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isaacthedruid · 3 years

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Please allow me to tell you about one of my favourite cartoons through this informal essay I did for school a couple of months back.

Gravity Falls and How it Did The Unimaginable

**SPOILERS... KINDA**

The 2010s saw the creation of some of the most iconic animated tv shows ever made, the likes of Adventure Time (2010), Steven Universe (2013), Over the Garden Wall (2014) and The Legend of Korra (2012). To explain why this era’s shows are so admirable is honestly rather difficult. Yet, there are many factors that can be taken into consideration when looking for an answer.

The past decade was very successful in perfecting their craft and utilizing the animated format to their favour, creating some of the wackiest and fascinating cartoons ever made. With the advancements made in both 2D and 3D animation for film, this bled into the world of TV as well.

To mention that 2010s cartoons have stunning visuals would be an understatement. Everything about the animation was beautiful; the strong colour palettes, the clean and imaginative character designs, the colourful and immersive backgrounds and especially the mesmerizing worlds that can be found within episodes that are half an hour.

This era’s cartoons also led to a massive shift in storytelling, writing longer-running stories that spread out across seasons while also swapping out episodic adventures for serialization. This heavily aided in the popularization of these shows, due to the rise of internet fandoms and dropping the taboo that cartoons were only for kids. Many shows acknowledged their older viewers by leaving clues and even puzzles to be solved by the theorists who have a large appearance on social media platforms like Reddit, Twitter and Tumblr. As the shows progressed, their fandoms created many theories for what they believed might happen within their favourite series. The top three shows from this era all utilized these changes, being at the forefront of the shift and helping guide the creative vision of 2010s cartoons.

Often regarded as many people’s favourite cartoon, Gravity Falls presented one of the best mysteries of the decade with two seasons and only 40 episodes. Inspired by Twin Peaks and The X-Files, it’s considered as the kids’ version of these two iconic shows as this cartoon acts as many people’s first introduction to horror through bright colours and fun characters.

This series follows the adventures of Dipper and Mabel Pines, twins, who are sent to spend their summer with their great-uncle or Grunkle Stan in Gravity Falls, Oregon. This town is full of oddities like supernatural creatures, insane and eccentric inhabitants, and many puzzles. The Pines twins must adjust to the weirdness while uncovering the mysteries and protecting their new town.

While living in Gravity Falls, the twins are forced to work in the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap created by their Grunkle Stan that overcharges unlucky tourists, teaching about fake monsters despite there being real creatures all over town. On his first day in Oregon, Dipper accidentally came across a mysterious journal written by an unknown author that explains all the oddities to be found in this strange town. This book acts like an encyclopedic of the Weird for Dipper, an inquisitive 12-year-old kid who seeks answers.

Dipper is an extremely intelligent kid, his brain being far more developed than his body. He’s rather awkward and self-conscious as he often stumbles over his words or gets embarrassed trying to talk to girls. Despite this, the boy is an adventurer at heart who just wants to grow up and skip his upcoming teenage years.

While Mabel is quite the opposite in many ways, she is loud and has an in-your-face personality. Mabel is bouncy and fun, she is so excited to start high school. She is easily excitable and for the larger part of the series, she is in her boy-crazy phase. Mabel is a girly-girl as she likes all things; glitter, unicorns, rainbows, partying and crafting. Yet, she doesn’t often compare well with many of the other girls in town, they see her as weird and “too much”.

(In all fairness through, it is not too kind to either of the characters as their personalities are more complex than just awkward nerd and artsy girl-girly.)

Dipper and Mabel’s personalities are very different but somehow, they—along with their Gravity Falls family—manage to solve mysteries and save the town, multiple times.

Gravity Falls is an honestly genius series that completely changed the way cartoons were made. Originally when writing a series, you’d create a base of your story; characters, the universe and a basic plot. Yet, when creator, Alex Hirsch (who was in his early/mid-20)s and his small team first began constructing their show, they planned out everything they could possibly think of for the first season. Additionally, outlining some answers for their biggest mysteries that would be answered at the end of the series.

Despite being rated TV-Y7, this series really pushed the boundaries of kids’ television. From the teeth being ripped out of a deer’s mouth by a demon, rearranging the functions of every hole on a man’s face to an aggressive pop-rock sock puppet show that ended in a dramatic slow-motion scene of the puppets burning. Gravity Falls wasn’t afraid to get a little weird or creepy. Or create some genuine nightmare fuel.

From the beginning, Gravity Falls had built a mystery into its series, hiding secrets and clues all throughout the show. Most notably were the backwards-recorded message and cryptograms, using roughly nine different kinds, even creating two of their own.

The inclusion of cyphers and mysteries for fans to solve is possibly the reason why this series was so successful. As one of the first shows to do something like this, Gravity Falls used social media and internet fandoms to its advantage.

As mentioned earlier, cartoon fans have quite a presence on social media platforms like Twitter and Tumblr. They create theories and share fun ideas about their favourite shows. Viewers of Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe were all included in their share of theory fun.

Sometimes, fan theories end up being correct but when you’re Gravity Falls creator, Alex Hirsch, you don’t just watch from the sidelines as your viewers figure out the biggest mystery of your show. No, you create a hoax to get your viewers off your trail and that is what he did. Around 2013, only halfway through the first season of the show, viewers had started to follow the clues, theorizing who was the author is Dipper’s mysterious journal.

Unfortunately for the Gravity Falls production crew, the viewers were right— for the sake of readers who have never seen the show, I will not mention who the author was as it would be the biggest spoiler.

In 2013, a supposed leaked image of a tv showing a younger version of the show’s crazy old man character, Old Man McGucket, writing in the infamous journal was uploaded anonymously (by Alex Hirsch) to 4Chan.

Despite the image only being on up for a few hours, it spread like wildfire. Much to the team’s success, theorists stopped searching for the answer to “who is the author” and just accepted the image of McGucket as the truth.

To further push the fake-out, three words were posted to Alex’s Twitter, “fuming right now.”

The tweet was deleted a few minutes later and fans genuinely believed that someone from the Gravity Falls team had leaked the most important part of the story.

While doing research, I came across a Reddit post from April 10th, 2013, the day after ‘leak,’ Alex’s tweet was uploaded. In this post, user, TheoDW uploaded an image of Alex’s tweet with the caption, “It seems that Hirsch got mad at last night’s leak. He already deleted this tweet.”

Seeing the reactions of these Redditors in 2013 is kind of weird and crazy to look at. “He has every right to be upset. Someone internally released a plot revealing screen shot of series breaking spoiler information,” a deleted Reddit account commented.

“This is Alex Hirsch’s biggest success by far, he spent a huge amount of time carefully planning out the series, and then in a moment someone releases a major spoiler. It would make anyone upset,” the user, Time_Loop commented.

“Seriously, this is a nightmare for a storyteller, and shows a breach of trust. I feel so bad for him–honestly, I hope whoever did the leak gets caught and appropriate action is taken. You don’t f–k with someone’s story like this. It’s unprofessional.” the user, lonelybeloved angrily commented.

In 2014, this ‘leak’ was finally disproven when viewers were given an episode on McGucket’s backstory and an amazing tweet from Alex Hirsch.

Alex had post an image of himself playfully pointing at a monitor with the supposed leaked picture with the caption, “1) Make hoax 2) Upload to 4Chan 3) Post angry tweet about "leak" 4) Delete tweet 5) Let internet do rest”

It is so interesting to look at these comments know that all of this was orchestrated by Alex.

I wish I had been old enough at the time to follow theories and fandom stuff like I do now with current cartoons but really looking at this from an outside perspective, this was insane!

The real author wasn’t revealed until 2015 and when viewers first got the answer to this biggest show on their screens, they must have freaked out!

Following the finale in 2016, a single frame of a stone version of Bill Cipher, the show’s villain, flashed in after the credits had finished.

Alex Hirsch and his team actually created a real-life statue of their villain for their viewers to find and on July 20th, 2016, the Cipher Hunt began.

By following clues, the Hunters found themselves all over the world; Russia, Japan and then travelling throughout the United States for the final 12 clues. When the hunt took them to Los Angeles, actor, Jason Ritter (voice of Dipper Pines, also a massive fan of the series) and Alex Hirsch’s twin sister, Ariel Hirsch (the inspiration for Mabel) joined in the fun helping the search.

Finally, the hunt ended on August 2nd when someone tweeted out an image of the found statue in Oregon, the same state in which the fictional town of Gravity Falls exists. The Cipher Hunt had ended but finding the statue wasn’t Alex’s goal for the scavenger hunt, it was about the journey and bringing together the viewers, more than having them actually find the statue.

Creating its own hoax, an international scavenger hunt and quite a bit of nightmare fuel, Gravity Falls was a show truly unlike any other.

The 2010s saw some of the strongest cartoons ever made, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe acting as the leaders for multiple different changes in the medium; storytelling, worldbuilding, interaction with viewers, utilizing social media, representation and further pushing music into the cartoon world. From what was created this past decade and what has already been released in 2020, I’m so excited to see what comes next.

I have another one of these which is on Steven Universe’s representation and music if you would like to see that too!!

#isaac rambles #long post #gravity falls #cartoons #cartoon review #dipper pines #alex hirsch #OH MY GOD I LOVE ALEX HIRSCH'S BRAIN!!!#disney #disney channel #disney cartoons

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calpops · 4 years

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wake up | c.h.

Ever since this picture came out I’ve had this thought in my head that I needed to write in the dates with cal universe. Hope you enjoy <3

Word count: 1k

***

Calum has been at tour rehearsal all day, and all the night previous you two had been working on the new house. Unpacking odds and ends, deciding which curtains looked best in which window, lining shelves with trinkets and mementoes of your relationship. A book that wore watered down pages with pride, given on a night an apology shattered silence but was as delicate as a single raindrop hitting the earth. A flower to replicate the botanical garden your first date had taken place in. Art in the park tickets framed to commemorate the day of your first kiss. They’d all been Calum’s doing; he unpacked the book from the depths of the boxes, had framed the tickets and purchased vase and flower. It made your heart swell to realize he had already begun keeping his promise. He’d started to accumulate things he loved in the new home.

You walk quickly into the building the rehearsal is taking place, having agreed to meet Calum after for a dinner date. It’s quieter than you would have expected, used to the drone of guitars and drums or yelling accompanied by laughter. The lights in the hallway are dimmed and your steps echo around white walls and tiled floors. You push past the heavy door to the rehearsal room to be met with a surprise. Ashton lingers still, back pressed to a corner wall and phone in hand. He looks up to greet you and his eyes skirt over to the other side of the room. You follow his path and try to suppress a laugh but can’t bite back the grin that forms on your face. Ashton lets a small chuckle slip and you look back at him.

“Didn’t wanna leave him here alone,” Ashton explains and then shrugs. “Didn’t wanna be the one to wake him up either.”

That tugs a small laugh out of you as you gaze back at Calum sprawled out on the floor, somehow sleeping with his back to hardwood and legs straight as a pin. It’s mildly confusing, his usual sleeping position curled up on his side—no bed seemingly soft enough. But it makes sense in a way. So many late nights organizing the house, or staying late in the studio for last minute changes and early mornings rehearsing or walking with Duke. Calum had been running on empty for days. You were surprised it hadn’t hit him sooner. You bit your lip as your eyes stayed on him.

“I can handle it,” you offer and hear Ashton’s breath of relief.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he replies and you hear his footsteps clashing with yours as you head towards Calum and he heads for the door.

Once reaching Calum you slowly drop to your knees, one hand on the floor as you lean down and the other gently placed on his stomach. You can feel his even breathing. The soft rise and fall. You contemplate how best to wake him, wanting it to be an easy affair; knowing the grumpiness that would follow from an intrusive waking. The only idea you can fathom is the way you wake him at home. For a moment it seems foolish but the peaceful look on his face sways you into the most gentle of measures. You settle down at his side, tucking yourself against him with your head on his chest. You can feel your cheeks heating at the situation but you bypass the embarrassment and tell yourself no one is around; it’s just the two of you, just like usual.

You give him a slight squeeze with the arm sling over him and nuzzle into him; mimicking mornings you woke earlier than him. You feel his response almost immediately, a slight shift underneath you. You can tell he’s starting the cycle of waking peacefully. You give him another squeeze and trail your fingers along his arm.

“Cal, you gotta wake up,” you whisper in an attempt at your usual morning voice.

Only a second passes before a tired moan slips out of him and a plea for five more minutes follows. You laugh and shift, now knowing he’s at least partially awake. You push slightly up and hover above him, fingers finding way to his jawline and ghosting over it as he smiles with his eyes still closed.

“No more minutes, gotta wake up so we can go home and sleep in our bed.”

Calum’s eyes open at that and he finds you hovering over him; his back pressed to the floor and a rehearsal room in the background. You greet him with a soft smile and when he pouts his lip a quick kiss follows. You both move to sit up and you can see the tiredness in Calum’s eyes. His movement is languid and drawn out as he lifts himself up and pulls you back to him.

“We were supposed to go to dinner, weren’t we?” He asks, voice gravelly as he presses his face against the crook of your shoulder.

“Why don’t we just order take out and eat in bed?” You offer while running soothing fingers through his hair.

You can feel his smile pressed against your skin as he gives your shoulder a small kiss as a sign of appreciation and agreement.

A throat clears and has you both turning towards the doors; Ashton stood with his arms crossed and a smirk painted on his face. “If I knew all it took to wake him without a fight was a little snuggle I would’ve been doing that years ago.”

You blush profusely and turn back to bury your face against Calum. “I thought he left,” you mumble.

“I came back to see if you needed help,” Ashton laughs as he heard your quiet words—because of course he did. “But I think you’ve got it handled.”

Ashton leaves after that, embarrassment still heating you from the inside out and Calum slightly chuckling.

“It’s not funny,” you grumble as you both stand. “You’re impossible to wake up any other way.”

Calum offers you his hand and his understanding. “I know I am. Now let’s get home and to bed so I can wake up like that tomorrow.”

He grins and you roll your eyes.

“It’s one of my favorite parts of the day,” he defends. And you know he means it. Always chasing extra time in bed with you, sometimes pretending to stay asleep to get another squeeze from you.

You’re the only one he wants to wake up to.

***

If you’d like to be added to my tag list just let me know!

Tagged: @rosecolouredash @irwinkitten @golden-hood @who-do-you-love-5sos @caswinchester2000 @wildflowergrae @empathycth @cuddlemecalx @calumsmermaid @babylon-corgis @outerspaceisbetterthannothing @mariellelovescupcakes @xhaileyreneex @goth5sos @gosh-im-short @feliznavidaddycal @loveroflrh @findingliam-o @flowerthug @g-l-pierce @talkfastromance4 @cashtonasfuck @sc0ttish-wildfl0wer @wastedheartcth @calumscalm @thesubtweeter @akafeliznavidaddy @myloverboyash @treatallwithkindness @cals-wildflower

#Calum hood blurbs #5sos blurbs #Calum hood imagines #5sos imagines #calum hood blurb #5sos blurb #Calum hood fluff #5sos fluff #Calum hood x you #Calum hood x reader #5sos x you #5sos x reader #cal!dates #chblurb

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blackthornfaery · 3 years

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thank you to the one and only @marilyn-monroes-jeans for tagging me <3

1. how did you choose your url?

one of my favorite cicely mary barker flower fairies is the blackthorn fairy, i think she’s so pretty and she looks like me when i had my natural hair color

2. any side blogs?

@vivaciouslady is my old hollywood/vintage blog and @tiredfaery is my side/personal that i post random stuff on, mostly things i want to save for later like recipes or witchy stuff

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

oh boy a while, since august, 2013. back in those days this was a total tumblr girl 1D 5sos zoella acacia brinley justgirlythings blog lolol then it was a soft grunge blog for a lonnnng time and then it sat relatively dormant for a couple years until I changed the url to blackthornfaery in june, 2018 and made it into what it is now. i don’t even think of this as those other blogs anymore because i got all but 100 of my followers after i made the switch 5 years after i originally made the blog lol BUT if you scroll back far enough you’ll get some mad 2014 nostalgia posts

4. do you have a queue tag?

no, i’m on mobile most of the time and it’s just so much easier to press and tap without opening up the post to edit sorryyyyy

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

well originally i was just really into all those things i mentioned earlier but as far as changing it to blackthornfaery i just really liked how safe and cozy the whole cottagecore, gardencore, etc. aesthetics felt and even though i have always loved the stuff i post about now (like pride and prejudice and beatrix potter) i’d never really made them a part of my personality that i shared and i wanted to change that. then a few months after i changed the blog something really terrible and tragic happened to me and i needed a safe calm space even more than ever and seeing all these lovely little cottages and garden and picnic baskets is that for me

as for @vivaciouslady i just really really love old hollywood

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

because i love anne of green gables, especially megan follows as anne

on @vivaciouslady it’s a picture of julie andrews in her broadway days, need i say more? i love her

7. why did you choose your header

i see pretty countryside i click. also it matches the background of the anne picture

on @vivaciouslady it’s a gif of my favorite film… wait for it… Vivacious Lady (1938)

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

this moodboard for the name “heidi” that someone requested has nearly 6.5k notes which is a bit insane because i think it’s very pretty but it was one of the first ones i made and i think i have made some even better ones in the past few weeks

9. how many mutuals do you have?

oh god i have no idea, maybe like 100 or 200 across this blog and my old hollywood blog? possibly way more… i follow over 1000 people and i’m not exactly sure how to check lol

10. how many followers do you have?

on here i have 7,827, on @vivaciouslady i have 1,281

11. how many people do you follow

exactly 1,111 (and this is on number 11 as well? this is destined to be a sign)

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

no, i don’t think so

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

for at least an hour or so, except for when i took over a monthlong hiatus a bit ago

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

no, people in this community are pretty peaceful, and so am i

15. how do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

i absolutely do NOT! i have reposted so many “immunity” posts in my life that i never have to take those seriously again, even if i am superstitious

16. do you like tag games?

yes! i think they’re fun ways to get to know the people behind the blog

17. do you like ask games

yes i love them, especially the ones with niche, lovely questions

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

oh gosh i don’t know, i’m not really sure that term even pertains to anyone in the cottagecore and vintage communities because our blogs are often so specific that no matter how many followers someone has i don’t think they can be classed as “famous”, especially not the way tumblr fame used to be back in 2014 and stuff

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

sorry my loves i don’t know any of you that well lol

tagging: anyone who would like to do this!! (please tag me if you do, i’d love to see your answers)

#tag game #tagged #marilyn-monroes-jeans #personal

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pangzi · 4 years

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Otome Gay [Nielan] - Chapter 6

word count: 4590 other chapters: INTRO - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 [AO3]

Mingjue spent all morning at work thinking about a way to make their evening more romantic. If only he had been to the Jiang residence before so he knew if there was anywhere they could sneak off to and be alone. He was almost glad every time someone called or came into his office so his brain couldn’t go there for a second.

After lunch he called Huaisang, knowing any earlier his brother would probably not have been awake. It took him a while to answer, and when he did he heard a lot of noise and yelling in the background.

“Dage, give me a second to go to a quieter room!” Huaisang yelled as soon as he answered, switching his camera to show the chaos that was the room he was in. Wuxian was yelling at some kid that Mingjue thinks Rich Kid in the game was based on, another boy was just trying to move furniture around while rolling his eyes furiously. After he allowed his brother to take in the scene, he switched the camera back and walked to another room.

“Happy birthday, Huaisang”, Mingjue said as soon as the door closed behind him, and Huaisang’s entire face lit up. “I can’t believe you’re twenty-one already” He could feel himself tear up already. “I still remember the day you were born…”

Huaisang laughed softly. “Thank you, dage! How do you still remember, you were six!”

Mingjue sniffled, trying his best to not to cry as hard as he did other years, but both he and Huaisang knew he was going to fail terribly at that. “You don’t just forget the best day of your life, Huaisang”

“If only you had known back than what a brat I would turn out to be, right?”

“Yes”, Mingjue laughed.

Huaisang replied with a highly offended gasp. “I can’t believe you agreed!” He said but started laughing immediately after. Mingjue wiped his tears away as they laughed. “You should probably cry it all out now, dage, so you don’t embarrass yourself tonight in front of Xichen.”

“We both know I will cry again when I see you tonight.” Mingjue huffed, “and if Xichen can’t handle my tears, it’s better to know now.”

Huaisang nodded, he knew better than anyone how emotional his brother was. Mingjue had dated someone once, who made fun of his emotions and had told him that if he wanted to date him he would have to stop crying so much. They never saw each other again. “Speaking of Xichen, how are you feeling about tonight?”

“Nervous”, Mingjue admitted, “it’s not really the most romantic first date, is it. I’ve been trying to come up with something to make it more romantic but…”

Huaisang started smiling, it was almost a mischievous smile. “I got you, dage! Jiang Cheng and Wuxian won’t let me do anything because it’s my birthday… I will ask Yanli to help me, we’ll make the most romantic date spot ever, I promise!”

The excitement in his voice made Mingjue’s heart ache. Of course his little brother would still want to help him on his birthday. He couldn’t wait to hug him tonight. “Thank you”, he smiled. “I should get back to work, see you tonight!”

“Any time, dage”, Huaisang said, “See you tonight, wear that black button-up we bought last time!” With that, he ended the conversation. Mingjue felt a bit more at ease now, knowing Huaisang would make sure he’d have somewhere to at least have a bit of privacy with Xichen. He just hopes his brother won’t try anything funny that might give Xichen the wrong idea. Luckily, his brother knew how much Mingjue could stress and sent him a picture of his ‘secret project’ a few hours later. It was a room at the second floor of the house it seemed, with big floor to ceiling windows, looking over the estate’s beautiful gardens. From what he could see of the room, there was a small loveseat placed in front of the window, decorated with some fluffy pillows and a blanket. In front of it was a table with two champagne glasses that would not see a sip of champagne, there were also what seemed to be rose petals on the table and candles. Mingjue smiled, Xichen would hopefully be pleasantly surprised at this. After the picture, Huaisang also sent some directions on how to get to the room, promising it was far enough from where the main party activities would be not to be disturbed. The only thing Mingjue could think of was that he hoped this time, Huaisang’s directions would actually be helpful.

Still, working was a hassle for the rest of his day. He couldn’t stop thinking about tonight. So much that he decided to just stop working early. Fridays were usually for paperwork, but most of it was done anyway and the rest could wait, perks of being your own boss. He asked Zonghui if he was okay with locking up for today, before heading out.

He cooked himself his favourite dinner and then took the time to get ready. He wanted to look his absolute best for tonight. He followed Huaisang’s advice, and chose the black button-up he was forced to buy last time they went shopping together. He couldn’t help but agree that it looked good, especially not completely buttoned up, exposing some of his chest, like Huaisang taught him. He had forgotten how tight it was, though, but his brother had promised him that it was supposed to be, and he knew more about fashion than Mingjue himself, so he believed him. He slicked his hair back, shaved and trimmed his moustache to perfection. When he was done getting ready, he felt confident. He looked good, he was ready to swoop Xichen off his feet and make him his.

That was until it was time to leave and pick up Xichen. He suddenly turned into a nervous wreck and took at least two wrong turns on his way to Xichen’s place. When he arrived he took a moment to collect himself, force his hands to stop shaking before getting out of the car and making his way up to the front door of the house. The door opened almost immediately after he pressed the doorbell. Nothing could have prepared him for how good Xichen looked. He was sure Xichen got more beautiful every day, he had to. His breath caught as he took in the beauty in front of him.

Xichen’s hair was a bit messy, more casual than he’d ever seen him, he was dressed in a simple collarless shirt with a beige cardigan and some incredibly tight jeans that nearly made Mingjue’s mouth water. Both of them just stared at each other for a moment, Xichen seemingly enjoying his view as much as Mingjue was enjoying his, before they greeted each other.

“Xichen, you look absolutely breathtaking”, Mingjue gasped, he really couldn’t believe this was real. That he could really take this man with him as his date. Xichen blushed as he pulled the door shut behind him.

“You look very handsome yourself, too” Xichen replied, “I’m lucky I get to accompany someone this handsome tonight.”

This time it was Mingjue’s time to blush. “I’m the lucky one”, he whispered, as he lead Xichen to his car, opening the door for him.

The first few minutes of the drive were in silence. Not an awkward silence, necessarily, but a heavy silence nonetheless. Mingjue’s hands were sweaty from nerves again, and from the way he was clutching the steering wheel.

“Have you ever been to the Jiang residence before?” He asked Xichen after a while.

“Once, to pick up Wangji. I’ve never been inside, though”, Xichen answered. “Have you?” Mingjue shook his head. “It’s very easy to find, and even if it wasn’t you have me to show you the way” They both laughed at the lame joke. Mingjue wouldn’t mind getting lost all the time if it meant Xichen showing him the way. Maybe he had been lost for a long time, when it came to the subject of love and dating, and maybe Xichen could help him find his way through that as well.

They arrived quite early, still the place was already full of people. Mingjue wondered if this were all friends of Huaisang, or if it were just people who heard of a party and showed up. With how social he knew his little brother to be, both options were possible. It might even just be a bit of both.

“Is this okay?” Mingjue asked as he wrapped a possessive arm around Xichen’s waist as they made their way inside. Xichen nodded with a content hum, after which he wrapped his own arm around his date’s waist, too. Mingjue couldn’t be happier at the moment.

They found Huaisang in the hallway, loudly talking to some people while wrapped around the scowling boy Mingjue saw on video in the afternoon. He noticed them as soon as they walked in, excitedly pulling the scowling boy with him towards them, only letting go of him to hug Mingjue.

Mingjue immediately felt his heart clench and tears well up in his eyes as Huaisang hugged him. His little brother was twenty-one now and probably had a boyfriend who he seemed very fond of. He grabbed him a little tighter as they hugged and a few tears escaped.

“Happy birthday, didi”, he said as Huaisang let go, who just smiled fondly at his big brother and wiped away his tears before greeting Xichen as well, who was softly rubbing Mingjue’s back at the sight of his tears. “Is it good enough a gift if I take you to that fancy art store you love, and let you buy anything you want?” Huaisang gasped and nodded excitedly. Mingjue had thought about just getting a giftcard as he had no idea what kind of supplies Huaisang liked and needed, but he’d much rather go there together.

“I’d love that, dage!”

The boy next to Huaisang laughed as he wrapped an arm around him. “Give him a budget, though, otherwise he’ll buy the entire store”, he joked, which made Huaisang smack him in offense, although they all knew it was true. Huaisang slid out of the boy’s grasp with a smile though, grabbing his hand as he completely turned to his brother.

“Dage, I would like to formally introduce you to my boyfriend”, Huaisang said, “Jiang Cheng, although you might know him better as Barista” Mingjue flinched a bit at the reference to the game, hoping Xichen wouldn’t ask him about it later. “Jiang Cheng, this is my dage, Mingjue” The two greeted each other with a nod before they awkwardly shook hands.

“Bring him over for dinner sometime, so I can get to know him”, Mingjue said sternly, to which Huaisang nodded dutifully.

Xichen softly nudged his shoulder. “Should I come too then, so you could get to know me better too?” He joked.

Mingjue felt his entire facade soften again as he looked at Xichen. “Definitely.”

“We could double date!” Huaisang exclaimed, seemingly very excited about the idea. Mingjue didn’t think it was too bad an idea, as it meant he could spend time with both Xichen and Huaisang. He nodded, wrapping his arm around Xichen’s waist again tightly. “I should go greet some more of my guests, Wangji is in there if you want to see him, drinks are everywhere!” Huaisang chirped before pulling Jiang Cheng along with him to greet some other people.

They made their way towards the room where Wangji was supposed to be. The only furniture in the room were some tables placed against the wall, a few chairs and a big stereo which was booming some kind of music. They found Wangji near a wall, with Wuxian obscenely dancing against him, which made Xichen chuckle softly. Wangji and Wuxian were so different, from what Mingjue had heard, yet they worked so well together, it gave Mingjue confidence that he could make it work with Xichen too, no matter how different they seemed to be.

They had a short chat with Wangji, until the music changed to a slow song and Wuxian forced Wangji to dance with him in the middle of the room. They watched them dance for a moment, before Xichen extended his hand towards Mingjue too.

“I’m a very bad dancer”, Mingjue warned him as he took his hand and moved to the middle of the room as well.

Xichen smiled. “So am I, don’t worry”, he said as he wrapped his arms around Mingjue’s neck.

Mingjue wrapped an arm around Xichen’s waist, as he pushed a strand of hair out of Xichen’s eyes, before also putting that hand on his waist and pulled him a bit closer. They just shuffled around a bit, not even caring about the beat of the song, and stared at each other, both with a big smile on their faces. Taking in Xichen, Mingjue just couldn’t believe his luck, he couldn’t believe how right this felt. Xichen seemed to feel the same, as he leaned forward to softly press their foreheads together. He was so close, so incredibly close and Mingjue wanted to kiss him so bad. He leaned in a bit more, pressing their noses together, Xichen’s eyes fluttered closed and… the song changed. A loud, obnoxious song boomed from the stereo and a group came into the room yelling in excitement as they started dancing to the song.

Xichen pressed his face against Mingjue’s shoulder as he laughed about the ruined moment. This might be a good time to sneak off to their actual date.

“Come,” Mingjue said, as he unwrapped himself from Xichen and pulled him towards the hallway again, “I prepared something”

Xichen cocked up an eyebrow. “I thought you’d never been here before?”

Mingjue rolled his eyes with a laugh. “Okay, okay, I made Huaisang prepare something for us”, he confessed with a huff. He tried his best to remember Huaisang’s directions, luckily his brother had been smart enough to mark the correct door for them with a little heart post-it that said ‘Have a good time, dage ;)’. Mingjue rolled his eyes as he snatched off the post-it and opened the door.

Xichen gasped softly. The room was even more beautiful now it was dark, only illuminated by the candles and the garden lights outside. Mingjue was thankful that his brother was such a romantic soul, as he could never have done this himself. He led Xichen to the loveseat, where they both plopped down. There was a bottle of champagne in the ice bucket on the table, but he knew it was only there for decoration, as neither of them drank alcohol. Around it there were several soft drinks, iced teas and fruit juices to choose from.

“Do you want something to drink?” Mingjue asked as he sat down next to Xichen, who immediately inched a bit closer.

“Some of that iced jasmine tea, please”

Mingjue poured them both a glass, handing one to Xichen before sitting back, putting one arm on the back of the loveseat behind Xichen, who took it as an invite to scoot even closer, sides pressed together now. They clinked their glasses together, and sipped their drinks in silence for a moment, just enjoying the view of the garden.

“Do you like it?”, Mingjue asked after a moment, “I really wanted to make tonight special somehow”

Xichen laid his hand on Mingjue’s thigh, squeezing it softly. “I do, it’s wonderful” Mingjue sighed a bit in relief. His heart didn’t stop beating out of his chest, though, the hand on his thigh only making it beat faster. They talked about their days a bit, both of them confessing to the other that most of their workday had gone to waste thinking about tonight.

“Mingjue?”, Xichen whispered, “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Mn”, he answered nervously.

“Have you had a relationship with a man before?” He retreated his hand from where it had been laying on Mingjue’s thigh, suddenly way more interested in playing with his cardigan.

Mingjue looked at him for a moment. “I have”, he said, “Only once, though. We were together for a bit over a year, but he didn’t get along with Huaisang at all and eventually broke up with me because he didn’t like how close I was with my brother.” He hated to think about that relationship, he was still mad about it. He couldn’t believe anyone who knew him well would think he’d ever drop Huaisang for anything. “It’s actually been a problem for quite some men I’ve gone on dates with…” The amount of men that had been weirded out by Mingjue’s relationship with his brother was quite ridiculous. He didn’t get what was wrong with being so close to your family. Especially as Mingjue had spent a significant amount of his life raising Huaisang. Xichen just nodded along, still not looking at him, so Mingjue kept talking. “I’ve been single for a few years now… Not that I haven’t been looking, I just never found the right person. What about you?”

“I’ve had some”, Xichen mumbled, “None of them really ended well”

“Why’s that?” Mingjue asked, taking Xichen’s hand in his to stop his nervous fumbling.

Xichen grimaced, squeezing Mingjue’s fingers. “I’m quite idealistic, you see”, he explained, “I tend to only see the good in people, always hoping for the best, especially when I like someone.”

“That’s not so bad, is it?” Mingjue asked, hand on Xichen’s shoulder moving up to play with his hair a bit. The other man immediately leaning into the touch a bit.

“It is, though”, he shrugged, “It tends to get me hurt every single time as I ignore major red flags” It was clear Xichen had been hurt several times and it made Mingjue want to cry. He wanted to protect this man from all the bad things in the world, as he only deserved all the best.

Pulling him closer, Mingjue pressed a soft kiss against his temple. “I’m so sorry, Xichen”, he whispered, voice breaking a bit. “You deserve so much better” Xichen finally looked up at him, his eyes still filled with pain. Mingjue let go of his hand to cup his cheek, thumb softly stroking his cheekbone. Xichen’s eyes fluttered shut again, leaning into the touch. “You deserve the very best”, Mingjue mumbled, pressing a kiss to Xichen’s other cheek. “I want to give you the world, Lan Xichen” He tilted the other’s head up a bit, hearing how his breath hitched as he did. “I want to give you everything I have to offer” He softly pressed their lips together. Xichen gasped into the kiss, eagerly reciprocating, grabbing Mingjue’s arm as he sat up a bit more. Mingjue couldn’t help but smile into the kiss as he pressed their lips a bit harder together.

Xichen whined softly, as they broke the kiss. It was ridiculous how out of breath they both were from such a short kiss, it felt like he was taking a breath for the first time in ages. He couldn’t help but kiss Xichen all over his face when he saw the blush on his cheeks. His trail of kisses going down to his neck, where he hid his face where he smiled so hard his cheeks hurt. He nuzzled his face in the crease Xichen’s neck as he pulled him a bit closer.

A giggle erupted from Xichen, who then pushed Mingjue away from him softly. He caressed Mingjue’s cheek as he looked at him, smiling brightly, the pain in his eyes gone completely. His fingers stroked over Mingjue’s moustache again as he let out a soft giggle again. “Tickles”, he whispered, “I always wondered how it’d feel” He pressed their lips together again shortly. “Less prickly than I expected, I like it”

Mingjue laughed softly, grabbing Xichen’s hand that was still caressing his cheek, kissing it softly. “I like kissing you”, he said, kissing his knuckles again “I could do it forever” Another short kiss, this time on his lips. “I like you, Xichen, so much”

Xichen pulled his hand out of Mingjue’s grasp, grabbing his face again and kissing him, hard. “I like you too”, he said through the kiss. Fingers threading into his hair as he pulled Mingjue closer. Reveling in the groan the other man released as he grabbed the hair tighter and softly bit his lip.

Mingjue grabbed onto Xichen’s waist tightly, trying to anchor himself as the other man kissed the life out of him. He nearly lost it when Xichen decided their position wasn’t comfortable enough and threw his leg Mingjue’s and crawled in his lap.

“Is this okay?” He panted shyly, as if he wasn’t just kissing Mingjue like that. His hands dropping to the other’s shoulders, leaning down again to softly nip at his jaw. Mingjue could’ve never expected Xichen to be such a menace. All rational thought was slowly leaving him and all he could think of was Xichen.

“You’re going to be the end of me”, he groaned, letting his hands roam over Xichen’s back, who just laughed at his reaction. Mingjue captured his lips in another kiss, just as needy as the previous one. Xichen let his hands roam too, first down Mingjue’s arms, then up again and down his chest, taking his time to feel up the muscles there, one hand staying there as the other grabbed Mingjue by the neck again.

Feeling daring, Mingjue let his hands drop down too. Sliding over Xichen’s ass to his thighs. God those thighs, he nearly drooled just thinking of them. He squeezed them, earning a soft whine from Xichen, feeling them up before sliding them up again to his ass and grabbing hard. Xichen gasped loudly at that, hands grabbing on a bit tighter as Mingjue slid his tongue in his mouth.

Mingjue felt himself get lightheaded at the lack of oxygen but he couldn’t stop, he’d rather pass out than stop kissing Xichen at this moment. It didn’t help that Xichen just kept pressing closer, kissing him with renewed vigour the second their tongues touched. Mingjue felt his pants get tighter and tighter, if they didn’t slow down any time soon Xichen would have him coming in his pants like he’s some teen boy during his first make out session.

Reluctantly he broke the kiss, both of them sucking in a deep breath as soon as their lips disconnected. He didn’t let Xichen go far though, pressing their foreheads together as they panted, trying to regain themselves.

Only then Xichen seemed to realise what they were doing, with a shy laugh he let himself fall forward against Mingjue, wrapping his arms around his shoulders, hiding his face away against his date’s neck. Mingjue rubbed his back softly, kissing his shoulder.

“You drive me absolutely crazy, Xichen”, he whispered against the shoulder, “I can’t get enough of you” The other man nearly purred as he pressed closer to Mingjue.

Suddenly the door of the room flew open with a bang, both of them had nearly forgotten there were other people in the house. Alarmed, Xichen sat up.

“Xichen! You need to come now, it’s Wangji”, Meng Yao said immediately after bursting in. Mingjue felt a mix of annoyance and worry come over him. Of course it had to be Meng Yao to disturb them. “Someone spiked his drink and then tried to flirt with Wei Wuxian, it isn’t pretty”

Mingjue had barely processed the words when Xichen already sprinted out of the room. He got up to go after him and help but Meng Yao stopped him.

“Give up, Mingjue”, he said, “You’ve had your fun now stop, you can’t give him what he needs”

Mingjue just pushed him inside and made his way back to the party, when he finally made it downstairs he saw Xichen and Wuxian carry a drunk Wangji towards the door, his nose was bleeding. Already reaching for his keys, he went towards them, reaching to help.

“Don’t”, Xichen snapped with a glare. Mingjue felt a pang in his chest, did he do something wrong? Wuxian gave him an apologetic smile as they walked by. He watched them put Wangji in the car after which Xichen drove off. Mingjue couldn’t help but worry about Wangji, he turned around to look for Huaisang as soon as the car had disappeared, only to be stopped by Meng Yao, who was grinning.

“See”, he sneered, “see how easily he lost interest?” Mingjue’s stomach churned at those words. Xichen was just worried about his brother, it didn’t mean he lost interest already. “A brainless jock like you could never hold his interest for long, just a piece of meat for some quick fun” Meng Yao sighed, grinning as he saw his words were getting to Mingjue. “I’ve been trying to tell him, usually he listens to me better, but you seemed to have him actually believe this could turn into something”, he laughed, “I’m glad he realised now”

Mingjue balled his fist, trying to stay calm. He felt himself get overwhelmed by his emotions. This little rat would not make or see him cry. He should let this get to him. “What do you know?” He demanded, “what do you know about what Xichen feels?”

Meng Yao rolled his eyes. “I know him better than he knows himself. If he had only listened to me every time he met a stupid boy, he wouldn’t have gotten hurt so often.”

“Even if it was just lust, isn’t it better to let us figure it out ourselves?” Mingjue asked.

“I’d rather get him hurt early on, than have him be with someone like you” Meng Yao spat, those last words coming out so hateful Mingjue felt his stomach drop.

Suddenly Mingjue just wanted to leave too. The evening had been so perfect, he shouldn’t let Meng Yao ruin it. He didn’t feel like doing this now, or ever. Meng Yao had no right to decide about his relationship with Xichen.

“Just give up, Mingjue” Meng Yao seemed to be losing his patience, “You won’t win this. I’ll make sure you’re the one coming out of this hurt, you don’t deserve Xichen. You’re nothing, a piece of trash, a disgusting, brainless jock. It’s cute that you thought you could even hold his interest for much longer, but you won’t, it’s over already. Just forget about him”

Mingjue felt sick, tears springing into his eyes, although he wasn’t sure if they were tears of anger or of pain. He just turned around and left.

When he got home he was still fuming, tears flowing freely as he dropped down on the couch, letting go of all emotions he had been keeping in all evening. When he calmed down he was absolutely exhausted, his head hurt and he felt nauseous. Still, he got out his cell phone, texting an apology to Huaisang for leaving without saying goodbye. He hesitated before texting Xichen. He didn’t even know what to write, he only knew he should message Xichen. In the end he apologized for what happened to Wangji, asking if he was okay.

He put his phone far away as he got in bed, so it wouldn’t tempt him into checking his messages every now and then. Still, he couldn’t sleep. His mind too occupied with everything that had happened that evening.

#otome gay #nielan #nie mingjue #lan xichen #mirf writes #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #cql

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theawkwardterrier · 4 years

Text

things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 41

AO3 link here

Although it doesn’t exactly happen often, Tony isn’t taken totally by surprise when his uncle Steve calls and says that he’ll be in the city next week and would like to have lunch. Steve makes it up to New York every few months to visit Rose or Bucky and Layla, to spend time with Maria. Sometimes he comes through on his way to visit Her Honor and family in Boston or on the way home again. He and Tony are more likely to see each other at bigger group occasions like holidays and celebrations (or funerals, though Tony puts that out of his mind; his mom still lives on her own, takes elegant care of herself, and is spry and sharp as hell despite being past her eightieth birthday) but Steve’s always been a family man, committed to keeping in touch with everyone. Tony and Pepper just received a hand-illustrated card from him on their anniversary a couple weeks back, and the one he sent Jude, decorated with multicolored trumpeting elephants, still has nightstand pride of place even though most of the actual birthday presents have been relegated back to the toy chest.

He tells Steve this as they sit down to lunch together in the cafe on the ground floor of the Stark Industries building, and it actually brings out a smile. Ruby and Trent from VR are passing by the table and double take seeing it, both automatically smiling back. It’s on the tip of Tony’s tongue to say something about how ol’ Steve’s still got it, but that’s a particular sort of smart remark that belongs to a time before Peggy passed.

(Although it’s been several years now, no one has even suggested that Steve look for some companionship or try one of those senior dating sites. The man talks about filling his days with gardening and book club and volunteering, regularly spending time with Emma and Nate and whichever of the grandkids and great-grandkids live locally, but he doesn’t or maybe can’t hide the crater left without his wife by his side. When Tony pictures Steve in the Maryland house these days, he has to stop because he somehow always imagines a single plate at the kitchen table and a tick-tick-ticking in the background: the hallway grandfather clock that he can’t remember ever actually paying attention to, overwhelmed as it always has been by conversation during family gatherings hosted there. The whole thing makes him sad as hell.)

As they start in on their first course, a butternut squash bisque - yes, there’s a first course; this place is damn classy - Steve asks about Tony’s kids, and he’s only too happy to whip out his phone and show off pictures (and then video, but who’s keeping score?) first of Jude all dressed up as a chef in the When We Grow Up-themed kindergarten end of year play, then of AJ’s science fair display, zooming in on all the aspects including the bright blue second place ribbon. He even shows off Morgan’s latest choice for their two-person book club, which he has in ebook and audio. The whole time, Steve watches him with a strange sort of expression, clearly taking in the information, asking questions, smiling at Tony’s stories, but with some odd barrier up.

“It’s Wednesday,” Tony mentions as they take the first bites from their slices of cake. “If you can stick around until 3:30, I’m sure they’d love to see you.”

He’s continued the tradition from his youth, bringing his own kids into the office at least once a week starting even before they could walk. Those are some of his best childhood memories, sitting on lab stools with his father and brainstorming ways to make interesting explosions, his feet dangling two feet above the floor, having his dad look over at him in meetings and say, “So, what do you think, Tony?” Walking home, lunch bag swinging, his small hand clasped in a larger one to help him safely across the streets, waving to Jarvis as they went upstairs to build block towers together. Sometimes he’d do his homework when there was paperwork to take care of, and it was always a laugh to ask for help with history or French (“Call me when you’re learning about Newton or Tesla,” Dad used to protest. “And don’t even tell your mother that you asked me about anything in French.”) He hopes that he’s passing on the same type of memories.

“I think we should see how today goes,” says Steve. He smiles again and Tony wants to squint at it, hold it beneath the microscope, it’s such a complicated looking thing: that pure, good-hearted happiness, but with pain and nostalgia and something that might be doubt quirking at the edges. Not entirely unusual for him over the last few years, but Tony’s starting to suspect that Uncle Steve has more secrets than just the Captain America thing and that he might be about to find one out.

The Captain America thing: even though it’s put to bed now, if Tony thinks about it, he can still feel the...not even irritation, but hurt, from when he’d found out.

It had been Pepper who started it, after they’d dated for a bit, when he’d suggested starting to bring her to family things. She’d met his parents, the Barnses, Steve and Peggy and their kids, at various functions or at the office over the years, but when it had been time to introduce her as his girlfriend, she’d wanted to prepare. She’d asked questions and gathered information, profiled everyone, and the more she’d delved, the fewer answers he’d realized he had. He remembered that Peggy and Steve got together five years or so after the war, but had also grown up hearing their stories - and Bucky’s, and his dad’s - from working together during the war. He could trace Howard and Peggy between the SSR and forming SHIELD, but Steve and Bucky were completely off the map.

Finally, on the Fourth of July, after he’d had a couple of drinks and watched Peggy kiss Steve’s cheek and hand him a cupcake with a single candle, the way she did each Independence Day Tony had been with them for no reason he could fathom, he’d just asked. His mother had placed a hand on his arm, and Peggy said, “Ah.” But he’d watched Steve, took in the way he’d leaned forward and clasped his hands together before he said, “Listen, Tony.”

When the words were finally in the charcoal-scented air around them, he wasn’t exactly surprised by them, they added up, but he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t been told. It had grown even worse when he’d cornered Drea asking about it and she’d said that her father had sat them down and told them all decades before, while Tony was still in high school, and that Tony hadn’t been a part of that. As if everyone had just decided that they didn’t need to tell him. As if there had been the whole family, knowing this, and then him, alone.

Steve claimed responsibility, apologized right. He always did: “I handled it badly. I should have told you earlier, personally. I know it made you feel excluded.” And Tony had forgiven him, had even forgiven the rest of the Carters after talking more with Drea and then the others. After he’d heard how hurt she’d been, too, finding out that her father with whom she’d shared so much had this part of his life about which she knew nothing, as if she’d barely known him; how she’d burrowed in with the information, trying to puzzle through it, come to grips with the way it changed and didn’t change her whole past. They told him the story of how Rose shattered her wine glass in the middle of the restaurant when Steve had first said it and that every time she spoke to her parents for the next month, she’d interrogate them and wind up yelling. All these years later, Emma still seemed to let the fact of it slide out of her mind. Her life is picket fences and politics, and it is as if she doesn't want it to sink in, this other and simultaneous identity of her father.

(Tony’s actually seen Nate bring it up casually - “Oh, is that the time when you and the Commandos were in France?” or asking about growing up with a host of chronic conditions - but there are plenty of reasons why Nate Carter and Tony are different and that’s just one.)

Even though the splinter of the secret has been removed, healed over, there’s still an odd reminder of it, a feeling of trepidation, as he and Steve take the elevator up. He almost stops at Pepper’s floor to say hello, push off a little longer whatever might be coming, but he knows that she has a meeting, and he’ll have to handle whatever it is anyway.

The lights flip on as they walk in, and Tony absently says, “Thanks, TESLA,” as he gestures Steve over to one of the work benches. He does have an actual desk and the old computer parts he has spread out aren’t repair priorities, aren’t really anything more than something to play around with, but he has the feeling he’s going to want to do something with his hands while they get down to business.

“So,” Tony says as Steve brings over a chair, “what’s going on?”

Steve sits before he speaks. He touches the cool top of the table with the tips of his fingers. He says, very carefully, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

Ten minutes later, Tony has pushed the broken computer away and rested his hands flat on the table. “Time travel,” he says flatly. “You need help with time travel.”

“The time travel I have worked out,” Steve says, infuriatingly calm. “Or, it was worked out for me. It’s the reality hopping part in particular that I thought I’d ask you about. And I might need you to dip into the old lab storage for some Pym particles.”

“Pym—” Tony starts disbelievingly, then shakes his head, adding, “And of course you want to go to Greenland,” like the teacher’s pet giving a reminder about the homework assignment.

Steve actually glances down before he forces his gaze back up. “I don’t have to go - I have the coordinates, and the land is yours - but I’d like to...It feels wrong to just send someone without any ceremony.”

“Course it does,” Tony mutters, almost laughing. It doesn’t even occur to him that Steve’s not telling the truth - Steve’s not a liar, and nowhere close to senile - but the whole thing is ridiculous. He picks up an old Starkbook and a screwdriver again, cracking open the back in rapid twists. “You’re telling me that you’re actually a version of a Steve Rogers from another reality who traveled back in time seventy years ago, that the original Steve Rogers is still frozen in an iceberg while you lived an entire life, fiddled around with the timeline, and now you need to pop back over to where you came from for what? A quick chat? Sunday dinner?”

“To say goodbye.” Steve doesn’t say it as an admonishment. His words are quiet, almost internal. “I have people there who meant a lot to me, who mean a lot to me, and even if I’ve run into versions of them here, accidentally or on purpose, it’s not the same. They deserve to know what happened.” He doesn’t even meet Tony’s eye. Tony somehow feels chastised anyway. He swallows.

“Who knows about this?” he asks, a little more softly this time.

“Bucky knows some of what might have happened.” Tony almost starts to demand what exactly the some of it might be, but then Steve adds, “Your father knew that I’d come back. I’m not sure whether he told your mother.”

Tony twists the screwdriver hard enough that he almost strips the screw. “Seventy years ago, you showed up and told my dad you’d come from another time, but what, you didn’t trust him enough to tell him more than that?” His voice drops, fierce and low, as the next screw is released too quickly and with too much force, pinging off the table and getting lost beneath. “As if the two of you were perfect, as if you could be objective about everything, take care of it all. Saint Steve and Blessed Peggy. It must have been you and her, you would have told her everything so she could have worked it from the inside—”

Steve barks, “Tony,” suddenly on his feet, and it occurs to Tony that Steve might actually be able to beat him up, despite being...God, he can’t even track how old at this point, but certainly old enough for it to be embarrassing.

“Don’t talk about Peggy like that.” Steve’s voice is softer now but bitten to the quick. “I know I’ve just put a lot on you, and you can yell at me all you want for being arrogant or dishonest, whatever you’d like, but just...Not about her, alright?”

Aunt Peg would have given him that quiet, cold, imperious look if she were with them now. Tony pushes back on his heels thinking of it. And if his dad were here...he’d probably say that he trusted Steve and Peggy and didn’t trust himself enough to know these things. There had never been any sign that Howard Stark had been unfaithful in his marriage, and Tony hopes that his mother would have left if there had been, but Tony remembers the unconscious, appreciative way his father’s eyes would follow a pretty woman across the room at a party, his head turning quickly there and back again in the street, a habit he couldn’t seem to break, like his cigars and his whiskey, all those late nights, those flares of temper. If you couldn’t avoid those little weaknesses, you couldn’t let yourself be in charge of knowing the future, much less changing it.

“Wait,” says Tony, something catching up with him, snagging in his throat. “Wait. Why wouldn’t you have warned him about the heart attack? If you knew, if you’d already been changing stuff, why didn’t you tell him to go to a doctor, get imaging, just eat better, shit.”

“There are things,” says Steve, “that even I don’t know. I didn’t know that he would die that way, Tony, I swear. The first...In the other timeline, he died earlier, and differently.” He slides his hands into his pockets, and the quiet strength of him is obvious as he meets Tony’s eyes instead of glancing away. “But I did tell him to eat better anyway.”

Steve had been a statue at the funeral, Tony remembers that. He’d thought that it was because of the suddenness, Howard grappling to host that year’s Thanksgiving dinner one minute and gone the next, or because the guys from the war had started to pass recently and it hurt to see your old friends going, the ones who had been there for so long, who held your youth, shared your memories. Later, he’d even wondered if Steve had held himself so still and silent because Tony was trembling and needed someone to lean on; Steve had certainly let him do that, no matter what else was going on. But now he peers differently at the memory of the tight clutch of Steve and Peggy’s hands, the way Steve had said, “I’m so sorry, Tony,” at the graveside, not only condolence but apology - he sees the guilt in it now, the burden.

Tony hooks a chair with his foot and drops into it. “Okay,” he says, scrubbing both palms over his face. “Okay. Tell me what you can.”

And as Steve begins to speak, he starts to understand not only how deep this one man’s collapse might have been but how deep the world’s too. War and the lightly done destruction of the planet, Bucky taken and tortured, Hydra - Hydra, which was from history textbooks, which was a sidebar in history textbooks - beneath everything, and then...

“Half the universe,” he says, turning over the words in his mouth. A minute ago he didn’t even know for sure that there was more than their little corner to consider (and he definitely has a few more questions for Steve about aliens). Now he tries to picture individual blades of grass on other planets, all the disappeared foxes and ferns and pets and coral, animals he doesn’t know and can’t describe. The people, even if he might not recognize them as such right away. The parents and children.

For just a second he imagines Pepper and their kids, the idea of one or two or three or all of them disappearing, but has to cut off even the conjured thought; the shrapnel gasp of it is too much and he rubs his knuckles over his chest to try to erase the horror of it. He tries to think through just the logistics of it all: what if he’d gone and after three years or four Pep had married someone else? Who was she really married to and who was she expected to divorce? What if someone adopted your kids? Jesus, the therapists would have full schedules if nothing else, because even if it was reversed, it had happened. Somewhere out there, all that had happened.

He shakes his head, twitchy. “Even with what you came back knowing, how could you be sure that the strings you were pulling on were the right ones, the ones that would help things?”

Steve gives a single-beat laugh. “I’ve spent nearly twice your lifetime wondering.” He shifts his body and the light - not the bright lab fixtures but that high, brilliant sun coming through the windows, a reminder that it is still only midafternoon - edges onto his face just so, revealing the sharp cut of time landscaping his cheeks and forehead, running beside his eyes, tied tightly around his mouth.

“Peggy and I talked about it all forever. I think we did what we could, did well enough even if it sometimes didn’t seem like it. But I also think that there’s probably a world out there where we did it all better.”

“Then there’s probably a world out there where you did it worse,” Tony offers, and somehow it makes Steve smile.

“From what I’ve seen, I’d bet that there’s a version for every decision you can imagine. One where I didn’t go back, or one where I went back and only told Peggy where to look in the ice but didn’t stay. One where I never went into the ice at all. One where I died as a kid, or from the serum, or in the war, or during the crash. A whole bunch, probably, where Dr. Erskine decided to give Peggy the serum instead.” His voice grows quiet; he seems to hold the words close. “One where she wore blue to our wedding instead of white, and one where she wore red. One where she became president, and one where she decided she’d finished with meetings and went back to being an agent. One where we decided not to have any kids, and one where she was able to carry them, and one where we adopted some other kids who some other me loves just as much as I do mine.”

They sit in silence for a moment, then: “Have you told them about this?” Tony asks. “Will you?”

A sigh, and Tony remembers with a strange, electric chill that this man - Uncle Steve, Grant Carter, Captain America, Steve Rogers - this man will one day die, lifetime strung against lifetime finally at an end.

“Your life,” Steve says, “turned out in many ways the same. Here or there: smart and wealthy, philanthropist, father. I can’t say for certain that it would be the same for my kids. And I know that they’re strong people, and I hope that I’ve helped them find solid foundations, but I don’t know that I can torture them with the idea of what might have been, of what might be, somewhere out there.”

Tony thinks suddenly of standing with Rose at some family thing, probably three or four years back. He’d asked if she ever considered what might have been if she’d been made a judge. Fairly insensitive, he realized now - it had been pretty soon after they’d found out that Drea had been on the shortlist to replace Justice Ginsburg - but Rose had just cackled gleefully. He remembers turning his head at the sound: her mother was already dying - truly dying, not only the sort that starts the day someone is born - and it had been a while since he’d heard one of the Carters laugh freely like that. Her eyes had a delighted razor’s edge to them, and he’d sort of understood how opposing counsel must feel when Rose Carter showed up for a meeting.

“They’d have to have stopped caring about judges keeping any claim to objectivity,” she had said. “But think of how I’d run my courtroom, all those acidic opinions I could write!” She’d cackled again. “Imagine that sort of alternate universe.”

One part of Tony, a part that sounds quite a lot like Steve himself, considers rigorous honesty, the lies by kind omission that can poison things just as easily as those meant maliciously. But another part, the side of him that sneaks dollar bills beneath the pillow for each lost tooth, that smooths sweaty, rumpled hair and says, “I’m here, don’t worry, I’ll always be here” during storms or after nightmares, the part that hesitated before placing Morgan, not yet two weeks old, into Steve’s arms, even as he felt that he might remember being held securely there himself, the part of him that’s a parent...that part understands.

She’ll turn seventy in a couple of years, Rose Carter. What purpose will it serve to tell her this, to have her wonder not only about worlds where she might have been a judge, but those where she never became a lawyer, never found her career or her family, where she might have been raised by people with different ideas about how to handle an incandescently angry child or a young woman who had no interest in romance, worlds where she was never taken in at all? What need is there to tell her, to tell all the Carters, if it meant turning those thoughts from something coming across the brain for a second, easily brushed aside, to true possibilities, if not for them than for some other version out there?

Finding out that their father had once upon a time gone by another name, that he had been more than the average soldier during the war, those things might require some adjustment, but this life, their life together, their memories, remained largely the same. This could turn the entire universe to quicksand.

Tony clears his throat. “I’m guessing whatever—” He waves a hand. “Your supersuit, or your time machine, the TARDIS...it’s not with you here?”

“No,” says Steve. “I didn’t want it to get misplaced on the train.”

As if it’s just another piece of luggage and he didn’t want to set them up for some sort of hijinks. “Okay, well, I’m coming down to meet with the NSF in a couple of weeks. I’ll swing by to take a look then.”

“Thank you. That sound goo—”

Steve is cut off by TESLA’s voice, bright and warm and synthetic. “Reminder: it is 3:20. Please cease working and prepare to greet the children.”

“I can go before they get here,” Steve offers, standing.

“What, you’re gonna scale the side of the building, old man?” The words arrive without Tony thinking about them. Even as he has a sense of unreality, trying to let himself have both the life he did two hours ago and this new concept of everything, he shrugs into the familiarly smart remark like an old coat that turns out to still fit.

Tony stands too, comes closer, places a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I told you, the kids’ll love to see you.”

“Alright,” and even though it sounds a little shaky and sad, Steve’s smile looks real.

As TESLA reports that the kids are in the elevator on the way up, accompanied by their babysitter, Pepper’s niece Callie, Tony thinks to ask, “How did you know that I’d help you?”

Steve’s smile turns deeper, somehow more amused and more sad at once. “You helped me then, over there,” he says. “And you’d punched me quite a bit more than you have here.”

“Wait,” says Tony, turning toward him. “What?” But the doors open just then, Jude and AJ racing each other in, shrieking in endlessly delighted purposelessness, Mo coming more sedately after them, eyes big and observant behind those new glasses, and Tony just opens his arms to them all.

More chapters here

#Steggy #Steggy fic #Steve Rogers #Tony Stark #things left behind fic #Peggy Carter #the Carter crew #this chapter is possibly a little *unending scream*

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lizzybeth1986 · 5 years

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Quick Thoughts on The Royal Fast-Track Pregnancy, Book 1 Chapter 15

• A friend of mine just called me Cassandra recently coz when I predict things, not a lot of people take what I say seriously, and by the time they find out I'm right it's too late.

• I have just one thing to say there:

• If you don't want to see these posts on your dash, here are the tags to block: #trh quick thoughts, #trh qts, #trh qt reblogs, #long post.

• Title: Apple in the Oven

Alternative Title: ...Will Be Burned to A Crisp From The Speed At Which You're Trying to Bake It!

• Screenshots:

Hana: The Abhirio YouTube channel and the Universal Studio 77 YouTube channel.

Maxwell: @itsbrindleybinch and the rash rec YouTube channel

Drake: @thefirstcourtesan and the HIMEME YouTube channel.

• I liked parts of this chapter - the MC definitely seems to show a bit of the concern and caring towards her certain LIs that has been missing for a while now. I liked that she could try to talk to Liam about how he's feeling as his wife + friend, and that as Hana's wife she could encourage Hana to take a step back and bask in the attention for once. But I'm wary too. Like, is this just a small carrot they're dangling in front of us, before returning to the status quo and continuing to perpetuate the same problems in their writing?? It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've seen tiny glimpses of progress before the team took 50 steps backwards in their storytelling for some of these characters.

• How the heck did Edenbrook get a branch in Cordonia? 🤭

• Also...it's plausible that Brad/Thad/Chad may have reached there and settled in before we made it to the hospital...but still, Olivia didn't notice anything suspicious? Nothing at all? Why is it that the moment competent individuals (like Mara) become security detail, they become as stupid as the people they're protecting?

• So within our own playthroughs we have 3 people to choose from: our LIs, ourselves, or Olivia:

I like how this incorporates all their ways of thinking into how they fight.

Liam has the ability to fight a man but also the wisdom to know when delegating will make things more effective.

Hana's is reminiscient of her fight at the boutique (if she was part of your bridal party), where she had the forethought and flexibility to use anything that was at hand as a weapon (and here, she uses a potted plant).

Maxwell is someone who enjoys sliding down the stairs via the bannister (his last scene in Book 1 features him and the MC do this together), and he uses that to gain leverage over his opponent.

Drake opts for speed and aggression, since raw power is what he is most known for.

Olivia is a master of fighting skill and agility, which is obvious from her tackling of the man.

Of course...the "opponent" is really a dudebro reporter who was easy to catch so I doubt any of them saw him as that big of a challenge 🤣

• The MC then gets to choose how to tackle him - two of the options involve coming down heavily on him for invading their privacy, and one offers to provide him a picture that's taken with the consent of the MC and LI.

• Why do none of them even bother to grill this guy over where he came from? Who sent him? Who he was reporting to? Why is NO ONE asking these questions oh gosh why are you all so stupid.

• DIAMOND SCENE TIME. In some ways it could be a throwback to Liam giving you a massage in Book 1 Chapter 16 at Beaumont estate, but like all LI scenes, it plays out differently depending on who you're married to.

Liam: The MC is surprised that Liam managed to secretly set this (the arrangements for the massage) up, and Liam confesses to taking a course from a professional masseuse (wasn't he already very skilled in massage? I recall the MC saying so in TRR Book 1 Chapter 16. I mean it's likely he wanted to sharpen his skills etc but why no acknowledgement from the MCs who did the scene back at Beaumont House?). You get to choose between letting him focus on your upper body or lower body, and you can either flirt with or help Liam to set up.

The variations for the sex scene involve the MC telling him what she wants in terms of speed and tempo (slow, or "right now"), as well as positioning (under her, or on top of her). The couple then relax and speak of how moments like these will be few and far between once the child is born, and how they will make time for their children and each other regardless. If you're a Henney fan, you'll love this scene coz at some point the MC calls Liam "Mr Perfect".

Cmon PB tell me that wasn't done on purpose! 🤣🤣🤣

Hana: There's plenty of Hana's thoroughness in action here. The skill is something Hana has already learned and picked up from before, and it's something she is excellent at (for instance, there is a point where she tells the MC that she almost put her course instructor to sleep with her rendition of a Swedish massage). Hana's version of the scene is detailed in terms of the oils she uses and the names of the massage therapies she employs.

We get a choice between two oils - elderberry and rose, or sage and sandalwood - and two massage therapies: Swedish and Shiatsu. The first therapy is meant to soothe and relax, the second is meant to invigorate and awaken. The MC can either respond by talking about how much she needed this, or jokingly offer to be "Hana's personal genie".

The MC also gets to set the pace for sex - either hard and fast or slow and tender - and the scene shortly after involves the women engaging in playful banter about how there will be less time for private moments like these after they have children, but how it will all be worth it for the joy those very children bring.

(Also the one time I went to France I saw the sun set at 9 PM or something to my utter surprise 😲)

Maxwell: The tone of this - including the MC's as well as Maxwell's dialogues - sound a lot like the fun couple they're expected to be, and have a different vibe. I liked this scene particularly because the MC gets to show her mood swings here, and Maxwell has a story similar as Liam's about taking a course on massage ("with a complimentary chakra kit"). Additionally he also provides his own recorded music.

The MC gets to choose how they'll do foreplay ("my mouth on you" or "your mouth on me"), and how they'll have sex (behind or under). Once that is done, they speak about their wishes and dreams for the child. Maxwell mentions needing to lock the door so the kids won't hear them during moments like these, and contemplating on their growing years (he mentions "preschool" then jumps straight to "first car"). They do, however, agree to relax and take each moment as it comes. Which is a theme with Maxwell even in the buildup of the scene where he talks about living in the here and now.

Drake: More attempts to make Drake more flexible and open, and less "manly man" stuff. He gives the MC the opportunity to choose who should "order around" even though he isn't used to it (at least they acknowledged that). He doesn't say a lot about his massaging skill - and he shouldn't considering the writers already write enough about it in their Chapter 13 scene where he talks about his dad playing masseuse for his mother.

The MC gets to decide whether Drake can watch or touch, and positions (on top, or under). Afterwards, Drake gets to talk about how far they have come as a couple - how the MC didn't imagine how her life in NY led her to this charmed one, and how Drake could hardly imagine until she chose him that he was the one she wanted. While all the others speak about the changes that having children will bring into their lives, Drake gets to also talk about how unbelievably good their present life is.

• The next few weeks pass in a blur. Another couple of days pass in a blur. A whole six months is reduced to a montage wowwww. Amazing. What was the premise of this book again?? Family, right? And surprisingly, we spent AGES on only one LI's family, so much so that the rest of us have to be satisfied with just 5 chapters of the theme for our own LIs!

• Your free dress is basically a peach monstrosity (sorry guys I can't stand the colour peach 😅😅), and the diamond option is a floral blue short dress, which is fitting considering our next diamond option involves an actual flower garden. It would go with the theme.

• Our second trimester montage includes the following:

- Maxwell googling pregnancy-friendly yoga poses and learning them so he can practice them with us. For solidarity awww (which could be either as a friend, or as the father. Both are adorable). He teaches us the downward dog pose (we call it adho mukha svanasana I think. It's supposed to have many benefits, though I hear that earlier, pregnant people used to be advised against doing this asana during late term).

- Drake making something that was supposed to be a rocking horse but that looks either like a footstool or abstract art, further reiterating that if he has so few skills maybe he shouldn't be yapping about how nobles swan around doing nothing of importance.

- Liam doing the rounds of our estate with us, and proposing the lakeside be converted into a garden with a gazebo...kiiinda similar to Applewood's? The narrative promises that paying for this background art will unlock scenes not only in this book but in other books in the series as well.

- Hana suggesting names for our kid - either Oswald, Valentina or as our namesake. Valentina is the popular option, obviously, because Hana then gets to give us a callback to TCaTF where she can speak of the "great warrior" who was close to Cordonia's greatest warrior queen. This comes MUCH later in the scheme of these scenes, and if you're a Hana fan who doesn't romance Hana...it'll definitely feel like you spent a huge chunk of the chapter not even catching a glimpse of her.

- In addition, you get two scenes exclusively with our LIs - one where we're dancing with our partners and experience the baby's kick together for the first time (it's cute because the sprite wiggle and shake a couple times from surprise and joy in this scene 🤭), and this adorable af dream section:

Now this scene takes place while the MC worries over the number of kicks in two hours that her character should be doing, and the LI is in the middle of a dream when she wakes them up. It's followed by the LIs calming her down and attempting to communicate with the child before they eventually kick. The dreams are cute, but I couldn't help but notice how all of them are in some way connected to themes of family (and perhaps responsibility? IDK this is just a wild guess):

* King Liam and the Baklava Arm: Liam's dream involves him and Leo (they remember Liam's brother exists! Hallelujah!) eating baklava, before Liam turns into this sweet and gets eaten by his older brother. Which I take to mean that sometimes, it really does feel like the responsibilities Leo - and why just Leo! I would include Liam's father in this as well - has left behind for him may swallow Liam whole. After all, Liam is in many ways, spending his time as king constantly fixing his family's messes.

* Hana Lee and the Tea Party: Hana's dream focuses on enjoying a tea party with the MC and her future child, to the point where she is reluctant to shake herself out of the dream. As a child Hana was deprived of this experience - forever keeping a place for her mother that her mother never bothered to fill - that she now views the same thing as an opportunity to NOT be that person towards her own child. In a lot of ways she may view this as "I will not make the mistakes my mother made, and make my child suffer believing I don't care for them". Why is why, when the MC wakes her up she shows such a reluctance to leave. In a lot of ways her view of parenting rn is largely coloured by her desire to be the exact opposite of her mother.

* Maxwell Beaumont and The Shrimp Buffet: Maxwell's recurring dream involves him being in a shrimp buffet, being fed shrimp till he wants no more. This is a little tougher to decipher, but I'm guessing that since their house sigil is nautical and shrimps are a delicacy of the waters, the shrimp buffet mayyyybe represents his House and family, and the responsibilities and complications that will eventually pile up from them. Remember, he enjoys his father's respect and regard now, but perhaps there may come a time where being a Beaumont will feel like being in a carousel that refuses to stop.

* Drake Walker and the Giant Marshmallow: Drake's dream involves being smushed by a giant marshmallow that he seems to be fighting. Now most of us usually associate the marshmallow with Drake only, but in a lot of ways the treat has its roots in his memories of his father. In fact, that's the earliest actual memory we get of Jackson. So the dream could either mean he fears he may not live up to Jackson's example, or foreshadowing that Jackson's secret may blindside and engulf him.

• One thing I really don't get about the TRR/H team re: Hana is...why do they sometimes spend chapters and chapters repeating the same things like a broken tape recorder? In the early chapters she wound up making constant mentions of embroidery, even when it wasn't needed. When it was pointed out that they forgot she was skilled at horseriding then they kept beating that reference to death. Now it's tea parties. Hana is a layered character, PB! Start treating her like one!!

• It's nice that the MC has that rare moment of checking in on Liam and asking him how he's taking the news that his mother was pregnant when she died. That doesn't happen much in the books - she can ask a ten-second question about how Liam is holding up after his father died but somehow never tries to check up on how he's down again, even when she's his wife. It would be nice to see more of that...but I don't have any hope left of that happening.

• Hallelujah! The members of the Council speak about something other than balls and parties!! There's a brief mention about "transportation reforms" which gets knocked over by the press in favour of more pregnancy speculations. Which is on par for pregnant celebs - in that once you're pregnant, everything else seems frustratingly unimportant in comparison in the eyes of other people. You begin to feel less like a person and more like a vessel (and if you don't have the right support, those feelings will keep gnawing at you even after childbirth).

• I wanted to hear more about those transportation reforms! Dammit PB!!

• The MC and LI eventually celebrate the point where her morning sickness is out of the way in a short scene.

• Man I miss seeing the palace. It felt almost like the team had forgotten that some of our MCs might actually live there.

• Callback to Book 1! We get a scene where the friends are having dinner, but the MC now has a craving for cronuts so they go to the same bakery they visited when she was still new to Cordonia.

- Jumping out the window was Liam's thing in Book 1 (and he almost fell on the rose bushes), but this time it's the MC who is doing it

- Maxwell speaks about how fun rule breaking is, leading to an interesting observation from Hana (the last time they went to a cronut shop she sidestepped this question and merely commented on how much more fun it was that their destination was "something delicious"). This time around, Hana actually focuses on the "rule breaking part", where she speaks about what it feels like to break a rule for her:

I've mentioned in my QT for Chapter 9 how Hana often speaks of her parents "as if they are still there, still controlling her choices, as if she cannot remove herself from her fears concerning them even if they're physically away from her. In her head, she still has a lot of difficult getting out of the obedience mindset (particularly towards her parents) built in her.

I can connect to this personally. As a teenager and a young adult, I wasn't allowed to go out too often, and the few times I did go out to meet friends I was given deadlines that left me with very little time to actually have much fun. (yknow, like 6 pm, or 7.30 if I was lucky...even if I'd gone out at 4 or 5). My college days were mostly spent in convent-run hostels with strict curfews (like 6 pm), and you had to repeatedly hit at a locked gate if you were even a minute late.

Now I'm married, to a man who understands if I run late...and even now I think in terms of timing and curfews. I still get a tiny chill down my spine when it's 10 pm and I'm not home yet - for no other reason than "I'm late". It's just the way my brain's been wired from years of that routine and it will probably take a lot of unlearning to grow out of it.

Hana's guilt about rule-breaking is kind of like that. She knows it's unreasonable, she knows theoretically that she is safe from harm, she knows logically that she's free to do what she wants, but her brain has been wired to certain routines that will take her maybe years to grow out of.

...and this fandom acts as if she's just a weak, passive, one-dimensional character who is nothing next to the Almighty Olivia Nevrakis. LMAO.

- A lot of the callbacks are in the shop scene, such as the way Maxwell shouts for the cronuts as soon as they enter, the way Maxwell finishes his cronut before the other LIs finish their countdowns, and the compliments they deliver for the treat hold a few similarities too.

- There is also a tiny callback when Maxwell recalls Liam and Drake "stealing a boat" - something Liam talked to us about at the Regatta.

- If there is anything different, it's the messages the LIs now deliver to the child:

The friendly version includes all their plans for this child they have already begun to love and consider as their family, and involves what is important to all of them. Hana simply lets the child know there is an amazing support system that will shower them with love, Maxwell playfully asks the child about what flavour of cronuts they would prefer, Drake promises them fishing and trekking trips just like the ones he had as a child, and Liam assures them that even though their future lies in the throne, they are not entirely bound by it (why couldn't the writers have made the heir an "heir presumptive" then? Rather than make this a permanent arrangement! Oh, I know. Coz the MC has to be the front and center of everything).

• Slight variations if the LI is married to you:

Le Moi:

• It's now time for our baby shower, which means we're now in our third trimester. So much for a book about having a child 🙄

• One of my favourite variations in this chapter happens around here. If she is your friend, Hana is organizing the baby shower along with the other women in court, and the MC tells her she should enjoy it with her and she doesn't need to fuss so much, and Hana responds that the MC is her best friend so it's important for her to be involved.

Fortunately, in Hana's playthrough, the MC ensures (and insists, actually) Hana enjoys the function alongside her, rather than playing second-fiddle:

It's a lovely scene. It's all I could want. The MC shows that she cares about Hana, follows up on the "I won't let you play second fiddle when you're my wife" promise from last chapter, and generally includes rather than excludes Hana. It's heartwarming and shows some effort from the side of the writers.

But...at this point it's been FOUR BOOKS. Four books of seeing the MC simply use Hana when convenient and discard her when convenient. Four books of seeing the MC not bother to even ask Hana how she is when she is affected by terrible things, while showering attention and advice on people like Olivia and Penelope and Madeleine. Just a book ago, the MC marrying her was treating Hana like a bridesmaid on what should have been a memorable wedding day for Hana.

It's great that this mistake is not repeated now, but this is one tiny spark in a long, long line of lackadaisical writing. It shouldn't take you four fucking books to come to the conclusion that, hey, maybe we're treating our lone female LI like garbage and we should do better.

So...yeah, I love this scene. But I have no idea whether PB will continue doing better in terms of their treatment of Hana, or whether this and the previous scene are just brief flashes in a pan. I probably never will trust them on this, but honestly the team has only themselves to blame for that 🤷🏽‍♀

• I'm tempted to say "too little too late", but (foolishly) I'm still holding on to a sliver of hope.

• Hallelujah! The writers also remember that Kiara exists outside of being Penelope's bestie! And she comes to us and the LI, delivering the news that Auvernese and Monterisso royalty have decided to come to the baby shower to find out who Cordonia will make an alliance with. Jesus Christ. Stop.

• In my playthrough, Kiara interacts with Liam and Esther (but more to Esther than Liam - and I saw similar interactions on the plane trip back to Cordonia) which felt...different because up until now the narrative never allowed the two to even speak to each other (she's the only suitor in Book 1 who never gets to even talk to Liam, and in Book 3, they went as far as to replace her with Hakim in the armoury scene at Lythikos). To me it simply goes to show how deep the rot goes with regards to Kiara's treatment in this series (as well as the fact that they make Kiara interact just as normally with Drake in his playthrough, yknow, that asshole who treated her like shit last series. Oh what I wouldn't give for Kiara to rake that man through the coals for his treatment of her, if only just once).

• We're also told that our in-laws will be in attendance, which means we will have different playthroughs featuring different characters visiting or gaining additional dialogue. Regina and Leo for Liam's playthrough, Leona, Bianca and BertVannah for Drake's, Barthelemy and BertVannah for Maxwell's, and Xinghai and Lorelai for Hana. I think Hana's family is the only one so far who have NOT made an appearance...and will for the first since Book 3 this week. They'd better treat her well this time around!

• I'm wondering - with the arrival of the other royals - whether another flashback scene will be shown. Or perhaps it will be reserved for Chapter 17 since we'll be traveling to Lythikos.

• I wonder if one of the gifts will include something for the nursery. I think it might.

• Another visit to Lythikos. This has to be the third time I'm seeing this place. It was the only duchy besides Beaumont Estate we were allowed to see in Book 1 and one of the major turning points in the plot in Book 3. We haven't seen any duchy (besides our own) as extensively as we have seen this one, and I know it will involve more opportunities for Olivia to gobble up space.

• Like at this point why the hell am I being regarded as an honorary Beaumont when the only time I bothered to visit Ramsford was in Book 1, and I have never, ever visited Hana's Cordonian side of the family even once - not even aware of anything besides their sigil being flowers and her great-grandmother teaching her a Cordonian tradition featuring three coins in a fountain (and don't even get me started on Shanghai!!!)

• In an ideal version of this story, where the writers made a damn effort on all the LIs...I'd be really happy about the writing for Olivia. I'd be fine with it. But now I'm sick and tired. Sick and tired of her concerns, her issues, her pain getting more attention than Hana's ever has, or ever will. Sick and tired of how often I see both the writing and people in the fandom (yes Olivia stans who downplay Hana just to make your fave look good, I'm looking at you) act like Hana's story has zero value, every time the narrative gives Olivia attention. At this point the narrative is giving a secondary character the space and attention that they should have been giving the female LI. And not because Hana's story is not equally compelling - but because the writers didn't want to put in the effort. Why the hell do I have to wait four goddamn books to see even a tenth of this much effort put into Hana, huh?

I'm fed up at this point. I like Olivia but can't even enjoy her scenes nowadays without thinking of how much the same amount of space could have benefited Hana, or wondering how and when the fandom will use this opportunity to shit on Hana just because she's not their preferred female LI or BFF.

• Chapter 16 has always been the kind of chapter where the nobility have an excuse to go wild and party a lot (except in Book 2, where Chapter 16 was set aside for Liam's proposal and the MC finally choosing her endgame). In Book 1 it was the Beaumont Bash. In Book 3, it was the MC's bachelorette in Vegas. Now in Book 4, it's the baby shower (maybe less wild...but still partylike). It's kind of a pattern at this point.

• Liam's suggestion of a flower garden + gazebo at Valtoria brought me back to that Book 1 Chapter 4 scene, where he spoke about the palace gardens and hedge maze being his mother's vision. But it also reminds me of that gazebo with cherry blossoms, and that flower conservatory, in Applewood.

There is a statue of a woman with a crown on her head and a specter in her hands, at the back of the garden, and I wonder who that is supposed to represent.

• That's it for this week! Until Chapter 16, guys! (gosh how did I survive 15 chapters worth of meta with this).

#long post #trh quick thoughts #trh qts #the royal heir #king liam #hana lee #maxwell beaumont #drake walker

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youseissi · 4 years

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Chapter 7 - Lonely Christmas by MX

Chapter 1 ✧ Chapter 2 ✧ Chapter 3 ✧ Chapter 4 ✧ Chapter 5 ✧ Chapter 6 ✧ Chapter 7 ✧ Chapter 8 ✧ TBC ✧ AO3 ✧ Masterlist

The city was crowded for the holiday and Hongjoong struggled to walk through the passing couples and families scattered around the boulevard. The shallow snow descending lazily from the sky obstructed his view and he was starting to get annoyed at the prickling wet feeling when he finally spotted Seonghwa in the distance.

The older was looking up at the clouds, face illuminated by the dim sunlight and his breath visible as he sighed. The shorter fawned over the simple sight of the other’s complexion adorned by the floating white specks, one suddenly hitted the tip of his nose making him scrunch up and shake his head like a cat before pulling up his seasonally appropriate red scarf up for more protection.

“Are you you gonna come here and greet me or do you rather just keep laughing at me?” Seonghwa called out with an eyebrow raised and a soft blush spreading through his cheeks.

Hongjoong had been so busy melting over the sight that he didn’t even notice his own giggles or that he had been spotted as well. With a smile he walked the few meters of distance left between them.

“I’m sorry, you just looked so cute.” He replied playfully raising his hand to lightly pinch one of the older’s cheek, only chuckling more at his pout. He offered his hand, taking this excuse to get closer. “Shall we go have a look around?”

Seonghwa took his hand with a shy smile of his own, his leather glove grasping onto the hero’s wool one and as a fleeting thought he almost wished it wasn’t so cold, contradicting his early mental praise to how well the snow complemented the other’s beauty, just so that he could feel the other’s heat instead of the thick cloth separating them, a slight pout forming on his own face as he started pulling them towards the lights ahead.

It was Christmas Eve and after both being busy through finals and texting nonstop for a few weeks they decided to spend the festivities together, meeting up at the themed fair. The two of them walked around the stalls decorated with the seasoned lights that although early in the day still stood out brightly warming the damp greyish atmosphere.

The crowd thickened the deeper they entered the maze of stores and they soon were squished against each other as they looked through what the sellers had to offer with curious eyes.

For the start of it was mostly jewelry or clothes and as much of a fashion sense Seonghwa had, he’d rather step aside to watch the hero scavenger through it, beaming when he found an odd treasure and listening to his excited comments of what he could transform certain items into.

They eventually reached a new patch of stalls, organic honey, medicinal herbs and homemade jams on display. The older bought a few items, propolis cough drops for his roommate and special blends of tea that Hongjoong never heard of making the other insist they should sit down together to have him try them one day.

At the end of that section a bigger tent caught the hero's attention as he ran ahead to look at it, the older close behind. A mini flower shop resided inside, an assortment of fragrances and colors contrasting with the red and green background decorations.

They skimmed through them, the sight mesmerizing in it's variety and abundance, the flowers placed on rising steps all the way from the floor to the shorter's height. Some easy to recognize classics, others that they’d never seen before. Hongjoong came up to one that peaked his interest, crouching down to look at it better.

“Do you like these?” Seonghwa asked noticing the other’s fond gaze.

“Aren’t they pretty?” Hongjoong replied back looking up with a smile.

“Sword lilies, rare to come by on winter.” The guy behind the counter commented putting down the magazine he had been reading.

“Are there any you like?” The shorter asked standing up. His date looked around for a moment, scavenging with his eyes for any that stood out to him.

“These ones look nice.” He answered looking at a row of flowers settled a few steps up.

“Snapdragon, both lovely garden flowers, would you like me to prepare a bouquet?” The attendant offered straightening up on his sit.

“Ah, no it’s okay, thank you.” Hongjoong rushed to decline.

☀ ⇀ ❖

That year’s Christmas Eve Yeosang opened his door to find a huge overgrown puppy. It may have been mid afternoon already, but he had just woken up and the energy levels were already way too high. His hazy mind considered closing the door.

“I brought sweets!” Yunho stood there with a beaming smile and a big pink paper box on his hands, a duffel bag sagging over his shoulder.

His hazy mind abided to the peace offer, giving up on shutting the door on the puppy’s face for the promise of sugar. He stepped aside to let the other in, taking the box from his hands and walking towards the kitchen counter.

Yunho waited at the entrance dumbfoundedly admiring the apartment, yards bigger than his shared college dorm room. A studio with a wide living room, an open kitchen to one side and a wall of tall windows to the other.

Well lit, well furnished and clean yet what striked Yunho the most was the emptiness. Compared to Hongjoong’s wall of posters and misplaced trinkets and his own array of mementos and messy papers, it almost seemed like no one lived there, as if he had entered an interior design catalogue. No festive decorations either.

“Did you just move in?” He asked unceremoniously.

“Not really, it’s been almost a year already.” Yeosang answered, as he opened the box to peek inside. “You can just leave your things on the table and sit on the couch.”

“Mhm” The older hummed as he made his way to the glass dining table, tastefully decorated with a vase of fake red flowers contrasting with the whites and greys. Yunho couldn’t picture the younger picking those himself.

To the side of the vase a picture frame rested slightly out of place, facing the only chair at that side of the table.

“Is this your brother?” Yunho asked grasping the golden metal frame in his hands.

“Not really, a childhood friend. We were really close till the whole power thing happened.” Yeosang answered walking up behind him. He handed the older a mug filled with tea like the good host he was and grabbed the frame from his hands looking at it briefly himself before placing it back on its place.

“You look awful.” The older commented looking down at him as he brought the mug to his mouth, sweater paws wrapping around it seeking heat after coming from the cold outside.

“I just woke up.” The shorter replied flatly, not pleased to have his bare face, bed hair and beaten up oversized hoodie pointed out.

“Did you forget I was coming?” Yunho taunted with a smirk, seeing through him.

“No, I just have the worst sleeping schedule.” He actually did forget both of their plans and the holiday, but he doubted he’d wake up earlier even if he didn’t. “Anything else?”

The older snorted at the attitude as Yeosang headed for an armchair.

“I brought the titles you asked for.” The older said, resting the mug to look for his pen drive inside the bag.

“Nice.” He replied still not too awake. Yunho made his way to sit on the couch, his mug being set on the coffee table now.

“I assume Hongjoong must’ve had had other plans if you’re all the way out here about to waste Christmas marathoning anime with me.” Yeosang commented after a few moments of awkward silence.

“He’s out on a date.” He answered not meaning to sound as crestfallen as he did.

“Cute. Not feeling like going back home either?” The younger prodded a bit more.

“It’s just too far and too expensive for such a short break, I guess.” The taller said laying down onto the couch looking at the ceiling. “I’ve always looked forward to Christmas Eve because every year my family has a night out, but now that I’m not there it just means I don’t get to talk to them until tomorrow.”

A beat passed in silence, Yeosang didn’t really know what to say to that. Comforting others wasn’t really his fort.

“I mean I called them this morning already. It’s just my first Christmas away from home, so I guess I’m a bit sappy.” The older continued, trying to downplay it as he sensed the mood going down. “And you? How does your family usually spend Christmas?”

“Knowing my parents they must be at some big party or end of the year event, I’m just happy I’m not forced to tag along this year.” He replied nonchalantly, not much emotion in his voice and Yunho was the one not really knowing how to react to the younger’s lack of seasonal family spirit.

“I’m gonna order some food since I didn’t have lunch yet and then we can start. Do you want something?” Yeosang moved on, seeing that the talk was not going anywhere good. The last thing either of them wanted to do on Christmas was talk about how sad they were about it.

❖ ⇀ ⚘

San had gone on a stroll through the park near his house. His Christmas Eve was one to be spent alone this year and he wouldn’t have any problem with that if his head wasn’t so filled with thoughts. Thoughts of his past, of his childhood and of the kid that he had seen about to go through the same.

The park was deserted and he could see why. The temperature was freezing and at that area the snow was ruthless, already having covered the whole place white, but he felt that the cold did him good. It was grounding when he felt lost in his head.

He wondered what that kid was doing.

He felt bad, but that just seemed to be how life was. You are born, you go to school, school sucks, you get powers, school sucks worse and then you just run and hide for the rest of it. He didn’t want to keep thinking about it, but it kept bugging him.

Did he have someone to turn to? Was he out there hiding alone in this snow? Or had he been caught already? The fact that the last option was the most likely was depressing, but if that was the case he should just forget about it and move on. There was nothing he could do.

He eventually came to sit on a bench. It was cold and wet and he was thankful to the plastic material of his coat for protecting him from getting his pants and back soaked. He took out his phone to look at the time and his wallpaper glared back at him, a picture of his grandparents.

He planned on doing that later or on the next day, but it just tugged at his heartstrings looking at it.

“Sanie my boy! How are you?” He heard his grandma’s voice cheerfully greeting him as she picked up his call.

“I’m fine grandma, how are you?” He answered.

“Good good, you know how it is this time of year, so much cooking I can barely catch a break!” She answered sweetly, making him think fondly at the big meal and all the seasonal snack she would make even when it was just her and the old man that would sit down to eat.

He could really use some of his grandma’s baked cookies right now.

“And grandpa?” He asked.

“He’s out right now, I think he’s out to buy me a gift, can you believe it? He’s been so forgetful lately that he must’ve forgotten to buy it sooner, but don’t tell him I told you that or he’ll be embarrassed!” Hearing his grandma cheerfully laugh about his grandpa’s antics was reassuring, it warmed him inside contrasting against the chill air that hit his face.

“Is everything okay, Sanie?” The old lady must’ve noticed the long silences and the heaviness in his voice.

“Yes, it’s all good grams don’t worry.” He answered with a sad smile and maybe just maybe his eyes teared up just a bit.

“You and Wooyoung-ya should come visit us again like you did last year.” His grandma picked at him, fond of his best friend just as much as of him.

“I’ll bring it up to him later, maybe next time. He’s back home for this one.” San answered with a chuckle.

“Ah, I see. His parents must be happy to have their child home. Such a shame to comeback on this weather though, the sea must be so cold right now.” She replied.

He was endeared at how she even remembered that his friend was from the seaside.

“Are you still gonna meet your friends today? Or did they all go home too? You know if you had told us before we could’ve gotten you a ticket…”

“No no, I’m meeting them later.” He faked a smile even though she couldn’t see him, vaguely lying. “Just thought I’d call beforehand in case I get home too late.”

“If you say so, have fun just be careful! I know you’re a big boy now, but staying out too late is still dangerous, okay?” The old lady warned.

“Yeah, I got it. Don’t worry it’ll be okay. I love you, grandma.” He said.

“I love you too, Sanie.” She answered back as comforting as always.

⚘ ⇀ ✧

Yunho was a touchy feely guy, he just was. When people felt comfortable then by default he did too and small gestures like that just did wonders in that sense so it came to be his second nature.

Yeosang was frightened of it, understandably, and the big puppy just kept forgetting. Yunho couldn’t see the younger’s aura or his true feelings anymore which threw him off quite a bit considering how he didn’t let out any visible signs for him to pick up on, at least not yet.

However exposure therapy seemed to be working wonders for Yeosang. In fact as the day progressed the younger seemed to grow more and more comfortable with it, no longer getting so surprised as Yunho got excited with the screen and clung to his arm or pinched his cheek jokingly.

When the other got past the initial frightened reaction it evolved into going stiff. But as Yunho laid his head on his lap later in the day, he could only guess Yeosang was actually very fond of skinship.

Every time Yunho moved and the other went stiff he thought it was just him being uncomfortable, but whenever he got up or distanced himself the other looked slightly bummed and then every time Yeosang had to get up to pick up something he’d come back and sit as if waiting Yunho to come back, but not really knowing how to ask or prompt him.

He would even take a wild guess and say the boy was touch starved after so long without touching a human being, which was a great problem to have around him since that was right up his alley.

He couldn’t fix everything, but he could shower this boy with love easily, he thought as he looked at him from his spot on his lap, the bottom half of his legs dangling lazily off the small couch.

Their picked series continued playing incessantly the whole day. It was one that Yeosang had first mentioned and Yunho was skeptical if it was his cup of tea, but now he was easily getting into it. It was fun to have something to talk about and bond over that distracted them, thankfully it wasn’t as awkward as he predicted when he called Yeosang to ask about holiday plans.

✧ ⇀ ☀

The couple had move on to a stall of little trinkets like decorations, charms, keychains and the likes. The ones that sparked Hongjoong’s interest weren’t too Christmas-y at all, a row of dainty little statues of animals. The front row being house pets had him directing his gaze to the golden retriever that made Yunho instantly jump to his memory.

He felt a little guilt for a second, to not be with him on Christmas when his friendship with him had been going on for much longer than whatever he had going with Seonghwa. He had been the verge of calling it off a week before, but his dear friend seemed to sense his discomfort and had come up with plans for himself at the last minute, so here he was.

He was thankful in a way, he wouldn’t have worked up the courage to call the older for this encounter if it wasn’t for him either.

A black cat sat next to the dog, and the hero thought of their new friend. Unlike Yunho Hongjoong hadn’t spent as much time with the younger boy. He was much busier than the two first years and so their encounters quarantined only to the times he went to the coffee shop.

The other was also quiet and reserved, giving the older a hard time for them to really connect, but he was fond enough of him to pick up the tiny statuette together with the first one in hopes that the three of them would all grow closer with time.

“Are you gonna buy those?” Seonghwa asked from behind him.

“Presents, for my friends.” He answered looking back.

“Aren’t you going to get one for yourself? That way you all can have matching ones.” The older suggested looking over his shoulder at the trinkets.

“Hmmm… Which one should I get then?” Hongjoong asked appreciating the suggestion, but unsure of which one to pick.

“How about this one?” Seonghwa suggests pulling one from a few row back.

“A fox?” He asked caught by surprise.

“It reminds me of you.” The older answered with a smile.

Was that supposed to be a compliment? Hongjoong didn’t see where the connection the other made came from, but he brought the third piece to the tiny basket he held as well.

“Are you getting anything?” He turned back to ask, now facing him.

“A lucky charm for my roommate, for good health.” Seonghwa replied showing a golden card, the type you’d put on your wallet, an image of some deity engraved masterfully into it. He pointed to the tabletop that he had gotten it, half filled with similar ones and another half filled with an assortment of other type of charms.

The two stood there as the hero looked through it himself, his back brushing against the other as he placed himself between the shorter and the crowd that filled the busy shop once again.

Hongjoong’s fingers brushed against a little package on the last row before he stopped himself. In it came two matching charms with straps to put onto your phone.

Clearly something a couple would buy. It caught the hero’s eyes, but thinking better about it, it might be too cute or too soon for them. The little bells foretelling luck in love didn’t match either of their styles anyway he thought, about to turn and drag them away.

“Do you want to get these ones?” Seonghwa asked, grabbing the package from behind him.

He did. “What do you think?” He asked cautiously.

“It’s cute.” The older answered with a reassuring smile. Hongjoong must have looked uneasy a second before because the other made sure to pat his head affectionately before heading to the cashier, as if to reassure him he was doing good and at that the hero could only stare at his back paralysed as his heart filled with warmth.

It was a simple gesture, but effective.

☀ ⇀ ❖

After binging a whole season, it was now late and they were deep into a movie, A Silent Voice, as a break from the series they had going on. Yunho held onto Yeosang like a support teddy bear to get through the emotional ride that was the movie, resting his head on the top of his hair while his arms wrapped loosely around his chest.

The younger’s eyes were getting watery as the movie reached its climax, tears threatening to spill, but Yunho seemed to break way easier than him.

“It’s so sad.” The older whined already hiccuping through sobs, and he could feel him shaking.

“You’re getting snot on my hair.” Yeosang pointed out flatly.

His comment caused Yunho to sniff the thickest sniff Yeosang had ever heard, and any emotion he was feeling got overwhelmed by how grossed out he was.

“I’m gonna get you some tissues.” He said trying to to get up, flailing a bit like a fish before Yunho took the hint to let go of him. The older paused the movie waiting for him, sitting up properly on the couch.

“Here.” He handed the box of tissues, sitting farther than before giving him some space.

Yunho accepted it, going through a few before he took a moment to breath. He looked like a kicked puppy with red wet eyes and he wasn’t sure it was really solely about the movie. Yeosang didn’t know what to do about it. Of all people Yunho was acquainted with, he was sure he had to be the least prepared to deal with this.

“Do you need a hug?” Before he even finished the question the other had already latched onto him. Yunho held him tightly, Yeosang’s neck straining a bit to settle on the older’s shoulder with their height difference, his arms weighted uncomfortably to the sides limply not knowing what to do with them.

“We're friends, right?” Yunho asked without moving, voice heavy and hoarse sounding fragile.

“Mhm” the younger hummed in agreement.

“I’m here for you, okay?” He continued after a moment of silence. “Always.”

“Mhm” Yeosang hummed again.

They stayed there immobile and in silence for a few more second in the dark, only illuminated by the tv light.

“I’m here for you too.” Yeosang added, surprising himself. He raised his arms to embrace the other back, squeezing lightly still unsure if this was the right things to do.

He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, with the way he was raised and the way his powers started manifesting he hadn’t had a friend since a very early age and by now he had forgotten how having one or how truly caring for someone felt, so he himself couldn’t tell if he words rang true, if he really did cared so much for Yunho after knowing him for such a short time. But he felt something and he wanted to hold onto that, he didn’t want to continue feeling numb and scared anymore.

Yunho squeezed him tight before moving away. The older held onto his shoulders, his thumbs brushing the sides of his neck cathartically for a moment looking at him before he took a deep breath and spoke up again. “Don’t tell anyone I spent christmas crying over anime.”

“You look gross.” Yeosang replied and the other let out a loud snort, making more snot drop out of his nose and Yeosang backed away instinctively again. “I’m gonna get a plastic bag, I don’t want your used tissues to pile up.”

“And in your defense, it’s a very respectable anime to cry for.” He added already heading to the kitchen.

“Yeah, even you cried, anyone would cry.” Yunho tried to play it off.

“I didn’t cry.” The younger answered flatly.

“You totally did.”

“I did not.”

Yunho snorted as Yeosang continued to vehemently deny it. “Bring sweets, I need sugar to get through the rest of this.”

Yeosang plated some of the gingerbread cookies Yunho had brought to keep the holiday spirit, but also pulled out a tub of ice cream for real emotional support. It wasn’t his first time watching the movie and he knew they would need it.

❖ ⇀ ☾

Mingi was sitting by the window of family dinner close to their house waiting for his order to get ready. A pile of seasonal meals and desserts to take home and eat with his roommate only in the morning, because apparently everyone else’s busy but him.

He wondered what Yunho was doing since Hongjoong was out with Seonghwa. He scrolled through his social medias hoping to spot any update from him, but nothing. A picture of his roommate and the hero popped up on his feed, a picture perfect christmas card as both smiled surrounded by the snow, bright lights and the classic decoration of the fair.

The younger scolded at the picture, half bothered by his own loneliness and half at the fact that one of the people in this picture could only be headed toward a disastrous heartbreak.

And he was hoping it wasn’t his friend, but with him he just couldn’t tell as the oldest only noticed his own feelings too late. It was a pattern that Mingi was used to by now, the other’s confidence too blinding.

Before he could get lost in thought his phone buzzed signaling a new text.

7:27 p.m

woo

hey

are you busy

have you heard anything from san

7:27 p.m

you

not really why

i havent seen san for a while

since him and seonghwa are kinda not talking rn

7:27 p.m

woo

whos seonghwa

7:27 p.m

you

my roommate

you know the one that always come pick us up when we’re all too drunk to drive

7:27 p.m

woo

i think i saw him at his place the other day

i’m usually too drunk to actually care whenever i meet him

so i didn’t even recognise the dude

7:28 p.m

you

weren’t you going home for xmas

7:27 p.m

woo

my train got cancelled cuz of the snow

7:28 p.m

you

well that sucks

7:27 p.m

woo

yeah yeah i can go home some other day i dont have school like you losers

anyway

im free

and i asked san what he was doing and he said nothing special

he sounded sad so i’m storming his apartment and i need a ride

we can let you stay if you dont have anything else to do

7:28 p.m

you

yeah like i dont have anything better to do than drive your ass around on xmas eve

7:27 p.m

woo

do you

do you really mingi

7:28 p.m

you

no i dont please let me stay

i’ll be free in like ten minutes just give me time to go home and get the car

Right on cue his name was called, food ready by the counter. He grabbed it and left the place, ready for the cold walk home when a boy caught his eyes. The kid seemed young, around his age but with a baby face, but what caught his eyes was the fact that he was staring into the dinner so sadly out here in the snow.

His school uniform seemed dirty and, although he wasn’t sure, he was thinking the kid was homeless. Mingi’s Christmas wasn’t going ideally. He was everyone’s second plan, but whatever he had going on was definitely better than that kid.

The boy seemed to notice him staring after a while looking frightened. Mingi pulled one of the styrofoam boxes out of the paper bag he was carrying, glad that he had gotten so much extra food.

“Are you hungry?” He asked and the boy only nodded, taking the box he offered.

He continued on his way after that, thinking himself lucky for his new chore instead of annoyed from then on.

☾ ⇀ ✩

They had reached the end of the stalls, an open area filled with food trucks awaiting for them crowded with spaced out tables for them to sit down and admire what seemed to be the main attraction of the night.

A huge ferris wheel towered over the space, its lamps blinking beautifully over them in a warm light show. A live band stood to one side on a makeshift stage providing the dining visitors with soft christmas carols that echoed with the help of several speakers spread around.

The couple came to sit down on a random table to the side eager to rest their feet, dumping their shopping bags on the tabletop and taking a moment to breath. Hongjoong took their chance to rummage through his share of bags and Seonghwa only watched as he fished the little package they bought earlier from one of the bags.

“I just thought we should split it up before we forget it.” The hero muttered bashfully when he noticed the other eyes on him.

Seeing the fierce hero that so fearlessly jumped into fights with him every other night be so hesitant and timid was unbearably cute to him, the smiles spread through their date so endearing that Seonghwa half wanted to scold himself for enjoying it so much.

Perhaps this was when it started, the crippling realization that he had no right to be on the receiving end of those vulnerable moments, yet at that stage he was still simply pushing the thought away, favouring enjoying the night with fake naivety unknowing to the snowball this could become.

“How about we start using it already? Would you attach it for me?” The older asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket and offering it to Hongjoong, enjoying his eager reaction.

“Do you want to eat first or go on the ferris wheel than eat later?” The hero asked as he entertained himself with removing the cases of their cellphones and knotting the straps.

The villain wasn’t too excited about that, in fact he was hoping the younger wouldn’t mention the ride, although he already knew that was unlikely.

“Are you hungry? I think I saw a truck selling pizza… Is everything okay?” Hongjoong trailed off, noticing the other uneasiness. The smile on his face hesitate, dimming slightly and Seonghwa scolded himself for letting his discomfort show so easily.

“I’m just…” He started reluctantly “Not very good with heights.”

“Ah, so going on a ride like that is probably not a good idea.” The other said crestfallen.

“It’s not that serious, I’ve been trying to get over it. Last week me and my roommate tried going hiking over a bridge and I survived. Annoyed the hell out of him, but still.” Seonghwa answered with a laugh. The other seemed to cheer up a bit at the comment.

“We can go.” The villain decided.

“If you say so, don’t feel pressured I’m really okay with not going.” Hongjoong answered apprehensive still.

“No it’s okay I wanna give it a try. I’d rather eat afterwards though, just in case.” He answered with a laugh.

Hongjoong let out a chuckled as he started organizing their things again. The line to the ride was long, but they didn’t mind as they were in no rush, just enjoying the company and small talk along the way.

Seonghwa was sure he was doing a crappy job in hiding his anxiety, but fortunately the other had the sense not mention it. Their turn came way too soon despite the long wait, the ferris wheel thankfully had closed booths instead of those open seats and the villain tried to not hesitate when getting in, convincing himself it was fine.

The wheel stopped moving as they reached the top and the view really was wonderful up there, the stars shined brightly complementing the full moon that softly lit up the dark cabin. The city down there a pretty miniature covered in white, mesmerizing until he started seeing double and his throat tightened up.

“Don’t look outside. Here, look at me.” Hongjoong called out to him, softly turning his head towards him. Hongjoong looked up at him, patiently waiting for him to calm down.

“I’m not afraid.” Seonghwa spoke up after a moment of silence, sounding almost out of breath.

“Really?” The hero asked uncertain.

“No, but… sometimes I feel like the only way some things can come true is if I say them out loud.” He answered slowly, eyes avoiding his, embarrassed to explain it out loud.

Surely it stemmed from his power, but for him words held power and the act of saying them out loud was what gave it to them. He always had to have courage to speak when he couldn’t control his power and now he used it as a way to give himself that courage back.

If only it worked. He half expected the other to laugh at the childish premise, if not to just brush it off. It probably didn’t make any sense. It was the fear talking or else he’d never tell anyone that.

“Then I’ll say it too.” The other said surprising him for a second with a ghost of a smile on his mouth.

“You’re not afraid.” Hongjoong spoke looking into his eyes with conviction in his voice. The way he firmly held his gaze almost as if daring the villain to tell he’s wrong struck something inside him, feeling his chest tightening.

Seonghwa leaned down slowly as his hand came up to cup the hero’s cheek, their lips connecting into a barely there kiss and in that moment he couldn’t think of anything else beside that sensation, the softness of his skin, the warmth that build up in his chest and how he wished it could just stay like this forever.

Hongjoong reciprocated with a comforting and grounding contrast to the other’s gentleness and hesitance, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss with much more experience as the world around them seemed to stop existing for a few moments.

The cabin shook as it began to move again and the kiss was interrupted in favor of holding on to the railings. The villain took deep breaths, his head feeling light and he was unsure if it was from the kiss or from the reminder of the situation he was in, maybe a mixture of both, but soon they were back on the ground.

The villain was glad to have his feet touch the stable concrete ground again and it didn’t went by unnoticed how the hero grabbed onto his hand immediately once they had stepped out nor his glowing smile and he could only blush and follow along still not quite recovered from the surge of feelings the ride had given him.

Hongjoong, unlike his weakened self, was estasic and ready to continue on the night and that brought a smile to his face despite still feeling the dizzying sensation that he was floating.

✩ ⇀ ⚘

The lamp’s light was the only thing illuminating the room as the trio of friends sat there. The coffee table littered with empty bottles and crumpled napkins around an old monopoly board long forgotten before anyone even came closer to winning it.

Mingi on the armchair had clocked out already, curled up on himself having fallen into a deep slumber. San sat on the floor against the couch that Wooyoung laid on. He sipped on his drink, drunkenness only lightly reaching him. He could hold his alcohol the best out of the three friends, maybe because of his power or maybe that was just the way he was, he didn’t know. By the time it finally hit him he didn’t care anymore either.

He felt a hand on his hair, carding through it comfortably and after letting himself enjoy the touch for a few seconds before he looked up at the youngest of them. Their eyes met, a long moment of silence passing just staring at each other, both of them feeling drowsy from the drinks. Wooyoung moved down giving the other a kiss, sloppy and slightly misplaced from the odd angle. San kissed back enjoying the familiarity of it.

He turned around intending on climbing up onto the couch. Like many other times before he found himself straddling the younger, their bodies fitting perfectly against each other as he reached down to trail kisses all around Wooyoung’s neck.

Sometimes when he was feeling lonely or just the slightest bit petty he’d be a bit more rough, sucking marks onto the other’s skin in hope that it’d last as a reminder to the other. That night was one of those times and he soaked up on the younger’s reactions eagerly, only getting more riled up by his whimpers and the constant sharp pull on his hair.

His hand went down to the other’s waist, fingers going under his shirt and brushing against his bare skin playfully before stilling and holding onto him. Wooyoung’s arms wrapped against his neck pulling him flush against his body and his face came up to kiss his lips once again.

The heat escalated fast, but as San’s hands started to drag down a rushed wait was whispered. Looking back at the boy under him he saw the anxiety as he bit his lips, eyes hesitant.

That too was familiar. The situation repeated itself often, both of them ready to give in and compromise till one of them suddenly didn’t, fearing the commitment of taking it a step further.

Both of them had no shame and it was a recurring joke them hoeing around. But when it came to each other they never talked about them , what they were, how they felt about what they had going on. Perhaps it was a fear of compromising such a precious relationship, but San knew better. Both of them knew that something like that wasn’t going to get between them even if it didn’t work out.

“Isn’t it a bit weird to do this with Mingi in the room?” The younger interjected.

The perfect excuse since San’s apartment was just one room, living room and bedroom mashed together with a communal kitchen downstairs. Moving onto his bed wouldn’t change anything.

“I don’t think he would mind.” San answered with a raised eyebrow.

The other didn’t seem convinced, so he sat back down on his lap with a sigh. His eyes flickered to a clock on a shelf indicating it was now past midnight.

“Merry Christmas, Wooyoungie.” He said with a grin.

“Is it time for my present now?” The other replied playfully. “You better have gotten me something good.”

“Here’s your present.” San answered with a mischievous tone before leaning down again, hugging the other while giving him lighthearted kisses from his cheeks to his ear, the other giggling while squirming in his grasp trying to avoid the loud noise his lips made.

Maybe it wasn’t tonight that they’d resolve themselves, but San was more than happy to settle for cuddling his Wooyoungie to sleep for now.

#ateez #ateez fanfiction #ateez fanfic #ateez au #long #long post #my writing #SleepyFairyAO3 #youseissi #ateez superhero au

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 5 years

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“Children … taken from the parents and placed in nurseries for three years,” Margie Laflin.

The Milwaukee Journal, Dec 29, 1981 pages 1 and 3A

New Berlin – Two months ago, Margie Laflin, 20, was selling flowers on street corners and preaching the principles of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Now she is free … and said she wanted to warn other young people not to get involved with a cult as she did. She said she planned to speak at area colleges and high schools. …

To marry, a member must be in the cult for at least three years and must be between the ages of 24 and 29. Marriages are performed by Moon, she said, and the partners are then separated and allowed to consummate the marriage only with Moon’s permission. Children of such marriages are taken from the parents and placed in nurseries for three years, she said. They are taught Korean which many believe will become a universal language, Laflin said.

___________________________

Lodi News-Sentinel, Sept 6, 1980 San Francisco (UPI)

By Lidia Wasowicz

“… I accepted an invitation to lunch at the San Francisco C.A.R.P. headquarters … At a Sutter Street flat, I was delivered into the hands of Loretta, a magnetic woman of 29, who impressed me, and the other newcomers, with her soothing voice, assuring smile and sincere warmth. …

By dinner time, Loretta had showed me pictures of two of her babies, who were staying with other Moonie children at the Unification Church nursery in upstate New York while the parents travelled spreading God’s word.”

___________________________

The Bulletin, Bend, Oregon May 27, 1984 page B4

Moonie marriages – Arranged matches typically unconventional.

Washington (UPI)

Like other sun Myung Moon inspired rituals in the Unification Church, marriage is far from conventional.

The 64-year-old church leader hand-picks a spouse for each of his followers. Then he presides over a mass ceremony, cloaked head to toe in white.

One such spectacle on July 1, 1982, paired 2,075 couples in Madison Square Garden. Three months later, Moon married 5,837 couples in Korea. A large percentage are Western-Oriental or black-white mixes. Part of the ceremony called for followers to drink wine tinged with blood from the “True Parents,” Moon and his wife.

Unificationists rely on them to choose their mates because “Reverend Moon knows better than us – he can see the future,” says Jack Harford, a member for more than eight years who is married to a Japanese woman.

Marriage and procreation are viewed as an essential for entry into the kingdom of heaven. …

Although members may request partners of a particular ethnic background, the final decision is up to Moon. As soon as the matchmaking takes place in a special ceremony, couples spend some time together to see if marriage looks feasible. Moon’s first choice is usually honored, although he has been known to match a follower several times before finding an acceptable mate.

Detractors see the process as a disaster.

“His marriages are the worst P.R. mistake Moon has ever made. That is the number one criticism I hear from people who left the church,” reports of Dr. Lowell Streiker, who works with former members and their families at his Freedom Counselling Center in Burlingame, California.

Marriage practices are precisely the reason a former church leader left.

“The marriage itself is treated like an engagement,” he remembers. “You go through a separation after the ceremony, 40 days to five years.You can’t sleep together until Moon gives the say-so.

“That’s not why I quit, though,” he adds. “I left the church because Moon said all the families would have to separate for three years and the kids would go in a church nursery and wives would go on an evangelizing tour of college campuses. We put our eight-month old daughter in a nursery and my wife, who was pregnant, went on a bus tour.

“That made us think that Moon was not who he claimed he was. Here’s his ‘ideal family’ where the wife is one place and the kids as someone else.”

His family fled the church five years ago and requested anonymity so they can “cut it clean” with their past.

Some church critics also find Moon’s matchmaking techniques “shocking,” as a Washington, D.C., mother of a member puts it. Revealing her name would “cause problems for my son,” she said.

“He married a Japanese girl, at Madison Square Garden, who he had never met until a week or two before the wedding,” she said. They work apart now; I think he’s maybe seen her once or twice a year. I’m numb at this point.”

Another East Coast mother is equally distraught.

“My daughter was sent to Korea to marry a man she had never seen before,” she says of the ceremony that took place in the fall of 1982. “She said she was crying so hard during the ceremony, she didn’t even know what nationality he was.” As it turned out, he was a Jewish New Yorker.

When asked if her daughter loves the man, the mother says: “She says if you love God more than you love yourself and if your partner loves God more than he loves himself, you should be able to live happily ever after with anybody…”

Followers, however see it all differently. Argues Bento Leal, a member for 10 years: “We are not his slaves. Reverend Moon is just more spiritually advanced than most. His marriages are a very rich experience.”

___________________________

Linda Feher has written on this topic:

Don’t forget that it wasn’t only demanded of earlier members. I know so many “sisters” who joined the UC and were told they had to “sacrifice” their “blessed” children in order to “save” the “Cain” children of the world. So they abandoned their children to fundraise and witness for Moon. (The purpose of witnessing was to bring in more fundraisers.)

Also, when the marching orders came for all sisters all over the world to leave their blessed children to join IOWC (International One World Crusade) teams and travel all over the USA, I witnessed much suffering and tears.

When I asked some who I saw suffering and crying the most why they didn’t just stay home with their children I was told, that they were told, “If you don’t sacrifice your blesses children Satan will attack them”. To me that is spiritual terrorism. They left their children and joined mobile IOWC teams because they were threatened with harm to their children. It makes my blood boil! …

Moon convinced the leaders that Satan will attack us if we didn’t follow his every whim, they believed him and then learned from Moon to use that same form of spiritual terrorism to control our every thought, feeling and action.

One sister on my IOWC team left to visit her husband to start their family. During the 3 day ceremony she got pregnant. She was told that she was not supposed to get pregnant during her 3 day ceremony. That it was “bad luck” and that her child would be invaded by Satan. I watched her cry day in and day out on the IOWC team because she was made to fear for her unborn child’s life. That kind of teaching/belief is evil and sickening.

Living on the IOWC team was like living at a funeral 24/7 because so many sisters were hurting over the fact that they had left their children for what was an UNSPECIFIED time period. We had to move to a new city every 21 days. never knowing how many years we would have to serve on IOWC teams. Even that fact, never knowing how long we’d have to be on IOWC traveling teams was a form of spiritual terrorism. Would it be months, years? No one knew and so we were always kept in an emotionally unstable frame of mind. …

How many couples and how many children have suffered because Moon terrified them into abandoning their families in order to serve him and his insatiable appetite for power and wealth?

___________________________

Why Love Matters – book by Sue Gerhardt

Infants abandoned by UC parents in the US. Two die at Jacob House.

UC babies dying and UC members starving

Michael Warder’s reasons for leaving. As a top UC leader in the US in the 1970s he reported directly to Moon.

Moon instructed: “Whenever the Blessed couples have children, as soon as the child become 100 days old, they will put him in the nursery school.”

#child abuse #FFWPU #Sun Myung Moon #Unification Church #FFWPU broke up families

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kpoppernov-10 · 5 years

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Monsta X Concert Review

On Saturday 8/3/19, I went to the MONSTA X <WE ARE HERE> show at the Hulu Theater in NYC. After such a great concert last year, I was more than happy for my second Kpop concert to be at Monsta X’s next world tour. The fact that it was in NY instead of NJ made it even easier for me to attend. Plus, my brother joined me for this concert so it was nice to go to a Kpop event with someone. This year’s experience was a bit different from last year’s, but one thing that stayed consistent is that Monsta X put on a good show.

There’s a lot to discuss, so I’ve broken down the concert experience into parts.

Pre-Concert

Tickets

As I mentioned in a previous post, getting a ticket took more work this year. There seems to have been a technical problem with the Powerhouse website but I was still able to get decent tickets. I think I was technically closer to the stage than I was last year, but I was more to the left of it so I wasn’t able to watch Monsta X from the center like last time. Nevertheless, I was in the front row of my section, so I was able to see and enjoy everything fairly well.

Venue

Although it was easier to get to this venue, it was nowhere near as nice as the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. For a place as famous as Madison Square Garden, the Hulu Theater is very basic with not much aesthetic at all—mostly just grey walls filled with (granted, comfy) seats. That’s not a big deal though since that aspect of the venue doesn’t really matter. But what does matter is the fact that the acoustics were lacking so the sound quality for this concert wasn’t as good as the rich, surround-sound-like experience of the NJPAC. It’s a shame that the venue had an unfortunate effect on the concert but oh well :/

Crowd

There was obviously a high percentage of young females but there seems to have been slightly more guys than before. There were very few older people attending this show and few Asian people in general, but I think the group was still diverse. The crowd waited patiently outside in the setting sun, and it was really nice to see two concertgoers dressed in Ongshimi Minhyuk outfits! The general check-in process was very organized but there was, understandably, much more security (metal detectors, bag x-rays and K-9 dogs) since this is NYC. Either way, everyone was seated and ready to go in no time thanks to all the helpful staff.

CONCERT

Although the concert was originally advertised to be at 8 PM, I found out only a few days earlier that it would actually be at 7 PM. But I guess most people got the memo because the place was pretty much full before the show started. There were some “false alarms” because a few things happened before everything officially began (e.g. the lights dimmed, a screen for the tour popped up and an Mnet ad appeared twice), but the show did start at approximately 7:10 PM.

Stage/Audio/Visual

The main stage wasn’t that big and it was only one level, but there were multiple big screens that displayed things from different angles and used different effects. The screens enhanced the overall concert experience since I could watch close ups on side screens and also enjoy background visuals on the main screen. Like I said, the audio was not very good and sounded a bit low for some reason. It also seemed like the audio was only coming from the stage area instead of sound filling up the entire theater. Either way, the lighting was good and there were points during performances where stage lights changed colors, steam blew from the stage and confetti rained over part of the audience.

Videos

The show started with a really cool opening video that introduced the group/members. The other concert videos were also good and I actually think that this year’s video content was better than last year’s. Instead of a Monsta X party, they had “MonTube” that showed each member doing funny YouTube-style video clips that related to their personalities and interests. The other videos showed more scenes and details from the Alligator/Shoot Out era and they did a good job explaining the whole 7 Deadly Sins concept that they’ve pretty much had since their Beautiful era. Although I definitely enjoyed the videos for The Connect Tour, I still don’t quite know what they were really about. So Monsta X did a much better job at making their videos entertaining yet understandable this year.

Talks

Monsta X talked throughout the concert in both English and Korean (with a translator), but they made a clear effort to speak more English this time. Although some members still struggle with English, you could hear how much other members improved (Kihyun’s English is now the second best in the group!) and most were able to speak more comfortably than last year. The most surprising part of the talks was when each member gave a little speech entirely in English at the end of the show. I honestly think they should’ve just let Shownu and Wonho speak Korean since it was so difficult for them to express themselves in a different language, but I appreciate the effort and I think their English will continue to improve with time.

Songs/Performances

Monsta X performed about 20 songs, plus they had special group acts and solos. There were more props for this concert which was a nice touch to their performances. As usual, everyone sounded good and the dancing was on point. I think their wardrobe was better than last year’s and their black and gold outfits were my favorite. They sang about half of the songs from each of their latest albums, some songs from The Connect mini album, but few (or even no) songs from the rest of their discography. I guess Monsta X is reaching a point in their career where their song collection has gotten so big that many great songs can’t be in their concerts simply due to time constraints. And the fact that they released two full length albums back-to-back made it even less likely that most of their older songs would be performed. Nevertheless, some of the missing songs were featured in the bgm of their videos and overall Monsta X picked a solid set list that included different styles, energies and moods for the concert.

I’m not a fan of the remix versions of Monsta X songs, but the 8-bit video screen for I’M’s part in Hero was really nice. They sang less title tracks but the new choreography for their non-title tracks was good (especially for Oh My). Minhyuk and Jooheon sang the Ongshimi chorus during one of the talks and it was funny when Jooheon sang and Wonho rapped another member’s part while performing. I was surprised that many of my favorite songs weren’t in the concert, but it was good seeing less/non-promoted songs live. The solo performances were a real treat since I enjoyed Jooheon's drum solo and Hyungwon’s DJ stage was one of the best parts of the show.

Conclusion

Overall, it was great to see Monsta X again. Unlike last year, I had to stand up most of the time so I could see, but thankfully I didn’t lose my voice or get dehydrated because I learned my lesson from my first concert :P. There was actually more humor in this show than last year so it was fun to enjoy music and laugh throughout the evening. I hope everyone had a wonderful time, and I’m glad that the rest of the world tour was a success. Monsta X, fighting!

For more details about the concert, keep reading :)

Intro video

Shoot Out, Hero (remix), Trespass (remix)

Intro talk

Kihyun screams hits a high note that makes him cough

It was really funny/cute when Minhyuk was like “Did you miss us? Did you miss ME?? Did you miss Wonho?”

Party Time, Play It Cool

Talk + Kihyun asks us to sing the chorus of Play It Cool’s English version

Mohae, Jealousy

MonTube video

Shownu - ASMR mukbang

Wonho - Fitness

Minhyuk - Makeup

Kihyun - Coffee

Hyungwon- Fashion

Jooheon - Cooking (makes a Honeyto burrito)

I.M. - English class

Group Performances

Kihyun, Minhyuk, & Hyungwon - Bazzi’s Myself

Jooheon & I.M hip hop song + Jooheon plays the drums

Wonho & Shownu - Mirror (made by Wonho)

Talk about songs

Jooheon & I.M messed up the bottle flip during their performance so they tried again but still failed :P Hyungwon was the one who was able to do it. (Note: They didn’t get around to talking about their song, but according to @KUnnies_on Twitter it’s called 삼박자)

Honestly, Noel Hada, Sweetheart

Talk

No Reason

7 Deadly Sins Movie

This was a very interesting video because it clearly showed which sin each member was portraying: wrath (Shownu), sloth (Wonho), agony (Minhyuk), loneliness (Kihyun), pride (Hyungwon), greed (Jooheon), and envy (I.M.). Even though I already knew/figured out most of this already, the reason why I wasn’t sure about some of them is because they replaced lust and gluttony with agony and loneliness, which are more emotions than actual sins.

It’s nice that the video officially clarified all this because I thought Minhyuk was lust since many of his scenes in MVs had roses in them and Kihyun was gluttony since all the formula-filled images related to him made it seem that he was a glutton for knowledge or something (or maybe Wonho was gluttony because he ate an apple in an MV?). Either way, their concept makes more sense now :)

Who Do You Love, Dramarama

Talk

Oh My, Special, Fallin’

Talk + them acting like this was the end of the show :P

Alligator, H.One’s DJ performance, Rodeo

Real Goodbye/Closing (mostly done in English)

By My Side

Group picture, Wonho’s shirt toss, final bows

Credits with behind the scenes footage

#Monsta X #world tour #NYC kpop #kpop #we are here

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mmazzeroo · 5 years

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Chapter 21: ARYA VI - Happy Nameday, Jon

@helloimnotawesome - Last Arya pov chapter in the fic. We’re coming closer to the end of this fic. Thank you so much for the beautiful mood board, sis! Also a big thanks to @thebeautyofjoneryzz for her patient beta work on this <3

ARYA VI - Happy Nameday, Jon:

"I believe it's tradition."

"Tradition?" She sent a sceptical glance at the silver-haired man sitting next to her. "You seriously think Jon's been back long enough to make anything 'tradition'?" She snorted. Tradition! What makes anything tradition, really? A certain number of times, number of years, what?

"Arya, he's been back in Starfall for three years now. Yes, he's had time to make new traditions with his people here. Oh, drop the sceptical act, wolfie lass!" He affectionately bumped his shoulder against hers, "they're his people just as the people of Winterfell are your father's."

Vis was sitting with her in the far corner of the castle garden. Is it a garden though? She wasn't quite sure what to call it. It was high above the city itself so it was quiet, with a floor made of beautiful, smooth sandstone. Maybe it's a terrace? There were little pockets of green spread around. Currently, she sat under a mango tree; enjoying the subtle, sweet smell of the plump, ripe fruits that reminded her of the winter roses back home in Winterfell. The other corner had a handful of lemon trees, and had for some reason quickly become one of Dany's favourite places when she moved down here. When not working, she could most often be found in the lemon corner camping out on a blanket, book in hand, with the cinnabons, Ghost and maybe a cat cuddled up against her. Looking the most happy and relaxed I've ever seen her.

The centrepiece was a peepal tree from Naath, that still had much growing to do, but was slowly beginning to cast a nice shade. It was a gift from one of the temples Jon had worked with, during his stay on the island. How they'd even managed to get a tree like that here, so far away, unscathed and then have it grow and thrive was beyond her. Quite impressive actually. Scouring the family libraries at Winterfell and Dragonstone, she'd discovered the Naathi considered peepal trees sacred. Similar to how we in the North view our Weirwood trees.

"From what I've seen they're proud of it too." Casting another glance at Vis, before focusing her attention on Theon; who was rather quiet as he tended to the trees, bushes and colourful flowers. They’d attracted a large number of bees and an equal amount of large, colourful butterflies. Every so often, Theon would stop and watch the small flying beings flutter about; as it was the only time there was ever a hint of a smile on his constantly, somber face. Heartbreaking. Would hug him if I knew he was ready for human contact.

"Yes, that's because Jon took his time to interact with them and get to know them. They could have thrown rotten eggs and tomatoes at him. Turned their backs on him. But they didn't. Because your brother is smart enough to know that a way to people's hearts is by meeting them face to face and getting to know each other. He could've barricaded himself in his tower but he didn't. Despite being apprehensive about taking up the lordship of Starfall he's here because at his core your brother is a warrior."

She whipped her head around with a piercing gaze as she glanced at Vis. "Of course he is - he's a Stark!"

"—and a Dayne, Arya. Being a warrior is in his blood either way." Vis poured himself another glass of lemonade as he continued speaking, "now back to this tradition of his: Do you know why he's giving every newborn in Starfall a sword?"

"A wooden sword," she scuffed.

"Does that make a difference to you?" He turned leaning in slightly in front of her and looked her straight in the eyes. An usual seriousness lurking in the depth of Vis' kind purple eyes. Gods damn it!

Embarrassed now, she lowered her eyes as she mumbled underneath of her breath, "I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure."

Vis wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in closely so her back was resting against his chest, "picture the scene, Arya: Not only does the Lord of Starfall himself stop by with a gift for your newborn child, but the gift he's presenting is one he's created with his own hands. Do you know how much emotional value that has to the parents? In a heartbeat that piece of wood crafted into the shape of a traditional Dornish-style sword becomes priceless."

"Oh! I hadn't thought of that way," she confessed quietly.

"Just means you've learned something new today, my dear wolf," he stated softly adding a kiss to the top of her head.

She could hear the smile in his voice. She couldn't count high enough to know the number of times Viserys had held her like this. Ironically, it was as if he was the water to her fire. Always making sure not to quell the flames entirely. Somehow he managed to contain her fire while limiting the damage. Only he had that effect on her. Their difference in age made Vis more like an uncle than brother, despite growing up underneath the same roof. He’d always been her confidant. Didn't big-brother her like Robb and didn't discipline her like mom and dad. He'd patiently let her rant and rage on about her family, or Gendry, her friends, patients...anything really, before gently guiding her towards a more peaceful course of action than her usual 'murder list' impulses. Sometimes he'd tease her by telling her she was more of a dragon than wolf which never failed to make her show him her fangs. That made him laugh harder as he stated he was sure she had the deepest bite of all the wolves. You bet your ass I do, Vis! Except for maybe Jon...

With a deep, contented sigh, she let the silence between them settle. They were actually down here for Jon's nameday. They'd been enjoying a delicious lunch - all the Starks and Targs - until word came that Lord Dayne's request had been granted. He always sent out a request to visit the new parents, not wanting to overwhelm them any further. So he had jumped out of his chair as if he'd be welcoming a new member to his family. Oh! Wait! From what Vis said earlier that's how he views them, isn't it? As extended family? A big wide smile spread on her lips. They're lucky to have you, brother.

"But still....," she pondered, "—why a sword of all things?"

Vis gave her a little squeeze, "—because this is Dorne, and regardless of a newborn's gender in this land, it'll grow up to be a strong warrior." I knew there was a reason I liked Dorne despite this bloody gods forsaken heat!

"There are more than one way to be a warrior though." She sat up again to turn and look at him. "I mean, Bran's in a wheelchair and Sansa...well, she's not exactly a fighter in the traditional sense either, but I would definitely call both of them warriors in their own right," she said, emphatically.

"Exactly!" He exclaimed, excitement written all over his face as he continued, "—and knowing how Sansa and Jon have connected, I think it's pretty safe to say that he'll make sure every child growing up in Starfall will know and learn that there are several ways to be a warrior and a fighter."

They high-five'd and shared a proud lemonade toast for Jon as they celebrated.

Making sure to look straight ahead with a small, crooked smile upon her lips; doing her best to sound as uninterested as possible she said jestingly, "I know psychologists are good at talking, but you somehow always manage to sound like you actually know what you're talking about."

Vis responded in the expected dramatic manner by placing a hand on his heart when he gushingly answered, "why thank you, Arya! Coming from you that might be the biggest compliment I've ever received. I'll cherish it forever in my heart. Mark my calendar and celebrate it every year as the day of my greatest achievement!" At the end, he burst out laughing, not able to hold it in any longer.

"Oh shut up, Vis!" She jokingly said as she slapped him on his shoulder making him laugh even more.

"You know us Targaryens - we have a flair for the dramatics!"

"Yeah, I know,” she rolled her eyes, “we grew up under the same roof, remember?" Bunch of drama queens, the lot of them!

When their laughter died down, she leaned in to him resting her head on his shoulder.

"By the way, thank you for all you've done for Jon," she added quietly.

"It's kinda my job you know."

"I know that dummy," she grumbled, "but I also happen to know that what you're doing for Jon isn't just because it's your job." She gave him a gentle shove with her shoulder, "I know you love him too."

"Of course I love him, Arya. I remember the little boy he was and I missed him too." He took a trembling breath and took a few sips of lemonade before continuing. "Just as I now love him for the man he was made into and for the man he's fighting to become. I love your brother for having a heart soft as butter, a spine hard as steel and the courage to let the world see both."

"Wow Vis, that was unexpectedly...tender," she teased.

"I'm a softie." He shrugged and with a wink added, "you know that."

Giving him a quick peck on the cheek, she replied, "wouldn't want it any other way."

"Aunty Aya! Aunty Aya! Aunty Aya!" Little Adei came running as fast as her little toddler legs could carry her.

"Cinnabon!" She jumped up, swooped Adei up in her arms and twirled a few times filling the air with the sound of toddler giggles. Gods I love that sound!

In the background Amador was approaching next to a timid Theon. His little chubby hand wrapped around a couple of Theon's dirt covered fingers. Every time she was with the twins she was amazed at just how different they were from each other. Reminded her of herself and the other Stark siblings. Adei clearly had the wolf's blood. Dad always said the same about me...and Aunt Lya. Quick to smile and laugh, quick to anger, quick to love, quick to protect. The locals loved the little girl's trailblazing spirit. Even more so after Jon had officially named her heir to Starfall. Definitely carries her heart on her sleeve that one. Amador on the other hand... The little boy always had an easy, relaxed smile on his face. His grey eyes, resembling her own, always observing. Patient and always ready to help, ever so gentle with all beings. Must be Mallandei's peaceful constitution. Calm as the ocean on a clear summer's day, but the few times she'd seen her little nephew angry it was like watching a winter storm, thunder and lightning all wrapped up in a tiny human being. It was a beautiful but frightening sight. He's a good warm up for potential dragonwolves. Like his sister, the locals loved him, especially for accompanying Theon on his daily walk outside castle grounds. They both had their parent's gentle heart and no doubt would be a pair you'd always want on your side.

"Theon showed us all the butterflies!" The little girl announced enthusiastically.

"Again?" She asked with a slight chuckle. He shows them to the two of you every day!

"Yes." A firm nod.

"Are they pretty?"

"Yes!" The little girl bounced excitedly.

Smirking she asked, "prettier than papa?"

Her little niece instantly furrowed her brows and scowled at her aunt. "Papa and Mador don't like being called petty."

"Pretty."

"Yes." Another firm nod.

"Ok, then we won't call them that." Definitely your father's daughter!

Adei grinned, "good."

"Now," she carefully sat Adei on the bench next to Viserys, "time for some refreshing lemonade."

"Yay!" The toddlers rejoiced.

Amador jumped up to join his sister on the bench while Vis poured a half glass of lemonade for each of them.

Arya poured a glass for herself. "I've poured a glass for you as well, Theon. I'll leave it here on the table for you."

"Thank you, Miss Arya. Very kind of you," he muttered while staring into the ground, fidgeting nervously with his hat.

Despite her hatred for being called ‘Miss’ and ‘Lady’, she always bit her tongue when it was Theon who referred to her as such. She so badly wanted to hug him; let him know that he was safe here. No one would ever dare to cause him any harm again. He was protected by wolves, dragons and all of Starfall. What kind of psycho could get any pleasure from breaking a person like that? To the point where he’s become a mere shadow of a man. She felt so much rage inside whenever she thought of it.

"No trouble at all, Theon. It was my pleasure." She walked around the table to stand behind the bench to give Theon space and a clear path to the table from where he stood.

In a few swift steps he was by the table; quickly emptying his glass.

"Would you like some more?" She’d asked softly. Very unlike her except for patients - and Theon.

He froze for a few seconds before slowly nodding and shakily holding out his glass towards her.

Giving him a reassuring smile she held out the pitcher and poured.

After quickly finishing another round of lemonade, he put the glass back down on the table as he nodded and went back to tending the garden.

Further up the path, she saw her three brothers by the cherry trees. Jon was playing peek-a-boo with little Arthur who was sitting on mommy Marg's arm.

Leaning down so her face was between the twins' heads she said, "who wants to go pick cherries with uncle Bran and uncle Robb?"

Both of the children gasped and looked up to see their two wolf uncles.

"Nuncle Bob! Nuncle Bob!" Adei sprinted ahead.

Amador walked off at his usual leisurely pace.

Walking back round to sit on the bench she couldn't help laughing, "the fact that my little niece can't pronounce the letter 'R' is an endless source of enjoyment for me."

Vis chuckled next to her. "Give her time she'll get the hang of it."

"That's what I'm afraid of, Vis!"

He just shook his head in amusement.

"By the way, how's Theon doing? He looks better than last time I visited."

"Meeting Jon I thought he was the worst case I'd ever met. At the time he was. But..." he paused, as he slowly blew out a breath, "—if I ever meet a case worse than Theon, I can for a fact say that person will never become a fully fledged human being again. Theon has a chance and I still believe he’ll eventually get there. For outsiders it's difficult to see but he's working so hard to claw his way out of his shell." I can hear Vis' heart break for Theon in every word.

"Don't even know what to say to that. I mean, I'm happy he's getting better, but…," tilting her head back now, she gazed up at the azure-blue sky. "There was a time I thought I wanted to know what had happened to him, but now....,” she shook her head slightly, “—with what you just said, Vis, I never want to know anything. I'd want to hunt them down!" The blood was boiling in her veins, her fists, jaws and teeth clenched. She was ready to pounce if only she knew who to punch the living daylight out of!

"Easy there, wolf." Vis placed a calming hand on her shoulder. "You're right, you definitely don't want to know." There's a darkness to that statement that I've never heard from Vis before. "I'll tell you this much, Arya: Where Jon was all broken bones, open wounds and heartache, Theon is the opposite. Your brother's spirit hadn't been broken. He still bit back, defended himself and others. Theon's spirit, however, had been smashed to smithereens and he had been left to try to piece it together all on his own which is not humanly possible."

She looked to Theon, who was currently standing with Jon. He was still so afraid of human contact that the only ones who could touch him without frightening him were children. Somehow, he instinctively knew that their actions were truly genuine. Vis had challenged him to venture out of the castle grounds once a day, and every day like clockwork, Amador would stand by the castle gate waiting for him. Ready to take his hand and walk the short distance up to the old city gate and back; they made an odd, but sweet pair.

"Want to join the rest of us for some afternoon tea?" Jon's warm voice brought her out of her musings.

Before they could answer they were interrupted by Robb, who came running by with a giggling Amador on his shoulders. The little boy waved eagerly as they passed by.

"That looks like fun." Jon looked longingly after the two.

"It is!" Her and Vis exclaimed in unison before all three shared a good laugh.

"You've never tried it?" How's that possible? She couldn't believe it. She didn't want to.

"No, not like that." Jon turned his head and looked at them. A shadow seemed to have passed through his mind as he continued, "I mean, Uncle Arthur would do the thing where he carried me over his shoulder and pretend like he couldn't find me. I'd laugh and giggle and say 'I'm right here, Uncle' and he'd turn and say 'where?' and everyone around would laugh." A sad smile began to creep upon his face and lips as he suddenly stopped. Everyone in that memory is dead. Including the little innocent boy that Jon was.

"You want to try?" Vis asked enthusiastically.

Jon shook his head clearly puzzled by the inquiry, "—of course I would, but it's decades too late for that, Vis."

"I bet I know a guy who can carry you. Still wanna try?" What are you playing at, Vis?

"I highly doubt that, Vis, but yes I still want to try."

"Great! Come with me then!"

Jon was still laughing lightly as he and Vis walked off.

As she began to collect the glasses and the pitcher, she heard a mixed choir of gasps and laughter coming from further up the garden. As she turned to begin moving up to where the action was she couldn't believe her eyes. Coming down the path towards her was Jon - laughing the loudest she'd ever heard him, with a look of pure glee - being carried on the shoulders of a laughing Rhaegar.

As the two men made it closer, she could hear their conversation:

"Oh gods this is amazing! No wonder the kids love it. Thank you, Rhae." Jon choked on his tears but there was no denying the smile that was plastered upon his face.

Rhaegar’s head peered upwards, as if trying to see Jon over his head, as he replied, "Happy nameday, Jon!"

#jonerys #jonerys modern au #jonerys fanfic #starfall

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truthbeetoldmedia · 6 years

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What is a Legacy?: A Tribute to Monty and Harper

Legacy, what is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.

Well, here we are. About one week since the finale, and fandom is still reeling from The 100’s Season 5 finale that aired on August 7. A lot of major changes happened for our characters: the last remaining survivable land on Earth was destroyed. The survivors entered cryo sleep for 125 years only to wake up and discover a new planet and something even more unexpected: Monty and Harper’s son, Jordan.

We know now, thanks to Monty and Harper’s heartbreaking video messages to Bellamy and Clarke, that they chose not to go into cryo. Then, when Monty realized the Earth was never going to come back, they dedicated the rest of their lives to ensure the survival of their friends. Their send off was a best case scenario for a show like The 100, and it’s the first time I’ve been truly satisfied with the ending of a character’s journey. I didn’t want to leave it at that, so here is my official appreciation article dedicated to Monty and Harper.

Let’s begin with Harper. In my opinion, Harper (and Chelsey Reist who portrays her, for that matter) is the most underappreciated and underutilized character on the show. After allowing her to shine in Season 4, Season 5 only giving her a few lines and a few backgrounds to stand in was more than disappointing.

Harper’s strength and importance comes from the fact that she’s a regular character. She isn’t a chosen leader like Bellamy or Clarke; she isn’t given a moniker like Blodreina or Wanheda. She doesn’t have a definable skill that she’s best at, like Raven with mechanics or Abby with medicine. But she is the last of the female gunners from Season 1. She’s one of the original members of the 100. She endured multiple bone marrow extractions while trapped in Mount Weather and still fought as hard as anyone at the end of Season 2. In Season 3, she NEVER took the chip, and she acted as a spy in the same season to inform on Pike. Not to mention, she has what’s arguably the best line of the series: "We could just shock-lash Pike’s fascist ass and hand him to the Grounders."

Harper makes herself special. She chose to make herself strong, not out of duty or necessity, but because she could. She survived on her own tenacity, remaining loyal and kind through circumstances that crushed others. While others grew accustomed to violence as a vital part of existence, Harper never became cold or unfeeling about the lives of those around her. We see other characters, namely Clarke, write off casualties as something necessary to get the human race to where they need to be. In a sharp contrast, we see Harper in Season 4 being emotionally devastated by the death of a stranger after she inadvertently knocked him over in the black rain. We see Harper in a depressive spiral of sorts after this, struggling with the upcoming Praimfaya and the worry that everything they do is for nothing. Much like Jasper, we see Harper become hopeless for the first time, exhausted by the constant stress of survival and the worry that the human race will be stuck in this cycle forever.

My favorite bit of acting from Chelsey comes from this season, too: when Monty goes to their room in Arkadia, confused as to why Harper hasn’t started packing for their journey to the bunker in Polis. She answers him, quietly: “I tried.”

Anyone who's been depressed could easily understand the emotion that Chelsey conveyed in those two words. Packing is such a simple thing, but when you struggle with depression, everything is a monumental task. Getting out of bed is suddenly the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do.

Thankfully, with Monty by her side, Harper chooses yet again to survive.

Monty Green is the true gem of the whole show, and I’ll fight anyone about that. Monty is so important as a character and as a part of the show; the only one who remained uncompromised by the horror that surrounded him.

What’s great about Monty is that not only is he intelligent, he’s inherently logical, and not afraid to call it like it is. While in Mount Weather, he was the first one to suspect that those in power were hiding something in regards to the bone marrow transplants. In Season 4, he came up with the idea to seal what was left of the Ark to create a shelter that would withstand Praimfaya. When he learned that his father had been killed by grounders, he didn’t let it blind him with anger. He decided to support his mother alongside Pike in Season 3, but when he saw the toxicity of Pike’s rule, he changed sides to help the resistance. He killed his mother to protect Octavia, and again to save the human race from destruction via ALIE.

Through all of this, Monty Green never compromised his beliefs. He was a farmer in the beginning and the end, never once stopping his pursuit of peace from season to season, especially in Season 5. Sure, Monty made difficult choices. He took part in the genocide at Mount Weather, among other things, but he never became comfortable being morally grey. He refused to accept that the survival of the human race was dependent on violence and drastic measures.

We see this in Season 2, after Maya showed Monty and Jasper that they were holding grounders captive, using them for blood transfusions and bone marrow. Maya was upset but conflicted: the people of Mount Weather needed to do this to survive. Without it they would die, what were they supposed to do?

Monty answered, “Die.”

This is echoed in Season 5, during an argument about fighting for Eden when Monty says “If a war is the only way to have the last survivable land on Earth, then maybe we don't deserve it.” Everyone is so concerned with the survival of the human race that no one bothers to think about whether or not they deserve to survive. You could argue that for some characters, this distinction doesn’t matter, and it’s a tribute to Monty’s goodness that he does.

All of this results in Monty being the only character (along with Harper) that actively strives for peace. After reading Jasper’s suicide note, he’s determined to challenge Jasper’s belief that they’re caught in an endless cycle of violence and war. Monty steadfastly sticks to his algae and his hope that there is a solution to save humanity that isn’t deadly. Monty and Harper refuse to take part in more destruction, and instead dedicate their time to regrowing the hydrofarm in the bunker. Monty desperately brings up his algae and his plans for regrowing the Earth multiple times in the season, only to be laughed off in favor of more “serious” plans. He’s so dedicated to finding a way to break the cycle that he interrupts a fight in the arena to show everyone a glimpse of his progress with the hydrofarm; a glimmer of hope in the midst of the chaos. If you ever need to visualize the concept of hope, just picture Monty Green, holding up a jar of flowers in the middle of a bloody pit.

In hindsight, this season was a perfect setup for the send off they gave Monty and Harper. They simply refused to take part in the destruction of humanity, and when it seems like their last chance at survival is gone, they find a new one.

Earlier in the season, Octavia told Monty that farmers won’t save the world. But that’s exactly what happened. Monty and Harper dedicated their lives to ensuring a safe new home for their friends, leaving a final message of hope for both Clarke and Bellamy:

“I hope we do better there. I hope Jasper was wrong and we aren’t the problem. I hope your lives there will be as happy as mine has been. Be the good guys. May we meet again.”

The irony here is both Monty and Harper were left off of Clarke’s list. When determining who would ensure the survival of humanity best, Monty and Harper were left out. So it’s poetic to know that they’re the two who made a second chance possible: the cosmic Adam and Eve that Kane mentioned in the very first episode of the series.

Monty and Harper are examples that you can strive for peace amongst violence. Not only that you can, but that you should. Never resign yourself to making difficult decision after difficult decision. There are good guys, but only if we try.

#The 100 #Harper McIntyre #Monty Green #Marper #Legacy

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ukge · 6 years

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This is the last of a three part article about the volcanoes of Big Island, Hawaii. In the first part, I discussed their background and explained some of the terms used to describe the lava that can been seen there. In the second, I discussed some of the highlights that my wife and I saw during our several trips to the island, including in October 2014. And in this part, I will continue to describe what we saw.

Fig. 1. One of the kipukas (that is, untouchedby- lava areas of forest).

The abandoned lava cliff at Kalapana

This is a stretch of old cliff face that is now several hundred metres from the sea. It is located among the flows of February 1992 to October 2003, but the area was re-flooded with lava between 2007 and November 2013, when the ocean entry hereabouts was blocked. The site is just under 5km southwest of present-day Kalapana near Poupou, where the Royal Gardens lava flow reached the coast. The walk is well worth the effort for the variety of lava formations, the many tumuli or blisters of lava, and the coastal scenery along the present cliffs. We were guided here by Gary Sleik, who lives on the lava at Kalapana.

Fig. 2. The first section of cliff face, with the lens-shaped tube blocked by cindery flow.

The cliffs are backed up by a small kipuka, which is an area that was left untouched, as the lava flowed around it and therefore is still a lush, well-forested island among the dark bare lava. There are several such fortunate stretches of original forest in the area. The first section of cliff face is a tale of its history – two major flows that came over this area in the distant past, including a lava tube between them, since filled in with an very cindery flow that came though the tube and over the surface. Behind this cliff, there are several windows down into lava tubes, which are mainly blocked up with subsequent flows and one may well lead to this lens-shaped opening. The base of the cliff is now buried by an unknown depth of fresher black pahoehoe lava. The detail of one episode can be seen in one small section, where the lower vesicular flow was several metres thick and formed slightly columnar shrinkage cracks through its depths, but also has a dark ropey lava surface. Above this, there is the clinkery a’a flow at the level of the lens-shaped tube.

Fig. 3. A small section of the cliff face, showing the junction between flows.

On the next section of cliff face, the thick basalt layers are more irregularly broken up and there is a cave entrance at the level of the new flow. This entrance is about half a metre high and little more than a metre wide. Around it, there are slump areas in the new lava, where molten lava was sucked down, perhaps into this cave or others. From the entrance, the cave had a drop of several metres onto fallen blocks and fresh flow. Although it is deep, it is not far across – the opposite wall can be seen with a good torch. It is an a’a flow above a much more columnar basalt face, with its top pediment several metres below the entrance level. Unfortunately, the drop to the floor of the cave is a long way in the dark, especially with no way to climb out. The mass of cobwebs across the entrance doesn’t help, either. However, it is possible to look down to the right and see the next level down in the cave – the floor drops steeply to a lower level, in a lava fall underground. There are interesting dribbles and fingers of lava around the cliff near the cave, such as several openings that contain miniature grottos of stalactites and small pillars of lava. Also, along the edge of the cliff, the remains of the former forest can clearly be seen. Tree moulds are also easily visible in the cliff face, with a complete coconut cast among them.

Fig. 4. The cave entrance, less than a metre high at the base of the cliff.

Moving further along this cliff line, there is a skylight down into a lava tube. Around ten meters deep, the walls seem to be comprised of mainly solid basalt blocks and there are two levels at which the lava flowed for extended periods. The floor and the base of the upper level have pahoehoe surfaces. There is reputedly an extensive network of such tubes in this area, one called the Cave of Refuge, which has a variety of legends attached to its historical uses. It seems that some are several hundred metres long and some are interconnected. Once again, it is difficult to explore without a known way out or the necessary equipment. The columnar nature of the thicker lava is seen in some of the deep cracks in the vicinity.

The cliff then changes entirely in its character. This location was once an ocean entry point, where the lava exited one or more of tubes and flowed over the cliff in a mass of fire-falls. They left innumerable wonderful flows and dribbles in great variety, caught in the act and frozen in a near-vertical face.

Fig. 5. Inside the cave, showing the columnar face opposite the entrance. The flow into the lower level is at lower right, under the columns.

Kapoho Cone and Green Lake Crater

Of course, the whole of Big Island Hawaii is made of lava and this corner of Puna District is no exception. From Kilauea to Kumukahi Cape runs the East Rift Zone, with a parallel graben (down-faulted section). There is thought to be no direct connection between the rift faults and the graben.

Fig. 15. A map of the Kapoho eruption. Cape Kumukahi is the eastern-most point of Hawaii, extended by the a’a and pahoehoe lava floods of 1960.

There have also been several volcanic events in this area. The earliest one that has been dated with any accuracy is from about’ 400 years ago,’ when the Puʻu Kapoho cone formed during a phreatomagmatic (steam-powered) eruption. The hill doesn’t look to be particularly volcanic from the surrounding area, because it lacks the conical height and angle of slope of a true cinder cone (it is only 110m high). This was extremely explosive because of the amount of water present, which is a result of its very low height above sea level. This kind of activity formed a low, broad cone, with abundant fine particles that helped cement the ash and larger fragments and angular blocks together to form a volcanic tuff cone, which soon turned to the reddish brown of iron-rich lavas. Diamond Head, Punchbowl and Koko Head on Oahu are also tuff cones at a low elevation in Hawaii, but are much more famous than Kapoho.

Fig. 16. A view across the a’a field to Kapoho Hill (Pu’u means hill), which erupted sometime in the first half of the seventeenth century, in a series of phreatomagmatic events from four fissures.

It may not appear to be especially volcanic at first, but it has a distinct rim on three sides and it is entered by the gap on the eastern flank, where the lava and pyroclastic materials flowed outwards. The track takes you up to a car park and recreation area. From here, it is possible to see down into the lake and upwards around the rim. Without contemporary accounts, it is not easy to build up a clear picture of the eruption around the 1600 AD, but there were seemingly four active vents erupting explosively, one of which produced the inner crater that began to collect water soon after the eruption ceased. This resulted in Green Lake and the water really is green – with algae. It is known to Hawaiians as Ka Wai a Pele.

Fig. 17. Cross section of reddish tuff deposits blasted out during the very explosive, steam-driven eruption from four fissures. Now covered by more recent lavas.

Opinions differ as to whether this is on private or state land, but there is a gate and an admission charge of five dollars, which goes to local community causes, including the upkeep of the site. While we were visiting, the access from the rim down to the water was said to be closed because of damage caused by Hurricane Iselle, two months earlier. The water had reputedly been polluted by vehicles blown into it during the hurricane, although there was no sign of them or any oil on the surface – just a few damaged trees and forest debris in the lake. It is a very popular picnic spot and recreation ground for local people, and some swimmers were climbing up the path from the water when we arrived. Views down into the lake are restricted by the dense woods that fill the area, but there are glimpses of the lake from the rim.

Fig. 18. An aerial view of the Kapoho tuff cone, with Green Lake almost in the centre and the 1960 flow at bottom right. The almost circular shape of the crater is very clear, with the outflow coming down the middle of the picture.

We had a four-wheel drive rental car and were encouraged by the gate staff to drive to the top rim of the volcano, where there is additional parking and a picnic area. It is about a half-hour walk or five minute drive from the lake overlook. The view from the top is most worthwhile – right across this corner of the island, including all of the eruptive features from earlier and later times. Later eruptions very close by took place in 1840, 1923 (although with no surface lava), in February 1955 and January 1960.

A personal communication from the aerial photographer informs me that he, William Appleton, owns the land and he kindly gave permission to use the picture. He also added that recent thinking suggests that the crater and lake were formed only 350 years ago, rather than the 400 years, as traditionally suggested. There is apparently a proposal to build a geothermal power plant in the vicinity, although current thought is divided about whether the lake water is purely run-off or has a tidal connection (which could contravene groundwater pollution laws).

Tottering on the a’a lava at Kumukahi Lighthouse Point

A real disaster came to the small village of Kapoho, which was a place that lived by growing coffee, papayas and orchids. Early in 1960, there was a major eruption linked to Kilauea, from Puʻu Kapoho. It was one of a series of eruptions from the flank volcanoes of Kilauea. This was the last eruption in this immediate area and centred on a series of fissures just to the north of Kapoho and Green Lake. They are believed to have erupted from the same fissure system as Kapoho and are referred to as the Kapoho eruption, even though they didn’t come out of the actual Kapoho crater, where Green Lake is located. Lava spread eight or nine kilometres across Cape Kumukahi to the sea, extending the coast by an area of two square kilometres during 1960.

Fig. 23. Dominating the town in the early days, the fire fountain produced masses of cinder, as well as lava.

When the summit eruption of Kilauea Iki ceased in December 1959, it was known that the magma chamber was more inflated than it had been at the start of the eruption, so it was no surprise when earthquake rumbles began further along the fault line of the East Rift Zone the following month, with over a thousand recorded on 12 January 1960. Overnight, large cracks opened in the ground in Pahoa and Kapoho towns, both of which are located on the rift line. By 8am, more large cracks opened up and lava fountains began along the main split about 300m from Kapoho, within the graben, rather than along the actual rift line. Within half an hour, lava was spurting up to 30m high, along a fissure of just under a kilometre in length, with flows of pahoehoe and a’a lava flooding away from the fissure. Before long, cinder and spatter cones were being formed as the fountaining increased and started to concentrate in particular points, all about eight kilometres from the sea. The largest of these was Pu’u Laimana, just north of the Kapoho Cone.

There was a period of phreatomagmatic activity, when saltwater from Warm Springs Resort came into contact with the magma, and large quantities of fine black ash were produced by extremely powerful and spectacular outbursts. These clouds and their contents reached as far away as Oahu and even Kauai – a distance of over 535km.

The layers of ash were buried by later lava flows. A huge pahoehoe flow moved smoothly at around 3kph, carrying rafts of crusted lava – known as slag (as in the mining and smelting industries). Later lava fountains were up to 60m high with explosive bursts. A lot of flame was seen from burning ohio trees and methane in buried forest litter. Methane fires erupted from the ground behind photographers, who were then close to the leading edge, forcing speedy retreats. Before long, the rich coffee, orchid and papaya fields were entombed under lava and ash, and a record number of properties were destroyed in one evening (over a hundred). Legally, the fire brigade was obliged to try to stem every single fire, though their hoses were clearly having no effect whatsoever. The town was largely burned out, and then submerged under lava or giant heaps of cinder and ash. Bulldozed ridges and dykes were ignored by the lava, which opened new fissures further west.

Fig. 24. As the lava flowed through Warm Springs Resort, the contact with the underground water source produced powerful steam blasts and clouds reaching thousands of metres into the air.

Activity intensified and the fountains were estimated at 350m for several days, and reaching 450m at times. Vast quantities of lava flowed towards the coast. The mainly pahoehoe flow carried huge slabs of former crust at an estimated 3kph, in enormous amounts over a three-kilometre wide front.

The underside of the slabs is generally either an extremely sharp ‘pluck’ surface, where the near-solid lava has dragged loosely across earlier rock; or a ‘drip’ surface, where the underside has still been molten, but lifted, which allowed the liquid lava to drip downwards into the gap below. Either form is extremely difficult to walk on, when the slabs have been jumbled up and turned over, or left jammed on edge.

Fig. 27. Fast-moving lava flows tumbled over obstructions in lava-falls, carrying large amounts of surface ‘slag’, which are rafts of crust from earlier solidifying areas.

Eventually, the flow began to diminish in power and the great fountains were lessening and sending out ‘soggy bombs’ rather than great heights of spatter, turning red as the temperature dropped and the volume decreased. Within a day or two, the fountaining was finished, but it took another two weeks for all the lava movement to cease. The slowly continuing lava gradually became cooler and the surface was changing into an a’a flow of ‘broken and crumbly’ blocks and cinders, carried along by the slowed-down more fluid lava beneath. This slowly built up to a wall of a’a lava four and a half a metre high, and travelling at less than a half a kilometre an hour across the Kumukahi Cape.

The a’a flow is the one that finally covered most of the area, overrunning the coastguard and lighthouse stations. However, it skirted round the lighthouse itself, leaving it untouched with six metres to spare on three sides. This lava is very broken up a’a, with large and small blocks, and slabs and crust sections. And there, amongst it, stands the open girder-work of the lighthouse – untouched.

Fig. 28. Slab lava being formed from the rafts of crust that were carried along by the still molten lava beneath. My thanks to Darlene Cripps and Gary Sleik for this picture.

The whole surface of the a’a flow is very rough, but stable. The blocks and slabs cooled while still stuck together, as opposed to a mass of loose cindery material, which can be very unstable. If the face of an a’a flow becomes very solidly fixed, it holds back the continuing flow of molten lava behind it. This will cause upward pressure beneath the crusted surface. One way to release the pressure is for the lava to squeeze out between hard slabs and blocks. This can frequently produce an effect like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube, as the lava exudes onto the surface and is pushed away. The surface flow will often retain the grooved nature of the gap through which it came, making a series of fluted lines along the surface.

Here and there among the tangled masses of a’a blocks and slabs, these flatter areas survive where the ‘toothpaste’ areas of flow have not broken up – presumable among the last active phases of the eruption. Like roadways through the broken jumble, they have longitudinal grooves that reflect the edges of the crack they were forced out of. Some of them also have ‘pressure pulse’ lines across them, which have something of the appearance of a roughly-ploughed field. They indicate that the lava was squeezed out in pulses, perhaps half a metre of forward movement across a nine-metre wide front. They occur at many points throughout the a’a flow, including in the vicinity of the lighthouse, and not just close to the original crater. This implies that the lava travelled a considerable distance under the main surface before it solidified, and then surfaced wherever it was able to force its way upwards.

Similar at first sight to the ‘toothpaste’ roadways are flat runs of lava, which were surface flows of pahoehoe lava, just at the stage where it ran out of strength and heat. However, the pahoehoe flows have curved wrinkles spreading across them and extending back along the edges towards the source of the lava; whereas the toothpaste flows have grooved lines along the length of them, except for the ‘pulse’ lines cutting across the flow, which are usually straight, rather than curved.

Fig. 35. The lighthouse at Cape Kumukahi remained untouched.

Two additional features of this a’a flow are worthy of note. The first is the evidence of the under-surface continuing flows – the numerous lava tubes varying from a foot across to seven metres or so. As the source of lava diminished, so the level within these tubes dropped and left the roof perched above the new tube or cavern. The second feature is the sheer size of some of the slabs of crust. While most are a less than a metre across, broken by continual movement of the lava below, some are huge – as large as a three-storey house, but perhaps less than a metre thick. It is possible that one or two of these may be complete sections of the surface that began to topple into the sea during a cliff collapse (or ‘bench collapse’), when a whole area of the flow was undermined by waves.

Equally interesting for the petrologist or mineralogist is the detailed and varied nature of the rock hereabouts, within six metres of the parking. Some broken blocks reveal very dense, almost bubble-free interiors, probably indicating that hot lava burned out its gaseous content before setting hard. Others are filled with bubbles (vesicles) and are almost as light as pumice. These are sometimes stretched longitudinally in the direction of the flow. It is common here to find blocks containing both kinds of lava, often in layers. In such cases, the bubbles may have acted as a kind of ‘‘oil slick’’ that enabled one layer to slide across the other. It is a common feature of a’a blocks that the whole mass of the flow does not all move at the same speed. These layers of bubbles are one of the mechanisms for the differences in speed.

Three metres beyond the small car park at the lighthouse, many of the rocks contain olivine crystals in abundance. One hand-sized rock displayed more than 20 crystals, but they were only a few millimetres across, with the largest we found being almost a centimetre across. The presence of olivine crystals indicates that the magma originated deep in the Earth’s crust and quite possibly in the upper mantle. They are one of the first minerals to crystallise out of the base rock as it cools, so these indicate a fairly slow cooling process. Olivine – otherwise known as peridot and chrysolite – is magnesium iron silicate, which owes its green colour to the presence of nickel.

Fig. 40. Hot molten lava lurking below the hard crusted surface at the time of the eruption. My thanks again to Darlene Cripps and Gary Sleik for this picture.

The aftermath of the eruption is plain to see. The town and its fields had almost entirely gone in six weeks of eruption. Ten square kilometres were buried under fresh lava and two square kilometres of new land extended into the sea. Around 130 million cubic metres of material were ejected, mostly lava, but also some pyroclastic material. It was the third largest eruption by Kilauea in the last century, after Mauna Ulu from 1969 to 1971 and Pu’u O’o-Kupaianaha from 1983 to the present.

Kapoho was never rebuilt. The area is a desert of a’a blocky and slab lava. Almost all the fields of orchids were ‘rescued’, with the plants being dug up before the lava reached them. One particular type of orchid survived – the bamboo orchid is now one of the most common plants among the lava flows and along the roadsides.

Even our 2014 visits didn’t do justice to this area – a’a lava is just as fascinating as the beauteous pahoehoe type. This lava field is basically a great expanse of shattered blocks and slabs, all tumbled and jumbled together. It is the result of the nature of the lava flow towards the end of an eruption, when the lava was cooling down.

Fig. 44. Some rocks contain great masses of bubbles. This one was very light and was the same structure all the way through.

There is a memoir of the event still available: Kapoho: Memoir of a Modern Pompeii (Paperback) by Frances H. Kakugawa. A professional photographer, Fred Rackle, filmed much of the eruption, and the superb result can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BsIm7iodIs. There is also further information at the CSAV site of Hilo University http://hilo.hawaii.edu/~csav/.

Visiting Lava Trees State Monument

This is a seven hectare park between Pahoa and Kapoho, on Highway 132. There is free admission in daylight hours, with a circular trail of about a kilometre. The pathway winds among numerous lava trees in a grass parkland and woodland setting that is like a fairy glen in the misty rain. The park is also well known for its living trees and the many different flowering bushes there. What we hadn’t realised was that Hurricane Iselle had torn through Puna District on a August 2014, less than two months before our arrival and this area took the brunt of the strongest tropical cyclone that Hawaii has encountered in recorded history. The Kapoho (132) Road to Lava Trees State Monument had been blocked by hundreds of huge fallen trees. By October, the road had been cleared, but it seems that the modern living trees in the park hadn’t fared as well as the lava-created versions. When we arrived there, the park was still closed, so we didn’t manage to visit in 2014. It was fortunate that we had been on previous occasions, and found other superb examples of lava tree moulds in this district.

Fig. 49. The park is beautifully laid out and manicured.

A flow of tholeiitic basalt (containing less sodium than some other basalts) from Kilauea’s eastern rift zone swept through the ohia forest here in 1790. This was the most devastating eruption in Hawaii’s recorded history, since the one in which at least 80 Hawaiian warriors under Chief Keoua were suffocated by volcanic ash on their way to attack the senior chief, Kamehameha. This forest was drowned to a depth of up to three metres in places and perhaps as much again around a few trees. It is thought that during the eruption, fissures opened up in the area and lava drained into them very rapidly, with the surface level dropping to less than half a metre high within hours of the initial flood. Some of these fissures are still visible around the park and there are notices warning of their hidden risks. It left behind a coating of lava on the standing trees about 15 to 30cm thick and on some that were already fallen, also. However, one mould in particular seems to show that the lava came through in several waves, with each staying long enough to coat the tree in a new layer. It appears that there were at least three such flows and quite likely a fourth.

Fig. 51. A diagram showing the formation of tree moulds. The lava swept through the existing rainforest, but only remained for a short while, before draining away and leaving the tree trunks burned and coated with lava. Almost all the moulds have a central hole, filling with mosses and new shrubs.

It was a luxuriant rainforest before the lava arrived and the trees were wet. The dampness didn’t save them from the lava, but it took some of the heat out of the lava and briefly protected the bark with a cushion of steam. This gave the lava time to cool and settle around the tree, and not rapidly burn it away. Instead, the lava solidified in contact with the bark.

Fig. 53. It really is dangerous to stray into the undergrowth – the fissures are very deep.

For a time, the forest must have had an extremely weird appearance – bare black-lava covering the ground, the trees dead and probably burned of their bark, now bare and bleached white in the sun. And each one with a jacket of black lava wrapped around it up to its waist. Eventually, the trees rotted away in the hot, wet climate, and left the empty moulds standing starkly above the lavascape. A few collapsed and either remained as horizontal tubes or smashed. Some of the still-standing ones have a perfect round hole down the centre, often with clear impressions of the original bark still imprinted around the internal part of the mould. Others are a joined mass of several trunks and small sprouting branches that were growing as a large clump, instead of a single trunk. Some that were already fallen were buried in lava and then rotted away, leaving horizontal tubes.

Fig. 57. The rounded interior of this mould appears to have several grooves down it – almost certainly where vines clung to the trunk – as many still do.

The Kazamura Lava Tube

A lava tube forms within a flow of lava, because the parts of the flow that cool first are the sides and these can create walls, which confine the flow’s direction. The flow may also crust over as it cools, perhaps in phases. Given the right timing and a supply of fresh magma, the lava will continue to flow beneath the new ceiling crust. It retains almost all of its heat and can resurface many kilometres away from its source at virtually the same temperature as when it entered. Such tubes are common on Big Island – 47 of them are said to be exposed on cliffs around the coast. More recently formed tubes in this area are separate and the volcano has not taken advantage of this system by re-occupying this route.

This particular tube stretches erratically for almost [50km][30 miles = 50km, but you refer to 68km below. Which is beneath the ground from volcano towards Hilo. There is an access point about five kilometres south of the Hilo to Volcano Hwy 11 road, between Kurtistown and Mountain View. The tube was formed during an eruption of Kilauea about 700 ago, as part of the Aila’ua flow. It was re-filled and drained intermittently during eruptions for probably 200 years afterwards. Surveyors rate this as the world’s longest known continuous lava tube with a total surveyed length of [68km]. It is a complex system with a main passage 40km long and other passages about 27km in length. Five separate complexes of mazes have been explored. It also lays claim to being the deepest cave in the USA, at over 1,000m below the surface in places, and has the greatest lava tube span from wall to wall at 21m in one place and almost as high. Throughout its length, there are more than 30 lava falls and cascades over three metres high, the highest being 13.7m. There are several scholarly articles about the cave on the Internet.

Fig. 59. Just within the entrance, the roof is coloured in reds, oranges and greens, through the mass of tree roots that penetrate from the ground above.

Tours are run by a small company called ‘Caverns of Fire’, and are by appointment only – but almost every day. The contact number is +1 (808)-217-2363. When we went, we were the only people on the visit. This was fine, as we could talk with the guide all the time and get personalised information from him. If you look on the Internet, you will see that this is a frequent occurrence, so don’t be shy about it.

We took the one-hour tour, which covered a superb range of features commonly seen in lava tubes and many that are unique to this one. The section of the tube that this explores is around 275m long. It was an upper overflow channel for the main tube, so it was periodically flooded and drained. The lava did not pour through here like a giant red river. Rather, it rose and fell more like the water in a bath. This calm and intermittent flow and flooding is what gave rise to the different features found here.

Waterproof jackets are recommended in case of seepage and long trousers in case of a trip. Armed with helmet, gloves and torches (the tube is not lighted), the entrance is just round the back of the office building among the undergrowth of the forest. It isn’t the fine bridge that appears on some websites, but a duck down over steps and rocks into the cavern, at a place where the roof once fell in.

Fig. 65. A further section of ceiling drips, which are larger than others, with some being 15cm long.

The first feature that is truly amazing is the wall and ceiling section just inside the entrance. The colours are phenomenal, and occur in patches of different shades and hues alongside each other. Long, fine tree roots grow down through the rock, in places quite densely and, in one instance, a root has grown through a hollow stalactite ‘straw’ and hangs out the bottom.

The floor varies from a smooth and beautifully coloured flat surface, where a lava surface gently solidified, to heaps of fallen roof rubble, with variations of lava formations, such as ropey flows, a ‘rose’ of dripped lava. There is also a circular section, where a radiating pattern is claimed to be the result of a single drop of falling lava causing ripples. However, in view of the viscosity of lava and its reluctance to transmit clear ripples, combined with the overlapping nature of many of the ‘ripples’, this seems unlikely.

Other sections of the floor are roughly grooved, indicating a flow suface that was moving as it crusted. Towards the end of the easily-accessible area, there is a double floor, with one flow crusted over to about 15cms. The lava beneath then fell in level by around 60cm and crusted over again. Both surfaces can clearly be seen. Other such changes in surface height are seen throughout the cave, forming benches at different levels along the walls and parts of the ceiling. These are often very clearly differentiated by colour differences, as well as the smoothness of their surfaces and the series of lava dribbles below them.

The ceiling, which is mostly a little above head height and therefore close enough to reveal its details, is festooned with a variety of formations. These are most obviously long drips, which have formed over a period during which the lava level rose and fell repeatedly. This caused the drips to be dipped and dipped again into the lava, each time adding a layer and making the drip thicker and longer. Some of the drips are distinctly bent – a mark of the direction of the slight current as the lava drained away. Some areas of the ceiling are ‘sucked rather than plucked’, that is, when lava separates by being pulled apart, it generally produces a patch of sharp, needle-like spikes. However, here, the lava repeatedly pulled apart, as the level ebbed and flowed, and the sharp needles became more rounded with each coating left behind. The surfaces between them are somewhat reminiscent of the water-formed scalloped surfaces in limestone and ice caves. In places, they have joined together to create curtains, with an indication of the (very slow) direction of the flow.

Fig. 72. Where ceiling drips have been coming from the same spot for some time, these spatter spires are formed. The tallest one is less than 60cm high.

Where drips continued to fall from the ceiling and high parts of the walls, they formed patches of dribbles, like small spatter mounds on the floor and on the side benches. Unusually, these are often a different colour from the hanging stalagmites, as well as having a much rougher texture that formed as they solidified when they landed. In other places, lava straws have formed, hanging from the ceiling. These are hollow and were created in the same way as limestone ones – by water droplets evaporating on the lower tip and depositing a tiny amount of mineral each time.

I imagine that we have explored dozens of lava tubes in the past years, but this has to be the one that stands out for variety of form and colour.

There is also a three-hour ‘adventure’ tour into the main, lower passage, which is for the fit and young, seeking physical excitement. A couple we spoke with said it was excellent and many Internet reviews say the same. However, for old and unfit observers, the one-hour tour covers everything. Go to http://www.travelchannel.com/video/hawaiis-kilauea-caverns for a short video (2 minutes, 34 seconds) presented by the manager and guide, Steve Krucker. The Caverns of Fire’s own website (www.kilaueacavernsoffire.com/) has a short computer-animated sequence of how such a lava tube might have appeared during its active period. Many reviews justly use words such as amazing, unforgettable, unique and astonishing, when describing tours of this tube system.

Flights over the area’s different features

Over the years, we have had a number of flights over the craters and lava flows on Big Island, Hawaii. All have been good in some way – you see great fields of grey lava, hot flowing lava sometimes, with the opportunity to look down into the seething craters, and see the ocean entry lava-falls and the skylights through the crusted lava down into the molten lava flowing beneath. However, flights by helicopter are expensive, often quite short and don’t always stick to where they said you were going. The windows are highly reflective and, if you get a middle seat in the back, you don’t get many photo opportunities. In addition, last year, the authorities seemed to be tightening up on where the helicopters can fly, so going in close over moving lava is generally not a likely option. We got $180 knocked off the price of a two-hour flight for two persons, because we attended a two-hour timeshare presentation (never again), but it still cost $300 each for a two-hour flight. One company guarantees a window seat, but, of course, this is more expensive.

Fig. 75. Looking into a ‘skylight’ to see the hot lava beneath.

Flights may leave from the Hilo area or from Kailua-Kona. Which one is best depends on where you are staying and what you want to see. They usually include lots of waterfalls and the amazingly steep forested valleys of the northern coast. Try www.bluehawaiian.com/bigisland/ or www.safarihelicopters.com/big-island-helicopter-tours/. The photographs are all ones that I took on our last three visits, so you can judge if it might be worthwhile for you. However, we don’t all get the luxury of the US Geological Survey, with a privately chartered flight twice a week, and permission to go anywhere.

Fig. 80. Major steam and splatter explosions, when large amounts of lava hit the ocean.

About the author

Trevor lives near Nottingham, England and is a retired teacher, headteacher and school inspector who has had a lifelong interest in geology, particularly volcanoes and dinosaur footprints. He and his wife have travelled worldwide to visit and climb more than a hundred volcanoes – active and otherwise. A few of these visits have been with organised groups, but most have been independent, and frequently involve camping.

Dr Trevor Watts (UK)

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Big Island, Hawaii, Part 3 This is the last of a three part article about the volcanoes of Big Island, Hawaii. In the first part, I discussed their background and explained some of the terms used to describe the lava that can been seen there.

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stopforamoment · 6 years

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Before the School Year Starts: Bucket List (4 of 4)

Book: The Royal Romance (After Book Three)

Pairing: Bastien Lykel x OFC Rinda Parks

Word Count: 1,372

Rating: M for Language

Author’s Note: Obligatory disclaimer that Pixelberry Studios owns the TRR characters and my pocketbook with those darn diamond scenes. OFC with all of her quirks is all mine. My apologies if Tumblr or I do something stupid when I try to post this.

This is just a little story arc to tie up some loose ends from the weekend and give some more background info. This takes place Sunday night, after Bastien’s nap. The school year starts on Tuesday, September 11th.

Summary: This is basically a bunch of drabbles that wrap up the final loose ends of that weekend.

Rinda had left a note in the car for Bastien, but he waited until he got back to the palace before reading it.

Bastien,

I know you get embarrassed when I gush about thanking you, but unless you start being an absolute jerk, you have to deal with it. Thank you for the entire weekend. Thank you for giving us the tour of the palace and showing me the library—even though that made your weekend an absolute nightmare. Thank you for introducing us to Drake and for taking the time to play football with Henry and take him for ice cream. Thank you for the spumoni and for taking us downtown and ordering for me when I was overwhelmed with options. Thank you for showing us the secret garden and playing tag in the maze. Thank you for taking care of my foot when I was a klutz and stepped on a rock. Thank you taking us fishing and for checking on me after I got done swimming. Thank you for letting me share food with you when we were eating lunch. Thank you for letting me help you this weekend and thank you for trusting me enough to let me drive so you could get some sleep. Thank you for dealing with my rambles and being there for me with . . . everything.

Rinda

. . . . .

It was late, but Bastien was still going through information with Mara. “Bastien, I reviewed Rinda’s archive searches from this weekend and her previous visits. She’s . . . it’s amazing how thorough she is. And she goes down some rabbit holes with her searches--” Mara had a grin on her face. She knew enough about Rinda to imagine her geeking out and getting sidetracked with a new piece of information to explore. “But she was spot on with what she found. And didn’t find.” Mara was referring to the missing items on the list Rinda gave Bastien. “So, she asked about the Code Locusta? I’m amazed there’s a record of that anywhere.” Bastien nodded. “I didn’t tell her, but she already figured out it’s something with poison. And besides, the official story is that the Queen was poisoned, so it makes sense.” He paused. “Rinda’s going to be busy with teaching and everything with the safety reform. And Henry. But she’s good at this and I know we can trust her. You know she must be used to confidentially being married to Jameson. I mean, a police officer.” Mara raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “I think we consider asking her for help. I know she’s worried about security for the children when the king and queen visit, and she’s the type of person who needs to do something to help.” Mara nodded in agreement.

“Mara, why did you tell Rinda that she should call you if I’m working too much or being a pain in her ass?” Mara looked in shock and then started laughing. “Bastien, I gave her my number in case there was a security emergency and you weren’t available, or to contact me if she found other research. Really? Do you think I would tell her to call me if you were being ‘a pain in the ass’? That’s a 24/7 hotline.”

Bastien blushed. Rinda lied to him so he’d get some sleep, and it didn’t even occur to him to call her bluff. Mara chuckled. “Actually, I think that is a good idea. Dealing with you? That woman is going to need all the help she can get. I’m also working on giving her official clearance to drive the palace vehicles at any time. I can’t believe you were going to drive with only two hours of sleep in 48 hours instead of letting someone else drive her home.” Mara got out her phone and messaged Rinda, much to Bastien’s chagrin.

. . . . .

When Bastien got back to his room he grabbed Rinda’s gift, her copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth, off his dresser. She mentioned that she sometimes left notes in books. Did she do that in this book?

He flipped through the pages and smiled when he saw the piece of paper.

Bastien Lykel’s Bucket List

√ 1. Climb a volcano

He got into bed, thinking about his bucket list. There were things that he wanted to do when he had free time . . . when he retired . . . but not an actual list. Suddenly he got up and grabbed the shirt he wore earlier that day. It still smelled like lavender.

Sleeping naked. It was the stupidest thing, but he always needed to fall asleep partially dressed in case there was an emergency. Even when Rinda screamed this weekend he was barefoot and scrambling to put on a shirt, desperate to reach her and contain the situation in time. Sleeping naked was so liberating, but he hadn’t felt comfortable enough to do that in . . . he didn’t know how long.

What else?

It was 2:00 AM. He had to be up in three hours. Fuck it. He took off his lounge pants and boxers. But just in case, he moved a chair close to his bed and draped them across, easy to grab. He laid on top of his bed, fully stretched out. The air was cool against his skin. God this feels good.

Suddenly he grabbed his phone to message Rinda. Shit, be sure it’s just a message. No accidental dick pics!

What’s on your bucket list?

Bastien was surprised to see the dots moving. She was still up?

Well, being there to see Henry grow up, maybe be a grandma when he’s a lot older. But stuff just for me?

Yes. And how is the sleepover going? Why are you still up?

If you thought I’d be sleeping why did you message me? Oh, and speaking of, I got an interesting message from Mara.

Yeah, I was just tired. Otherwise I would have seen through your deception. So how was the sleepover?

Some of the kids are still up. Henry and Phillip, of course. And some of the older ones. But we’ve threatened them enough that they should at least stay in their tents now.

So . . . bucket list?

Hmm. Dance the tango outside in some awesome city outside of the U.S. Like, how there are street dancers in South America and stuff.

What else? You should have at least five things.

What about you?

Climbing a volcano. Your turn.

You did that already. Doesn’t count. For me, see the Northern Lights in Iceland. Go to Scotland and walk across a moor when the heather is in bloom. Sorry, a part of me is still bummed that didn’t work out. Finish seeing all of the states in the United States. Seven more to go. Haven’t done Hawai’i. Could climb a volcano there LOL.

Go to Japan and have an amazing sushi dinner. I guess it’s mostly traveling and experiencing new things. Otherwise the bigger picture of figuring out what the hell I’m doing with the rest of my life.

Your turn.

Hmm. It’s classified.

Liar. I want that list filled out before Drake replaces you. It’s your homework, okay?

Yes, Mrs. Parks.

. . . . .

The boys finally fell asleep and Rinda was able to crawl into bed and get snuggled in. Mmm. It smelled like Bastien. Rinda remembered when she needed to sleep with Jameson’s shirt. She tried putting his body spray on her pillow to remind her of him. But it was never the same. There was something about a person’s scent. Something that was more than the body spray or cologne, or the laundry detergent or soap they used. It was all of that . . . and more. That was one of the reasons she always made sure her sheets had a fragrance. Lavender. Eucalyptus. Clean Linen-scent laundry detergent. It had to be some kind of substitute, so she could snuggle in and try to forget what she so desperately longed for.

Rinda hugged her pillow and breathed in Bastien’s scent.

God, I miss this.

#bastien lykel #choices trr #ofc rinda parks

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yuniesan · 6 years

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Matters of the Heart - Epilogue

[Soundtrack]

Summary: Lucas worked hard all of his life protecting his family. During the day he works at his security firm, at night he runs a bar in New York with his best friend and his sister, making sure that no one interferes in his business, or assaults his customers.

Riley thought she had everything she could have wished for cool friends a boyfriend who cared too much and loving parents, except she didn’t know what she wanted from her life. Her life never felt like it was hers. She saw graduate school as a way to learn more about the world and about herself.

Until they met and realized there was much more to the world than what they had thought they knew.

Chapters [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

A/N: The final chapter.... it was never meant to be long, it’s actually only 1,500 or so words of pure fluff.... I wanted the fluff in the end. By the way, when I started writing this story I hadn’t expect it to end in a word count over 100K I usually write shorter works, well if 70K is short... I have no idea. Okay now off I go to finish the plans for Season 6.

Thank you for taking this journey with me!! I'll be writing Season 6 until May, and hopefully working on some other things.

Chapter 16 – Epilogue – 18 Months Later

“Matthew sweetie stay still,” Riley whispered as her son squirmed on her lap as they watched Maya and Josh stand at the altar. The little boy was restless, ever since he started to learn to walk he has had the urge to run off in any direction and Riley couldn’t keep up with him and wear heels at the same time.

Riley and Isadora had become close friends with Maya over the last eighteen months, they had been in the delivery room with Riley and Lucas as their son was born. They named him Matthew Cornelius Friar, using Riley’s maiden name and her father’s name for their son, Matthew had been Lucas’s idea and she had loved it so much that she made it his first name. Riley and Isadora were both Maids of Honor for Maya and they held a bachelorette party in their apartment where the three of them just hung out and talked instead of doing something crazy, like going to a strip club or to Vegas like the guys had.

For the three of them it was something they had never really experienced, it was something so normal, just girls hanging out at a sleepover. Riley and Isadora never really had that chance, whenever they hung out they always had Farkle and then Charlie, but to have a typical girls’ sleepover was something they cherished. Now Isadora was working, and Maya had her job at the gallery, Riley had her family and her law degree, and she worked with Lucas as a part of his legal department. They all had lives but they also had each other, they had their friendships and their family.

Her little boy squirmed in her lap again, he started reaching out towards Lucas who was standing next to Josh and Zay as they watched Maya and Josh getting married. Riley had to sit down and hold onto her son because he was normally calm when she held him but all of the attention in the room was getting to him.

“Da,” he yelled out towards Lucas and the room was so quiet before everyone burst out laughing.

Lucas smiled down at them and waved over at them before slowly stepping down from where he was standing and walking over to where they were sitting and kneeling in front of his son.

“Hey,” he said to his son before kissing the little boy who giggled but held onto his father and leaning towards him. The three of them stayed there as the wedding went on in front of them, Riley smiling at her little family, as they watched their extended family grow just a little bigger in front of them.

Lucas smiled up as his sister got married to one of the most honest men he had ever met, in the nearly two years since they had all met he had gotten closer to every one of his new friends, closer to his new family, and even closer to Riley who was an amazing person. The day their son had been born he couldn’t believe that he had gotten so lucky, even after everything that had happened seven months earlier. Their little boy was born on the fourth of July as the fireworks went off on the east river next to the hospital room. He was the most special part of their lives and as he grew in the last year Lucas couldn’t help but love him even more.

At first, he had nothing but fear in his heart that he would end up like his step-father, just because that had been the environment that he had grown up in. Riley had told him otherwise several times, but the fear had always been there.

It wasn’t until he held his son in his hands and Riley said to him, “You’re going to be a great father Lucas Friar,” that he realized he wasn’t his step-father. Lucas loved his son the moment his big eyes opened and he saw Riley’s brown eyes staring back at him.

Around him his family start growing on their own, Josh had planned, with Lucas’s help, the perfect proposal for Maya. They had done it on the roof of the building, surrounded by the garden of Maya’s work, with their friends and family cheering them on. Everyone knew that Maya was going to say yes, there was no way she wasn’t, and Lucas watched his sister smile at Josh and say yes, surrounded by everyone they knew and loved on the one-year anniversary of when they had started dating. At his side Riley smiled and held onto him as he held onto their three-month-old son, as their family grew just a little more around them.

Now he watched as his sister married the man she loved in a small church outside of the city, everything was white and yellow, as the sun set in the background haloing the couple as they said their vows. Once the minster pronounced them man and wife and they walked back down the aisle followed by everyone they knew and loved. Lucas couldn’t help but feel like this was the universe’s way of letting them have a happy ending.

As the photographer took pictures of the happy couple hours later, while everyone danced and laughed around them. Lucas turned to his best friend and smiled, “Can you believe that all this could happen to us?”

“What? You mean the fact that we’re all connected in one way or another, almost like destiny pushed us all together on purpose,” Zay said with a smile. “Well we deserve a little bit of heaven so it doesn’t matter.”

“What about you and Charlie? Any reason why you two haven’t gotten married yet?”

Zay sighed to himself before sitting back against the chair. “I don’t know, we haven’t talked about it, I mean I’ve thought about it but Charlie hasn’t said anything.”

“Why not just ask him and get it over with?” Lucas said concerned about whether his friend was going to be happy. In the background there were cheers as Maya stood on the small stage ready to throw the bouquet.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just afraid.”

“Stop being a dummy and just do it already,” Riley said as she walked over holding their son on her hip. The little boy was half asleep sucking on his little fist.

Before Zay could say anything, the cheering grew as Charlie walked over to them holding the flowers in his hand. Charlie had been the one to catch it, and none of them had noticed until he was in front of Zay holding out the flowers.

“Zay,” Charlie said before kneeling down onto the floor smiling. “I wanted to make sure I caught this since it’s tradition that the one who catches the bouquet is the next to get married,” he smiled at Zay as the room around them went silent. “I want to ask if you would do me the honor of being my husband, my partner, my love for life,” Charlie finished before pulling out a ring box.

Riley and Lucas both looked over at Zay who sat there completely stunned to silence, Charlie fidgeting on the floor.

“Zay say something,” Riley said looking over at Charlie with a worried look. But her words seemed to pull Zay from his head.

“Yes,” he said as the room cheered.

The couple jumped into each other’s arms kissing one another without a care in the world, “Sorry for waiting this long to ask,” Charlie said in between kisses. “I wanted it to be special so I started planning a while ago and I remembered that when Riley had caught the bouquet she and Lucas had gotten married right after and I thought that we could do it the same way.”

“No, I want a small wedding,” Zay said smiling at his now fiancé. “I’ve wanted to ask for a while but I didn’t know if you wanted to marry me.”

“Of course, I do you idiot, I love you why would you think that?”

“I don’t know you’ve been a little quiet lately,” Zay said before looking at the ring on his finger. “But I guess this explains it.”

“Yes, it does,” Charlie said before pulling him into another kiss.

Lucas pulled his wife away from their friends smiling, “We this could have gone a little better,” he said laughing.

“Well I helped him plan it with Maya’s help, but Charlie didn’t know that Maya helped out either, we just wanted to give them a bit of a push,” she said with a shrug but Lucas smile widened before he kissed her.

“You’re perfect you know that,” he said holding her close, their son squirming in her arms. “How about we go to the hotel and get some sleep since this one is tuckered out?”

“That would be perfect, except… well Zay isn’t the only one getting a surprise today,” she said smiling up at him. “The doctor told me the other day that this little guy is getting a sibling.”

“What?” he was stunned, mostly because he hadn’t realized that she had gone to the doctor. It had been a mad dash the last few weeks with the wedding preparations, and work.

“Yeah well, I guess, you remember that time three months ago when Maya and Josh babysat for the weekend because we were tired and just wanted a little alone time,” she said and he couldn’t help but nod. “Yeah well I guess the universe decided to give us a present.”

“That’s the best present ever,” he said kissing her on the lips and holding her so close that Matthew woke up completely and put his wet hand on Lucas’s face.

“Da,” he said giving Lucas a small smile before Lucas bent down and blew a raspberry on the little boy’s face making him laugh.

“Our family just got a little bigger,” he said with a smile.

“Yes, it did,” Riley said to him. “And although we’re not perfect, this right here, you, me, and this little rugrat, this is the best life I could have wished for.”

#matters of the heart #rucas fanfic #rucas #they're a family #it's sweet #so much fluff #wedding day for Joshaya #it's short and sweet #the best way to end this series

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spicy-pozole · 6 years

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Thanks a lot Mr. Han - Chapter 3

I meant to put this up earlier, sorry about that!

Link to story on - AO3

First Chapter - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

Jumin has a good day but almost slips up near the end. V is a good friend, and I want him to be happy too, but unfortunately this story is not about him.

“How many times have you been to Paris?” she asked him as they moved through the Paris subway, about to go above ground to the city. Jumin still had his bodyguards with them but they were standing aways away, only keeping a watch on the two who luckily had not been followed by the paparazzi.

“Six... I believe.” he said, his mental calculator running constantly in his brain.

“Oh... You sound like an expert. Are you fluent as well?” she joked, sounding a little nervous still.

“No, but I can speak a little.” he spoke in French, trying to hide his smile. Her face lit up and she said,

“That’s so cool! I only know how to say everyday phrases and words in French. I guess you’ll have to be my tour guide then.”

“Well I have to tell you, I haven’t spent very much time sightseeing in Paris. I was usually stuck in meetings while I was here. But the city is so old it’s impossible to go anywhere without being somewhat of a tourist.” he admitted, a little worried that he wouldn’t be able to give her a good experience while she was here.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s... just another place to me. I can appreciate that it’s a beautiful place but... it just feels like another city to me.” Jumin said honestly, his voice growing quieter as they climbed up the metro stairs together.

“Maybe you just need a chance to make good memories with it then... We’ll have fun today, alright? So just try to enjoy it, maybe you’ll get more attached.” she said, looking at him in the eyes as she grinned. He tightened his fingers to the inside of his palms, staring back at her.

If there was anything he was starting to get attached to, he didn’t think it was the city.

They came up out of the metro together, into the gray rainy air that was the weather of Paris that day, clouds hanging in the sky but the air still warm against their skin. She was smiling so wide as she looked around, walking forward aimlessly until he walked a little faster so he could catch up and begin leading her in the correct direction, holding her arm gently.

“Oh!!! It’s so big!” she gasped when she finally noticed the Eiffel Tower that he was leading her to as they walked across the Trocadero Plaza, and he continued to lead her away from the people trying to aggressively sell knock off landmark trinkets for money.

They walked across for a while, talking as they grew closer to the tower about different places that they had been and where they still wanted to go someday. Jumin did enjoy seeing new places when he went on business trips, but those moments of enjoyment were usually spent from him looking out a hotel window at the end of the day, or taking a walk through a garden. This kind of tourism wasn’t something he was particularly used to, and he wasn’t really sure whether he would have enjoyed it if he had been alone. Seeing her so excited about everything was enough to make him enjoy himself too. Once they got closer to the tower she excitedly ran up to one of the bases of the legs, her mouth wide open as she looked at it and then up at the top of the tower in the sky.

“It’s just... so much bigger than I thought it was going to be. Have you ever gone somewhere and seen a famous landmark... and you are surprised by how much smaller it was than what you imagined?” she asked him, and all he could do was smile back at her a little, shrugging lightly. “Well... this is the first time that something I imagined was bigger in reality... It’s almost frightening.” she breathed, her neck still craned up to the sky.

“I’m sorry we had to come on a cloudy day...” Jumin said, noticing that it was hard to even see the top of the tower in the foggy rain clouds above them.

“Oh, I think it’s beautiful! It feels cool but not cold... and when things are gray the grass always looks greener, don’t you think?” she asked, and he turned around, glancing at the gardens they had walked past earlier.

“I suppose... you’re right about that.” he mumbled quietly, interested. Then she took him by surprise when she linked arms with him, pulling him towards the closest edge of the river Seine that they could reach from where they were, pointing at the boats and asking him if he wanted to go with her on one.

It wasn’t too long until they had boarded a boat and she took lots of pictures of the view, many of him too. He didn’t know what to do as she snapped photos, so he was worried his expression in all of them looked either bored or in discomfort when he was really enjoying himself in reality. She showed him the photos as the tour boat sailed slowly down the river, deleting a few but generally commenting on how his black hair looked nice against the greyish background.

They passed by many landmarks and took pictures as they went, sometimes hopping off the boat to explore new parts of the city before they reboarded when the next boat came. Notre Dame was one of Jumin’s favorite places that they went, intrigued by the detail and symmetry of the building, both in the art of the windows and the architecture itself. She got him to smile beside the building as she took photos, taking some selfies with him as well.

She nearly forgot to eat she was so excited to move onto the next landmarks, but thankfully Jumin’s internal clock made sure that they took a break, taking her to a restaurant.

As soon as they sat down she seemed to relax a little from her excited state, sighing as she picked up a menu.

“Jumin, how much of this menu can you understand.”

“It’s more that I’ve had the food before so I know what it is, rather than me actually understanding what the words mean.”

“That’s fair.” she scanned down the menu, looking very unsure. After a few more moments of her frowning at the menu and trying to decipher what things were he leaned over and pointed to some of his favorites, explaining what they were. She ended up getting the same thing he was, saying that she was willing to try anything that he thought was good.

“Today has been really fun so far... I almost forgot that we’re on a business trip.” she said, and he smiled.

“It has been fun. I would love to travel with you again MC, you make it a lot more enjoyable.” he said, and she blushed. “I didn’t realize how entertaining it is to see others experience things that you yourself have become used to. It’s like sharing, isn’t it?” he continued, and she nodded lightly.

“I’ve probably looked like an excited kid all day, or a very typical tourist.” she sighed, and he shook his head.

“I thought you looked like someone who was just thoroughly enjoying life.”

He wanted to tell her that she looked beautiful as well, and that he would do anything to experience the joy that she was feeling. But he felt a little uneasy doing that. This wasn’t a date after all, this was a free day on a business trip. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

“Thank you for coming here with me. I actually like traveling alone a lot... I feel like I can express myself more honestly, where as if I’m with others I have to hold myself back. But for some reason... I don’t feel that pressure from you. So thank you Jumin.” she said politely, and it was his turn to look away a little, feeling embarrassed. He wasn’t even sure why. In fact, this whole business trip had been near infuriating so far just because he couldn’t always count on his ability to control his emotions. And now she was the one telling him that she felt comfortable around him? When had been the last time a woman, or rather, literally anyone had told him that they felt comfortable around him? Besides his father and V, the two people in this world closest to him, he didn’t know if the had ever met someone like this. To be honest, he felt a little terrified.

Those bonds of friendship and trust had taken years to build and to prove faithful, and yet here he was with this girl after maybe three days, and he already felt as though she was becoming close to him as well. He had no real reason to trust her, no real reason to enjoy her company this much, but still he did and he had no idea how to convince himself logically of that fact. He couldn’t wrap his mind around why this was different, and he was scared of it.

“Jumin? Do you know how I’m supposed to eat this? I don’t know which fork to use...” came her voice, interrupting his anxious thoughts and he saw her looking uneasily down at the plate of foreign food set before her. Her expression was so sweet he couldn’t help but smile and feel his emotions calm, and he began explaining how to properly eat the food in front of her.

It was closer to the end of the day when they hit their last landmark, the Arc de Triomphe. The sky was growing darker and cloudier as they entered the tower and began the very long climb up the circular staircase. She had to pause after a few minutes of climbing, catching her breath as he waited patiently beside her, the bodyguards not very far behind as well.

“This is... a very long walk... I can’t even see up to the top!” she gasped, leaning over the railing to look up and down the long tube of curling staircase.

“We only have 165 steps left to take.” Jumin stated calmly, and she frowned, looking at him in confusion.

“What?”

“I’ve been counting. We have 165 steps left, there are 284 steps in the Arc de Triomphe and-”

“Why do you know that???” she asked him, still trying to catch her breath as she laughed.

“I guess someone told me once and I remembered. I’m sorry we didn’t take the elevator.”

“No- no it’s okay! I wanted to climb up all the way, I’ll feel more accomplished that way!” she said, beginning to walk again and he followed en suite. She nearly missed a step once and he came behind her immediately, hooking arms with her, and helping support her as they continued to climb. They took a break at the mid section, going into the gift shop where the crowds bustled around, looking at the souvenirs on display. She continued to keep her arm linked around his as they walked around the shop, and she declined whenever he asked if she wanted to buy something.

“You’ve been spending money on me all day long, I’m fine.” she laughed, and he raised his eyebrows at her saying,

“It really hasn’t been that much, don’t you want something to remember the city by?”

“Umm... I think I’ll remember this day well enough thanks to you.” she said, her voice timid as she looked at him. He swallowed, ducking his head in a kind of half nod before pulling her away. As they were leaving the shop she continued on saying,

“Also, look at my dress! No pockets. I can’t get anything.”

“I can hold things for you, my jacket has lots of pockets.” he said with a frown, “And why didn’t you grab a jacket before we left, it’s not a sunny day!”

“I’m fine! It’s still warm!” she laughed, pulling him towards the stairs again.

They made it up to the top of the tower and she began grinning again, holding onto the edge of the arch as Paris spread out from them like a star, the lights of the city beginning to turn on now as the night came.

“Smile!” she said, catching him by surprise as he was looking out at the view, and she caught him with a wide eyed look instead. Then she turned around, trying to get both of them in the shot, taking a few pictures, making faces in a few of them. He did begin to smile as he watched her, and then he was surprised as she called over the body guards who awkwardly walked over as well.

“Aaand here’s a group photo!” she laughed, trying to get all of them in. “Make a funny face! Jumin, that’s great, it looks like you just ate a lemon.”

Once she was done he stood beside her again asking quietly,

“Are you trying to tease me?”

“Maybe.” she said slyly, smirking as she looked through the past photos. He looked away, pursing his lips tightly as he huffed. As he looked around however, he unfortunately found that most of the other people on top of the arch were couples, standing close and talking or kissing. He looked forward again, his fingers twitching uncomfortably. He wondered if he was the only one feeling the suffocating pressure around them, or if she was feeling it as well.

“Oh this is a really good picture of you.” she said quietly, holding up her phone. He leaned down, looking at the picture to see it of him smiling and pointing at a bird that was a few inches from him, sitting unafraid on top of a fence.

“Hmm.” he smiled at the picture, now becoming aware of how close they were now. He knew that she noticed it too as she nervously chewed on her lip, continuing to hold up her phone. If she moved it away, they both knew that they’d break away again, so she held it steady, keeping them frozen in place.

“Do you... do you think I really should have gotten something to remember the city by?” she asked quietly, and he met her eyes, not knowing what to say.

Then it seemed as if his brain went into a shut down mode, completely out of his momentary control as he moved his face closer to hers, the warmth of their breath hovering in the cool air between them as the space grew smaller.

And then a raindrop hit him in the nose, making him jump. They pulled back from each other immediately, looking up into the sky as more fat raindrops fell onto them, hitting the stone of the archway with loud slapping noises as their intensity grew.

He instantly took her arm, leading her back inside as he said, his voice strained,

“It’s dangerous to be up here this high in a rainstorm, lets go.”

“A-Alright!”

They didn’t link arms again, but he did keep a firm grasp on her arm as they walked and rode the metro all the way back to the train, as if he would lose her if he let go.

They didn’t talk much, getting onto the train and sitting down, keeping their eyes away from each other. She thanked him again for the trip and he nodded silently.

Jumin was watching the scenery pass outside the window as the train sped along, and was only interrupted when he felt something fall against his arm. He turned his head to see her, eyes closed as she leaned against him, breathing slow as she slept. He was almost over his own jet lag now, but he could see now how much she’d been fighting it off during the day. Now that the adrenaline of the trip was over for her she was probably crashing.

He sighed, a little shaky, and turned his head to look out the window again, hoping that whatever happened from here on out was not as confusing as today had been. He didn’t know when his heart would stop thumping against his chest.

It had been like that all day.

---

She could barely remember getting off the train and into a car, she kept going in and out of consciousness. She could feel Jumin’s hand supporting her, helping her from place to place, and she continued to lean against him, feeling shaky on her feet. She did start to wake up a little more when they reached the hotel room, and she got ready for bed.

When Jumin came back from the bathroom, ready as well, he found her sitting at the table, mumbling over some papers and notes that she had, organizing them in her binder.

“What are you doing? You need to go to sleep.” he asked her, looking as her head drooped sleepily before she brought it up again, rubbing her eyes.

“I just... I wanted to get ready... tomorrow is the big day so... my papers... sleep.” she mumbled, and he shook his head, taking her by the hand and leading her to the bed instead. She crawled under the covers without much coaxing, taking the pillow that he handed her and hugging it to herself, mumbling a thank you or goodnight, he wasn’t completely sure.

She was already asleep by the time that he crossed the room to the light, turning it off. He wasn’t ready to sleep yet however, he too had things that he wanted to go over before bed, and he spent a few minutes with the desk lamp on, looking over papers and making sure everything was where it should be. He wasn’t sure if he could sleep unless he knew it was all going to be there waiting in the morning where he needed it to be. As he was going over papers his phone rang and he glanced at it, not planning on answering this late at night really. When he saw the name however he immediately picked up saying,

“V? What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong Jumin, why would you assume that?” came a light laugh on the other end of the phone and he sighed, relaxing back into his chair.

“Well you never call me anymore you know... You seem to only check in on the chatroom once a month or so. I’m beginning to equate you contacting me to there being an emergency with how scarce your calls are.” he said, running his fingers through his hair as he tried to calm himself.

“I know... I’m sorry. I just haven’t spoken to you in a while, I was wondering how you were doing.”

“Well... to be honest, I’m not sure how I’m doing.” Jumin answered after a moment, his voice sounding even more tired than he expected himself to sound.

“What’s wrong? Jaehee said you’re on a business trip right now, is the deal not going well?”

“No, no, it’s going fine... I just... have had an unhappy situation thrust onto me thanks to my father.”

“Oh that doesn’t sound good. The only thing you two seem to argue about is his love life, what’s going on?”

“It isn’t that this time actually, though the subject isn’t too far off.” he sighed, standing up from his chair as he paced around the room quietly, glancing over at MC who was still asleep, her soft breathing becoming almost like white noise to him at this point, it fitting into the hotel’s atmosphere so well.

Jumin explained his situation quietly to V, keeping his eyes on her the whole time as he spoke, and listening to the worried exclamations of his friend on the other end.

“The biggest problem that I have now though is that I can’t get a hold of myself when she gets too close, or when she smiles at me sometimes. I feel like I’m going crazy, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t have worries about the deal with the companies, but I do have a worry about me being able to make it through this without doing something stupid.” Jumin added after he finished his story, and he waited to hear what his friend had to say. To his surprise, V began laughing on the other end, and Jumin narrowed his eyes.

“Something stupid? What exactly do you mean by that Jumin? It sounds to me as if...”

“As if what?” Jumin asked him, unable to hide the iciness of his tone.

“Well.... at the risk of you becoming furious with me, it seems to me that you like her.”

“Weren’t you listening V? I do like her, she’s one of the best employees I’ve ever had the chance to work with.”

“Don’t be so stubborn Jumin, you know what I mean.” V sighed, and Jumin couldn’t help but blush now.

“Fine, I do understand what you mean, but can you honestly believe that yourself? I barely know her, and I have no reason to trust her to the point of anything like that.”

“Like what? Jumin, even we were strangers when we first met as kids, but we trust each other now, don’t we?” V asked, and Jumin curled his fist in frustration.

“I know, okay? I know that’s how trust is slowly built- but honestly-” he began talking faster and faster, feeling his heart thump harder now, “the few days that I’ve been spending with her still doesn’t feel like a sufficient amount of time to reach the point of wanting to kiss someone or-”

“Kiss?! Did you kiss her Jumin?” V laughed, sounding amazed, and Jumin sucked in air, lowering his voice again as he hissed,

“Of course not- it was just an example- I didn’t-”

“Jumin, calm down, this is scary.” V said, his voice still shaking with a laugh, and Jumin buried his face into his hand, his skin burning. “Look Jumin, I know you sometimes don’t handle emotions very tactfully when you get very upset in unfamiliar situations, and I know you’re even worse when it comes to others and their own emotions. So please just make sure that you don’t set off a mental time bomb while you’re on this trip, alright? I don’t want the next time we talk to be me consoling you over a bad decision. Just stay calm and be yourself. She sounds nice enough that you shouldn’t be so worried about her. She’s not going to hurt you, she sounds like a good friend already.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and for a moment Jumin wondered if V had lost connection, which often happened while he was on the phone. But before he could ask him if he was still there, V’s voice asked him quietly,

“Is she pretty too Jumin?”

He waited a moment before answering back,

“....Yes. She’s beautiful. When she smiles at me I..” he paused, the words difficult for him to say. “I feel like the threads inside me become a little untangled.”

“Threads?”

“I guess I never told you about that... never mind.”

“Hey, you haven’t been drinking wine by chance, have you? You seem to only talk like this when you’ve been drinking.”

“No, I only had a little at dinner, I wish I had some wine right now though...” Jumin said, his voice slipping into a moan again as he pressed his face down against his forearm.

“Tsk Tsk, don’t turn to that stuff for a solution to problems Jumin, you be careful.”

“I know, you’ll never let me forget.”

“I’m glad you know that.”

Jumin smiled, glad to be talking to his friend again, though he was still feeling the ache inside him that reminded him of how much he missed him.

“I should be getting to bed now... but thank you for calling, V.” he said quietly, and V replied happily,

“Of course. I’ll try to do it more often... again, I’m sorry for being so out of touch. Have a nice night Jumin.”

“You too.”

After they’d hung up, Jumin sighed, setting the phone down on the table as he walked back over to the bed, looking at the girl who was still sleeping peacefully, holding her pillow close to her. Then he made himself look away from her, swallowing the lump in his throat as he again felt a little funny. He gently stacked pillows between them again, not really wanting a repeat of last night, and then he fell asleep, his eyes heavy and his mind still buzzing.

#mystic messenger #jumin han x mc #jumin han x reader #jumin han #fanfiction #fanfic #thanks a lot mr. han #my fic

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