#i am going to delete this later. i have seen the horrors unfortunately :( | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nightfayre · 4 years

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a donation drabble request for the ever kind and supportive Ayobami @tps31! thank you SO MUCH for your donation and support!! you’ll never know how much it means to me <3

prompt: tianshan quarantine fluff, aka “why the hell am I stuck in a house with you all day every day?”

(a/n: this is just a random thought but I honestly don’t think I’ve written a fic about the boys still in middle school like, ever, so thank you so much for this prompt! it was so refreshing to write them as the flustered, airheaded, and teasing boys they are!) <3

tianshan, 3600 words, rated T

* * *

Guan Shan hates this.

The laundry basket next to his. The pair of shoes at the front door. The extra toothbrush in his bathroom, and the second phone charger plugged in next to his bed. There’s a gray duffel bag taking up the corner of his bedroom and a black jacket draped over the back of his desk chair. None of it takes up too much space, carefully put into their respective places and never crossing the boundary, but—

Guan Shan hates it.

And, what’s worse: he never asked for this. He was stupid enough to mention He Tian’s name at the dinner table one night; a passing comment he hadn’t really thought about. But then his mother had paused with a spoonful of miso soup at her lips, pensive.

“He Tian,” she’d echoed, as if the name felt foreign but sweet on her tongue. “Isn’t that the one who lives near the center of the city? The one who lives alone? The tall and polite and handsome one of your friends?”

“Uh,” Guan Shan had said, smirking with distaste. “Yeah. Sure. That one.”

“Poor thing. Alone throughout all of this mess.” She sighed. “Why does he not live with his family?”

And Guan Shan had thought about it for a moment, sifting through his mind like pressing rewind on a VHS. “I don’t know,” he’d admitted, reaching for the soy sauce. “Never asked.”

She nodded, thinking. “Well, you should invite him over, then.”

Guan Shan choked.

Oblivious, his mother had continued: “Have him stay a few nights. No one should be left alone throughout this entire period. Who knows how long this will last, what with how many cases that have been reported. He’ll go stir crazy by himself, poor soul.”

“He’s already stir crazy,” Guan Shan said, eyes watering from a dislodged grain of rice. “I don’t want him here, ma. I’ll literally do anythin’ else. Seriously.”

She’d given him a disappointed look. “Ah-Shan, I thought I raised you to have a little more compassion than that.”

“Trust me, a person like him doesn’t need compassion.”

“Now, you don’t know that,” she reprimanded. She tapped her chopsticks against her bowl, succinct. “After we finish dinner, you should reach out to him and invite him to spend the week with us.”

“A week?”

“Well, now that school is postponed and I’m working from home, wouldn’t it be nice to have company for a bit?”

“Ma, please—“

“You will text him, Ah-Shan. No excuses. The world needs kindness right now, and we will do whatever we can to contribute to it.”

And that, unfortunately, was that.

That night, Guan Shan deleted the message immediately after he sent it, as if that would erase it out of his memory, too. But it was hard to forget the string of skeptical yet blaringly enthusiastic string of response texts that followed the invite, and even harder to forget the sight of He Tian at their front door half an hour later, duffel bag slung over his shoulder and smile bright as he greeted Guan Shan’s mother with practiced sweetness and feigned gratitude.

Guan Shan hated it.

But as his mother shot him a warning look, Guan Shan couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t just ignore him like he did, sometimes, at school.

And now, five days in, there’s a knock at the bathroom door.

“Little Mo, are you naked?”

Running a towel over his hair, Guan Shan scowls at his reflection in the mirror, still foggy from the steam. “Fuck off, chickenshit.”

“I’m kidding.” He can hear the smile in He Tian’s voice. “I just need to brush my teeth.”

“Then you can wait.”

“It’s been twenty minutes, sweetheart. Are your showers usually this long?”

“That’s an average fuckin’ time for showers!”

A hum, muffled by the closed door. “Really? Mine only take ten, and that’s generous considering the precious amount of time I spend washing my—”

The thunk of the lotion bottle against the door rattles its hinges. “Fuck off!”

He waits until he hears He Tian’s footsteps recede. Guan Shan hates that he knows He Tian is walking away with that smug-as-all-hell smile, satisfied.

He dresses quickly after that, doing his best to ignore the citrus-scented face wash by the faucet and the contact lens case by the hand soap. The first time he’d seen all of He Tian’s things laid out like this on his bathroom counter was something like a revelation. It was like some things clicked into place, unbidden. Now it makes sense why Guan Shan sometimes thinks he catches a whiff of lemonade every time He Tian gets too close, and why He Tian looks like he’s scowling whenever he reads but, really, it’s just because he’s blind as a fucking bat and has to squint to see fine print.

If nothing else, Guan Shan suspects at least something valuable might come out of all this time he’s forced to spend together with He Tian — (read: blackmail) — but then again, He Tian hasn’t commented on the old, stained state of Guan Shan’s pillow like Guan Shan thought he would because he’s used it since he was four and can’t really sleep well if he’s not using that specific pillow. And he also hasn’t said anything about the way Guan Shan jumps, sometimes, when the toaster springs up his toast in the mornings because he never fucking sees it coming and it — sometimes — causes him to drop his jam knife.

A stalemate, Guan Shan supposes as he pulls his shirt over his head. Except, deep down, he knows that He Tian probably isn’t even aware that such a concept exists. After all, what would He Tian be if not someone to fight ‘til a broken victor is left standing?

By the time Guan Shan walks out into the living room, it’s ten o’clock. His mother, having finished washing the dishes because Guan Shan made dinner, is nowhere in sight, likely huddled up in her bedroom with a book like she always does before bed. That leaves He Tian alone on the couch, casually flipping through TV stations in a t-shirt and sweats, and he doesn’t see Guan Shan at first when the latter turns the corner.

“Bathroom’s open, dipshit,” Guan Shan mutters. He Tian looks up as Guan Shan approaches, settling on the opposite end of the couch.

“About time.” He Tian tosses Guan Shan the remote, and he barely catches it before it smacks against his chest. Standing, He Tian smiles and says, “Find something good to watch by the time I get back, okay?”

“I don’t work at your beck and call,” Guan Shan seethes. But despite his retorts, his fingers find the remote buttons as He Tian saunters back to the bathroom, hands in pockets and steps quiet against the creaky floors.

For a while, there really is nothing interesting on any of the channels. Guan Shan flies past a romcom, an old horror film, a few cartoons, the dreaded news. Nothing catches his attention — and he feels exhaustion coming on quick. He thinks, maybe, of just going to bed. But behind the apartment’s thin walls, he can hear the water running from the faucet. Despite himself, he frowns.

It’s odd, really. He never thought he could get used to the image of He Tian’s broad frame hunched over his sink in the mornings, or the way He Tian can reach the bowls at the top of the cupboards without going on his toes, or the sight of He Tian’s nape pressed against the twin-sized air mattress on the floor of Guan Shan’s bedroom. He never thought anyone could make his mother laugh as much as he can, or finish puzzles as fast as he can, and he certainly never thought that his mother would spill Guan Shan’s childhood stories to someone she’d only met... once? Twice? He doesn’t keep track. He never had to before.

Nevertheless, it’s not nearly enough time to warrant such trust. Such comfort.

Guan Shan hates it.

But in the midst of his lamenting, the faucet shuts off. A few moments later He Tian returns. And when he plops back onto the couch — too close — he smells of mint and vanilla-scented chapstick.

Too aware of his presence and the way his knee almost touches Guan Shan’s, Guan Shan takes a long second to snap back to reality when He Tian asks, “What’s this?”

Guan Shan blinks. On the TV, there’s some kind of documentary playing. A narrator drones over the images of a complex space aircraft, and the camera pans out to show footage of the stars it swims in. As the screen switches to an interview of someone very important-looking in a suit, Guan Shan scowls.

“I don’t know. Nothin’s on.”

He Tian stretches his arms above his head, long and lithe. “Well,” he says, drawn with a sigh, “if you’re trying to put me to sleep, it might actually work.”

“Fuck off, I don’t control the damn stations,” Guan Shan bites. “And you shouldn’t be tired to begin with. You did jack shit today, just like every other day.”

He Tian looks at him, the corners of his eyes softened with drowsiness in a way that Guan Shan has become used to seeing.

“That’s not true,” He Tian says. “I went with you to pick up supplies so your mom can sew masks. And we went to get the mail downstairs. And I helped you go grocery shopping—“

“You fuckin’ stood there with the cart and didn’t help at all—“

“—and I chopped the onions and peppers for dinner. That’s a lot. I’m exhausted.”

“That’s a normal person’s life,” Guan Shan says, exasperated. “Honestly, what the hell did you do all your life until quarantine?”

He Tian seems to take a moment to genuinely think about his answer. “Homework,” he offers, brows a bit pulled. “Basketball. School, obviously. I usually go to the convenience store for dinner, but sometimes I’ll get takeout. And I don’t get mail, but my groceries get delivered to me, so.”

And then he looks at Guan Shan, almost as if expecting some kind of praising reaction — but Guan Shan can only stare.

“That’s ridiculous,” Guan Shan says after a long moment. “That’s ridiculous and fuckin’ miserable. You live like a robot, and a broken one at that.”

Silence. Then He Tian sits up a little straighter, as if a puppetmaster had pulled on his strings.

“I mean, I used to take piano lessons,” he says, frowning as he rubs at his neck. “And Cheng took me to shooting ranges. And…” A pause. “Camping. Yeah, we went camping some weekends. Went to rivers and fished together all day. I caught a few sometimes.”

Guan Shan blinks. “What, are you tryin’ to prove somethin’ to me right now?”

And He Tian shrugs. “Maybe.”

The answer takes Guan Shan by surprise. But He Tian’s face is neutral — expression always so put together — and Guan Shan wonders if maybe He Tian is lying to him. Building up some kind of persona again just to tear it down later. Because, surely, with that much fucking money and privilege, the guy doesn’t just sit there in that empty apartment all day and twiddle his thumbs. Surely, with his reputation, he has a regular posse of socialites always seeking him out and inviting him to some kind of get-together or event. Surely, considering all that he is, He Tian doesn’t waste his time looking for, or teasing, or protecting, or calling up—

“Guan Shan?” He Tian says, mouth a little twisted. “You still awake?”

The low rambling of the space documentary suddenly seems louder. Guan Shan swallows, once, then forces himself to look away.

“You make no fuckin’ sense to me,” Guan Shan mutters. Then: “When are you leavin’?”

“Ouch,” He Tian remarks in an empty but unsurprised tone, shifting back on the couch. After a moment, he shrugs and responds, “Depends. Your text said a week but your mom says forever.”

A scowl. “She didn’t fuckin’ say that.”

He Tian smiles. “No, she didn’t. But she did say as long as I wanted — which, really, isn’t that much different from forever.”

Guan Shan swallows; feels inexplicable heat crawl up his neck like a spider, and he clenches his jaw against it.

“You should go live with your own family,” he says, staring ahead. “I’m sure they’ve got all the time in the world to shower you with attention.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees He Tian smirk.

“If I didn’t want to live with them at the best of times, what makes you think I would want to live with them at the worst of times?”

Guan Shan considers that. “This… isn’t the worst of times.”

“There’s a pandemic with no cure killing hundreds of people every day,” He Tian says, bland. “School is practically cancelled. People aren’t going to work. You invited me over to your home, unprompted. Even I know, with all things considered, that these are pretty bad times.”

Guan Shan can’t argue that. Instead he stares at the television, watching an astronomer point out weird symbols on some kind of map. It takes a lot of concentration to focus on nothing. After all, if he shifts his gaze any more to the right, he’ll see He Tian. If he lets his eyes slide down any further, he’ll see the way He Tian’s knee is still too close to his own. Both are dangerous territories for dangerous thoughts, and he doesn’t want anything to do with either.

After a moment of silence, Guan Shan says, “You know, you should get friends. Real friends, and not your fuckin’ fangirl group.”

He Tian raises a brow. “I have you and Jian Yi and Zhan Zheng Xi.”

“That’s not—” And then Guan Shan stops, frowning, because he’s not actually sure what their ragtag mess of a group isn’t. Instead, he swallows and pathetically hides behind: “I’m not your fuckin’ friend.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Or, maybe, it’s exactly what He Tian thought what he’d say. Guan Shan isn’t sure; he’s never fuckin’ sure when it comes to him. But it doesn’t stop him from tensing up when He Tian turns to face him, fully. Wholly. It leaves no escape, and Guan Shan realizes with a sour kind of reluctance that he has no choice but to look back.

“No?” He Tian asks, meeting his gaze. “Then, what are you to me?”

The way the television’s screen lights up He Tian’s face — it’s like looking at a painting, alone in the museum, at the dusk of day. Blue hues shine through his hair, dim, and his eyes are only bright enough to reflect the silhouette of Guan Shan sitting in front of him. It’s eerie, how the both of them are so undefined in this moment. Maybe, in a way, that’s easier.

Guan Shan’s voice feels thick when he says, “I’m not answerin’ that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t— need to.”

“Why?” And then: “Overthinking it?”

Guan Shan flares. “What? What the fuck does that�� No, I just— I don’t need to answer fuckin’ anything, asshole. I… I owe you jack shit.”

Silence responds to him. He Tian watches him; studies him. Guan Shan feels like a specimen under his gaze, split apart layer by layer under the microscope. He feels like, somewhere, something in him is splintering. And He Tian is watching it happen.

“I don’t have a fuckin’ answer,” Guan Shan admits, sudden, like a sinner in a confession booth, heavy and quiet and raspy. “Okay? I told you, you don’t make any goddamn sense to me. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for my ma.”

He Tian soaks that in, almost as thoroughly as he takes in the sight of Guan Shan’s flushed scowl.

“You didn’t want me here?” he says, teasing.

“No, dipshit. Every time you’ve been here hasn’t been because I asked you to be.”

He Tian smirks. “Ouch,” he says again, except this time it’s said in a way that pricks Guan Shan like a rose thorn.

Guan Shan pushes down the heavy feeling in his throat. “I don’t know what you were expectin’,” he says, truthfully.

And then He Tian looks away, rolling his head. There’s a kind of empty look in his eyes that Guan Shan thinks he recognizes, and after a moment he realizes it’s the same look he’s seen in He Cheng’s eyes in the few rare times they’d crossed paths.

“I wasn’t expecting a pandemic,” He Tian says. His voice sounds loud in the small room. “I wasn’t expecting school break to get extended. I wasn’t expecting all the restaurants to close, and for all the store’s shelves to be wiped clean.” He runs his tongue along his teeth. “But I guess, for some reason, I was expecting a text from you after weeks of nothing.”

It hits Guan Shan, hard and heavy, like a ring-laden fist against his cheek. The last time he’d seen He Tian before all of this mess was a month ago — more — and at the time, none of them had known that this is how it would turn out. How could they? It’d only taken a week for things to turn south, and Guan Shan was too busy worrying of how he and his mom were going to file for unemployment to think of the way his phone had been silent for longer than he’s been used to.

He wants to pull it out right now; check his recent messages. It would be with a sort of disbelief when he would find the timestamp on He Tian’s contact, he already knows. But the shock wouldn’t come from his own lack of outreach. No, his perplexity would stem from He Tian, the same person who couldn’t go a single weekend without a conversation about nothing over Facetime back when things were normal. The same person who, apparently, hadn’t messaged him once until Guan Shan texted him that dreadful night five days ago.

Had he been— testing Guan Shan?

“I didn’t reach out to anybody else,” Guan Shan hears himself saying. The words taste bitter as they leave his mouth. What is he doing? What does he have to justify? “I... It was weird, those first few days of the lockdown order, and my ma and I— we had a lot goin’ on. It wasn’t— I mean, I haven’t talked to Zheng Xi or Jian Yi this whole time either. I just... don’t have time. Or, I did, but it wasn’t urgent. I— yeah, I barely use my phone anymore, anyway. I’m always at home now so I just... don’t need it.”

He stops, his tongue feeling thick. He Tian isn’t looking at him, but he knows he’s listening. Somehow, the thought makes it even worse.

“What,” He Tian suddenly says, and there’s a curl to his mouth that he can’t seem to help, “are you trying to prove something to me right now?”

“I—“ Guan Shan flares, teeth clenched and ears hot. “Fuck you. No, I’m not, asshole. I’m actually rescuin’ your damn pride, but apparently you’ve got too fuckin’ much.”

“Hey, hey,” He Tian says, wrapping his fingers around Guan Shan’s wrist when he makes to get up. “Come on. Don’t make me finish this documentary by myself.”

Guan Shan scowls. “I’m tired. Let go.”

“Then we can sleep on the couch,” He Tian replies — and then almost as if it were an afterthought: “again.”

Guan Shan warms at the implication of it. “Why the fuck would I do that when my room is around the corner?” he hisses.

He Tian tugs his arm. “Because I’ll follow you anyway since I’ve only got two days left with you and I’m not letting today end like this.” He smiles. “We’re not sleeping yet. I’m selfish.”

“I could’ve fuckin’ told you that,” Guan Shan mutters, dry. But he relaxes, settling back on the couch, and eventually He Tian lets him go. The skin he had touched feels electric in his absence.

“Let’s make popcorn and ride this out,” He Tian says, settling against a throw pillow. His eyes, no longer empty, are content as they drift back to the screen.

Hand in chin, Guan Shan smirks. “We both brushed our teeth already. I’m not doin’ it again.”

“Tomorrow, then.” He Tian gestures to the TV. “Popcorn and something more interesting than this.”

“If you think this is so damn boring, then why are you still here?”

“When else will I find an opportunity to spend time with you like this after I leave?”

Guan Shan doesn’t respond. After a moment, He Tian huffs.

“That’s when you’re supposed to invite me back over in the future, little Mo,” he says, amused. Guan Shan shoots him a warning look as the documentary goes to a commercial break.

“Don’t push your luck,” he snaps. “And don’t try to convince my ma, either.”

He Tian hums, shifting, and Guan Shan suppresses a flinch when his knee presses up against his. Warm. “I hadn’t even thought about that. That might be the agenda for tomorrow, now.”

“I’m sick of you,” Guan Shan growls. And He Tian laughs, like it’s the funniest thing ever, how easily he can get under Guan Shan’s skin and force him to worry about nothing and get him to stay with him to watch shitty television all within the span of twenty minutes. How Guan Shan has managed to survive more than three days is an incredible feat. How he’s unable to chase away the thought of inviting He Tian over for dinner after he leaves, sometimes, is an inexplicable one.

And when the documentary comes back on with a cheap intro jingle and the streaming quality of a disposable camera, Guan Shan feels He Tian’s foot hook against his and tries to convince himself, over and over:

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

* * *

thank you for reading! likes/reblogs would be greatly appreciated, as this fic is dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. if you would like a fic/drabble written for you (and you want to support the BLM cause!), please see this post!

have an incredible week! <3

#19 days #tianshan #:)))#please reblog! it would mean the world!

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kauladoeswriting · 4 years

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Life Will Change, Chapter 3

It’s late and who knows what it’ll look like editing half a sleep XD I tried. Summary: Because Enzan should have known he was asking for too much to be able to start school without any complications. Word Count: 3292 Fandoms: Persona 5/MMBN Fusion Previous Chapter | Next Chapter Ao3

April 18th, 2016 Morning

The night had remained blissfully calm. Right up until that calm was shattered to pieces by a blaring alarm. 6 AM wasn’t an unusal time for Enzan to wake up, but maybe a small, unreasonable part of him thought it’d be the one of the many changes from life as an executive. Enzan pushed himself up, letting the blanket he was using fall in a puddle around his waist. It took a moment to adjust to his new room. He wondered if he’d ever get used to it.

His sleep had been mostly uninterupted by talks of the velvet room. It was beginning to feel like that one time was a freak accident, a dream made up by a mind that was already way too stressed out. Maybe the fact he’s gotten to relax a little the last few days helped? (That doesn’t explain all the oddities he’s seen since he’s come to Tokyo.) It was unimportant. Today was Enzan’s first day of school, and with the train accidents, on top of this being his first time traveling there, he wanted to be prompt and professional. After all, he knew very well the deck was stacked against him, and there was no reason to give them reason to dislike him further. In a few minutes, he had himself dressed in his school uniform, and his backpack mostly packed already, with his phone shoved in the side pocket.

“Enzan-kun, are you awake?” Meijin’s voice called up the stairs.

“Yes, I am, Meijin!” He called back, looking into the mirror he had managed to uncover one last time. First impressions were everything. Looking clean and neat would make for a good one. “If you want some cereal, hurry down now!” “Yes, Meijin!” Enzan scooped his backpack off the floor, and hurried down to meet Meijin in the kitchen for a second morning in a row. He set the bag down neatly against the wall, and sat down at the table. He poured himself a bowl of cereal, and got to eating as fast as he could. He had enough time to spend maybe ten minutes, accounting for train schedules.. A newspaper was flopped on the table in front of him. “I’ve already looked through it today, you can flip through it if you want!” Meijin was hurrying back and forth, looking for his things. Was the scientist always this disorganized? The sight confused Enzan enough that he was distracted from eating once again. This was new, compared to the Meijin he had gotten to see the last few days.

“Did you oversleep?” Enzan asked finally. “No no, nothing like that.” Meijin disappeared briefly into the living room and came back with his laptop. “I just wanted to see you off on your first day of school.” And he just… hadn’t gotten ready yet. He didn’t lie, it was just a partial truth.

If Enzan noticed, he decided not to call Meijin on it. He just hurried through the rest of his cereal, careful not to spill any milk on his uniform. He finished on time, and avoided the horror of soggy cereal. A double win. By the time he had finished, Meijin was leaning in the doorway, looking perfectly put together, as if he hadn’t been running around the house like a madman trying to get all of his things shoved into his computer bag at the last second. “All ready to go, Enzan-kun?” “Yes, I am.” Enzan picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulders. He went to put his dish in the sink to wash it really quickly, but Meijin called him away. “We’re both in a hurry, let’s leave that for later. Let’s get out of here.” Meijin had already said he couldn’t take Enzan to school. But he cared enough to at least see him off.

Unfortunately, it seems as though Enzan should have checked the weather before he left. Maybe then he wouldn’t be stuck under an awning by his school’s train station, wondering how he was going to get the rest of the way to the school without ruining his uniform. There was shuffling beside him as the two students that crashed into him yesterday came out from the train station. “It’s raining?!” yelled the boy. Netto, was it? The girl, Meiru, sighed and tucked the folder underneath her school coat. “It seems so. Didn’t I warn you to bring an umbrella?” Enzan stuck his hands in his pockets, and turned away slightly, as if paying attention anything but his new companions. He didn’t want to eavesdrop on the other students. Or at least, he didn’t want to look like he was. Netto looked busy with the box in his arms, as if that’d save him from the judgement of his friend. Meiru sighed. “I have an umbrella if you need it.” Netto perked up slightly, his cheeks colored in embarrassment. “Thanks Meiru-chan.” He shifted the box in his arms, and took the umbrella from her. With a swift motion, he extended the umbrella out and held it over his head. “If I hurry, I should be able to get something to eat! See ya, Meiru-chan!” And off the brunette went. “Netto, you forgot your folders- And he’s gone…” Meiru sighed. “I’m sorry he didn’t stick around to introduce himself.” Enzan stiffened, but was able to force himself to keep his business face on. Was it that obvious he was listening in? Because if it was, he was slipping. “He seemed to be in a hurry.”

“Yeah, he is. His club supervisor wanted Netto there early so they could get work done early…” The early bird caught the worm after all. Enzan thought it was a perfectly reasonable sentiment, but it appeared that Meiru didn’t share his opinion. Although...

“They’re not going to have a whole lot of time before class begins, are they?” Enzan’s phone beeped, and he pulled it out, wondering if he just got a notification. “No. Netto slept in, because thanks to this, he’s gotten almost no sleep this last week.” Meiru’s hand was tightend around the strap of her shoulder bag.

Enzan located the cause of the vibration and frowned. The strange app he was sure he deleted had opened itself. Definitely malware. He really needed to be careful about using it for any sensitive purpose until he could get a part time job to replace it. “They must be working hard.” Phone issues aside, Enzan wasn’t unused to long nights working towards a goal. It came with the territory. “It seems quite rigorous.” With a flick of his finger, he had closed the app and attempted to uninstall it once again. Meiru sighed. “It… It’s not just the hours.” She admits. “The teacher supervising it, Yamitaro Higure... he acts like he’s a CEO of some large warehouse, or a factory... where all the students are his employees.” Enzan raised an eyebrow, distracted from his phone’s odd behavior. “CEO? Factory?” What an… interesting way of describing it. (He didn’t realize the strange app had once again reappeared, nor that it was listening to their conversation.)

“Yeah. You’re a transfer student, right? I saw you with your guardian yesterday.” Her eyes drifted towards the school. “So I guess you wouldn’t really know.” “Know what?” “He charges outrageous fees. Just… steer clear. It’s not worth it.” Perhaps being broke was a blessing. “We’re… going to be late. I’m sorry for burdening you with my thoughts. Let’s get going.” Meiru turned in the direction she was looking, beginning to walk that way, when a wave of nausea hit her. And Enzan too.

It felt like it lasted longer than it did. Enzan shook it off quickly. Perhaps his breakfast didn’t agree with him; there was nothing to be gained from just standing about, musing on smething that didn’t matter. (He was fine with the cereal yesterday ...)

He shoved his phone in his pocket, deciding he’d deal with it later. “I agree that we should go.” Meiru had bent over, resting her hands on her knees for a bit while she caught her breath, and then straightened up with a nod. “Y-yeah. I’ll show you. It’s your first day, right?” She lead him down the streets of Tokyo, though neither of them could shake the feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong.

“I couldn’t have walked the wrong way!” Meiru was panicking, and Enzan couldn’t blame her. The building they were in front of most certainly was not a school. Rather, a large warehouse with an elaborate store front would be a whole lot more accurate.

Enzan would almost liken it to one of those big box stores that could be found in America.

She poked at her phone, growing increasingly frustrated. “I’ve lost all signal.” She frowned. “Do you think you could…” Her voice drifted off. “Yeah. I can.” He pulled his phone out, but the strange app was still up. Swearing under his breath for letting himself get distracted, he swiped up to close it. And it wouldn’t close. It didn’t take long to realize that his phone wasn’t going to power down either, meaning he’d probably have to let it die.

Wonderful. “My phone doesn’t seem to be working properly either.” It was strange that they were both having issues at the same time...

Putting her phone back into her side bag, Meiru looked over the building. “Maybe it’s just a weird prank or something. Though I wonder why Netto didn’t text me about this…” She didn’t seem sure of herself. This was a really weird prank, if it was one, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like Enzan ever went to public school before this. But surely, surely, if pranks involving cloaking the whole school was a thing that happened, there would be a news article about it.

As they pushed open the doors, it didn’t seem anything like a school that Enzan had ever heard of. Two desks flanked the door, each with a student behind it. One was girl with hair in blonde braided pigtails, and the other a boy with a sweater on underneath his school jacket. Both of them had one of those “Hi, my name is _” Tags stuck to their chest, each with a number on them.

The girl’s was a lot higher than the boys. Meiru looked between the two worriedly.

“Tohru-kun, Yaito-chan, what’s going on?” She asks. They must have been in the right place, if Meiru knew the two kids. Still not any kind of set up for a school though.

“Welcome to the Shuujin branch of Higureya!” The two echoed together. “Please pay the 5,000 yen for the enterance fee!” Enzan blinked. Shuujin. That was the name of the school, was it not? He was already enrolled, Why would there be any additional fee? This is definitely where the school had been the night before… Meiru looked confused too. “Guys, this isn’t funny. What’s going on here?” Meiru’s eyes flickered between her two friends. “Just… why do we need to pay?” “Because we’re an exclusive club. You must pay to join. Those who can’t pay should leave.” Enzan didn’t like this feeling. “Who are we paying, anyways? I think we should talk to them.” “President Higure-san is simply worth far too much to meet with those who can’t pay our generous enterance fee.” The blonde girl answered by herself this time. Meiru turned to her. “Yaito-chan, can you just explain-” “If you don’t leave soon, I’ll have to call security.” The boy said, voice quiet and flat. Meiru spun around to face him. “Tohru-kun, please, can you-” A siren cut her off, and a metal gate fell behind her. “Intruder! Intruder!”

None of these order of events were making any degree of sense to Enzan. He had lost it somewhere around their school being turned into a warehouse and Meiru’s friends apparently were turned into the kind of corporate drones Enzan might have expected to see underneath his father. Creatures that could only be described as formless blobs shoved into a suit slithered up behind the desks, each with a weird ornate mask shoved onto its face. “This isn’t necessary, we can be going.” Meiru assured, backing towards the gate, hoping that they’d accept her peace offering and let them go. Enzan followed her back towards the gate, keeping her behind him just in case. He didn’t like the look of those so called guards.

It didn’t open, and those blobs were getting closer. Enzan knew somewhere in the back of his mind it was fruitless, but he turned and tried to shield Meiru anyways.

----

They couldn’t really get more fucked than this, right? The wording was far more crude than Enzan usually preferred, but it seemed to fit their situation unfortunately well. He and Meiru were surrounded by these amorphous blobs that might have almost looked like a child’s robot in suits if he squinted, if they weren’t carrying actual weapons. And they were leading him and Meiru to… somewhere, well towards the back of the giant warehouse, that even Enzan’s internal map was having difficulties keeping up with.

Despite Enzan’s best attempt to keep Meiru safe, it was hard to find a position that could be considered so, surrounded as they were by these wanna be robots. Meiru kept her hands curled tightly around her book bag, holding it in front of her, eyes locked on the ground. Enzan looked back and forth, looking for a chance to escape. He had no idea what was going on here, but it was definitely disturbing and he had the sinking feeling that the two of them may not be walking out alive if they didn’t escape somehow from this warehouse that had taken over the school.

Maybe if he could find some sort of break in the robot’s formation, he could possibly fight one into letting them by and then maybe they could navigate out of here? That sounded farfetched, even to Enzan. He was just one guy, against robots.

The robots guided them to a door marked “Mister President Yamitaro Higure”. Higure, Higureya, someone was really full of them selves, weren’t they? Meiru’s hands tighened even more, digging her fingertips into her palms around her strap. One of the robot blobs knocked on the door. Higure, Higure, Higure, where had he seen that name before…

Right, on that poster from yesterday. He ran the club that Meiru had been complaining about just a little bit ago. Not that any high school teachers had any business having robots that seemed to be carrying actual weapons

The door swung open, and reminded Enzan of those cheesy B Action movies that he’d watch late at night in his office while working. And as the door opened, there was going to be a mob boss sitting at the desk. It should be noted that Enzan honestly did not expect to be as close to correct as he was.

“You…” Meiru probably couldn’t get more tense than she already was, but her shoulders noticably stiffened, and she made an attempt to straighten her back. Whatever happened here, Enzan was going to do his best to deflect any trouble off of her.

He really hoped he was just being uncharacteristically dramatic, but really, everything around him suggested otherwise.

“So these are our intruders, huh?”

The man in front of them was the oddest combination of sleazy salesman and well dressed man. He had a plaid brown vest on with an over exaggered fur coat and a black fedora, along with unruly messy hair. “Yes sir.” One of the robots informed him. “Intruders? This is our school!” Meiru said. She was glaring with all she had at the teacher. The teacher adjusted his ridiculous over exaggerated sunglasses. “Your school, huh…?” The man looked thoughtful, stroking his chin as if there was a goatee there. “You didn’t pay the price of admission though, huh?” Price of admission. The counters up front? “You can still make it up though, huh? You would make a great addition to the advertisement team.” “I want no part of that awful thing you call a club.” Meiru responded. “Why not? It’d be more useful than you harrassing my workers, huh?” Higure would be flicking the ash away from a cigarette if he had one. Maybe it was just paranoia that made Enzan step closer to Meiru.Was it just him or were those robotic blobs getting closer to them?

Undeterred by Meiru’s glaring, or Enzan’s increasing guard, Higure pressed on. “The advertisment team is lacking, anyways. It could use a little pizzaz, huh? Imagine the touch a woman’s hand could bring!” “Why would I do that?” She asked, looking like she was going to argue more. Not wanting to see what would happen if he blew up, Enzan made the executive decision that he was going to step in. She could yell at him later if it bothered her.

“Listen, I think she’s making it pretty clear she doesn’t want any part of this, so if you’ll let us go-” One of the shadow robot blobs grabbed Enzan by the back of his jacket and roughly pulled him away. It worked out in his favor somewhat, though. At least the man’s eyes were drawn to him instead of Meiru. Maybe he could create a cover for Meiru’s escape? But to his dismay, it didn’t last nearly as long as he hoped. After all, Enzan was a stranger. He was unimportant. His eyes quickly scanned the room, looking for some way to fight back. There was no way he was just going to stand down now.

“Meiru-chan, you don’t hold the cards here, huh? You either help, or I’ll have to have you disposed of.” The blobs pushed closer to her, weapons raising up. She glared at them pulling her bag up to her chest, as if hoping swinging it at them would help her out of her situation.

You aren’t just going to let her be hurt, are you?

The voice, not one Enzan could place, caught him off guard. As well as the pulse of pain across his forehead

Of course not!

He tried to grab for the statue on the desk, but it felt like everything had suddenly become muted. Enzan heard bits and phrases between the pulsing headache.

‘increased sales’

‘you don’t matter if you don’t make money’

‘why not help - it’s for the greater good’

‘You don’t have a choice.’

Just standing there won’t change anything.

You’d be risking yourself again, just to save her.

I don’t care!

I can’t just… stand by!

It wasn’t an accident, then. You won’t let her be a corporate tool.

I shall lend you my power, then, Enzan-sama.

Enzan-sama? Who are you?

Enzan didn’t notice that the conversation had died down. That everyone was looking at him, and somehow at some point he had fallen to his knees. Slowly, he climbed back to his feet, intending on correcting this issue. The voice, who ever it was, was right. He couldn’t step down.

“Leave her alone!”

“I was gonna let you live, huh, but if you want to ruin my business too…”

...There was weight on his face?

Who am I? I am thou….

On instinct, his fingers curled around the mask, pulling and pulling despite the pain blossoming across his face.

With a spray of blood that would have startled him if he hadn’t been in a daze, the mask came off.

And thou art I. Let us step in, shall we?

And then for the briefest moments, the world exploded in blue flame. When the flames cleared, it was hard to believe it was the same person who had been standing there just moment’s before

“Hello, Blues.”

#persona 5 #mmbn #megaman battle network #exe enzan #exe meiru #Life Will Change #unbeta'd #fanfic #Holy Shit #I did something

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little-red-beret · 5 years

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A/N: Reposting this because tumblr is an ASS. There was also a monologue about how my head has been in a bad place so I don’t feel confident writing at the moment and I overanalyse my work so much that I pick apart my drafts until they’re just dot point plans again so I wrote this which isn’t a request instead because it’s the only thing I feel confident about right now. You don’t have to worry about meeting people’s request expectations if they aren’t expecting it.

Anyway, here is the story no one asked for. I hope you enjoy the surprise and that tumblr doesn’t delete the first half of it this time.

— Red

To begin with, Oz had been feeling fine, if not a little confused by waking up on a hard, stone floor in the dark. The sedative, which he did not yet know was in his system, had made his memories of this day foggy and he remembered nothing of the kidnapping that had taken place prior to waking up here. For a moment, he even thought that maybe he had simply fallen out of bed, but the more he payed attention, feeling the dirty floor and the cold, damp air which made him shiver, listening to the way his every movement echoed eerily in the far too quiet space, Oz knew this was more than a case of sleep movements. He cautiously climbed to his feet, feeling around in the dark. When his hands met with iron bars, Oz’s fears were only confirmed. Sleep movements didn’t get you into a pitch black prison cell.

It was at this moment that Oz’s heart fluttered nervously. How did he get here? Who was behind this? What was going to happen to him? More importantly, was everyone else okay?

A distant echo snapped Oz out of his thoughts. Footsteps, growing louder as they approached. Oz began feeling the walls, just in case he wasn’t actually in a cell and could actually hide from this potentially dangerous person approaching. After a complete circle, Oz had the dreadful realisation that he was truly boxed in, and the footsteps were only getting louder. Just how loud were they? When would they inevitably reach him?

“Hello?” Gilbert’s voice suddenly called, and Oz’s scream was louder than all else he had heard in that dark prison.

“Gil!” Oz cried breathlessly. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“Oz! I found you!” Gilbert sighed in relief and flicked on his lighter to reveal his smiling but pale face. Oz suspected he had probably been just as scared, walking through this dark place by himself, searching for Oz, only to be greeted by a scream. “Are you okay??”

Oz smiled through the bars at his friend. “I’m fine! Aren’t you going to let me out of here now?”

“Yes, I am! Stand back!” Gilbert instructed gravely, gesturing to the side of the cell. Oz obediently stepped out of the way and watched in awe as Gilbert pulled out the gun. Oz then paused for a moment.

“Wait! Gil, it’s already unlocked!” Oz quickly told him.

“Ah, you’re right...” Gilbert agreed, looking slightly disappointed that he wouldn’t get to pull off what would surely have been an epic stunt. Instead, Oz reached through the bars and pulled off the loose padlock, tossing it aside with a loud clang.

“Where’s everyone else?” Oz inquired as he followed Gilbert back down the stone corridor.

“Alice and Break are also searching for you. We agreed to meet up outside if we didn’t find you within an hour.” Gilbert explained. “They shouldn’t be much longer.”

“You were only going to search for me for an hour?” Oz struggled to hide the hurt in his voice as he spoke.

“Don’t worry, this castle is small, so we knew we’d find you in that time.”

“I’m in a castle?? Whoa!”

“Why are you amazed about that when you were abducted...”

At last, they made their way up a flight of spiral stairs and into blinding daylight. They were indeed in a castle, but unlike the decadent scene Oz had pictured, it was completely bare and overgrown with plants. This was turning out to be the most anticlimactic rescue mission Oz had ever experienced.

“Hey... I noticed you seem pretty calm for an infiltration. Shouldn’t we be on guard for the attackers?” Oz questioned, peering around the empty chamber for any signs of life.

“I wouldn’t really call it an infiltration. It was completely unguarded. Even Break couldn’t find any signs that your attackers are still here.” Gilbert explained sheepishly. Just when Oz thought this rescue mission couldn’t get any lamer.

In the end, Oz and Gilbert made it out safely, and as Gilbert had predicted, Break emerged ten minutes later, Alice five minutes after him, both in one piece and completely unfazed.

“We found you, manservant!” Alice had yelled triumphantly, as though Oz had simply been playing hide and seek.

It was only as they strolled to the coach waiting for them right outside the castle that Oz became aware of the churning in his stomach. It was mild, but it definitely wasn’t a good sign. He could feel it slowly working it’s way up his abdomen. It had come on so fast, he almost couldn’t believe this was happening. Once seated in the coach, Oz began to wonder if he should go back out, but everyone else climbed in and sat around him. Break gave the roof a tap, and just like that they were already moving and Oz’s stomach was in his throat.

“Excuse me,” he announced in a calm, even voice. “I’m going to throw up.” This earned him cries of shock and horror.

“Now?” Break demanded once he recollected himself. Alice and Gilbert were climbing over each other to get away from Oz.

“Yes, now.” Oz confirmed placidly.

“O-okay, hold on a moment...” Break ordered, and quickly began rummaging behind the seats. Oz’s mouth was becoming sour as it filled with bile, but he sat patiently as asked. A few seconds later, Break procured a towel, probably kept in case of rain, which he quickly folded into a makeshift receptacle and held in front of Oz.

Oz lurched and coughed up a stream of sick into the towel. Out of sheer luck it was the perfect consistency that it made no sound leaving his body, but the sight of it was enough to have Alice and Gilbert yelling in disgust.

“I’m sorry—“ Oz choked, then spluttered and coughed as another wave forced its way up his throat.

“It’s alright,” Break reassured him. “Did they sedate you?” Oz nodded quietly, slightly preoccupied. He had never considered that before, but it would definitely explain how he had woken up with no memory of being kidnapped or how he got there. He brought up another wave of sick into the towel, coughing wetly. Break clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Sedatives do tend to cause hangovers like this. Just get it up, Oz.” Break didn’t need to tell him. His stomach was taking care of that all by itself. As he retched into the towel, he tried to distract himself by clinging to Break’s soothing words. Break was usually more creepy than anything, but it seemed he had a caring side after all.

“But I don’t think I’ve ever gotten sick from sedatives before.” Alice wondered aloud.

“They don’t affect everyone.” Break explained, warily keeping his eye on the towel.

“Wait, why have you been sedated before?” Gilbert demanded, and Oz could just imagine the suspicious look on his face.

“You haven’t?” Alice shot back, equally surprised.

Oz coughed up one last stream of sick. He felt the moment his cramping stomach relaxed, his body now rid of the poison (hopefully). He spat into the towel a couple of times, which turned everyone’s attention back to him.

“Are you done?” Break asked, to which Oz nodded again. He spat once more, and then before he could speak, Break lifted up a dry corner of the towel and wiped his mouth, leaving Oz stunned and surprised. As a small contribution to the unfortunate situation, Gilbert opened the carriage door closest to Break, and Break tossed the soiled towel out of the moving carriage, never to be seen again.

“I’m sorry about that.” Oz told them in a croaky but otherwise cheerful voice.

“Don’t be,” Break assured him. “Are you feeling better?”

“I feel so much better!” he chirped, laying down to rest his head against the window. Now safe and with his stomach settled, Oz could feel his eyelids growing heavy. He let them slip shut.

“I’m glad you gave us warning and all,” Break began “but you were so calm about vomiting. It was kind of creepy...”

“Yeah, you told us so calmly I thought you were joking!” Alice agreed in dismay. “Don’t do that again! Oz?”

“He’s sleeping already?” Gilbert remarked in confusion.

“What is with that brat...” Break shuddered, and Oz felt a warm glow of amusement as he drifted off to sleep.

#pandora hearts #oz vessalius #gilbert nightray #xerxes break #alice baskerville #sickfic #nausea #sick #vomiting #emeto #sedatives #kidnapping #ph #ph emeto

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otomesruinedmylife · 6 years

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#emberplays: doki doki literature club

AKA. Why Doki Doki Literature Club is So Freaking Good The First Time You Play It and It’ll Blow Your Goddamn Mind (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ

When I first posted this on my other tumblr it was way before any youtuber did a letsplay of it, so I’m gonna have to rewrite parts of it and readdress some things. Thats not at all saying I dislike them, I actually found a majority entertaining. But now everyone pretty much knows what happens in DDLC, the jig is up and we all are #triggered with two infamous words.

So, listen. I know what you’re thinking. Why am I recommending a totally moe looking VN? I’m not moe, I don’t go gaga for animu girls. But I do love me some visual novels, and I love me some meta-level fuckery. Doki Doki Literature Club is a ren’py VN that just (now somewhat) recently came out that looks completely harmless. What could possibly go wrong? And It’s COMPLETELY FREE, yes you heard me, free. So fucking play it (unless it's going to trigger you, in which case pls don’t). And it’s… really interesting.

Spoilers and heavy triggers for DDLC under the cut (I didn’t want to spoil that but I think it's only fair to let you know what you’re clicking on)

Ĵ̷̙̑ ̴̳̯̘̞̘̺͍̩͔̙̘̗̲͚͊̍͑͋̒̽U̵̡͓͖̰̣̪̫̘̐͜͝ͅ ̶͇̮͎̝̫̩̊͊̊͛͘Ş̸̛̥͓͙̞͕̼͗̽̽́̈́̈́̽́̚̚̚̚ͅ ̶̡̨͍̰̽͋̀͆̊͑̂̅̓͆͠T̴̪̝̼̖͙̲͎͖̘̩̒͆͜ ̴̨̘͈̘̬̱̟͕͖͔͈̞̺̇̆͋̏̀͋̇̉͒͒͝ ̶̧͓̥̻͒̓́̊̈́̔͑̀͆͗͊͜M̴̘͚̀̑̆͒̋͌̈́̕͝ ̷̧̡̞̹͙̖̣̝̖̣̜̙̻͋̅͠͠ͅO̶̢̡͉͓̞̰͔̬̔̊͆̊̄͗̆͝͝ ̷̫̦̱̹̈́N̵̘̺̬̰͍̗͙̾͂̈́͊ ̷̺̲̝̜̦̘̒̈́́̈́͜Ï̷͉̻̖͉̣̥̣͕̟͍̜͍̳̥͎̋͂͑̆̋̇̊͆̆͗͘̚͘͘ ̸̡̧̨̙̻͈̮̻̫̤͖͉̱̟̤͗̈̔͑́̂̚̚͘͝Ķ̷̧̮̼͓̺͓̱̹̩̅̈́͝ͅ ̵̧̥͍͓̬̻̙̀͋͆͜ͅͅA̶̢̲͎͎͕̟̋̇̎́̐̍͛͐̈́͋̕͝͝͝͠ ̵̛̦̺̖̘̝̜͕̮͇̤͔͈͐̓͐͂̀̏̈͒͊̏͋͝͝͠J̴̝̼̫̃̃͌̅̏́̈́̽̒̊̋̏̚͝͝ ̷̡̢͚̬̜̯͍̲̰͎̩̮̤́͋̈́͑͊́͆̈́̀̃͘͝Ų̸̨̼͓̬͉͖̰̜̣̺͔͇̀̔̐̎͒ ̷͇̲̗͎̱͖̮̳̹̜̜̬̦̠̖̈́̒̾͋̽̍̿̌̽̋̏͑́̕̚S̴̢̰͎̯̪̠̗̏̈́͗͒̓̍͊͜͝ͅ ̷̠͑̈́T̷̮̾̂͊̂̎̈́̊͑̍̍͘ ̷̛͖̺͚̬͎̠̥̱̓͐̔͆͂̈͋̕͜ ̶̨͙̣̭̺̬̙͚͖͔̭̰͓̠̇̈́̐̊͘͠͠M̸̮̹̾̎͌̃͠͠ ̸̮̱̗̤̖̼̺̟͍̓O̷̢̡͓̗͇̰͈͕̟̫̓͝ ̸̨̛̛̲̮̞̑̈́̇̀͋̀͐͆́͘͘̚͠Ń̶̖͕̖͉̱̝̃̊̈ͅ ̵̙͇̠̜͔̖̖̯̪͔͊̋Ị̴̮̺̬̈́͗́̀ ̷̯͖̤͙̬̜͈͔̪̮̳͔̄͂͂̂̎͊͗͠͠K̴̹̳͈̰̫̖̠͈͛̔́̐̓̅͋̈́͂̎͘͜ͅ ̷̠͔̗̳̲͕̲̱̪̊͂̅́̚Ḁ̵̡̠͍͔̩̲̦̯̗̔͐͑ ̴̡̡͎͔̳̻̣̞͎͚̠̀͑̍̃̌̂́̊̒͐̓̚͝ͅͅJ̶̠͑̀́̑̔́̋̉̉̋̀̚͘͠ ̵͙̖̘͓͔̄͗͌̍̉̅̈̾́͘Ų̶̹̂͘͜ ̵̹̗̠͙͉̪̜̜̦̏̅Ṡ̸͖̤͚̣͕͔͙͖̯̞̬̪͇̌̀̋͑̇̂̔͝ ̵̢̛̖͉̟̹̩̇͐̐̽͆̑̊̓̂̏̾̚T̸̲͙̼͉̓̒ ̴̢̛̛̛̠̑̒̀͛̽͑̀̍͒͌͘͜ ̵̧̗̩̲̈́̏̐̅͆̽̋Ḿ̶̡̼̤̯̥̳̤̰̠͍͍͔̝̯ ̷̢̦̓Ǫ̸̞̳͇̜̮̜̞̉͆͐̍̎͂͗̔͆́ ̴͚̂̍͜͠N̸̨͌̃͌̑͒̄̚̚͝ ̶̢̡̼̩͙͈̬̰̬̙̞̔́̒͌̅̑̓͛͛́ͅI̵̟̗̤̲̹͍͍̖͊́̎͒̃̽̓͒͒͊̕͘ ̴̛̱̿̄̑̈́̇͑̂̎͘͝K̴̝̜̑̏̾̿́̒͗͊ͅ ̸̡͍̠͐̅̒̈͂̓͆̉̚͝Ȃ̷̧͍̗̲͇͇̱̜̊͛̀̎̐͛̌̈͜ ̴̡̡͎͔̳̻̣̞͎͚̠̀͑̍̃̌̂́̊̒͐̓̚͝ͅͅJ̶̠͑̀́̑̔́̋̉̉̋̀̚͘͠ ̵͙̖̘͓͔̄͗͌̍̉̅̈̾́͘Ų̶̹̂͘͜ ̵̹̗̠͙͉̪̜̜̦̏̅Ṡ̸͖̤͚̣͕͔͙͖̯̞̬̪͇̌̀̋͑̇̂̔͝ ̵̢̛̖͉̟̹̩̇͐̐̽͆̑̊̓̂̏̾̚T̸̲͙̼͉̓̒ ̴̢̛̛̛̠̑̒̀͛̽͑̀̍͒͌͘͜ ̵̧̗̩̲̈́̏̐̅͆̽̋

(TRIGGER WARNINGS: SUICIDE, CUTTING, DEPRESSION.)

To really talk about why I enjoy DDLC so much, unfortunately, we need to talk about when this cute moe dating sim turns into a glitchy acid horrorshow. The game starts with you choosing your name and being introduced, and then the game introducing your next door neighbor and close friend Sayori who looks like a bubbly ray of sunshine. She convinces you to join her (*surprise*) literature club at school, and you meet three other girls: Nasuki, Yuri and Monika. They seem like pretty nice girls. Nasuki is the typical young tsundere, Yuri the quiet passionate type, and Monika, who seems, well… pretty normal. You join their club and immediately get wrangled into things and this is when it starts taking a weird turn. Monika breaks the fourth wall. Yuri drops she’s into some weird shit. Nasuki has troubles at home. And Sayori might have a little bit of a crush on you.

Then you have to write a poem.

UHH GAME, WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE POEM WORD CHOICES????

This process repeats but the game starts forcing you (or at least in my playthrough) into decisions, which in my experience with VNs is a telltale sign of an Oncoming Bad End (see mysme, amnesia, etc.) Monika becomes an ominous figure of knowledge (at first I thought maybe she was a yandere stalker… oh, was I wrong). Yuri goes batshit crazy yandere obsessed with you. Natsuki keeps a somewhat level head, surprisingly enough.

Sayori though, poor Sayori has it pretty rough. You find out she’s dealing with a surprisingly accurate depiction of MDD (major depressive disorder) at least by cutesy video game standards.

Shit gets real when the day of the festival when Sayori ends up being missing and Monika heavily lampshades something bad. You race home and the game starts glitching out as you find Sayori has committed suicide. Having seen a fair amount of bad endings in VNs, I was like “wow this is over the top, but ok” and the music gets lowkey terrifying. I was expecting to see the BAD END screen as most otomes go and for the title screen to show up and it does, but YOUR SAVE FILES ARE MISSING. (nice page out of cheritz book y’all, good shit ;) )

This is refered to as ACT 2 of the game and the demarcation line of when we realize we are playing a horror game not an otome. The title screen is glitchy and corrupted over where Sayori was. And then the game starts bugging the fuck out and shit gets real. Shadow selves with darkened text, crazy yandere eyes and Monika handwaving everything away. The poetry gets to a level of insanity that’s unreal as Yuri basically goes cuil theory on your ass at one point.

Anyway, JUST MONIKA, amirite?

Let’s skip ahead then backtrack. What I think makes this game so great is the level of awareness we must assume Monika has. She’s completely aware she’s in a video game and is forced to watch her friends around her be romance options and fall in love, but she’s been relegated to the role of side character and thinks she has no agency in the story. And this takes a toll on her sanity. She tells you in The Final Room that she started messing with the character data to make you dislike the others, but since it backfired and it only drew you closer to each of the other girls she had to take more drastic measures.

Completely frustrated after all the corruption of their data doesn’t work, she resorts to pushing Sayori’s depression to suicide. Letting Yuri’s cutting finish in a finale of garbled text and stabbing herself to death only to let you stay with her as she rots over the weekend at school. Nasuki gets outright deleted from the game on a whim by Monika, and then she goes so far as to delete everything so it’s just the two of you sitting in a room. The assumption is that it’s a pretty permanent situation. Try turning the game on and off at this point. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, Monika is without a doubt, one of the best versions of how a yandere knowing the meta of the situation can make a situation horrifying. Think like Yuno Gasai from Mirrai Nikki. If you know the plot and have god-levels of information, you can fuck around mercilessly with the viewer/player. And Monika does. The slow descent into madness the game takes because of her corruption of the game is probably my favorite part. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it changes of the characters, music, and surroundings. And the railroading you into choices giving you such a sense of helplessness as you play. I really felt like I was on a train off the tracks by Act 2 and it was great.

You really think you have choices (at least at the end), but the more and more I think about this and go in for another playthrough I don’t think you ever truly have ANY choices and Monika’s holding all the cards. It begs the question what is Monica supposed to be? A sentient AI? What actually is Doki Doki Literature Club? Some weird form of a reverse turing test once you get to the Monica Room? It’s bizarre and oddly novel in its take on the VN horror genre by stripping you of any power to do anything and sit back terrified as it gets meta on you. No matter what you do the culmination of the game is essentially the same and there’s no real happy end in sight or resolution once you realize that even the game is aware it’s not real. At that point you are finishing it to finish it, to come to an ending.

And that's simultaneously the best and worst part about it, but man I can’t complain, that was a wild 5 hours of my life....

Oh, by the way, hope you’re familiar with deleting files out of your game library, because Monika isn’t going anywhere until you do... still she has like tons of unique conversation if you wanna stay and chat for a while.

I did enjoy her anguish when I got rid of her even though I ended up really liking her later. I’m excited to see what happens because she’s rumored to be the protagonist in the next team salvato game. Yeah.

My only complaint of this game is once you know the premise it really doens’t hold replayability value, quite the same as anything from the horror genre is never really as scary as the first time around. It does what it does so well its not the same and is basically only worth playing again to fuck with your unassuming friends.

Which I, of course, did.

What did you guys think of DDLC? Was it over the top? Did you know what was going to happen? Or have it spoiled? Have you tried deleting other character files and playing the game or decoded any of the secret info files?

Send your thoughts to my inbox and stay tuned for the next time #emberplays otomes!

NEXT TIME: #Emberplays: Keisuke Sanan (Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds) LAST TIME: #Emberplays: Toma Time (Amnesia: Memories)

#doki doki literature club #ddlc #just monika #otome review #visual novel #visual novel review #my review #emberplays #yanderewatch #tw: violence #tw: sucide mention

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youremyonlyhope · 6 years

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Children of Earth: Day One

AKA Torchwood takes the “creepy child in a horror movie” trope to a global level.

Apparently I hate myself since I’m rewatching this season for the first time. Even though it’s so painful I haven’t ever watched it since the first time back in 2013.

Kids walking willingly (or so it seems at this point) into a bright light. Ok. Totally normal and not a creepy way to start the episode. I just know that at some point in this post I’m gonna start saying “I hate this why am I doing this to myself all over again?” in every other line. Not yet. But it will happen. Maybe not in Day One. But definitely by Day Two. CAPALDI! MY LOVE! The first time I’d ever seen him. Oh. Oh I’m already in pain. Why am I doing this???? Wow look at that it only took one more scene to get me started on that. OH GOD STEVEN. I ALWAYS BLOCK THIS OUT AND THEN REMEMBER IT AND THEN BLOCK IT OUT ALL OVER AGAIN. I’m glad that Gwen has an eye for weird stuff though and noticed the kids. Oh the Hub. For the last time. OH GOD WHY IS IT NOW HITTING ME THAT THIS IS ALL JUST 5 DAYS WHAT THE HELL. The first time I watched this, I finished Exit Wounds just before. I remember having to clean part of the living room that day, and I know I cleaned it either just before starting Exit Wounds or just after finishing it, so maybe I had a half hour break between this and Exit Wounds if that’s when I cleaned. But either way, I had just watched Exit Wounds before this and Gwen saying good morning to the picture of Owen and Tosh hit me way too hard in the feels. OH RUPESH. I LIKED HIM. I WANTED HIM TO STICK AROUND AND NOT BETRAY THEM. RUPESH. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU. Remind me to use that Tyra gif when the betrayal happens. You boys need to get better at faking sadness. Now I’m remembering that this season, while not as bad as Countrycide, was a little gorey... I mean, if only that laser knife could be real.

Rupesh: *Sees “Torchwood” written on the van* You’re Torchwood! Jack: *Getting into the Torchwood van* Never heard of them.

I laughed out loud. I love this show. Most well-known secret organization ever. And Jack barely even tries to hide it. “This whole city talks about you.” I LAUGHED OUT LOUD AGAIN. I LOVE TORCHWOOD. Rupesh is smart. He thought of a interesting case. Ugh he had so much potential and used it for the wrong side. Hey it’s my girl Lois! Sad Martha couldn’t be here, but Lois, girl, you stole my heart. I love you. She’s arriving at the same time as Frobisher. Oh my god watching this when he becomes the Doctor later on is so trippy. Oh my god. Asking for easy alien stuff. Wow. “No, you get killed, not me. You die like a dog. Like an ugly dog.” OK Jack you’re gonna regret that foreshadowing in a few episodes. “What’s his uniform? That’s not British Army, is it?” MY GIRL LOIS. SHE HAS A GOOD EYE. “So far we’re the only ones with software clever enough to piece this all together” HA. “Well, us and Torchwood.” Oh ok. Martha’s on her honeymoon. With Mickey but they don’t say it. God. If only they could have developed Martha and Mickey even the tiniest bit. Literally just Jack saying “I don’t know, she only met Mickey a year ago. I think they’re moving too fast.” and Gwen responding “Well I like him more than Tom, I’m glad that ended.” and then the show moves on with its life. Sure, that’d be the easy way out, but I prefer the easy way over what we got which was them barely even trying. I WANT to ship Martha and Mickey, JUST GIVE ME REASON TO. “Ask about Torchwood and most people point towards the bay.” You guys really have to get better at being a secret organization. I was about to say that I did not know Torchwood’s paid by the Crown, but then my brain was like “Queen Victoria founded it, you idiot.” But now I’m imagining Queen Elizabeth signing checks for Torchwood. God Rupesh. I remember thinking “Oh I’m gonna love him on the team” during his little speech about the suicides. I FORGOT THE SCREAMING. I LEGIT GASPED AND THREW MYSELF BACKWARDS OH MY GOD I FORGOT THE STUPID SCREAMING WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF THIS IS THE WORST. OH MY GOD. This screaming made me realize my right earbud might be dying. Either that or my hearing’s worse in that ear. I FORGOT THE ‘WE ARE COMING’S. I THOUGHT THEY WERE AT THE END OF THE EPISODE. Remember when the Not-British-Army dude was like “We’re not sure if it’s extraterrestrial yet” YEAH WELL THESE CHILDREN ARE SCREAMING “WE ARE COMING” SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IT’S PROBABLY EXTRATERRESTRIAL. Oh yeah and the old dude’s doing it too. “What’s in there?” “Big, science fiction superbase. Honestly. See ya.” See this is why Torchwood isn’t a secret. You just tell everyone your business. Oh god oh poor Lois. First day on the job. And there’s an international crisis. That isn’t even me making a joke, I immediately thought of Janice in Come From Away, her first day at the news station and she has to cover 7000 people arriving in Gander after 9/11. Aaaaand now I’m gonna cry. Oh Bridget will regret giving Lois that password. But also, it ends up helping save the world to an extent so it works out. Thanks Bridget. LOL literal red flag next to Jack’s name. Love it. Honestly I agree with this Dekker (Dekkler?) guy, all this is just more reason to not have kids. “So every single child in the whole wide world is speaking English.” Oh the British. Thinking they’re the center of the universe. Though, I really should not be speaking since I’m an American. “We can adopt a Filipino and get her to clean the chimneys” Woah wait what kind of line was that?!?!?!? What? Awww look at Rhys being useful, noticing patterns. “I’m going into England. Farewell forever.” Knowing that the Welsh hate England makes me happy. Wow Jack, you literally had to think to remember that you have a grandson. “What do you recommend that we do?” “You tell me.” See, look at that. Already pushing all the blame and responsibility onto Frobisher. At this point, Frobisher’s basically nothing so why would the Prime Minister say “You tell me.”??? He already plans to make him deal with it all. Ok but also Frobisher’s the one suggesting wiping the record so yeah you suck too. I love Capaldi with all my heart, but at this point I hate Frobisher. So yeah, wiping the records and pretending it didn’t happen, blame Frobisher. Everything else so far? Eh. Up in the air for now. I’ve blocked out everything about this entire season besides Ianto’s death, that scene about the Doctor (though I WISH I could forget that), and “John Frobisher is a good man.” “I’m not having my name on this.” Have some integrity Prime Minister. Now you’re officially to blame too because you agreed to it but knew it was wrong so you didn’t want to be connected. At least Frobisher was never planning on acting like he wasn’t a part of this. Rhiannon has the right idea about the group hysteria thing. She’s wrong, but it’s a great theory. “I just can’t stand it, Dad.” AND HERE’S 2013 ME GOING “WHAAAATTTTT” God this whole conversation about Steven just hurts. I’m glad Rhiannon’s supportive. Rhiannon’s husband coming in to ruin a nice moment. 52 in 2009, he would have only been 8 in 1965... HONESTLY TORCHWOOD, YOU’D THINK YOU PEOPLE WOULD BE BEYOND USING PHONES THAT CAN BE INTERCEPTED. TOSH, GIRL, YOU HAD TIME TO CREATE A TIME LOCK BUT NOT A SECURE PHONE LINE?? No but Tosh, girl, you are perfect I’m not mad I’m kidding I love you you’re the best. And Bridget in her mind is like “Oh great. I’m a part of a government coverup.” Yeah I’d have to get up and run away from my computer too. That’s how I feel after writing papers (Also! I just graduated college on Saturday! No more papers unless for some reason I decide to go to grad school!) and I can’t imagine how much worse the feeling is after deleting government records. My girl Lois. Snooping. I love her. But like, is killing the people involved really necessary? Like, can’t you just maybe lock them up in a jail until this all blows over? Jack. Where in the world did you get that car? You live at the Hub. Where do you park it? And did you pick TARDIS blue on purpose? RUPESH.

STILL NOT OVER THIS BETRAYAL. WATCHING THIS THE FIRST TIME I WAS LIKE “OH YES. GOOD. RUPESH JOINS THE TEAM AS A NEW MEDICAL OFFICER. I LIKE HIM.” AND THEN HE BETRAYS US. HOW COULD YOU, RUPESH!? Now here’s the thing: I’d love this lady if she wasn’t evil. And the government picked the worst person to be a part of a secret deal with aliens when they picked Jack. Yes, he seems like the best because he’s in Torchwood, but he’s the worst pick. If they have the option in the future of an Order to Kill, they should always think ahead “Hey, we’re doing this shady deal. It’s supposed to be a one time thing, but there’s the off chance it might come back to bite us. Let’s make sure everyone involved can be killed later on.” and not hire the one person who can never die. They could have avoided having to literally blow him up and collect the pieces. Or, you know, not have an order to kill option in the first place and lock them up until it blows over. Just a suggestion. “Who killed the Chinese man?” “I did. I had to, he just fitted the story.” “Then get off your high horse, then.” Girl has a point. Wow I wish I could love her. I love Jack. I love that his resurrections are always perfectly timed. “Do you think it’s true, what they say about him?” *Jack dramatically comes back to life.* Even in death, Jack lives for the drama. His immortality ability was like “...just... give it... 2 more seconds... ok they’re talking about Jack TIME TO WAKE UP.” And I LOVE that she was so ready to shoot him again. Girl was ready. I love it. It’s terrifying that the soldiers are like “Oh she’s shooting someone as they run away again.” and know to go off to the sides. You know, the theory of Jack’s immortality being connected to the rift isn’t a bad one either. It’s wrong, but the logic is there. All these people thinking of great theories, unfortunately they don’t take aliens into account. “They kill you?” “Yeah.” *Ianto gives Jack a comforting hug.* I LOVE TORCHWOOD. And everything’s falling apart at once. Gwen’s having a baby, Jack’s having a bomb, and all the kids are speaking with demon voices again. “We are coming... back.” Now that’s how you end an episode.

Yeah so Day One is not as painful as the rest of the days. But it’s still VERY dramatic.

Ok. Gotta find time to watch Day Two over the next week. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.

RIP Torchwood Three Hub. 1885-2009. (Also while looking up the year Torchwood Three started, I found out that it was founded by a woman name Agnes Havisham. So, good for her.) But seriously, the Hub’s gone, and my heart died with it.

UPDATE 2 days later: WHAT HAPPENED TO MYFANWY AND JANET!!?!?!?!?!?! All of season 1 and 2 I kept bringing up how I wonder what happened to them after the explosion, but then once I get up to the episode with the explosion I forget about them. ARE THEY OK!? Please tell me Janet escaped to the sewers somehow and that Myfanwy flew away and is off being happy and safe.

#hope rewatches torchwood #ignore me if you want

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maryonthedaily-blog1 · 6 years

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Our Love/Proposal Story

As I sit here as a newly engaged woman, I cannot put into words the moments leading up to the night he proposed. I will, however, attempt to as my family & friends have been wondering exactly what, how, and where it all took place. Let me begin by painting our story, as it isn’t a storybook romance as everyone may imagine. I had gotten out of a bad relationship and was finally open to the idea of meeting someone new and with work taking most of my time, the dating poll was slim to none. I decided to get into online dating. After quite a lot of online dating outlets and dates with several men. I hit a wall when trying to find “The One.” I decided I was making it difficult for myself so I began to stop searching for “The One” and went on dates to just meet new people. Fast forward to May 2016, I logged into my POF (Plenty of Fish) account and received a message from username: Dr. Mclovin (hahaha he’s so lame). The message that followed was a tad corny but it made me laugh.

Dr. Mclovin: “Do you like Aqua- Barbie Girl?”

If you know me, you know I love corny. Well, I left his message to linger in my mailbox for a week until I decided to message back with…

Mmarynn: “Haha…Is that what you are into?”

I was about to delete this message from my mailbox but I wanted to see if he was witty so I decided to respond. Boy, am I glad I did!

Dr. Mclovin: “Yeah, I love waking up and getting ready to it. Haha”

We proceeded to text throughout the morning and afternoon through POF until I gave him my number. I knew he was an old-school millennial when he asked to talk on the phone instead of texting. I was immediately intrigued. We spent the next week talking on the phone into the wee hours of 3am-4am every day. I was still hesitant meeting with him because I was afraid of getting hurt. My last relationship really did a number on me. We eventually went on our first date and it was magical! I was dating other guys and he knew I wasn’t looking for anything serious. However, I was drawn to him and eventually, I sent him a snap chat of the 100% emoji. Which means, I am 100% in and was ready to commit to him. His reaction was so sweet and genuine. Our dating life has been an absolute adventure. Fast-forward a year and a half later…

We’ve always told one another that if in a year we don’t see this relationship heading towards marriage than we should end it. I asked him to explain his thought process and everything he did leading up to his proposal. This next portion of our story is in his words.

I knew I wanted to marry you but it didn’t hit me until I was hanging out with my nieces one day. My niece was eating a fortune cookie and after reading her fortune she said she wanted to give it to me instead because I needed it. It read something similar to this, “What are you waiting for? You need to do it!” I immediately thought about us. We are not getting any younger and I know you wanted to start a family soon so I began to look at rings. After 3 months of research and asking your sister for advice, I purchased a ring. The hardest part was figuring out when to propose. I knew I did not want to ask you on Christmas or my birthday because I didn't want it to be cliché. I asked our friends, Tony and Ruby for help. The plan was to have Ruby call you and ask you if we were to go on a double date. It was the best decoy because we haven’t seen them in awhile and I knew you love to hang out with them. We set the date for December 9th and the location was supposed to be a surprise because Tony had a gift card to a nice restaurant and wanted to surprise us.

Unfortunately, the week of the proposal you fell ill but everything was already set I knew I couldn’t change it. So, on Thursday, December 7th, 2017 I met with your Father, Mother, and older Sister (translator) while you were at work. I let him know that I loved his daughter and I wanted to ask him for your hand in marriage. After much discussion with the help of your Sister, your Father was happy to hand you over to me. He said he doesn’t look at me as a Son-in-Law but as his Son. Now, the only thing left for me to do was to ask you. I was very nervous because the only things you asked for when I decide to propose to you was to make sure your nails were done and someone to take photos and video. Your Sister said December 9th would be great to propose because you got your nails done for your Brothers wedding a week before. Well, can you imagine my horror when I walked in on you on December 8th peeling off your acrylics? Out of all the days, the night before the proposal.

The next part of our story would be in my words.

Friday, December 8th, 2017

Me: What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me weird? (peeling off nails)

Him: You don’t want to keep your nails for date night?

Me: You’re right, I didn’t think about that. I already took off one so I have to take it all off.

10 minutes later…

Him: (staring at me taking off my nails…)

Me: What? You know I do this. I can’t keep nails on for long.

Him: Nothing…

Little did I know everything that could go wrong just went wrong?

Saturday, December 9th, 2017

The next morning I mentioned in the car while running errands that I kind of wanted to get my nails done. He said he was going to drop me off if I wanted to. I said it was going to be a waste of money so I changed my mind. He didn’t want to push me too much because it would be obvious something was up.

We were getting ready and of course, I was done getting ready before him. I usually don’t have a say in what I want him to wear but he was wearing pants a little too large for him. He said he felt comfortable in it and was adamant about wearing them. I let it go. He wanted to wear them because he was hiding the ring box in it. We eventually arrived in beautiful Laguna Beach at the Surf and Sand Resort. After sitting down he immediately said, “Let’s order drinks!” He said he was nervous and wanted a drink right away. After amazing conversations with our friends about marriage and kids and a delicious meal, the time has come for him to pop the question to me. He excused himself to use the restroom. Not even 5 minutes after he came back I notice our waiter coming walking over with champagne. I looked and thought it was for the table next to ours. As I continue to talk to our friends I hear our waiter…

Waiter: “Champagne for Mrs. Su.”

Me: (looks over at waiter) “Mrs. Su? Are you playing a joke on me?”

Me: (looks over at our friends)

Friends: (Cameras out)

Me: (looks over at him)

Him: (down on one knee with red box in hand)

Me: “Oh my God, no!”

Him: “I never thought I would propose to a girl so soon. But you are not just any girl. You are beautiful, smart, and sexy. You know how to fold my clothes just the way I like it. I love you so much baby, will you marry me?”

Me: “Yes! Why did I take off my nails? Hahaha”

Him: Haha… “I told you!”

We spent the rest of our dining experience toasting with our friends. After contacting our family and friends with the good news he had another surprise for me. Our friends led us to a room filled with roses and chocolates overlooking the ocean. What? He did not just book a room overlooking the ocean? He knew how much I love the ocean and Laguna Beach is my favorite place he wanted to make it special for us. I never experienced waking up with the ocean in front of me. Not only did he make my dreams come true by asking me to marry him but also he gifted me with a beautiful room in Laguna Beach. I spent the next morning drinking my tea in my robe on our balcony listening to the waves wash against the shore.

I wondered why he chose Surf and Sand Resort instead of The Montage Resort because that was my favorite place in Laguna. Then it hit me; I only go to The Montage when I am struggling with something in my life. I drive to there to clear out my negative thoughts and to figure out why I am so lost. He wanted me to see Laguna Beach in a new light by creating a better memory. I sat there and was overwhelmed with emotion because now Laguna is not a place where I go to find myself. I can look back at Laguna and remember I am no longer lost because I am finally saved by my love.

#relationships #relationship goals #proposal #proposalstory #plentyoffish #POF #onlinedating #dating #ourlovestory #engaged #isaidyes #engagementstory #engagement #mytruelove #myforever #lagunabeach #surfandsandresort

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sending-the-message · 7 years

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I Lost My Family to the Deep Web by Erick_Alden

Allow me to just preface this by saying that I never used the deep web for anything too bad. I never bought drugs. I never stole movies or music. Hell, I rarely even looked at porn. I had the most generous wife you could ever imagine. I honestly didn’t need porn with a woman like that in my life. I had always been fascinated by computers but the town I grew up in was a small hick town if that. I remember hearing about computers and the internet, and the idea of it blew me away. Being able to access information from anywhere in the world was amazing, and it astounded me that it wasn’t embraced and pursued by more people. So, I not only lived in a technology desert, but my family wasn’t exactly rich either.

My mom slaved away at a large corporation where she was paid much less than she was worth. My dad worked various odd jobs, but always invested most of his time into the local church. He was a stereotypical bible thumper, and as one might expect, I grew to resent the religion. I always felt like religion was a one-way street. They expected me to pray to and serve some deity in the sky and all those who don’t would burn in hell. My interest in history led me to the realization that every religion was similar in that regard. And that, for me, was enough to dismiss them all.

Thankfully they raised my sister and me to work hard. We both went to college and got decent jobs. She became a nurse and moved to New York. I followed my passion for history, and eventually became a world history teacher at a small high school.

I married my high school sweetheart shortly after getting my teaching job, and we moved into a more populated suburb not too far from where I grew up. We found a nice house that was close enough to both of our jobs. My wife and I had been saving up money because we were trying to have a child, although it was taking longer than we thought. After about a year of trying, we saw a doctor. He said that we were both able and healthy, but it would take some more time. This was almost nice in a way because we had more money than we needed for when the baby came. I decided to take a few hundred dollars and get that computer I’d been dreaming about for years. I was so excited when my wife agreed that I should. We couldn’t raise a kid in this day and age without a computer after all, right? Well, I put it in our home office. And I quickly became enamored with the thing. I can honestly say, that my life would have been so much better if I’d had one of these growing up. I could literally learn anything in the world I wanted. I found myself reading dozens of articles, speeches, books, and watching tutorials. I could not have been any happier. Time marched on and I found myself finishing up the semester and getting ready for the summer. It got pretty boring honestly. I still got paid for it, but because the school was such a crappy district, there weren’t many things for teachers to get involved in over the summer.

That was when my genuine interest in the internet became something of an addiction. I was on that thing at nearly all hours of the day. Since my wife and I were still trying to have a baby, we were having sex like two animals. Life could not have gotten any better. Unfortunately, when things get that good, they can only get worse. It was a month and a half through the summer vacation when I found myself reading the same shit on the internet. There was nothing new, or at the very least nothing worth learning about. However, I did recall hearing about something strange. It was called the deep web. I never studied it in depth, but I eventually had a basic understanding of it. I downloaded Tor and starting looking around online. I made sure to be extra careful because I have heard stories of people being stalked, kidnapped, or even killed from using the deep web.

I found myself staring at dozens of random links on the hidden wiki at 3 o’clock in the morning. I kept clicking away until something, anything useful came up. I did end up finding a lot of mathematics and science stuff, but I’m a history teacher, I’d rather learn about history. A few more hours of searching and I found something that at least remotely peaked my interest. It was a conspiracy theory page. Now I don’t consider myself to be anything of a conspiracy theorist, nor am I the least bit paranoid about things like the Illuminati. But these were some of the most solid arguments for foul play from the government I had ever seen. There were classified documents, in-depth research, and an overwhelming amount of evidence for almost every theory I saw. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few that seemed a bit farfetched, but the vast majority of them made some damn good arguments.

Eventually, I couldn’t hold my eyes open any longer and had to go to bed. I powered down my computer and as quiet as a mouse, crawled into bed with my tender loving wife. I felt a bit of a void between us though, she never had the lust for knowledge like I did, and if I were to ever tell her about the crazy and interesting things I read online, she’d playfully tease me that she was falling asleep or something to that effect. The next day, I was right back on the deep web looking for new things to widen my world view. Nearly an hour had gone by and all I had found was a bunch of broken links. I was about to sign off when a box appeared in the corner of my screen with a link in it. Being as naïve as I was, I clicked on it. I was absolutely mortified at what I saw next. At first glance, I thought the abomination on my computer screen was some kind of a torture video. No. I was dead wrong.

A toddler whimpered as he sat there gagged and bound. Covered in blood and piss, he begged the man in frame to stop, but to no avail. A deranged man in a Guy Fawkes mask stared at the camera as he thrust his body to and fro. A few seconds went by when the man finished, and he got up to do a strange dance. If there was a cross between a football player’s victory dance and a circus clown’s opening act, the resulting atrocity might resemble the strange act the man performed over that poor child.

To my horror, I realized it was a live feed hooked up to a webcam with a live chat box on the side. It took a few minutes for the shocking realization to fully wash over me. After I’d collected myself, I foolishly started to read what was in the live chat box. The most horrid and disgusting things you can imagine were being requested. I had a hard time believing that real people were behind a keyboard somewhere in the world typing these things. I really don’t want to go into too much detail about what they were saying. It suddenly dawned on me that I could just close this shit and be over with it. I jolted the mouse and clicked to X out the page, but nothing happened. I felt my stomach drop.

“What… what the hell is going on?” I kept asking myself. I’d never heard of anything like this happening. I was about to manually reboot my computer when the man from the video stream called out my full name. “Leaving so soon Mr. Edwards?” “Off to teach another history lesson at that little shithole you call a high school?” He asked in a rough, distorted tone.

I had no idea what to do. I clicked every button on the computer, keyboard, and mouse. No matter what I did, there was no reaction. I heard him start reading off my credit card information and I’d had enough. I unplugged my computer from the back and powered it down. It was a relief to have finally left that nightmare of a web page. I was in awe at the speed he was able to get my personal information.

I changed my credit card number and any other information I could. My wife was a bit suspicious but she didn’t pry too much at it. We had a very trusting relationship, and I didn’t want to frighten her, so I kept the incident to myself. A few days went by and I didn’t even go into my office. I left my computer in there unplugged, admittedly scared to turn that damned thing on ever again. I knew I’d have to eventually face my fear, so I entered the office. I booted her up and everything seemed to be normal. I deleted Tor and made sure to be done with the deep web. I casually loaded up google chrome and everything seemed to be perfectly fine. Nothing seemed to come to fruition from my little mishap and decided I was going to be safe after all. Oh, how wrong I was…

About 5 months later, my wife’s sister ended up moving in. She really was such a pleasant woman, and we did have extra space so we decided to allow her to stay with us. It was just a few weeks later that my wife and I got the good news. She was pregnant. She was already a couple weeks in, and she and the baby were both healthy and in good shape. It was the best feeling in the world getting that news. I had gotten back into the swing of things with my job and occasionally reading some decent articles on the internet. It wasn’t long before we were days away from the birth of our daughter. I had completely forgotten about the events that had transpired the night I decided to use the deep web.

It was a typical Sunday afternoon. I sat on my back porch drinking some cold sweet tea and listening to the hum of nature. Natural life can be so beautiful. Alone I sat, in a serene peace, seemingly impenetrable from the vile world that lay outside the boundaries of my own little haven. That was when I heard a crash and screaming coming from my house. Immediately I thought it was my sister-in-law watching TV too loud, which she had a tendency to do, but then I heard my wife sobbing uncontrollably. Panic sunk into my heart and I dashed into the house. I entered the large living room just in time to see a large masked man slit my wife’s throat. I screamed at him but he didn’t even acknowledge my existence. I was screaming uncontrollably and ran toward him with intent to kill.

I smashed a glass lamp over his head but he didn’t even flinch. I was questioning if he even felt it or not. He turned around and grabbed me by my throat. He lifted me up off the ground and brought my face close to his. “You thought I forgot about you, boy?” I instantly recognized him as the man from that deep web live stream I saw all those months ago. That was the last thing I remember before waking up.

I awoke to see my sister-in-law’s mangled corpse on the floor. It looked like she’d been cut in fucking half. To my horror, I saw my beloved wife’s body there, drenched in blood. I sobbed uncontrollably for some time. I’m still not sure how much time passed while I knelt there and sobbed. Time may very well have stood still for all I knew or cared. But after I composed myself, I noticed something strange about my wife’s corpse. Her stomach was not nearly as large as I had remembered it to be. I crawled over to analyze her body further. The wicked idea danced across my imagination. I pushed her on her side and my hunch turned out to be true.

That sick bastard had cut my child out of my wife and had taken it. It was certainly far along enough to have been born at this point. What the fuck was I going to do? I called the police and the operator’s apparent apathy toward the situation did nothing but anger me.

“911 what’s the emergency.” The operator said in an uninterested tone. “Someone killed my family, and I think they took my daughter.” I frantically let out in a single breath. I continued to tell them my address. “We’ll have someone over there as soon as we can.”

The way she said that, frustrated me. Here I am, sitting in a puddle of my family’s blood. My life’s been drastically changed forever, and she makes it seem as if it’s just another day at the office. Where’s the empathy? Where is the compassion for your fellow human being?

After days of investigation and questioning, they were unable to find the killer or my daughter. I told those lazy fucking cops that this man found me and my family because I used the deep web. But because it was so long ago, and I couldn’t find the website again, they couldn’t do anything about it. They called it a random act of heinous violence, and within two weeks. The story did make the local news, but nothing more happened than that. I guess it wasn’t shocking enough. The whole incident was forgotten and people were worried about the next terrible thing. How could I live with myself after this? My entire family was dead because I was snooping around something I had no business to be partaking in. The following weeks were the worst of my life. I would drink as soon as I got up, and then drink all day. Alcohol was the only escape from this fucked up reality I had to live with. I was a shell of a human, nothing more than a clusterfuck of negative, hideous emotions. Misery became my only companion, but I had no one to be miserable with. I had to live this horrible fate alone.

Years had gone by when I looked into the mirror to see the unshaven face I’d come to despise. Every day I thought about where my daughter might be.

“Maybe they sent her away to live with a nice loving family across the country.” I half-heartedly deluded myself. Deep down, I knew she was most likely raised in some human trafficking ring where she’d be beaten, raped or even worse; in some hellhole filled with those sick fucks. I slowly made my way to my porch when I saw a familiar vehicle pull into my driveway. I could barely remember who it belonged to. When I saw his face I instantly recognized him. It was my father. I hadn’t seen him in years.

“Son I know you’re hurting, but this is no way to live your life. Do you think you can move on?” I looked up at him grimacing. “Do you think I’d be here doing this if I could move on?”

He gave me a rough look and said that I needed to get revenge. He placed a revolver on the table in front of me, gave me a stern nod, and left. I was honestly shocked. This was the most religious man I’d known in my life who argued against the killing of any kind. I didn’t know if I could do it, but I started to think of how many people those bastards had done this to. I can’t be the only one. So, if I were to theoretically go through with this, I’d really be doing the world a service. No fuck that. I’m avenging my family, and I’m going to save my daughter. Over the next couple of days, I drained my bank account and purchased thousands of dollars in weaponry and ammunition. I quickly realized there was a lot of illegal stuff that would come in real handy. I turned back to the deep web to buy spying equipment, heavy weapons, and explosives. It took about a month to gather enough supplies for my suicide mission, and as I sat in my basement with thousands of rounds of ammunition, pounds of explosives and, almost 20k dollars in spying equipment, I knew I was going to wreak havoc on these sons of bitches once and for all.

Days went by, and I began to feel lethargic about the whole situation. I hadn’t any idea of how I was going to find these people, or even if I could. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Two weeks went by of endless hours on the deep web, looking for the bastard who’d taken my family away from me. I came across something that seemed almost familiar in a way. It was another live stream of people torturing a child. I felt a vile hatred rise up from the pit of my stomach. I knew this wasn’t my guy, but I’d grown too impatient to wait any longer. “If I can’t find the needle in the haystack, I guess I’m just going to have to burn down the entire thing.” I thought to myself with hatred oozing from my pores. I made use of some of the spying equipment I bought and was able to figure out where these bastards were broadcasting from. An evil grin stretched across my face when I figured out they were right here in my own state.

I loaded my car with a machine gun, an AK-47, and C-4. I started my drive. This may have been the longest two hours of my life. I was so excited to finally kill some of these sick disgusting people. After almost taking a wrong turn, I found the rusty old barn house the torture porn was being broadcasted from. There were surprisingly only a few people there. A total of 4 men were running this operation. I watched for a while, but they never came out of the barn house. With my AK-47 in hand, I made my way to the entrance. I could see them raping a small boy, no older than twelve. He was crying hysterically, and covered in blood. They were completely oblivious to me. I aimed my rifles sight down. Admittedly, it took me a minute to actually pull the trigger. Pulling it was much harder than I would have thought, but seeing these sickos violate this defenseless child made me realize these people really were better off dead.

I opened fire and screamed “FUCK YOU” as loud as my lungs would permit. From what I could tell, at least two of them were dead. One was shot, but alive, and the fourth noticed quickly enough and got behind a truck. He had a pistol on him and fired back at me. This guy must have been legally blind or something because he missed pretty damn bad. Minutes went by and I slowly crept around to the other side of the building. The one with the gun was screaming at the other one to get up, but he was clearly unable. I got as close to the other gunman as I could in preparation to kill him. I aimed my sight, but I must have made a noise because he heard me. He spun around and shot. The bullet nearly grazed my skull. The gunshot was deafening. I ran toward him, expecting him to have had just fired his last shot. He had. I put a bullet through that motherfucker’s head. I stood over his bloodied corpse for a brief minute. I wanted to spit on it, but I didn’t want to leave any evidence for the cops, so I resisted the urge. I walked over to the bloodied one I shot earlier. Laughing as I did, I placed my boot on his throat. He kept begging for his life, but there was a better chance of hell freezing over before I spared him. I made sure his last minutes on this earth were as miserable as possible. Glaring down at this sick man I knew I was doing the right thing. I knew I was ridding the world of scum.

“Please, don’t kill me. This wasn’t my idea.” He begged.

“What did you fucking say? You have the nerve to try and talk you way out of your inevitable death? How dare you.” I pulled my leg back, and in one swift motion I kicked his skull in. His gray matter spilled all over the floor. The poor boy was sobbing uncontrollably. I pulled out my pre-paid cell phone, dialed 911 and told them of the situation. I told the boy to forget this night and then turned to walk away.

The ride home seemed to drag on for hours. I’d heard so many things about having PTSD after killing people. So many articles online said that after killing someone, you’d almost always feel guilty, even if you know you did the right thing. But the truth was, I didn’t feel guilty at all. I felt powerful. More powerful than I’d ever felt in the years leading up to this day. I knew after I saw that babbling pile of shit beg for his life that I was going to kill again. It felt so right to have someone begging for their life, and knowing that you weren’t going to grant them their wish made it all the more satisfying.

My life continued like that for many months. I’d spend almost all my free time on the deep web trying to track down anything that could lead me to my daughter and killing anyone I deemed worthy to die. I was like an over the top vigilante or something. Jesus, those were the days. Eventually, I became more involved in the private sector and started accepting payments to kill people. I’d gained enough notoriety in the criminal world that almost anyone knew who I was. I just wish I could go back in time and tell myself how much more money I could make by simply killing people. It makes me realize what a waste of my life teaching those hopeless dipshits really was. I was making chump change compared to what I make now. People apparently pay good money to have someone killed. I’d already made just under 3 million in the past 6 months. And I didn’t even have to repeat the same monotonous lecture 7 times in a day.

I almost became apathetic about ever finding my daughter again. She was most likely dead, or even worse. She could be anywhere in the world, and the odds of ever finding her were next to none, I thought.

One day a connection of mine told me he had a really good gig set up. He said that if I could kill 3 people well enough, I could become a regular for an underground overlord. For those of you that don’t know, this was the kind of guy who had more money than God. He ran a lot of the underground operations and even had a strong affiliation with the silk road before it gone shut down. I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I jumped at the chance. I went over the information. I immediately realized these were going to be the highest profiled people I would ever kill.

When I first discovered I was going to have to kill a family with a young child I was mortified. The only people I have had to kill up to this point has been other criminals and sadists. How was I going to bring myself to take the lives of a seemingly innocent family? I would never even know why exactly I was being hired to kill them. You can’t ask questions like that to the higher ups though. Anyone who did was normally killed themselves, or at the very least ostracized by the organization they were trying to work for. It was a pretty serious business I got myself into. I had no problem with that. I only did what I was told, and nothing more. That was part of the reason I gained so much notoriety in my field. In fact, most people in this field never even get a chance to work for the overlord. And if you’re wondering why I keep referring to him as the overlord, it is because he does not communicate with you directly. There are a lot of people looking for him, and he’s responsible for billions in damage, and the loss of countless innocent lives, although they don’t have a lot of information on him as of right now, and will probably never catch him.

The next day, I was going to have to start tracking down this family I was ordered to kill. But that night, I was in a small bar in the middle of nowhere. Downing alcohol like there was no tomorrow and contemplating how exactly I was going to bring myself to do this. I knew in the pit of my stomach that I wasn’t a murderer. Well, let me rephrase that. Not a murderer of the innocent. I had no problem killing the evil men of the earth. I encountered so many sickos in my life. How could someone torture an animal or another person? I still couldn’t bring myself to understand how anyone could do such a thing. Even if I found the man who kidnapped my daughter, I wouldn’t torture him. I’d end his pathetic life and be done with him. Even after all the pain and agony that bastard put me through, I still knew I was better than him. I wouldn’t become the monster the I sought to destroy.

The bar began spinning after I downed my 5th shot, and I immediately came to regret this. I didn’t feel threatened by the few others in the bar before, but once I lost control of myself, it seemed as if I became all that much more paranoid. I became so much more vulnerable to those around me. And I couldn’t die just yet. I knew the events that were soon to come, would be life altering. I had this great feeling about this next job and the opportunities it would bring. Which is quite unusual. I never feel intuitive like this. With hopes of surviving until tomorrow, I drunkenly made my way back to the motel I was staying in. The snow and ice outside made it much more difficult to get there. As sad as it is to say, I ended up falling three times before I got home and locked the door. It wasn’t a far walk. But adding strong alcohol to any walk makes it seem like a journey around the entire globe. I laid down and the thought of becoming the most powerful criminal in the world rushed through my mind before I went to the realm of the unconscious. That night, I dreamt that I was a hero destined to save the world.

The next morning, my ears were assaulted by the alarm I’d set on my phone. I downed a couple aspirins to cope with the headache and got to work. The family I was going to be attacking lived in a relatively populated area, and I knew if I was going to pull this off, it would have to be quiet. I sharpened 3 separate knives and placed them in my coat pocket. The idea of bringing one of those blades across the neck of a little girl rushed through my mind and made me sick. But I knew that sacrifices were going to have to be made. I knew I had to be bad for the greater good. Unfortunately, I’ll never even know why I’m killing this family, but I did my best to separate myself from the idea that these were good people. They had to have done something pretty bad to have powerful criminals hiring hitmen to kill them, right?

I drove my SUV to their neighborhood and parked down the street at 3 o’clock. Looking toward their backyard I could see the father, Ronnie Williams on the back porch. I knew I was going to have to kill him within the next half hour because the mother, Bridget Williams, would be picking up their daughter from school and would arrive home at 3:30 every day. I thought to myself how easy this job was to do since someone else had done the monotonous task of stalking these people and recording their schedule. I locked my vehicle and started walking toward the house. I knew where they kept their extra key in the front yard garden and made my way into the house from the front. I waited for Ronnie to come back into the house for 10 minutes before I started to become impatient. I was going to need time to hide the body I thought and knew I needed to do this fast before Bridget and her daughter got home. I decided to push something over in the kitchen and hid behind the refrigerator as Mr. Williams slowly crept into the house saying “hello.” I realized how truly inept this guy was by this. I waited until he came close enough and I reached over to slice his throat open. He screamed, much to my dismay. I tackled him and plunged the knife into his neck violently, nearly cutting his fucking head off.

Watching the blood drip onto the floor drained me in some way. I sat over the lifeless body of a man who never saw me coming.

I collected myself and dragged his body to the basement. My goal was to leave no evidence for the police to find. Making my way up the stairs, I heard the front door opening. I remembered the blood all over the kitchen floor. “Shit,” I said to myself. I heard the woman and her daughter started screaming at the sight of the gruesome murder. I quickly rushed upstairs. “Ma'am, I need you and your daughter to remain calm. I’m part of the FBI, I’m afraid a murderer has made his way into your house earlier this day.” I said. “I want to see some identification!” The woman abruptly demanded. I pulled out my fake badge I always carried around and showed it to them. Anyone who knew anything about Federal Badges would easily detect it was a fake, but most people don’t.

“Is my husband alright?” She asked me. I told her he was downstairs. She slowly made her way down the basement stairs, and I followed closely behind. When she located her husband, she fell to her knees and began sobbing. That was when I pulled out my knife and slit her throat from behind. She was dead within seconds.

“Now for the hard part.” I thought to myself. I made my way back upstairs to find the little girl. She was nowhere in sight. I frantically looked all over the house but she was nowhere to be found. I grew increasingly worried. I knew I was being watched by the overlord, and if he saw this clear display of incompetence it would hurt any chances I had of working for him. I began walking up the creaky wooden stairs to continue my search. I knew I heard a sound coming from behind the door. I slowly and quietly made my way toward it. I wrapped my hand around the shiny doorknob and began to turn. A large German Shepard dog jumped on me, biting my arm. This caught me by surprise. I’d been wondering where that damned dog was. I struggled with the beast on top of me for a few minutes, but it was not long that I had my blade through its skin, and its blood soaking the cold wooden floor. After composing myself I continued my search for the girl. “This girl is barely 6 years old,” I thought “Where could she have gone?” There were enough rooms in this house that this could take a while. But I knew the longer I was here the worse it was for me. I checked each room in the house thoroughly but found nothing. That was when I remembered the girl’s father had built a fort in the backyard for her. “That has to be where she is.”

I began outside and exited the back door to the porch. I saw that the small makeshift door on the fort was closed and knew I’d find her in there. I walked over and opened the door to the fort. She screamed as I forcefully pulled her out of the fort. All her energy was spent trying to free herself. I tried calming her down but to no avail. She was crying and sobbing uncontrollably. I brought her back inside to finish the job. I threw her to the floor as I mentally readied myself to drive my knife through the little girl’s heart. I could feel my own moral compass screaming at me to stop this madness. It was hard enough to kill the parents, how was I going to kill their daughter now too? I closed my eyes and brought my knife close to her chest. She was screaming, but I did my best to distance myself from the whole situation as much as I could. I closed my eyes and began to focus.

The screaming stopped and I opened my eyes to see the lifeless corpse of the little girl oozing blood onto the floor. I started sobbing as the realization of my actions washed over me like a tidal wave of guilt and regret. “I had to do it. I had to do it.” I kept telling myself.

“Yes, you did.” A strange voice exclaimed behind me. It sounded really familiar but I had no idea where I heard it before. I turned around to see a large masked man standing behind me. He began to speak. “I know this whole ordeal has been difficult for you, killing your own daughter and such. But I’m…”

“What did you fucking say? This was my daughter… but my daughter has been dead for years.” I said, cutting him off.

“What do you think I did when I kidnapped her from you Johnny boy? I stole her from you and gave her to a loving couple incapable of having a child of their own. And honestly, they did a much better job of raising her than you ever could have.” He calmly stated. “Why would you do this to me?” “Because I can. And if you even think of attacking me a bullet will be through your head so fast your fucking head will spin.”

I didn’t know what to do. I fell to my knees and began sobbing. Why did I let this happen? Why God? Fucking why? What the fuck was the point of any of this? I thought there was something strange about her. How could I have been so stupid?

People always say "when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back." As I stood there over the corpse of my dead daughter, looking into the eyes of the man who'd led me down the road to hell, I knew I was no longer looking down toward a monster. I was looking at an equal. The amount of self-loathing and hatred that lurked in my soul left me devoid of any other feelings. I knew that I was even more despicable than the monster that dragged me down here, for he at least knew he was doing wrong. I have been nothing but a vigilante masquerading as a hero. I'm no hero. I never was. It's ironic in a way. I became the very thing I set out to destroy. I looked up at the overlord, and said: “Did I pass the test?”

He looked pleased with my response and nodded his head. He extended his arm to help me up. After getting back up, I lunged at him and managed to place a knife directly into his throat. As I did, a bullet pierced through my stomach. We both fell to the ground and began bleeding out. As my consciousness faded, I looked at him and whispered: “today, I killed two monsters.”

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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thekoreanlass · 6 years

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I am pleasantly surprised to know that a respectable actor like Kang Ha Neul is actually the protagonist in this mystery-thriller film ‘Forgotten‘. Of course, his character doesn’t deviate much from his usual geeky roles, but he continues to show his charm in such a genre despite the tragedy that comes after.

The movie alone, though loses its fire at the ending, stands out because of its unconventional way of story telling that totally duped me into thinking what is in front of me is real when everything was just nothing but a lie to uncover a truth that had been missing for so many years.

The Story

Jin Seok (Kang Ha Neul) moves into anew home with his family–his mother, father and older brother who had a limp on his leg. He suffers from hypersensitivity, but with medication he is able to live normally.

One night, while it was raining hard, JIn Seok witnesses his older brother Yoo Seok (Kim Moo Yul) being kidnapped by a group of men that dumped him into a van and left. After nineteen days of being gone, Yoo Seok suddenly returns home, but he doesn’t remember anything from his disappearance. Jin Seok, on the other hand, starts noticing some changes about his older brother, including the limp on his leg being gone, making Jin Seok’s suspicion grow about his brother. It doesn’t help that Jin Seok keeps hearing sounds from the locked room where the house’ previous owner stored his belongings, making him even more paranoid of his surroundings and the people around him.

Thoughts:

‘Forgotten’ fooled me into believing that all is good between Jinseok, his brother and his family. I would have been thankful to have someone like Yoo Seok as a brother too, but the too much mystery surrounding him eventually gave a strong feeling that something is definitely up with the perfect older brother. However, it was far from the psychotic brother I thought he will turn into. It made everything I visioned actually wrong just when I thought I could predict what’s to come next.

Plus, that locked room right across their room constantly brought chills to my spine as we were duped into thinking that some ugly ghost would actually pop out from that room when it was nothing but a stupid prop to the real setup of the story. The movie almost turned into a horror story, but I guess that’s their sly strategy to fool us and overwhelm us with something else. And gosh, that worked on me.

I skipped some parts when it came to the locked room and whenever Jin Seok was investigating about his odd older brother who came back, because I couldn’t really tell what was to come next. It frustrates me that I am kept in the dark, but then as I skim through the entire story, I think it’s amazing how they came up with how the entire film was executed. It may seem confusing to an outsider because the film didn’t start in the order where it was supposed to show the past, but I think the sequencing, the plot itself is intelligently written and done.

I was so mindblown when I realized who Jin Seok and Yoo Seok really is, since they aren’t who we think they really are.

Jin Seok thinks he’s still back in the 90s when all he needs to think about is passing his exams, but then the reality is it’s already the 21st century and Jin Seook is nothing but a lonely old man, who is the suspect to a crime years ago and is being unwillingly and unknowingly dragged back to the house where he allegedly killed a wife and a daughter. The happenings of that year were reenacted together with the help of undercovers who wanted to know the truth of that night and pretended to be his family members.

Because apparently, he accepted the task from someone called ‘Bluebeard’ on the internet to kill his wife and claim his insurance money that he thinks will better the lives of his daughter and son. Out of pure desperation to get Jin Seok’s older brother have his operation, he takes the bait, but unfortunately also kills Bluebeard’s daughter. That night he’s also seen by the son, who Jin Seok fooled into counting to a hundred ten times in his room, so he could make his escape.

Later, Jin Seok finds out that his brother’s surgeon was actually in fact the same ‘Bluebeard’ that assigned him to kill his wife in exchange for money. Bluebeard eventually hears from his son over the phone that both his wife and daughter is killed. He is struck with grief and somehow he ends up with a brawl with Jin Seok and he’s thrown of the edge of the rooftop of the hospital. Jin Seok was able to hold onto him, but the doctor’s hand slipped and he died.

Years later, after the case of the mother and daughter being killed was closed and buried under the mud, some detective who is adamant to solve the case finds Jin Seok and tortures him while telling him to confess his crimes. Jin Seok apparently deletes the distressful memory of those times and denies he had killed them. So, out of desperation of the authority to know the truth, they devised a plan that will make him remember the past: lead him to believe that his family is still alive and go back to the crime scene to later reenact that night.

In the first scene, if you will remember, this is the part when he is seen in a car with his family. They were moving to their new house, which was actually the real crime scene. That’s why Jin Seok feels familiar when he sees the house. It’s because he had been there before.

Jin Seok also hears something from the locked room, because stupidly enough there were people there watching everything that they were doing from a monitor screen. It wasn’t because it was haunted. Then the time Jin Seok sees his brother being kidnapped, it was actually when Yoo Seok was taken by the real police for doing an illegal investigation of the past crime. He wasn’t able to come home for 19 days because he had to pull some strings to get out.

By the time he was back home, Jin Seok has become even more sensitive and suspicious. He was able to discern between his dreams and reality and somehow realized the changes in Yoo Seok. One, he doesn’t have a limp because he’s never gotten into an accident. Two, Yoo Seok is in connivance with the police that went to their home to investigate, because they are actually in the same boat and they are the people in the locked room.

Until such night happened when Jin Seok heard his fake mom talking over the phone to Yoo Seok, telling him her observations. Jin Seok tries to cover up his own undercover, but he eventually gets caught. And when he managed to run away and go to the real police, that’s when he figured out he’s not really a twenty year old teen but instead a wrinkly old man born in the 70s. It devastated him to know this, but Jin Seok eventually gains back his memory afterwards.

There are some struggles that led him to being confined in a hospital bed and Yoo Seok admitting to the twisted truth. The fact that Yoo Seok is actually the same son whose family died and was left alone to fend for himself. He tries to inject something to Jin Seok’s IV to eventually kill him for what he’d done, but Yoo Seok changes his mind and drops the injection because he knew that behind his mother and sister’s death is an even worse man, ‘Bluebeard’. His father.

Tragically, in the end, Yoo Seok jumps to his death and out of guilt, Jin Seok injects the solution that Yoo Seok was supposed to use on him and he eventually dies.

The plot twist and execution is really daebak. They made a total fool out of me for most of the movie and saved itself in the last 30 minutes by revealing the cruel truth. However, the intelligent plot creation becomes forgettable because of how things wrapped up: everyone dies.

I mean, it’s sad enough that Jin Seok killed somebody out of desperation and someone manipulated him and made him waste two years of his life while deceiving him. But what tops death in the ending? This is the type of film I absolutely hate. If ain’t for that plot twist and the flashback in the credits, my heart wouldn’t have softened for this film.

If you’re wondering what happened then, they showed one of Jin Seok’s happy memories when he’s being greeted by his family from the other side of a lake. He smiles happily at them, but then meets a little boy, who he runs into and talks to with a grin on his face. The boy is later whisked away by his family, but at the same time that boy’s memory of Jin Seok was very pleasant. He clearly liked the younger version of Jin Seok.

That same boy Jin Seok met by the lake, however, is the same man whom he took away a family from, Yoo Seok.

Looking back, those are time when you’ll think, fate has its cruel way of letting two people meet twice. Once, when they were both happy. But because of our bad choices, somehow we end up meeting these people, we once before came across with, in a bad situation later. If only those happy times could be preserved, but then again fate has its way of mocking us back.

Over all, the movie is great if you don’t mind tragic endings. The execution, plot twist and acting is quite flawless. The movie is also able to set a mood that is deceiving in the beginning, leading us to the eventual turn of events we will not ever expect, which is really good. The tone of the movie, however, is pretty dark. It’s a film genius, but I don’t think people will have the same opinion about it like how critiques would praise it for its unique strategy, especially with all of them dying.

Rating:

I would have really hated the film because of the sad ending, though it’s a genius in the way sequencing was done and how they deceivingly and strategically filmed the entire thing. Luckily, the last few minutes were worth the watch. Poignant and nostalgic, yet smacks some life lessons into you. Rating this film, I’ll give it a 3.9 out of 5.

91%

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Movie: Forgotten (English title) / Night of Memory (literal title)

Revised romanization: Gieokui Bam

Hangul: 기억의 밤

Director: Jang Hang-Jun

Writer: Jang Hang-Jun

Producer: Park Joon-Sik

Cinematographer: Kim Il-Yeon

Release Date: November 29, 2017

Runtime: 109 min.

Genre: Mystery / Thriller

Distributor: Megabox Plus M

Language: Korean

Country: South Korea

Jin-Seok (Kang Ha-Neul) moves into a new home with his older brother Yoo-Seok (Kim Moo-Yul), mother (Na Young-Hee) and father (Moon Sung-Geun). Jin-Seok suffers from hypersensitivity, but with medication he is able to live normally. One rainy evening, Jin-Seok sees his older brother being thrown into a van by a group of men. After 19 days of silence, Yoo-Seok returns home, but he doesn’t remember anything from his disappearance. Jin-Seok though notices enough changes in his older brother’s personality and behavior that he begins to suspect that the person who has returned is not Yoo-Seok. Meanwhile, Jin-Seok keeps hearing sounds from a locked room temporarily storing the previous home owner’s belongings.

Film Review: ‘Forgotten’ – Tragedy with a great plot twist I am pleasantly surprised to know that a respectable actor like Kang Ha Neul is actually the protagonist in this mystery-thriller film '

#Culture #film #Forgotten #Kang Ha Neul #Kim Moo Yul #korean #movie #mystery #popular #review #thekoreanlass #thriller

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Dan Nosowitz was scrolling through Instagram when he saw it: an ad for a cooking device whose sole function was to heat up raclette cheese.

“I had to click through because I had no idea what it actually was,” he explains. “Finding out that an algorithm believed I would be interested in a discount ‘traditional Swiss-style electric cheese melter’ is sort of comfortably bumbling. It’s like watching a Roomba bonk into a wall.”

Whether the humor inherent in the ad comes from the fact that the gadget is so oddly specific, or because raclette is an incredibly high-maintenance cheese and therefore hardly a common grocery item for most people, is difficult to say. What we do know, however, is that the complicated set of algorithms that serve targeted ads on social media are the most brutal, most incisive owns of our time.

In Nosowitz’s case, he figures he likely saw the raclette warmer because he’s a food writer who Amazon surely knows has previously browsed cooking tools on its site. That’s because Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and the rest of the internet track your every keystroke and will then use your history to show you things they think will make them money. So it’s no wonder that it feels so deeply personal when we get targeted ads for, say, “dressy sweatpants,” colonoscopies, underwear whose selling point is that they are easy to take off, preparing for your own funeral, or, somehow the biggest attack of all: tickets to Jagged Little Pill: The Musical.

The simplest explanation for why targeted ads are so creepily intimate: Your phone, your computer, and the internet in general contain a gargantuan amount of information about you. Google, for instance, knows essentially every website you have ever gone to in your life, and thanks to geolocation can tell where you live, where you work, and where you’ve traveled and when. Credit card companies know what you buy, and the brands that sell those items can use that data to predict the things you’ll buy in the future — in Target’s case, it can tell that you’re pregnant before even your family knows.

There are ways to prevent at least some of this, but the more the internet entrenches itself in our lives, the more difficult and time-consuming it is to opt out. The consequences are, of course, potentially democracy-shattering. For our purposes here, however, the thing in danger of being shattered is our self-esteem.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, who has written a book on how the internet uses your data, has himself experienced the strangeness of being targeted by a Facebook ad for hair loss cream despite never having posted anything about balding.

“It was a little like being in a Seinfeld episode,” he explains. “I had never worried about my hair and always thought hair products were a total waste of money. And now I had to wonder, ‘Am I crazy? Should I actually be taking a product for hair loss?’” (He, however, ended up deducing that it was probably because two-thirds of men start losing their hair by the time they’re 35, and that the ad simply targeted all men around that age.)

I just got a Facebook ad for hair loss product. Are they using my pictures to figure out I am balding? I am pretty sure there is no other way, using my internet behavior, for them to know that.

— Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (@SethS_D) March 29, 2018

Facebook, undoubtedly the platform with the worst and most prolific targeted ads, said in a memo this April that while it allows companies to target their ads to users that fit a certain profile, it keeps users’ actual identities private from them.

But companies are able to target specific people by other means, namely through sending Facebook a list of emails, which Facebook can then use to find associated accounts. If you’ve ever bought anything from, say, Urban Outfitters, the brand could use the email you used to either make the purchase online or the one you gave at the checkout counter to specifically target you. And if you happened to be browsing Glossier.com, while still logged into Facebook, you might return to the social media app to find ads for Boy Brow.

Plus, the blog post doesn’t mention the fact that marketers can take advantage of your data that isn’t simply demographic — it theoretically could, for instance, reach users who seem to match a specific personality type or emotional state, thereby taking advantage of already vulnerable people. So ads for funeral preparations or musicals about mid-’90s female angst could be more than just a coincidence and instead referendums on your actual current mood.

The most horrific item I have ever seen in a targeted Facebook ad was a sweatshirt emblazoned with a bunch of Celtic knots that implied the superiority of having “Jennings blood.” Ignoring the possible white supremacist connotations, the ad was ironic mostly because you can buy the exact same sweatshirt replaced with literally any last name that sounds vaguely Irish and about a zillion other versions, too. “God made the strongest and named them Rubin,” reads one. “Never underestimate the power of a person with name’s Brooke,” shouts another, despite the fact that this sentence does not make sense.

It’s obvious why this specific ad showed up on my feed: Facebook knows that my last name is Jennings, and marketers can easily target users with such information. What’s more complicated is how the hell all those last names ended up on a sweatshirt.

To be clear, they didn’t. The reason so many T-shirts and sweatshirts with oddly specific phrases is because online clothing companies have tasked algorithms with the heavy lift of actually filling in the specifics and photoshopping those results onto digital images of clothing. The sweatshirts themselves don’t physically exist until you hit “purchase.”

Michael Fowler had been in the T-shirt business for 20 years before creating a simple computer code that would change his life in 2011. It took a common phrase, such as “Kiss Me, I’m a [blank],” compiled hundreds of thousands of words from digital dictionaries, created a list of phrase variations using those words, and then generated images of T-shirts with each phrase. According to The Hustle, Fowler’s company went from just 1,000 T-shirts that were designed by actual humans to more than 22 million code-generated ones. Through targeted Facebook ads, he was eventually able to sell 800 a day.

Unfortunately, his success was not the reason Fowler would make international headlines. Two years later his algorithm was responsible for shirts that read “Keep calm and rape a lot,” among other disturbing and misogynistic variations on the famous World War II slogan. Fowler said he had no knowledge of the items, and in fact, they’d been available for more than a year before anyone noticed. But even though he quickly deleted the offending shirts, his company still ended up folding.

Robot-written word salad T-shirts, however, have managed to become one of the internet’s purest inside jokes. On the subreddit r/TargetedShirts, members share the most egregious versions they come across, be they weirdly antagonistic (“Walk away, this forklift operator has anger issues and a serious dislike of stupid people”), uncomfortably sexual (“I don’t need therapy, I just need to get f#ed in public by fourteen werewolves”), birthday month-related (“Never underestimate an old man who is also an air force veteran and was born in November”), or utterly nonsensical (“Good girls go to heaven, January girl go hunting with Dean”).

The sub even has its own parody versions, like “These titties are protected by a skinny white guy in his mid-thirties who wears DC shoes, yells at me in public and is addicted to percs who was born in February,” or “Only heros with an IQ of 121, work as a pizza delivery driver, have 3 spoons of sugar in their coffee and love reptiles & mice, were born in March by C-section 2 weeks before their due date.”

Its founder, David Moreno, launched the subreddit just ten months ago, but it already has more than 40,000 subscribers. He explained to Vox that the first time he saw a targeted ad, back in 2011 or 2012, “it did fuck with my brain for a while because it had my last name and month of birth and at the time I didn’t realize what was going on.”

These days, however, the practice makes sense to him. “Funnily enough, I work in marketing, so while it might seem like a desperate strategy, it is actually a very good way to target a very specific group of people without spending too much cash,” he said.

The best versions, of course, are the ones seen in the wild. The sub is often populated by surreptitiously photographed people in the offending shirts, like this one, with comments that lightly roast the wearer. They’re the best because they are the saddest — the catalog of folks who were not only owned by the algorithm, but scammed by it.

That’s the other part of what it’s like to see a hyper-targeted ad for something incredibly on-brand: sometimes they read us more clearly than any actual humans. This is an inherently depressing thought, considering that this is sort of the job of the people we love and the society we live in. But the more intimate our phones and our data become in our lives, it might increasingly be the case.

The prevailing cynical attitude towards targeted ads — tweets that say things like, “i just got an ad for preparing for your own funeral, what are you trying to say to me youtube” — can sort of be compared to the FBI agent meme of the past year and a half or so. The idea is that every internet user has their own personal agent monitoring their behavior through their devices, but instead of this being incredibly creepy, the joke is that the agent acts as a friend or frustrated mentor to the subject.

me: (sitting back down on my bed with a bowl of chips ready to binge a new series) hey so what does “fbi” stand for anyway

fbi agent inside my computer: uh Faraway.. Buddy.. Insideyourcomputer

me: cool. so what do u wanna watch next

fbi agent: i heard grace and frankie is fun

— jonny sun (@jonnysun) February 1, 2018

A Mashable article earlier this year explored the surprising poignance of the meme: “The agent wants the best for their subject,” writes its author Chloe Bryan. “The narrator, conscious of how boring their life must be to observe, tries to entertain the FBI agent. They have pleasant conversations. They develop a forbidden friendship. They become quiet, lightly subversive allies.”

In both cases, we’re taking our deepest technological anxieties — that the internet stores and sells our data and that the government is spying on us — and turning them into lighthearted jokes. Which is fair! It’s a lot more fun to pretend Big Data is actually just there to dunk on our most embarrassing shopping habits instead of manipulating U.S. elections or contributing to the rising wealth of the world’s richest people.

Which means there will probably come a day when an ad on Instagram for an enormous cheese-warming gadget targeted specifically to a person using a complex set of his internet data will no longer be funny. But we may as well laugh while it still is.

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Original Source -> The joy and horror of targeted Facebook ads

via The Conservative Brief

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