've been able to relisten to this episode in full. whenever i've tried to before the dread has overtaken me and i've had to bail ten minutes in. looking at it through an analytical lens does actually help lessen that a bit, though. honestly, part of what has been so great about joining in on this relisten is that actually taking time to analyse the characters actions and motivations helps me understand a lot of their final or pivotal moments so much better. i think so much of what really hit the first time listening to this episode was just that i couldn't understand why jon would do this. or, well, i could, but it was really hard to actually fully dive into it. my view of the situation has shifted quite drastically since

i will always stand by the statement that whilst taking his place in the panopticon is the more ethical choice, choosing not to do so is what is right for him, individually. there's an issue, in fiction, where if you make your stakes too high, your audience won't be able to truly understand them. it's why the risk of a small but deeply personal loss can be so much more impacting on the audience than the threat of the world ending. us humans can barely comprehend the threats to our own world, how are we supposed to do that for a reality we're not a part of? i think this final act takes such great advantage of that issue by presenting us with an option that is really really hard to argue against morally, and still make us side with the opposite. because we care about jon. we know him, and we've followed him, and we want him to live and be happy. so much of jon's arc has been about desperately trying to hang on to his humanity, and we don't want to see him give it up so willingly. nevermind that he could probably never live with himself had they gone with their original plan. nevermind that they are probably dooming billions of people. we don't know who 'billions of people' are, but we know who he is, and we care about him

in the end, we are given a compromise - a genuine possibility that things might have worked out fine for them. let's be real, the show could have never ended with a guarantee for that. tragedy is woven into its very bones. but i've always been partial to stories that end with at least a glimmer of hope. despite the undeniable tragedy of this ending, i do consider it pretty much perfect. it wraps up all the characters and themes so increbibly well, and although i loved tma all throughout my first listen, this final episode is what really solidified it as truly changing my perspective on horror, tragedy, and story-telling at large. i cannot over-emphasize how deeply it has embedded itself into my brain

anyways, as an end note, cheers to this wonderful show, and cheers to the fantastic mods of @a-mag-a-day for running this relisten. i don't naturally go back to media i like in full, from beginning to end, but this has been a delightful experience

#tma #a mag a day #mag 200 #the magnus archives #jonathan sims

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lesbonym · 30 days

Note

Hey so after I got home from work I immediately passed out and I wasn’t able to complete it until now so… sorry about that

btw throughout typing all of this I was imagining you playing with me while a rambled. Holding a wand against me or just using your fingers, making me feel so good as long as I keep talking and being good for you :3

So the D&D campaign I’m currently in the process of world building is based on the Mythos of the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, the four horsemen being Conquest, Famine, War, and Death. The entire story takes place in the world of Strinamora, also called The Torn Lands. Three continents construct the world, two large continents separated by a long canal stretching the full length of both landmasses, giving them an appearance resembling a pair of lungs. The third continent is the only one I’ve written out so a lot of this ramble will be about that.

The third continent is a smaller landmass to the north and a bit to the west. The land is based on Ireland and is controlled by the horseman Famine. The continent itself is called Isle Gorta Mór (Gorta Mór being the Gaelic term for the great Irish potato famine) and contains three nations within it. These three nations are Solfege, Aswin, and Traedahl. Solfege is the southernmost nation and has severely been impacted by the famine plaguing the land. Solfege does have the benefit of being the closest to the mainland of the other two continents, allowing it to mildly sustain itself through exports, though they are struggling to do so since their economy was agriculturally based and the majority of their crops are affected by The Blight (basically the potato blight but affecting more types of crops and consuming it makes the person who ate it violently ill). Solfege also struggles with the massive influx of migrants from Traedahl as they attempt to flee towards a different continent and presumably a better life (we’ll get to Traedahl soon). Aswin is between the other two counties and is generally the least affected by the Blight. Aswin is a territory of the Dirasite Empire and has the benefit of frequent exports and financial aid, as well as a manufacturing based economy which allows it to continue functioning fairly normally. Traedahl is the country most affected by the famine, having been entirely agriculturally based and generally the poorest. Its population has lately been free falling as people get increasingly sick from having to eat Blighted crops and from a mass migration of people looking for a way out. Traedahl is also home to the Caudic Islands, a pair of islands far off the east coast of the nation that have been mostly unaffected by the famine. They have been a fishing based society for centuries, so an agricultural famine barely affects them, and they used to send excess food to Traedahl where they could, but those exports have recently and inexplicably stopped, no scouts have returned to give and answer.

While Famine controls Isle Gorta Mór, he doesn’t do it publicly. Each horseman has a human disguise to hide in plain sight, and Famine’s is Dr. Eminaf (famine backwards :3), a charismatic plague doctor who provides free care to the poor and the ill. Eminaf is typically located in Traedahl but does travel often, occasionally disappearing entirely for days on end. There are some rumors that he has shady underground dealings with various country leaders, though no proof has ever been found.

Isle Gorta Mór, being based off Ireland, has many encounters and side quests based on Irish mythos. Things like Fear Gorta (famine zombie), The Oilliphéist (giant sea serpent), the Fomorians (while D&D does have its own Fomorians, those aren’t very true to the original mythos, so I made my own. Those being drowned knights emerging from the sea, riding kelpies, and attacking coastal villages), and the Dullahan (the headless horseman).

And for the most part, that’s all I really have. I plan to base the horseman of War off the character Apollyon from the game For Honor, as she is a terrifying villain that fits the personification of War perfectly. I also have it that Death herself doesn’t specifically control any land, but since she rules over the other horsemen, she controls everything. She’s also a very sick and sadistic woman that, instead of guiding souls as they pass or claiming them for herself, finds more enjoyment in watching those souls suffer (and that will be very relavent in my next ramble about the story my friend and I made for the creature I mentioned yesterday. I’m making that separate because this is already so very long)

-🐦‍⬛

(Also sorry it took me so long to get to this. I wanted to give you a good response.)

I would love to play with you and make you try to ramble all this again. Speeding up my fingers just to make you moan and stutter, making you repeat yourself. "Sorry, I couldn't understand you, could you repeat that?"

(This is probably going to be train of thought notes lmao)

Now being not horny, I love ideas based off the four horsemen. Horsemen characters are like my favorite (love the headless horseman so so much). I'm normally not super interested in map stories, but this is genuinely sick.

Oooo, I love the Gaelic to tie the continent to Famine. More sick names. Potatoes. I love how deep the lore of each nation is, like how you thought of how each would be affected by the Blight and famine stuff. You thought of exports???? Dude, this is is sick. Fish and dead (missing?) scouts.

Yo, Famine sick. Atleast he tries to helps those that need it. Imma find proof of those shady dealings.

MYTHOLOGY, I LOVE MYTHOS. Though I don't know much Irish myths, but kelpies are cool. Oh my god I didn't even see the mention of the headless horseman here 💀. This is genuinely my reactions while I read it.

I'm not super familiar with the game For Honor or the character Apollyon (but pictures look cool). I have no idea what Death looks like but my brain is picturing basically Mother Miranda (RE8) so she can step on me.

Excited for next ramble. Just might take me a few days cause I got real bad ADHD lmao.

#long ask #long answer #🐦‍⬛ anon #emoji anons #emoji anon #lesbian #wlw #sapphic #nblw #anon ask #anon asks #lesbian nsft #wlw nsft #sapphic nsft

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arqdyke · 1 year

Note

whatre your opinions on all the jake ships. ALL OF THEM.

hi gaz :3 under the cut bc its literally fivemillion miles long.

rosejake - ??/10 theres something there. i can see it in my minds eye. its not romantic probably(??) but i feel like they would be so insane unhinged abt each other in a really hard to describe way. this is largely bc i like smashing my faves together and having them be weird abt each other.

davejake - 8/10 hehe. i like them :3 theyre very funny & silly. i feel like neither of them have ever introspected in their entire lives w/out repressing it immediately afterwards & together they get Worse. this eventually culminates in them both having Realizations and transitioning. i think they can holding hands on purpose.

jakeroxy - 8/10 theyre so unlabeled confusing but DEEPLY intimate relationship to me. they are baring their souls to each other in a hobby lobby parking lot ^-^ theyre very important to me

dirkjake - ??/10 clutches head oh theyre oddly compelling to me actually. i think they work best as weird ex's who have sort of something going on but they dont really work in a 'proper' relationship so its awkward & confusing for everyone around them. my feelings r mixed overall though.

jakehal - 10/10 imagine the worst pitch dynamic you possibly can. now make it worse. i have several vague aus in my mind palace about them being terrible & codependent. but in actuality i think their dynamic is very interesting from a character analysis standpoint & thats a very easy way to make me ship a set of characters. also i think its funny. and jake deserves a robotboyfriend.

jakedavesprite - 5/10 ive actually thought abt this one before surprisingly but there wasnt really a lot going on with them. definitely potential though!!!

jakejasprose - 9/10 futch dyke 4 bisexual aroace and its up to you whos which. i think theyre the weirdest palerom dynamic on the earth but genuinely they are so bffs to me. bffs that kiss a little (a lot) thats jasproses emotional support [vile slur omitted]! & jakes emotional support kittycatgirl :3

davepetajake(??) - 8/10 gripping the sides of my chair. yeah im normal about these characters who i dont think have any speaking line 1on1 interactions. so normal. why do u ask? anyways yeah i think theyre kind of supersilly awesome & fun. and also *gestures vaguely * the psychological trauma is vast and fascinating 2 my fucked up mind.

jakerisolsprite - 10/10 ok now hear me out. this was one of my first ever jakeships actually i just think the "jake/a guy who hates his guts" dynamic is supremely underrated & funny as fuck. they r like weird & messed up usually pitch vacillation nightmare girlfriends. genuinely very attached to them in a personal way.

jakearquius - ??/10 well. looks down at myself. looks back up. theyre funny? surprisingly i dont actually think abt them often.

arajake - 10/10 imagine a world so full of joy and peace. ok but fr their characters are like. intertwined in my mind. their relationship is like almost romantic...? theyre aro4aro. but very much in an 'official' relationship as well. if they knew or cared what it was they would be in a qpr but they dont. i think spending time w aradia would help jake figure out more abt himself & i think aradia would just really like spending time with him. they are marveling at each others minds.

jaketav - 3/10 unfortunately i go out of my way to not think too hard abt tavros so im gonna have to leave this one alone. in a hypothetical world they could be bffs forever!

jakesol - 10/10 deep breath. ok so actually im very very attached to the idea of pale jakesol. it shows up in my casual idle daydreams & in every au i think abt too hard. i think they can taking a nap together. i want them to sillyargue about random bullshit & infodump at each other about things the other could not give less of a shit about. clingy sleepynaptime girlfriends. neither of them has showered in weeks. also theyre so totally each others type. like look at canon for a moment and consider it.

jakekat - 7/10 idk. i think theyre sillies. they bond over cinema in the arguing way. i think jake would like to mess with him until it becomes clear that karkat doesnt actually hate everything and is just kind of Like That. i can see them being good friends and... maybe?? boygirlfriends.

jakenep - 8/10 i think she can hunting him for sport. like for actual sport they go play high stakes tag in forests for several months and come out soulbonded. also jake needs more sillycatgirls in his life & nepeta needs more chill/fun ppl to hang out with. shes being sillySTIFLED.

jakekan - 5/10 honestly i can not say ive ever though about- wait no no i thought about it once like forever ago. honestly they could be pretty good green autism besties!! idk abt romance but thats mostly bc ive just never considered it.

jakerezi - ??/10 this one is absurdly funny to me. i dont think it would ever happen but if it did it would be really really funny.

jakevris - 7/10 actually ive read several fics abt this before! it kind of appeals to me in a weird way but i prefer them as weird frenemies.

jakequius - 8/10 lays down. look. ok. so. well. i just think theres potential ok? i cant explain it. im running out of steam for this if you cant tell.

gamjake - 0/10 no thanks ?

erijake - 5/10 i dont think ive seriously thought about it but theres definitely some potential there.

thats all im doing. god bless u all.

#dt-posts #gaz tag

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deadhumourist · 2 years

Text

Steam

A/N: Full credit for this idea and plot goes to the lovely @just-here-for-the-moment! After lots of unhinged messages back and forth this fic fell out. A little comfort and smut for when you’re having a bad day.

Rating: 18+, no minors

Pairing: Jack “Agent Whiskey” Daniels x f!reader. No defining description of reader.

Warnings: Jack is his own warning, having a bad day, baths, brief mention of food, smoking, oral f!receiving, dirty talk, fluff. I think that’s it?

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

You walk in the door of the ranch you share. It's an older, but roomy house with warm teak floorboards that creak gently as you move over them.

It's been a shit day. In fact, a shit week. Today you struggled to concentrate on work, your after-work meet-up hadn't gone as planned (at all) and you felt ready to throw the towel in. Then crawl under it and hide from the world.

As you round the corner of the kitchen to make yourself a cup of coffee, you find your handsome cowboy standing over the kitchen island, preparing two grilled cheese sandwiches. With the coffee already brewing.

He raises his head to greet you but immediately clocks that something is wrong.

He's not used to you looking so sullen.

"Oh no, what's wrong honeybee?" He asks, rounding the island to gently place his hands on your shoulders. He tips your chin up to him with one finger.

The corners of your mouth are turned down and the unshed tears of frustration are clinging to your long lashes. It tugs violently at his heart and he pulls you close to him.

Your hands automatically come up to hold his waist, fingertips skimming over the broad expanse of his back.

"I just had a terrible day and I feel heavy and...sad. I'm just sad. I don't want to talk about it."

Jack understands. In his line of work he's witnessed and done terrible things and he knows the futility of trying to put those feelings into words.

So he just pulls you closer into a bear hug, wrapping his arms around you, with his hand coming up to cup the back of your head tenderly.

"My mama believes the only way to wash away a really bad day is with good old soap 'n water. I'm gonna draw you a bath. You just sit tight." He murmurs into your hair as he strokes your back.

He reluctantly pulls away from you, and before long to hear the familiar whistling of the old pipe system of the house. Even though the ranch has been renovated, its old bones are still intact.

After a few minutes, Jack comes out and gently takes your hand, leads you through the doorway, into a large room with the sauna tub. It's half-full, steaming and looks incredibly inviting.

You turn to him. "Join me?"

He knows he can't resist you.

“In a minute honeybee, why don't you settle in so long, I'll be back in a twitch.”

You sink into the fragrant hot water, and you feel your worries melt away as it engulfs you. Jack knows you so well. The fresh, light scent of roses drifts up in the steam and you fill your lungs to the brim. Your favourite.

Moving back, you peer up at the ceiling, where Jack had installed a ceiling window a few months ago, creating the effect of a hot bath under the twinkling stars.

You love bringing the outdoors in, and the few large plants tastefully dotting the bathroom makes you feel like you're a goddess in a hot spring on some deserted tropical island.

By the time Jack peeks back round the door, your arms are spread out along the lip of the square tub, and your head is thrown back in relaxation.

You hear the click of the door closing.

Wresting your eyelids open, you see Jack methodically taking off his shirt. When he was home he never bothered with the top buttons, and it slid off his muscular arms smoothly.

As he starts unbuckling his belt, you savour the sight of his beautiful shoulders and chest. A few scars littered an otherwise perfect canvas, but you loved them all the same.

Seeing his large hand undoing the buttons on his jeans (he shunned zippers) you feel a twinge of excitement. Even after so long together seeing him bare still gives you butterflies.

He was incredibly handsome and all yours.

Once naked as the day he was born, he reaches out to the sink, taking the lit cigar he came back with and placing it between his lush lips.

You huff out a light laugh. Only your cowboy would smoke in the tub. He knows you secretly love the smell.

The water swells and swishes as he takes up residence behind you, using his unoccupied hand to lightly press your forehead back until your head rests on his collarbone.

"Relax sweetheart, I've got you."

You melt into him, his strong body enveloping yours like you were carved to fit his hollows.

You breathe slowly, settling into a languid rhythm with him.

After a few moments, his hand starts idly tracing a line down your arm, skimming your sides, light as a feather. As if he’s memorizing your contours that he already knows so well.

The bathroom is quiet save for the gentle sloshing of water as his arm moves, and the whinny of a horse from the outer reaches of the ranch.

Jack has never been able to be good around you. There's something about you that frays his nerves in the best way possible - he struggles to keep himself under control.

He silently takes a drag and his other hand subtly changes course, now tracing your hip, and mapping a path along the curve of your breast.

You shudder as he deliberately traces his finger over your nipple, making it harden instantly.

Jack leans down, his moustache brushing the shell of your ear. You can hear the smirk in his voice as he husks "Seems like the scented bubble bath ain't the only little flowers that are bloomin’ for me tonight"

He continues his trail over your body. The scalding water suddenly feels too hot, even if this is how you've always liked it.

The fresh, clean rose scent mingles with the dry, spicy leather aroma of the cigar and pressed against Jack, there's another scent that's just....him. One you would recognize anywhere. It's a heady combination and you can feel the tense threads in your mind unspooling as your body takes over. You try to follow the thin wisp of the cigar smoke disappearing into the steam.

His hand travels down again, gently circling your bellybutton then trailing downwards.

By this time the steam has completely fogged up the sky window and it feels like you're ensconced in your own private, fragranced bubble.

You feel like you've been hidden away from the awful world and right now all your senses are flooded and focused on Jack.

Jack finally places the spent cigar to the side of the tub.

Dips his hand into the water to warm it.

Then it snakes up to gently caress your breast. This is one of the many parts of you that Jack loves, usually nuzzling or scenting you any time he can.

A low hum escapes his throat as he brushes a thumb over your other nipple, a deliberate tweak to edge you.

With your attention here, you don't notice his other hand until you feel a light brush between your legs.

By this time you're soaking from Jack's teasing and he extends his middle finger, dipping down into you as he purrs at your ear "Hmm my honeybee has been busy. I want to taste that honey from source".

Jack's duality has always surprised you. He presses tender, slow kisses to your temple, your cheeks, working down to the sensitive spot beneath your ear. He does this while rubbing steady circles on your clit, exactly the speed and pressure he knows will send you over the edge.

Drawing a deep sigh from you, you wrap your eager hands around his strong thighs to ground you. He knows he's doing good, and he increases his loving assault on your tits, now pinching them gently, making the pleasure, light pain and softness meld into something bone-melting and unbearably sweet.

He growls into your ear "Time to sit up for me honey, so I can take what belongs to me."

And with that he hoists you up onto the lip of the tub, splashing water over the rim carelessly.

He spreads your legs, and the way he looks at your uncovered core sends another involuntary shiver through you.

Gently pushing you backwards, he grips both your thighs and shifts to bring you closer to him.

Starting with a slow, experimental lick, he quickly loses complete control, plunging his curious tongue into you, taking turns flicking, swirling and sucking at your most sensitive parts.

You had been turned on since Jack took off his clothes so within minutes you could feel your orgasm starting to crest violently like an oncoming storm.

Jack doesn't even need to use his hands. His skilled, dirty talking mouth knows how to ruin you and you finally fall apart, a familiar white hot explosion behind your eyelids and your body seizing up like it's been hit by lightning.

Jack can't help the possessive growl that escapes his throat as he greedily drinks you down, lapping up every drop you give him.

As you come down he tries to soften his touch, instead pressing sweet kisses to your pussy, a wordless admission of love.

You look down at him, his strong curved nose pressed into your mound as he pouts and presses another kiss there. You feel so relaxed and cared for.

#jack whiskey daniels x you #jack whiskey daniels x f!reader #kingsman the golden circle #agent whiskey/f!reader #agent whiskey #pedro pascal character fic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfic

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digitalsatyr23 · 10 months

Note

I come to you with a Character Question~!

What does your character's home look like?

For this ask, I'll choose Rina's house from my Bebop Bayou series! I'll go ahead and include an excerpt from some writing I did for her to showcase her home, as well as some other descriptors.

Her family home was a sturdy wood house with a tiled roof, chimney, and a dock with a large boat fit for giants tied to the dock cleat. Climbing up the half-submerged ladder in the water, Rina stepped onto the dock and shook the water off as best as she could. She then walked upstairs to the house, dragging a bit of water and mud behind her. Outside the front door were bright red peppers hung up to dry, and with the window open, Rina could already smell her mother making roux. She sniffed the air and smiled.

The inside of the house has a large living room (to the right) and dining room (middle), with a huge table and chairs, with Rina's chair decidedly being regular-sized with tall legs. The fact is that Rina's people can grow really big (with her parents being over 10ft tall) so there's stuff that's size-appropriate for them and things size-appropriate for Rina, including a special set of cutlery just for her. Shelly (Rina's mother) spends a great deal of time in the kitchen (to the left) to keep her family fed and is very particular about how things are done, but she has taught Rina quite a lot about cooking (Shelly's recipes are derived from Cajun cuisine). The living room has a jury-rigged tv and tape/disc player that the family managed to get working, and sometimes Rina and her friends find old videos and movies they can watch. Rina and Crush (her dad) have watched a ton of old action flicks, often quoting and imitating action heroes of the past for fun. Before Rina had met humans, she was under the impression that all humans were tall, buff, and carried huge guns with them wherever they went. She still feels that these types of humans must exist somewhere since they're so good at fighting and affectionately refers to these people as "Arnies."

Because of the size differences, the front door to the house has a smaller door with a knob that Rina can use to get in and out, and the other doors are constructed in much the same way. Across from the front entrance is a hallway that leads to other rooms, with Rina's on the left and her parents' room on the right. Rina's room is very spacious, as she used to share it with her late brother, Root, though most of his belongings have been packed up and put in a storage shed that's located nearby the home. Rina has a few of his things in the room, but as you can imagine, keeping everything there would just be too painful for the family.

Of note is the one window connected to Rina's room, which has a variety of marks and holes from nails and screws in the past. Rina has a tendency to get into troublesome and dangerous situations, and Shelly (not wanting to lose her only other child) has attempted to ground and contain Rina on multiple occasions, with Rina and her friend Lafayette (a grey fox boy) coming up with more and more ways for Rina to escape. As for Rina's personal belongings, she has an old banjo, a bookshelf full of different old world books that were found and donated to the family by Old Man Eli (a snapping turtle man), some fishing supplies, and a barely functional Big Mouth Billy Bass which Rina has tinkered with on numerous occasions. It doesn't make any noise (of its own volition) but Rina got it to move around, and on rare occasions, it gets possessed by a wayward ghost which talks through the animatronic fish. Rina is used to ghosts and talking objects, though, so she isn't especially bothered by it.

In case you're wondering, Old Man Eli was the founder of Bebop Bayou and taught many of the other beast folk that live there how to use tools and construct things. He has a wealth of knowledge on construction, engineering, and other fields that proved vital to kickstarting the community. Rina's home, like other places in the bayou, get power from a large hydrogen engine that was found and secured by Eli many years ago. It requires a good deal of maintenance and no one but Eli knows how it works since it's modern tech (which many beast folk think is magic), but it runs clean, is connected to solar panels, and only requires water which gets filtered through it to power the engine and provide electricity to the whole community. This might seem strange, but it's worth noting that the setting of Bebop Bayou is quite a ways into the future, so a hydrogen engine that no longer produces NOx is just one example of the advanced technology humans and other races beyond the bayou have constructed in order to survive.

#blogging #my writing #writeblr #rina woodshed #bebop bayou #bebopbayoutales #answered ask

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apas-95 · 2 years

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Its obviously too early to say anything for sure, but do you think NATO stands a chance? The largest militaries in it haven't fought an equal opponent since world war 2, and the weapons are almost all over engineered failure prone junk made by contractors who are looking to expand their profit margins above all else.

The reactionary, backward, decaying classes retained this dual nature even in their last life-and-death struggles against the people. On the one hand, they were real tigers; they devoured people, devoured people by the millions and tens of millions. The cause of the people's struggle went through a period of difficulties and hardships, and along the path, there were many twists and turns. To destroy the rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism in China took the Chinese people more than a hundred years and cost them tens of millions of lives before the victory in 1949. Look! Were these not living tigers, iron tigers, real tigers? Nevertheless, in the end they changed into paper tigers, dead tigers, and bean-curd tigers. These are historical facts. Have people not seen or heard about these facts? There have indeed been thousands and tens of thousands of them! Thousands and tens of thousands! Hence, imperialism and all reactionaries, looked at in essence, from a long-term point of view, from a strategic point of view, must be seen for what they are - paper tigers. On this, we should build our strategic thinking. On the other hand, they are also living tigers, iron tigers, real tigers that can devour people. On this, we should build our tactical thinking.

- Mao Zedong, Speech at the Wuchang Meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (December 1, 1958)

I'd say that we have to remember that, as terrible and bad as their military equipment and organisation is, it is still a lot of terrible equipment, and a very large badly-organised military. A completely rotten tree could be poked through with your bare hands, but if it falls with its full weight, it could destroy a house, let alone a person. The main problems of the imperialist militaries are logistical - in a peer conflict, they would entirely run out of critical materiel within weeks, or even less - assuming they even lasted that long without resorting to nuclear annihilation. However, within those weeks, they would be able to unleash untold destruction - does it matter that they only have enough nuclear warheads for one round of nuclear exchange? Even one is enough.

Strategically, we should despise our enemies, but tactically, we should take them completely seriously. As long as we take them seriously, work strictly, and do not waver, our victory over them is inevitable. However, that inevitability is built on constant, excruciating struggle. So, at the same time, the imperialists are completely despicable and pathetic, and have no way to avoid defeat; but simultaneously, we must understand that they are still incredibly powerful, even if they are waning. And we must understand that at the moment, we can be quite weak, even if we are rising. If the question is one of revolutionary war, between the imperialist powers and the working people, then the people manage the fight, and will win. If the question is one of inter-imperialist war, between different imperialist blocs, then they will throw their full weight at each other as quickly as possible, and all will be destroyed.

I have said that all the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? [...] U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.

- Mao Zedong, Speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (November 18, 1957).

#nato #nukes

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rune-writes · 9 months

Text

Ash Like Snow

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV

Word count: 2367

Rating: G

Summary: Nayra has never seen snow. Her friend once describe it to her as "white little flakes falling from the sky. Like frozen rain, except softer". But now the moon has cracked, its pieces piercing the land which results in thick waves of aether that renders the realm nigh unlivable. Nayra stands at the precipice of this new world as ash rains around her. It looks like snow.

Read on AO3.

~*~*~*~*~

Ash fell from the sky. It looked like snow.

Nayra covered her eyes and peered through the foliage. It had been a year since the calamity and yet the sun was still a pale smudge of what it once was. They said a thick layer of aether had enveloped the star’s atmosphere, distorting light and color to a sickly purplish glow that made her stomach turn. It turned now, driving Nayra to her knees as bile rose up her throat.

The vomit didn’t come. What did come was a pounding headache threatening to split her head in two.

Nayra…

A faraway voice, faint and familiar, reaching forward in tendrils…

Mother?

A gasp tore out of her.

Nayra breathed, gulping large doses of air as her chest heaved with exertion. Sweat coated her brow and tears rolled down her eyes. Grass had never felt so soft before. But her arms quickly ached. Slowly, she rolled onto her back and dropped an arm over her eyes. Breathing. Just…breathing. In and out. Letting her lungs fill until her chest shuddered and she couldn’t take in another breath.

***

The trek across Vylbrand was more taxing than she remembered. The sun beat down her back as she dragged one foot in front of the other up the sloping hills of La Noscea. The air was immensely fresher here. Salty wind brushed against her face, and in the distance, windmills turned in a steady rhythm. She spotted people working in the fields—yellow stalks amongst trees bearing apples and oranges. It was harvesting season, it seemed, judging from the carts lining the farm. But they were few; the yields weren’t much.

One of the workers, having placed a crate of oranges on the cart, paused, wiping her brow and fanning herself when she noticed Nayra passing by. “Hey,” she called. Nayra stopped, looked around, then pointed at herself. “Yeah you. Come here.” Nayra did as she was told, albeit a little questioningly. “Had any breakfast yet? Or lunch, for that matter. The sun’s already quite high up.”

“Not yet, no.”

“Here then.” The woman tossed her an orange, then two more. “We got a lot of them. Wouldn’t hurt to miss a couple.”

She said ‘a lot’, but a cursory glance told Nayra three barely-full crates were all it took to harvest their entire orchard. She couldn’t readily say no, even more so when her mouth watered, so she accepted, and said, “Thank you…” But then her stomach churned at the thought of eating.

The woman might have noted her discomfort because she then called for another to bring some bread and water. Nayra tried to refuse, said the oranges were more than enough and was already backing away when a Roegadyn twice her size appeared behind her and told her—or forced her, more likely—to sit on the cart. The bread and water arrived soon after and Nayra suddenly had a lavish meal laid out in front of her.

“Poor thing,” the woman said. She leaned against the wooden fence, looking Nayra up and down and giving a little tsk at the end. “You’re naught but skin and bones.”

“Eat up,” the roegadyn said. “There’s plenty of that where they come from.”

“I couldn’t…”

“Not sure how long you’ve been on the road,” he went on, “but least we could do is help each other in these uncertain times.”

“Where’d you come from?” the woman asked. “We don’t see a lot of your kind here. Seekers, yes, but not Keepers.” She paused at Nayra’s silence. “The Shroud then?”

Nayra dropped her gaze. She could feel pity dropping on her like a stone when the woman spoke next:

“Sorry for your loss, deary. Heard it’s got the worst damage out of all of us.”

“Closest to the Flats, aye,” added the roegadyn. “An entire region wiped off the map.”

The woman shook her head. “Wonder if we’ll get our lives back,” she said. “La Noscea’s been spared the worst of it but we still got our scars. Crops’re dying left and right. Land hasn’t been the same.”

“Neither’s been the water. Ah, but don’t you worry your head, lass. Them folks at the smithy’s been handing out water distillers so yours should be as fresh as Fool Falls.” He nodded at the flask proudly like a father showing off his son.

Nayra stared at the flask, then the oranges, then the bread.

“You heading somewhere, lass?” the roegadyn asked.

She finally broke the bread and took a small bite. “Nowhere,” she replied.

***

Her family used to travel a lot. A traveling merchant, some called them. Her father, though born and raised in Thavnair, had spent a handful of his late teen years in Ul’dah where he’d learned to trade. Her mother, though, was a simple huntress from the Shroud, her tribe making its home deep in the western side near the mountains of Mor Dhona. They’d met and fallen in love and as traveling had always run deep in her parents’ veins, after they'd had her, they’d immediately set out for the road.

Nayra would boast about all the places she’d been to. From the green mountains of Coerthas to the sprawling desert of Thanalan, the sparkling Silvertear Lake of Mor Dhona and fiery mountain of O’Ghomoro. La Noscea had been her favorite place to visit. Pirates and traders from all corners of the star merged and mingled in a city where cultures clashed and assimilated. Her heart had soared at the sight of open seas, and once, when she stood at the precipice of a jutting rock over a beach that glistened like gold, she’d spread her arms and wondered if she could fly.

“Silly,” a friend used to say. “Of course you can’t fly. You have no wings.”

“What if you can fly without wings?”

“On an airship maybe. But they’re too expensive.”

Nayra frowned. She picked at the ghysahl green leaf and offered it to the chocobo chick, coaxing it to eat from her hand instead of Raha’s. It didn’t even glance at her.

Raha chuckled.

“Have you ever seen snow?” he suddenly asked.

“No.”

“You might like it—those white little flakes falling from the sky. Like frozen rain, except softer.”

“Sounds cold.”

“But pretty.”

“And cold.” The chocobo chick had finished its meal. It took a step back then ruffled its feathers, which were red like his hair. Nayra grabbed a mimett gourd from their basket this time because the chick seemed to love it, but when Nayra held out her hand, it only looked at her, took a sniff, before yawning and moving away to join its mother at the stables. Nayra’s frown deepened. “Just like that little guy.”

Raha let out a chest-rumbling laugh. “If your travels bring you to Sharlayan one day, be they by air or sea, let me know so I can show you snow.”

***

She heard it before she felt it: a rumble from deep within the star. Nayra stopped in her tracks, hand shooting out to grab a nearby tree as the first quake hit the ground. O’Ghomoro was erupting. In the distance, beyond the verdant leaves and towering cliffs, smoke rose some hundred yalms tall.

It ended soon after it began. Nayra waited for a few seconds longer, staying low near the ground until the quake ceased. When the beasts stopped their frantic escape, she knew it was safe to move. But the moment she rose to her feet, a hum pulsed across the forest that almost brought her back to her knees.

“Stop it…” She gritted her teeth. Her stomach turned; her eyes saw fire.

The bleeding sky flashed across her mind. She remembered the flaming starshower; heard the screams that pierced her ears. When she'd reached where her tribe should have been, a giant inferno had engulfed every root and tree and stone and pebble.

Light blinded her for a fraction of a second as Nayra’s eyes slowly peeled open. Her pupils flinched and contracted before they adjusted to the glare, her hand going up to cover her eyes. She waited until the nausea dissipated—until she could push herself to her feet where she swayed for a handful of moments before finally regaining her balance. The forest had returned to its usual noise as though nothing had happened and Nayra hadn’t collapsed for the second time that day.

Aether sickness, they said. No few people had developed it after Bahamut laid waste to the continent, but sometimes Nayra wondered if she had the worst of it.

Thick clouds had gathered in the sky. But there was no thunder or wind. The air was hot and tasted like ash. Yet when the first gray flakes fell around her, it wasn’t her burning home that came to mind. It was that mundane morning when she’d crouched in front of a chocobo chick trying to feed it greens.

Have you ever seen snow?

Nayra frowned. Maybe, once upon a time, she had entertained the idea that ashes were snow. It was a passing thought which had earned a laugh from Raha. They were flakes and they were soft, except they were gray and hot to the touch.

Nayra banished the thought away, adjusted her bag over her shoulder, and made to move. That’s when she heard it—a distant cry, faint and familiar:

Kweh!

Nayra stopped in her tracks, turned her head toward the source of the sound, and strained her ear to listen. Silence greeted her. She waited a couple more seconds but the only things she heard were the twittering birds and grazing animals. She scoffed at herself. There were no wild chocobos in Eorzea, let alone Vylbrand. Whatever she’d heard probably had a master and a home. She set to move, only to be stopped once again by a shrill cry, and somewhere deep inside her, she knew that if she didn’t go and see what it was, she’d regret it forever. So Nayra changed her course and headed deeper into the woods.

It came from a collapsed building. Nayra spotted a pack of pelicans already closing in around it. A few yalms away lay a red chocobo carcass, its sides a gaping maw of where the scalekins had probably been feeding themselves. And now they’d set their sights on the cries of what Nayra assumed to be a chocobo chick's.

Her bow was immediately in her hand, an arrow nocked and trained on one of the pelican's necks. She let the arrow fly.

The pelican screeched. It bucked and reared and gave a frantic flap of its wings before tumbling down on its side. The second pelican whipped its head and in the span of less than a millisecond, it had directed its beaky face at Nayra. It lunged forward with a cry.

One arrow hit its ankle, another to its chest. Nayra drew her dagger and, rushing forward, slashed at the giant bird’s neck. It fell to its knees, blood gushing out of its gaping wounds. Nayra watched its life slipping out. Its eyes grew dim, its beaks opened and closed in a last attempt to breathe.

So weak, she thought of the pelicans’ dead bodies. They were nothing but skin and bones, looking for food which Nayra meant to save. How else could her frail form have bested two grown pelicans?

She cleaned her dagger before shoving it in its sheath then pulled her arrows from the pelicans’ remains and stashed them in her quiver. Turning her gaze to the dead chocobo, she kneeled and offered what prayer she could. Whether or not the gods heard, she didn’t know, and didn’t quite care. It was a force of habit. Though Nayra had told herself she’d let these traditions go, a part of her found solace in it, and she hoped it'd find the chocobo too.

Getting back on her feet, Nayra trained her eyes on the pile of wooden logs beyond the dead pelicans. It had probably been a hunter’s shack once upon a time, long unused ever since the calamity took its toll on the island. How there was a chocobo out here in the wild was beyond her. Maybe the hunter had died, leaving his chocobos behind. Maybe he’d forgotten them when he made a run for it.

Truth be told, it didn’t matter. The crying, which had stopped during the fight, now resumed, as though the chick knew help had come.

Nayra stepped over the pelicans and headed over to the shack. She dropped to her knees and began clearing away the wood. One by one, lifting and tossing with all the strength she could muster, until finally the final log was out of the way, and she found a baby chick roughly three moons old settled between two planks supporting each other. Its crying stopped. The chick looked at her with beady eyes.

Have you ever seen snow?

Its feathers were a softer shade of crimson; a far cry from what snow should look like. She offered her hand, watched it edge tentatively closer as it sniffed and pecked her hand. Part of her though it might turn away like a chocobo chick she once knew. But the chick remained, raised its head as if to judge Nayra’s intentions, before it leaped out of its shelter and gave a happy, excited ruffle of its feather.

“Kweh!” it said as if in greeting.

Unbidden, a lump formed at the back of Nayra’s throat. She’d thought to bring it to the closest settlement, let the villagers there raise it as how they should. But seeing it purr against her palm made her chest tighten and Nayra could see no way she could part with it.

“Snow,” she said as gray flakes fell around her. Like frozen rain, except softer.

Tears sprang to her eyes as a smile fought against the stiffness of her face. The chick leaped into her arms, eliciting a strained half-laugh from her. Its beady eyes now didn't look so foreign anymore.

“You remind me of someone…” she went on.

Nayra brushed its feathers with the tip of her finger, feeling it dry and clumping together. It needed a bath. And so did she.

~ END ~

#ffxiv #warrior of light #graha tia #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #final fantasy #final fantasy 14 #fanfiction #ff fanfic #ff14 fanfic

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unlimitedtrees · 10 months

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talkin' about ~BRAND NEW WORLD - SECTION 1 and 2~ from 'UNITRES Dreams'

today i feel like talking a bit about my game, UNITRES Dreams. specifically, the levels 'Brand New World - Section 1' and 'Brand New World - Section 2'. ive been meaning to talk about this level for a Long while, but couldnt figure out how to put my words together... i hope this is an interesting little read for you...

play da Game on newgrounds ehehehehe ~! or u can download it on itch.io

these two levels were the first levels ever created for the game. for a little backstory.. UNITRES Dreams started as just a small tech demo made in 4 days for a little game jam. at the time, it was just called 'UNITRES - Tech Demo' and was just made to explore some concepts i had. things were a Lot simpler in this demo... the controls and overall movement was simpler, the art design and level design was rlly simple as i didnt know what i wanted to go for with this game yet. one key difference in this early version of the game is the Music.

the demo used a few placeholder tracks from other people, such as the track for the first section being a megaman remix. but the second section uses a song called 'Fuwa Fuwa Brand New' by Halcali.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA0KyE70sSc

this song is actually really important to me... i first heard it in a video in the Sonic 2 Special Edition series and it Immediately entranced me. I ain't good with words or describing music, but to me the song is very upbeat but melancholic in some way if that makes sense. i was in a really bad place mentally when i first heard it but it really inspired me to make something new... it wasnt Entirely responsible for the creation of UNITRES but it was a really big part of it and its still one of my favorite songs to listen to...

Anyways. the song was a big inspiration for the mood i wanted to go for in the game and this particular level. for a bit of explanation of the Story going on in this level... before the level even starts u get a cutscene where trees "explains" what is about to go on in the level, saying they're going to break into some facility for some burgers, and you're just dumped into the level with no real context as to what's actually going on. Section 1 starts out with Trees quickly running through and killing the strange, mutated creatures inside, until you get to Section 2 where the mood suddenly shifts and Trees becomes carefree as they reach what they've actually been there to do. I dont want to talk about it too much just yet, but in the background of section 2 you can see a large purple light brightening up the strange organic structures surrounding it... this purple light is one of the seven Eyes which have been a subtle important part of the game's story, and Trees is after it so that they don't make a mistake theyve made before.. most of whats going on this level is barely communicated and also mostly exists in my head, but i hope you can see a little of my intentions. the halcali song fit so well for me, as it's a very uplifting song being used in a level where Trees is about to do something Very Terrible Which I Won't Talk About Yet after they've just been through something Very Horrible which is not communicated with in the game. and the song gave the perfect feeling for what i wanted to do...

But Anyways... eventually when i made UNITRES Dreams into a full game, i wanted to have a completely original soundtrack for it. it was really difficult to put together however, as i was like 17 when i was making it and i had no way of making money and didnt know a whole lot of composers (especially ones thatd be willing to work on my silly little game). But then, shortly after the original tech demo that i met RRThiel and then slowly started getting a whole team of composers.. i am so lucky to have the soundtrack UNITRES has now and im so greatful for all the composers who made it for my silly little game and i beg all of you to check out the soundtrack and all the composers, they are all wonderful.

Anyways. about brand new world's new music... for most of UNITRES Dreams' development i was unable to get anyone to make music for it. it was pretty low priority as i had to find people who could make music for the rest of the game, but it was still Really Important to me as i wanted someone who could capture the same feeling i was going for with the placeholder music. it wasnt until near the very end of development that i got MiniMacro and R3tronaut to make the tracks for the two sections...

https://youtu.be/ZPpCJtvq0HA?t=2253

MiniMacro worked on the track for Section 1 and it came out really freakin good.. the song sounds really Urgent and it fits really well and he did a really good job and you all should check out his work and the games he made. What i especially want to talk about is R3tronaut's song for Section 2..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPpCJtvq0HA&t=2369s

i don't really have any favorites in the game's soundtrack as all of the music is unique and fits really well for their specific parts and i love every track in this game deeply, but if i Had to pick a favorite , R3's track for Brand New World - Section 2 would be Really close. once again i am bad with words but is such an Emotional but upbeat and magical song that it manages to capture everything i wanted with this level so much.. i love how both level's sections music came out and the tone shift that suddenly comes with this track.. it fits the weird little story that i have going on in this level... anyways ummm You Must look at all of R3's music and buy all their albums.. NOW !!! EHHEHEHE!!!

anyways. one last little thing i will tell you.. originally in the tech demo, after beating the boss you get a really basic cutscene which shows the Trees character going to sleep, which ended up setting up the plot for UNITRES Dreams... but i removed the cutscene in the final game and never replaced it which im still upset about as nothing really communicates what happens after the level. Originally, UNITRES Dreams wasnt even supposed to exist and the cutscene was just to set up for something completely differnet, but after making the demo i Really wanted to explore more of the gameplay and story... and so i started working on UNITRES Dreams...

thats all i feel like talking about right now. i am tired and want to eat food. maybe i should talk more about this game sometime...

Oh btw that last sentence was before i wrote any of da other Big Posts i made. i actually have had this in my drafts for A While and wasnt sure how to properly put my words together. im still not sure if i did a good job talking about this... oh well. ummmm play unitres dreams on newgrounds dot com , teehee !

Ohh Ohh Actually SIKE !!! before igo i should actually talk about The Level Itself... i just realized at the end of typing all of that that i havent even talked about what the level Plays like and how it Looks and how it was made... Well. being the first level in the Entire Game, it is Incredibly Basic and Linear. since the controls were simpler, the challenges in this level were just basic platforming challenges with enemies thrown around. in Section 2, i introduced gravity swapping mechanics which i Like. some people have complained about it, but honestly i like how the controls are reversed when upside down.. it makes more sense to me. Also, being one of the earliest levels ever made, i wasnt actually Sure how to make the artwork, so everything is very simple and basic. Actually, the palette and a little bit of the art is was updated in the v3.0.2 update which is shown in the screenshots.. so things are a little more vibrant and prettier than they were in the original tech demo. Last thing i can tell you about gameplay wise is that the bosses Sucked, as i made them really quickly and the first boss is Really Easy and basic (with you having to Wait to damage it.. which is annoying) and the second boss is also incredibly basic but with a ton of projectile spam and an attack that is instant kill if you dont shield. LOL !!!

OKAY OKAY ONE MORE THING !!! if you didnt know... the original tech demo was actually made for the 'Really Amateur Games Expo' (or RAGE for short), which was a joke event run by the people who run SAGE where u have to make a joke game in under a week. i never attended one of them before and just felt like doing it right then just because it gave me an excuse to make UNITRES into a thing. the theme of that year's event was to make a bad game based off the newly revealed Sonic movie and its design... so i decided itd be funny to make a game Completely Unrelated to Sonic and the sonic movie and make it an Actually Good Game With Effort Kind Of. so That's why theres a bunch of posters for "Fast The Rat" and the egg guy... it was supposed to be making fun of the original sonic movie teaser. the game was actually accepted into the event.. but it was completely ignored and also it wasnt even shown on the stream they did for the event. oh well. around that same time i also joined newgrounds for the first time and posted about it.. but it also did not occur to me that i could have exported an html version of the game which i Kind Of regret not doing then. Oh Well, at least the version of the game that came out on newgrounds is way more polished and Good, LOL !!!

EDIT: ONE ONE ONE ONE ONE MORE THING !!! i forgot to mention that Technically, section 1 and 2 actually take place in the same layout and thats why theres a smooth transition into the two sections compared to every other level. LOL!

#UNITRES #UNITRES Dreams #game dev #game design #gamedev #indie dev #indiedev #indie developer #game developer #game development #art #TreesThinks

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