#hence the great labels

[essektheylyss]

Oh, and now there's a DRAGONLANCE book coming out??? But STILL NO PLANESCAPE??? @ WOTC DROP MULTIVERSE FROM YOUR MARKETING SCHEME RN OR GIVE ME A PLANAR MANUAL

#to be very clear this is a joke hence why it is not rebloggable #also I am being cajoled and heckled into just taking matters into my own hands 😔 #and let me tell you. my will is fading with every new book announcement. #to be clear I don't know when the dragonlance book was announced I just happened to see it when I was checking out the one d&d playtesting #I just! would like some 5e sigil lore! and also if the spelljammer people got to yell for decades about spelljammer I do too #but this is also about my rage over corporate marketing schemes. I'm not against them but also make them make sense. #I KNOW the point is ~more settings~ but also planescape is like. the fabric between the settings. pls. #and also some of the great wheel cosmology from older editions sucks lorewise. so like. pls someone update it. I'm begging. #like that's really the struggle is that great wheel cosmology is veeeery alignment contingent and I would like to revisit that #and like I know different settings have different cosmologies but like. #there is an eberron npc IN rising from the last war who is labeled as 'jumped planes to sigil' like HELLO??? #vi my fucking beloved #icon shit ngl. #but yeah like some of the lore is THERE ALREADY so my issue is that my only resource for that is older editions with shitty lore #and so is everyone else's #like it really comes down to the fact that they're updating the lore to be more accessible and inclusive and Not Shit but like #if connecting lore is still being referenced that hasn't been updated in twenty years... you're still directing people to that #so you kind of negated the point here

[wol-fica]

Brom. I just had the perfect idea for a oneshot but idk how to write it so I'm gonna ask you 💪

Ok, so Jenna x gp reader where she recorded us having sex one time and she was showing someone some pictures on her phone and she accidentally scrolled to that video 😭

gotchu bby @deep-fried-egg (ik this is old don’t remind me)

“And that is when Aliyah slipped face first into mud.” Jenna chuckled, showing the photo to her older sister.

“Damn I wish I could’ve gone hiking with you two, looks like you had a lot of fun.” Mya said, smiling at the photos her younger sister kept showing her.

“We would’ve been so chaotic.” Jenna replied, her mind wandering back to when she went on that trip with her younger sister.

While lost in thought, she completely forgot she was scrolling for more photos and accidentally stopped a few seconds too long on a video no one should have ever seen.

Jenna wasn’t one for watching porn or anything of the sort, but she won’t lie saying she doesn’t get horny missing you when she is across the country. So, she sat down with you and asked if she could take a few videos to keep her awake and alive whenever she is filming far away from home.

This was one of those videos, what you liked to label as a sex tape. Jenna were on her back, her hands handcuffed to the headboard behind her. With her arms up, her chest was on full display, breasts bouncing beautifully to each thrust from your hips. Farther down on the screen, her legs were spread wide open with you in between, your cock buried in her soft heat while you fucked her and stretched her thoroughly.

Jenna remembered that time like it was yesterday, because it was. After her day trip with Aliyah, she was exceedingly desperate for you, hence why she came home and asked you to film another video for her folder labeled away-from-home-collection. She remembered how you handled her, rough and straight to the chase when she politely asked you to rail her.

The video played for only 3 seconds, but that was enough for one to see the way your cock slid back and forth easily through Jenna’s cunt. How her abdomen muscles tensed when she came, and how your dick got covered with a new layer of her cum. One could also see how Jenna was being practically manhandled, her wrists cuffed, her legs forced open by you while you pounded into her. What a sight to see.

“Oh my god!” Jenna almost yelled, pressing her phone to her chest.

Mya looked aghast, eyes wide with disbelief while her stare followed the phone. The audio was still playing from the video, Jenna’s moans filling the now quiet kitchen. Jenna quickly shut her phone off, staring straight ahead in pure embarrassment.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, clutching her phone like it was a bomb.

Silence.

Then a wolf whistle from her right.

Jenna snapped her head to her younger sister, gawking when she saw how she was laughing.

“Oooo Wee! I didn’t know you and Y/N filmed porn!” Aliyah yelled, cackling while clutching her stomach, “Is that your new genre? Can’t get enough of horror?”

“Aliyah.” Jenna said through her teeth, face flushed red.

“Maybe she had to take a step up from X.” Mya said from her left, causing Jenna to now look at her with the same gawked expression.

“Who’s the church mouse turned bad girl now?” Aliyah joked, laughing and slapping her knee at the reference.

“Good one Ali.” Mya quipped, sipping her drink daintily, “You already know Jenna has more of those vidoes.”

“Guys!” Jenna cried out, letting her head fall into her hands, “This is so embarrassing.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about ReeRee.” Aliyah said, wiping tears from her eyes, “I’m sure Y/N is great in bed anyways.”

“You should’ve seen how big she is. Jenna is lucky.” Mya mumbled loudly enough for both girls to hear.

“Mya!” Jenna shouted, throwing her hands up in exasperation, “Cmon!”

“Don’t get mad at us, you pulled up the video.” The oldest sister said, smiling behind her wine glass.

“Bet it was in the away-from-home folder.” Aliyah snorted, giggling like a school girl.

Jenna groaned into her hands, a small smile on her face from her sisters laughter filling the room.

“I’m never going to show you anything on my phone again.” She said, stuffing it safely into her pocket.

What a story it will be to tell you when she gets home.

———————

#jenna ortega edit #jenna #ortega #jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega #jenna ortega fluff #jenna ortega imagine #jenna ortega smut #jenna ortega x fem!reader #jenna ortega x y/n #jenna ortega x you #jennaortegaedit #jenna x reader #jenna marie ortega #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday adams imagine

[comically-large-ukulele]

Unparalleled Innocence - An Angry Analysis (and fanon criticism) by The Conduit

(under cut due to being a long post)

I like to label myself "the #1 UI fan and the only person who really gets them" for… probably obvious reasons at this point. My interpretation of them is wildly different from almost everyone else's "mean gossip girl" interpretation of them, which - frankly, in my and some other people's opinion - results fron fandom misogyny due to gossiping's status as a stereotypically feminine trait. When a character's gender is unconfirmed, people default to referring to a character by masculine terms, and oftentimes get angry when the character in question is revealed to be anything else. (See: Seven Red Suns.) However, due to (misogynistic) stereotypes, the overwhelmingly common fanon interpretation of Unparalleled Innocence is a mean gossip girl, as mentioned prior.

I was not exempt from interpreting them as that until I actually began to look into the way they're treated by canon.

Unparalleled Innocence will be referred to as they/them in this essay, due to chatlog Iterators vagueposting about them using they/them pronouns and due to them lacking official confirmation on gender identity in both vanilla and Downpour.

One of the most significant mentions of UI, at least in the context of this essay, is the Shaded Citadel pearl. At the time of the pearl's writing (1514.008)[1], UI is likely still in construction or has only recently been constructed, placing them very, very close to whenever the mass ascension took place (before 1591.290). Unparalleled Innocence never has a line of dialogue in a single broadcast or broadcast pearl, and their characterization can only be inferred by the way other Iterators talk about and treat them.

UI is excluded from the discussion about Erratic Pulse, quite possibly suggesting alienation or distrust in UI by the local group for one reason or another.[2: Sky Islands 3] (Seven Red Suns is also excluded, but that's a result of them being heavily implied to not be a part of the same local group as the rest of the main cast. See: Citation 3) While discussing the leaking of Five Pebbles' rot, the idea that UI is mean is only a theory of Chasing Wind's (hence: "I suppose"), and not explicit fact.[3]

The most likely conclusion is that Unparalleled Innocence is a closed-off individual who doesn't realize the harm their actions bring to others, and is treated as much meaner by fellow Iterators than they actually are. Based on Gazing Stars' and Secluded Instinct's dialogue, it's entirely possible that UI might have leaked the rot images in a valiant attempt to notify others that Five Pebbles wasn't in a great state. They could've wanted to help to try and redeem whatever poor reputation had led to them being considered potentially mean by CW, but messed it up entirely.

Unparalleled Innocence came close to the sunset of their creators. They were abandoned by the so-called "noble benefactors." They were young, and didn't know how to handle it. This also plays in the favor of the idea that one of Rain World's themes is about empathy and understanding[4] - and in this case, it would be the lack of either.

And the fandom continues to mistreat them, just as they are by their fellow Iterators.

#rain world #rw #rain world downpour #rain world iterator #iterator #rw downpour #unparalleled innocence #rw unparalleled innocence #rw ui #rw headcanons #rw iterator #as a sidenote: feminine-presenting UI designs and headcanons are perfectly fine - the problem is the gossip girl stereotype

[crooked-wasteland]

The Anti-Bojack: Anti-Intellectualism and the Death of Substance

In the blog essay “Staging Philosophy: the relationship between philosophy and drama”, Kristen Gjesdal opines on the home of philosophy. Many today would consider philosophy a relic of a bygone era with names such as Keikegaard, Voltaire, and Neitzsche. Many don’t know, however, of the close relationship philosophy has always held with the arts. Gjesdal mentions Ibsen in the article, discussing how many playwrights of the time were avid students of philosophy and how many philosophers regarded the arts highly. Nietzsche spoke of social leaders, specifically the religious leaders of his day in Beyond Good and Evil when he wrote, “Men, not great enough, nor hard enough, to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning man.” Frankly denouncing the power and influence held by the religious men which he felt was more appropriately left in the hands of artists. In fact, Nietzche considered art the definition of culture and hence why he says that artists are the ones who should be responsible for shaping society and defining what it means to be “man”. As such, the expressions of art, poetry to cinema, is a definition of man and inherently a philosophy.

Bojack Horseman is an openly philosophical series that plays with existentialist schools of thought. Having liked several tweets endorsing the comparison of her work to that of Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Vivienne Medrano demands her work be valued the same way. From being favorably compared to Bojack Horseman to being praised as the “Anti-Bojack”. Which begs to question, what does that even mean? First let’s discuss the Philosophy behind Bojack Horseman, then compare the tweets Medrano liked and her series to that of Bojack directly, and then study the overlapping themes and why Medrano’s style of writing makes her storytelling a mockery to the art.

Existentialism in particular has been the darling of the theater for about the last 150 years, though generally ridiculed by “proper” society. For a philosopher to be labeled a nihilist or existentialist was often a denouncement of their school of thought, often for their general rejection of fundamental social structures like ethics. In 1942, writer Albert Camus published his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, rebranding traditional existentialist concepts as Absurd philosophy.

Camus begins his work poised with the question of suicide and whether life is worth living at all. He argues that life is inherently meaningless, an idea originating with Kierkegaard, but while the latter sided with finding purpose in constitutions like religion, Camus argues that religion itself is a philosophical suicide. In the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy by Charles Guignon, he writes of the criticisms levied against existential and absurdist philosophies in a society awash in moralist anti-intellectualism. He opens this section by saying, “Existentialism has been criticized from a number of different angles. One line of criticism holds that the emphasis on individual freedom and the rejection of absolutes in existentialism tends to undermine ethics; by suggesting that everyday life is ‘absurd’ and by denying the existence of fixed, binding principles for evaluating our actions, existentialists promote an ‘anything-goes’ view of freedom that exacerbates the nihilism already present in contemporary life.” Which comes from this negative misreading of nihilism.

In their video Nihilism: Are We Missing the Point, youtuber Michael Burns of Wisecrack tells an anecdote of his time in grad school where he paraphrases his professor as saying, “This idea of the constant misreadings of Nietzsche’s writings on Nihilism leads to, his words, angry seventeen-year-old atheists.” Which tends to be the issue when discussing concepts such as nihilism, existentialism and absurdist philosophy. Nietzsche, the credited father of the school of thought, is often taken out of context or his views distorted by society’s sensibilities. For one, the quote given earlier extends further into a condemnation of religion by saying, “Such men, with their "equality before God," have hitherto swayed the destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day.” Which many an angry seventeen-year-old and moralist has seen as an endorsement of the might-is-right philosophy that nihilism is credited with.

To a lesser extent, Camus writes in The Myth, “I must say what counts is not the best living, but the most living”. It feels like it should be rather straightforward then, the concept of the thought. More equals better, and Camus practically says as much when he later writes “Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?” However, if one follows the first quote to its natural conclusion, he continues, “The most living; in the broadest sense, that rule means nothing. It calls for definition.” His wording may come off confusing as the essay is translated and the theories involved are dense, but Camus clarifies that “most” could mean the sheer number of experiences or the depth of the experience. He is not saying one or the other is the correct answer, but that both are equally valid ways to live one’s life. The focus, then, is not on directing anyone how they should live, but in the manner they should do so. He says, “It is not up to me to wonder if this is vulgar or revolting, elegant or deplorable … Suppose that living in this way were not honorable, then true propriety would command me to be dishonorable.”

Camus, and even Nietzsche, argue that truth is the only ultimate value. It throws back the moralist dilemma by arguing that living to a code of ethics or values when one is not truly that sort of person is to live reprehensibly. Better is it to live authentically “without appeal” as Camus says, than it is to live the lie of following the rules.

Thomas Polzler from the University of Graz in Austria wrote a 2014 article titled “Absurdism as Self-Help: Resolving an Essential Inconsistency with Camus’s Early Philosophy”. Personally, I fundamentally and adamantly disagree with his assessment that there is any sort of inconsistency in Camus’s writings. Camus’s books of The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall are not inherently inconsistent, but depict his philosophy in layers.

Like water painting, Camus starts with a thin veneer of color, a loose and almost detached protagonist in Meursault from The Stranger. He is a man aware of the absurd as an individual, the story maintaining the focus of a man living aware his life means nothing and thus seems to have an almost neurodivergent disinterested in the world beyond himself. What he feels in the moment is all that matters, so when he commits murder out of feeling uncomfortable from the heat of the sun and the painful blinding of the light, he is then juxtaposed with the ethical society he exists simultaneously within and outside of. Meursault is held up as a sociopath for not wishing to see his mother’s body the night before her funeral and smoking by her coffin. Because he does not cry at her passing, he is deemed a danger to society. Because he goes on a date to a comedy picture the day after, he is denounced as a menace. None of which has anything to do with the man he killed. The trial highlights the absurdity of ethical society and how the moralists demand the appearance of values over actually having them.

In fact, the trial of Meursault closely resembles that of Bojack and Sarah Lynn. The end of season 3, Bojack and Sarah Lynn go on a cross-country drug-fuelled bender to apologize to people Bojack has hurt in the past, stopping at the Griffith Observatory where Bojack has a profound revelation. He talks about living in the moment and how neither the past or future really matters at all. What you did and your legacy don’t matter if you cannot exist now. It is this moment that he realizes Sarah Lynn is not responding. It isn't until season 6 that it is shown that Bojack waited before calling the police and thus played a hand in Sarah Lynn's death. He is taken to civil court by Sarah Lynn's mother and step-father and made to pay them a fine for his involvement. However, is it really justice when Sarah Lynn's mother exploited her in the business and never once supported Sarah Lynn for what she wanted and what her dreams were, or even just who she was? Can one argue that it is justice when Sarah Lynn was sexually abused by her step-father throughout her childhood? Yes, Bojack does have responsibility in Sarah Lynn's death, but so do her parents. The absurdity of it all being that in no way could there ever be justice for Sarah Lynn.

Brief mental health sidebar. While I have to expressly disagree with Polzler’s reasoning, I do agree with his conclusion. Philosophy and especially Absurd existentialism are powerful tools in the journey to self improvement. It is both the line from Bojack where Diane says "That's the thing. I don't think I believe in 'deep down'. I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do." And Dr. Wong in Rick and Morty when she says, “You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force and as an inescapable curse. And I think it is because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control … You are the master of your universe.”

It may be shocking to know that Medrano was not a fan of Dr. Wong, considering the scene all about telling and not showing Rick’s problems. However, this is after two and a half seasons of witnessing Rick’s shortcomings and Dr. Wong is not telling Rick’s problems, but rather identifying the solution. In both the words of Diane and Dr. Wong, who we are, comes down to the choices we make. There is no moral argument being made with either of these comments. Bojack asked Diane to tell him that he’s actually a good person deep down. That he means to be good, that despite his actions he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and that his bad behavior is the fault of his emotionally unavailable and narcissistic parents. So really, he isn’t a bad person. Whereas Dr. Wong calls out Rick’s behavior as a choice because Rick knows he is making these choices.

The difference between Rick and Bojack is the level of personal awareness and responsibility. Rick knows he has the power to change, but simultaneously so miserable but is so afraid of change that he turns himself into a literal pickle and risks his own death over confronting his own choice to stay the way he is. It is easier for him to justify his lack of trying by simply claiming this is just what it means to be as smart as he is. Whereas Bojack feels helpless. Bojack was not set up for success as a child, his success was never validated by his mother and thus he never valued himself, and every time he tries to change he has no internal fortitude to keep from backsliding at the first sign of defeat. Rick knows everything that is making him miserable is himself. Bojack externalizes his misery and thus also externalizes the solution to his problems, which is why he lets himself return to square one whenever things don’t go his way.

Absurdism is the recognition that life is meaningless and thus we have two choices: Live or die. But these concepts are not so straightforward when discussed. To live, in Camus’s philosophy, is to live authentically to oneself. That may sound like Rick’s situation of accepting things as they are, but that is only true in the case of the individual genuinely wanting to be that way. Authenticity is a dichotomy consisting of both how we behave and how we feel. In the case of Rick he lies, cheats, manipulates, and behaves cruelly towards his family. However, it is implied and later revealed that Rick genuinely cares about his family, but is too afraid of experiencing loss to really let them in. So he’s abusive and insulting, keeping his family at an emotional distance that keeps them around, but never too close, making Rick miserable. He really wants his family, so his feelings are at odds with his behavior. So in reality, him claiming “this is just how things are/who I am” is just as weak an excuse and removes agency over oneself as Bojack saying “It’s because my mother was never there for me.”

The actions both Rick and Bojack partake in are what Camus would call a philosophical suicide. Concisely put, to commit a philosophical suicide is to remove one’s sense of agency in their own life. How can one claim to be living when they have no effect on anything including themselves? You would exist in a void no different than a dreamless sleep. Your actions are meaningless, your thoughts are meaningless, your feelings are meaningless because you are a passenger to the act of living. Everything else has power, everyone else can influence you, so you may as well be nothing. Camus includes religion in this section of his philosophy, as living for something other than yourself is the same as not living at all. And this encompasses Ethics.

There is a massive difference between being kind because you are supposed to, and being kind because you want to. This delves further into living inauthentically and how that mere act alone results in misery. Even if one is to behave in a way deemed “right” without making the choice, they will inevitably become resentful. There is no such thing as faking it until you make it. One has to actively choose and change themselves on a fundamental level to find happiness, and that takes work. Just as Dr. Wong says, “It’s just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work and some people, well some people would rather die.”

Which gets to the main point.

Medrano’s liking of a series of tweets calling Blitzo the Anti-Bojack has both infuriated and confused me. I suppose that I should be embarrassed at the latter since it's obvious both Vivienne and her fans lack basic media literacy. It’s actually rather spectacular just how badly they misrepresent the situation of the characters in the narrative. I can only break this down comment by comment.

For one, Bojack’s entire character is that he doesn’t intentionally hurt others. He has his reasons that fundamentally comes from a weak sense of self associated with a child who never had the emotional support he needed growing up. Those aren’t excuses, those are the reasons. Bojack has an unhealed inner child who wants to be a good guy, but he is so caught up in his self-loathing and resentment that he doesn’t do anything about that inner child. Instead he indulges these immature emotions through self medicating with drugs and alcohol, lashing out, promiscuity, and careless spending. These are the symptoms of the problem, the problem does lie in past trauma. The issue is Bojack doesn’t see the solution as himself, but someone or something else. In my post comparing Bojack and Todd’s relationship to Blitz and Moxxie, I pointed out how Bojack and Blitz treat their “closest friends” exactly the same by verbally abusing them and tearing down their abilities. While not always consciously intentional for Bojack, it is to keep Todd feeling codependent on Bojack and thus never leaving him which is abusive and manipulative. For Blitz, the narrative says it's because he is aware of his behaviour and is intentionally pushing Moxxie to be better, which is abusive and manipulative.

My point herein being that these are the same people. There is no Anti-Bojack happening here. If anything, Blitz is more malicious in his abuse seeing as he appears actively aware and intentional in how he mistreats Moxxie. Bojack is abusive towards Todd, but in a way that is a reflection of Bojack. And the series acknowledges how Bojack's inability to be alone actively harms his other relationships. Not just Todd.

In one way, however, Blitz absolutely is the Anti-Bojack. Blitz externalizes the source of his behavior to a character failing on Moxxie's part. And the series reaffirms and justifies Blitz's abuse as okay.

The other misconception of this post is thinking that an explanation is an excuse. Creative Screenwriting did an interview in 2019 with Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s process and philosophy of writing Bojack Horseman, quoting him for the title of the article, “Characters should be understandable in their vulnerabilities.” What Medrano’s fans fail to do, fundamentally, is understand. Their opinions and twitter orations are so barren of understanding that one must ask if they simply choose to ignore what does not serve their narrative or if they really are just incapable of comprehension.

They see Blitz’s mother’s death as a reason for his attitude more than his behavior. His behavior then necessitates that it needs to be excusable. As such, Blitz cannot actually make mistakes. Things happen by chance rather than a deliberate choice on any of the characters’ behalf. The fire in Oops wasn’t a mistake made by Blitz, if it is anyone’s mistake, it is the no-named imp who lit the candle before getting to the room. Blitz didn’t intend to bump the other performer, he just happened to turn at that moment. His mistake, then, is one that only makes sense on a metanarrative aspect. His mistake was deciding not to confess his feelings to Fizz. Which… no. As novel as the concept of the butterfly effect was in 2015, the fundamental nature of something inconsequential being attributed to a disaster negates blame. No one is going to blame the butterfly for a hurricane. Similarly, Blitz’s decision to not confess has nothing to do with the fire, in fact the fire itself is not even his accident. His contribution begins and ends with accidentally bumping the other imp; a situation that would have been entirely harmless if not for another character’s unrelated decision made off-screen.

Additionally, Blitz is a heinously insufferable individual who has been nothing but insulting and abusive to his “friend” throughout the series. He sexually abuses Moxxie in Harvest Moon by touching his penis against his will. He threatens to rape Moxxie and Millie in Murder Family. Blitz humiliates Moxxie through emasculation by masculinizing Millie over Moxxie, mocking Moxxie’s anatomy through his weight and genital size, and degrading Moxxie’s hobbies and abilities. Often without any prompting whatsoever and for Blitz’s own personal enjoyment. Blitz simply is a malicious individual, and at one point the series seemed to know that. The issue isn’t that Blitz is an awful person, it’s the lack of acknowledging that fact. The fans and Medrano conveniently ignore who this character is and what he has done to justify him instead of seeking to understand him. This is a running theme throughout the show.

I also briefly compared the scene in Oops to Herb and Bojack in this post, but I didn’t focus so much on the characters and more the metanarrative reason why Bojack worked and Helluva Boss didn’t.

Here, let’s look at why Bojack went to see Herb: Because Herb told him to. Unlike the scenario between Fizz and Blitz where they didn’t see each other for fifteen years and then conveniently run into each other and just so happen to be spotted by Crimson and Striker who, for some reason, know all about Fizz and Ozzie being a thing and they just keep Blitz around because … he’s the main character. Sure, one could argue both Crimson and Striker have a personal thing against Blitz, makes you wonder why they didn’t, you know, do anything to him? No torture or revenge of any kind, he’s just there now. Conveniently tied up and kept with Fizz instead of literally anything else they could have done with him. There is no internal logic to the characters as to why things turn out this way. As seen in the Mammon episode, it's a metanarrative compulsion to make sure Blitz is in every episode regardless of whether it makes sense or goes anywhere, or not.

Another sidebar, but the fact that so much of the series is not able to be explained within the narrative and requires an understanding of how Medrano and her team formulate a script is a huge issue. It removes the ability to properly dissect the characters as individual people and necessitates a reading of them that is how Medrano wants the audience to think about them. When it comes to the character dissections, it is effectively impossible to have a complete or coherent reading in regards to the literary philosophy of the Death of the Author. You have no story or character if you remove Medrano. The world as a whole completely falls apart unless you inject it with her metacommentary and narrative intention like one would preserve a corpse through glycerin. There is absolutely no substance here. And the longer she goes on, trying to compile the whole show into a coherent narrative of its own is like building a skeleton with a human ribcage, an ostrich spine, an elephant skull and the lower half of a barbie doll.

Bojack calls Herb after finding out he is dying from cancer, Herb tells Bojack to come visit him. He refuses to talk to Bojack any other way, and Bojack is compelled to go by his guilt, not ego. Herb calling him to his house obliterates Bojack’s ego, this is Herb’s home and he is the one being summoned. This is where Herb has the most power compared to, say, over the phone. This is not only a move of superiority on Herb’s part, but an act of submission on Bojack’s. Herb forces Bojack to come to him. Once again, this is what power dynamics look like. But, despite the resentment and awkward bitterness, he does want to see Bojack.

I don’t know how many times I can articulate this. Herb is the one in control and he is the one who wants to see Bojack and he is the one calling the shots. Not at all comparable to Fizz being kidnapped, forced to interact with Blitz and then wholly reliant on him due to the narrative in order to facilitate this forced reconciliation. Herb and Bojack are people with complex feelings and agendas. Blitz and Fizz are two dolls being smashed together and held in place by the will of a childish god.

Second, the reason Bojack calls Herb is because he feels guilty, not for abandoning Herb but because he betrayed Herb. He told Herb he would stand with him and walk off the show if they tried to fire his friend, but according to Bojack, he was a coward and didn’t keep his word. He feels guilt for that, he regrets it. But when he apologizes to Herb for it, Herb corrects him. It isn’t because Bojack didn’t keep his word, like the horse man thought, it was because he thought the betrayal was more important than their friendship.

He’s a coward, but not for staying on Horsing Around. He’s a coward because he didn’t believe in their friendship. They were together for years and Herb thought that meant something, but Bojack avoiding Herb and never reaching out to him showed how little their friendship meant to him. And it wasn’t because Bojack didn’t care, Herb knows that. And that fact is necessary to understanding the sequence. Bojack didn’t value the friendship because he thought he was valueless. He avoided Herb because he thought Herb would never forgive him, because that is how little Bojack thinks of himself. Him calling Herb is the active display of him still not forgiving himself, so he needs Herb to do it for him. And Herb knows all of this.

“You know what your problem is? You wanna think of yourself as the good guy. Well, I know you better than anyone else and I can tell you that you're not. In fact, you'd probably sleep a lot better at night if you just admitted to yourself that you're a selfish goddamn coward, who takes whatever he wants, and doesn't give a shit about who he hurts. That's you. That's BoJack Horseman."

Bojack has no value in himself, leaving him extremely fragile. So he took what he wanted, he took their relationship and defined it for both of them. He ran away, protecting himself while determining that this is what Herb would want, and left Herb alone and powerless even in his closest friendship. Which is why Herb demands Bojack come to see him, it’s Herb reclaiming his power in the relationship. And all of this only has any meaning if you clearly define the fact that Bojack apologized for the wrong thing.

There’s an alternate universe where Bojack doesn’t go back and apologize at all, and he and Herb rebuild their friendship anew in Herb’s last days and they simply, quietly agree to start over. Because that’s not off the table. Herb still values the telescope. He still values their friendship. Bojack, once again, takes it away. And Herb, a dying man, fights viciously to keep hold of it. Him not forgiving Bojack is not wanting his friend back, if anything, it’s because he desperately wants Bojack back that he won’t forgive him.

The telescope isn’t just a metaphor when it breaks. It's the symbol of their friendship the entire time, and the physical actions taking place over it are a screenshot of what happened. Bojack took their friendship and left with it. But it meant something to Herb, and you would only know that by how he fights over it now. And when it breaks it shows that, because of Bojack and his cowardly need to run away from his problems, their relationship is now, finally, beyond repair. Not because Herb didn’t forgive him. It wasn’t over when Herb didn’t forgive him. Bojack ended it, not Herb.

But just like Bojack, Medrano and her fans believe that forgiveness is the end all of the story. It’s why so many people were not invested in Fizzarolli and Blitz makeup. Because Fizz just forgiving Blitz makes everything they went through meaningless.  It strips the characters and what they went through of depth and nuance in a single moment. It also validates Bojack's general mindset in the belief that one moment can fix a systemic problem. In this case, Medrano isn't the Anti-Bojack, she just is Bojack.

The issue between Herb and Bojack wasn’t the job, or even the time. It was Bojack. And it is the failure of Bojack identifying the part of himself that resulted in this outcome, and not making the choice to do anything different that results in the end of everything. Maybe Herb would never have forgiven the Bojack who left him. But that’s why Bojack needed to be a different Bojack. And he wasn’t.

Wrapping this back around to the start of the essay and how Absurdist philosophy plays into Bojack intrinsically, Herb says exactly that truth to Bojack. That if Bojack was only honest to himself and lived authentically, maybe he would be able to sleep at night. Because being good is less important than being real.

This reminds me of Jean Baptiste Clamence from Camus’s The Fall. A Frenchman in the seedy center of Amsterdam, a city encircled by canals like the rings of hell. He spends his nights in the bar just outside of the red light district, drunk off his ass, it is uncertain if he is actually telling his story to anyone at all. Over the course of four nights, he tells his story of his fall from grace. His self exile to Hell after being unable to cope with his guilt. He tells so many stories of himself, egotistically claiming he has the lost panel of the Ghent Alterpiece in his apartment, the piece titled The Just Judges. 

Even his name is a plea for repentance. John. Baptist. Clemency. He claims to sleep with Judges looming over him. Words endlessly flow from him and he confesses his sins.

It’s when he fesses to witnessing the suicide of a young woman in Paris that he explains why he ran away to Netherlands. He says how she called for help after jumping into the water, but he quickly fled the scene, hearing the splashing below become eerily silent. One could argue that he couldn’t do anything. In the Paris winter, the freezing water of the canal could kill them both, let alone the dangers of trying to save someone who is drowning. The main concern being the victim drowning their savior in a frenzied panic of keeping themselves above the water. It could be said that he did the only thing he could. However, he knows she was aware he was there, so she called out to him specifically when she came to her senses. No one witnessed the incident or knew he was there but her, and no one could fault him for doing nothing.

But he feels the guilt in himself, and thus runs away.

Jean-Baptiste, Bojack and even Diane all have the same mentality. They fetishize their misery and trauma, making themselves important through the loops of suffering they inflict on themselves. Thinking that because the events happened to them, it must mean they are somehow special. That their damage meant something out of all the other people on this planet who suffer. That because they felt alone and responsible, they are a mythical chosen one selected from the masses to do something. They find value in the negative self-image they have, their pain being their purpose.

Because if it didn’t matter, why did it happen to them?

This is where I normally would keep just ripping apart the arguments, but frankly, there isn’t one anymore. For one, the original poster just blatantly lacks any fundamental understanding of Bojack as a series since the entire premise of the show is every season Bojack tries to change.

On a narrative basis, the lack of intentionality on Blitz’s part absolves him from needing forgiveness. Fizzarolli forgiving him holds no weight because Blitz didn’t intentionally set the fire, he didn’t see Fizz in the explosion when he ran away, he didn’t not try to see Fizz in the hospital and then Medrano puts the cherry on top about how Fizz’s life is actually better because of everything that happened. It’s equal parts boring and vile. The conflict is artificial, the resolution is repulsive and contrived. There is no depth to these characters and Medrano actively removes depth, either because she herself lacks the ability to comprehend it or because she knows her fans are incapable of doing so.

Also, let's just not comment on how this line explicitly overshadows Fizz's trauma. Everyone knows you don't end an apology with "but". That negates the whole apology. This is literally "I'm sorry you got hurt and I can never make that up to you, BUT my mom's dead so you don't even know what it's like being me and feeling responsible for that."

While the writers of Bojack sought to make their characters understandable and thus empathetic, they at no point excused or retconned the behavior. The writers on Bojack didn’t do anything to justify their characters, they were not at all focused on controlling how the audience felt about the characters. They were showing that the characters were well rounded, had reasons, why they had those reasons, what core memories made them who they are today. And the audience had the choice in how they responded to the characters. Medrano needs her audience to feel the same way about her characters as she does in order for the story to work, because she has never put forth the effort of actually telling this story.

One does not need the interviews with Bob-Waksberg to understand his cast and their story. Everything a viewer needs to know can be found in the show proper. There are not huge points of context happening just over there, off screen, between episodes and relegated to background details. Everything relevant to these characters and their stories is in the show. That has not and at this point never will be the case for Helluva Boss. So in many ways, yes. Helluva Boss is the anti-Bojack.

That's not a good thing.

#tw sa mention #philosophy #bojack horseman #bojack horseman spoilers #helluva boss critical #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #vivienne medrano #vivziepop #vivziepop critical #spindlehorse critical #spindlehorse criticism #vivziepop criticism #long post #lots of repetition in places #i get philosophy is dense #its sometimes hard to grasp #especially for this fandom #sources #helluva long post #writing critique #critical thinking #essay writing

[male-fictioner]

Boyfriends

Pairing: DomTop!Liam Payne x Bottom!male reader x SoftTop!Niall Horan

Category: SMUT

Warnings: Gay sex, anal, blowjobs, smut, marking, overstimulation, multiple rounds, possessiveness, jealousy, DP, idk i'm probably missing something.

A/n: I hope I did just to the request. I got distracted and hence the backstory is more drawn out that the smut. I'm sorry 😭😭.

Word Count: 2.8k words

Read at your own discretion.

"Will you be our boyfriend?" were not the words you were expecting to hear from the two people standing in front of you.

You were just surprised that these two hot guys want to be with you. You did not even realise when that happened or how that happened but you knew somehow you made them fall in love with you.

But all this started when you got famous. I mean how else would Liam Payne and Niall Horan even come to know about your existence.

You still vividly remember the first time you met them. Anyone who says that they are into guys and have never had a crush on one of the One Direction members then they are probably lying because how could you not. There is a whole variety to choose from.

And you certainly had your crushes on the guys in front of you. Asking you the question you always wanted to hear and hence you said, “YES! I would love to be your boyfriend.”

**********************************************

You always loved singing and always loved music. Being a musician, a singer has always been your dream. A dream you were ready to follow no matter what. So you started to write and record music at a very early age. You submitted it to various record houses.

Once you had graduated high school, you music journey began with a call that went like,

“Hello, am I talking to Mr. Y/n L/n?” said a guy with a low deep voice.

“Yes, who am I talking to?” you asked

“Mr. L/n, I am Robert Matthews from a2z record label. You have submitted your music to us, we would like to set up a meeting with you. We really think you have potential” 

You couldn’t believe your ears, someone liked your music? 

That meeting which you attended was the best thing that had ever happened to you. They had really liked your music and they were interested to sign you. You almost signed the contract that very moment but thought it was better if you actually consulted some people who had more knowledge than you. 

You were barely an adult and this was a huge step to take. So after some careful consideration you decided to sign on with them. 

But you didn't get the instant gratification you were hoping for when you worked vigorously for a whole year just to get an album. It took time to figure out what your sound will be. How you want your music to be. You also needed a lot of help to write your lyrics and everything. 

But after this year, your debut album was released. Save for some singles released by you over the course of the year to introduce you to your audience, this was really a big step for you. 

And this is where your life turns upside down. After the release of your album, a lot of people got to know you. Of Course you were no chart- breaking success but your album did well to get you invited to music events and also get you nominated for awards. 

You had Niall Horan to thank for some of your success too. On your post about releasing your album, there was a like by NIALL FREAKING HORAN and you were literally screaming when you got a COMMENT by him that went like,

Congratulations on your debut. You sound amazing.’

And this literally got you the free promotion you could have never even asked for.

After wondering what to reply, you just sent a ‘Thank you so much.’ But not without sending him a quick dm. 

And this is how you can say their friendship flourished and your old crush that he had stuffed somewhere deep inside reignited. After this, you and Niall talked a lot. Niall was a great mentor to you and helped you a lot with the journey. 

A few weeks later you were attending the Brits as you were nominated and supposed to perform. Niall was gonna be there and you both met each other at the show. You were a nervous wreck thinking thoughts of ruining your performance, not winning the show etc.  

This is when Niall introduced you to Liam Payne. You could not believe your eyes that he was actually in front of you. You wouldn’t be lying if you said that he was hotter in real life. All those muscles looked delectable. And what you had only thought about in your dreams, was actually happening. You were sitting across your crushes and having a conversation with them. It is actually surprising how you were calmly talking with them without choking on your tongue. 

The whole night, they kept you company and talked about all sorts of things to calm your nerves. They told you about their first experience and how they felt. That helped you somehow. Even though you did not win the award, your performance was amazing. And you received some applause for it too.

This meeting led you, Niall and Liam getting closer than before. You even decided to invite them to the opening show of your tour. While it was a small tour, it was very good for a budding artist. After the show, they took you out for dinner as a celebration. 

This led to you feeling comfortable with them and so did they. And hence they told you that they were dating each other for the past 4 years. You were surprised to say the least but very supportive of them. You told them that you are gay too and they were extremely supportive too. 

You guys had dinner with each other often and the media thought this was a mentor- mentee relationship. Which it was but you had wanted more. After finding out that they were together, you did not want to ruin their relationship and so you decided to distance yourself. Not directly but emotionally.

With this, he started to flirt with other people, hookup with them just trying to get himself over a relationship he never even had.

What he didn't know was that Niall and Liam also wanted him as much as he wanted them if not more.

Oblivious to your want being matched, you continued flirting with other people. When you went to an album release party of some famous singer, whose name you couldn't remember, you were flirting with someone you really didn’t care about. That’s when you spotted Liam and Niall talking at the other side.

“I’ll be back in 5 minutes.” you told the guy you were with and went to talk to the guys.

“Heyy I did not know you were going to be here. It’s such a good surprise.” you said hugging them.

You had some small talk and parted to go back to your hookup for the night. 

Little did you know, they had been looking at you all this time. Seeing how you were talking to some guy who wasn’t them. Getting close to him, hardly any space between you. Bodies pressed together, slow and sensual movements, whispers in each other's ears, those chaste kisses and how you laughed at his jokes. They were seeing everything and the only thought in their mind was, that should be us.

Your fingers grazed his bicep and other on his neck, while his being on your waist inching lower and lower as time passed. That is when Liam and Niall decided that this is it. You were theirs and they will show you today.

When they stalked towards you, you and the guy were already making out with each other. After feeling a presence, you turn around and see Liam and Niall standing there. The look in their eyes was something you had never seen in the past almost year you had known them. It was something raw, anger, jealousy, lust? You couldn’t figure it out.

“Lets go Y/n” Liam said with an authoritative voice that sent a chill down your spine.

Without any question, you followed them despite the protests from your partner for that night. You shot him a ‘I’ll call you later look’ and left.

After going out, you finally managed to find your voice and asked in a low voice, “Where are we going?” 

“To our hotel room.” Niall replied. 

Liam did not say anything and after this neither did Niall. The ride to their hotel room was quiet and awkward. The sexual tension thick in the air. They let you enter the room first and before you could say anything, you were backed up against the wall by two taller guys and somehow they felt extra tall.

“What do you think you were doing?” Liam asked, staring in my eyes.

You gulped and replied, “What did I do?”

“Hooking up with other people when you want us and we want you. Teasing us like this. That is what you did.” Liam answered your question leaving you in complete shock to know that they want you. You looked at Niall for confirmation and his eyes said it all. He did not verbally reply but a slight nod made it clear.

You must have been blind to not see their interest in you. Lost deep in your thought, you did not realise when you ended up on the edge of the bed. When your legs felt the bed, it brought you out of your thoughts. You ended up with your back to the mattress. Liam and Niall looked at you like hungry predators who had just found their prey for the night. You gulped nervously wondering what is gonna happen to you. 

Noticing this shift in your behaviour, Niall being the sweet man he is, asked, “You want this too right?”

“Yes, yes I want it. I want you guys. Please.” You replied hurriedly looking at both of them. Niall smiled and inched closer to you.

“Look at him Niall, we haven’t even touched him and he is already hungry for our cocks. What a slut.” Liam said with a mocking smirk. His dirty talk led to an involuntary moan coming from your mouth to which he only seemed to be more pleased. 

“What do you want, baby boy? Tell us exactly what you want so we can give it to you.” He continued making you more and more flustered.

“I want you to fuck me.” You tried to reply as plainly as possible but your reddened face was betraying you.

“Come on Liam, don't tease him that much.” Niall laughed, turning to kiss you, giving you the first intimate moment of the night. His kiss was soft and inviting. It was teasing your lips making you want more. It felt different than any other kiss you hav had yet. Soft but equally dominating. Passionate but filled with love. His tongue licked your lips and you parted them to give him entrance. Both your tongues lapping each other and he let you win the game of dominance.

All this while, Liam was busy making quick work of the three of your clothes. He undressed himself and Niall first after which he moved on to you leaving all three of you in underwear. You felt a shiver once he was done with your clothes. 

You and Niall broke the kiss to catch your breath. Liam got next to you, took your face in his hands and said ,”My turn.” 

His kiss was much different than Nialls. It was rough, passionate and dominating. It was hard. He kissed you like you were his source of oxygen. You moaned when you felt lips on your neck. The source of them was Niall. This gave Liam the perfect time to enter your mouth. Your tongues fought for dominance but it was no fight at all. He had already won. 

After kissing for a while and Niall covering you in marks, you ended up with puffed lips and red spots covering your neck. You probably looked ruined already and this was only the start.

“Whose a better kisser Y/n us or the guy you were with ?” Liam asked, still being jealous about the night.

“You both. I can’t even remember his kiss. I only remember your lips.” You said lustfully. 

The answer seemed to satisfy him as he turned to Niall and asked, “How do you want to do this Niall?” He ignored your presence as he asked this like you had no input on how the night goes.

“Whatever you decide.” Niall replied. 

“I’ll take his ass, you take his mouth.” Liam said nonchalantly. 

And this is how you ended up on your hands and knees with Liam prepping your ass and eating you out while Niall takes your mouth.

Liam starts by licking a long stripe from your balls to your hole. He slowly pushed his tongue in the tight heat of your hole and you let out a moan at the intrusion. He pushes his tongue deeper at your sounds. Niall settles near the headboard taking off his underwear and bringing his cock to a semi hard state. He puts a finger in your mouth and you suck at it expertly. 

Once Liam is done with eating you out, he lubes his fingers up and enters one finger in the tight ring of muscles. Seeing the discomfort on your face, Niall tries comforting you.

“Relax for us baby, let us take care of you. We’ll make you feel good.”  he said running his fingers through your hair and kissing you softly.

Liam enters another finger and soon another opening you up for their big nice cocks.

Once he feels that you are loose enough, he and Niall enter you at the same time leaving you perplexed. Niall’s 6.5 inch dick making its way to the back of your throat is met with vibrations from your moans while Liam’s 8 inch dick enters your tight hole slowly but surely. 

After both of them have stuffed you up, they start moving. Niall keeps hitting the back of your throat while Liam keeps hammering you from behind making you choke more on Niall's length. Niall has a hand in your hair holding you firmly. And Liam has gripped your hips tight enough that they’ll leave bruises. He marks your back while drilling your hole making you moan and all the sensations go to Niall's dick.

There are praises being thrown at you often enough. You can hardly process most of them your mind being too hazy with all the sex.

You heard Niall say, "Such a good boy, taking us so well."

"He really knows how to suck a cock."

"He is so tight for us. I bet no one has fucked him like this." Liam had added.

Some other compliments that you cannot remember.

Soon enough your weeping cock comes in spurts completely untouched leaving ropes and ropes of cum on the sheets beneath you. This makes your grip on Liam’s cock tighter making his thrusts faster and sloppier. Niall's cock is close by the way he is thrusting and as if on the thought of it, he comes in your mouth filling you with copious amounts of cum which you are left to swallow. He is followed by Liam who comes in you ass and fucks you through the orgasm making you moan and wince from oversensitivity. 

After this, they took turns with Niall fucking your ass and Liam your mouth. For the last round, your tight little ass (which wasn’t nearly as tight now) was filled to the brim with both the cocks. You cannot remember how many times you came that night but it was more than you ever have in a night.

At this point, you did not have one coherent thought. You were too exhausted. You could not make out the words Niall and Liam said and neither could you say anything. All you had on your mind was dicks and sex.

After being stuffed by two big and thick cocks, you came one last time which was just watery at this point and passed out from pleasure and exhaustion.

When you woke up, you were clean on clean sheets with Niall on your right, your face against his chest and Liam on your left with your back to his chest. You drift off to sleep again and when you finally wake up, Liam and Niall were awake too.

“Hey there, Y/n. You must be exhausted.” Niall said softly. You just hummed in response not wanting to talk.

“I’m sorry if we were too hard on you.” Liam said rubbing circles in your back. You shook your head and nuzzled closer to Niall’s chest.

Soon enough the three of you woke up and had breakfast from the room service. During this time, you guys talked like you always used to and it felt like nothing had changed.

"Will you be our boyfriend? I know it must be weird for you but we just feel like it would be right since we like you so much."  They said leaving you speechless for a second. 

But of course you wanted this, how could you not.

“I would love nothing more in the world.” You answered honestly.

They smiled and you gave each of them a kiss. After this, you would need no one else.

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

I hope you liked this fic. Like and comment to let me know if you did. Constructive criticism is appreciated. Hate is not. Thankss.

#male reader #x male reader #one direction #niall james horan #niall 1d #niall horan #liam james payne #liam payne #1d liam #bottom male reader #1direction #smut #fluff #threes0me #fanfic

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 22.3k ❧ warnings: cursing, inaccurate descriptions of constellations bc this is a fantasy world ❧ genre: fluff, mild angst, slow burn, blind date, strangers to idiots friends to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, werewolf sungchan, human reader, ft. siren shotaro & various magical neos (and another extra special guest appearance!), same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: so this is technically the spiritual threequel to my two werewolf jeno fics (pupsick + abh) but you still don’t have to read those to understand this one at all! this is absolutely meant to be read by itself! and this one is also very self-indulgent, from the a.c.e song title to werewolf sungchan, i had a very great time on this one, hence the word count. if you guys have even half the fun reading this as i did writing it, you’ll have a blast. enjoy! ❧ sequel

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

baby i’m your changer, changer, love is not a danger

Reclined on the plush, soft grass of the front lawn of your college with your hands behind your head, you basked in a particularly lovely patch of sunlight. It was January, the very beginning of the year and the semester, meaning that this would normally be a very chilly and unpleasant endeavor. Except you were sandwiched between two dryads. Dryads weren’t in and of themselves extra warm like dragons or werewolves, nor could one dryad on their own change the weather—and would most likely be influenced by it rather than the other way other—but if you got two together, and they were in a good enough mood, they could generate a little bubble of springtime around them. And for some reason, Jaemin and Donghyuck were in exceptionally high spirits today.

You knew the two dryads from Magical Botany Club, which you had joined your freshman year after you’d managed to kill the small cactus that your parents gave you as a housewarming present for your dorm. They were the only ones who didn’t immediately label you a lost cause, and instead saw you as a challenge. Now, your junior year, your apartment was a jungle to rival that of a dryad’s home, and you were even Vice President of the club this year.

After a long, refreshing inhale followed by an even longer exhale, you finally asked, “So what’s got you in such a good mood? It certainly can’t just be finalizing the calendar of club activities this semester.”

Jaemin was club President, and Donghyuck the Secretary/Treasurer, so this little sunbathing session before the start of the semester on Monday was really supposed to be an Executive Board meeting.

“Who, us?” Jaemin replied innocently.

“No, I was talking to the cardinal on Donghyuck’s leg,” you retorted sarcastically, gesturing to said bird that had also settled in to enjoy the cozy rays.

“We’re not planning anything,” Donghyuck said in the same tone as Jaemin.

You propped yourself up on one elbow to look down at your friend properly, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. “I just wanted you to share whatever good news you had, I didn’t think you two were planning anything, but now I definitely do. What’s going on?”

“Donghyuck, you idiot!” The other dryad hissed at him.

“What is it? Don’t tell me you and that fairy are going to try to convince your human friend that aliens are real again. Leave that poor guy alone, he’s got enough on his plate just dealing with all of you being real and jerks to him.” You scoffed disapprovingly, remembering when they recounted that story to you at club a couple years ago. You had been tempted to check on Renjun yourself when you spotted him at the library the next day, but you didn’t know him personally, and didn’t think he’d appreciate it in the moment. Especially not since he looked like he was really focused on his work at the time, so you just let him be.

“It’s nothing like that, I swear,” Jaemin promised. “It’s nothing bad at all.”

You sat up all the way to be able to look at both of them at once. “Okay, what is it then?”

Donghyuck sat up too, the cardinal hopping up to his shoulder. “Long story short, we have a friend that we want to set you up with.”

“No thanks, guys.” You shook your head.

“You won’t even let us tell you about him?”

“I’m not really looking for anything right now. Not after my ex—”

Jaemin pushed his phone screen in front of your face then, a picture of a guy on it. It was presumably the friend they wanted to set you up with. He was around your age, tall��if where his head was in comparison to the doorway of this building was to be believed, wearing a black leather jacket. It looked well-worn, though, as if it might not have been his originally, handed down or thrifted at least. And yeah, he was cute, you weren’t blind. But you also knew not to just eat with your eyes, or else you’d get a tummyache.

“Seriously, Jaemin?” You looked at your friend over the phone screen. “You think I’m that shallow? One picture and I’m going to throw everything away?”

“Dude, show her the—” Donghyuck flapped his hand at the other dryad insistently.

“Oh, right, right.” Jaemin nodded as he began swiping and tapping on his phone fervently.

Donghyuck kept talking to you, “Of course we don’t think you’re shallow. We always meant to tell you about him, too. His name’s Jung Sungchan, he goes here, too, he’s a werewolf, he’s really nice, uh… Jaemin? Some help?”

You let out a sound that was a mix between a snort and a scoff. “Yeah, he sounds great.”

“Okay, he’s really more Jaemin’s friend than mine, sorry,” Donghyuck admitted. “Jaemin? What’s taking so long dude?”

“I don’t know! I can’t find it for some reason, I think he deleted it!” Jaemin muttered, his voice panicked. “I’m checking Jeno’s Instagram right now.”

“So Jeno knows him?” You asked. You didn’t know Jaemin’s werewolf roommate as well as you knew the two dryads, but you did know that they were all friends. “Are they in the same pack?”

“No, they actually know each other through Jeno’s… Ha! Found it!” Jaemin yelled out in celebration, flipping his phone around for you to see.

It was another picture, this time of Jeno standing next to the person you now knew to be named Sungchan. They were at what looked like a u-pick strawberry patch, each proudly holding up a large bucket filled to the brim with strawberries. Sungchan was in a white tank top—a brave choice for a strawberry farm—and shorts. Despite the outfit showing off a lot more of him than the last picture, it was his bright, happy grin that caught your eye, and you had to consciously make sure your gaze didn’t linger too long on the picture.

Turning your attention back to your friends, you prompted Jaemin, “Well? Do you know any more about him than he goes to our college and is a nice werewolf that knows Jeno?”

“Right! Yes!” Jaemin sat up straight at attention as you saw Donghyuck do a little fist pump of victory out of the corner of your eye. “He’s tall—”

“I can see that, he’s like almost two heads taller than Jeno; I meant his personality. This isn’t me saying yes, by the way.” You pointed to yourself and Jaemin talking. “This is me gathering data. I wanted to take time for myself after what happened with my ex, remember? I think it might be enough time, but I need a bit more than ‘he’s nice’ to get me out there.”

“Of course, of course. I really appreciate you even considering this for us,” he squeezed your arm for a moment before letting it go. “He’s really smart, Dean’s List every semester, uh, it might take a minute for him to warm up at first, but once he does, he’s funny, and insightful. And he doesn’t have that constant go-go-go energy that werewolves usually do, he’s so much chiller, so if you were worried about that, don’t be.”

“And, sorry, I know he’s your friend, but I have to ask…” You winced. “He’s not one of those werewolf guys that only dates human girls as like… you know… an ego thing?”

Donghyuck snorted, “Oh he’s not, promise.”

Tension you didn’t know you’d been carrying in your shoulders relaxed at that. “Good.”

“We do have to tell you one thing though,” Jaemin grimaced.

“What?”

“This isn’t just a random set-up because we think you guys would be cute—”

“Oh God, what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” He rushed to reassure you. “Like, that part is true, we do think you’d be a good match.”

“Let me guess: the ‘but’ that follows that sentence is related to the ‘long story’ that Donghyuck mentioned earlier?”

Jaemin nodded reluctantly. “Yeah… long story long, Sungchan made a deal, and his end of it was letting us set him up with anybody of our choosing.”

“You’re using a date with me to punish him?” You stood up, brushing the grass off your back. “Yeah, hard fucking pass. Thanks, guys, you really know how to make a girl feel special.”

“No, not a punishment!” Jaemin scrambled to get to his feet as well. As you walked off, the air around you turned cold again, marking when you left their bubble of spring. He called after you, “Y/N! I’m sorry! Please!”

You didn’t want to go back to your empty apartment yet though, so you found yourself meandering into a familiar storefront. Jasmine & Pearls, a boba tea shop just around the corner from your college campus. There was only one customer ahead of you in line, and you stared blankly at the menu just to look at something. You weren’t feeling very adventurous today, so you’d probably get your regular go-to order. After the customer before you had been helped, you shuffled up to the counter, messing with your phone case to pull your punch card out of the back of it.

“Hey, Y/N!” Shotaro, the siren working behind the counter today, greeted you cheerily.

The iridescent pink scales under the tip of his button nose and apples of his cheeks shimmered in the fluorescent lights, making him look like he had a perpetual hint of rosy blush across his skin. That, and his cherubic smile could almost make you forget what those scales and his flashing silvery eyes really meant—he was a siren, could lure you to your death if he so wanted to. Obviously, he didn’t want to, had no reason to, and that would literally be a murder charge nowadays, but you nevertheless found it fascinating that such a being was just here serving you boba tea.

A few months ago, you realized that you came here probably too often once all the workers knew your name, but by then it was too late. It was just too convenient, delicious, and pleasant of an atmosphere for you to feel ashamed enough to stop coming.

“Hi, Shotaro.” You smiled back at him. “Just a regular honey milk tea with boba, please. No charms today.”

“On it!” He accepted both your punch card and credit card from you. After handing them back, he spun around to make your drink, and you went to go wait for it at the bartop at the other end.

Curious, and with nothing better to do in that moment, you pulled up Jeno’s Instagram on your phone. From the main grid on his account, all you could see was pictures either with or of his partner. Cute. Then you finally saw one of them at a strawberry patch, Jeno in the same outfit as the picture Jaemin had shown you before. You clicked on that one, and sure enough it was a whole set of photos. You swiped through to find the one of him and Sungchan holding the buckets of strawberries. And Sungchan was tagged.

You looked up at Shotaro. The customer ahead of you still hadn’t gotten their drink. You checked the notifications on your phone. Nothing new to reply to. Well, here it goes. You clicked on his account.

And he was private. Well, good for him. Internet privacy.

You went back to Jeno’s Instagram to check if Sungchan had maybe appeared in any more posts. You just wanted to see if you could glean anything more about him.

You finally found him again in what looked like a big group trip to Cape Solaria at the end of last summer. There were probably fifteen people here at least. He popped up in a few different shots, playing beach sports with Jeno and some other guys that you didn’t recognize; joining in on throwing some poor small guy—who you presumed to be a witch, judging by the ritual tattoos he was covered in from neck to ankle—into the ocean; and sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows with Jaemin and Renjun. And in every single one, Sungchan had such a genuine, pure, joyful smile. Like he was fully enjoying the moment and the people with him. Yeah, maybe you were projecting, but... surely it wouldn’t hurt to give it at least one chance?

“Y/N? Hello?” Shotaro was calling for you from the counter, shaking a drink that was presumably yours.

You snapped your head up, sheepishly turning your phone off and stuffing it away in your pocket. The other customer was nowhere to be seen; it was just you and the siren.

“Sorry, sorry.” You rushed up to accept the cup.

“It’s alright, you seemed like you were in the zone.”

You grabbed a straw, punching it out from the plastic wrapping. “In the zone of a little cyberstalking, as much as I hate to admit.”

“No shame here, we all do it. Who was it? Can I see?” He grinned mischievously.

“No,” you said flatly, stabbing your straw through the top of the drink. “My friends want to set me up.”

“Want to? Sounds like you haven’t said yes.”

“Perceptive.” You took your first sip.

“But you were cyberstalking them... So, you’re considering?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Why not? Human lives are short.”

“Right. Thanks for that reminder.”

The bell above the front door rang then, announcing the entrance of another customer.

“Always here to help,” Shotaro patted your forearm before walking back to the register to greet the newcomer.

Two weeks later and you were nervously double-checking the name of the restaurant and the time that Jeno had sent you. Yep, this was it, and you weren’t weirdly early. You couldn’t believe how strange this felt, going on a date again. Comparing your outfit to the casual café as you walked in, you felt only a little better that you weren’t overdressed or underdressed either.

Your eyes scanned the building for Sungchan. You’d done enough cyberstalking on your own time in addition to the photos that your friends kept showing you to hype you up that you were certain you’d recognize him easily. It looked like you’d gotten here first. It was seat-yourself, so you might as well grab a table for the two of you.

You’d just come to a stop in front of a little two-seater and took your purse off to hang off the back of your chair.

“Y/N?” A voice came from behind you, accompanied by a gentle tap on your shoulder.

You spun around, immediately face-to-chest with someone. Looking up, you did, in fact, recognize the face of Jung Sungchan. He was admittedly cuter in real life than in the multitude of pictures that Jaemin and Donghyuck had continued to show you in preparation for the date. You didn’t want to know what they’d been doing to prepare Sungchan.

“Hi, Sungchan?” You still phrased it like a question, watching as the man’s features relaxed into an easy smile of recognition.

“Yes, hello.” He raised his arms up slightly at the same time that you did, and you realized that the both of you were now presumably having the same internal debate about if you were supposed to hug your blind first date hello as a greeting.

Ultimately, the two of you did go in for an awkward short hug, and you let out a nervous chuckle, feeling the warmth radiating off of him in the brief contact. You immediately looked down at the table, “Uhm, should we sit?”

“Of course, yeah.”

And as the two of you sat down on opposite sides, you looked up from your fidgeting fingers to your date’s face, not expecting his brow to be furrowed as if he were troubled by something, his gaze affixed on you.

You shifted in your seat uncomfortably. “Is everything okay?”

“You’re not wearing any perfume...” He commented, and you let out a minuscule sigh of relief. That’s all it was, he was just a bit put off that you hadn’t put on a perfume like one might’ve normally done for a date. A detail that he would’ve of course picked up as a werewolf.

“Not that I expect any brownie points for this, but I uh, I didn’t want to overwhelm your nose, in case there were any smells you’re particularly sensitive to,” you explained, picking up the menu that was already sitting on the table.

“You did your research.”

“Oh, I’ve dated a couple werewolves before, actually.”

“Really? You got a type or something?” As soon as the word were out of Sungchan’s mouth, he went to take them back, seeming surprised even at himself, “Sorry, that was—”

“No, no, I get it,” you cut off his apology, your tone reassuring. You knew that there were people who had a disturbing preference for werewolves, so you could understand why you dating now three werewolves might initially look a little suspicious. “Uh, I went to a kind of small high school. Private school. There were a couple of packs in my area that sent like all of their kids there, so my graduating class ended up being like 75% werewolves. It was just kind of statistics, I guess.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry about that, again,” Sungchan apologized once more, relaxing in his seat a bit more as he actually started to peruse his own menu.

“Anyway, that’s not a great first date topic.” You forced out a light-hearted chuckle.

“What’s not?”

“Past relationships? I think that’s third or fourth at least, don’t you?”

“Mm, yeah, of course. Sorry.”

Desperate to redirect the conversation to a much lighter, neutral one, you asked, “So what’s your major, Sungchan?”

“Earth Sciences.”

“Geology or Climatology track?”

He perked up at this. “Meteorology and Climatology.”

“And what made you want to study that?”

“Well, at first I thought I wanted to study astrophysics, but it was too much math and too little actual space. But I really liked my Intro to Weather class I took my first semester to cover a random credit so I switched to that and it stuck.”

“Wait, was it a morning Monday-Wednesday-Friday with Professor- Professor...” Suddenly, the memory struck you. “Oh! Hwang? Fall semester three years ago?”

“Yes, I believe so...” He answered, head tilting with intrigue.

“I think I had it too!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! I took it to get that Science credit as well.”

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember you at all.”

“It’s okay, I don’t remember you either,” you laughed, just amazed at the coincidence. “It was a big auditorium.”

Sungchan must have figured out what he wanted, as he set down his menu and leaned his elbows on the table to give you his full attention. “So what are you studying?”

“I’m an Interdisciplinary Major,” you told him happily, thrilled that the conversation was going much more smoothly now. “I was a bit indecisive, too. Except I couldn’t find one thing that stuck like you did. So I chose two: Sociology and Magical Creatures Studies.”

His eyes dropped from yours as he scoffed under his breath, sitting back in his seat.

And there went your pleasant conversation again.

“What was that?” You asked tersely.

“I didn’t say anything.” He shook his head like he was trying to clear the unpleasant tone from the conversation, but you weren’t going to let him go that easily.

“No, but clearly you have an opinion. So go ahead.”

“Not really, I was just wondering if you’ve even dated anyone that wasn’t a werewolf.”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “You think my major is just me cruising for a new boyfriend or something? Very expensive and essay-intensive compared to dating apps.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Y/N,” Sungchan held his hands up, looking back up at you again. His features turned apologetic. “I just… I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“So were you going to actually ask me that if I didn’t confront you, or were you just going to make assumptions?”

“That really was rude of me,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “But, I mean… how do you ask someone something like that without coming off as a bit rude?”

“I suggest phrasing it like a genuine question instead of an accusation.”

“Right.” He took a second as if to compose himself, then asked, his tone much more conservational, “So, you said you dated a couple werewolves in high school. Uh, have you dated anyone else since coming to college, then? Before this?”

You did your best to return your own voice and manner to civility as well. “Dates here and there, but as for serious relationships, just one, I dated a human guy briefly.”

“And why did you break up? If you don’t mind telling me. I get it if it’s too personal.”

“It’s fine. He cheated on me.”

“So you’re of course looking for loyalty. Like, you know, a dog.” Sungchan fired back spitefully.

“Okay, I think we’re done here, Sungchan,” you declared, putting both your hands on the table to prepare yourself to stand.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry,” he rushed to try to apologize for the umpteenth time that night, but you’d heard plenty by now.

“No, it’s fine, really,” you assured him, still moving to get up out of your chair and grab your purse. “You’ve obviously had some bad experiences in the past, none of which I’m privy to. It’s not fair to you to constantly be suspicious that your date has ulterior motives for being with you. But it’s also not fair to me to have to constantly defend myself either.”

He was quiet at that.

You continued, “We both deserve to be able to relax and have fun, and that’s clearly just not going to be able to happen. It’s okay, sometimes things just don’t work out. So, I’m going to go, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.”

And with that, you turned around and left the café.

The ringing of the bell above the door of Jasmine & Pearls barely registered in the back of your mind as you lumbered right up to the cash register the next day.

“Good afternoon, Y/N!” Shotaro greeted you cheerily.

“Hi, Shotaro...” You couldn’t muster up anything close to his level of enthusiasm, letting out a sigh. “Same old, same old, please.”

“Uh oh. Sounds like the date didn’t go so well?” He surmised, ringing you up then starting on your order.

“No, it didn’t,” you leaned against the counter to keep talking to him. “Barely lasted ten minutes.”

“That’s rough. You end it or did he?”

“I did. It was for the best but still... I thought I was going to really like this guy.” Based off nothing but social media posts and word of mouth from friends, but you really were hopeful. You’d had a good feeling, and had trusted Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck. And it blew up in your face.

Note to self, never fucking trust those three again.

“Don’t feel too bad, Y/N. Seems like it’s going around.”

“What do you mean?”

“My roommate’s date last night was a bust too.”

“We should make a club,” you chuckled cynically.

“Or I can set you up?” The siren offered hopefully.

“Thanks, but I’m good. I said I was going to take some time to focus on myself after my last relationship, and I meant that. Last night was me testing the waters, and I fucking drowned.”

“That special, huh? Or, I guess not, in the end.”

“Well, at least now I know, you know? No ‘what if’s to mess with.”

Shotaro enthusiastically slammed your drink down in front of you. “Hell yeah, Y/N. A clear head.”

“Exactly.” You pulled the cup over to you.

He put the packaged straw down on top emphatically. “Fuck that guy.”

“Bit extreme, Shotaro, but I appreciate the sentiment,” you grinned, hitting the straw against the counter to pop it out from the plastic wrapping.

“You’re coming to our Valentine’s Day event next month though, right?” Your friend asked, pointing to the poster taped to the wall advertising the event. The evening of February 13th at the boba shop, with a special themed drinks menu and activities to do.

“Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great!” He beamed at you.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go, and you’ve got more customers. See you.” You took your drink with you towards the exit that a whole gaggle of high schoolers had just come through, waving to the siren over your shoulder.

“Bye, Y/N!”

Pulling open the door of Jasmine & Pearls some weeks later, you were immediately greeted by an array of red, pink, and white. The entire store had been redecorated for the event. A short stage was set up against the far wall of the dining area, a small photobooth in another corner, and a station where you could learn to make an origami heart, if the pictures on the instructions taped to the wall above it were anything to guess off. The shop was already bustling and buzzing with energy, filled with couples and groups of friends. All in all, it looked like it was shaping up to be a successful night for them.

You got into possibly the longest line you could remember having waited in at Jasmine & Pearls in a while—you’d learned the rush times and had become a pro at avoiding them in order to get your boba fix as quick as possible—and continued looking around with a smile on your face.

Unfortunately, you were flying this one solo. Your friends were all either working or studying tonight, and you weren’t going to flake after already promising Shotaro just because you couldn’t find someone to come with you. But you could have plenty of fun by yourself. And, you didn’t make any promise to stay the whole night. You’d stay just to finish your drink and maybe make an origami heart or two, depending on how good you were at them.

Finally, it was your turn to order, and you walked up to the register already with a big smile on your face.

Shotaro was manning the register while another employee fulfilled the orders. Your friend’s face lit up immediately. “Y/N! You made it!”

“I told you I would. Did you doubt me?” You questioned in mock offense.

“Not for a second,” he declared. Pointing to the little standee menu that was on the counter, he asked, “So what’ll you have? I recommend one of our specials for the occasion, obviously.”

You looked over the three new drink options that were advertised as for tonight’s event only. One in particular caught your eye, strawberry milk tea with heart-shaped brown sugar tapioca pearls, and an added feel-good charm. “That Lovebug sounds good.”

“Perfect! I knew you’d get that one! Coming right up!” He rang you up, but only took your credit card from your hand. “Sorry, no regular punch cards tonight. Instead, every purchase of a drink comes with a special event-only punch card.”

“Oh?” You raised your eyebrows as he handed you a small pink card with four circles on it, one already punched out with a heart-shaped hole punch.

“Yep! If you complete all the activities we have tonight, you can redeem it for a free drink! You’ve already gotten a punch for purchasing a drink, then we’ve got the photobooth—” he pointed to the large box. “Just bring your photo strips up here, and I’ll punch the card for you. And the origami, same thing. They don’t have to be professional, as long as you tried, just show them to me, and I’ll give you another punch. And then my boss, Baekhyun, is going to be hosting Valentine’s Bingo in like ten, fifteen minutes. He’ll punch everyone’s cards who participates.” He gestured to the stage, where you now saw a man starting to mess with a microphone and small table. “Don’t worry, you can play single.”

“Huh. Sounds good to me.” You tucked the card into your pocket. “Thanks, Shotaro.”

“Your drink will be out in a second!”

When you finally heard your name being called out by the other employee, you walked up and took the cup from him gratefully. It was another siren, who you weren’t nearly as familiar with as Shotaro, but you still offered Yuta a smile as you accepted the drink.

You looked at the heart-shaped boba at the bottom of the cup fondly. “Cute. Thanks, Yuta.”

“Of course! Now enjoy the ambiance.” Yuta shooed you away with a smirk.

You saluted him casually. “Heard.”

Meandering around the store, you took in the kitschy decorations in various heart, Cupid, rose, and arrow shapes all around. Despite your own striking out in the romance department as of late, you couldn’t find yourself wanting to muster up any morosity for the atmosphere. It was too endearing, and you were someone who just loved love. And maybe the feel-good charm in the boba pearls was doing its job pretty well.

Legally, Jasmine & Pearls couldn’t sell any charms that had effects as strong as alcohol, drugs, or hexes, or they’d need special licenses for that, but the little charms and enchantments available in some of their boba options could influence one’s mood for a short amount of time. Feel-good, tranquility, energy, focus, that kind of stuff.

A lot of the tables had been pushed to one side to make room for the stage, so you took your drink to the bar seating that was against a window, keeping your eye on the figure on stage. As he was readjusting the microphone, you caught a flash of scales under his skin, realizing that he too was a siren, and suddenly the employment choices felt a bit more intentional than coincidental.

Red and pink heart-shaped confetti had been sprinkled along the bartop, and you brushed some of it aside to be able to set your cup down. You were humming along to the love song playing over the speakers as you scrolled on your phone when you swore you heard your name. Straightening up a little, you listened carefully for it again.

“Y/N?” Someone gently tapped on your shoulder this time.

You turned around atop the stool you’d been sitting on, not prepared for who was behind you. Jung Sungchan was standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his worn black leather jacket. Honestly, you hadn’t thought much about him since your date five or six weeks ago. Your focus had been on school— with this being your junior year, you had a lot to get together in order to be ready to apply for grad schools, Botany Club, still going to work, and keeping up with friends around all this somehow. One failed date that wasn’t even in your top five worst dates hadn’t really been keeping you up at night. And yet somehow here he was.

You were sure that the surprise was evident on your face, and you probably left just too long of pause hanging in the air before you finally said something. “Oh, Sungchan, hi.”

“I thought that was you. Hey.” He offered a friendly smile.

“How are you?”

“I’m—” He was cut off by a distant shout of his name that only got closer.

“Hey! Sungchan!” It was Shotaro, the siren approaching with a prepared drink and straw, shoving them in the werewolf’s hand. “Dude, you can’t just walk away from the counter like that while we’re making your drink, then I have to come chase you down when you don’t hear your name.”

Sungchan accepted it from the employee guiltily. “Sorry, Shotaro.”

“Anyway! I’m glad you two have met.” Shotaro beamed at the pair of you, throwing an arm around Sungchan’s neck. “Y/N, this is my roommate I was talking about, Jung Sungchan. Sungchan, this is Y/L/N Y/N, she’s a regular here and goes to our college.”

Your eyes widened minutely in alarm as you suddenly connected way too many dots. Oh god, Shotaro’s roommate had an awful date, Sungchan is Shotaro’s roommate, you and Sungchan had gone on a date that night, the very same date you had also complained to Shotaro about. And who knows what terrible things Sungchan might have told the siren about the date, about you. After all, you had been the one to walk out on him.

You felt like you were going to puke as Shotaro gave Sungchan a sharp slap on the shoulder, winked at you behind his roommate’s back, and walked back to his station behind the counter.

After a heavy, long, awkward pause, Sungchan finally spoke up. “So… what did you get?”

“Oh, uhm… the Lovebug. What about you?”

“Me too, same. Lovebug.”

Another pause as you watched Sungchan open his straw and poke it through the plastic seal covering the top of the drink.

“So are we going to address the elephant in the room?” You decided to just get it over with.

“Which one? I feel like we have a whole herd at this point.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Okay, fair. I meant Shotaro. I’ll be the first to admit that I confided in him after our—I’m sorry to say but—disaster of a date.”

“That’s a generous assessment, actually.” Sungchan agreed. “And I told him about it too. I mean, we live together, it was hard for him not to notice when I came back home less than an hour after I left.”

“Ah, yeah…”

“I didn’t say anything bad about you, by the way. I told him it went horribly, because I ruined it, of course, but you were perfectly lovely. Truly way more level-headed than I deserved.”

“Oh, no, Sungchan,” you tried to reassure him. “Really, like I said before— Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

“I know. But still, I treated you awfully, and I am really, really sorry about that.”

“Thank you.”

A crackling came from the speakers up front, snapping your attention back to the man on stage. Baekhyun had gotten the microphone connected, and you saw Shotaro darting from the stage to his spot at the register as his boss called for everyone’s attention. “Hello? Hello? Great, this is working.”

He flashed a dazzling smile to the small crowd. “Hi, if you don’t know me, I’m Byun Baekhyun, I own Jasmine & Pearls here. If you’re in line, don’t panic, we’re not starting quite yet. I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out here tonight, this is honestly a much better turnout than we had expected. I, of course, also want to thank my two incredible employees, Shotaro and Yuta, for working tonight too.”

The two sirens behind the counter both waved as they got a round of applause, then everyone’s eyes were back on Baekhyun.

“We’re going to be starting Valentine’s Bingo in about five minutes or so. I just want everyone to know that you will need a partner for this. So if you came out here by yourself, find another single person out there and you know… get talking.” He grinned, and you swore his gaze lingered on you and Sungchan for a millisecond too long to be coincidental. “Okay, awesome, I’ll be back up here in five to get it started.”

Your eyes flashed over to your friend that was working, remembering exactly when he told you that you could play the game by yourself, and now suddenly you needed a partner. Shotaro was contentedly ringing up a customer’s order, though, seemingly not even paying you nor Sungchan any mind.

“So, uh, want to partner up? For the bingo?” Sungchan asked, then rushed to tack on, “Unless you’re waiting for somebody?”

“I’m not waiting for anybody,” you smiled, gesturing to the stool beside you for him to sit down.

“How have things been with you?”

“Good, they’ve been pretty good. Just a lot of school and Bot Club.”

“Bot Club?”

“Magical Botany Club. I’m the Vice President this year.”

“Oh, cool. So that’s how you know Jaemin, then.”

“Yeah, yeah. Him and Lee Donghyuck, we’re all on the board together.”

“How’d you get into it?”

“Because I sucked at gardening,” you admitted with a laugh. “My freshman year, my parents gave me this cactus to have in my dorm, and I killed the thing somehow. They can survive in deserts and the most extreme climates in the world, and it perished in my dorm room. I joined Bot Club hoping for some tips, and everyone just immediately thought I was beyond help. Jaemin and Hyuck were the only ones who actually took the time to help me. And it took a lot of time.”

Sungchan was smiling too, genuinely. “You must have grown to really like it, to stick around after getting your cactus caretaking tips.”

“Yeah, I do.” You nodded. “What about you? How’s school been for you?”

He grimaced a little. “Could be better, honestly.”

“Oh no? Why? What’s wrong?” You frowned.

Before Sungchan could answer, another person had approached the two of you. It was Baekhyun, a stack of square bingo cards in one hand and box of markers in the other. His silver eyes seemed to glitter in the lights as he smiled at you, his opalescent scales refracting a whole rainbow of colors where they sat just under his skin along his cheekbones, bridge of his nose, and forehead.

“Hi!” He greeted the two of you cheerfully. “Are you two together?”

“Oh, uh, yes,” Sungchan nodded, reaching out to grab your bingo sheet and marker before the store owner flitted off to the next pair of customers.

He set them down on the counter in between the two of you, but your focus was still on your conversation.

“So what’s wrong, Sungchan?” You asked, taking another sip of your drink.

“I mean, it’s just been a bit stressful is all,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “One of my professors asked me to do research with him, and then I took an SI position with another professor too, on top of all my classes. Just kind of got a lot on my plate.”

“Oh, okay. But that sounds like a great opportunity, at least. Your professor asking you to do research with him.”

“It is, it’s some seriously cool stuff.”

“What’s—”

Baekhyun clearing his throat into the microphone from the front cut you off, and you gave the werewolf an apologetic look.

“Sorry. But I do want to hear about it later, Sungchan,” you squeezed his arm before turning around to face the stage.

“Alright, we’re going to be getting started then.”

As Baekhyun kicked off the first round of bingo, you found yourself tapping the marker against the bingo card as you sat there. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Sungchan awkwardly leaning over as he tried to look at the sheet too, and you realized you’d been hogging it.

“Oh, sorry, here,” you moved the sheet more into the middle, at the same time that you scooted your stool over towards him to lessen the gap between you. “Is that better?”

Sungchan’s shoulder was just behind yours as he looked over you at both the card and the stage. “Yeah, yeah, thanks.”

“Did you want to mark them off? Sorry, I just grabbed it without thinking.” You offered the permanent marker out to him.

“No, it’s all yours.” He shook his head, then tapped his finger to the middle spot. “But you did forget the Free Space.”

“Oh, shit, thanks.” You crossed it off with an X.

Baekhyun called out number after number, and you and Sungchan worked together to search the small card for them.

You clicked your tongue as you couldn’t find the one the shop owner had just called out, and were about to pick your cup back up to take another sip of your drink, when Sungchan spoke up happily.

“Found it!”

“Oh, where?” You hovered the marker over the card, scanning the little letters and numbers.

“Right there.” He’d pointed, but his hand was gone too fast, and you lost it again.

“Wait, where?”

“Right…” he reached over to wrap his own hand around yours that was holding the marker, and dragged it over to the correct square. You giggled as he guided your hand to draw a messy X like you were a toddler learning to write your letters for the first time. “…There.” He finished, letting go of your hand.

“Ahh, okay,” you nodded slowly. “I see… I’m illiterate.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say it.”

“Hey!”

Sungchan laughed as you gave a half-hearted smack against his chest, and you couldn’t help but smile too. After all, it was your self-deprecating joke first.

He patted your back, apologizing through his chuckles, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Apology taken under consideration.”

“Oof, I don’t like the sound of that. Anything I can do to better my chances here?”

“Hmm,” you hummed, pretending to think as you tapped the capped end of the marker against your bottom lip.

Sungchan watched you, his elbow resting on the bartop and his cheek in his hand. The only thing separating you two was the bingo sheet, the game which you weren’t even focused on anymore. Your back was entirely turned to the stage now, gaze set only on the werewolf next to you.

Just as you’d parted your lips to make your proposal, you happened to hear Baekhyun announce the next number.

“O13!” The siren’s voice carried well through the speakers. “O13!”

You let your eyes flick down, immediately catching on that open square on your card. And it completed the row. You marked it off, a giddy grin spreading across your face as you went to elbow Sungchan. “Look!”

“Oh damn! Nice!” He raised his hand, as did you, as he called out. “Bingo! We got bingo!”

Baekhyun’s features lit up as he stopped his progress of reaching for the next bingo ball. He practically purred into the microphone, “Well, well, seems like we’ve got our first bingo. If one of you could read it out so I can double-check it, then we’ll see about getting you two your prizes.”

Sungchan called out your five spaces, and Baekhyun nodded with each one, the room erupting into applause when he declared that you two had won that round.

“Alright, come up here so I can give you your prizes and punch your tickets.” The siren waved you up.

You looked to Sungchan expectantly, and he gestured for you to go up ahead of him. Instead, feeling a bit uneasy with the entire café’s eyes on you, you latched onto his forearm and dragged him up right alongside you.

“So you each are getting a gift card to the shop—” He handed you two small cards, then turned around, where Yuta had appeared with a couple more items. Baekhyun then handed each of you a denim baseball cap that had the logo of the shop on the front in lilac purple thread. “And Jasmine & Pearls embroidered hats. Thank you so much for coming here and playing.”

You accepted both prizes from him, feeling over the embroidery on the cap with your finger.

“And if you’d give me your event punch cards, I’ll go ahead and give you your punches now, since you unfortunately, won’t be allowed to play to win again. Fairness and all that.”

You and Sungchan handed over your punch cards, and the siren gave each of you another heart-shaped punch before giving them back.

“Now, we will be playing two more rounds, so don’t worry if you didn’t win this time,” he announced to the rest of the crowd as you and Sungchan headed back to your seats. “I’ll hand out brand new cards to everybody, and we’ll restart. Y/N and Sungchan, you’re free to play again for fun, if you’d like. You just can’t play for profit.”

Sungchan looked over at you in a silent question, and you shook your head. You were happy to play and win just the one time. After all, with everybody else still occupied, this would be the perfect time to do the other activities with little to no lines or crowding.

“No thank you, we’re bingo-ed out for tonight,” Sungchan called out, and the host nodded graciously.

“Very well. Everybody else hold tight while I come around to distribute new cards.”

As the two of you finally sat back down at your seats and looked over your prizes, you realized that you had never introduced yourself to Baekhyun. Not when he had passed out the cards, nor when he was giving you your prizes. But he knew your names. You snapped your head up towards the counter suspiciously again, but Shotaro was once again minding his business, cleaning out one of the machines.

Sungchan was readjusting the sizing of his hat, then finally pulled it on, offering you a lopsided grin. “What do you think?”

“Looks good on you.” You tapped the brim of it, feeling a familiar airiness in your chest, one that you hadn’t felt in some time. “You wear baseball caps a lot?”

“For sure, so I’ll get good use out of this.”

“Wear them for fashion or do you play a lot of sports?”

“Oh, uh, both, I guess? I like how they look, and I usually wear them when I’m out playing whatever to keep the Sun off my face, yeah.”

The pictures from Jeno’s Instagram of Sungchan on their trip to Cape Solaria suddenly came to mind, and you diverted your eyes down to the gift card in your hand as your skin started getting warmer and warmer. At this rate, he was going to be able to hear your heartbeat picking up the pace and the idea of that in and of itself was embarrassing enough to make it gain even more speed.

“So…” Sungchan inhaled, and you looked up with both your eyebrows raised.

Admittedly, you’d completely forgotten where the two of you were in your previous conversation. “Hm?”

“Do you want to finish the other two punches together?” He asked. “I know they’re not partner things, but we’re both here, and everyone else is busy doing bingo, so it’s probably the best time to do them and—”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” You grinned at him, standing up off your stool. “I’d love to, Sungchan. Besides, you’re still supposed to tell me about your research, remember?”

His features lit up as he followed you over to the origami station. “Right, right! Are you sure you want to hear about it, though? It’s on climate change and how it affects human disease, it’s a little doomsday-ish.”

“Ah, perfect for the holiday.” You pointed to the giant paper cut-out of a cartoon Cupid hanging above your heads, then reached for your first square of red paper. “I’m sure, go for it.”

“Okay, cool,” he beamed at you, grabbing a piece of patterned pink paper.

As Sungchan walked you through all the intricacies and machinations of the topic that his research with his professor was on, you were genuinely happy at how much you understood. He didn’t mind slowing down to answer your questions, or explain concepts that you didn’t know already. And you two could have an actual conversation tangential to the topic, because you had taken a Magical Conservation class just last semester that dealt directly with how climate change was affecting a lot of magical creatures, such as sirens who typically lived in and around glaciers that were now losing much of their native habitats due to the lack of year-round sea ice at the poles. And all the while, you both tried your damndest to make an origami heart.

“Okay, what the fuck?!” Sungchan huffed, cutting himself off in the middle of a thought about disease vectors. He smacked his crumpled piece of paper that looked nothing like a heart onto the table. “I’ve taken engineering classes, how am I getting bested by a primary school arts and crafts project?”

“It’s not a—”

“It literally says ages 8 and up on the instructions.”

You pressed your lips together in a line. “Ah. So it does.”

Yours didn’t look much better. It seemed as though you were both getting bested by a project meant for children.

“Well, Shotaro did say we just had to show him we tried and we’d get the punch,” you reminded him.

“No, no, I can get this,” he shook his head, grabbing a fresh sheet. “I just need to focus, and not talk while I do it. You’re too much of a distraction.”

“My apologies, I’ll be quiet this time,” you chuckled, covering your mouth with your hand as you leaned against the table to watch him try again.

He made every fold with precision, but you found that you weren’t really watching him fold so much as you were watching him. His brow was set in concentration, a small crease emerging in the knit of his brows, his eyes narrowed slightly, and the very tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips. It was cute, adorable, endearing, everything in the thesaurus, and you could’ve sat there and watched him fold origami hearts all night if he wanted to, punch card and free drink be damned.

Sungchan stood up straight, his features relaxing into a proud grin as he held his completed piece up for you to see. It was definitely a heart this time, a simple baby pink color, and you were amazed at how straight the lines were.

“Nice, Sungchan!” You praised him. “That’s what those engineering classes were for, huh?”

“I wasn’t going to let some project for ages 8 and up that Shotaro picked out get the best of me!” He declared, and you could practically see his chest puffing out with pride. “I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “So that’s what this was? Fragile STEM major ego?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Isn’t sociology a science?”

“I think you’re the first hard science major to ever say that.”

“It ends in -ology.”

“So do phrenology and astrology.”

“Fair. But seriously, is it not?”

“It is. But usually, you engineering and whatnot majors don’t like to consider us ‘soft sciences’ like sociology and anthropology and psychology to be ‘real sciences,’ whatever the hell that means.”

“Ohh, yeah… I’ve got better shit to do than tell a scientist that they’re not a scientist.”

“Like make children’s crafts.”

“Exactly.” He gave you another smile brighter than the Sun.

You nodded firmly. “A much better use of your time. Now, are you ready to take these to Shotaro?”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

As the two of you walked up to the counter, you continued your earlier conversation, “And I will remind you that I’m actually an Interdisciplinary major, and also study MCS. Both of which are considered humanities, a label that I wear with pride, even more so than the ‘soft science’ one.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Sungchan’s mouth as he looked down at you. “Noted.”

Shotaro was standing at the register, hands folded over each other and a smug smile on his face as he watched the two of you approach together. “Well, hey, guys! Congrats on your win!”

“Thanks, Shotaro.” You smiled back, holding your paper heart out to him. “We did the origami too.”

Sungchan held his up too, and you could see the proud look on his face as he did so.

“His is a lot better than mine,” you admitted as the siren took just a second to appraise them. Seeing the two side-by-side, yours was a bit misshapen, folds across parts that were supposed to be flat from you having to undo and redo parts over and over again.

“That’s okay! You guys just had to try,” Shotaro reminded you, picking up the hole punch. “Punch cards please?”

With just one punch left, you and Sungchan headed over to the photobooth in the corner. It was set up so that you didn’t have to pay for any of the films. Sungchan climbed in first, and you watched nervously where his head almost hit the top of the entrance.

“Goddamn this thing is tiny,” he observed as soon as he had poked his head in past the curtain.

“Is it small or are you a giant?” You asked pointedly.

Sungchan had fully entered the photobooth then, and retorted back, “Get in here and find out.”

As you parted the curtain and put just your first foot in, you immediately realized how cramped the two of you were going to be. “Okay, maybe a bit of both.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sungchan was already sat on the bench, and pressed himself as far back into the corner as he could to give you enough space to sit next to him. Your leg was squished in next to his, and his arm ended up around your shoulders. He was warm, as expected for a werewolf, whose body temperatures all ran naturally higher than humans.

As he shifted his shoulders and arm to settle around you, he double-checked, “Sorry, is this alright? It’s tight in here—”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” you turned your head to give him a smile, but were instead caught off-guard by just how close his face was to yours. If either one of you shifted forward right now, you would hit noses. Your breath hitched in your throat as you made eye contact with him. Oh, he could definitely hear your heartbeat in the tiny space afforded by the photobooth, surely as clear as you could hear it thudding in your own ears. God, you’d always thought he was cute, but something about being so close, and the lights in here hitting the angles of his face just right, he was striking, handsome. You curled your hands into fists in the material of your pants, not trusting yourself not to grab him and do something too wildly out of pocket.

The screen played a short melody at you, knocking you from your trance, and you turned your focus back to your task.

Pressing a couple buttons on the touchscreen, you looked between the height of the camera and Sungchan, squinting. “Is your head even going to show in frame?”

Sungchan swallowed, then cleared his throat before he spoke, as if his mouth had gone dry. “Guess we’ll find out after.”

“Alright, it’s a four-cut.” You announced after skimming the easy illustrated instructions. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” He gave you a thumbs up.

“Okay. 1, 2, 3.” You pressed the start button before sitting back in your seat against him again.

You smiled and held up a peace sign for the first one, and in the split second of the flash going off, you heard the werewolf next to you curse under his breath, “Fuck! That’s bright—” accompanied by the feeling of him flinching back, and immediately followed by a distinct thud.

Turning around as much as the space could allow for, you saw Sungchan curled in on himself, his eyes squinted shut presumably both in pain from the flash and from where he had just smacked the back of his head against the wall of the photobooth, judging by the hand he was cradling it with.

“Ooh! Sungchan, are you alright?” You asked through giggles, unable to get over the comical thunk! sound that his head had made.

Another flash went off, startling him into hitting his head again with another bonk! and this time you couldn’t help but burst out into full-bodied laughter, turning back toward the camera to not laugh directly in the poor guy’s face. You could barely see the third and fourth flashes because your eyes were squeezed shut as you laughed, running out of air and having to prop yourself up with a hand on Sungchan’s knee to not keel over.

Finally, you started sobering up enough to squint your eyes back open, and through your tears, you saw Sungchan smiling down at you as well.

“Alright, I don’t know if it was that funny…” he sighed, still holding his head.

“I’m-I’m sorry,” you tried to apologize through your wheezes. “It was the sound, and the two in a row, it was just too much for me. I’m not laughing at your pain, I promise. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright. Thanks.” He reassured you, dropping his hand from his head and resting it on the one that you still had on his knee. “I… I really like your laugh.”

Your hand suddenly tingled. “Oh. Thank you…”

After a beat, he shifted his gaze from yours. “So where do the films print out at?”

“Uh, on the outside of the booth. Should be two, one for each of us.” You said quickly, getting up to exit the booth and put some space between the two of you again.

Sungchan followed you out, and you easily found the dispenser, where there were in fact two film strips. He grabbed them for you, looking over them first. A smile spread across his face as he continued holding them, and you started getting antsy the longer that you hadn’t seen them.

“What, are they that bad?” You asked with a light chuckle.

“What?” He snapped his focus up to you.

“You’ve been smiling at them for an awful long time. Did I blink or something?” You joked, knowing very well that you were laughing for half of them.

He sucked in air through his teeth, shaking his head regretfully. “Yeah, I think for your own sake, I should keep both of these. I mean, I look great but—”

“Sungchan, let me see!” You reached for them, but he yanked his hand back from you at the last second.

You lunged for them again, but he once again kept them just out of your reach, a sly grin on his lips. The next time you tried to grab them, he held them above his head, and he most unfortunately had a significant height advantage over you.

You were already in his personal space from grabbing for them before, practically chest-to-chest (well, really chest-to-face), and now had to crane your neck straight up to look at them. With a huff, out of breath, heart racing for more than one reason now, you weakly pulled on his shoulders as you pouted, “Sungchan, please!”

“Here, I warned you.” He said melodramatically, handing you one copy of the film strips.

You eagerly held it in both hands, scanning over the four pictures on it. The first one was normal, it looked like Sungchan had taken your lead and both of you were smiling and throwing up peace signs. The second one was where everything went to chaos. Sungchan was wincing in pain in the corner, holding his head, as you had the back of your head to the camera, one hand reaching uncertainly towards him. In the third, you were turned back towards the camera, a little blurry as you laughed, and Sungchan was squinting one eye open to look at you. And in the last one, you were still laughing, leaning on Sungchan for support as there was nothing but simple joy on your face; and Sungchan’s features had relaxed out of pain as he gazed down at you with a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Not as wide as yours was, but no less dim.

“These are so cute! You liar!” You elbowed Sungchan in the side.

“You didn’t let me finish. I look great, but you look radiant.”

“Good save.” You joked, but couldn’t suppress the smitten grin that wormed its way across your face. “And I’m keeping mine.”

Sungchan reached into the pocket of his jacket then, pulling out his pristine, baby pink origami heart from earlier. He held it out to you. “I-I wanted you to have this, too.”

“Aw, Sungchan…” You accepted the paper heart from him.

“Feel free to throw it out when you get home, I get it.”

“Hey, stop that.” You pinched his forearm where the sleeve of his jacket had fallen down. “Don’t do something sweet and then immediately take all the sincerity away by covering it with a layer of self-deprecation. If you’re going to be a sweetheart, own up to it or don’t do it at all.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, and you could see a flush creeping up from his collar to his cheeks. “You’re right. I wanted to give you that, sans trash can.”

You were beaming, tucking it into the inner pocket of your jacket and patting it. “Thank you, Sungchan. I’d offer you mine, but I think it really should go in the trash.”

“Look who’s not taking her own advice, hm?”

“Alright, if you want it,” you sighed, taking your own lumpy attempt at the origami heart out of your pocket and handing it over to him.

Sungchan plucked it from your fingers smugly. “Thank you.”

“I expect you to be buried with that now, by the way.”

“I’ll be sure to write it in my will.”

The two of you were still chuckling as you walked up to the counter again, your film strips and punch cards in hand to show them to Shotaro. Your siren friend reviewed the pictures with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“You guys are so cute,” he commented so very subtly. “But uh, what happened here, Sungchan? Did you hit your head on something? How did you manage that one?”

As you covered your mouth to hide your giggles at the memory of the double bonk! resurfacing, Sungchan took his film strip back from his roommate. “Alright, are you going to give us the punches or not?”

Shotaro punched the final heart-shaped holes into both your cards. “And with that you’ve completed all the punches! Unfortunately, you can’t redeem the free drink tonight, but by all means, you are more than welcome to stay and hang out some more. We’ve got extended hours tonight, so you can keep doing the activities if you like, or just, you know… stay and chat or something.”

“Right, thanks, Shotaro.” Sungchan led you away with a hand on your back.

You ended up back at your original seat that you had sat at for the bingo game. The game finished while you were in the photobooth, the other patrons now milling around the shop again. Some were sitting, sipping on their drinks and enjoying each other’s company, others at the origami stations, others lining up at the photobooth, and still others back at the register ordering again. You looked down at the film strip in your hands before tucking it away safely with Sungchan’s origami heart. Looking around, you saw that Baekhyun was making rounds now that he was done hosting bingo, greeting customers and having conversations with everyone he stopped to talk to.

You didn’t want to leave yet, to have this night be over, to have your time with Sungchan be done. At least not without knowing if you’d see him again. This had been fun, really fun, and you wanted to see him again. Every bad first impression of him you’d gotten from your date had been wiped away.

“Hey, Y/N?”

You snapped your focus back over to him at the sound of his voice, trepid and unsure. You offered him a reassuring smile as you replied, “Yeah, Sungchan?”

He had taken his hat off, and was messing with the seam along the bottom band nervously. “I know I already said this, but I really am sorry for everything I said to you before. I was so incredibly wrong about you.”

“And I’ve already said thank you, so I suppose I’ll say I forgive you this time.” You squeezed his forearm. “So would you stop apologizing now?”

“I know we can’t start over completely, but…”

“Yes?” Your voice pitched up hopefully, your heart soaring along with it.

“Friends?”

Splat. Your heart plummeted back down with tremendous velocity.

It took all your willpower to keep your face from showing the disappointment you’d felt, and even then, you were sure it still fell minutely. You slapped on a rehearsed, customer service smile for him, too shocked that you’d apparently misread everything so badly to do much more than go through a script of what you should say. “Yeah, sure. Friends.”

Sungchan beamed at you, another heart-stopping, adorable, lopsided grin that now made your chest squeeze painfully. “Okay, great! Thank you, seriously!”

You threw open the door to Jasmine & Pearls the next morning so violently that it swung back the other way and rang the bell twice.

“Shotaro.”

The siren perked up to greet you. “Oh, Y/N! Back to redeem that free drink already, huh?”

“Sungchan here?” Your eyes flicked around the shop warily. You couldn’t see him, but now that you knew that the two of them were roommates, you had to be more careful.

“Oh, I see.” Your friend grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. “No, you just missed him, actually, he had class, popped in on his way to campus.”

“Thank god,” you groaned, collapsing into a stool near the pick-up counter, face in your arms.

“Uh, I’m going to make you a drink. Your usual?”

“Sure…” You mumbled, the sound even more muffled by your arms.

As Shotaro prepared the drink, he picked your conversation back up. “Now, what happened? You two looked like you were having a lot of fun last night. Not to pat myself on the back too hard.”

You lifted your head up just enough to rest your cheek on your arms so your friend could hear you when you spoke. “Did he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Remember that awful date I went on last month?”

“Vaguely.”

“And Sungchan went on a bad date the same night.”

“Yeah. Did he do some kind of ‘all cards on the table’ confessional with you to try to scare you off?” Shotaro sighed, tossing his hand towel over his shoulder and putting his hands on his hips. “Listen, don’t worry, I know he says he ruined his date that night, but really he’s a big puppy—don’t tell him I said that, he’ll tear my throat out.” He paused, as if realizing what he had just said. “And don’t worry about that ‘tear my throat out’ thing either, I swear he’s super sweet. Honestly, something must have been wrong with that girl, he’s not—”

“It was me.” You cut him off bluntly.

“Huh?”

“Sungchan and I were each other’s terrible date that night.”

The siren slapped a hand over his face with a groan. “Oh my god, what did he do?”

“Now you think he did something? Two seconds ago, you swore there was ‘something wrong with that girl.’” You raised your eyebrows.

“Yeah, but I know you, Y/N. Him saying he fucked up and made you walk out? I can believe that.”

“We don’t have time to unpack all of that, but thanks, I guess.” You settled your cheek in your hand instead. “Anyway, it was all a mismatch at the time. He had his reasons, and I had mine, and I left. I didn’t harbor any ill will towards him, nor had I even thought about him until last night.”

Shotaro snorted, placing your finished drink in front of you. “Oh, well, can’t say the same for him.”

“What?”

“Whatever he did, he felt terrible about it. He kept talking about how he wanted to apologize to you, but he didn’t think you’d want to see him.”

You blinked at him. “Seriously?”

“I just thought it was like when you accidentally say ‘you too’ when the waiter tells you to enjoy your food and then you can’t stop thinking about that interaction for the next six months.”

Remembering the gist of your very short conversation from your one and only date with Sungchan, you shook your head. “No, not quite.”

“But it seems like you two made up last night, right?” Shotaro asked, head tilted.

“Yes, last night was so much fun. It’s what our first date should have been. We got to talk, and get to know each other, and joke, and laugh, and maybe flirt a little bit; and he’s funny, and smart, and a lot of fun...” You explained, trailing off pitifully at the end.

“So what’s the catch?”

“Well, I don’t know why I thought that at the end of the night, when he said,” you dropped your voice to mimic Sungchan, “‘I know we can’t start over completely, but—’ I don’t know why I thought that was going to be followed up by him asking me out, but it wasn’t.”

The siren’s jaw dropped. “It wasn’t?”

“Nope. Friends...” You said with weak enthusiasm, giving him two thumbs-up and a feigned smile as if you were being held at gunpoint.

“Ooh, Y/N...” Shotaro grimaced.

You dropped your head into your hands in defeat. “And somehow I feel even stupider than I did leaving that date.”

“I’m going to ask him what the hell he’s thinking.”

“No the fuck you’re not!”

“Y/N—”

“I told you this in confidence, Osaki Shotaro, not so you could you blab how pathetic I am right back to him!”

“But I just did that with him to you.” He pointed out innocently. “Seems a bit unfair.”

“Thanks for just agreeing with me on the pathetic part.”

“Well—”

“You’re not helping!”

“I’m trying!” He threw his hands up in exasperation. With a sigh, he came up to lean against the counter, voice turning sympathetic once more. “Look, Sungchan probably just thinks that you would want nothing to do with him romantically after he ruined it so stupendously last time. So he doesn’t even want to put you in the awkward position of rejecting him again— or, he at least thinks you would reject him again.”

“You really think so?” You asked quietly, watching a bead of water run down the side of your cup.

“Best I can come up with.”

And all the hope in your chest puttered out like a limp, half-filled balloon. “So that was a guess.”

“I’m a siren, not a mindreader, sorry.”

“Ugh, I’ve got to go. Thanks, Shotaro. For the boba. You were useless otherwise.”

“Bye!” Your friend waved to you cheerily.

Being friends with Sungchan was pretty easy, actually. You already had a lot of the same friends (it was sort of weird that you hadn’t met before that date, you realized), and as long as somebody else was there, it was easy to ignore the ever-present, ever-growing crushing pain in your chest whenever you were with him. You didn’t like that it was like this, you hated being that person pining over one of their friends who had explicitly said that they just wanted to be friends. You’d tried to get yourself to feel like this about other guys—the cute phoenix in your Criminology class, or the funny gryphon that you were partnered up with for a project in your Introduction to Interdisciplinary class. But it was useless, your thoughts always came back Sungchan. And you weren’t friends with him in hopes that one day it would be different, either; you really didn’t want to be that friend. You were just enjoying Jung Sungchan, in whatever capacity you got him in.

And right now, that was a rather tenacious study buddy. When you’d off-handedly mentioned an upcoming test that you hadn’t studied for yet, he immediately made you compare schedules so that the two of you could do a study session before it. So now you were reviewing flash cards of some key concepts as Sungchan was hunched over a notebook of his own. Working on his research with his professor, you were pretty certain. He switched between his computer and handwritten notes so frequently that you weren’t sure how he kept it all straight, and all the numbers and Greek letters and letter letters made your head swim trying to decipher it. As long as it all made sense to him.

It all mostly made sense to you when he would explain it to you, if you were actually listening to the words he was saying and not just thinking about how nice his voice sounded, or how pretty he looked that day. Your brain was truly rotting from the inside out.

And you two were alone. You didn’t know if he had invited any of your other friends and they couldn’t make it or if this was a “just us” thing. That was something that he did that always made it so hard for you to keep your rule of never hoping for more. Sometimes you two would hang out and invite Shotaro and Jaemin and Jeno and Jeno’s girlfriend and maybe even some more of their friends that you weren’t as familiar with; and sometimes when you’d ask if you should invite anybody, Sungchan would reply with a shoulder shrug and a casual non-explanation that this should be a “just us” thing. You could never delineate what made an activity worthy of a group invite or a “just us” thing.

You stared at your screen with immense focus. Not on what was on the screen, your thoughts had long drifted from dryad folk tales and were now in an endless rumination on what the hell a “just us” thing was. You’d been to group study sessions and study sessions with just Sungchan. Group movie nights and movie nights alone with Sungchan—those were an especially bittersweet kind of awful, as he liked to share blankets. Group dinners and dinners with just the two of you. So what made something a “just us” activity? What was the—

Something in your periphery caught your attention, and snapped you out of your pensive thoughts that you’d been stewing in. It was a small, white, origami heart being pushed up from the bottom corner of your computer screen. You took it, smiling at Sungchan across the table from you, who sat up straight now that he no longer had to reach so far to deliver it to you.

Upon second glance, it looked like the heart was made out of notebook paper from his spiral notebook with notes on it in blue ink. You squinted to make out some of It in his messy scrawl, but gave up after reading just a portion of a complicated, technical word.

“Thanks, Sungchan.” You ran your fingertip along the crisp edge of the paper heart.

This had been one habit he’d picked up since the Valentine’s Day event at Jasmine & Pearls, he now made origami hearts whenever his fingers grew restless and he had access to a suitable piece of paper that could be torn to size if needed. You were usually the target of receiving them and now had a steadily growing collection in a small jar on your coffee table. You didn’t have it in you to throw them away.

“Something wrong, Y/N?” Sungchan asked. He had presumably noted the intense way you’d been staring at your screen the moments prior. “Or is the material just that bad for your test?”

“Ehh…” You sighed, rolling your neck out. “Just tired. Ready for the semester to be over, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is this made of your notes, by the way?” You held up the origami heart.

“Stuff I had to rip out and redo, I messed it up.”

You then stood up to crack your back, groaning at the cathartic cracking sounds that came with it. “God, I think my spine needs to be folded up like that origami, holy shit.”

“Fix your posture,” Sungchan snorted. “You sit like a little shrimp using a computer.”

Your jaw dropped as you put a hand to your chest, unsure of whether to laugh or be offended. Ultimately, you keeled over with laughter, having to plop back down in your desk chair—hunched over—to catch your breath again. Sungchan was watching you with a fond smile, reclined back in his chair with some not very great posture himself.

“A shrimp?”

“A little shrimp,” he corrected you. “A cute little shrimp using her little computer and fucking up her back in the process.”

“Alright, it’s not my fault you’re literally a tree. Anybody is a little shrimp compared to the man who almost broke a photobooth because he was too tall for it,” you teased him back through the fresh squeezing of your chest at him calling you ‘cute,’ even if it was followed by the words ‘little shrimp.’

“You’re never letting me live that one down, huh?”

“Never. I’ll be telling that story at your funeral, where you’ll be buried with my mangled origami heart, remember?”

“You’re banking on the fact that you’re going to outlive me in this scenario.”

“Right, my bad. Werewolves are the hardier species, so obviously you’ll outlive me.”

“Well, statistically—”

“Statistics say nothing about the power of spite, Sungchan. I will outlive you out of spite, so that I can tell that story at your funeral. And if not, I will have a backup recording of me telling that story, and in my will, have orders that it be played at your funeral.”

“You’re going to put it in your will to make sure you have the last word in case I outlive you? Which, statistically, I will.”

“Yes.”

The two of you held your defiant eye contact for another moment before you burst out in coordinated laughter, all tension fizzling out.

“I do expect that fucked-up origami heart to go down with you, though,” you pointed at him through your laughs, still only half-serious.

“Only if one of the hundreds I’ve given you by now makes it down with you,” he nodded, holding his pinky finger out.

You linked yours with it. “Deal.”

“Deal.”

As you walked out of the library together after you’d finally determined that your studying was over, Sungchan checked his watch.

“You doing anything else tonight?” He asked.

“Nothing in particular.” You shrugged. “Eating dinner. Sleeping. Why?”

“Want to come over?”

“Is Shotaro going to be home?”

“He’s closing at the shop today I think.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. Apparently sensing your hesitation, Sungchan nudged your side as he teased, “What? Am I not fun enough for you? You need Shotaro there to convince you to come over, too?”

“Yeah, you’re such a snoozefest, Sungchan,” you wrinkled your nose, elbowing him back. “Taro’s the only thing that keeps me from falling asleep every time I’m over at your place.”

“You hurt me, Y/N.”

With a melodramatic sigh, you relented, “I suppose I’ll make an exception. But I will nap where I see fit if you bore me too much.”

“I’ll take my victories where I can get them.”

At Shotaro and Sungchan’s place, you followed Sungchan into his bedroom. Normally, if Shotaro were home, the three of you would all hang out in their living room. But it was just you and Sungchan.

He toed his shoes off and flopped onto his bed face-first, spread-eagle.

“Oh, and who were we worried about taking a nap?” You scoffed, taking his desk chair. He had a gridded whiteboard above his desk that was mostly taken up by a to-do list of upcoming deadlines. But a small area labeled “Notes” by the company who made it was dedicated to pictures instead: the film strip of you two from Valentine’s Day at Jasmine & Pearls hung there by a magnet in the shape of a hurricane, a picture from the group trip to Cape Solaria from last summer under a tornado, and another of a younger Sungchan and Shotaro (early high school if you had to guess) at an arcade pinned by a tsunami.

Your friend rolled over onto his back. “I’m not napping, just basking.”

“Basking? In what?”

“Being done with today.”

“Have a bad day?”

“Just long. Had a long week, long semester, long three years.”

“Mm, felt that,” you agreed, knocking your own shoes off and folding your legs up in the desk chair.

The two of you were quiet for a while, and you would’ve thought that Sungchan had actually fallen asleep, if you couldn’t see that his eyes were open as he apparently just stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling with even breaths. You let the silence remain, content to just rest your arms on the back of the chair with your chin atop them, and look at him.

“Y/N?” He finally spoke, his voice soft.

“Yeah?”

Sungchan’s head lolled so he could look over at you, his warm brown eyes focused on your face. He had an unreadable expression on his features; not one of sadness, or pain, or really much of anything. It was like he didn’t even know what he was feeling. “Have you gone on a date? Since... you know, the one we went on?”

You blinked. You weren’t sure what exactly you were expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. After a moment, you shook your head. “No, I haven’t. Have you?”

The corner of his lip twitched, but from your positions, you couldn’t tell if it was pulling towards a smile or a frown. “No.”

Another beat of silence. You continued staring at each other.

“Do you want to?” He asked, his voice so unnaturally devoid of intonation that you once again couldn’t glean the purpose of this discussion.

“What?” The word tumbled out of your mouth fast, defensively.

“I-I mean, are you going to? Like, is there anybody...?”

You looked at him, taking a good few seconds before you answered. He at least seemed nervous now, stuttering, his eyes flitting between you and the ceiling fan.

“No.” You answered plainly. No qualifying statements: any attempts at expounding would just land you in trouble. “You?”

“No...” He echoed. “You would tell me, right? If you were?”

This felt like a trap. Not from Sungchan, you knew he wasn’t like that, but from the Universe, somehow. And no matter what you did, you were going to fall into the spike pit.

“Yeah, Sungchan, of course.” You mustered up your well-practiced casual smile. “Always need approval from the counsel of friends for that kind of stuff.”

He did smile at that—not a full one with teeth, and it didn’t reach his eyes—but he smiled and nodded. “Good. Got to make sure they’re not a weirdo. You know there’s all kinds of magical creatures who will just date human women for the ego trip in bed, right?”

“I did know that,” you chuckled. “But thanks for looking out for me.”

“Always am, Y/N. And I always will be.”

Rocking back and forth from your heels to your toes nervously, you kept your eyes trained on the apartment door in front of you. Sungchan knocked on it. Your actions were stopped by your friend grabbing your arm and pulling you back down to flat feet.

“Y/N, I told you it’s going to be fine, seriously. They’re your friends, too,” he reminded you for probably the twelfth time that day.

When he’d randomly texted you earlier that morning asking if you wanted to go to Jeno’s birthday party with him tonight, you were very hesitant to accept. Mostly because you hadn’t received an invite from the birthday wolf himself. But after some more pestering from Sungchan, you gave in. Maybe if you didn’t have such a weak heart, you would’ve been firmer on your no. But instead, here you were, having signed your name under Sungchan’s on the birthday card the two of you bought on your way over, a gift card tucked inside with enough money pre-loaded on it to cover a nice meal for Jeno and his girlfriend.

“Then why didn’t he—” Your whispered question was cut off by the door swinging open, the bright smile of Lee Jeno greeting you.

“Hey guys, come on in!” The werewolf opened the door even wider, not seeming surprised at all to see you there next to Sungchan. He gave the both of you hugs after closing the door behind you.

You patted his back in the hug, offering a sheepish smile, “Hey, Jeno, Happy Birthday. Sorry to just show up. Sungchan insisted it was fine…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! Everyone knows if we’re inviting Sungchan that we’re inviting you, too. It’s cool.” He said brightly. “You want something to drink?”

Trying not to get stuck on that little information bomb he’d dropped so casually, you looked around the fairly packed apartment, recognizing most everyone who was there, including a couple people by the drinks table. “You know, I see Jaemin and Donghyuck over by the drinks, I’ll go get it myself. Thank you, though, and Happy Birthday again.”

Jeno perked up in a different direction as if he’d heard his name being called—which he very well could’ve with his superior hearing—and he took off, disappearing into the kitchen. You’d been to Jeno and Jaemin’s place a few times before, mostly to hang out with Jaemin over the time that you’d known the dryad from Bot Club, and more recently, a couple times for group hangouts since Jaemin, Jeno, Jeno’s girlfriend, and Sungchan were all friends.

“I’m going to get some food,” Sungchan nodded towards the same direction Jeno had gone in. “Want anything?”

You stood on your tiptoes, unable to discern any of the options they had available, other than the fact there would be a lot of it to feed the werewolf guests. “Just get extra of whatever you think I’ll like, I’m not very hungry right now.”

“On it.”

While he went to do that, you made your way across the living room to the two dryads you had spotted earlier, both standing by the drinks table.

“Hey…” You said, still feeling awkward despite Jeno’s easy acceptance of you.

“Y/N! Hey!” Donghyuck greeted you cheerily.

“You made it!” Jaemin gave you a one-armed hug.

“Sounds like you were expecting me then?”

“Well, yeah.” Donghyuck said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world (which was bewildering to you, considering you didn’t even know you were coming until this afternoon).

The two dryads exchanged a look.

“I mean, Sungchan was coming, so…” Jaemin shrugged.

Donghyuck peered around the party. “Speaking of, where’d your wolfboy go?”

“He went to get some food. And he’s not. my. wolfboy, you little shit.” You glared at him. “And don’t call him a wolfboy either, you know he doesn’t like to be called stuff like that. Call Jeno ‘puppy’ or whatever all you want but leave Sungchan out of it.”

“I thought he didn’t like dog terms, but wolf terms he was fine with, since he is a werewolf.” Jaemin said.

“Yeah.” Donghyuck nodded.

You put your hands on your hips with a frank sigh, “As if wolfboy isn’t also diminutive and meant to—”

“Woah, abort, abort, Y/N’s going into Renjun-mode.”

Jaemin looked over at the other dryad regretfully. “Worse than Renjun-mode, this isn’t just educational.”

“You two are so obnoxious, I’m going to stage a coup in Bot Club one of these days,” you declared with a scoff.

“Hey...” Another voice entered the conversation from over your shoulder, and you looked up to see Sungchan stepping in between you and Donghyuck, a plate loaded up with food in his hand.

“Speak of the wolf and he shall appear.” Donghyuck had a wicked grin on his face. You were amazed sometimes that he wasn’t a fairy.

“What were you guys talking about? Y/N didn’t look happy.”

“It was nothing, Sungchan, don’t worry about it.” You tried to reassure him, sending pointed stares at each of the dryads with you.

Donghyuck was apparently not going to let up, though. “Hey, Sungchan, you down to do a little thought experiment with me?”

“Thought experiment?” The werewolf echoed.

“Yeah, just real quick. I ask you a hypothetical question, you give me a hypothetical answer. Just for fun.”

“A thought experiment with Donghyuck. Sounds thrilling, sure.” Sungchan agreed humorously, popping a piece of food in his mouth.

“So, if someone were to call you dog-like terms—which we know you’re not cool with and would never do—who would you most be okay with doing that?”

The werewolf narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why would anybody do that?”

“It’s a thought experiment, Sungchan, come on. Play in this space with me!” Donghyuck whined, shaking the other man’s shoulder.

“Let’s rephrase then,” Jaemin joined in, a mischievous glint in his eye. You looked around to make sure Chenle wasn’t secretly listening in or something, because this surely had to be the work of your fairy prince acquaintance. You spotted the fairy very engaged in his conversation with his dragon roommate Jisung and a few other people. It seemed like the two dryads really were just deciding to be the absolute worst all on their own.

“Narrower scope. Would you be okay with, for example, Y/N calling you stuff like that?”

“Why would she do that?” Sungchan asked, confused.

“Yeah, why would I do that?” You asked, angry. They were clearly trying to get at something specific, make him admit something.

Jaemin offered an example, “Well, you know, Jeno’s girlfriend calls him ‘pup’ as a term of endearment.”

“And why would I do that?!” You repeated, feeling your stomach drop to the floor at how exactly he stressed those words.

“We’re getting off-topic here, it’s all hypothetical, remember?” It was amazingly Donghyuck who sort of saved you. “We know Y/N would never do it. But like… if she did, for some reason unbeknownst to us, what would you do? Would you be okay with it?”

Sungchan’s brow was furrowed as he seemed to genuinely contemplate this while he ate another bite of food. You, meanwhile, were plotting how best to kill two dryads. You knew enough from Bot Club, maybe a super-strong version of the magical weed spray you used would work... Were dryads more plant or more person?

“Well…” The werewolf finally began his answer, seeming to choose each word carefully. “Since I know Y/N, I know that if she were, in this batshit, hypothetical scenario, to do that, that she wouldn’t mean it in a derogatory way. So I guess I’d be more okay with her doing it than other people. Definitely more than you two weirdos who are posing this thought experiment that isn’t fun at all.”

“Thank you, Sungchan.” Donghyuck grinned at him, then turned to Jaemin. “I thought that was very fun and enlightening. What about you, Jaemin?”

Jaemin nodded thoughtfully. “I had a great time. Y/N?”

“You guys are so fucking annoying.” You groaned, grabbing a piece of food from Sungchan’s plate. “Leave me out of your thought experiments next time, please.”

The spring semester ended not long after Jeno’s birthday party, and you very thankfully didn’t have to take any summer classes, freeing up a lot of spare time for you. Sungchan, on the other hand, had to take a couple courses in order to make sure he would graduate on time. While you jokingly whined and complained when he told you about it, you were secretly relieved to have extra reasons to avoid him. As terrible as that sounded.

This afternoon, while he was in class, you had gone down to the river with Shotaro and Yuta, who miraculously both had a day off work at the same time. You didn’t even realize Jasmine & Pearls had enough employees to let the both of them take the same day off.

You were sat in your pop-up chair on the small beachy area, pulling your phone from your bag to check it while the two sirens continued lazing about in the waist-deep water. There was a text from Sungchan from a few minutes ago, and as you opened it up to read it, you realized that he was just sending you a funny picture he’d found somewhere online.

[you: aren’t you supposed to be focusing on class right now?]

“Sungchan?” Shotaro called out to you knowingly.

“What?” You yelled back, holding a hand up to shadow your face from the sun. Looking around your chair, you grabbed your baseball cap that you’d won in Valentine’s Bingo, pulling that on now that you were out of the water.

“You’ve got this little smile on your face that you only get when Sungchan texts you.”

“No I do not.”

Yuta stood up from where he had been floating on his back, shaking the water out of his hair as he asked you with a smirk, “So you don’t have a text from Sungchan on your phone screen right now?”

Your phone buzzed then, a welcome excuse to not have to answer that.

[sungchan: allegedly]

[you: i don’t want you whining to me when you fail that class]

You clicked your phone off, showing them the blank screen. “Nope, nothing on my screen.”

“You’re such a liar,” Yuta sighed, saying it as if it were as simple of a fact as the sky being blue or the grass being green. He trudged through the water up the shore until he could join you, plopping down in his chair next to yours. They had both kept their legs this afternoon instead of bringing out their tails, and he kicked his apart as he got comfortable.

Shotaro jogged up from the water too, grabbing the cooler and rooting around in it for a second. After securing the other half of his sandwich from the lunch that you all had eaten earlier, he sat down next to Yuta, taking a big bite from it.

You took Yuta’s lead and settled back in your chair, closing your eyes and just enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon Sun.

“He talks about you all the time, by the way.” Shotaro cut into your peace and quiet. If you had something within arm’s reach other than your metal reusable water bottle, you would’ve thrown it at him.

“Shotaro...” You groaned, rolling your eyes. You didn’t even need to ask who he was talking about.

“Seriously! ‘Y/N and I did this today.’ ‘Don’t wait up for me, I’m going to the movies with Y/N.’ ‘Y/N told me this funny story today.’ ‘Did you know such and such about this or that? Y/N’s so smart.’” He admittedly did a pretty good Sungchan impression. You would’ve laughed at it in any other context, but instead you were just annoyed.

“Yeah, well, we’re friends. We hang out, and do things together. He’s going to be talking about me,” you snapped. “He talks about you a bunch too. Because you guys, you know, live together. He also talks about his professors, and Jeno, and—”

“But it’s not the same.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He insisted.

Shotaro clearly wasn’t going to let up, so you momentarily engaged this line of thinking, hoping you could squash it. “What’s so different, then?”

“He’ll find just any reason to bring you up, for one. We’re grocery shopping? ‘Oh, Y/N likes this flavor.’ ‘We should pick this up for when Y/N comes over.’ ‘Shotaro don’t get that, Y/N doesn’t like it.’” His impression turned more high-pitched and whining. “We’re watching TV? ‘This reminds me of when Y/N and I did this...’ ‘I bet Y/N would love this show, we should watch it the next time she comes over.’ ‘Y/N has a shirt just like that character.’ We’re hanging out with other people? ‘Hey Sungchan, what uh, what are you giggling at on your phone over there?’” He first kept his normal tone of voice, then switched into his over-the-top fake-Sungchan. “‘Oh, Y/N just texted me something funny. But it’s an inside joke, so you guys wouldn’t get it, sorry.’ ‘Man, I wish Y/N could’ve come, sucks she had to work.’”

“Are you done?” You asked tersely, unamused.

“I could go on ad nauseum—”

“One could argue you already have.”

Yuta snickered.

“—but let’s call it there.”

“Thank God.”

Shotaro wasn’t done with his spiel yet, though. “I have had multiple friends, when he’ll first bring you around somewhere, quietly ask me if you’re Sungchan’s girlfriend and they like, missed when you two started dating.”

“I get it, I get it.” You said firmly, bringing a hand up to rub your face.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Y/N, you’re an MCS major, I’m sure you’ve heard about what can happen to werewolves if there’s something discordant in their lives that isn’t alleviated?”

“You think he’s going to get pupsick because he’s allegedly got a crush on me?” You sputtered out in disbelief, your voice caught between a chuckle and a scoff at how absurd that sounded to you.

“It happened to Jeno.”

“Yeah, but he’s Jeno. With all due respect and no intention to kinkshame, he probably lets his girlfriend put a collar on him.”

Yuta shot up as he cackled, slapping his knee and coughing. He scrambled to grab his water bottle, taking a couple sips as he struggled to catch his breath.

Shotaro pushed on like you hadn’t said anything, “Now, I don’t want to have to put up with a pupsick Jung Sungchan, do you? That sounds awful. For me, obviously, since I live with him.”

“Shotaro, you are half-right about one thing.”

“And what’s that?” He asked smugly.

“I am kind of an MCS major. So I also know that Sungchan isn’t overly touchy with me, he hasn’t given me anything of his that smells like him, he doesn’t feed me, or do any other pre-mating behaviors that are ingrained in werewolves.” You ticked them each off on your fingers. “Look, I hate stereotyping you guys by your species. But if he’s apparently so down bad that he can’t help but talk about me every waking second of the day, wouldn’t at least one of these things that are literally instinctual to him have happened?”

Shotaro raised an eyebrow. “You do know that he’s half-werewolf, right?”

“What?” You blinked at him.

“Yeah, his mom’s a werewolf, and his dad’s a human.”

You’d had an MCS class on the Effects of Modern Integration, which had a unit specifically on the subject of cross-species offspring. Some species could have offspring together while others couldn’t, it depended both on genetic similarity and compatibility of their magic. With humans having no magic, that left only genetic similarity as a factor, making them a lot more compatible for producing such cross-species offspring. Werewolves and humans were one of the more common pairings to have such offspring, as they had one of the most extensive histories of living together.

Sungchan’s behavior on your first and only date immediately sprung to mind. His hesitance around humans dating werewolves just because they’re werewolves. “Are they...?”

“Happily married. They helped us move into our apartment last year.” Shotaro apparently knew exactly where your question was going. “But yeah, Sungchan’s half-human. As best I can tell, he’s kind of like a super-zen werewolf. Able to control everything a lot better than full werewolves because all of the wolf instincts and stuff aren’t as powerful.”

“He still shifts?” Despite the estimated number of half-werewolves being greater than the confirmed population of sphinxes, unicorns, and phoenixes combined, there was little actually known about them academically. It was all word of mouth, as no large-scale study had been able to be done on them. They were apparently reluctant to come forward and make themselves known to researchers. And their friends.

“Yeah, every full moon. Which I think is why he really just considers himself a werewolf.”

“I didn’t know,” you admitted, biting the inside of your cheek as you were still absorbing this information.

“Anyway, he can probably control whatever pre-mating instincts he does have a lot better than full werewolves!”

“And he’s probably doing that because he knows that you know what pre-mating behaviors look like and thinks you would get weirded out.” Yuta suggested, finally entering the conversation instead of just letting you two go back and forth over him. “Since you’re kind of an MCS major.”

“Exactly!”

You pursed your lips, an uneasiness creeping up on you about the whole situation. “I don’t know guys…”

“You said he doesn’t feed you?” Yuta questioned thoughtfully.

“No, he doesn’t. And you two are around us plenty, have either of you ever seen him try to?” You asked pointedly.

“No, but what Shotaro was saying about grocery shopping. He always buys your favorite foods, flavors he knows you likes, even makes Shotaro put stuff back that he knows you think are unappetizing.”

“I’ve never asked him to do anything like that.”

“And yet he does. Now, overly touchy is subjective. Does he—”

“No, we’re not doing this.” You cut him off, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Doing what?”

“Dissecting mine and Sungchan’s friendship and putting it up on a conspiracy board. I’m not playing. And if that’s all you guys are going to do, then I’m leaving.”

Shotaro jumped in, “Y/N, why can’t you even consider that—”

“Because he already asked to be friends and I said yes,” you said angrily, feeling your blood finally reach its boiling point. “I knew what I was getting myself into, and having you guys trying to convince me that it’s something that he already said it’s not, isn’t fucking helping.”

They were both quiet for a beat, and you clenched your jaw. You couldn’t keep sitting right now, you had to go somewhere, do something. If you stayed here, somebody’s feelings were going to get hurt. You stood up, stuffing all of your things haphazardly back into your bag. “Actually, fuck it, I’m leaving anyway.”

“Y/N, we didn’t mean to—”

“I know, you think you’re trying to help or whatever the fuck. But just drop it, okay?” You shoved your feet back in your shoes and slung your bag over your shoulder. “I need to go or I’m going to end up saying something nasty that I don’t really mean and regret it. I’ll see you guys later.”

And with that, you took off, leaving the chair you had borrowed from Yuta on the shore. You took your baseball cap back off to mess with your damp hair as you speedwalked down the city sidewalks. All the angry energy from wanting to just go off on your friends was still coursing through you, and despite Yuta having to pick you up and drive you the couple miles or so to the river, you figured that you might as well walk the whole way back home to blow off steam.

A little more than halfway home, your phone buzzed in your hand with a call, and you glanced at it intending to just send it to voicemail. But it was Sungchan. You stared down at it as you waited to cross a street, an unsure thumb hovering over your screen.

Glancing between your phone and the crosswalk signal, it changed to walk, and you rushed to cross. The call went to voicemail.

Just a few seconds later, your phone lit up with the missed call, a voicemail, then a text from him. You sighed, clicking on the voicemail first.

“Hey, Y/N,” Sungchan’s voice came through clearly. It sounded like he was outside, probably on campus and fresh out of class, if you had to guess by the time. “It’s Sungchan. Obviously. Uh, anyway, I just got out of class, wanted to see if you maybe wanted to come over? I know you’re supposed to be with Shotaro and Yuta, but Shotaro just texted me and said—well, it’s kind of a long story. Just let me know if you can come over, and I’ll tell you when you get here, okay? I’m headed back to my place right now. Okay, bye.”

Shotaro.

Still fucking meddling after you asked him to drop it. If you were less than halfway back from the river, you’d turn around and throttle him.

You checked the text from Sungchan.

[sungchan: hey! i’m out of class. are you busy?]

[you: i can be over in twenty. is that okay?]

You shifted uncomfortably as you stood in front of the front door to Shotaro and Sungchan’s apartment. Your hair wasn’t as damp thanks to your long walk in the hot Sun, and your skin was dry, but you still held yourself as you stared down the center of the white door. You hadn’t knocked yet. You didn’t want to know what Shotaro had told Sungchan, having already convinced yourself that it was everything. That you were about to walk into Friendzoning 2: Electric Boogaloo, this time with Letting Y/N Down Easy. It made your stomach churn, your chest squeeze like a vice around your heart, and your head feel like it had been cast in lead.

You shifted your weight between your feet on the welcome mat, trying to muster up the strength to just knock on the fucking door, when it swung open.

Sungchan was in a pair of dark sweatpants and a dark red t-shirt from your school’s astronomy club—dated for fall two years ago. He offered you a familiar smile, stepping back from the doorway to make room for you. “Hey, I thought I heard you. Come in.”

“Hey. And thanks.” You nodded, slipping by him into his apartment.

Wordlessly, he started leading the way further back towards his room. You longingly looked at the wide-open space of the living room as you disappeared down the hallway. In his bedroom, you saw his desk taken up by his laptop and a spread of notebooks and papers. His bookbag was in his desk chair.

“Sorry, I know that’s your usual spot, but I was doing some homework.” Sungchan had noticed where your gaze was focused. He patted the foot of his bed as he went to sit down against the headboard. “Come on, you can sit with me for once.”

You swallowed and nodded, stepping back out of your shoes and setting your bag down. Climbing onto the end of his bed, you sat with your legs criss-crossed, fidgeting with your fingers in your lap.

“So why did Shotaro text you?” You decided to just go straight into it. No small talk or pleasantries about his class or what homework he was working on. “What’d he say?”

“He told me that he told you that I’m half-werewolf,” Sungchan said bluntly. “I figured I owed you a bit more of an explanation.”

Oh. Well that wasn’t what you were expecting at all.

“You really don’t owe me anything, Sungchan,” you shook your head, your eyes trained on his comforter. “You don’t have to explain who you are to me if you don’t want to.”

“I want to.”

It was a touching sentiment, but it felt like a hot knife right in your gut. He wanted to because he cared about you as a friend. Not in the same way that you cared about him.

You could only manage a soft, “Okay…”

“It’s not some big secret, really. I’m not ashamed of my dad or anything. I love him, he’s a cool guy.” Sungchan started, and you felt like that first part was more to reassure you that it was okay for you to know. He was pointing to a picture that you’d seen a countless number of times before, hanging next to the mirror above his dresser. It was of him at his high school graduation, flanked on either side by his parents, proud, beaming smiles on all of their faces. You’d always assumed they were both werewolves when you’d looked at that picture, and only ever noticed that Sungchan got his smile from his mom, and his nose from his dad. The height difference between his mom and dad never really registered to you, as Sungchan towered over both of them, but now you did see that his mom was almost a head taller than his dad. Not a trait intrinsic to either species, just more of a trend.

But then, his tone turned a little more pensive, “I just... don’t tell people at first because I get a whole slew of questions, from the mundane stuff like ‘How was it growing up with one werewolf parent and one human parent?’ Which like... I don’t know, it was like growing up with two parents? To the people who think that I’m some oddity and therefore they can just ask me completely unprompted about what my dick looks like. And then at the end of it, it doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m just some dumb mutt to them, no matter how you look at it.”

“Sungchan—” His name came out of your mouth instinctually, pained, as you could only imagine what he had experienced to ever be able to call himself that, even cynically as he was doing now.

“It’s okay. I don’t really care about those kinds of people.” He reassured you, offering a small smile. “That’s why I don’t waste my time on them anymore. I just say I’m a werewolf, and eventually they’ll find out more if they need to.”

“I’m sorry, that Shotaro just—”

“Y/N, it’s fine, seriously. I’m okay with you knowing. I know you’re not going to be weird about it. And Shotaro knew that too; I’m sure however it came up in conversation, it made sense for him to tell you.”

You thought about the context of when Shotaro revealed Sungchan’s lineage, wincing minutely. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You can ask me questions, I don’t mind since it’s you.” He then added teasingly, “Come on, Miss Magical Creatures Studies, I know you want to…”

“Not because I think you’re some oddity to be studied, but because I care and I want to understand more about you…” You prefaced your question. “Shotaro said that you still shift every full moon. Are your shifts any different than full werewolves?”

“From what I can tell watching other wolves shift, it’s not as painful, for one. So, bonus!” He said the last word with mock excitement. “The shift itself doesn’t last as long. And some wolves, especially younger ones who are going through their first shifts, tend to get kind of moodier in the days leading up to the full moon. I never got that. Just, everything is kind of… less for me.”

“Everything?” You asked, brows furrowed with confusion.

“My senses are more heightened than a human’s but less than the average werewolf, when I’m not shifted.”

“Ah.”

“And I probably wouldn’t fare great in a werewolf arm wrestling championship,” he tacked on lightheartedly.

“Damn, I had you signed up in one for this weekend,” you joked, clicking your tongue in the back of your throat in fake disappointment. “Put money down and everything.”

He played along, “Well, I guess I can still try for you.”

You smiled to yourself, then looked up at him as you took a deep breath. Whether or not you two were here because you cared about each other in different ways, you at least still cared about each other. And you’d be an idiot to throw out that kind of connection. You’d have to suck it up, hunker down, and connect with him on his terms.

“Thanks for being so open about this with me, Sungchan. I know it wasn’t your choice to tell me, and I know you already said it wasn’t a secret either. But still, I feel... very grateful that you would want to share any part of yourself like this with me.” You tried to pick your words carefully, to convey as much genuine emotion as you could without veering too far into romantic territory. You could still easily picture yourself saying something like this to Jaemin, or Shotaro. Maybe not Donghyuck, though.

“Ah, what’s that?” Sungchan squeezed his eyes shut, a bashful smile coming to his face.

“What’s what?” You asked with a breathy chuckle, feigning offense. “Am I not allowed a moment of sincerity?”

“No, you’re not.” He said it in an overly joking tone, so you knew that he wasn’t actually upset with you.

“And why not?” You mimicked his tone.

He sighed, teasing falling from his voice as he fully leaned back against his headboard, seeming to take you in for a few seconds before answering. “Not if you’re going to be looking at me like that when you’re being all sincere.”

“Like what?”

“Never mind.”

“No, no sir. You do not get to start an avenue of conversation like that and not finish it,” you pointed at him accusingly. “What am I looking at you like?”

The werewolf held your gaze steadily as he said, “Like you want something more.”

You felt your stomach drop as you rushed to get up from his bed, putting even more distance between the two of you. “I’m sorry, Sungchan. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

He knew, he knew, he knew.

“Y/N, don’t get me wrong, please.” Sungchan stood up after you, grasping your hand before you could run out on instinct. His grip was loose so that you could leave if you wanted, but the presence was enough to let you know that he still wanted you there, to listen to him. His hand was warm as it held yours, but it burned like you’d grabbed red-hot metal. “I-I think you’re one of the most incredible, smart, fantastic people I’ve ever met. And I’m so grateful that you gave me a second chance.”

“But you don’t like me like that. Yeah, I can see where this is going.” You shook him off, searching the floor for your bag and shoes. This was going to be embarrassing, putting sneakers back on after getting rejected like that.

“No, I do.”

Sungchan’s words stopped you in your tracks, and you slowly turned back around to face him again. Your heart was a drum banging in your ears, you couldn’t trust that they weren’t all—your heart and your ears—playing tricks on you.

“You… what?” You were dumbfounded, staring up at him with a mixture of disbelief and thinly-veiled suspicion. You’d spent far too long convincing yourself that he just liked you as a friend to throw it all out over three words.

“I was going to ask you on another date, that night at the boba shop, I really was,” he explained. “But I realized just how lovely and wonderful you were. And I thought that you didn’t deserve... all the hatred that would come with it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I love my parents, but growing up I got to see firsthand just the worst sorts of people… The things that my parents would be called, that I would get called, by other humans and other werewolves. It’s gotten a lot better, but I mean, Jeno’s girlfriend got called a knotslut at the park out of nowhere. And you don’t deserve to have that be your life.”

You narrowed your eyes up at him. “You think you’re not worth it?”

It was his turn to be thrown off-guard. “What?”

“You think that you, and being with you, aren’t worth it?” You reiterated.

“I wasn’t really thinking of it like that,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head.

“Do you think that? That you’re not worth it?”

“Well now that you say it like that, no, I don’t think that.” He frowned thoughtfully, his brow set with determination.

“And, I know you didn’t mean it like this, Sungchan, but you took the choice away from me. For a very sweet reason, I acknowledge that. But you didn’t give me a say in the matter. Imagine how that makes me feel.” You sighed, watching guilt flicker across his face. “I’m not going to pretend like I know at all what it was like for you growing up. Or what it’s like now. But I can tell you that I want this, that I want you. I want to be there for you, just like I know you’d be there for me if something ever did happen.”

“Of course I would be,” he declared.

Taking a step closer to him, you tentatively let a familiar airiness return to your chest, chasing out the painful squeeze that had been suffocating you since February. “See? We’ll have each other, Sungchan. Someone calling me something won’t matter as long as you’ll be there with me afterwards. You don’t have to prevent everything bad ever from happening, just hold my hand afterwards until it’s all better, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded resolutely. “I can do that.”

“And I’ll do the same for you. Deal?” You held your pinky finger out to him.

He hooked his with yours. “Deal.”

Sungchan lowered your connected hands, and you watched curiously as he unlinked his pinky, only to turn your hand over with both of his and trace gentle circles into the palm of your hand with his pointer finger.

“Y/N?” He murmured.

You snapped your focus back up to his face at the sound of his voice, trepid and unsure. He was still gazing down at your hands as you replied, “Yes?”

“I know we really can’t start over completely now, but…”

“If you say ‘friends’ right now, even as a joke, I’m going to kill you with my bare hands, half-werewolf strength be damned.” You whispered through gritted teeth.

He sputtered out a chuckle, shaking his head fondly and the circles on your palm never slowing. “No, no, I wouldn’t do that to you. That would be a terrible joke.”

“Good.”

“I was going to ask...” He inhaled shakily, finally drawing his eyes up to yours. “If we could try that date again?”

A smile pulled at the corners of your mouth, and you nodded quickly. “Yeah, Sungchan. I’d love that.”

Sungchan beamed at you, a heart-stopping, adorable, lopsided grin that now made your chest flutter with hope. “Okay! Thank you, thank you!”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his enthusiasm. “You’re welcome.”

Leaping to your feet at the knock that just came from your front door, you ran to answer it. You threw the door open, abuzz with excitement.

It was just about a week later, and you and Sungchan were finally trying that date again. You’d actually seen him once in the intermittent days, at a previously scheduled group movie night at Jeno and Jaemin’s place. The two of you were all knowing smiles and questionably accidental bumps and brushes of skin under the blanket that you shared that night.

But tonight Sungchan was in your hallway, smiling nervously down at you. “Hi.”

“Hi, Sungchan.” You fidgeted with your shirt. He had specifically told you to dress casually and comfortable, but you still felt weirdly underdressed, even seeing that he was in a t-shirt and jeans himself.

“These are for you,” he said quietly, bringing out a bouquet of flowers from behind his back.

As you accepted them from him, you immediately realized that they were made of paper, intricately folded tulips, lilies, and roses of all colors. You couldn’t help but let out a small gasp, thinking about how much time it must have taken him. “An origami bouquet. Oh, Sungchan…”

“I figured you had plenty of hearts by now…” He said as he flushed from his neck upwards.

“They’re beautiful.” You got on your tiptoes, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady yourself as you pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

His cheeks were bright pink as you turned around to set them down inside, then looked back to him expectantly. The werewolf led the way out to the parking lot, except you didn’t see his car anywhere around. There was a familiar old blue pickup truck, however, which he was walking towards.

“Your car in the shop or something?” You asked curiously. “Why are you driving Yuta’s truck?”

“Utility.” He answered cryptically, opening the passenger door for you.

“What does that mean?” You questioned with a chuckle, scooting into the middle of the bench seat.

You’d gotten your seatbelt situated by the time Sungchan had walked around and opened the driver’s side. He didn’t seem to have been expecting you to be in the middle, pausing for a second, and looking around flustered as he climbed into the truck too.

“It’s a surprise, like I said,” he muttered, fastening his own seatbelt and starting the truck.

Sungchan drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on his leg next to yours. You drummed your fingers on your own knee contemplatively.

“Sungchan?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I hold your hand?”

“Wh— Yeah, of course.” He laughed shakily as you laced your fingers with his. “You don’t need to ask me about stuff like that.”

“Well you’re so tense right now that I was afraid that if I just grabbed your hand, you might freak and crash the car.”

He cringed. “So you can tell?”

“Yeah, I can tell.” You patted his arm with your other hand. “What’s got you so wound up? It’s just me.”

“Well, yeah, it’s you,” he repeated. “I’ve already messed up so many times with you. I don’t want to fuck up again.”

You contemplated this for a second, watching the passing streetlights. “Think about it like this: Could you possibly fuck up again worse than our first date?”

“I hope not.”

“Then you’re already off to a great start.”

“Y/N, I think you need higher standards,” he said without an ounce of humor or joking in his tone.

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter at that. “Sungchan, you made me an entire origami bouquet and organized a whole night out to surprise me. I think my standards are pretty okay.”

“Alright, but you’ve got to promise that this is my last chance. Like, three strikes and I’m out. Seriously, if I was some other guy, I would’ve told you to throw me to the curb a long time ago.”

You looked over at him incredulously. “Are you seriously advocating against yourself right now? Is this some kind of reverse psychology flirting technique that I’ve never heard of?”

“No, I’m just not going to stop being a good friend because you’re on a date with me. I told you I would always look out for you, and I meant it, even if it’s not in my best interest.”

Nodding with a raised eyebrow, you decided to take his advice at face value. “Okay, your input is noted as part of the council of friends’ round table on my new guy.”

You saw a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “Good.”

“So, did you tell Shotaro what we were doing?” You asked, curious now that the topic of friends had been brought up.

“I told him we were hanging out.”

“Did you tell him it was a date?”

“No. Did you?”

“If I did, do you think you would have gotten out of your apartment unscathed?” You snorted.

“Fair point.”

The car ride passed with mostly idle chitchat, until he made a turn away from the city center, off onto a back road that you were unfamiliar with. The buildings gave way to trees, the streetlights being replaced only with moonlight and the headlights of the truck or any lone car that you would pass occasionally. A while later, the asphalt became a dirt road, the trees around you getting thicker and thicker. You looked around in interest as he slowed the truck to a stop in a clearing.

“We’re here?” You asked, looking over at him. Your eyes had long adjusted to the nighttime, and you could clearly make out his features.

“We’re here,” he confirmed with a nod, turning the vehicle off.

Sungchan climbed out, helping you down with a hand, and you immediately knew why he’d had both of you dress casually. You were in the middle of the woods, being led to the back of the truck by the hand by your date. He opened the tailgate, and let go of your hand to hop up into the empty bed.

“Wait there,” he requested, now well and good towering over you.

You nodded.

He retrieved a large duffel bag from the truck bed, and you looked curiously at everything he brought out of it. Pillow after pillow, blanket after blanket. The truck bed soon looked like a bed bed, and Sungchan came back over to plop down on the tailgate, toeing his shoes off and setting them aside at the end. He gestured to the bedding with little fanfare.

“All done!”

You hopped up next to him, pulling your shoes off as well and putting them away next to his. Looking at him with a knowing smirk, you nodded to the fact that the two of you were still sitting up. “Now what, Sung?”

“Ah, you’re going to make me spell it out?” He rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head awkwardly.

“No,” you laughed. “I’m not.”

He took that as his cue to lay down first, leaving an open space right beside him. You settled into his side with no hesitation, resting your head on his chest as he pulled a final fluffy blanket over the two of you. Being a half-werewolf, Sungchan was pretty warm, but you were grateful for the extra comfort anyway.

Up above you two was a gorgeous expanse of a night sky. A waxing gibbous glowed down at you, stars twinkling and winking in and out at irregular intervals.

“It’s so peaceful…” He murmured quietly, shifting under you, still settling in.

“I don’t know, it’s kind of scary out here…”

Sungchan moved to sit up slightly, looking down at you with concern. “Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, what if there’s wolves?”

“Oh my god you’re so annoying,” he groaned, even as he readjusted his arms to hold you closer.

You, meanwhile, were giggling maniacally at your incredible joke, hiding your face in his shirt as you tried to recover. “You mean I’m the funniest person you know.”

“In your dreams.”

Looking back up at the sky, you pointed to a random speck of light. “Do you know what star that is?”

“Which one?” Sungchan asked, craning his head to try to get in your line of sight.

“I don’t know, any of them.” You dropped your hand back down to his front. “You’re in astronomy club, tell me about them, you big Earth Science nerd. Which I say with great affection and fondness.”

“Okay, so you see the Moon?”

“That’s not a star. I do know that.”

He chuckled, which you felt underneath your cheek. “I figured as much. So, starting at the Moon, if you go due North—” he pointed, and you tried your best to follow the path of his index finger. “The first and brightest star you can see. See it?”

“Yep!” You nodded, seeing the exact star he was talking about.

“Then go the right, just a little, there’s a pair of twin stars, see them?”

“Mm… mhm! Yes!”

“Okay, down, and over to the right some more, we’re tracing out the top of a head, then we’re going back up, there’s another pair of twin stars, you see?”

You squinted, losing the top of the head he was talking about, but finally found the second set of twin stars he’d mentioned. “Yeah, found them!”

“Cool. Straight down from that pair, we’re going to find one, two, then over to the left to get the chin, over and up to get the other cheek, and up to round out the head.”

You nodded, vaguely able to picture what he was talking about. “Okay… so whose head was that?”

“Oh, I get to teach Miss MCS Major something!” Sungchan teased.

“Interdisciplinary major…” You reminded him under your breath.

“So that was Lykos, the great wolf in the sky. As in, lycanthropy.”

“Back when scientists thought werewolves were humans with an affliction that could be passed on to other humans. The quote ‘condition’ they were diagnosed with was lycanthropy.” You easily pulled a basic definition of it from class. “Of course we know now that’s not true. Like witches, werewolves are an entirely different species, not just a variety of human. And there’s never been any credible account of a werewolf turning a human into a werewolf.”

“Why is it that humans just think everything is also a human, even when it very clearly is not?”

“Well, if I were to give us humans benefit of the doubt? Uh, to relate to it? Empathy? Recognition of yourself in the other? I mean, it’s better than labeling everything a monster and hunting it down. Which, we also did a bit of.”

“Us monsters did plenty hunting of you guys, too.”

“You say as if you’re not also half-human.”

“Hey,” he frowned down at you suspiciously. “Are you recognizing yourself in the other with me right now? I think we should really save that for the second date—”

“Oh, shut up!” You gave his front a smack as you let out an indignant scoff.

Sungchan was kicking his legs under the blanket as he laughed from his stomach, and when you looked up at him, you saw his eyes squeezed shut tight as he cackled. You watched him with a smitten smile, unable to even pretend to be annoyed for any longer as his guffaws petered out to chuckles then to giggles until he eventually sobered up, and settled his gaze with a heart-stopping grin on you.

The two of you were quiet for a moment, just looking at each other, then he broke the eye contact, turning his eyes back up to the stars. “Uhm— I didn’t finish telling you about Lykos.”

You settled back into your spot, and with your ear to his chest, you could hear that his heartbeat was faster than it’d been before. You wondered if he was thinking the same thing about yours in that moment.

“So, Lykos,” Sungchan picked up where he’d left off before. “You can easily find him by starting at the moon to find his left ear. According to werewolf stories, Lykos was the very first werewolf that we’re all descended from. Because he was so great and powerful, once he passed, his soul ascended to be in the stars to watch over all of his descendants.”

“Wow…” You looked at the stars harder, willing Lykos’ shape to be a little more visible to you than before.

“In astronomy, though, the two twin stars that make up his left ear are called LK 1C04 and LK 2C04. They’re both red giants.”

“Are they going to explode any time soon?”

“Stars are kind of always exploding,” he explained enthusiastically. “They’re perpetually combusting and performing nuclear fusion. Well, most stars, if they haven’t run out of fuel yet.”

“What about when they run out of fuel then?”

“Depends on how big they are. LK 1C04 and 2C04 are both red giants, so when they run out of fuel, they’ll turn into white dwarves. So instead of being a burning ball of gas, they’ll just be emitting a very faint light from the remaining energy leftover from their previous nuclear fusion reactions that they can no longer perform.”

“So they don’t get to go out with a bang.”

“No, not really.” Sungchan pointed up at the sky again. “Okay, you remember Lykos’ chin?”

“Yes…”

“So that’s actually the end of the tail of a squirrel, according to some dryad traditions, or a gecko in some human ones.”

Sungchan sketched out the next constellation for you, then relayed the accompanying folk tale. Some scientific factoids would be interspersed too, and you loved hearing the enthusiasm in his voice as he told you about something he was very clearly interested in. And at some point, with his legs tangled up in yours, your hand curled around his waist, your cheek pressed against his chest, his hand casually rubbing up and down your back underneath your top as he still spoke so eagerly, you found your attention slipping away from black holes and how legends of ancient wyvern society said this or that about some other constellation. You were suddenly grabbing him by the collar with two hands and yanking him over to look at you.

“Y/N?” He asked, absolute bewilderment in his features.

“Jung Sungchan, I’m going to say this once, and please don’t take this the wrong way,” you murmured, holding eye contact with him very seriously. “You’re very attractive when you talk about things that you’re passionate about, and if you don’t kiss me right now I think I’m going to explode.”

Sungchan didn’t need to be told twice, reaching up to cup your cheek. Despite your rather blunt and unromantic request, he still tenderly guided your lips to his. Your eyes fluttered shut as you melted into the kiss, the grip you had on his collar relaxing. His mouth was soft as he moved it ever so slightly against yours. His thumb stroked over your cheekbone, the hand on your back pulling you even closer to him. One of your hands grabbed his waist to anchor yourself down to something on Earth.

It ended all too soon for your liking, though. You were pretty sure you could kiss Jung Sungchan forever. He pressed one more quick kiss to the corner of your mouth before leaning back to drink you in.

“You’re so beautiful…” he murmured, stroking your cheek again.

“Sung?” You whispered.

“Hm?”

“Do you want to kiss me again?”

He nodded, and you leaned forward to bump your nose against his. A giddy smile spread across your face.

“Good. Me too.”

sequel :･ﾟ✧｡･:･*

⤷ blog masterlist  ⤷ anthology masterlist

#sungchan #jung sungchan #riize #sungchan x reader #riize x reader #riize imagines #sungchan imagines #jung sungchan imagines #nct #nct x reader #nct imagines #sungchan imagine #riize imagine #i: sungchan #f: changer #au: strawberry sunday #text #writing #mine #*100 #*200

[memecucker]

The relationship between colonialism and religion is more complicated than the Civilization game where you’re trying to score a religious victory and it’s easier to convert places you conquer.

It’s not a matter of religion being imposed purely for the purpose of religion being imposed even if that may have been the personal motives of individual colonizers because even if there was a truly missionary motive these missions could only exist insofar as it was economically sustainable and oftentimes this takes the form of exploitation of the indigenous population.

Also the flat conception of religious colonialism overlooks how as colonialism progressed as a type of “social technology” there was in many places a shift away from seeking to replace indigenous organized religions (if they were present in the first place) towards recruiting the indigenous religious authorities to the colonial side.

Like for example with the colonies of the Iberian powers there was no separation of church and state and I don’t just mean in the sense of “the state imposed religious dogma and the church officially endorsed the state” I mean basic everyday functions of the state relied upon services of the church. Eg; If a colonial Governor wanted to say, requisition corvee labor from villages for a building project and he wished to know the populations of these villages in order to decide which to pull laborers he wouldn’t be looking at any state mandated census but instead would rely upon the archives and records of the Catholic Church because records would be kept of church attendance. If the governor wanted to hunt some rebel named “Diego of San Juan” he’d look at baptismal records to find examples of people named “Diego” and who they’re related to.

This meant that Spanish and Portuguese colonialism had an actual material interest in enforcing religious homogeneity and Catholic supremacy because that’s how their colonial states functioned. The colonial bureaucracy was in fact synonymous with the Church’s bureaucracy and so if some people weren’t Catholic they existed outside the Church which meant they existed (at least partially) outside the State. One example that’s a bit relevant is the original version the “National Commission on Indigenous Peoples” in the Philippines was set up during the American occupation and was called “Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes” because the groups in question are largely people who existed outside of direct Spanish colonial control (and wouldve been labeled “savages” in the 19th century) and hence “non-Christian”.

Anyway in the case of the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia this wound up being part of the reason for its collapse. By making their state function in the requirement that it’s subjects be observant Catholics the Portuguese had a lot of trouble making allies because if indigenous elites could be persuaded to convert then great but if they didn’t then they were gonna get really pissed off especially when they start hearing the Portuguese are torturing people under their rule that feel the same. And so without a network of allies the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia began to fall apart leaving only Goa, Macau and East Timor. Elsewhere the Portuguese had been replaced by the Dutch, English and French all of whom had systems of governance which was not as so dependent on doctrinal supremacy as the Iberians eg; the Dutch agreed to help the Shogunate put down a Christian revolt in 1638 and the East India Company actually banned Christian missionaries from operating in its territories until 1813 when Parliament forced them to allow Christian missionaries to preach.

Now of course the EIC example is in particular interesting because what you’re basically seeing is the colonial state shedding its reliance on the Christian Church in favor of courting the support of indigenous religious leaders and recruiting them into the colonial apparatus but at the same time you have churches seeking to operate whats can be considered a type of “rival” colonial project that would have an almost parasitic relationship in that the churches profited in their own way while also in a way undermining the local legitimacy of the official colonial state.

[tsireyasyawntu]

oe txe’lan ‘anla nga

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ- tsireya x fem! ometikaya! sully! reader , chapter i.

ᥫ᭡ 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: okay! I’ve re-written so many fics for Tsireya in hopes to make a good series and i hope that this one will settle my need! (reader is lo’ak’s twin sister!<3)

ᥫ᭡ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒: You catch Tsireya’s eye- and from that moment on you are her focus- as the same happens when you see her. Of course love blossoms quickly with the friendly Metkayina, even if you both don’t understand the deeper meaning.

On pandora, love was an important concept. True love; real or not, meant the world to both the na’vi who harbored the feelings and those who bore witness to such. With clan leaders such as the olo'eyktan and tsahìk, their children are more likely to be put into arranged marriage’s.

To you, love wasn’t exactly something you were looking forward to. from a young age, you weren’t being trained to be the future tsahìk by your grandmother, Mo’at, as your sister Kiri has filled that role. You weren’t taking after your father as olo'eyktan, hence you did not spend time becoming a warrior like your brother, Neteyam. You felt as though you and your twin brother, Lo’ak, were being shoved in the middle between the eldest children and the younger child with no responsibilities to fulfill other than watch dog and babysitter. Your life in the forest was not filled with responsibilities to uphold or successes to achieve- and even when the sky people returned and your clan had to retreat to the hidden rocks of the hallelujah mountains- labeled High camp, your job was to watch over Tuk and listen to your grandmother and sister- although Tuk took an interest in Tsahìk medicine and had spent her time away, learning with mo’at and kiri. Lo’ak was still a watch dog, yet this time he was able to leave High Camp to join the war party with your older brother, the two spending much time together. You felt out of place, there was no duty for you to fulfill, and you weren’t raised to talk about who you were to marry like Neteyam and Kiri were.

Love was not a factor you’d thought much about, it was not in your mind- ever. You were too busy staying alive.

but, to young Tsireya, who is to succeed in her mother’s footsteps of becoming tsahìk, being forced to marry someone she did not know nor care for was something she’d hoped to never experience.

to the young tsakarem, love was a beautiful thing. Something special between two people that blossoms in the first few interactions of one another, it was a thing that lasts forever. being an important na’vi mostly gave Tsireya freedom to choose only men from her clan when she came of age if she did not find someone on her own sooner in her life. As the metkayina got older, she slowly discovered that it was not the male’s of the clan that her eyes were drawn to- it was the females. Their beautifully weaved chest pieces, their wonderful long hair, the softness of their eyes and smoothness of their tone- the feeling of a woman’s hand on Tsireya had her heart beating in a nervous, unfamiliar rhythm.

It was not that Tsireya did not find male’s in her clan to be unattractive, it is that the women had pulled her in closer. They’d caught her eyes away from the males and she didn’t know why. Her whole life, her mother and father had told her to find a mate, someone who could provide safety and children for her to bare, to create the next generation of leaders in Awa’atlu after her.

Tsireya could not mate with a woman. Hence, her internal conflict with herself lead to great confusion and irritation in the subject of future affairs. The tsakarem’s parents were due to notice their daughters reluctant attitude towards the subject of marriage, which was labeled as growth of the age and mood swings unlike any other. her parents had little idea of her troubles, and Tsireya couldn’t rely on anyone- not even her older brother, Ao’nung. This left her to swim in her feelings alone, wondering how she was to succeed as Tsahìk and lead a clan without a male by her side as she was raised to the accustomed idea.

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

Tsireya’s day in her home, awa’atlu, had started off relatively normal- the bright planet that lit up pandora showing itself after hours of hiding- village life starting early at the sight of light.

She’d gone for a deep water dive, small pocket on her skirt in hopes to find shells to make jewelry with. But, her plans were ultimately abandoned when the sight of five, unfamiliar flying creatures flew overhead. Tsireya was confused at first by the sudden darkness from below the sea floor, but curiosity came moments after. The young reef girl called an ilu to her stead, sliding on the sea creature and making her way to the shore of her island. As she came from the water, The sight of her people crowding dark blue figures caught her eye.

Awa’atlu’s tsakarem was a curious girl, so Tsireya wasted no time in slipping off her Ilu and making her way over to the scene. The reef girl moved chunks of her curly black hair from a front her face, gently tossing it behind her head while scanning the area- when Her ocean blue’s caught sight of bright green ones already looking her way. She was fascinated by the color- she’d never seen green eyes on someone before. Continuing forward slowly, she adjusted her gaze to fixate on whose eyes they were.

Ocean eyes looked to the face of the alluring, bright greens. They belonged to a forest na’vi girl- and a beautiful one at that. the girls hair was long, half-braided with flower adoring the twirls of hair and hidden places behind her ears and braids as they cascade down her back while two shorter strands encased her face- she wore a short, woven shawl decorated with flowers and vines from the trees of pandora, her hips bore a brightly colored, slanted skirt alongside a brown, leather pouch and plants- and her tail had a flower vine woven around the top.

Tsireya had been so caught up in staring at the Ometikaya, she hadn’t realized her brother and his friend speaking rude words. She quickly divided her attention to the disrespectful boys, slapping the arm of a pointing Metkayina. “Rotxo, Ao’nung.” she needent finish her sentence, her tone being enough to shut down their insults towards the forest people.

Her gaze flickered back to the dark blue skinned girl, finding her already looking in her direction. Something about her eyes was strange, almost as though she could get lost in them just by looking. There was an unfamiliar feeling in her chest as they continued to connect their eyes, a different kind of sensation inside her. Almost alike to a flickering flame, tickling the wall of her heart as her Ocean like eyes stared into forest green ones.

Tsireya’s attention was torn from you when her father flew overhead on a Skimwing, causing you and the others of your family to duck in sight of a rather large animal above you.

the interaction between her father and yours was rather short, until her mother came along. Tsireya knew that her mother was very hard headed, a fierce woman who had no trouble speaking her mind and opinions to whom she found worthy of her voice- so she knew that as Tsahìk, she would be against allowing forest na’vi to stay with them, especially in this time of war.

although there were nasty words and disagreements spewing between the two groups, Tsireya was paying little attention to it all. Her gaze was fixated on you the whole time. Watching you, curiously eyeing you with an unreadable expression. Surely you were to have noticed, right? Tsireya had thought that perhaps she was being too obvious- but, while her blue eyes stare holes into you, you seemed unbothered- focused on what was ahead of you.

The tsakarem’s focused attention was torn when her older brother tagged her arm in motion for her to follow him as the olo'eyktan motioned them over after minutes of conflict between him and ronal.

“My son ao’nung, my daughter tsireya will show your children what to do.” Tsireya was ecstatic about the prospect of teaching you her ways and sharing with you her life- happy to have the opportunity to be an ocean teacher to those who are as unfamiliar with the sea as you, and she had the opposite reaction to the news as her defiant brother, Ao’nung- as he put up protest. “but father, do i have to?-“

“it is decided.” At that queue, Tsireya stepped forward with a wide smile on her face and looked to you, who seemed to be bashful about the situation as she took your hand in hers in welcome, speaking to you and your family. “Come, i will show you our village.”

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

You and your siblings followed the reef girl around the village after she assisted your family in delivering their belongings to the new marui you were granted space with, your mother not very happy about the change.

Tsireya was pointing out many things to you all as you walked in the clear sand, shells poking from the small pellets every now and than. You were quite oblivious to the stares and glances you got from the chiefs daughter, her eyes constantly moving to look at you. She just seemed so friendly youd not noticed her constantly, unmoving gaze.

Your sister had noticed, though. As Kiri noticed many things about the way she looked to you and no one else.

“Come, we shall swim!” her tone was cheerful as she, her brother and the other village boy, Rotxo, dived into the clear water below a marui net. Your brothers followed suit as well- you and your sisters right after.

The water was cold on your skin at first- a chill running through your body for a split moment at the sudden change in temperature before it was normal- your eyes taking a moment to adjust to the underwater view as you followed alongside Lo’ak, who was latching onto you for stability. Even as a twin, he still latched onto you as you did him. You, lo’ak, neteyam and tuk followed after the Metkayina children underneath the water, the view from below the sea line was beautiful.

You watched with amazement as all kinds of small fish and sea animals swam around you all, hundreds of animal variety unlike any you’ve ever seen. The coral of the ocean was rough against your skin as you pushed on it for a boost through the heavy water. You looked down to see tsireya twist to view you, a big smile on her dimpled face as she watched you swim. Lo’ak pointed to them as words to follow them, of to which you did. watching the metkayina swim was like seeing a bird fly, they were such beautiful swimmers, you coming help but admire them. Lo’ak nudged your shoulder and you looked to him momentarily before you both began to swim towards the surface, heads releasing from the seas grasp as you gasp for air.

You stuck your face in the water, eyes looking down and meeting the ones who seem to find solace on you.

Tsireya made unfamiliar motions with her hands, fingers touching and holding up signs you did not understand the meaning to. You gave her a confused look, and she only smiled; using her arm to motion for you to come back and swim with them. sticking your head back up out of the water, you looked to tuk. “ready?” you asked with a small smile, looking to her nodding face as all four of you breathed in heavily once more, diving below the water towards the sea kids.

You swam down alongside tuk, who’d find solace on your arm. The reef kids swam much faster than you and your siblings, who were gliding though the water like feathers in the air. you reached your hand out on yet another set of coral, boosting yourself and tuk off of it- perusing suite after the metkayina. The fish swam around tuk, into her hair and making her giggle underneath the water- small air bubbles leaving her nose and mouth. You smiled at the sight, missing how Tsireya smiled at the sight of you.

Neteyam tapped your shoulder, pointing up to the surface in motion. You nodded, looking to the reef children as Lo’ak gestured for you all to get air as you began to swim towards the surface. the rim of the sea and the air came to view as all four of you swam up, gasping for air. Tuk had let go of your arm, moving to latch onto Neteyam.

Rotxo, Ao’nung and Tsireya had come to surface soon after you all. “are you alright?” Tsireya’s soft voice questioned, looking to you first before scanning your siblings. “you’re too fast, wait for us!” tuk placed a hand on her forehead and you brushed some hair from her eyes.

“just breathe, breathe.” Tsireya replied, and you noticed how she blinked, her nictitating membranes showing before her brother came to surf- “you are not good divers, maybe good at swinging through trees but-”

Tsireya placed a hit to his head, shutting him up. “come on bro,” lo’ak sigh out. “we don’t speak this finger talk,” Neteyam stated, motioned with his own hand. “yeah. we don’t know what you are saying.” You added, Tsireya looking at you in the eye as she replied. “I will teach you.”

“where is kiri?” Rotxo spoke up, looking around. “who?” ao’nung asked, obvious.

“kiri. where is kiri?”

“She is fine.” you replied to his question, “she adapts fast.” You smiled at Tuk when she nodded at your statement.

“We should probably find her.” Neteyam said, looking between all of you. You all dove back into the sea, now looking for your sister.

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

“You must breathe,” Tsireya’s instructions were clear- her left hand on her chest and her right hand on her stomach, breathing in.

“Constrict your throat, so your breath sounds like the surf.”

“Breathe in slowly -- let your mind go clear -- breathe out slowly. imagine flicking a flame.”

you looked to Tsireya’s face, sneaking a peak through your blue eyelids. You were taken aback by her beauty. You’d been unexpressive about how you felt— it was a foreign feeling, after all.

“clearer with each breath. You must slow down your heartbeat. Breathe from down here.” Tsireya almost caught your eye, as you flickered it away quickly from her gaze as she opened her eyes to view you all- your pulse increasing.

Tsireya leant forward- putting a hand on your belly and one to your chest piece. You could’ve sworn you were blushing purple at her touch- looking elsewhere from her eyes.

“Breathe in —” you struggled to follow her instructions as she was so close in proximity, ears flickered up in concentration. “breath from down here,” her fingers pressed softly at your belly, hinting you breath from your stomach. Tsireya’s eyes were focused on your stomach, “breathe out slowly.” you did as instructed, looking down to her face as you exhaled under her command, eyes flickering between the pretty features that rest on her.

“y/n.. your heartbeat is fast.” she softly said, smiling at you. “sorry.” you breathed out a reply quickly, ears flickering downward as you bashfully looked away.

“try to focus.” you nodded your head at her words, looking forward. “breathe in - - and breathe out.” You missed Neteyam and Rotxo’s teasing looks at your interaction with the reef girl, while kiri knew her suspicions were correct and rolled her eyes at the two boys’ silliness.

“let your mind go clear.” You did as told, trying to focus on anything but how close her face was to yours. “Better.” she added, her hands removing themselves from your body slowly, trailing along your skin before she sat upright.

You didn’t know what shade you were, but by the look on Kiri’s face it was not blue. Coughing softly, you awkwardly tried to regain your composure and began to truly focus on your breathing, your seat beside Tsireya becoming one of true learning.

you continuously struggled with learning the Metkayina’s breathing techniques, you aren’t understanding the motions. Tsireya finds it difficult to teach when she has such strange feelings in her chest just as much as you find it difficult to learn from her with your own feelings.

It lead to to be behind the others, all your siblings learning how to hold their breath for minutes and minutes at a time while you were left alone to struggle with your failed technique, no matter how much Tsireya tried her hardest to assist you.

a heavy sigh left your dark blue lips, feet in the warm sand of one of Awa’atlu’s many beach shores. Kiri and tuk had gone off on an Ilu, Neteyam and lo’ak adventured out into the sea as well, and you chose not to go. Moments in silence were rare for members of your family- five kids, two protective adults. Especially as a Twin, lo’ak and yourself were bound by the womb. It isn’t everyday he leaves you, especially not in a new environment such as one surrounded by the ocean.

You’d suspected that the village children had gone with your siblings- but your accusation was shot down when you felt a soft tap of a finger pad on your shoulder. Snapping from your thoughts, you turned on your heal to face who was asking your attention- and was met only inches from the face of the village chiefs daughter. She smiled at you, her dimples were fully on display as you two made eye contact on the sandy shore, and you blinked a few times before smiling back, bashful at her grin.

“why are you not with the others?” she questioned you, her hands resting by her side. You shrugged, “I don’t know. I didn’t wanna go, i guess.” You mumbled, feet slightly digging into the sand. Tsireya’s gaze was one of deep meaning, it was almost as though you were on a strange before a thousand sets of eyes- but in reality, it was one pair that felt like thousands. “I see.” Your hand was torn from behind your back as a turquoise skinned one gripped it, “Come. I will show you something,” You followed after Tsireya as she dragged you along the beach line and into the sea shore forests, look back to you occasionally to be sure you followed after her.

The trees on Awa’atlu were pushed so close together you could almost name them as a small forest- but it didn’t make the category due to the many lines of water flowing through the ground at every turn and corner. You and Tsireya stepped in many shallow water lines on your way to a place you did not know of, but ultimately going with wherever it was she was so determined to take you.

“through here,” Tsireya’s voice was soft, her words so smooth it send a chill down your back. There was a wall of bright purple leaves littered with different shades and flowers, shells by the floor as a small stream of water passed through the wall. Tsireya released your hand, the feeling of her skin being torn off yours left your wrist to feel cold, almost hollow.

You looked back to her for reassurance, making sure you weren’t to make a fool of yourself if you walk through the leaves and into a rock hard wall. Tsireya understood your confusion, smiling while she stepped ahead of you, pushing the leaves out of her way and walking through the unfamiliar entrance to an unknown place. You watched as she disappeared behind the growth, and you nervously followed after, following in her footsteps to push the plants away from your path and stepping into the darkness.

when your hands dropped the leaves that were to entrance, the light of the outside was gone and the tunnel lit up- bioluminescent plants coating the walls, the floor of the natural rock tunnel was filled with half a foot of water, algae and other minerals littered on the ground of to which lit up the pathway. Tsireya smiled at your expression, wonder. “here,” she took your hand in hers, gently pulling you beside her. “I will show you more.” this time, you decided to hesitantly hold her hand as well- nervous she might flick you away- but she didn’t, acting as though she hadn’t noticed your actions as she continued to lead you forward.

Tsireya did notice your actions, and her heart was beating like a caged ilu inside her chest. The Metkayina had decided to take you to the only place on her island that could at least somewhat relate to the forests of pandora, in thought of your home.

another leaf wall came to sight, Tsireya taking you both through the plants as a beautiful sight was revealed- your eyes went wide, mouth agape at the beautiful sight. It was a small forest with close trees, the leaves and ground glowing with bioluminescent plants- water flooding into the floor from the tunnel you both retreated from. The trees were filled with many different kinds of leaves, glowing green sea grass twirling around the bases of the large plants and lighting the blue water a different shade of mixed combinations. The tsakarem watched your reaction like a predator to pray, inching off every twitch and twinkle on your face, every single moment of your skin.

“wow,” you breathed out, unknowingly still holding onto the reef girls hand as you admired the scenery around you. “this is sänrr nà’rìng, the glow forest. it is the closest thing on this island to your home.” Tsireya’s spoke aloud, grinning sweetly at you when you looked her direction. “come, i will show you one more thing.” as she led you down the water filled path of the makeshift forest, the algae highlighting each of your footsteps on your path. The forest was rather small, and you both came upon a small hut. confusion laced your features- a hut in the middle of a hidden forest?

Tsireya noticed your expression, giggling at the silly movements on your face. She released your hand and went into the lonesome marui, you following suit after. You revealed the inside of the hutch by pulling the leather weaved curtains from your view- and your eyes landed on a homey looking loft. Tsireya sat down in a seating pad, motioning for you to do the same beside her as she ruffled through some items that lay in a basket beside her form. You sat down, crossing your legs and brushing some hair from your face, watching her curiously.

over the span of a few minutes, tsireya had pulled out multiple pieces of twine, small beads and charms, some shells and even dried sea grass. You looked perplexed for a few moments before realization clicked, Tsireya handing you a few ornaments. “I will show you how to make jewelry.” Her smile was very big, as though she absolutely adored doing so. You grinned, scooting closer. “I love beading.” You said to her, watching her ears flicker and her eyes snap to you. “Me too. I adore it. I will show you how I do it, is that okay?” She asked you after sharing her love for jewelry as well, and you nodded strongly. “Of course.”

her smile only grew, her nimble fingers beginning to move around the twine as she spoke to you, the calling of the small animals, the light russel of the breeze and twinkle of the water the only sound other than you both listening to one another.

#atwow tsireya #tsireya fluff #tsireya x y/n #tsireya x you #tsireya x fem!reader #tsireya avatar #avatar tsireya #tsireya imagine #tsireya #tsireya x reader #tsireya atwow #avatar the way of water tsireya #avatar the way of water #wlw fanfic #atwow x you #atwow x y/n #atwow fanfiction #atwow x reader #tsireya fanfiction #tsireya x ometikaya! reader #tsireya x sully reader #tsireya x female! reader #sapphic #lesbian #girls like girls #atwow kiri #avatar twow

[crucipuzzled]

About Loid Forger's therapy in SxF manga chapter 77 (Spoilers ahead)

There's a Freudian text for everything. Today's all about The Question of Lay Analysis (1926), also known as Wild Analysis.

Endo did what I have been planning to do for a comic of my own: depict Loid actually working as a Psychiatrist. While I'm glad he took this path, sadly I can't say he did a good job on it.

As some of you know, I'm a therapist grounded in Psychoanalitic Theory. Yes, I like Freud and Lacan, and no, Oedipus Complex is not what you heard it is. I did a brief analysis of Psychiatry stuff in SxF in the past, and today I feel compelled to repeat that exercise.

Let's go in order.

1. The importance of being a third party

What's the reason for which people ask a therapist for help, and not their families or friends? What do we have that they don't?

The answer is pretty simple: neutrality. We don't have a side other than rationality and ethics. A good therapist should be able to listen to his patient without losing objectivity.

When you and your patient have a shared, unique shared experience, it's preferable, even ethical, to refer him to another therapist, in order to preserve the higher interest of the patient. The more neutrality you can muster, the better for the curing process. Otherwise, it's really hard to listen to someone else without being constantly reminded of yourself. It turns into a blind spot.

Now, there are exceptions to this rule, but you must handle them carefully, and always putting the patient at the center. Loid openly talking here about how close he is to the hijacking incident doesn't help much.

In short, you have to ensure that your position in the therapeutic process remains an impartial, neutral Other, and avoid becoming a fellow. It's good to create trust, but not too much, just enough to work.

2. Chronic condition (?)

The biggest difference between a Psychiatrist and a Psychologist is that the first went to Med School. Hence, chronicity is a term that applies mostly for organic conditions, but it's rare in the field of subjectivity.

In my short experience, I've met cases labeled as "chronic depression" being cured. I, myself, cured a case of "compulsive suicide attempts since 15 years old, chronic depression, started hearing evil voices 2 weeks ago". You might think that I'm a great therapist, but it's not the case; it's just that, in order to tackle subjective problems, you ought to go to the root of the symptoms and deal with the subjectivity you find there. Psychoanalitic therapy has proven to be wonderful to treat many conditions that didn't get a cure in other types of psychotherapy.

Of course, it's not a panacea. There are things that we can't figure out yet. But bear in mind that chronicity, in the field of the mind, is more complex than just the passage of time and only a bunch of mental conditions truly admit it.

Jacques Lacan, the most important psychoanalist after Freud, said that the unconscious's track of time is not chronological, but logical. You don't just jump out of adolescence because you turned 18; other things need to happen for you to finally feel like an adult. It's a logical progression. The same can be said about some "chronic" conditions.

3. Explicit Reason of Consultation vs Latent Reason of Consultation

A.K.A Everybody lies.

Psychotherapy is a really weird thing to learn and master. In Psychology School they teach you that you must trust what your patient tells you, but at the same time, distrust him enough. How to conceal both things?

Well, everything is easier when you take Dr. House's words to heart.

Everyone states a reason for consultation, but that first reason is never the real reason, no matter how reasonable it might sound. The trick to discern what the latent, real reason for consultation is, is to determine what the subjective conflict hiding in plain sight is. Sometimes there isn't any and therefore, a full psychotherapy is not necessary (maybe just assisting someone with some things, being there just in case, etc), but most cases are built upon a conflict.

I'm glad that Loid here decided to act like a good Psychiatrist and took a mental note on the oddities.

WELL SAID MY BOY, I'M PROUD OF YOU

I want to remark this, because it's discouraging how many therapists oversee this to simplify their job to an extreme. Believe it or not, there are therapists out there that act upon what their patients tell them first. "Hi doc. I came here today because I got an accident and I think I have PTSD". "Ok, I'll have you practice these mindfulness excercises and you should be ok within a month, see ya". DUDE.

4. The place of truth in the context of Psychotherapy

Ah, the classic temptation of knowing the 'real' truth. Is this patient in front of me bullshitting his way out? Is he in a delirium? Is she telling the truth, or just embellishing her story to make it more believable?

You don't have this struggle once you are certain of your role as a psychotherapist. And your role is to help your patients to deal with their subjective struggles.

In short: Psychoterapy deals with the patient's truth, not with the 'real' truth.

You know who deals with 'real' truth in the field of Mental Health? Social Workers.

We psychotherapists don't need to ascertain our patient's claims. Confronting them with reality usually proves to be fruitless, just like Loid did here ("But you're a respected educator!"). It's way more useful to open the topic by asking more questions such as "How did you reach that conclussion?" "What made you think that way?", or giving a specular answer ("You speak like someone else said that about you", "You're too hard with yourself. Where does that come from?", "It sounds like you're belittling your fear for what your wife could say", etc etc etc).

Whenever you're with a neurotic patient, their own personal truth is the only truth you need to work with. Leave the 'real' truth for people who actually needs it, like Social Workers, Doctors or Judges. Your role with a patient is to make sure that his personal truth can turn into something less painful. No need to talk with their friends and family for info, unless your patient is a child or a teenager; just ask him and stick to what he says word by word.

There's a huge topic about the place of reality in therapy, specially in the field of Psychoanalysis, but if I start this train of thought I'm afraid I'll go down to Hell. If you're interested, I've reblogged some Lacanian pills on this Tumblr, check them out by searching the tag #lacan.

PS: NO LOID, DON'T DO THAT. DON'T BREAK THE TRUST YOU ACHIEVED WITH MR AUSTIN! CONFIDENTIALITY IS A MUST!!

5. Counceling = Psychotherapy?

Loid is a (fake) Psychiatrist, not a psychotherapist, so I can't be too hard on him. Also I stan this man. I'm painfully well aware that councelling and coaching is an alternative to psychotherapy in other parts of the world, mostly in the US. But let's not forget one thing:

Psychotherapists DON'T GIVE ADVICES.

At least, not the ones that take this job seriously.

Everyone can give advices. Do you want an advice? Ask your family or friends, or post something in social media, or ask a complete stranger in the street what to do. You'll get plenty of answers and advices. Maybe a bunch of them will be really useful. Good!

The thing with advices is that: -They act like a universal recipe for a problem -There's no universal recipe to sort a problem -They don't tackle the subjective root of a problem -They assume that the problem can be solved by something you can do upon your surroundings, when the real struggle stems from subjective problems Some advices do help with real struggles, but when you have a subjective conflict, they barely help; hell, sometimes they make everything worse.

Like Loid here.

Remember when I mentioned that the unconscious mind's track of time is not chronological, but logical? This is a great example. Mr Austin won't be able to properly talk with his wife just because Loid adviced him to; he must solve other issues before that.

I'm glad we're on the same page on this one

6. Your therapist is not your friend

Sad but true.

If your therapist is good enough, you won't know many things about his private life. You won't know about his lover, his hobbies, where does he live, what does he fear.

Why the secretism? Because it's useless for the patient. Also because disclosing personal information has the effect of becoming a model for the patient, who would start to imitate you. And finally, because you need to mantain a semblance of neutrality and not getting emotionally close with the patient more than necessary.

PS: It's kinda cute how aware Loid is about Yor's every movement. Kinda. KISS HER ALREADY, GODDAMNIT

7. Talking cure and (how not to use) the divan

I talked a bit about divans here.

There, I mentioned that you should NEVER PUT A PSYCHOTIC PATIENT IN A DIVAN. NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE. Well, we can amplify this rule a bit and say that you should avoid the divan with any patient that has a risk of getting seriously upset, like in severe trauma.

The divan is not the only thing that could play against you if badly used. There are cases in Psychiatric Hospitals of patients getting upset because their therapists used the same clothes and hairstyle every single day for months. The point here is that, with psychotic patients and fragile psychic structures (like what happens in traumatized people), you can't use methods that require too much projection.

Also, Lottie here is not performing a Talking Cure.

The divan has been used since Freud to facilitate transference through the Free Association Method. You lay down on it and your therapist ask for whatever crosses your mind first. You don't put a content there beforehand.

(On the same line, if you're a therapist, please refrain from decorating your consultation room with motivational phrases. You're putting words in your patient's mouth before he even starts to speak)

So, it's useless to make Mr Austin lay down on a divan, only to ask him to remember a specific memory. I'd advice (Ha! The irony!) against using the divan here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To finish my Two Cents, I'd like to point some positive aspects of this chapter. It's nice that a troubled person decides to seek for help. There's still a huge stigma about men requiring mental health help, and it's a nice example to settle to portray one actually going to a Psychiatrist. Men usually struggle with their problems alone and they have it rough.

It's also nice that, in the end, Loid could help his patient. I wonder how (How?!), but it probably means that, at some point of the process, he changed his methods for the better.

And yes. Sometimes, helping one single person can change many lives. I'm honored to be able to attest to that :D

As everyone, I'd expect the logical sucession of events that could follow this chapter: Loid realizing he's got a heck of a wife compared to other marriages, appreciating Yor more, and giving us heavy smut cute TwiYor moments. But Endo has proven to be an author that doesn't like to follow logic. So, let's brace for whatever will come in two weeks.

Thank you for reading!

#spy x family #loid forger #psychiatry #psychoanalysis #sigmund freud #jacques lacan #psychotherapy #spy x family manga #sxf

[anthurak]

I have a theory on why Bee looks like a fox: foxes break into chicken coops to eat chickens, and Bee mentioned breaking into Belphagor’s stash of drugs often. This got me thinking of the other sins (assuming they’re fallen angels). What if each of their forms, like sinner demons, are a derogatory reflection of their sins? Bee is a fox, an animal known to cause trouble over hunger. Ozzie being a rooster because on farms roosters are kept around solely to impregnate hens. Mammon (someone else pointed this out) being a spider, trapping things in his web and sucking them dry. I dunno about Satan or Belphagor yet, but I think Lucifer still looks like an angel to remind him of what he once was and what he’ll never be again.

Oh yeah, I've had very similar thoughts to that for a while now.

If the Sins are actually fallen angels, and in fact are the 'first sinners', the first to commit some 'great crime' against heaven and be banished for it (or rather, the 'Original Sins' perhaps?), it makes total sense that their forms are meant to be a punishment reflecting their 'crime'.

And I think it's very much worth noting that these 'crimes' were almost certainly pretty minor shit these seven did and got basically scapegoated by heaven for stepping out of line. Like Bee was just 'enjoying things' and got labeled 'Sin of Gluttony', Ozzie just 'liked having sex' and got labeled 'Sin of Lust', Mammon liked collecting things and got labeled 'Sin of Greed' and Lucifer spoke out against some decision (maybe even the punishment of the other six?) and got labeled 'Sin of Pride'.

Of course, all of them flipped this by basically owning and embracing this 'punishment' by turning it into their lifestyle and celebrating it. Though some doing so in a healthy manner (Ozzie and Bee) while others aren't (Mammon). Hence my theory that their expressions of their respective 'sins' represent a metaphorical or even LITERAL trauma coping mechanism.

Also, funny side note I just thought of:

What if that 'punishment' is the reason Lucifer is so short? XD

#helluva boss #hazbin hotel #helluva ask #hazbin ask #anon ask #helluva asmodeus #helluva beelzebub #helluva mammon #lucifer morningstar #helluva sins #hazbin sins

[drdemonprince]

I just got your piece The Asexual Fetishist in my inbox and wanted to send you a quick thank you for breaking my brain open with that one. I've spent years trying to square my desire for novel sexual experiences/specific kink related interests with not actually being sexually attracted to other people. I've consumed a lot of content by asexuals about kink and the like but having someone actually explain their experience with their fetish and its impact on their sexual life has never popped up in my perusing. I've had a lot of hang ups about the asexual label so I haven't dug too deep. This has definitely inspired me do more than a cursory exploration and I will definitely be giving Ana Valens work a read. Thanks again!

yeahhhh!!!! I love to hear it, thank you. Ana Valens' writing is GREAT and seeing her, a very outspoken and proud perv and accused "degenerate" claim the asexual label made me feel better about revisiting it, too. Others land on a different way of describing themselves -- Cosima Bimbotheory for example says that while in contemporary parlance she qualifies as ace spectrum / demisexual, she instead identifies more with leathersex, because the leather community has always made space for boundary-breaking ways of achieving intimacy, and has always included people who have sex without "having sex." I don't think these views are incompatible, hence my inclusion of vintage leather exhibitionist porn That Boy in my essay as an example of what Valens calls Ace Erotics.

I got my start as a queer kid on the asexuality forums of the early 2000s -- before I had the language of being autistic or trans or unempathic, ace spaces were the only community where I could easily express feeling outside and beyond what normal human beings were expected to feel. And so I still find I have a home there.

I think asexuality gets clowned on far too much -- there is this annoying tendency to equate people having bad opinions or doing annoying shit with their identities, and so aces get written off as sex-shamey scolds and enbies get characterized as anti medical transition and all other kinds of dumb shit like that, often from people who should know better. im here to say you can be an asexual free use hole and that is actually not confusing at all if a person actually considers what asexual means.

heres the link to the essay, for the curious

[symbioticfic]

Producing Pleasure: Prologue

(Main story of Idol Alternate Universe)

Tags: Original Characters, no smut, just a teaser, an intro to the world

This is an alternate universe. Some events may differ from real life.

Thanks to @twice-inamillion The Company series for making me revive this idea from the drafts. Check out their awesome work on their blog.

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

“What?!”

“I said, I want you to produce our new girl group.” Mrs. Kwon repeats herself. You rub your face in disbelief, hoping your CEO is joking.

“With all due respect Ma’am, I’m already a leader of a group and you put me in charge to become our group creative director. That’s quite a lot. Why not choose Eunji or Keenan for the job?” you plead your case. All your focus is for your co-ed group, Twelve Six, along with Eunji and Keenan. With being creative director for your group and sometimes groups under your label, you don't want more stuff in your hand.

“Well, Eunji is also helping out as a composer for Phoenix. And Keenan is broadening our A&R connections. We may be an up and coming label in this industry, but we are still short staffed.” Slumping back to your chair, gears in your brain are working hard to find a way out of this.

“Then why don’t you hire someone who has experience doing this kind of stuff? I know you have the money to find one. If the three of us are spread thin like this, when are we going to make music?”

Mrs. Kwon always says that the three of you were geniuses and is the reason why OTB is the rising star of companies in Kpop. Take Shamrock for example. A thirteen member boy group and the first idol group under OTB. You recommended a talented Japanese street dancer that you used to battle and Keenan found a genius kid producer online. Both of them become important members of Shamrock. As for Eunji, she trained OTB’s first GG, Phoenix in vocals. With her and her sister, they composed and produced music for the five member group, resulting in them competing in the Red Sea of girl groups right now. Also not to mention, your group Twelve Six. Your group’s music is able to breakthrough the public listeners. Decades after the last big co-ed group, finally Twelve Six changed that. Now, Korea sees Twelve Six as “Music for the people” because of your group penmanship and music move and touch many people's souls, not just in Korea but also the world.

“Because I trust you and I see potential in you to be a great producer.” there she goes again, putting huge faith in you. Ever since joining your label, Out of The Box (OTB) Studios, you have been one of her favourites. As an experience street dancer and performer, also having a brain being a portal to fantasy world says Mrs. Kwon, she has pushed you to the limits. She even goes as far as creating you a co-ed group with her youngest daughter Kwon Eunji and a Korean American rapper named Keenan Shin. The three of you were born on the same day and year, the twelfth of June, hence the name Twelve Six comes from.

With all the money in the world and full trust on you, Mrs. Kwon will do anything to help you to become one of the greatest artists in K-pop. But you doubt your ability if you are given another responsibility.

“Listen, Choi Sesang.” you sit up straight as your CEO calls you by full government, “Just please look into this file and consider it.” a brown file is presented in front of you. Reluctantly, you take it and open it. The first name on the paper almost made you jump out of your seat. You flip through the pages and surprisingly most of the names are familiar to you.

“Ma’am, there are-”

“Yes, they were idols. Some had troubles with their past companies and ended their contracts, and some I bought them out of their contracts.” bloody hell this rich woman. Her way of using money to get what she thinks is the best for the company still baffles you even after years knowing her, “They deserve a second chance and I know you’re up for the job. And rumour has it, you have your ways with girls.” she gives you a teasing look.

“Your daughter really has a nasty mouth, you know that?” Mrs. Kwon laughs at you cursing her youngest daughter.

“I don’t care if what Eunji implied was the truth or not. But I do have my own eyes.” she says after calming herself, “Your relationship with the Phoenix girls is admirable. They see you as a brotherly figure and a safe space to talk to. Those girls are strong minded and some are hard to get through, but you easily befriend the girls. That is enough for me to know you’re the right person for this project.” you look down to the file in your hand, taking in all what Mrs. Kwon says. A heavy sigh escapes your lips.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Splendid!” she claps her hand in joy, “Also, there is one thing I need to tell you.”

Here you go, the catch in all of this, “Doing this job means you have got out of your way to get the job done. I know you are a good kid and have been staying clean until now. But sorry to say son, you have to get your hands dirty with this one. It's part of the industry, the system. No matter how long you try to avoid it, your time will come.”

Saying those words with a beaming smile so easily creeps you off. Well, a CEO of a K-pop company is not exactly the most morally right person in the world. Mrs. Kwon has always been brutal when it comes to business and you are led into one of her traps. Situations like this remind you where Eunji gets her nasty personality from.

Defeated, you know there’s no way out of this. Your fate has been sealed by the devil. Already, you try to drown your mind to come to terms with this twisted system. With heavy heart, you look straight at Mrs. Kwon. You can see insanity behind her eyes.

“So… do the job by any means necessary?”

“Correct! There you go, already getting a hang of it.” it’s supposed to be a laugh of joy for Mrs. Kwon, but it feels like she’s laughing at you. Soon enough, you will be playing with people's lives just like her.

“The girls will be coming in next week. Prepare yourself, mind and body. I have a feeling you will like them.” with a smirk, she leaves the room. You groan as you throw yourself back into the chair. The dreaded day is near. By next week you will become one of those industry scumbags. You love performing and singing, but you despise the industry. Being in it long enough to know stuff. The girl that you will be working with surely also knows a thing or two.

Thinking about your doomed future only makes you mad at yourself. Feeling suffocated, you pack your stuff and go home, not before leaving a text in the group chat.

Chat Room

Three silly peas in a pot

You

@Enzy your mother is a fucking witch

Enzy

WHAT THE FUCK?!

I mean you’re not wrong

But still…

WHAT THE FUCK?!

THAT’S MY MUM YOU PRICK!

K.S.

LOL 😂

Dorms now

I need this juicy story 👹

_ _ _ _ _

Three days since you operate as the main producer for OTB’s new girl group. You’ve met with the company staff and instructors over the week to discuss the training program. These three days have been orientation and waiting for the rest of the girls to join the company. Today is the day where they all finally present and training will begin to ramp up.

You arrive at the company at eight. Not wanting any problem, you do a morning check up every day just to make sure. After doing that, you take a sip of your black coffee while looking through the girl's profile again. You seriously can not wrap your head around the names on the list. Mrs. Kwon really is a crazy businesswoman for getting these girls to become trainees again in your company.

“Damn they’re hot.” startled, you almost spilled your hot coffee onto the papers. You look back to see Keenan peeking over your shoulder. His curly dark brown hair really needs a cut. It almost pokes your eye.

“Could you not sneak up on me like that?”

“You’re the one who’s busy staring at these profiles.”

“Hey!” he takes a seat next to you and slides the file over to him. You let him be, as you need a break from reading those papers over and over again.

“Still can’t believe they are trainees here.” Keenan says.

“Me too.”

“Mrs. Kwon is one damn good negotiator.”

“You can say that again. It’s like a person playing DnD and always rolls Nat 20 on persuasion.” Keenan laughs at your cheeky joke.

“Yeah… so, which one you gonna fuck first?”

“I- what?! Bro, shut up.” you punch his arm only for him to laugh even more.

“Come on, seriously bro. There are some hot chicks right here. If I were you, I would try every single one of them.”

“But I’m not you dumbass. I’m not some guy who will fuck every girl he sees.”

“Not yet.”

“Fuck off.” Keenan's laugh now turns hysterical. He’s always been like this. Being from Brooklyn makes him more frontal than your average Korean. He’s been teasing you since both of you met. With your ability in speaking English, you bonded easily with him. You also help him get accustomed with his homeland culture. But it seems you can’t take Brooklyn out of Keenan.

You take back your file from Keenan and walk off, “Ay! Where are you going?”

“Training is almost starting! I’m needed in the dance room!” you shout back at him.

“Okay then! Tell me if you score on one of them!” you don’t look back and flip him off. You can hear Keenan laugh fading as you walk further away from him.

The dance room for trainees is in the basement. Everything related to the trainees are in the basement. Only the ones who debut are the only ones who can experience the freedom of the city view from the artist dance room upstairs. For the trainees, the dark and damp basement is their prison. Some even will never see the day of light from the dungeon. Sound of blaring music can be heard at the end of the hallway. The girls may be stretching right now.

Other than being the main producer for the group, Mrs. Kwon also personally assigned you to be one of the dance instructors. Talk about a burden. It’s not the first time you are teaching a class. During trainee days, you already helped to train the fellow members of Shamrock and Phoenix. It’s just for a few sessions because Shamrock have a capable and experienced dance line and for Phoenix they are natural performers. Not the same can be said for this group. Maybe one or two names stood out, but they are nowhere near the talent as your fellow labelmates when they first join the company. And your part is to train them to be on par to standards.

Standing before the dance room door, you take a deep breath before twisting the door handle. The sound of your arrival alerts the girls. Quickly, they line up in a line with one of them scrambling to turn off the music before joining the line.

“Good morning PD-nim.” they greet you in unison.

“Good morning. At ease.” you say that, but they are clearly tense. Fifteen girls standing in front of you. You recognize their faces with a few unfamiliar ones. Some of these girls had a respectable career as idols. They are without a group due to them being in a project group making their contract length shorter than normal or suing their way out of their contract because of how stupid their company was. Some were in a group that disbanded. Others are trainees from different companies. Now, here they are starting from zero once more.

Knowing you have to keep professionalism, you close your eyes and take a deep breath. Starting today, you will have these girls' fate on strings. Toying with their dreams, giving them false hope. Just like Mrs. Kwon you thought. You open your eyes and give them a big smile.

This is when you notice Mrs. Kwon foul tricks, attacking your weakness: boobs. Most of these girls have sizeable to huge tits. You felt your cock twitch at the sight of the girls wearing tight sports bras, pushing their boobs together. One of them has a big enough bust, it outlines her baggy shirt.

“My name is Choi Sesang. For those who don’t know, I will be the main producer for this debut project as well as your dance instructor. Pleasure to finally meet you all.”

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

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Like I said on the top, this was an idea that was collecting dust in my google docs. @twice-inamillion The Company series really got me thinking about this idea again.

I already have a few names for the girls: Chaehyun, Natty, Hyeju, and Xiaoting so far, with the first three already having a rough idea for it.

Recommendations for idol names are gladly accepted with the general prompt of the story would be helpful also.

I know I said a Pokémon story is on its way but that's on hold for now. I have struggles for the smut scene of that story. Wait a little more.

See you next time 😄

#kpop smut #smut #original character #kpop au #kpop girls #hyejoo smut #chaehyun smut #xiaoting smut #natty smut

[sleeplesssmoll]

Reverse1999 Lore Bible

A reference sheet for Reverse1999. This is a work in progress (format is scuffed as always but I tried 😮‍💨). All information is subject to change as the story unfolds. If anything thing looks off, let me know and I'll get on it right away! Would not want to spread misinformation. That being said, this is a long post with spoilers for global release.

The Storm

The Storm is a widespread disaster first observed in 1999. It marked the end of an era and is the catalyst for the main story.

Humans will suffer “Storm Syndrome” as the Storm draws near. The Symptoms of Storm Syndrome and the mutations around the Storm depend on the era. However, arcanists are protected from Storm Syndrome thanks to their arcanum. Arcansist are able to perceive the changes in the world brought by the Storm but are not immune to reversal, the true horror of the Storm.

“Raindrops” emerge from the ground and rise into the sky along with everything around them once the Storm arrives. They phase through matter. Time reverses into a previous era while everything caught in the Storm disappears. Exceptions to this rule are the St. Pavlov Foundation, Manus Vindictae, and the Timekeeper (I've heard about others but this is strictly global release).

The Foundation's rules state that personnel can turn the Timekeeper for guidance 24 hours before the Storm (in prologue).

Races

Arcanists: A race that contains a unique cell colony allowing them to perform arcane skills (magic, divination, alchemy, etc.). They do not follow reasoning like mankind and instead practice Gnosis. There are two defining features of Gnosis:

1. It can't be verified by an independent 3rd party.

2. It’s impossible to comprehend through reasoning.

Because of this, arcanists are labeled as unpredictable and dangerous by humanity. There is a long history of humans associating arcanum with demons, evil, and witches. Arcanists are also more sensitive to emotions and resistant to potions. Pure-blooded arcanists are stronger than mixed-bloods.

Humans: Humans are the majority in Reverse1999. They follow logic and reason as opposed to Gnosis. Many look down on arcanists and consider them sub-human. However, because of the Storm their technologies and progress are being erased while arcanum flourishes. Humans are vulnerable to insanity because of their logic aligned mindset. When faced with something they cannot comprehend, they can lose their minds.

Groups and Factions

St. Pavlov Foundation (The Foundation): A public institution dedicated to the study of arcanum and the indoctrination of arcanists. They seek children with arcane talents from around the world. They say they strive for peace between arcanists and humanity but peace is not the same as equality. All training and scientific provided appliances by St. Pavlov is to overcome the instability of arcane skills in order to ensure the peace and stability of the human world (Chapter 3-1). In other words, the Foundation is training obedient dogs (hence Pavlolv) to die as martyrs for the sake of humanity. This allows humanity to benefit off of arcanum skills without worry of an uprising from the arcanists kept on the Foundation’s leash. Below is a quote from the game:

“The St. Pavlov Foundation is currently the largest public and official organization which houses arcanists. The foundation has invested a great deal of effort in the protection and supervision of unique children. They are constantly sending manpower all over the world to seek out children with a talent for arcanum. It does not matter where the children are or whether they wish to come along. The children who have been taken in will develop their abilities through rigorous training and eventually take over this seemingly endless mission for the peace of mankind.”

The Foundation’s buildings are immune to the Storm. Both humans and arcanists are safe within its walls.

Manus Vindictae: A terrorist organization that believes in Arcanist Supremacy. They recruit arcanists to fight against humanity and utilize the chaos caused by the Storm to further their agenda. They are the Foundation's biggest enemy and they are still growing. They also know how to manipulate the Storm and can accelerate its arrival.

They rewrite history while the world reverses. This means that they mess with historical events established in the "orginal" timeline. The Valentines day massacre is an example of this. Arcansists were supposed to be killed, but Schneider rescued them and killed human in their stead, thus rewriting history. The Wallstreet crash also happend months earlier than in the orginal timeline.

Here is a quote from Ch 2 of the game:

“Manus Vindictae is an infamous extremist organization. Holding a grudge against humans and contempt for the mixed, these extreme racists only recognize the bodies ruled by arcanist's blood as "mankind." They believe they have the ability and power to change everything. They are dedicated to building a so-called proper world where arcanists will stand neck and neck with gods and enjoy the status they believe they deserve. In that case, humans, arcanists on the human side, and the mixed who tolerate the pollution of arcanist's blood will pay a huge price for their existence.There is no doubt they are lunatics. One of the two reasons for their madness is their brains: they have a strange prefrontal cortex or some unknown neurons; the other reason is hatred: in those dark ages, arcanists were discriminated against, expelled, marginalized, and even slaughtered. The tragedies that happen every day on the fringes of society breed their revenge and keep strengthening this army of darkness. Now they have come onto the stage. What they want is power, freedom, the one and only supreme status, and an overthrown world.”

Manus Vindictae gives their followers Masks claiming it will keep them safe from the Storm. However, a conversation between two followers in Chapter 2-8 Popular Literature reveals this is not the full picture. The Mask does not guarantee their safety and only in the “Sanctuary” are they protected from the Storm’s influence. One of the followers then turns into a monster that can no longer be reasoned with while the other flees (we may have more insight into this later). Keep in mind Manus also likes to feed us false information and must be observed with a critical eye.

Laplace Rehabilitation Center: Laplace provides therapy to arcanists. Patients with stress disorders must retrieve treatment in the rehabilitation center. One of these treatments is artificial somnambulism where dreams are used to treat trauma and find the source of it. Psychubes are used in these dream treatments. Mesmer Jr. works in this department, following in her family's footsteps. She is the one who “treats” Vertin for Type II trauma.

Scientific Computing Research Center: The only branch of Laplace affiliated with Foundation. They are focused on making advancements in technology.

Institution Lorenz: This is the organization X invited Regulus to join. This description comes from Ch 1: A letter with Black Mucus: Founded after the "Storm," Institutum Lorentz is a mysterious organization hidden within but independent of the Laplace Scientific Computing Center. Its primary area of research is the chaos energy of Arcanum. Its members distrust the tech of human civilization and would rather discard them. They're active in various sites of arcane phenomena, secretly searching for the "Original Butterfly." While all of its members' whereabouts remain unknown, Lorentz still has branches all over the world. Our vanguard squad has fought their investigators several times, yet we still haven't found a way into any of their branches."

The House of Integratus: the committee in charge of lawmaking, not just in the Foundation, but in global society. Any affairs related to the human- arcanist relationship will be brought to their table. Delegates of the House of the Integratus are elected to take responsibility for their constituencies. They submit countless proposals to the committee every year. Then the committee will choose one lucky proposal and send it to the next step: all the committee members would gather to debate and vote for the proposal (Ch 4-8 A Ride on the Toboggan).

#reverse 1999 #reverse 1999 lore bible #i hope i can find this later #updated dec 16 23

[kanmom51]

Letter - the lyrics that didn't make it

The draft lyrics that didn't make the final cut.

Who hugged me tightly

Only you who Protected me

Who only protected me

Who held my hand

Who held my hand tightly

You who reached out me

who held out your hand to me

Who held out his hand

To you who looked at me greatly

Funny thing.

I had this one open on my laptop, I was sure I posted this, but hadn't (?), and good thing I hadn't yet.

Because since I put this together I came by @minggukieology 's post. I think that she explains just how important the wording here is and just how intimate JM's words in this draft were.

This part especially hits hard:

As we've all seen today once more (with the Face playlist) JM is very very calculated in the sense that he puts thought into everything he expresses artistically. Like Philip Johnson's piece was not there by mistake or randomly placed, so was his use of that word in that context.

The one and only...

Kind of hard for me to get that one out of my head.

But he didn't use those words in the final lyrics because of just how obvious it would be.

K-JKKs are not conflicted here. They don't see this as a letter to army at all.

Knowing language and cultural context is super important. It's also important to understand said context and not utilize it half way to suit a certain theory or narrative you want to put in place.

The name of the song is Letter, not Letters.

Addressed to either Army or JK, can't have it both ways. Either or.

And if we are listening to Karmy, why listen half way? Listen to them all the way.

They know who this letter is addressed to.

They said it perfectly:

It's a letter for JK (a hidden song for a hidden couple), hence JK joining JM in the song too, but it's disguised as a song for Army.

Plausible deniability.

Or has it been such a long time since we've had JM and JK in one frame that we forgot about that one. You know, even when stretching the boundaries doing it in a way that can always allow falling back on a more or less plausible explanation or excuse.

JM is the mastermind in knowing just how far to stretch the boundaries. And with Face and Letter he's stretched them real real far, like rubber band can snap in a second far. Funny how still such a big part of the fandom are unwilling to see his message, his queer coding. At this point I think that even if that rubber band tears/breaks I-army will be standing there holding on to both ends to make sure it doesn't fall apart.

JM and JK are lovers.

JM and JK are intimate.

JM and JK are and have been in a long term love/romantic relationship for years now. In my books, for over 7 years now.

I kind of don't understand those that are unwilling to accept that. Take that extra step from "great friends" to life partners, at this stage.

"Great friends", as close as they may be, don't suck on each other's ears, don't give each other hickey's, don't tattoo the other's name on their hand (if a friend does that, well they need to look real deep inside themselves and understand that it's way more than friendship they are feeling). There are so many other behaviours we see with these two, towards each other and towards others that are clear proof they are not just "great friends". Why is it so hard for some to take that leap? Is it the fear of labeling? These two can't say it out loud. They just can't. Closeted queer couple in SK. Two mega stars months away from enlisting into military service. But with that they have sent us every single possible clue telling us they are queer and a couple. They want those that will accept and support them to see THEM.

Guys, what was TTU Seoul 2019 all about if not their defiance and telling us they are together and want us to love them, accept them?

I digress, I know.

Point being, they are together, a couple, for years, and Letter, it's JM's song for JK, you know, the one he told us in 2016 that he would write to the person he loved. His forever person.

#Jimin #JM #PJM1 #JM Face #JM Letter #JM Letter draft lyrics

[uroboros-if]

ChoiceScript Savepoint System Very Quickly

Hey guys,

@hpowellsmith made a great template for save points! It requires you to create another variable for every variable you have in your ChoiceScript game, so that it can store the old values to essentially "save"! This won't rely on third-party saving systems but is rather hard-coded into the game itself.

I realize that it can be a daunting task to create a whole other set of variables, especially if you already have many, many of them. (Looking at TSS' code, there are thousands!)

But I propose two super quick ways to automatically create all the variables you need for save points.

Find and replace.

Copy all your *create variables

Paste it into a Google Docs

On, PC, Ctrl+H to open up the dialog box for Find and Replace (link on how to find and replace on different platforms)

Search for "*create " (space included at the end) and replace it with *create save_

Hit "Replace All" and there you have your duplicated variables to paste into your startup (do so without replacing any of your old variables).

Bonus: you can instead replace it with *create save1_ , *create save2_ , etc. to have multiple save slots.

You can create all your needed variables in startup quickly with this, but there is still the issue of having to *set the variables to the new variables (when you're saving) or vice versa (when loading).

Hence the other way:

Save System Generator

I also made a program where, if you copy and paste all of your *create variables, it will automatically:

Give you code to put in your startup (the duplicated save variables)

Give you code that you use to save.

Give you code that you use to load.

I recommend you do it the way Hannah PS does in their template by calling a *gosub_scene.

Here are the step by step instructions on how to do this:

1. Prepare your *create variables. To clarify, you will only put in *create stuff into the program. Copy from your very first *create to your very last *create (the variables you want to save at least). Do not add any comments or additional code that is NOT *create. Do not have any additional spaces at the end (line breaks in between *create should be fine, but be more aware for potential errors).

2. Create a .txt file. In Hannah's template, the file is called "savegame.txt". You will want to make a *label save and a *label load that each *return (as depicted above).

3. Load up the program. Here is the link.

4. Pasting in your code. Paste in your code and immediately after your last *create, press enter, press $, and press enter again.

Note 1: You cannot use Ctrl+V or shortcut keys to paste in the code. You have to right click and paste it. Do not do this on mobile.

Note 2: You might want to do this in segments, as the program might have difficulty parsing through it, and you will more easily find errors in case they happen. Maybe every 30-50 variables to keep them bite-sized. I've tested inputting up to 70 unique variables to success.

5. Startup variables. After reading your input, it will give you code that you then have to add to your startup. Copy it by highlighting and right-clicking on it (do not use shortcut keys or do this on mobile).

6. Save. If you press S and enter, it will give you the code that you need to put in your savegame.txt under your *label save .

7, Load. If you press L and enter, it will give you the code you need to put in your savegame.txt under your *label load .

8. Using it. As in the template, you'll want to call on this with a *gosub_scene savegame load (if you want to load) or *gosub_scene savegame save (if you want to save).

And that's it! Please let me know if the program works incorrectly! 💕💕

#choicescript #choicescript resources #cs coding resources #choicescript coding resources #choicescript saving #choicescript save system

[emilybeemartin]

Inktober Days 16-18

Day 16: Angel

The story goes that a Methodist minister visiting Zion in 1916 saw this soaring, narrow slice of a peak and remarked that only angels could land there. Nowadays Angel’s Landing sees millions of ordinary angels attempting to reach the summit every year, and the photos of crammed conga lines hiking up and down are famous even outside the NPS. For those in park management, it’s become a symbol of the delicate balance we’re tasked to maintain—our dual mandate to preserve these lands unimpaired for future generations while allowing open access for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. Preservation and recreation. How to provide both? Sometimes it feels like a conundrum of Biblical proportions.

Day 17: Demon

Demons, devils, monsters, vermin—the wolves of North America have been given many labels in the centuries after European colonization. Trapped, hunted, and poisoned to near extinction in most places, they’ve been removed for so long that in many cases we don’t know what a healthy ecosystem is supposed to look like with them in it. The most famous example of wolf reintroduction is in Yellowstone, but in some parks, like North Cascades and Glacier, wolves weren’t reintroduced by humans. Because these parks are connected to larger tracts of wilderness, wolves merely slipped back in when our backs were turned, taking up the old niche they’d been filling for ten thousand years. Now we lucky few have a chance to spy one of these shy predators in the wild, see their tracks in the soil, or hear their mournful song.

Day 18: Saddle

Every Inktober, on my birthday, I draw myself in the prompt, usually as a witch. This year I’m back in the green and gray, and while I don’t actually patrol on horseback, this prompt gives a great nod to the Sermon on the Mount, a famous tidbit from Yellowstone’s history. Back when the park took a much different approach to wildlife management, one of the most popular things for visitors to do was attend a bear feeding program. Each night, rangers would dump the food waste from the hotel restaurants in an open garbage pit and the grizzly bears, which had learned what time to expect this each night, would swarm over the leftovers. The audience would sit in an amphitheater separated from the garbage pit by a protective ditch, and a ranger would sit astride a horse to tell the visitors all about the bears of Yellowstone. Hence, the “sermon on the mount.” The NPS has changed a lot since those days, and not just because feeding wildlife is now recognized as dangerous and damaging to man and beast. The attitude toward park programs has changed, as well. Interpreters now realize that it’s not enough to just spit facts at an audience. We’re charged with firing imaginations, provoking critical thinking, and stirring emotions to facilitate meaningful connections between the visitor and the resource. This role is what drives my love for this field. If I can inspire a visitor to explore more on their own, be curious about something new, or care more about a park's protection—that’s it. I’ve done something worthwhile.

#birthday ranger! #inktober #31 days of national parks #zion #north cascades #park ranger