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let-them-read-fics · 1 year

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Dreamcatcher Reaction To Having A Really Affectionate S/O

Pairing: Dreamcatcher x GN!Reader

Requested By Anon: "hii can i request dreamcatcher reacting to having a really affectionate s/o (their love language is physical touch)?"

A/N: Hello hello, my lovely readers! I'm back again with some Dreamcatcher fluff, just for you. I hope you like all of these! Don't forget to like, comment, and reblog; it keeps me motivated :)

Info: Each member has a reaction, a story snippet / oneshot, and their love languages ranked. It's loooong, so enjoy!

Jiu

Adores it. She’s mentioned before that she feels the safest when she’s in your arms, so it’s really a no-brainer that she’s happiest whenever you’re loving on her

Just as much as she loves to take care of you and the girls, she secretly loves to get taken care of, too

Especially by you

You just know all the right ways to hold her and help her relax. Your back rubs are elite, according to her. She lowkey thinks you were a professional masseuse in your past life

You’re her personal heater

And pillow

On particularly rough days, she’ll just fall into your waiting arms and let you work your magic. She vents about her stressors, gradually releasing all of the pent-up tension that she’d been unable to get rid of on her own, until her complaints eventually subside and dissolve into quiet, sulky mumbles as she teeters on the edge of sleep

When you see her so cuddly and relaxed like that, you just…*heart clutch*

Likewise, Jiu regards you with those exact same, astronomically high levels of adoration

You’re literally the most precious and pure thing in the world to her. When you peer up at her with those bright eyes of yours, so starry and full of love for her, she always ends up blushing. She wants to protect you and your cuteness from the world

“My sweet Y/N… what did I ever do to deserve you?”

Without even trying, the two of you naturally gravitate towards one another whenever you’re together. You never have to ask for her attention or affection because she gives it just as readily as you do

When you’re out in public, she never lets you stray too far from her. Both because she’ll inevitably be holding some article of clothing up to you to see if it would fit, or pointing some piece of nature out to you, or discussing what you should grab for lunch….and also because she just wants you nearby.

Though she doesn’t mind admiring the view she gets when you walk away, too ;)

She loves to play with your hands while you cuddle, and she also loves when you put your head in her lap

She sings to you

Whenever her schedule gets busy or the girls go on tour, she leaves some of her hoodies behind for you and makes sure to spray her perfume on them. She also presets a weekly reminder in your phone to display a sweet message for you, aware that you’ll be missing her a lot. She programs it to sound off around the time you typically wake up in the mornings because she wants it to be the first thing you see. If she can’t be there with you physically, she’ll gladly do that to make up for it

Video calls whenever you’re apart. She doesn’t feel fully at ease unless she knows you’re safe and happy

Seeing you never fails to brighten her day

Overall just a total ball of sunshine who is super super soft for you

Story Snippet

7:32 PM

About an hour and a half had passed since your last check-in on her, and you decided it was time to peek in again.

Quietly, so as to not disturb the rare bout of calmness that had befallen the dorm, you approached her bedroom door and turned the knob, opening it gently. A sliver of light from the hall rushed in, cutting through the relative dark.

Her bedside lamp was still on – dimmed to the lowest setting, just like you left it before. The bottle of water on her nightstand was a little closer to being empty than you remember, and the headache pills you had set out were gone.

Your eyes tracked over to her soft form on the bed, finding her tucked in but awake. A sleepy, exhausted smile showed on her face when she realized it was you at the door, just barely visible in the low light. Like always, though, it had a way of shining and brightening up everything around her.

Even when she was feeling under the weather, she couldn’t help but be radiant.

“Hi, baby,” her gentle voice greeted, sounding a bit strained.

The overexertion that she'd subjected herself to over the past few days was rearing its ugly head.

“Hi, my love.” You smiled pitifully, stepping inside. You shut the door behind yourself and approached the bed, standing at the foot of it. “How are you feeling now?”

“Drained,” she admitted. “I’m still tired; I haven’t been able to wind down.”

You nodded. “You’ve worked hard this week, so that makes sense. Can I get you anything to help?”

“Yeah, actually.” She pepped up the slightest bit.

“Name it and it’s yours.”

A grin pulled at her lips of the irony of that.

“You,” she answered. “Come here, I want to hold you.”

She opened the fluffy covers and waved you in, patting the space next to her. The smile on your face widened shyly at that, but you didn’t hesitate to do as she asked. You climbed in and settled close to her, letting her arms wind around you in the special way they always do.

Her lips pressed to yours, once… twice… three times, before she regained control of herself and opted to keep things PG. It was a bit difficult, with how soft and warm you were, sliding up against her and oh so tempting, but her better judgment managed to prevail in the end.

“I’ve been worried about you today,” you confessed, the words slightly mumbled as your cheek pressed to her chest, “...and I’ve missed you.”

You pouted, and she could feel it. Though she couldn’t see it, she knew it looked adorable.

“I’ve missed you, too, baby,” she chuckled quietly, easing your worries a little in the process. “The bed feels so empty without you in it… I think that’s why I haven't been able to rest very well.”

You melted at her words, feeling so loved. How did she always manage to do that so easily?

“You mean it?”

She nodded, running one of her hands down your back as she scooted a little closer to you. “Absolutely, I do. So you’re not allowed to leave, okay? No slipping away.”

“Okay. I promise,” you assured her.

You smiled when she released a sigh and relaxed into you, letting herself succumb to the exhaustion she felt. She knew you’d keep an eye on her – that she was safe and cared for – and that seemed to be the missing puzzle piece for her.

After just a couple of minutes of being in your presence, she was finally able to fully wind down; you felt it in the way that her breathing evened out and the tension in her muscles dissipated.

The throbbing of her head mellowed, no longer unbearable. You were comfortable and easy to melt into, serving as the perfect distraction from the pain. With every gentle kiss you pressed to her skin and every pass your fingers made through her hair, she took another step towards the edge of sleep.

A little later, as you went to ask her if the pills had helped any, you were halted by the sound of her soft snores. They filled the air of the bedroom around you, making it impossible to hide your grin.

So precious.

Her “Giving” Love Languages Ranked:

1.) Physical Touch

2.) Quality Time

3.) Acts of Service

4.) Words of Affirmation

5.) Gifts

Honestly she's pretty much the human embodiment of all five of them put together. She will quite literally do anything to make you happy. Always, always, always watching out for you.

◤─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────◥

Sua

LOVES IT, ARE YOU KIDDING??

She never gets tired of your touch, and she really enjoys being with someone as clingy as she is

When you both get excited about something, it gets so loud and wild

High pitched laughing, yelling, jumping around, squealing… the whole nine yards

On the rare occasion that she’s busy doing something and not actively seeking affection or already clinging to you, you’ll initiate things. It goes straight to her head and she doesn’t shut up about it for the rest of the day. Gloats and brags about how cute and cuddly you are for her

But it also tends to make her blushy and flustered, and you're the only person capable of doing that.

She says you’re the only one who really understands her and her ways of showing love

Although she hides it well, sometimes she’s afraid that she does too much and annoys other people with her affection. But you’re always there to reassure her of the opposite (because you’re just like her)

Squishes your cheeks a lot and gushes about how cute you are

She protects you and your cuteness with her life.

If anyone ever brushes you off or rejects your affection, she'll sweep you up in her arms and hold you close while yelling at them for it

Sometimes she'll literally just lay on you. She's a firm believer that being "too close" is simply impossible

Plays with your hair when you're cuddling

When you’re walking together she usually slips a hand into your back pocket and keeps it there because she loves your ass so much

She loves it when you show affection in public, whether that’s by holding her close, pressing sweet kisses to her lips, holding hands, etc. Knowing that you’re proud of your love for her and you aren’t afraid to own it or show it makes her happy

She also really enjoys it when you show her off

Play fighting is basically a daily occurrence for you. She chooses violence at least once a day

Despite the fact that she can be super aggressive and loud with her affection, she’s also equally as soft for you

Like when you’re all snuggled up in bed and waiting on her, she’ll just admire you from the doorway and smile to herself

Morning cuddles are a must for her. She never wants to get up when you’re at her side because you’re just so soft and warm and holding you is so comforting

She loves the way the two of you fit together

You’re her assistant chef whenever she cooks for everyone. She trusts you to try all of her creations and help her fix everything

That also definitely includes back hugs and a few kiss breaks because the sight of you in an apron drives her a little crazy

“Can you be on my menu tonight?” *wiggles eyebrows*

You’ve always made her feel safe, and she’s never afraid to be herself around you. You appreciate and accept all of her – every insecurity and perfect imperfection included

Story Snippet

The day’s taping of Show Champion was coming to an end as you snuck your way into the girls’ dressing room, aided by one of the backstage workers that was privy to your plans. She helped you hide within one of the closets and wished you luck before leaving just as inconspicuously as she had arrived.

10 Minutes Later

You nearly cracked your head on the back wall when the seven of them burst into the room, loudly conversing and joking with one another. The stems of the flowers in your hand squeaked together quietly, almost as a silent plea for release as you unconsciously tightened your hold on them.

From what sliver of the room you could see through the doors, all of the girls still had wide smiles on their faces. They were exhausted, sure, but happy and content with how the evening was going.

Well, all but one.

Garbled bits and pieces of their conversations made their way over to you as you watched Sua sit down at one of the mirrored stations, putting some distance between herself and the other girls. She took out her phone and began scrolling soon after, most likely as a means of distraction.

Your heart ached a little at the sight. You knew she was feeling down – the girls had told you as much, through texts – but seeing it happen right in front of you made it all the more real.

For the past week and a half, your busy schedules had combined to form the most awful amalgamation of missed opportunities; anytime one of you happened to be free, even for a short while, the other was booked for some important task that was incapable of being canceled or otherwise wormed out of.

All of the girls had missed you, but Sua was the one most affected by your absence – and everyone knew it.

Her spirits had been low, and her normal vibrancy was diminished; it was strange, frankly – a little dystopian – for her to be so unlike herself. The girls depended on her chaotic energy to keep things running smoothly; their dynamic was simply thrown off without it.

But Sua couldn’t even find it in herself to bother entertaining their banter, let alone join in. She didn’t have it in her to keep up with them today.

Although the sight of her so dejected was upsetting, it made a small smile show on your lips; you would be able to cheer her up in no time, and the 180 that she would undergo would undoubtedly make all of the waiting she’d done be worth it.

You counted down silently, wanting to time your entrance perfectly.

3…2…1-

Just as your free hand went to push the door open and kick off your big reveal, your cell phone began to ring in your pocket.

You faltered, fumbling quickly to retrieve it. Sua’s contact image shined brightly, cutting through the dark around you.

The outside world went silent – everyone quickly hushing up at the sudden noise.

You shut your eyes in defeat, sliding up on the green button, while simultaneously opening the door with your foot.

“Surprise.” You said into the phone, locking eyes with her from across the room.

Silence prevailed… one beat, two…. Until the earlier chaos returned with even more spirit than before.

Shouts of your name rang out from the girls, staccato and shocked as they attempted to figure out how you had managed to get there. Sua, on the other hand, didn’t bother with that; she ran up to you, her face lighting up like an eager child’s as you emerged from the closet and turned your phone off. You slipped the device into your pocket and extended the flowers to her.

“Hi, baby,” you grinned, “I finally convinced my boss to let me have a day off, and now I’m he—”

She cut you off at once, wrapping her arms around you at the speed of light and pulling you into the tightest hug you’d ever experienced. What remained of your explanation fizzled out in an instant, knocked from your lungs right along with all the air you had left.

The bouquet fell from your hands when she picked you up and wiggled you around in the air. Your shoes slightly brushed the ground between sways, and you groaned.

“Can’t…breathe…” You struggled out, constricted as she squeezed the life out of you.

Her arms only further tightened around you in response, full of days and days worth of pent up affection with no other place to go.

“Unnie, let go!” Dami scolded, coming up to slap her shoulder. “Y/N/N isn't going anywhere.”

Mere seconds before you went fully limp in her arms, your assailant – AKA the love of your life – put you back down on your feet and took a small step back to look at you.

Glorious, glorious air returned to your lungs in a rush, and you heaved for a brief moment or two. Once your vision returned and the floating spots that had been clouding it retreated, you blinked a few times and turned your attention to Sua.

A cute pout rested on her lips. “I’m sorry, jagi,” she muttered, the words partially aegyo-fied, but the glint in her eye told you that she wasn’t all that sorry at all. “I’ve just missed you so much.”

Wordlessly, you pulled her in close and hugged her again. She could feel the happy upturn of your lips against her neck as you buried your face there, just as relieved as she was to be reunited.

“I’ve missed you, too.” You whispered to her, pressing a kiss to her pulsepoint, and then her jaw, and finally her cheek.

She blushed wildly, growing increasingly more red by the second; the girls noticed, and their exaggerated coos and whoops soon filled the dressing room. When she turned to glare at them, hoping to scare them into silence, she quickly discovered that her typical method of intimidation wasn’t going to work in bringing their teasing to an end this time.

In the name of retribution, she delivered a retaliatory shove to your shoulder instead.

“Yah! We’re finally back together and you have to go embarrassing me right off the bat?” She scolded, voice shrill. “Pabo–”

You placed your lips against hers swiftly, kissing away her anger before it could accrue anymore firepower. Your arms wrapped around her waist, tugging her flush against the front of your body.

She still attempted to mumble an annoyed protest against your lips, but when you grinned and pinched her side, she gave in and melted into your embrace, scoffing quietly.

…

Dami grimaced as she stood in front of the girls, witnessing you kiss again. Sua shamelessly pushed you up against the closet, acting as though they all weren’t a matter of steps away from the both of you.

The bouquet rested in Dami’s hands, courtesy of her earlier retrieval of it from the floor.

“Should I…”

“Just leave it,” Yoohyeon answered abruptly, sharing a similar expression.

Dami nodded and placed it down on the couch before they all backed away and made a bee-line out of the dressing room, pretending to gag.

Her “Giving” Love Languages Ranked:

1.) Physical Touch

2.) Acts of Service

3.) Quality Time

4.) Words of Affirmation

5.) Gifts

Obviously, she’s first and foremost the best at demonstrating her love physically. Like the universal master of it. But aside from that, her strong suit is taking care of you. It comes naturally, and she can almost always be found doing something to make life that much easier on you. Cooking your favorite dishes when you’re hungry, nursing you back to health when you’re sick, being your shoulder to cry on, pulling your hair up when your hands are occupied, etc.

◤─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────◥

Siyeon

Couldn’t be happier. She absolutely loooooves being close to you

She could cuddle you for hours on end

Maybe even forever

She rubs your back when she's holding you, tracing mindless patterns against your skin. Having you close is so special to her

Sings to you, sometimes coming up with new material on the fly. You’re her muse, after all, so it’s easy with you around

When things get too hectic and hard for her to deal with, you’re always by her side in a heartbeat

You can read her like a book, and she’s so grateful for that

She thanks her lucky stars on the daily for the fact that she found you in this great big world

When you seek comfort from her and retreat into the safety of her arms, she gets so protective of you. You could simply be evading the wind on a chilly day and she’ll lowkey yell at it to leave you alone while she holds you against her.

She bought you matching rings for your anniversary one year, and when she zones out she always has a habit of toying with yours and playing with your fingers.

Sometimes you all even zone out together (#CoupleGoals)

She pinches your elbow and the back of your hands a lot

When you go full koala mode and just latch onto her and refuse to let go, she gets so happy. It makes her slow down and just revel in the simplicity of your touch, appreciating every second she gets to spend with you (because your schedules don’t always align, and sometimes it can be difficult to have free time like that)

You’re basically her stress reliever. When you’re holding her, nothing else matters

And once you start cuddling, don’t expect her to let you get away without a fight. If you say you want a snack, she’s not afraid to pick you up and carry you into the kitchen just so she can be with you that much longer

“Baby, I’m not gonna drop you. I promise. Have some faith in your wolfie.”

Like Sua, she enjoys PDA. Not anything extreme, of course, but she likes it when you let people know that she’s yours and you’re hers. It helps prevent her from getting jealous (which happens sometimes, but a kiss from you usually solves that)

She’s seriously down bad for you and whipped in a major way. A single touch is powerful enough to make her weak in the knees

Our wolfie is totally *heart eyes* for you

Story Snippet

Siyeon's legs intertwined with yours as you laid down on top of her, pressing her into the couch. She tugged you in, urging you ever-closer as her warm hands settled against your hips. Her thumbs rubbed circles there, soft through the material of your shirt.

The musky scent of her perfume wafted into the air with her movements; it comforted you, putting you even more at ease. Your brain had long ago associated and equated that smell with home.

She smiled brightly, peering up at you with her dark eyes as she giggled at some random joke you had just made. You always knew just what to say to make her laugh.

"You're so beautiful, jagi," you praised, brushing a strand of hair out of her face.

"You think so?" She played, batting her lashes.

"More than you'll ever know. I'm the luckiest person alive," you mused.

The blush on her cheeks spread, becoming more prominent as it flitted its way across the bridge of her nose. She turned her head slightly to the side, briefly glancing away; she felt small beneath your gaze. You always looked at her like she was the most valuable thing in the universe; it made her shy.

"You're such a smooth talker," she groaned.

You chuckled and leaned down, kissing her cheek. Your lips trailed over to hers, ghosting softly across her flawless skin as they pressed a few stray kisses here and there along the way.

Her eyes fluttered shut the moment your lips met, fitting together as if they were created for that sole purpose. The vanilla balm smoothed across hers was partially smudged and wiped off – a result of the earlier kisses you couldn’t refrain from stealing, when the two of you had first lost interest in the movie you were watching. Its flavor remained, though, just as enticing as always.

Inconspicuously slipped beneath your shirt, her fingers curled slightly along the small of your back – where her hands had now come to settle. She drew you closer, comforted by the way you felt against her. Your subsequent hum of gratitude made her melt.

The pad of your thumb made a pass over her cheek, rubbing it gently as you deepened the kiss. It stole her breath away, but she used what little she had left to gasp lightly into your mouth.

You smiled, unable to help yourself.

Stomp, stomp, stomp

Heavy, authoritarian footfalls resounded in the hallway outside of the dorm's door, gaining your attention. You curiously raised your head, and Siyeon lifted her chin to peek back at it.

A mere second later, Sua came blasting in.

"Yah! Y/N L/N!"

Shit.

"Yoohyeon told me everything," she said, striding into the middle of the room. Yoohyeon trailed after, staying at a distance as she shut the door behind herself. She was wincing, appearing to heavily regret her earlier slip up.

You raised up, pushing yourself off of Siyeon and up onto your knees. She propped herself up on an elbow, clearly intrigued and confused.

"How could you take my hoodie without telling me?" Sua shrieked, approaching you with her hands out. They gripped your collar, shaking with purpose.

"A-ah," you laughed nervously, dryly, "I was going to ask first, but I was running late this morning and had to just throw something on. My things were in the wash."

"What if something stained it? You know how much I love it."

"I would've bought you another," you promised, voice slightly strained as she tightened her grip, thus preventing you from breathing normally.

"You can't just 'buy another'! That line is discontinued now!"

"Nothing happened, though–" you sputtered. "You're worrying for nothing; I already put it back.”

Disbelief gleamed in Sua’s eyes, and when Siyeon caught a glimpse of it she sat up at once.

She knew then that your demise was imminent.

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” Sua bellowed, yanking you around. As she prepared to shove you backwards onto the couch and pounce, Siyeon selflessly put herself in front of you. She held her arms out, blocking you from all of the unnie’s methods of attack.

“Save yourself, Y/N! I’ll hold her off!”

“No…” you said, voice dropping dramatically as your head vehemently swayed left to right.

Amidst a slew of shoves and jabs from Sua, she nodded sadly, remaining strong. “Just go,” she begged.

Her soft cheek nuzzled against your palm as you reached forward to briefly cup it, sharing one final embrace.

“Remember me.”

“Always,” you whispered, holding back a grin at how dramatic the two of you were being.

Following a subtle signal from her, you stumbled off of the coach as she turned and tackled Sua away from you, landing on the opposite end of it. Your sock clad feet slipped and slid on the wood flooring, providing you no sense of control as you scrambled to escape with your life.

When you careened into the hallway wall, you shot a look over your shoulder; it was a horrific mistake, however, as it only awarded you the image of Sua slapping her elbow and jumping into the air before landing on Siyeon with it. A loud groan resounded around the living room, followed by Yoohyeon’s fading plea of “Unnie, no!” as you snapped your head forward again and set your sights on Jiu’s door at the end of the hall.

Your legs gave out from how quickly you attempted to kick off again, sending you to the floor.

Sua chuckled from somewhere behind you, far enough away to not pose an immediate threat, but still far too close for comfort. You pushed yourself off of the ground and sped off again, using the walls to propel yourself forward even faster.

The knob of Jiu’s door slid into your hand and twisted smoothly, pulling a sigh of relief from you – thank God it wasn’t locked. Without wasting time on knocking, you blasted in and slammed it behind yourself, void of any and all grace whatsoever.

You heaved, pressing your back to it and reaching down to lock it just as Sua’s frame collided with its other side. She had nearly gotten you – you’d made it just in the nick of time.

Jiu perked up on her bed, eyebrows raised and eyes open wide. The glow of her phone screen cast across her face and chest.

“Sua.” You explained, without having to elaborate. Her name alone validated your behavior a million times over.

The shock on Jiu’s face dissipated at once, turning to understanding.

“Sua,” she repeated, nodding.

Her “Receiving” Love Languages Ranked:

1.) Quality Time

2.) Physical Touch

3.) Words of Affirmation

4.) Acts of Service

5.) Gifts

Our big bad wolfie might have a good poker face sometimes, but we all know she isn’t all that big or bad. She’s definitely a softie at heart and loves to hear every sweet thing you have to tell her when you’re spending time together.

◤─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────◥

Handong

Very soft about it

She adores the attention you give her, and she always enjoys having you by her side. It makes her feel important and highkey boosts her ego

Also, having you nearby makes it easy for the two of you to be (playfully) judgy together and whisper jokes without other people interfering or overhearing

Aside from that, you genuinely comfort her in a lot of ways, and when you're apart she always finds herself missing you

“You know, now I get homesick twice as much, Y/N. Half for my country, and half for you.”

Sometimes she teases you, cheekily saying that you just can't keep your hands off of her

But tbh she can’t keep her hands off you either

She’s a fan of more subtle touches, like a simple hand on the thigh beneath the table or an arm around the waist

Honestly though she also loves it when you surprise her with a spontaneous kiss (on the cheek or lips), or hug her and spin her around. It makes her blush like a madwoman, but she enjoys it – despite the playful nagging she does afterwards

You're one of the only people who can make her blush, and when you really get her good she’s out of commission for a couple minutes, unable to piece together any witty comebacks in her love-dazed mind

Once she’s regained her bearings, though, she amps up her charm in retaliation, aware that her flirting is basically your kryptonite

And it works. Practically 100% of the time.

Her bold confidence gets you just as flustered as she had been, and you typically end up hiding your face in her neck or shoving her shoulder and running away.

Enjoys PDA in the form of cuddling and kissing. Nothing too wild, but she definitely wants it to happen when you go out together. She wants people to know that you’re hers, and vice versa

Hand holding is the usual go to, or linking your arms together. Kisses, too, depending on the mood and vibe of wherever you are

You jokingly touch her muscles and brag about how strong she is, especially when she gets back from a workout

She's fond of the praise, and though she wouldn’t admit it without a fight, it makes her work a little harder to keep up her physique. Staying fit is already important to her, but the fact that you enjoy her body so much is just added encouragement. She also likes to feel powerful and like she can protect you, so it’s truly a win-win

(Though she knows you’d love her no matter what she looked like, muscles or no muscles)

She puts her head in your lap a lot as a silent way of asking you to play with her hair. It relaxes her, and she usually falls asleep in the process

When she’s feeling clingy herself, you’re the first person she goes to. You’re the only one capable of melting this ice princess

Story Snippet

(I don’t know the actual layout of the mall, so excuse any errors)

Starfield Mall – Seoul, SK

Forever Yours.

Handong peered into a glass display case, rereading the words over and over to herself. Two ruby pendants hung side by side on a rack, magnetically joined together in the middle to spell out the words.

Only when they were connected did the short message come together.

A sentimental smile made its way to her face the longer she looked at it. It would be the perfect gift for you, she decided, as she snuck a glance at you from across the store. You were occupied in the ring section, browsing through the different rows of them. The wondrous expression on your face warmed her heart.

"Sir," she called to a nearby worker quietly, so as to avoid drawing your attention. "I'd like to buy these." She motioned down to them.

He nodded and grabbed the key for the case before making his way over.

Childish, bubbly laughter carried over to your ears as you exited the store and entered the mall’s spacious third floor, where numerous kids chased one another around. Beanies rested atop many of their heads, and the fuzzy sweaters they wore engulfed their tiny frames in such an endearing way that you couldn’t help but smile.

Holiday lights gleamed all around you, strung up and wound around decorative tinsel on the storefronts and windows. They shimmered, some set on timers to flicker every now and then.

A gentle smile played on Handong’s lips when she felt the careful tug you applied to the end of her sleeve, silently asking for her hand.

She wordlessly shifted her shopping bags into her other one in order to free it up for you to hold.

Her fingers interlaced with your own immediately, assuming their rightful position for the millionth time today. She gently stroked the back of your hand with her thumb, allowing it to make a few gentle passes over your smooth skin.

Something about the way your hands fit together, so snug and perfectly balanced, made her truly believe they were created just for one another. No one else's – not a single one of the other billions in existence out there – could've ever compared to yours.

She was sure of it.

“Where should we go now?” You asked, still letting your eyes wander across the expanse of holiday decorations.

The steps you took together were relaxed, void of any rushing.

Handong pondered for a moment, racking her mind for a place nearby that would award you some much-needed privacy and quiet.

"How about that place downtown we've been wanting to try?" She suggested. "You know, close to the square?"

“Oh," you gasped lightly, remembering the quaint little restaurant that she was referring to. "That'll be perfect, jagi."

"I'm glad you agree," she quipped, leaning over to press a kiss to your temple. Your smile deepened, and when she pulled away you watched her fondly.

What glimmers of love showed on her face were soon eclipsed by something else entirely, though.

Mischief, you realized, a mere second too late.

The apples of her cheeks became prominent as her lips tugged up into a pretty smile. The kind that’s soft enough to turn you to putty, yet striking enough to light a fire in your heart. Your kryptonite – a fact she used to her advantage.

"Race you to the car!" She shrieked, already speeding off.

You didn’t even have ample time to pick up your stumbling heart, or to catch your breath.

"Dongie–"

Her bags jostled in her hands, swaying with every thundering step she took. The tread of her shoes against the linoleum echoed out, broken by a squeak when she made a turn up ahead.

You pursued her at once, bobbing and weaving through numerous people – some bewildered, others cheering you on.

Her hair whipped around as she ran, flowing in the breeze with an elegance you would never understand.

"Last one there has to pay for dinner!" She teased, glancing over her shoulder at you.

"You're going down!" You fired back, finally gaining on her.

“In your dreams!”

—-

Harvest House - Bar & Grille

“Stop sulking,” you playfully chided from across the table, not even looking up from your menu. It wasn't necessary, after all.

You could practically feel her pouting.

Handong rolled her eyes and sighed, fighting the smile that tried to work its way onto her face at the fact that you knew her so well.

She picked up her own menu and began to peruse it, comforted in a strange way by the gentle clanking of silverware and dishes that flowed throughout the restaurant. Much like your own, clusters of conversation hummed – little pockets of stories and adventures, softly recounted so as to not disrupt the others around them.

Your eyes eventually wandered back to her, simply unable to stay away for too long. They peered at her curiously, watching with adoration as she concentrated on choosing the perfect meal.

She felt you staring, and yet she stubbornly refused to look at you. It was her way of continuing to pout, and you knew it all too well.

“Dongie…”

“Hmm?” She hummed, not budging.

“Jagi…”

“Yes?” Her brow raised, and her head tilted up slightly. Not enough for her gaze to meet your own, though.

“I love you.”

There it was. That phrase that she could never not react to.

Your heart warmed as you witnessed an embarrassed tint of blush appear on her face, and the achingly sweet way her features softened as your words sunk in.

“I love you, too,” she murmured, finally peering over the top of her menu at you.

You smiled and placed a finger at the top of it, carefully tipping it down towards the table so you could see her better.

Outside lights fought one another for the chance to shine on her through the large front window that the two of you were seated beside. Every color of the rainbow gleamed, emitted from star-shaped bulbs strung up across the square.

In your peripheral, you could see the town's recently-placed Christmas tree standing tall on the other side of the street. People were taking pictures in front of it; some were large families, complete with a teen or two angstily brooding as they squeezed into the frame, and others were paired up or alone.

You turned your head briefly, glancing at them.

Their interactions were so adorably human that it brought you comfort. The patient way they waited in line for their turn in front of the tree was endearing – reminiscent of childhood as they peered up at its lights, growing excited at the sight. Parents readjusted their children's beanies and mittens, ensuring that they were well protected from the cold.

It was like a movie playing out right in front of you, reminding you of the true magic of the season. That's what it's all about.

Handong must've noticed the dreamy expression on your face, because her next words took you by surprise, making you blush.

"You're so beautiful it hurts, Y/N."

Your eyes widened in time with the upturn of your lips, and you shyly dipped your head down, avoiding her gaze.

She reached out for your hand across the table, taking it into her own with ease.

"Can I kiss you?"

A question once asked with trembling lips, during the youth of your relationship, now spoken with a sweet confidence and nonchalance that made you fall for her all over again.

It was a redundant question at best, when you so clearly would permit her to do anything she pleased. But, even still, it sent butterflies to your stomach.

You nodded, leaning forward enough to meet her halfway. She did the same without missing a beat, and before you knew it her lips were on yours.

Both of her hands came up to cup your cheeks, and she felt you grin at the change.

She didn't understand why, in that moment, but she would soon.

Inconspicuously, you retrieved something from your pocket.

As you kissed her again, making it count in the name of keeping her distracted, she felt something being wrapped and fastened around her left wrist. It was small and thin, lightweight against her skin.

Her brows furrowed lightly.

You pulled back after a moment with a knowing, anticipatory look on your face. The way it lit your features up made Handong’s heart skip a beat.

Curious, she peered down to catch a glimpse of what it was.

Polaris. A sterling silver, beautiful little bracelet with Polaris shimmering in the center.

"Turn it over," you instructed, still grinning.

She did as you said and found a personalized message engraved into the material.

"Everlasting Love", it read, written in Chinese characters.

Her lips parted in shock. "When did you…"

"A few days ago, when you went out with Gahyeon. She offered to help keep you distracted so you wouldn't find out."

"Y/N…" she sighed blissfully, shaking her head in disbelief. "How do you keep getting even more perfect?"

You smiled again, rolling your eyes.

"Shush," you tutted. "I'm just glad you like it."

"Jagi, I don't like it. I love it. This means the world to me; especially coming from you. Thank you."

She leaned forward to kiss you again, but this time her lips pressed to your cheek instead. She felt the heat there, exposing your shyness at her praise.

So precious.

Her own gift for you was practically burning a hole in the pocket of her coat by now, and she decided at once that it was time for you to receive it.

As she sat back and reached towards where the material hung across the back of her chair, you simply watched her with sweet curiosity.

You weren't expecting anything in return for the present.

You were clueless to her plan, and yet, that made it all the more special.

As she retrieved the box and held it out between you, finally opening it, you gasped quietly. A small treasure, discovered at last.

Her side of it peeked from beneath the cover of her shirt, daring to shimmer.

She carefully took it out of the box and held it up, watching it catch the lights around you.

"Now we'll always have a piece of each other, no matter where we are," she mused, linking it with her side.

As it clicked into place, her eyes met your own.

Her “Giving” Love Languages Ranked:

1.) Gifts

2.) Physical Touch

3.) Quality Time

4.) Acts of Service

5.) Words of Affirmation

She spoils you every time the opportunity presents itself. CEO of Rich GF™ vibes. According to her, you deserve every single good thing that the world has to offer; so it’s really a no-brainer to her that you should be able to find something new wrapped up and waiting to be opened when you visit her. Anytime you mention needing or wanting something – even just offhandedly – she makes sure that it eventually ends up being yours.

◤─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────◥

Yoohyeon

She loves it. There’s absolutely no doubt about it

We see how she is during interviews (always holding onto the members in some way and wanting to be near one of them), and that trait is no different when it comes to you

She always wants to be connected in some way, whether that's holding hands, linking pinkies or arms when you're walking together, piggyback rides, back hugs, etc.

Honestly she’s just as affectionate as you

She hates being away from you. She lives for your touches and kisses

And just your presence in general, really. She’s totally whipped for you

Being held by you always comforts her

And anytime you kiss her forehead or cheek? *earth-shattering squeal*

Hides her face in the crook of your neck when she gets shy

Despite her tendency to get embarrassed, she never turns down PDA from you. She enjoys the sentiment behind you letting everyone know that she’s yours (as if they had any doubts, with the way she was practically tethered to you at all times)

She sneaks into your bed when she can’t sleep

If that’s not an option, she’ll call you on the phone to hear your voice (and she ends up falling asleep with you still on the other end like 99% of the time)

“No, baby, I’m still awake."

{...}

*snoring*

You're her partner in crime. The girls lowkey tease you for it and say you're joined at the hip

Whenever Sua ends up chasing her around she always runs to you, seeking safety in your arms. You take your duties as a human shield very serious

Sometimes you team up with her enemy, though, and the three of you end up fighting and wrestling like a bunch of five year olds. She acts betrayed, but once a truce is called she’s in your arms again in less than a second

Tours are honestly difficult for both of you, for a multitude of reasons. But in particular, Yoohyeon gets grumpy when she goes an extended amount of time without proper cuddling from you. The members offer themselves up to fill in and keep WWIII from breaking out, but she swears up and down that they simply can’t compare

So, anytime you’re reunited after time apart, expect to be tackled to the ground or go careening into the nearest piece of furniture as she clumsily flings herself at you

She loves lazy days with you. Laying around and just relaxing together is one of her favorite pastimes

She usually acts childish and whines whenever you pull away, even if it’s just to go to the restroom or something

Anytime she decides to start gaming, you wait on standby…

…and when she eventually loses a match, you're there to hug her and make it all better

She swears up and down that you're her good luck charm. So most of the time you end up sitting at her side and watching as she plays

You’re her number one fan

And she’s yours, always and forever

Story Snippet

DC Dorm – 11:49 PM

A brochure suddenly smacked against your face, opened to a glossy middle page as Yoohyeon's body collapsed onto yours in a heap.

She had run from her bed to the living room, unable to keep her recent discovery to herself.

"Can I help you?" You asked sarcastically, cradling your sore nose.

She pushed herself up into a sitting position and apologized for her clumsiness at once.

After you forgave her, she flipped back to the announcement she'd seen in the booklet.

It read:

"Thundering Heights Amusement Park – Grand Opening: July 7th"

An address was listed at the bottom of the page, and you realized it was just outside of the city. Maybe a twenty minute drive or so at most.

"Will you go with me?" She asked, hope shining in her dark eyes. They almost twinkled, like a kid's on Christmas. "It looks like so much fun."

You pretended to debate for a moment, enjoying the tease. She tugged at your shirt, pouting as you made her wait.

"Sure, jagi. I'd love to–”

She tackled you down onto the loveseat and peppered hundreds of kisses across your face, her hands cupping your cheeks to keep you in place for her onslaught.

"Thank…" kiss, "you," kiss kiss, "baby." Kiss kiss kiss.

You giggled and squirmed a little beneath her, taking the affection as it came.

—----

Opening Day

As usual, she was right.

The day was off to a great start by all accounts, and you were convinced you had never smiled as much in your entire life as you had that morning.

The sun was out, providing plenty of pretty views for you to admire together as you walked your way through the park. It livened up everything that it touched – made the trees’ green leaves a little more vibrant, the flowers a little brighter. The warmth of it wrapped around you like a hug, settling into the fibers of your clothes and staying put.

An occasional breeze blew in, mild yet so necessary as it balanced out that heat. It lifted the ends of Yoohyeon's hair, caressing them gently as she took in all of the sights around her. You walked beside her in tandem, simply admiring her. Admittedly, nothing else managed to capture your attention in the way that she did.

She caught you staring on more than one occasion and shyly scolded you each and every time, but you simply couldn’t help yourself. If there was one thing you’re sure of in life, it’s that she was created to be adored. Plain and simple.

Later

“Let’s go again!” She bellowed, jumping around on her sneaker-clad feet. Adrenaline coursed through her, making her jittery from residual excitement.

Much the opposite, you were bent over the nearest railing, just outside of the exit for the ride. Your stomach churned, deciding on whether or not it wanted to upturn itself.

“I can’t,” you groaned, holding your head. “I need something to drink first. And an hour long break.”

She tsked at you disappointedly, but appeared at your side a few seconds later nonetheless. Her hand rubbed the small of your back in soothing circles, easing you through your queasy-ness.

Once it subsided, you uprighted yourself and looked at her. Something behind you caught her eye, and when she met your gaze again a small smile tugged at her lips.

“I know just the thing to make you feel better.” She booped your nose lovingly, reaching down to grab your hand and tug you along for the millionth time today.

15 Minutes Later

A sunhat rested atop your head, its brim droopy to block out the now-harsh rays that the Sun had to offer. The strap beneath your chin was pulled tight to ensure it didn’t fall off or blow away. You felt like you looked ridiculous, but she had insisted that you wear it.

…so you did.

You held a mini handheld fan up in front of your face, listening to the quiet brrr of its motor as it worked hard to cool you down.

Yoohyeon stood in front of a slushy stand in the middle of the park’s food court, where she had just ordered and paid for your drinks. Two workers were inside, doing their best to keep things running smoothly.

After another minute or so, one of them handed the refreshments over to her, smiling kindly and thanking her once more. She reciprocated and left, quickly returning to your side.

“Here you go,” she chirped, handing over your favorite flavor. “They’re nice and cold.”

“Phew,” you sighed, relieved. “I was worried they might’ve gotten hot on the way over. You know, since they’re made of ice.”

She smacked your shoulder in retaliation to your sarcasm.

“Yah! Don’t act like I won’t eat yours, too.” She pointed a finger at you, jabbing you in the chest a couple times to solidify her point.

“Ouch, tough crowd,” you feigned hurt, putting a hand atop the impact zones and rubbing the ache away.

Though she fought hard, she couldn’t entirely conceal the grin on her face. So instead she busied her lips with her straw, drawing it between them to take a long sip.

You mirrored her actions, appreciating the fact that she knew and remembered your favorite order. It made you fall for her a little more, though you didn’t see how that was humanly possible.

Content and now more energized, the two of you fell in step again. Yoohyeon began to discuss the next section of rides for you to conquer, and what the quickest route to get there was. She babbled rapidly – far too fast for you to keep up – so you opted to just smile and nod, still sipping on your drink.

You both knew you’d follow her wherever she went and do whatever she asked of you regardlessly, and you were aware that her ranting kept her happy.

So you threw in the occasional “Oh, really?” and “No way!” to keep her going. It worked; eagerly, she continued.

The happy moment was soon cut short, however, as life suddenly took on a cinematic, almost slow-motion haze right before your very eyes.

Yoohyeon turned to look over at you, meaning to tell you that the trolley was your best bet at making it across the park in a timely manner, when you both rounded an ill-fated corner.

A welcome sign was propped in front of a shop's side door, directly in her path.

Before you had ample time to react and stop her, she ran into it, tripping and being sent through the air before subsequently landing on top of the now-toppled sign with a harsh clack. The puppy-ear headband she had on jolted, its two brightly colored springs bouncing in opposite directions after colliding with one another. Her cup fell from her hand, too, getting crushed in the process.

You winced, tensing up instinctively. Oh no. She'd surely die of embarrassment. You could see the beginning stages of it unfolding as she hid her face, already blushing profusely.

So, thinking on your feet, you knew you had to act fast to prevent her demise. If you could stand in the way of her arrival at an early grave, you planned to do it. One rule that you live by played in your head: you're in it together. Where she goes, you go.

Including the ground, apparently.

Without hesitation, you rocketed yourself forward, tripping yourself over your own foot and sending yourself crashing to the pavement that waited below.

The slushie in your hand exploded upon impact, erupting into a fruity blitz that shot off in a hundred different directions. Some got on you as well, immediately trying its hand at staining the fabric of your shirt. Your fan dinked off the ground, too, getting scuffed up as its motor came to a sputtering stop.

Your hat jostled, no longer sitting in its proper place.

"Oww!" You shouted, both a little over-dramatic and real. Though the cause itself may have been intentional, the fall definitely didn't get the memo. The front of your body ached, having absorbed the shock first and taken the brunt of the damage.

"Who puts a sign in a place like that?!" You lamented.

You rolled over, squinting as the blazing sun shined down on you. You squirmed a little, still suffering from having the wind knocked out of you.

Yoohyeon groaned and pushed herself up into a sitting position at your side. She peered over at you, concerned, but your antics told her that you would be okay. After all, if you had hurt yourself too badly you wouldn't have been able to yell like that.

But making such a spectacle of yourself had clearly worked, because the people passing by all looked at you, rather than her. Their attention was successfully drawn away, and you smiled. At least the pain wasn't for nothing.

"Are you alright, jagi?" You asked her, turning your head to gaze up at her.

She scooted forward and put a hand up, shielding your eyes from the Sun in lieu of your hat. The shadow she created held the light at bay, allowing you to stop squinting.

"My ego's dead, but other than that, yes."

“Good.” You said, relieved. “Wait– not good about the ego thing! I- You know what I mean.”

She chuckled at that, though the sound eventually morphed into a soft grunt of pain. Happy pain, though. The kind that you feel later on down the road and recall the memories of.

“And you?” She asked. “Is my knight in shining armor going to live?”

You nodded, winking at her. “I think I’ll pull through.”

“Good,” she reused your word. “Because if we’re gonna make it through the rest of the park today, we need to get a move on.” She glanced down at her watch quickly. “We should have enough time to get a replacement slushie…” she eyed both of your previous ones, where they laid nearby. With haste, she leaned over to grab their trashed containers, “...and then catch the trolley. But we’ve got to hurry.”

You sighed defeatedly as she sprang up and dusted herself off, like nothing had happened. It was a good quality to have, though, for someone as clumsy as her. She balanced herself out. Uncoordinated yet resilient. It was almost poetic.

What wasn’t poetic, though, was the unceremonious way she hauled you up to your feet, all in one motion.

You barely had a second to catch your breath, or wheeze, or curse into the afternoon air before she was pulling you along at the speed of light again, all of her embarrassment forgotten and instead replaced with excitement once more.

Her “Receiving” Love Languages Ranked:

1.) Physical Touch

2.) Words of Affirmation

3.) Quality Time

4.) Acts of Service

5.) Gifts

Yoohyeon is prone to embarrass herself, and her insecurities sometimes tend to show themselves as a result. She also has an unfortunate habit of overthinking; but a simple and easy way to remedy that at any given moment is through physical touch and sweet words of reassurance. They never fail to comfort her and restore that confidence that you love so much.

◤─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────◥

Dami

Dami isn't always the biggest fan of physical touch, but she makes an exception for you

She's grown quite fond of your ways of showing love

Especially because you respect her boundaries and don't overload her with it all of the time

The girls jokingly complain about the fact that your affection never gets rejected by her like theirs does sometimes

You're usually the one to initiate things, but she also surprises you sometimes by beating you to it

You l o v e when she does that because it just shows that she's willing to step outside of her comfort zone to convey her feelings for you

She usually gives you back hugs and puts her head on your shoulder

Slips in little touches throughout the day

Also loves to hold your hand

If it's chilly out and she notices your hands are cold, she'll slip one of her heating packs into them without you even having to ask

Piggy back rides

Lets you poke her cheeks and toy with them

She bought a pair of touch lamps for the both of you, so when she’s away and missing you she can touch hers and yours will light up. It’s a subtle reminder that she loves you and that you’re on her mind

Gives you her jacket when it’s cold out and holds the door for you

You've made her more comfortable with physicality, honestly, and she finds herself missing it when your schedules keep you away from each other

If you get overcome with emotion and give her a spontaneous kiss or cuddle, she ends up blushing every time, without fail

Sometimes she becomes the clingy one and wraps you up in her arms, not letting you go until she’s satisfied

“Let’s stay just like this, jagi.”

Soft hours

But any other time, when it’s you who’s being clingy, it’s really endearing to her to see you visibly waiting to touch her and attack her with a flurry of affection. You hold back long enough to get permission, but the second that she gives you the green light you’re basically pouncing on her

Whenever she reads, she invites you to snuggle up with her. She typically ends up absentmindedly toying with your hair, or stroking your arm, or pressing a few kisses to the top of your head, too

Just like her, her love is subtle and quiet most of the time. But it’s endless, and it’s always there

She loves you to the moon and back and is willing to do just about anything to see you smile

Story Snippet

DC Dorm – Dami's Room

Snowflakes fell outside in droves, heavy and thick as they added to the masses that had already accumulated on the ground over the past few hours. Biting winds blasted by occasionally, reminding everyone of just how frigid it was. They caused a branch to knock into the window of Dami’s room, scraping it lightly.

Ever since your arrival in the afternoon, it had been like this; as you spent time gathered with the girls and enjoying yourself by the fireplace, nature had been gearing up for a full-blown blizzard.

Aware of this, they all insisted that you spend the night at the dorm and just return home once the conditions were safer.

It didn't take much to convince you, truth be told. Their company was far too enjoyable to turn down, and you didn’t have any desire to head back to your empty apartment anytime soon, anyway.

So now, in the wake of a movie-marathon, multiple games of drunken charades, and escaping the tight clutch of a sleeping Sua, you stood in front of Dami's dresser, bent at the waist as you sifted through the drawer that she had directed you to.

Through the speakers of her phone, a soft piano melody ambled out, basking the room in a comfortable, easy-going ambience.

"Pick whichever one you want, baby," she called, glancing up briefly from her book as she flipped the page she had just finished. The texture of it – a little rough, unsmoothed – made a scratching sound as it rubbed against the one behind it.

"Really? Even the–"

"Yes, Y/N/N, even that one." She interrupted, amused. "I washed it yesterday because I figured you'd want to wear it." You could hear the grin in her words.

Eagerly, you continued searching through the hoodies until you finally found the one you were after. It held a title unlike any other. None of the rest even held a candle to it.

Why was it so special?

Because you bought it for her during a birthday trip last year, and it was the coziest thing in existence.

Oh, and it was also panda themed. Dami in hoodie form.

With a triumphant smile, you unfolded it and thrust it up into the air, showing it off. Dami watched from the bed, smiling softly to herself at the cute sight.

You slipped it over your head and pulled it down across your body, allowing the cozy material to engulf you. Two rounded ears sat atop the hood, and they bounced lightly when you tugged it up onto your head. The grin on your face deepened when you reached up to feel their fluffiness.

“You’re so cute,” she mused, far too interested in you to pay attention to her book anymore. Her finger rested between its pages, keeping her place marked as she openly admired you.

“Yah,” you scolded softly, lacking malice. You could feel your cheeks and ears warming up as a result of her compliment, and it made you shy.

“Thank you,” you added quietly, glancing away.

She bit her lip and shook her head, completely enamored. How could a person be so adorable?

“Come here,” she commanded, when she noticed you playing with the ends of the sleeves mindlessly. The inconspicuous (yet totally obvious) way you peeked back at her let her know that you wanted to be closer.

Hope shined in your eyes as you padded over like a puppy, and when she tossed her book to the end of the bed and filled her hands with you instead, you nearly swooned. She tugged you in by the waist, sending you sideways onto the bed.

A second later, she was hovering over top of you; her soft hair cascaded down around the two of you, blocking out the rest of the world like a privacy curtain. You met her dark eyes briefly, highlighted by the bits of lamplight that peeked through, shining on the two of you. But her gaze soon dropped lower, landing on your mouth – which she’d been dying to feel against her own all day.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” she admitted, before leaning in to press a gentle kiss to your lips. It was sweet and warm, just like her. “You made today so fun.”

“Yeah?” You grinned lazily, basking in the warmth that her body radiated. “I’d have to say that you made the day fun,” you opposed. “I mean, come on; when you saved us from losing that third round of charades with your last-second guess? That was gold.”

She nodded, pursing her lips as she recalled that victorious moment. “You do have a point there…”

“Or when you saved Jiu from getting whacked by a blindfolded Yoohyeon during our ‘What’s In The Box’ game? That deserved some kind of award.”

Her features pulled into a grimace at the memory. “I don’t know if she would’ve recovered, honestly. What do you think? Concussion? Short coma?”

Your hands trailed up to the back of her neck and gently settled there – fingers interlocking as you took a second to consider her question. She shivered slightly at the sensation, nearly tickled when you absentmindedly toyed with the baby hairs at her nape.

“Mmm, definitely a concussion,” you frowned, feigning seriousness until the sudden sound of Dami’s laughter cut through the quiet, bringing out your own.

She rested her forehead against yours as your combined giggles filled the air, completely and utterly happy. They were genuine and natural – a little sleepy, a little unpolished – and that warmed your heart.

Seeing her like that made you fall that much more in love. She shined brighter than moonlight, starlight, sunlight – all of it. You wanted to stay wrapped within the bounds of this perfect moment forever.

“I mean it, though,” she affirmed softly, like some kind of shy confession finally given voice to, once your laughter died down into quiet chuckles. "Things wouldn't have been the same without you here."

Yet another one of her ways of saying ‘I love you’ without actually uttering the words.

“I know,” you nodded, brushing the tip of your nose against hers a few times. You could feel her melt into you at the contact.

“I love you, too.”

Her “Giving” Love Languages Ranked:

1.) Acts of Service

2.) Quality Time

3.) Words of Affirmation

4.) Gifts

5.) Physical Touch

What she struggles to show physically, she makes up for in other ways. She’ll do favors, dote on you without you even having to ask, make you food if you’re hungry, leave encouraging post-it notes on your things if you’re in need of reassurance and support… the list is endless. It’s how she shows all of the love she has for you; she’s a fantastic listener and always pays close attention to you, and she thinks it’s easier and more convenient to demonstrate her love this way. The little things mean everything to her.

◤─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────◥

Gahyeon

Enjoys it a lot. Your presence alone is comforting to her, so she’s really happy to have you nearby

When you link your arm through hers and cuddle into her side, she falls a little more in love with you. She does it to you often, too

Whenever you kiss her in front of the girls, she tends to get shy. (Mainly because of their relentless teasing). But she never turns you down

She loves having your attention on her.

And she'll pout in order to get it

Like Sua, she tends to get a little loud and aggressive with her love

Will literally whine and cover her eyes when you walk into the room because she says you look too good for her to handle

She loves to sit on your lap (and have you sit on hers as well)

Puts her head on your shoulder a lot

Holds onto the end of your sleeve and tugs it when she wants your attention

She lets you play with her hair and style it however you want

One time you managed to make it defy gravity, and she still hasn't lived that down at the dorm. The girls said she looked like an alien

Whenever you’re just lounging around together and scrolling on your phones, you both still like to be connected in some way. So she’ll usually pull your legs across her lap, or even lay between them. (It makes it even easier for her to show you something interesting or funny that she stumbles across)

She knows she can get her way with you really easily because you’re a total pushover for her. All she has to do is pout or give you a kiss and you’re like putty in her hands

That’s one of her favorite traits about you. Both because she thinks it’s adorable, and also because she can exploit it (big brain Gahyeon)

“Pretty please? I promise to buy you more candy in the morning if you just let me have this last one now.”

{......}

"...or we can share it, if you'd rather."

You make her feel powerful and important, and that’s priceless to her

She loves when you get protective over her. There’s something about that side of you in particular that really does something to her

Whenever she’s busy or away on tour, expect lots of pictures and videos from her at odd hours. The time difference doesn’t stop her from messaging you when she can

Also, sleepy voice messages when she’s laying awake and having trouble sleeping

Whenever you reunite, she’s yelling and running into your waiting arms

Story Snippet

“Yah, how much longer are we going to be out here?” Gahyeon whined, her breath turning white in the chilly atmosphere that surrounded the eight of you. It floated away gently, catching her attention for a brief second as she lagged behind everyone else.

Exploring the city and shopping had gotten boring for her about two hours ago, and quite frankly she was over it at this point.

Heading the group with Jiu, you stopped and turned around to look at her. The brochure in your hands lowered, no longer your top priority.

“What’s wrong, Gah?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she scuffed the bottom of her shoe against the ground, twisting it into a rut that existed in the weathered cobblestone. Her hands flexed into fists at her sides, toying with the handles of the shopping bags that were nestled against her palms.

“I’m cold,” she finally said, voice small as a pout played on her lips. She looked away when everyone’s attention fell to her. Admittedly, she felt a little childish for making everyone stop. The weather was simply starting to get to her, and she was tired.

But being the maknae meant she had every right to be babied, after all, so she didn’t feel too guilty.

You rolled your eyes and smiled softly, shaking your head. “Jiu, will you take over? Let’s go to that restaurant I showed you earlier.”

“The historic one?” She asked, clarifying.

You nodded. “It used to be a royal building, so it’s pretty massive. And there’s a fireplace there fit to match, so…” you trailed off, glancing again at Gahyeon. Her pout deepened a little at you, exaggerating.

“Sounds great,” Jiu smiled warmly. “Let’s get going.”

The girls all resumed their walking after that, conversing with one another and taking in the surrounding sights of the city as Jiu flipped open to the brochure’s walking map and led the way. You let them pass you, waiting for Gahyeon to catch up.

Her nose was red, and the fuzzy muffs on her ears had fallen from their proper place. Her shoulders sagged dramatically, making her look truly spent.

You had to bite back a laugh.

“Here, baby,” you offered, reaching out to take the bags from her. She gave them without any further prompting, and you quickly slid them onto your arms, allowing them to rest in the crook of your elbow. You resituated her earmuffs next, and pressed a small kiss to the tip of her chilly nose.

“Better?”

Her head shook in protest, stumping you.

“Not yet.”

She stepped forward, just a breath away, and slipped her hands into the pockets of your hoodie. They balled in the material and tugged you closer, nearly making you stumble into her at the unexpected action.

“Let’s stay like this, just for a second. Let me warm up a bit,” she smiled mischievously, leaning in enough to brush her nose with yours. Her fingers wrapped around the warmers that were tucked away in your pockets, reveling in the soothing heat that they provided.

You reached in, too, covering her delicate hands so that the cold didn’t have a chance to touch them. She hummed happily, tilting her head to the side to press a thankful kiss to your lips. She giggled quietly against them, pleased to have gotten her way.

The night sky was bright above you, illuminated by the moon as it showered down its speckled starlight in a way that seemed intimate, like it was meant just for the two of you. Your own personal glimpse of the cosmos. It provided comfort, reminding you of home. Of all of those late nights in Korea, when you would sneak outside with Gahyeon for some fresh air, talking about any and everything your sleepy minds could come up with until the delirium set in and you had to amble your way back up to bed.

Even here and now, in a foreign country that seemed lightyears away from that place, shimmers of those moments could be found. They gleamed in Gahyeon’s sweet eyes – hundreds of potential experiences and conversations just waiting to happen. It was meaningful, to say the least, and you were beyond happy that fate had allowed you to be here with all of them.

You kissed her cheek before pulling away enough to look at her.

“I love you–”

Both of you laughed together at the coincidence, your shoulders lifting and falling lightly. The smile on her face was precious, reminiscent of a fox’s. You studied her for a moment, just taking her in and committing everything to memory.

“We should probably get going,” she said, still grinning, though she made no move to actually leave. Her gaze dropped to your lips, lingering there for a beat before raising to your own again. You felt the subtle way her fingers tightened against the warmers, attempting to be inconspicuous.

It was almost comical how bad she was at hiding her feelings for you.

“Yeah,” you agreed, settling closer, teasing her.

She looked around, peeking over your shoulder before craning her body left and right to make sure the coast was clear. Once she was satisfied, she pulled your hood over your head and leaned in, sealing her lips against yours.

Beneath the cover that your thick hood provided, she did as she pleased. Taking her time, savoring the rare chance she got to be alone with you like this. She was a mix of sensations – from her blushing, warm cheeks, to her chilly lips that slid against your own, never wanting to part. The entirety of the embrace was perfect; you couldn’t have asked for anything better.

“We really should get going, though,” you chuckled, resting your forehead against hers once you’d parted for air. “They’ve probably already made it there by now.”

“Fine,” she sighed, feigning annoyance again. “You’re right. But I’m taking this,” she declared, stealing one of your warmers.

She pulled away, turning to stand at your side so you could walk next to one another. “We can share this one,” she resolved, keeping her other hand in your other pocket, where it was still cradled in your own.

You sighed as well, mimicking her. “Fine.”

To smooth things over in the wake of her crime, she cuddled up against your side and laid her head on your shoulder as she pulled you along. The soft crunch of your shoes against the cobblestone street resounded, announcing your journey forward.

“Thank you, babe.” She said quietly, serious now. “For everything.”

“Anything for you,” you quipped with a small smile, watching as your sweet assurance turned white in the air and surrendered itself to the universe.

Her “Giving” Love Languages Ranked:

1.) Gifts

2.) Physical Touch

3.) Quality Time

4.) Words of Affirmation

5.) Acts of Service

She feels responsible and accomplished when she can spoil you and buy you the things that you want. There’s nothing quite like watching the smile grow on your face as you open up presents from her. She’s not afraid to go all out, either.

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radnewspaperroom · 1 year

Text

Wow, so uh....that new lesson huh?

I have.... thoughts.

Michael is getting a little too...all knowing and omnipresent 👀 I feel like.

Each time, he's spoken to MC without showing himself, and saved them while stuck in the past....but this time he's not...sending them back to their proper time?

Just helping them move?

It's rather strange.

The first time was when Solomon made food and they ate it. They woke up in the past when the boys were angels and we assume it's Michael, speaks to MC in a shinning light, like what happened in 13.

He sends MC back to their time, and tells them the conversations they've had with the boys will stick with them.

But this time...idk seemed different. Maybe it's because of how fresh the war is? But he seemed a lot...more standoffish?

and rather than just, yeeting MC through time and space again--he's just breaking whatever curse is on them so they can move.

Yet he's fully aware of how displaced they are, and that Nightbringer put them there and goes as far as to warn them.

It seems even Barbatos, up until the question of "where did you come from", doesn't realize you're from the future. And his whole ish is time and AUs.

If you choose the future option he cuts you off and makes the assumption your being an ass by referring to the human world as the future as humans see themselves above demons and comments on how it's a typical human answer: arrogant and rude.

I know angels aren't supposed to interfere too much, more to sit back and watch but it makes me wonder: did Michael send them back last time because they were in the Celestial Realm, and he doesn't care as much or isn't as concerned since they're in the Devildom this time?

Also, in his warning he says

And removes the curse of Snow White/Sleeping Beauty from MC.

Is he just curious how things will turn out? Does he not have the power this time to put MC back?

And why is he referring to the Celestial Realm that way? It almost reminds me of Simeon and his disconnect with the CR, speaking about it as if it's not his own decision that would be the call. We know Michael is basically Father's second in command, he's in charge of the CR basically from what we've seen.

Has that changed? Is Father going to be more present in this time? Or is it like the Devildom in the way of, there's a ring of command in the CR and they can over ride Michael if they all agree? Like how it seems the House of Shitlords tried to oppose Diavolo?

Also-- WTF?! Even if he passes everything he may still not be appointed King?!

Not the point of the post but, wtf?!

But yeah, so it seems Michael isn't Nightbringer, but he's aware of NB and what they've done, but isn't interfering too much.

I've had a theory in my head, partly as a joke, that Michael is a blonde, blue eyed Lucifer to be the day to his night (black hair, red eyes) and no one sees the resemblance

But what if Michael is Father in disguise? A way to connect to his creations on another level? He'd still be Omnipresent, powerful etc just in a different skin with his power hidden to pretend to be someone else.

I have no concrete proof to make this a legitimate theory, just a nagging voice in the back of my mind:

1. Michael is in charge, despite everyone fawning over Lucifer when he was an angel.

2. he's so seemingly "all knowing" and powerful.

3. Father has been missing or absent for a long time according to Simeon in the og Obey me (Boogeyman trial)

4. Everyone is terrified of Father, even if their biggest fear isn't of him. (Again, Boogeyman trial. Simeon's and Lucifer's biggest fear was him, when the boys wanted to go with MC to the CR, Lucifer asks if they really think Father would let them in)

5. He was represented in the Boogeyman trial as a bright, particular light, with no physical form. Simeon says "I haven't seen that light in a very long time" or something along those lines. Anytime we'ved talked to "Michael" it's been the same, aside from peeking at his texts.

At any rate, I loved it, loved how it flowed and already marked the calendar for 10-11 more days (should be around the 23rd-24th) so I can pounce when it's released

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mirajaneswritingshenanigans · 1 year

Text

Do You Believe Me?

Fandom(s): The Sound of Magic

Pairing(s): Ri-eul x BestFriend!Reader

Summary: The authorities have already deemed Ri-eul as guilty. He knows he’s not. Now, he’s faced with the possibility that the one person he never expected to see him as guilty, may be the one who doesn’t believe him either.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this work. They belong to the creators, writers, directors, and producers of the series. I am simply borrowing them for this work.

A/N: Y/N-Your Name. ✨✨✨✨-Indication of a scene change. After I watched this series a specific scene got stuck in my head. This is the idea that came of it.

Warning(s): Out of character moments? Scene changes. Storyline changes? Netflix subtitle translation used. Open ending?

Word Count: 4,052

Ri-eul was known as a man of many things. With the authorities, he was known as the prime suspect in many incidents involving a minor. Of course he was innocent in every case. It usually ended up being a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, he would always argue that it was the right place at the wrong time. It’s hard to argue against him when all he’s trying to do is cheer people up and make them believe in magic again.

This time was different. You were fully aware of all the rumors currently surrounding Ri-eul. To you it sort of made sense that people would make up such rumors. Considering he had chosen to live alone in an abandoned amusement park. If it makes him happy, even in the slightest way, you supported his choice and all the antics that followed. Honestly, you found the rumors to be quite humorous.

You had gone to visit with him yesterday, bumping into one of the students he had recently told you he was teaching and showing magic to. After introducing yourself as his best friend, you exchanged numbers with her. Telling her if she needed anything she could call on you. What you never expected was to receive a frantic phone call from her the next day explaining that Ri-eul was the prime suspect in a mugging case. She also mentioned that she thinks they may accuse him in the recent missing-student case. Unfortunately it seemed all the evidence pointed to him. She had also told you about the incident between him and Baek Ha-na. You felt that didn’t help his case at all. In fact you felt it was more incriminating towards him more than anything else. Still, something wasn’t adding up to you.

After Ah-yi and Il-deung had explained the entirety of the situation to you, you filled them in on what type of person Ri-eul is. Based on the years you had spent with him. You stated that even with that information it still didn’t make sense for him to commit such crimes. Once everything was explained the three of you went off in search of Ri-eul.

You had decided to follow Ah-yi to the amusement park. Your thoughts running rampant with each step you took. Silently hoping that the two of you would meet with him before the authorities could find him.

You slowed your pace once you made it past the main entrance gates. You made your way for the building he was residing in. Ah-yi was a little further ahead of you. She had entered the building before you did. You were searching for him in his usual spot with Ah-yi. Your heart sinking when you noticed Bella’s cage was knocked down and empty. You barely registered Ah-yi bending over to pick up cards and finding a journal in the process.

You were brought back to reality when she accidentally bumped into you as she walked past you. You followed her to a wall that had two levers on it. You realized what she was doing the moment she pulled the lever. When the trap door opened on stage, you mentally kicked yourself for forgetting that was there in the first place. You quickly followed behind her down the steps into the lower level beneath the stage.

“Mister, is that you?” Ah-yi asked as she walked down the final steps. You carefully followed behind her. “I didn’t know a place like this even existed. So, I was worried sick.” She said. “I did, but I forgot.” You whispered to yourself as you stepped around her. Your eyes landing on Ri-eul squatting near a bench, with his back towards the both of you. You felt puzzled as you studied his form. Not fully understanding what he was currently doing.

“The police are looking for you. You have to hide some place else.” Ah-yi said as she walked closer to him. “My Bella is… very sick right now.” It felt like your heart was breaking when he spoke. Ah-yi knelt beside him on his right side. You stepped over to kneel beside him on his left side. A lump forming in your throat as you took in the scene before you. He had Bella lying in a box covered up and comfortable. You reached out to gently touch Bella’s head as tears began to blur your vision. Ri-eul turned his attention to you when you slowly pulled your hand back. He watched you touch your index and middle finger tips to your lips before gently pressing them on Bella’s beak. After that you let you let your hand rest on your lap and looked to the floor, blinking away the tears threatening to spill over.

Ri-eul had turned his attention back to Bella as Ah-yi spoke again. “Is it really bad? What happened?” “There was just a little accident. It’s okay.” He spoke softly. You looked to Bella and watched him gently stroking her head. “Then I’ll take her to the hospital now, but you have to go somewhere else.” Ah-yi told him. “Bella, are you okay? Can you hear me? I’m here. Sorry. I’m sorry.” Ri-eul said between sobs. You reached over with your right hand and gently began to rub his back. You looked over to Ah-yi to see her giving Ri-eul a look that you couldn’t read. “We’re here for you. You’re not alone.” You spoke gently to him as he continued sobbing.

“Mister, I’ll take her to the hospital first.” Ah-yi said. You let your hand fall to your lap before he began to speak. “No, not the hospital.” “What.” She gave him a puzzled look. “She doesn’t want to spend her last days in the hospital. She said she’s not afraid of death, but she doesn’t want to be lonely. Right? I’m going to do whatever she wants.” You could tell he was trying his best to keep his voice from cracking. “Mister, what are you talking about? The police are going to raid this place at any moment now.” Ah-yi tried to reason with him. “Police?” “Yes.” “Why are the police looking for me?” He looked from Ah-yi to you and then back to Bella.

You watched Ah-yi stand. “They think you’re the culprit from the mugging on that rainy day. And I think they suspect you of other stuff too.” Ah-yi faced him as she spoke, even though he had his back to her. “I have nothing to do with that.” He looked to you as he finished speaking. “Yes. So, there’s no reason for me to run.” He continued to look at you. To you it felt as if he was trying to search for answers within your eyes. “What if… What if no one believes you?” It pained you to see the hurt in his eyes when she asked that question. He turned his attention back to Bella. “No one?” He asked.

“Yes. What if no one really believes you, no matter how much you say it isn’t true? What will you do then?” You understood she was asking because she didn’t know him the way you did. It made sense for her to question him like this. Looking from Ri-eul to Ah-yi it hurt you to see what this situation was doing to the both of them. Ah-yi looked conflicted and Ri-eul looked extremely hurt. “What about you then?” Ri-eul turned to face Ah-yi as he continued to speak. “You… You don’t believe me either? Hm? Tell me. You really don’t believe me either?”

“Mister.” Ah-yi started. Suddenly voices could be heard above you. “Come over here. It looks like there’s something here.” “Yes, sir. We’re over by the stage on the first floor.” You knew it was the authorities speaking with each other. You gently helped Ri-eul to his feet. “I’ll come back for Bella.” You whispered to him as he put on his over coat. Ah-yi was in the lead as the three of you made your way upstairs.

When you made it on stage you had to shield your eyes from the lights being shone in your direction. “Ryu Min-hyuk?” You heard someone ask as the three of you walked down the steps, off the stage. When the three of you stopped near the group of authorities, you assumed the man in a grayish button up was the owner of the voice. You figured he was the lead detective. Your assumption was confirmed when he spoke again. He stepped forward and quickly flashed his badge. “We’re looking into robbery, assault, and murder charges. Come to the station with us.” Ri-eul was attempting to do as he said but Ah-yi stopped him. You wanted to stop him too, instead you stood still. Stunned with what the authorities said what he’s being accused of.

“Let go. I told you, I have no reason to run.” Ri-eul told Ah-yi. After removing his sleeve from her grasp. “It’ll just be a second.” “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. You have the right to appeal unlawful detention.” The lead detective told him before having someone place cuffs on his wrists. “No, you can’t.” Ah-yi told them. “Miss, what are you doing?” “Na Il-deung from my class has already testified he was with him that night. Do you have clear evidence he’s the perpetrator?” “Miss, we are conducting an investigation because there are sufficient suspicions.” “Liar. Isn’t it that you’ve already decided he’s guilty? You’ve only listened to the people who’ve never even met the magician at the amusement park. Am I wrong?” “Ah-yi.” Ri-eul grabbed her arm to make her stop.

“Ryu Min-hyuk. We’re taking you into custody for questioning due to concerns of fleeing and destruction of evidence, and difficulty confirming personal information with no permanent address. Here’s the warrant according to procedure. All right?” The lead detective said. Holding the warrant up as he spoke. “No. No, stop.” Ah-yi said trying to stop the officer that was attempting to put the cuffs on Ri-eul. “Miss! If you don’t stop, we’ll take you in for obstruction.” “Ah-yi. Enough. That’s enough. I told you I didn’t do it. I… just need someone who can tell me that no matter what others say, it’s not important, and someone who believes me. Yeah. That’s all I need.” Ri-eul gently told Ah-yi.

You had stepped closer to the two of them. “I believe you, over everyone else.” You told him. He turned his attention to you, giving you a sad smile in response. “Mister.” Ah-yi began to say. “And I’m coming back soon. So… can you look after Bella for me in the meantime? I don’t have anyone else to ask besides you.” You knew he said that to her to give her a task to occupy her mind. She nodded her head, stepping out of the way, allowing them to put cuffs on him.

“Do you know the type of person that man is?” The lead detective directed his words at Ah-yi. She didn’t say anything so he continued on. “Name. Ryu Min-hyuk. Age. 30. Born in Seoul. Dropped out of high school. Ten years ago, he went missing while being treated in a mental hospital. Three years ago, he was investigated twice as a suspect during a missing-student case in Seongmi-dong. Aside from this, he’s frequented the police station for similar reasons.” Ah-yi turned her attention away from him. “How can you trust him enough to hang out with him? Aren’t you even a bit scared after seeing your classmate go through such a horrific incident? Go home.” He instructed Ah-yi. It seemed like he was ignoring you or he forgot that you were there.

“Why should she not trust him?” You asked him. “Excuse me.” “I said what I said. It’s as if the authorities actively look for reasons to target Ri-eul as a suspect for any case at this point.” You said with so much anger that Ah-yi looked at you in shock. “Who are you? How do you know him?” The detective asked. Glaring at him you said “you go first.” He raised a brow at your statement before speaking. “Detective Kim. Your turn.” “Y/N. I’m Ri-eul’s best friend. Have been for years now. I know him better than that piece of paper that you’re holding.” You pointed to the warrant he had. He rolled his eyes and began to walk away. “Have the day that you deserve.” You yelled at his retreating figure. You turned to Ah-yi. “Ah-yi, are you okay?” You asked her in a concerned voice. She nodded at you before she started looking around the building. You watched her carefully. To you it looked as if she was looking around for answers. You sat next to her when she decided to sit down. You gently rested a hand on her shoulder while she cried. After a few minutes she decided to stand again.

“Ah-yi.” The two of you turned to see Na Il-deung running into the room. “Where is he?” He asked. “The police came and took him a little while ago.” “As I expected.” His words were true but you still gave him a look of surprise. “The truth will be uncovered soon.” “The officer said they did a background check on him. Is he really a crazy person? What if.. he’s a really dangerous person?” Ah-yi asked. You sighed before standing up. “He’s not crazy or dangerous. He was put under too much pressure and became too overwhelmed by it. People tend to deem that as crazy.” They both gave you a look when you spoke. You shrugged your shoulders. “Sometimes, our burdens become too much to bear…” Ah-yi and Il-deung nodded in response to what you said.

“What does your heart say?” Il-deung directed his question at Ah-yi. She looked from you to him before speaking. “I don’t know.” Ah-yi sat down as she continued on. “I’m not sure if it’s that I don’t believe him or that I do believe him, but I am scared that I might be wrong. Because everyone is saying I’m wrong. So, I’m not sure anymore.” “You have Y/N. You also have me.” Il-deung started, “You believe him and so do I. Isn’t that enough?” She was quiet for a moment before she nodded her head at him.

✨✨✨✨

“You still won’t confess? You don’t know Seo Ha-yoon? Let’s take a break.” Detective Kim asked Ri-eul. Detective Kim sighed heavily before he got up from his chair and walked out of the interrogation room. He walked into the observation room where another officer was watching the interrogation. “We found a knife with Ryu Min-hyuk’s fingerprints on it at the theme park. It’s a close match in terms of size and shape, to the weapon, the mugging victim reported.” Detective Kim nodded his head at the officer as he talked.

“Oh, and take a look at this video Baek Ha-na brought this to us.” He turned the laptop so that Detective Kim could watch the video. “There was a physical fight backstage. I think he used this knife here too.” “You mentioned traces of blood backstage. Are the results in?” “There were two people’s DNA. One is Ryu Min-hyuk’s, and the other one, we don’t know yet. But this man…” The officer said pointing to the laptop screen. “Do you think he’s dead? Or he’s alive, but didn’t report to us?” Detective Kim gave him a speculative look. He sighed before looking back up into the other room. He was shocked to see that Ri-eul was no longer sitting at the table. The two of them ran out of the observation room.

✨✨✨✨

The three of you decided that you were going to meet up with Min Ji-soo at a cafe. You figured if you weren’t able to ease their minds, maybe she could help. You have told them everything you knew about Ri-eul. However, Min Ji-soo had know him a little long than you had. She had gone to the same school as him. You didn’t meet him until a week or so after he had dropped out back then.

You sat quietly as Min Ji-soo told Il-deung and Ah-yi about what she had known. She went on to explain that she didn’t think Ri-eul was crazy then or even now. She felt he was reaching out for help instead. Once she was done talking the three of you decided to find some clues to clear his name. Il-deung had gone back to the school. You and Ah-yi were headed back to the theme park.

It felt like you had been running forever when the two of finally made it to the theme park. You were greeted by the sight of the authorities’ cars parked outside the building. You raised your brow but continued to follow Ah-yi.

The two of you were on the second floor. When you heard voices you looked down to see Ri-eul standing on the stage and the officers on the main floor. “Hey, Ryu Min-hyuk.” You heard Detective Kim say. Ri-eul walked to the edge of the stage and bowed at the men. “What are you doing right now? Why are you making things harder than they have to be? If you don’t cooperate, you’ll only be adding to your charges.” Ri-eul began to pace the stage as Detective Kim kept talking. You could hear how annoyed he felt in his voice as he spoke.

“Cooperate? How much more am I supposed to cooperate? I told you everything. Oh. Is it only going to be over if I say that I did something I didn’t do?” Ri-eul had asked before doing one of his tricks. The sound startled Ah-yi, making her step back a bit from where she stood. You however weren’t phased by the action. You were too focused on Ri-eul to pay attention to anything else. “Come on. Let’s do this the easy way. Since there are records of your medical treatment, it can be considered as extenuating circumstances.” Detective Kim tried to reason with him, stepping a bit closer to the stage as he spoke.

Ri-eul stepped over to his table and picked up the blade that sat there. Pointing it at them saying “psychiatric hospitals, prisons. I mean, there’s no use, locking me up in places like that. Because… escapology…” He ducked behind the black suitcase, then appeared from the side of the stage. You smiled at his shenanigans. You watched the authorities turn their attention to where he had appeared from. “is my specialty..” Ri-eul finished saying as he walked back to the suitcase again. He pushed it aside still pointing his blade at them. Detective Kim walked closer to the stage “we got in touch with your family too. They are more than willing to pay for an attorney and medical treatment.” Your heart sunk when what he had said registered in your mind. Ri-eul dropped his hand to his side. “Treatment?”

“What should I do?” You heard a different officer speaking now. “Take him by force.” Detective Kim said as he pulled a gun from his hip holster. “All right. Stay calm, and come with us to the station.” “Mister!” Ah-yi yelled down to them. The two of you began to walk towards the stairs that led to the main floor. Ri-eul walked to the table setting his blade down. When you and Ah-yi made it to the main floor Detective Kim lowered his weapon, turning his attention towards the two of you.

“Hey miss!” “I just need one second. I need to tell him something.” You followed Ah-yi up on to the stage. “What the hell is this? Is it snow? But we’re indoors.” You heard Detective Kim say. You smiled at the snow that was falling around you. “Where is it coming from? There’s no one up there.” A different detective stated. You heart melted when you saw the smile that graced Ri-eul’s features.

“This whole time, you weren’t helping me, you were reaching out for help.” Ah-yi said, slowly approaching him. “All you needed was someone to notice you and believe you.” Ri-eul looked from Ah-yi to you. Giving you a small smile. Ah-yi stepped closer taking one of his hands into both of hers. “Mister. You’re a real magician. Because you made me really believe in magic.” He nodded his head at her with a smile. “Thank you. For helping my magic succeed.” He pulled his hand away so that he could take off his top hat and put it on Ah-yi’s head. “And this is, my gift to you.” He told her after getting the hat situated on her head and stepping back a bit. “Now, if you put this on and recite the spell, the thing on your mind will certainly come true.”

“Ryu Min-hyuk. Let’s go now.” Detective Kim commanded. The three of you looked at them but made no motion to exit the stage. Ah-yi had looked from them to Ri-eul. You were observing the two of them. After a moment Ri-eul looked away from her to look at you, before he decided to walk towards the stairs to the main floor. “Wait a second.” Ah-yi said. Stopping Ri-eul in his tracks. “What are you doing?” You whispered to her. “You’ll see.” She told you with a smile. He turned around to face her again. She had walked to stand in front of him.

“Mister. Do you… believe in magic?” You saw the small smile he gave her. She returned it before turning to grab a black sheet. As she was getting ready to throw it over him she said “Annara sumanara.” After he was engulfed by the sheet he disappeared. Of course this didn’t make the officers happy. Ah-yi looked really sad. You stood in silence. Only startling when you felt something in your hand. The officers ran off to look for him, leaving the two of you on stage. After several minutes you had gone beneath the stage to get Bella, like you had said you would. Once you were back on stage again, you motioned to Ah-yi to follow you.

✨✨✨✨

Sadly, a few days later Bella had passed. You were standing with Ah-yi and Yoo-yi as they lay Bella to rest. Yoo-yi was sticking a marker in the ground so people knew where she was. There was a moment of silence shared between the three of you. Once the silence was over you had decided to walk them home. The walk to their house was quiet. “Do you think I’ll ever see him again?” Ah-yi asked. You looked to her “I’m sure you will. Eventually.” Ah-yi nodded her head in response.

When you finally made it to their house you waved goodbye to them. As you were walking away from their house you dug a piece of paper out of your pocket. It was the one that had appeared in your hand the day Ri-eul disappeared. You smiled sadly before unfolding the paper. This was the first time you had read it. You’ll know where to find me, Y/N.-Ri-eul. You gave the note a puzzled looked as you read it over and over again. Suddenly you realized, you do know where to find him.

✨✨✨✨

You saw him leaning against a tree as you walked to the spot you knew you’d find him in. When he heard your footsteps he turned his attention to you. Pushing himself from the tree he walked towards you. Without thinking you sprinted towards him, tackling him in a big hug. He caught you and spun you around. After about two and a half spins, he set you on your feet. “See, I knew you’d be able to find me.” He told you. You lightly punched his arm and laughed. “Of course.” He smiled at you. “What about Ah-yi?” You suddenly asked. “Ah, I get letters.” “You haven’t told her where you are?” “No.” You gave him a curious look. “It’s better this way… for now.” He said with a sad smile. You nodded at him. “So, on to the next adventure?” He asked holding his arm out for you to take. “Of course.” You told him, looping your arm with his.

#the sound of magic #the sound of magic series #ri eul x bestfriend!reader #ri eul x reader #Do You Believe Me Fanfic #x reader

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ladyluscinia · 1 year

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Idk if it's just a coincidence, but all of the sudden I keep seeing those "Izzy stans are so obsessed with this random white guy that they ignore or flatten every other character (especially poc)" takes all over and it's annoying me so much. So:

First, I'm going to link bromelads most recent attempt to get some actually constructive dialogue going about fandom racism because it has a whole section on this point. Technically two sections if you count the linked drive file as separate.

And then I'm going to ask all my fellow Izzy Hands lovers to add on to this post their favorite deep thoughts / burning questions / fun headcanons / etc. about your favorite non-Izzy characters. I know you all have a bunch of them. Bonus points for other side characters instead of Edward or Stede.

I'll start.

---

So I'm fascinated by the glimpses we get of pirate culture / the Queen Anne / the general environment that Edward is coming from and still half enmeshed in because I personally find the narrative push and pull there a lot more interesting than the whole running from one world to another that Stede (and to a lesser extent his crew) has going on. Which naturally leads to me finding Fang and Ivan so fucking interesting.

(Mandatory moment of sadness that Ivan won't be in season 2, because I was really hoping to see where his story was going 😭)

Not sure if I can really hypothesize many "hidden" depths to Fang because the show openly hit a pretty wide range. He cries over his dog and nude models for Lucius, but also skins a man with a snail fork and seems shockingly chill about Edward making an abrupt 180 to "maroon all your new friends to die". He's an obedient henchman in 1x02 and 1x04, but he also takes basically no prompting to go for the jugular on humiliating gossip the moment Edward seems disinclined to enforce Izzy's authority. The man contains multitudes already, minimal sleuthing required.

I am really looking forward to how S2 addresses his loyalty to Edward over the crew. Like at the end of 1x10 Fang and Ivan don't even really look that conflicted??? They were buddy buddy with these guys yesterday - moreso Fang than Ivan - but also seemed fully aware that Blackbeard could decide he was done playing around at any moment and then he did. Whoo boy. I mean, one genre of fic I'm usually not interested in is "Lucius in the walls" fic (I know he's alive, I just don't really care for that approach), but I will make an exception if it really explores Fang specifically hiding him because that's a big thing given he is openly afraid of defying Edward.

Like... Fang is a pretty friendly dude, and I can't imagine someone to fool around with was that impossible to find on Blackbeard's leatherman express. So it's really cool that despite very much not being, like, his true love or whatever, Lucius is apparently offering Fang something novel on the acceptance and connection front but maybe not something that wildly diverges from what he's had before. And I do think it's interesting to rotate how that tension could be playing out in his mind. He's got to be used to the whole flow of making and losing connections - that's just pirate life, nbd - except this time it's supposed to just be whatever, only... it's not? He actually misses Lucius and those other fun guys??? Maybe even enough to stand up to Edward over it?!

And Ivan! Man, Ivan has all kinds of potential stuff going on that I feel like people could talk about. I would probably talk about it more, only with the news he won't be in S2 it always makes me wonder how they are going to get rid of him and what that's going to imply about him (which might be contradictory to what they were intending). Which makes me sad.

Probably the biggest thing is like... I don't think Ivan actually likes Stede or the Revenge crew much? I mean on a personal level. Like, his only real friendship bond appears to be Fang, he's not noticeably trying to make new ones, and he's kinda fed up with Stede's people a few times? I'm thinking of rooting to kill them after 1x02, and scoffing at them during the raid in 1x05. And to me this is a really cool trait. I love it when "good" side characters have independent personalities enough to find the protagonist mildly annoying or something, instead of every single one of them perfectly correlating "good person" and "protagonist's friend". It prevents protagonist POV from becoming tunnel vision and accidentally making them seem like the center of the universe. (This is part of why the spn fandom loves Kevin.)

Not liking Stede isn't a character flaw, you know? And if you analyze Ivan's POV with just kinda not being impressed with these guys as an option, that leads to some really interesting places. Because in 1x06 he's actively encouraging Edward to just kill Stede like he said he would, not just following Izzy's lead, and then in 1x07 and 1x08 Ivan and Fang disappear. They don't show up again until Izzy does, but they also aren't seen leaving with Izzy or showing up in scenes like Jackie's bar like you would expect if they were just his loyal henchmen or whatever. So what are they doing in that gap???

I've said before that the adventures of Fang and Ivan is a completely wild story squeezed into the background and gaps of this show with two fascinatingly insane guys at the center of it, and I still think that's true. Fang goes right into becoming besties with the crew while still definitely thinking Edward is going to have him murder all of them in a few weeks. Ivan watches Izzy get banished, sleeps on it, and then fucking bounces with his buddy to go meet up with him... And then they praise Edward's punch and mutiny Izzy later! It's fun to think about!

...but I suppose my interest in Fang and Ivan does connect back up with my Izzyposting fairly often (since I like analyzing how characters interact and relate, and these two interact with Izzy), so how about another character?

Oluwande.

Now obviously the well trodden path here is TealOranges thoughts and feels. Plenty of drama, development, struggles, etc. But actually what I most want to know about Oluwande is how he and Spanish Jackie know each other???

Like what was up with that??? 👀👀👀

Their interaction gives off sorta inner circle vibes to me. Jackie clearly suspects / knows he betrayed her, but she calls him over to chat like old friends and Oluwande is expected to play along to act normal. So like... Was that normal? Did he regularly sit at Jackie's table and chat about life with her? Jackie does not have the time of day for her own husbands' problems most of the time - she seems to reprimand Geraldo for expecting more attention than the others - but immediately asking after Oluwande's life doesn't ping "oh she's definitely onto us" for him???

I don't think he's a husband (feels like it would have been addressed) and them being related seems unlikely. He's got a good head on his shoulders but he's clearly not some notorious pirate or outlaw of great skill. Like Oluwande is just some guy! But also some guy that Jackie was personally invested in!

And then bringing Jim into this... So Oluwande is just some guy in Jackie's inner circle, finds out the new barmaid is out to kill Jackie's favorite husband, and just helps them out??? My dude??? He doesn't even get whirlwind romance privileges. He did all that for a mysterious yet compelling stranger and no shit is this man crazy enough for the Revenge.

My headcanon re: the murder is that Alfeo was universally loathed and literally only Jackie and his gang liked him. So when people (and let's be honest Jim is not the most subtle of assassins so probably more than just Oluwande) realized someone was legit after him, they pretty much shrugged and sent them good thoughts. Also I think Oluwande and Jim had a solid plan to get away with killing Alfeo that went completely sideways, which is how they ended up hiding on a pirate ship pretending they knew how to sail. Oluwande didn't actually intend to completely ruin his status with Jackie and he does lowkey regret it in some ways, so he's gonna be thrilled when Jim tells him all about how they are cool with Jackie now and he can go back to the bar to hang next time they are in Nassau.

Anyway that's another big thing I want from S2 Jackie is Oluwande backstory, because that would be such a treat.

#our flag means death #people add your stuff!#(also i find it bitterly amusing that people use the passion with which izzy takes are defended as proof of bias)#(like i will argue izzy can read way harder than anyone argues the frenchie is just faking being illiterate headcanon)#(but that's because frenchie takes get 'lol awesome' and izzy takes get 'how dare you imply he's better than everyone else like this?!?')#(and i fight for my life every day to give edward the same or greater depth i give izzy 😔)#anyway my compelling side characters are #fang ofmd #ivan ofmd #spanish jackie ofmd #ladyluscinia #oluwande boodhari ofmd

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minggukieology · 1 year

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So I have a question that requires an open mind and perhaps a “tin hat”. I was reading about Jimin referencing 2315 during PTD so I looked at dates. This is a reach.., but.. well here goes, lol.

If you calculate the number of days between Nov 8, 2015 and Feb 1, 2023 -excluding both Nov 8th and Feb 1st, it equals 2641 which added together is 13 :) Not sure if that is how date the calculations are done? Do you omit the starting and ending dates when calculating anniversaries etc?

Coincidence most definitely? Or not? If I did the calculations correctly, a nice coincidence?

Hi there! Thanks for your message.

First off, let me start by being very honest and saying I don't personally entertain this type of narrative no matter who it is done by and who it is about. Seeing some meaning in a set of numbers and then proceeding to throw random ones into the mix just so that they fit into your own presumed context is hitting QAnon level of conspiracy thinking. Alas you admit it yourself, yet proceed to pull strings from all possible corners to arrive at any satisfying (to you) conclusion. That being said if it makes sense to you and makes you happy, go ahead and enjoy it. But from my point of view, you just wrote a bunch of numbers and dates and drew connections that are void of reason.

Anyways to add a bit more cultural context, yes numbers and dates are important in Korean culture, esp when it comes to dating life, fortune etc. Korean couples celebrate their 100/×00th day anniversary, their yearly anniversary, their 1000th day anniversary; Peppero day, Valentines day, White day etc those are also all important in dating culture. So, yes counting days from when the couple officially got together is also a thing. To add, it is typically a young people thing, as they are prone to follow trends and show off their couple looks and gifts etc.

In context of BTS or specifically now Jimin and Jungkook, 13 has been mentioned a lot and yes there is a signifance for this number that is justified and logical, as they themselves referred to it on multiple occasions and emphasized its significance. It is also justified and logical to ascribe meaning to different dates that were pronounced and even mentioned by them, such as "Jimin day" or "Jungkook day." Similarly, we also have 지민+시 = 지민시 (Jimin+si) as 10:13 Jimin o'clock. However, anything beyond that is just fanmade narratives. And yes, I am fully aware a lot of those narratives come from Korean fans. But it is important to emphasize they are also just fans. Meanwhile the fandom might feel like their cultural background gives legitimacy to whatever they say and whatever patterns they see, they are no less prone to cognitive dissonance and logical fallacies as any other group of fans or group of people really.

This is now a whole meta discourse that could be dissected in pages and pages. But to sum up, I don't look for hidden meanings in the dates of their posts, and especially not the hour and the minute they post at, or try to analyze numbers they mention (in my opinion) pretty randomly (and even if not by random, anything that is not given context by them is just pure speculation, fantasy)

Once again, this egregiously long reply might feel like sort of an attack so let me reiterate: if these types of posts, theories, coincidences bring you joy, go ahead and indulge in them (I myself do sometimes as well)!! but please don't get too lost in the sauce. I understand, many jikookers are set out to *always* find some kind of connection or link in between Jimin and Jungkook even in completely unrelated scenarios, but make sure to be aware of this echo chamber and think critically.

(sidenote: I apologize if I am missing some obvious connotation that has sprung up on Twitter or some other corner of the Internet recently, I am not so active within the fandom anymore)

#ask #basically this whole reply could be summed up with dont be delulu but if it makes you happy go ahead lol

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soaringsearingphoenix · 9 months

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hi i just woke up so this post is gonna be long

Dream Vocab of the Day: criven/ crivening

Real word when awake?: technically "crivvens!" is a Scottish "exclamation of surprise, sometimes used for comedic effect" which I imagine is a definition missing some detail. But i hadnt heard of it until I looked it up just now, i dont think

Obvious influence of a real word?: no

Definition in dream: to ramble, specifically to tell a long story out of its personal importance to the speaker despite it not necessarily being 'on-topic', but where others may be too polite to interrupt (for example, when a parent talks about their kids, or when an adult talks about a moment of nostalgia for their childhood.) It happens when the speaker gets a little bit too emotional about what they're saying for the event setting, or for the level of closeness with present company, especially if they are trying to mask the fact that they're getting a bit emotional by continuing to talk Children cannot criven. Crivening is based on its context in situations with etiquette that doesnt really apply to children, as its more expected of them to chat without a fully developed sense of timing cues, and to openly express how they feel when they do. It's kind of a minor faux pas you make at a gathering, like a business dinner party, by holding the floor for too long, and being very genuine about it, when the situation dictates mostly inconsequential small talk. An important feature also seems to be that the speaker doesn't necessarily realize they're doing it, so an infodump is not the same as a criven because it can occur anywhere rather than exclusively at large social gatherings, and the speaker may be self-aware that they are infodumping.

Encountered in dream?: Yes, a lady was doing it and got accused of doing so by her husband, which she instinctively protested but then changed her mind. In the dream I was intending to go to a cousin's school play, and as i walked i encountered a crowd including a teacher whose name reminded me of my fourth grade teacher's name. The lady had also known a teacher with a similar name and talked for a few minutes about how lovely a teacher the woman had been, at which point her husband said "I think this is the first time I've seen you crivening," to which she said "I am Not crivening!" later, they showed me a dark green felt fedora, and the woman explained it had been her father's - "we called it his Crivening Hat because he used to wear it on formal outings" and apparently he was pretty chatty; he sounded like a nice man, but frequently a very sincere one too

#My sleep dreams #Dream vocab #It's been a while #i woke up straight from that dream #And was like #i shall document it #Honestly this post got criven length with me trying to explain the nuance #Its not tho #Regular run of the mill infodump

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hereliesbeetlejuice · 2 years

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Hi! I found out about closing from your post and at first thought that was some old news but then I realised and cried for like 15 minutes 🫠 I’ve been in this fandom for 3 years and i have a Russian blog about Beetlejuice (there’s actually quite a lot of fans of this musical in Russia 🙃) and I know I probably would never have a chance to see Beetlejuice live but it became such an important part of my life so it’s just heartbreaking to see these news. At this point I just don’t understand why this happened and can fans do anything about it😔 I’m also wondering what will happen with fan art mural. My art got there and it made me extremely happy cause at least some part of my love for this show will be there on broadway but now I think they will take it all down and it makes me even more sad :( Thanks for listening (I really like your blog btw🤗)

i am,,, so sorry you had to learn it from me 😭 it literally did not occur to me in the moment other people have lives and might not have heard yet.

i had no idea it has such a big Russian fanbase!! that makes me so happy!!!! there are few things i love more than hearing about this show’s reach both on a widespread level and an individual level. i feel awful you won’t get to see the show on broadway but i’m just so glad it found you at all and affected your life the way it did 💜

i’ll miss the fanart wall and really feel for everyone whose art won’t get to live there anymore, but i’m also so happy for you that you were able to have a small piece of you at the theater even for a limited time.

obviously i’m incredibly sad this show’s run is coming to an end, but i’m also fully aware how lucky i am to have gotten the experiences with this show i have and just focusing on staying grateful. my heart really goes out to the fans without the ability to see it before closing. at the very least i get to remind people in the U.S. about the national tour (and people in the UK about the rumored West End transfer) but for other fans like you i hate not being able to do anything so i’m playing around with a few small ideas for making the show as accessible as is within my power:

my friend runs a playbill exchange program where people can donate unwanted/extra playbills or get playbills they want for FREE (just pay shipping). there are tons of different beetlejuice playbills currently in stock, you can find them on twitter at @ programXchange

i also have so many extra playbills from all different stages of the show from the last four years, i’m thinking of running a giveaway soon closer to the show’s final performance

i’m currently working on sifting through my collection of bootlegs and audios to find the ones i’m able to share publicly or trade (according to the boot owner’s wishes) to compile them all into one google doc that every fan will be free to access

i’m also working on creating a shareable resource that i’ll be constantly updating with any and all ticket discounts, deals, and lotteries for people who can’t afford a full price ticket

if anyone has more ideas or would like to contribute to any of these feel free to reach out!

i sincerely and genuinely really hope you get to visit the show someday, in any capacity. everyone deserves to 🖤

#sorry this took me so long to answer i’ve been in new york for bway flea weekend #but this is just such a sweet ask thank you <3 #ask #comicake

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bisluthq · 6 months

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I haven’t read all the asks fully because they’re very long and someone seemed upset by the way we were talking about Joe. They said he probably wasn’t as bad as we’re making him out to be.

I will just share my opinion. I know all couples have their ups and downs, I know everyone fights at some points. But I think how you react during those fights and how you fix those problems is the important part. I understand that we only have Taylor’s point of view here, but tbh I never thought their fights sounded healthy.

In my opinion, they met at a time when she needed to “run away”. At the time, she loved that Joe wanted to “hide” with her, but at some point she didn’t want to hide anymore and Joe didn’t want to deal with that level of attention. I blame neither and both of them for this. Joe shouldn’t have been with someone as big as Taylor if she needed her to hide for the rest of her life, because I’m sure it gets tiring. But Taylor also shouldn’t be dating someone who likes to be private when she loves attention. They had set up “rules” and Taylor completely changed her mind, but at the same time Joe should’ve expected it.

I think Joe clearly loved her and treated her well, but many people settle into relationships and stop paying attention to their partner, it’s very common, but it doesn’t mean he wanted to break up or didn’t want to marry her.

I don’t know if Loverfest was that way for Andrea or Joe or both. But either way, I think she would’ve been willing to tour less for Joe, while Joe was taking up jobs in Panama in a moment’s notice missing all her Red TV stuff and her birthday.

If Taylor had only talked about Joe “not caring” in YLM I would understand saying that maybe that wasn’t necessarily the case, but it’s a theme in other songs too. It’s something she thought was cool at first but something she hated in the end.

The Great War also shows a lack of trust there but they might have worked through that one since I think that was towards the beginning of their relationship.

I’ve seen many people say that without the pandemic they would’ve lasted more and I disagree. I think the pandemic made them last more than they would’ve if their 6 years together had been normal years.

Towards the end, I think she was frustrated because Joe was more focused on his work than he was on marrying her which made her feel like he didn’t want her anymore. I do believe her when she says Joe didn’t see what she was going through but I also believe it’s her fault for not communicating. You can’t just expect people to “read the signs” be a ducking adult and tell them how you’re feeling. But that’s also why I believe Joe wasn’t expecting a break up. There might have been some fights, but they’d gone through that before and I think he believed they would get through it, but he didn’t realize how much it was all affecting her.

I believe they’ve always had issues with communication. I think Taylor liked Joe’s drive but at some point she didn’t like that his job was always put first. She should’ve communicated that to him but she didn’t. But at the same time Joe should’ve been more aware.

All in all, I think a break up was going to happen sooner or later because they had some issues that they weren’t really resolving

I mean, without the pandemic they might’ve lasted longer in the sense that Taylor blew up in the insane way she now has with folklore - which was the soundtrack of the pandemic. I do think she was toying with going into an adultier sound after Lover (she implied that in Miss Americana) but I think it wouldn’t have become as popular as it did if everyone wasn’t extremely sad at the time. That said, I don’t buy the fact that the fame was what “drove them apart” or anything. I think there was a lot of love there, but a lot of issues, and as you say they weren’t really resolving them so ultimately they broke up.

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frankdowling · 1 year

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The Important Red Flags to Watch Out for When Selecting Real Estate Agents

Finding the right best Real Estate Agents in Ascot Vale can be a difficult and stressful process. If you're looking to buy or sell a home, it's important that you do your research and find an agent who is qualified and trustworthy. But how do you know if your agent is up for the job? Here are some red flags to watch out for when selecting real estate agents:

Incorrect price proposition

Real Estate Agents Ascot Vale should be able to show you comparable properties in the area. If they can't, then they are not qualified to sell your property. And if they can't do that, then they are not qualified to sell your property!

The last thing you want is for your real estate agent to find a buyer for your home only to have them back out of the deal at the last minute. This is why it's important to do some research before hiring a real estate agent.

They lack knowledge of the local area

If you want to buy a home or property in a specific area, it is essential that your agent has intimate knowledge of the local area. You will want to hire an agent who can tell you about the community, schools, and other important characteristics of your chosen neighbourhood. The agent should also be able to tell you about the market conditions in this location through previous sales activity as well as current inventory levels.

Poor Communication

Poor communication is a serious red flag. If an agent isn't willing and able to communicate effectively, there are several problems that can arise:

Missed deadlines, unmet expectations and general lack of trust.

Loss in business.

Loss of money on the transaction or loss of time (which costs money).

Bad reviews.

No Online Listings

First, you should check whether or not the agent has a website. If they don't, it's a red flag that they are either disorganised or simply outdated. You can do this by searching for their name on the internet and seeing if any websites come up (if you find multiple listings of them, then it's safe to assume there's at least one).

If you do find their website, take a look at its design and functionality. Does it look professional? Is it easy to navigate? Are there links to important documents such as disclosures and property listings? These are all things that will help you get an idea of how on top of things your agent is in terms of technology—and make sure that your agent is doing everything possible to serve your needs as both seller and buyer during this process!

Lack of Disclosure

You should never have to wonder what a real estate agent is doing. If you're hiring someone to help with such an important financial transaction, they need to be upfront and honest about every step of the process. A lack of disclosure can mean serious problems down the line:

Transparency: When a seller's agent doesn't disclose important features of a home (such as its condition), buyers may not be aware that they're getting less than what they paid for. In this case, it's important for agents to fully inform clients about any issues that come up during negotiations or after closing. The same goes for sellers—if an agent has concerns about their clients' ability to complete negotiations in time, he or she should speak up now rather than later so everyone knows where they stand from day one.

Trust & Professionalism: This point ties into transparency because both require honesty in order for there not only to be trust but also to maintain professional relationships between everyone who works together on these deals.

Honesty: Agents must always tell their clients only what they need to know when dealing with issues related specifically to their respective roles within an agreement.

Conclusion

In summary, there are many red flags to watch out for when selecting an agent. You should look for Real Estate Agents Ascot Vale who have a good rapport with their clients, and who are willing to put your needs first. You should also look for agents who have the knowledge of local areas that you need. Finally, it's important to make sure they disclose everything upfront so that any questions you might have can be answered before hiring them as your real estate agent!

Source Link :- https://propertymanagementsairportwests.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-important-red-flags-to-watch-out.html

#Real Estate Agents Pascoe Vale #Real Estate Agents Moonee Ponds #Real Estate Agents Essendon #Real Estate Agents East Keilor #Real Estate Agents Ascot Vale #Property Management Pascoe Vale

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adamworu · 4 years

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The Subtle Horror of Evangelion

What keeps us all hooked to Eva time and time again? You get through your initial, confused watch of either Evangelion endgame, probably sometime in your adolescence wondering what the hell it is you just watched. The original source material is suffused with unsettling imagery, and sometimes too-close-for-comfort shorts. It’s so much to process that one watch is never enough. The imagery isn’t enough, however, because the mid-to-late-90s series comes with things you’ll pick up the more you focus on certain characters’ struggles or the interesting world-building. They arise little by little with every re-watch, adding onto what interested you in Eva to begin with.

There’s always that little voice asking you “What it is that really draws me here?”

Oh. The horrors.

The tragedy of it all.

These things never leave you the second you bear witness to them, whether you become aware of them or not. You’re disturbed over it, a tad worried, no doubt, but you’re strangely hooked.

Horror works better on limitation, it’s why found footage capturing pale, ghastly, monstrosities of the deep wood will always stand as exponentially terrifying. While most all of us have taken cracks at Eva’s budget at some point, that’s what really drives these terrors home. Its low budget nature made it work.

Evangelion has commentary which forces a viewer to reflect. Most no one enjoys that. It’s the fear, however, that has its audience come back. Evangelion’s reflection alone isn’t what gives Eva it’s charm decades after its run. It’s the little things, most everyone misses, the anxieties, the terrors, all of it. Most of those things, fly over a lot of fans’ heads.

Buckle up, there’s a lot to go through…. (warning for mentions of abuse, body horror, means of suicide, nudity, blood, and gore)

Table of Contents

I. Icebergs for Dummies

Tier 1: The Tip of the Iceberg

II. The Hedgehog’s Dilemma

III. The AT-Field as a Universal Metaphor

IV. Kensuke Aida + War Idealism

V. Shinji is the Audience Surrogate

VI. Abuse in Evangelion

Tier 2: Just Below the Tip

VII. The Infamous Elevator Scene

VIII. Naoko + Casper

IX. The Other End of Existential Horror

Tier 3: The Body of The Iceberg

X. War Horrors of ‘Ambivalence’

XI. Unit-01 Berserk Scene

XII. Dummy Plugs + CNS

XIII. Kaworu + Adam’s True Power

Tier 4: Pre-Abyss

XIV. The “Nihilist” Lens

XV. The True Nature of Sync Rates

XVI. Unit 01+ MPE Gorging Scenes

XVII. Ancient Ruins of Arka

Tier 5: The Abyss

XVIII. Split Second Misato Death

XIX. Humans Are The Villains in Eva

XX. The Ultimate Paradox

XXI. Conclusion

I. Icebergs for Dummies

For those unaware, the iceberg image illustrates that things are much deeper than they appear, just like an actual iceberg. You’ve probably seen this selfsame iceberg--- separated by tiers--- a few times looking through late night internet rabbit holes (Putting it out in the open: I’m personally guilty of this!), fictional or non. It helps you understand why you’re so enticed to certain material, that you’d revisit them. The highest parts of the iceberg are the things in the material most everyone knows, the surface level stuff. The lower you go, however, the lesser known the parts of the material are. These are the things the person are aware of.

Eva has some iceberg illustrations if you look around, albeit they don’t go through the more saddening, sometimes graphic factors of Eva, only theories navigating through Eva’s universe. Evangelion is so deceptively packed with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it subtleties that if an iceberg were centered on that, the diagram would be packed. And I’m being generous as I write this.

A few ground rules, before we begin: The iceberg will deal with the more obscure and dark material as the tiers get higher rather than it only being relegated to obscure bits. The lower the tier, the higher the iceberg and the more subtler the anxieties which graduate into horrors the deeper you go.

Yes, Evangelion is occasionally horrifying. No, Evangelion is not lovecraftian. I think people use the term lovecraftian way too freely. It’s not enough to see something with (sometimes too many) limbs twisted in ungodly angles. Or legs where legs shouldn’t be. The same applies for creatures assuming forms we don’t entirely comprehend. Eva has never delved into the angels being incomprehensibly terrifying specifically because they come from a cosmic expanse.

Some of these actual horrors, big and small, hit you after adolescence, something that makes you feel deeply for the characters’ dilemmas. It’s a feeling that grows and sometimes aches, rather than fades over time for many of us.

Tier 1: The Tip of the Iceberg

II. Hedgehog’s Dilemma

III. The AT Field as a Universal Metaphor

IV. Kensuke Aida + War Idealism

V. Shinji As the Audience Surrogate

VI. Abuse in Evangelion

II. Hedgehog’s Dilemma

Evangelion has its hand in so many psychological and philosophical cookie jars, from Freud, to Maslow, Johari, as well as Dostoevsky. The very tip of the Subtle Horrors of Evangelion Iceberg is something viewers are introduced to in the fourth episode of the series. It is one of the many psychological concepts dotted throughout the original show. Out of all those psychological concepts, this is the most explicit and most recurring.

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma describes the conundrum of two hedgehogs. The closer two hedgehogs become to one another, the more they harm each other with their spines. If you want to properly live, you need the closeness and intimacy of others. By allowing yourself to be close, however, you end up at great risk of being hurt. It’s the very reason what drives those who live to become guarded. Being perpetually apprehensive or building up walls isn’t a remedy for pains, however. The Hedgehog’s Dilemma isn’t just about why people become guarded after relationships ended on bad notes. It’s about the overall inevitability of pain.

Life is a continual push-pull of relationships, because we’re all creatures of comfort. We guard ourselves to varying degrees and sometimes even tell ourselves we won’t get close again, but personal comfort is one of our most ultimate drives.

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma not only describes that harm happens to us anyway, but illustrates that because comfort is universal we seek companionship regardless.

III. The AT-Field as a Universal Metaphor

The AT-Field is the most crucial rabbit hole in understanding the largest meta-narrative of Evangelion.

If Hedgehog’s Dilemma explains the what and the why people become more or less guarded, then AT-Fields explain the how. People build up walls around themselves all the time. You walk away from someone because they crack a smile at you... and it seems off.

Because you feel an anxious pang.

That’s an AT Field.

AT-Fields, or Absolute Terror Fields bear a few metaphors, one of which being boundaries. You see it as Shinji’s fear of becoming intimate, knowing the future implications or Asuka’s masculine protest (putting up a front). We can see an excellent example of the AT Field used by Asuka, her “Wall of Jericho” in episode 9.

You also see it manifested through the angels, the strange creatures in Eva who supposedly desire to merge with Adam, their mother. Seeing this in the angels makes you realize that the AT Field is actually a metaphor for boundaries which implicates us all. In episode 22, Arael, 15th angel, seeks to understand Asuka. The angel uses its AT-Field (a beam of light) no, its boundary, to breach Asuka’s boundaries.

AT-Fields can be used to not only build up personal walls but to breach them as well. The irony of Arael’s action is that Arael’s AT-Field being erected while it floats just over Earth’s gravitational field makes it immensely similar to the Second Child; they’re both guarded.

The AT-Field is a funny sort of thing because it also sometimes explains how two people who are so alike can be guarded from one another. Sometimes you gain contempt for someone because they’re too much like your least favorable traits. You see this with Shinji and Asuka, both children without their mother desiring validation. Shinji calls Asuka a child midway into episode 9 and Asuka isn’t shy on voicing ideas of Shinji as dense or immature. They’re throwing stones in glass houses.

AT Fields are used to get the user out of dangers both physical and perceived. Sachiel, 3rd angel in the original series’ pilot episode, uses its AT-Field, in the form of flotation, to get itself from enemy fire. It never shows this until it is attacked first.

AT Fields are also responsible for one’s identity and physicality in Eva. Without the AT Field you don’t really exist. When Rei assumes the form of the person the character being cast into Instrumentality loved most in End of Evangelion, she’s causing the character to give up their AT Field. With that gone, they lose their physicality, turning into LCL (given the lovely term ‘tanged’ by fans). The ‘tanged’ individual suffers metaphorical death. Evangelion argues that in order for one to exist, others must perceive you and you must perceive you, a point best illustrated in episode 16. Since everyone is converted to LCL, no one really ‘exists.’ Rei describes this unnerving state as the inability of differentiating who you are and others, since everyone lacks a physical state without AT-Fields. Metaphorical death can be argued as worse than physical, since we all exist to make an impression of some sort. It’s what ties all the Eva cast together and the cause of their dilemmas. Validation. You can be living, yet very much forgotten or simply unknown.

There is living and there is “living.”

You can’t “die” unless someone knows you. You were never there. AT Fields are the thing that make us live, but as a drawback, prevents us from understanding each other fully. Kaworu states in episode 24 that AT Fields are the wall of the mind and the heart of the soul, an unapproachable piece of sanctuary. When all else is taken from us, all we have left is our place of respite.

I’d also like to pitch the saddening reality that the AT-Fields are what prevent us from understanding angels as a whole, our genetic siblings as scared of this world as we are. The psychological angels want to understand us, that much is true. The angels, however, use forms of communication at the expense of our boundaries. Because people greatly value boundaries it makes it hard for us to comprehend angels. The creatures are hardly malicious when you realize they wonder why we all do things that actually hurt us, as well as the fact that they do understand our minds. But, because they breach our boundaries, we become even more wary of the (mostly) unknown. Angels may be us, but the strange forms they take are something we aren’t familiar with. The feeling is mutual with angels, wondering why there are many of us, our forms and outward appearances so identical. It’s a truth as old as time that we all fear the unknown.

The anxiety of an AT Field means comprehending that there’s very little chance to 100% get others. Because we’re all wary in some degree, because we’re set in an idea or perception of someone, even if the someone in the past no longer applies. It’s not healthy for you to continue dwelling on relationships not meant to be, keeping yourself up at night asking why, because both of you have closed off each other for good. There’s always that chance the other can come back and if they do seek to understand despite past hardships, that’s good. If they don’t, all you can do is move on and accept it.

IV. Kensuke Aida + War Idealism

Kensuke is one of Shinji’s classmates, a supporting player in the series. He’s close with Toji Suzuhara, a boy who takes his anger on Shinji, after finding out that his sister has been injured during Shinji’s fight with 3rd angel Sachiel. As Suzuhara beats him down, Kensuke downplays the incident. Kensuke’s and Toji’s relationship is particularly interesting because the latter is affected to some degree by war (the war by humanity to prevent our destruction by angels). Kensuke glorifies the sentient, implicitly eldritch, multi-armored war-machines.

Kensuke can be best described as the ‘wow, cool robots’ drawing you’ve probably seen floating around. This is in relation to Gundam’s war commentary, but replace Gundam with Eva. Kensuke is enamored with the Evangelions and totally, willfully ignorant to the war horrors. Adolescents are forced to be the salvation of humanity, feeling every bit of damage to their own bodies whenever the Evangelion takes any hurt. Even after the war for humanity is long over, the pilots will be afflicted with traumas that will always hang over them.

Kensuke’s glorification is also what draws him to be Shinji’s friend. He uses Shinji’s status as a way of becoming a pilot himself by meeting up with Misato, putting himself at the cockpit of a strange creature magnificent machine.

When Toji becomes hospitalized after his battle in a hijacked Unit-03 vs. A Dummy System-controlled Unit-01, Kensuke expresses discontent at not being a pilot. He’s annoyed because “everyone” but him is a pilot.

Thing is, Kensuke isn’t heartless, just ignorant. Idealism is one of the uglier things that runs thick in the heart of Evangelion. His is one of many cases of unhealthy idealism in Eva, another example of making it difficult for those living to understand one another.

V. Shinji as the Audience Surrogate

Shinji as the audience surrogate isn’t always touched up on, but is sort of understood subconsciously by a lot of the viewers. Shinji’s character is specific, yet so generalized that him being a surrogate for the audience just… works. Don’t believe me? Shinji gets two psychological exploration-based episodes whereas Asuka and Rei each have one. Episodes 16 and 24 are both psychological angel episodes, albeit the latter is more in-series subversive. The 24th episode doesn’t involve a breach of subconscious boundary, but the pilot (Shinji) is in the hot-seat, being made aware of their issues. Leliel, 12th angel, contacts Shinji in the former of these. Both characters talk to one another, shown as a series of horizontal lines and vertical lines, sometimes intersecting. These lines are a strong reference to the Johari Window, a tool in psychology which helps someone become more aware of themselves. The Window’s quadrants are as follows

1. the part known to the self

2. the part known to others

3. the part known to the self and others

4. the part known to no one

Leliel also states that the self only exists of one perceives themselves as well as others. The angel also states that Shinji could better his reality, to which Shinji absolves himself of responsibility by arguing the horrible state of his reality. It’s a subtle pushing to Shinji and by extension the viewer into free will. Kaworu builds up on these concepts with Eva’s in-universe concept for boundaries. Free Will versus Determinism is brought up here, with the idea that AT-Fields are brought up because the living (again, not people – emotional complexities aren’t only human) will them into existence. By exercising free will, it means enduring pain, one of Shinji’s, and again the audience’s greatest fears. Any relationship has pains and conflicts. This is all a buildup of free will, determinism, self-awareness, and the Hedgehog’s Dilemma. Understanding all of these means swallowing the “pain is inevitable” pill. The problem with much of us is that we like the idea of relationships rather than being in one. We want to feel validated but without the conflict, even if the conflict can be solved. We’re all Shinji because we’re all aware to life’s hellish catch-22s, so we run. There’s times in our lives where we run as far as possible from these woes, these truths, but there’s pain in running too. It’s why escapism seems like such a viable action for some of us.

Pain is inevitable, but pain can be mitigated.

More damning evidence to Shinji being a viewer stand-in lies in either endgame of Evangelion (pun intended). In EoE, after the Komm Susser Tod sequence of everyone on Earth being tanged, we’re treated to a shot of EoE’s live audience.

We hear Shinji’s voice about his reality while he talks to Rei toward EoE’s end. There are shots of the city, of people going about their daily lives cementing that this is about us. End of Evangelion shows us a less favorable side of Shinji, a departure from the lauded end series “Congratulations” scene, in which he does understand free will rather than perpetually dwell on negatives. Shinji reacts unfavorably toward Asuka in EoE after his mother’s speech to the audience that ‘anywhere can be paradise’ and Shinji stating he doesn’t know where his happiness resides. Shinji (We) still has a ways to go if he wants to be a better person.

It’s probably why many of us are either inclined to champion Shinji or harangue him, and either reaction is fair. Many of us are aware of audience surrogates, but never to this extent. Shinji isn’t his best person, but he can be. Being his best means self-reflection. Droves of people who first were exposed to Evangelion were teens, and again many of Shinji’s woes are specific yet so generalized, hence our feelings of defense and possibly disgust.

No one likes scathing, yet accurate call-outs on their person, but they’re paramount for us to understand ourselves and others.

VI. Abuse in Evangelion

One of the worst things recurring in all of original Evangelion is a bevvy of abuses.

Abuse comes in many shapes and forms and it’s many characters’ realities. Abuse happens not because the universe ‘wills it’ (determinism aka, ‘that’s just how people are’). Abuse, be it conscious emotional absence, actual neglect, among other ungodly acts fly though the cast.

Abuse is cyclical and a lot of those doing it often get away with murder because they have power.

Much of Eva is comprised of children being forced to sort through adults’ emotional baggage. Those children become adults and the cycle continues.

We all know a Gendo. Or even perhaps a Misato. Hell, even a Ritsuko.

Anno states that Gendo’s character is of a societal meta-text, which explains many viewers’ ire in relation to the character. He’s responsible for many of the seedy goings-on in Evangelion be it the financial (see: Jet Alone’s orchestrated out-of-control nature to give NERV more funding) or abuses (see: Rei, Shinji, Ritsuko, and, Naoko). It’s for this reason why Gendo’s actions are a sore spot for a lot of fans.

Anno: I’m not sure that it’s a real father [that Gendo represents]. Well, not a father in the sense of a parent with a blood relation to his child, but more, I think, [in the sense of being] a representative of society or the system. That’s why he has that expression.

Takekuma: So, he’s kind of amorphous.

Anno: The angels are the same. I made them appear amorphous in that way because, for me, society is unclear, the enemy is unclear.

Takekuma: Gendo is [a representation of] the boundries or the pressure of society itself.

Anno: That might be it. Perhaps Gendo is [a representation of] society itself.

http://wiki.evageeks.org/Statements_by_Evangelion_Staff

After many re-watches of certain Eva episodes, it just hit me, as I’m writing this why I’m sometimes apprehensive on an adult-exclusive lens of the show. This happens a lot in adolescence and our struggles are made trivial because of the mishandled baggage. As children, you’re meant to be subservient to parental whims. You have this sort of obligation to solve their problems. Give them closure. It doesn’t even need to be parental baggage, but just from adults in general. You see the way the adults act not just with the children but with each other. You see the way Gendo justifies neglecting Shinji, objectifying Naoko and Ritsuko or Naoko’s emotional absences as a mother to her daughter (also manifested through the MAGI). It’s these immature excuses as to why they can’t extend empathy to those around them.

It’s always excuses.

Eva’s original series has always been a show about children.

Tier 2: Just Below the Tip

VII. The Infamous Elevator Scene

VIII. Naoko + Casper

IX. The Other End of Existential Horror

VII. The Infamous Elevator Scene

The Elevator Scene is a sequence that sometimes gets glossed over due to Evangelion’s fleeting budget. It took me years to realize the true gravity of the awkward silence of both the 22nd episode and its Director’s Cut version. The Director’s Cut version has Asuka abruptly jerking in the silence, but that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment speaks volumes. Understanding the scene means understanding why Asuka quietly stews in her anger. Understanding why Asuka stews means understanding Asuka from her debut to her emotional breakdown.

Asuka’s appearance in the 8th episode, Asuka Strikes!, is marked by a bold persona that carries on until the end. She isn’t shy on imparting her prowess to Shinji, stating that Units 00 as well as 01 were the prototype and the test type, respectively. Her Evangelion, Unit-02 is the finished product. She even states that she graduated from university. Despite these impressive feats so early in adolescence, the only time in which they’re noted is when Asuka talks of them. Misato takes in both Shinji and Asuka, but only ever “dotes” on Shinji. Gendo pays attention to Shinji because he pilots Unit-01, and 01 contains the soul of his late wife. Rei is the clone of Gendo’s late wife, hence Gendo’s attention and overall creepy, selfish obsession with her. Asuka and Shinji’s relationship, with Misato as their caretaker strongly mimics a Golden Child and the Second Fiddle. The only difference is, Shinji gains more attention due to Gendo’s and Misato’s respective baggage. Again, Eva is a series where children are forced to handle the baggage (with no break in the cycle) and when the child doesn’t have anything the adult particularly can clue in on, they become neglected.

That’s Asuka’s dilemma.

It’s why Asuka forces herself to grow up.

It’s why Asuka is driven to be competitive to Shinji and Rei, later growing contemptible at both.

Asuka suffers a few curses, one of which being the youngest, the inevitability of being consciously sidelined dawns on her, leading to her selfsame breakdown toward series’ end. She aligns youth with trivialization, so naturally, she’d front with the opposite. She never gets help in relation to her period. Misato and Ritsuko realize something is up with Asuka but they never really offer her the support.

There’s also the flashback to her trauma in episode 22’s beginning. She’s replaced by her mother post-Contact Experiment (which led to a deterioration of her mental health) via a doll that looks like her, red hair in pigtails. It’s the leading factor to her feigned boldness, her ego. The way in which she is marginalized in the series brings it all back.

Rei breaks the silence with a few words of compassion and all Asuka can do is express disbelief. She mistakes compassion for contempt.

For pity.

The idea that anyone would extend kindness, especially now of all times, is unbelievable.

Asuka also experiences a dilemma here, a dilemma those like her face. She already knows what it means to be vulnerable and deeply hurt, but she needs to make herself vulnerable because now, more than ever, she needs the support. Being vulnerable will cause past traumas to flood back in full force, but by stewing she deprives herself of any support. Rei offers that support, but a few words of support in a wave of trivialization can’t help but feel a bit too strange.

Asuka’s greatest anxiety is realized in the twenty second episode. It’s of being and staying second fiddle, that she’s always been set up to fail. Even 2 episodes after the fact, in which she actually starves herself does she realize once more how she’s permanently ‘below’ others.

Asuka’s curse finds itself in real life, and it’s for that reason why I believe some find themselves resonating with her. Asuka’s gradual descent into bitterness is something I find myself waking up some nights thinking about after 7 years going through Eva; hers is a cautionary tale on being emotionally distant to cries of a damaged youth. Casually imparted knowledge of past achievements, and the competitive attitude mixed with embitterment, some of which from a genuine place but also a product of neglect. We were forced to play second fiddle, we forced ourselves to grow up to feel more legitimate, forced to carry an ire that stews because it seems no one listens.

VIII. Naoko+Casper

The late Naoko Akagi is a woman of multitudes. Those multitudes are compartmentalized into the 3 MAGI. They are Balthasar, Melchior, and Casper.

Casper shows itself to be the most prominent aspect of Naoko’s personality, her as a woman. Ritsuko states that, after the defeat of Iruel, 11th angel, that Casper is the part of her mother which remained that way to the end.

Balthasar and Melchior have been bested, be it by rival MAGI, or Iruel’s assault. This calls back to the fact that Naoko’s other facets aren’t anywhere near as prominent. Naoko has cited her own emotional negligence, of only showing emotions should it ever benefit her.

Casper on 3 occasions fights tooth and nail, Iruel’s assault, an attack by multiple MAGI in End of Evangelion or the defiance of Ritsuko activating the self-destruct sequence. Ritsuko does this to seek vengeance against Gendo for coming to the immense realization that he never genuinely cared for her. Gendo has always used Ritsuko for her body. This would destroy NERV, meaning killing herself and Gendo.

Then you realize why Casper overrides the sequence.

Casper’s stubborn behavior wasn’t actually to defend NERV but to protect Gendo. Casper’s defiance aka Naoko’s emotional absence toward her daughter allowed Gendo to kill a bewildered, rightfully angered Ritsuko.

The saddest part of Casper’s, no, Naoko’s choice is that Naoko got away with murder. Evangelion is a story about children dealing with the selfishness of adults and the adults never receiving justice for their wrongdoings. The relationship between Ritsuko and Naoko is an excellent example that this doesn’t just implicate the young pilots. Ritsuko dies in End of Evangelion with the truth that her mother, as a woman, in the end chose the man who manipulated both of them.

IX. The Other End of Existential Horror

Some spend their whole lives trying to make a mark. Others can’t help but be known.

People get smart sometimes to get themselves out of a current situation. Kaworu and Rei’s existences are such that they’re deadlocked from living. Their existences are the product of an experiment, to be later heavily watched and raised as the Last Messenger. The latter is the result of Gendo’s obsession with his late wife.

Kaworu and Rei’s existential crises are opposite from the rest of the cast; while others do their damndest to become known, they cannot be unknown. Rei’s character centering more around her identity than other characters is also initially and sneakily alluded in the opening.

The Johari Window is a tool encouraging self-awareness in the person, alluded to twice in the show, with the second time being in the sixteenth episode. Both usages of that illustration, for Rei, and Shinji drive home crucial aspects of the meta-text.

This would also tie Rei to Shinji in End of Evangelion forcing Shinji to reflect on his own awareness and will. Rei is an astute, young girl whose arc is about her personal relationship with identity, something she is all too familiar with due to her objectified nature. Rei’s arc is even more so entrenched in identity than other characters that she is one of the characters imparting personal and universal realities.

Ayanami Rei’s existence from start to finish is inundated with the issues of others, causing her to internalize being always expendable. In Rei’s Poem in episode 14, it becomes clear that she sees herself based on usage. She likens herself to a field of flowers, which slyly alludes to the Dummy System’s “parts” 9 episodes later, other Reis.

Rei is seen as malleable vessel which houses thoughts rather than her own person and she can’t do anything about it. So she resigns to her reality. Even if she does tell off Gendo in End of Evangelion for his objectifying, she’s not even out of the woods. She never will be.

I used to think Rei’s “slap” to the face to the man with the (most) baggage was empowering. Then I learned about abuse during adolescence, how kids who lack a support system act while away from their abusers. Even saying an emphatic “fuck you” to your abusers isn’t enough to be a happy ending. Rei is a girl who lacks a support system and she suffers from it. Start to finish.

Kaworu’s crises are much trickier to pinpoint because there’s so little to work with. He doesn’t get an episode dealing with personal, subconscious explorations. Getting his character means first getting how Evangelion re-contextualizes what “Ode to Joy” symbolizes. It also means understanding the AT-Field and most people won’t pick that up on an initial foray. Or maybe even a second. Most people don’t pick up that the AT Field implicates anything living and physical or its metaphor for boundaries and identity. There’s the common misconception that Evangelion is a “human” show.

Kaworu marks off his appearance humming “Ode to Joy” while Shinji wonders who to turn to. It’s a song generally known for its jovial nature, but most importantly, Ode to Joy is:

known also as the “Choral” Symphony. Its finale is a musical setting of Friedrich von Schiller ’s “Ode to Joy,” a hymn to the unity and freedom of humanity.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ninth-symphony

The Choral Symphony assumes a more horrific context later on. Kaworu is the last messenger and what his action is would lead to the mass annihilation to lilin/human or angels. ‘Unity of man’ is changed in Eva’s context – it marks either unity of man or the death of man. It doesn’t matter who Kaworu allows unity to, because his hands would be stained with death anyway. Then you realize why Kaworu deploys his most powerful AT Field during his descent to Heaven’s Door.

This is his reality.

Kaworu’s status as the Angel of Free Will isn’t about him being the only complex angel, as a lot of people think. It’s about being the sole individual handing that freedom to others.

You realize his terrifying dilemma goes to the tune of being feared for his own existence as an angel (which he notes to Shinji) and not being able to properly live.

Sometimes you ”hurt” people by existing.

Sometimes people hate you for the simple act of existing.

Kaworu’s and Rei’s terror is the other end of existential horror, that you can’t help but forced to be known. Sometimes you have knowledge but aren’t allowed to do much with it.

Tier 3: The Body of The Iceberg

X. War Horrors of ‘Ambivalence’

XI. Unit-01 Berserk Scene

XII. Dummy Plugs + CNS

XIII. Kaworu + Adam’s True Power

X. War Horrors of ‘Ambivalence’

Episode 18 is where anxieties graduate into horrors both implied and visceral. Unease hangs over the episode, with the mystery of Unit-04’s disappearance and tests being done on Unit-03. Misato tells Shinji that because tests would be done, there’d be a pilot there. Misato uneasily withholds this info from Shinji and Kensuke breaks the silence with his recurring desire of being a pilot, still ignorant of the war horrors. There’s a subtlety that Shinji picks up on with Toji but not enough to put two and two together: that the big-eater himself isn’t feeling so hot.

The continual chirp of cicadas and birds nor the peel of the school bell are enough to break the unease of the viewer or of Toji. Toji goes from indirectly being affected by war vs angels to being chosen, drafted even, a child at the first line of defense for the apocalypse. We get a flashback of him beating down Shinji, before it cuts back to present day Toji. He will be in Shinji’s shoes.

Toji balls a fist, a recurring theme in Eva, to the tune of “What is your hand for?” Toji is finally about to take things into his own hands.

Asuka takes a few cracks at Shinji to Hikari that he hasn’t quite gotten the memo, but when Shinji asks her even she’s halted in words.

Then the day comes.

Tests are being done and suddenly Unit-03 goes rogue with Toji in her (note the Evangelions have the souls of the pilots’ mothers, save for Rei). Unit-03’s’s strange behavior is revealed to be the work of the 13th angel, Bardiel. Shinji’s ignorance is made worse by Misato’s absence (with Misato telling Ritsuko she’d tell Shinji the pilot’s info after the tests). Units 00 through 02 are sent out for the new threat and Shinji sees this new threat. Anxiety rises.

The song “Marking Time Waiting for Death” accentuates the anxiety. Unit-03’s silhouette eerily contrasts with the sun, her body slightly hunched and approaching slowly.

Fear washes over Shinji when he deduces that with an Evangelion inside, there must be a pilot.

Yet he still doesn’t know.

The other pilots are aware, and show reluctance to the revelation. A hijacked Unit-03 sets herself on Asuka, Rei, and even strangling Shinji. Shinji allows the angel-hijacked-being to strangle him, because killing another human being is simply horrific.

Eva has its hand in the war morals cookie jar here because Shinji stands at a conundrum, to other let this creature take his life or to murder flesh and blood. This dilemma goes double-time in war. Gendo asks why Shinji hasn’t dealt with the 13th yet, with a somewhat horrified Shinji pleading about the pilot. Gendo commands for the unfinished Dummy System to override Shinji’s controls and then suddenly...silence….

The Dummy Controlled Unit-01 springs back and we’re treated to a close-up of Unit-03/Bardi3l being strangled.

A nauseating crunch sounds and the unit goes limp. A controlled Unit-01 proceeds to raise hell on the incapacitated enemy, resulting in the unit’s blood and guts flowing through the streets. NERV’s personnel can’t do anything save for become fearful at the Dummy System’s capabilities. Terrible, visceral noises sound one by one as blows strike, as the unit’s severed limbs and blood splatters riddle the urban battlefield. Shinji hears every second, every squelch and splat.

Imagine the pain of 03’s pilot.

But the terrors don’t cease here.

01 doesn’t stop at just raising hell on the incapacitated 03, and we’re treated to another close-up shot of 01 tightly holding onto 03’s entry plug, before crushing it.

Somewhere away, Misato receives news that Unit-03 has been dispatched as an angel. Shinji feels the weight of having actually killed someone, before Misato actually breaks the news that the pilot is not only alive but that the greatly injured pilot is his classmate.

It never really hit me until now how this scene holds another horrifying subtlety. Compare this to episode 3, where Toji’s first interaction with Shinji involved him punching him, the very scene playing at this episode’s beginning. The 18th episode ends now with ,Toji and Shinji are both joined in the same camp, of children emotionally and physically marred by war, not able to fully control their situations.

XI. Unit-01 Berserk Sequence

Shinji stands in a situation where he can no longer take the terrors aligned with the Evangelion. He’s gone from sustaining injuries great and small from combat with the eldritch angels, to indirectly harming a friend through it. He resigns from his position as a pilot, understandably running away even with the approach of the 14th angel.

After a talk with Kaji about how he can control his future and he only, Shinji once again puts himself at the forefront of further pains. He must once more thrust himself to the terrors that align with the war-machines whilst struggling with other traumas.

During his fight against Zeruel, his Evangelion dies out and it all floods back to him. Shinji once again finds himself at a position of no power, frantically pressing at his controls to no avail.

He can only hear blow after blow of the 14th’s onslaught. He and Unit-01 are at their most vulnerable.

Until Unit-01 springs back.

W hat follows is the famous Berserk sequence, a scene whose terror can be thanks to Evangelion’s low budget.

We see the Evangelion in all her terror and the sort of off-ness that carries in this scene.

Episode 19 has no problems on treating us to front-row tickets to terror.

Unit-01 snatches part of Zeruel’s appendage and adds it to her mass. A sickening squelch sounds and her new appendage contorts into place in an instant.

She moves over to her incapacitated, angelic meal and doesn’t hesitate to chow down. The shots feel too personal yet nowhere near in the sense of the show’s meta-textual reflections. It’s almost like stumbling on a cryptid and when she shoots a look at the viewer, it feels as if she’s looking at us, like we’ve interrupted her dinner. Or perhaps she did finish the meal... and she’s in the mood for seconds? Perhaps even thirds?

The bizarre and eldritch nature of the Evangelions goes full force with this imagery. Episodes 2 and 16 laid the foundation of how off the Evangelion Unit-01 was with how she openly mutilates her targets. Or even the unsettling roar of Unit-01 that’s not entirely bestial. The sound is straddles a line between the blood-curdling bestial and the human. But here? Eva Unit-01’s position, from her hunched figure, to her more feral position as she feasts, feels far too organic...and far too human.

The Evas themselves aren’t human, but the souls housed within are. Eva’s souls are souls of the respective pilots’ mothers, an example of the mother and child symbolism omnipresent in Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Shinji’s mother is Yui and as we go through the series, we realize the s2 engine appliance was intentional. An s2 engine offers infinite stores of energy and this is needed for Instrumentality. With the s2 engine within her grasp and the fact that Evas don’t subsist on anything, this would make the consumption of 14th completely recreational.

It’s super tempting to frame this scene as containing some abomination that now stands unchained and indiscriminate in its targets, but it isn’t. It’s sort of understandable because Units 00 and 02 don’t come close to exhibiting this sort of behavior nor were they in this circumstance. Neither Unit-00 nor 02 have any desires in regard to Instrumentality. In the end, we should look to Yui and her own endgame, because Yui’s running the show here.

XII. Dummy Plugs + CNS

Ritsuko states the Dummy Plugs are machines which imitate pilot’s thinking. There’s a bit more than the possibility of this being 100% AI due to the apparatus Rei is in.

This very likely implies the respective person’s thought processes added with AI programmed in a way which best “describes” the pilot (basically how they are perceived). In episode 17, Rei is situated in this apparatus strongly resembling the central nervous system, the brain and the spinal cord.

{The central nervous system CNS is responsible for integrating sensory information and responding accordingly. It consists of two main components:

1. The spinal cord serves as a conduit for signals between the brain and the rest of the body. It also controls simple musculoskeletal reflexes without input from the brain.

2. The brain is responsible for integrating most sensory information and coordinating body function, both consciously and unconsciously. Complex functions such as thinking and feeling as well as regulation of homeostasis are attributable to different parts of the brain.

https://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb135e/central.html

Ritsuko imparts the unsettling revelation about Rei and by extension the Dummy Plant itself (after Misato coerced her into learning about Rei). The Reis are the core of the Dummy Plugs (and the System used to brutalize a hijacked Unit-03 and its trapped pilot). This scene adds more to the extent of Rei’s objectification, of her being replaced. It adds on to Rei III’s comment of being ‘the third.’

Rei isn’t savage by any means but the sheer brutality of Dummy System’d Unit-01 5 episodes prior may hint at her straightforward nature.

I’d like to pitch that Ritsuko’s approach to Rei’s Dummy Data was also the product of her subtle animosity toward Rei. When she refers to the Dummy Plug as a machine which mimics human thinking, she’s talking about Rei. She also refers to her similarly in episode 23 by referring to Rei as spare parts, as if Rei herself is some soulless machine whose parts can be switched out if need be. This could also call back to Rei’s poem, in which she calls herself a vessel which holds human thoughts.

Another question remains: how does Kaworu play into this?

The MPEs (the Mass Production Evangelion series) use Kaworu’s Dummy data, meaning that there are cloned Kaworus stored off somewhere, perhaps floating with soulless smiles the same as Rei has.

Treated as spare parts.

This also implies that Kaworu is more or less reduced to an object.

What’s more disturbing is the nature of the MPEs gratuitous method of ravaging and mutilating Unit-02 and by extension Asuka.

Kaworu hasn’t ever demonstrated any degree of malice, so this can’t really insinuate a ‘Kaworu is secretly evil’ narrative. But this can tie back to a recurring theme of humans fearing and despising angels. It’s because of this that the revelation of our genetically identical nature or the fact that they can comprehend our psychology is framed in-show as kind of shocking. It is because we’re so disturbed at the angels’ existence (or anything else we don’t comprehend) that we view them as inherently savage in nature. Kaworu’s quick-to-perceive personality most likely translated itself along with the AI. This would also rule in the somewhat strategic way in which the MPEs act against Asuka, exploiting her attack patterns through surprise attacks.

Some of Kaworu’s as well as Rei’s Dummy Data are the product of universal (Kaworu) and personal (Rei) contempt by people. Let that sink in.

XIII. Kaworu’s + Adam’s True Power

The bottom of the fridge horror portion of this iceberg is something that has subtly plagued me for years. We’ve only ever caught glimpses of Kaworu’s abilities in his debut episode. I picked up on it little by little with each re-watch of the episode, with every other time his abilities dawning on me. If I wasn’t focusing on how his character fits in the greater framework of Evangelion, I was cluing in on his abilities.

One of his abilities is being able to block out light, magnetism, and subatomic particles. Some of the forces which make up the universe. This witnessed by the viewer when he realizes the whole of humanity’s welfare hangs by a thread, due to the coexistence of angels and Adam.

Adam.

Adam’s soul lies within Kaworu. Adam. Who utilized an Anti-AT Field which caused Second Impact. An Anti-AT Field, which killed off much of the Katsuragi Crew in Antarctica.

This makes Kaworu the most powerful angel in the original Evangelion series.

Eva has shown that ownership of an angel’s soul (or partially, if you’re onboard the Rei I is in Unit-00 theory) allows the person to inherit the angel’s abilities through Rei. Rei blocks off Kaworu’s immensely powerful field with one of her own, canceling out both as a result. As we know, AT Fields for people are a figurative affair. People lack the physiology to exhibit a physical AT Field because they don’t have cores like angels do. Angels’ souls when possessed by humans have a sort of ability to circumvent parts of human physiology (if you’re looking for the whole package, you should eat angel’s flesh too). Rei also shows the ability to float, implied in episode 24 and shown explicitly in End of Evangelion.

But this raises a few questions about the last messenger is the ability to block out some of the forces of the universe Adam’s powers or Kaworu’s? Another ability that continues to plague me the more I think about it is Kaworu’s AT-Field usage on Heaven’s Door to bypass its lock.

We haven’t actually seen Adam’s other powers (if the angel has any) because the it’s anti-AT Field was halted via Lance of Longinus. Other than its ethereal appearance in flashbacks, we only see an incapacitated Adam in embryonic form. That’s it. We don’t know if Adam exhibits any other powers due to this impediment. If Adam does have more powers, this would add onto both the fridge horror factor of Adam and Kaworu.

Tier 4: Pre-Abyss

XIV. The “Nihilist” Lens

XV. The True Nature of Sync Rates

XVI. Unit 01+ MPE Gorging Scenes

XVII. Ancient Ruins of Arka

XIV. The “Nihilist” Lens

There’s something that implicates the whole cast. Something that goes beyond the meaning of the AT-Field, and the all-too-known Hedgehog’s Dilemma.

Eva is filled to the very brim with psychological concepts, but there’s one thing which ties this all together. It goes much larger than the desire to become validated or cycles of abuse and unresolved issues to a newer generation.

Free Will Vs. Determinism ties the entire cast together and is disturbing in its own right. It not only ties the cast together but also contributes to Eva’s meta-narrative.

Episode 16’s sequence with Leliel, Shinji, and the Johari Window gives little breadcrumbs to this psychological dilemma. Leliel teaches Shinji about his own identity as well as slowly ushering him to a sense of self-awareness. Leliel also attempts to usher Shinji out of filtering reality with only convenient parts. Shinji argues that he can’t really be held culpable for his actions, because the one and only reality is that reality is awful, bar none. Not his reality, but reality as a whole. This deterministic stance becomes ever more blatant 8 episodes later with the appearance of Nagisa Kaworu.

Kaworu’s designation is the angel of free will. The irony of this stands in the fact that Kaworu isn’t the only angel who can exhibit free will (with some of the angels before him taking the time to try comprehending people). Kaworu’s status comes from his identity as the last messenger, bringing about freedom for one species (humans/lilin or angels) at the expense of the other. Kaworu knows his reality well and in the end, seeks to better the reality of those around him. Eva doesn’t romanticize the prospect of free will, however, because Kaworu is so aware of his own person and how he can hurt those around him that it greatly bothers him.

The metatext doesn’t just position Shinji as being in the wrong, but also the audience. Remember the point I made before about Shinji being the audience substitute? It’s further hammered home from the series’ tail end and into End of Evangelion.

“That’s just the way things are.” is a common response to things in life we feel resigned on changing, because we don’t know how to change them. This quote is a parallel to Shinji’s “humans aren’t made to float!” in episode 16.

Shinji does know how to change much of his reality, but by doing so he’d be pushed into free will. Free Will is the solution and it means holding yourself accountable rather than believe that it’s everyone else with the problem. With the idea that you can change your reality, it offers you the opportunity to love yourself.

If you love yourself, then it becomes much easier to love others.

Eva’s free will and determinism metatext hammers home the extension of empathy.

Shinji/the viewer’s greatest problem is that because we don’t love ourselves it makes it difficult to extend the love to everyone else. Shinji’s love translates as idealism. Because of his unhealthy idealism, he is hindered from understanding people.

By ascribing your beliefs from determinism to free will, it opens your mind to an entire world of possibilities, but therein lies the terror. It is because of these possibilities that Shinji and by extension, the viewer, likely fears free will. Shinji finds ways make himself validated, but with free will, the argument could be made that it doesn’t matter. There’s the anxiety-crippling likelihood that none of it actually matters, because your existence doesn’t matter. If we’re going on this bent, acts of making an adequate impression on others are acts of personal denial. In the end, these are what they are, possibilities.

The greatest terror of it all is that we don’t know.

User power-chords makes an excellent point about the inherent darkness of an internal locus of control.

User power-chords posits the idea of existential absurdity for Shinji not as a certainty but a possibility. There’s always a likelihood that our desires to comprehend the world around us, to find ultimate understanding are in vain.

Cheesy as it sounds, people fear ambiguity because we seek a satisfying end. We don’t just seek answers. We want outside closure and inner peace, but we won’t always get it. It’s why we rationalize relationships that end on bad notes. Sometimes you worry about your falling-outs...and it hurts. You never got the answers your wanted so this pain carries, for months, sometimes even for years. Dwelling on the issue serves no purpose other than to keep that hurt with you. The best thing to do sometimes is to find your own closure, your own meaning.

No, Evangelion isn’t actually pro-nihilism, but it presents us with that likelihood. That’s what makes this aspect of the narrative so terrifying: The consideration that we find meaning in the meaningless.

XV. The True Nature of Sync Rates

The nature of injuries and having them in adds onto the innate horror --be it war or otherwise-- and themes of the Evangelion. The severity of the injury is based on how high the pilot’s sync ratio is. An average rate while sustaining damage will bring hurt to the actual pilot in the respective spot. Some examples:

Sachiel makes multiple headblows to Unit-01 and Shinji in episode 2, causing head trauma.

Ramiel’s, (5th angel), particle beam attack in episode 6, an attack so severe that Shinji needed medical care.

Unit-00 and Rei being infected by a Bardiel hijacked Unit-03 in episode 18. Toji’s condition in episode 18 stands as a large example of the innately disturbing nature of sustained injuries.

Toji’s condition becomes all the more nauseating when you see Evangelion parts and blood flow through Tokyo-3.

Toji could feel every last second of strangulation, body blow, and feel the unspeakable pain of his arm being severed. Let that sink in.

Asuka receives the worst of these considering the nature of her sync rate being high. The higher the rate the more kept the damage is. The circumstances behind Asuka getting the worst of it goes back to the AT-Field. Asuka understood the meaning of the AT-Field, that the more you open yourself up to others, the more hurt you become. The realization dawns on Asuka as her mother from within the Evangelion shields her from the onslaught of JSSDF troops.

It’s then that Asuka finally comprehends what the Absolute Terror Field is. Despite her emotional needs being neglected, realizing she’s set up to fail, and going comatose she still goes on.

Asuka, despite everything, takes a chance and opens her heart knowing the double-edged nature of the AT Field. What happens next?

Asuka took a chance.

She opened her heart...

...and she got hurt all because she opened herself.

XVI. Unit 01+MPE Gorging Sequences

The brutality of both Unit-01 and the Mass Production Evas holds three layers: of visual horror, implied horror, and thematic horror. Unit-01, after taking Zeruel’s s2 engine into herself, proceeds to then brutalize the 14th angel by way of still gorging on it. The feeding was entirely recreational considering Evangelions don’t subsist on food to function. This was more about the sheer act of brutality for brutality’ sake.

The Mass Production Evas also fall under this category, the way in which they deal with Asuka after incapacitating her with a replicated Lance of Longinus is also sadistic and gratuitous. They also proceed to gorge on Asuka, her fate made worse through the simple fact that her sync rate is heightened.

The MPEs don’t even swiftly finish her off. She is in a state of tremendous and unimaginable pain. They fly above her slowly, circling above her mangled Eva.

They are almost mocking her as she can do nothing, save for writhe. Asuka’s seething, repeated “I’ll kill you...I’ll kill you….” is then silenced by the MPEs spearing her down.

The brutality doesn’t end there, as we see much darker implications of the damage sustained toward the end of the first half of End of Evangelion.

Shinji bears witness to the implications after seeing the decimated remains of Unit-02 being carried off by some of the Mass Production Units. The sickening reality of it all dawns on him and he is once more exposed to the woes of war and the nightmarish aspect tied of the Evangelions.

XVII. Ancient Ruins of Arqa

We’re ending the pre-abyssal end of the iceberg with Evangelion’s original proposal.

Eva’s proposal, a far cry to the show today, had a more sci-fi angle to it. Psychological concepts weren’t exactly pitched nor was it self-aware. The angels weren’t even referred to as the angels, but as the Apostolos. Instead of the 18 we were presented with in the original show and the movies, there were 28 Apostolos.

The Apostolos designs stand as testament to how far of a departure the proposal was to the final cut. They look far more menacing than the more amorphous, much softer defined, beady-eyed angels we’re used to. To top it all off, the Apostolos were the de facto villains of Evangelion’s prototype pitch. The Apostolos in the Proposal, toward the end, proceed their onslaught as a group rather than the series’ one by one. Toward the series’ end, the 12 strongest Apostolos begin their assault on North America, annihilating the continent in its entirety.

Only 12 of the creatures laid waste to a singular continent.

Episode 24: "Now, the Promised Time"

Rei breaks down. Her secrets are revealed. At last awakened, the twelve strongest Apostolos descend from the Moon. Both Eva Unit-06 and the American continent vanish completely. Humans acknowledge their helplessness in the face of the Apostolos' crushing power. The promised time, when people will return to nothing, approaches. A human drama in the depths of despair.

Episode 25: "Arqa, the Promised Land"

The laboratory holds the ancient ruins of Arqa, which have become key. In order to stop the twelve Apostolos, the United Nations' head members annul the Human Instrumentality Project and resolve to destroy the Apostolos. Shinji's father objects. Shinji and the others stay at the laboratory for Rei. A drama of people conflicting over incongruous objectives.

https://wiki.evageeks.org/Resources:Neon_Genesis_Evangelion_Proposal_(Translation)

The aforesaid creatures were so powerful in the original pitch that Human Instrumentality and the ancient ruins of Arqa would be the way of stopping the onslaught.

Tier 5: The Abyss

XVIII. Split Second Misato Death

XIX. Humans Are The Villains in Eva

XX. The Ultimate Paradox

XVIII. Split Second Misato Death

As the last and most explicit aspect of original Evangelion, it would only make sense that EoE specific content would take its place in Tier 5. End of Evangelion is a 90 + minute tour de force with disturbing imagery back-to-back. Split Second Misato Death refers to one of the most unsettling images sprinkled all throughout the movie. Here are a few of the many examples of EoE’s building up on Evangelion’s ugliest parts.

Everyone cites the infamous hospital scene not even 5 minutes into the film as the first proof, but user power-chords has pointed out, Shinji has actually attempted suicide (refer to the ‘Free Will v. Determinism’ part of the iceberg.)

After Misato is mortally wounded and sends Shinji off in an elevator not long after, the JSSDF blow up that part of NERV. A few people have pointed out the most disturbing facet of this scene: through freeze-framing that you can actually see Misato’s body during.

The JSSDF scene partway through End of Evangelion in which NERV personnel are summarily annihilated.

For those missing the small detail of Shinji’s attempted suicide ,Shinji’s depressed state is made more clear when the JSSDF locate him. When they do they attempt to kill him execution style. Shinji doesn’t move.

“I don’t want to die…!” during the JSSDF’s assault, Asuka is awoken from comatose state. She is protected by her mother via an AT-Field by Unit-02. She gains back her self-preservation after this realization, and multitude of images play. One of them is an extremely gruesome close-up of Asuka’s face. (extreme body horror warning, proceed with caution)

The Komm Susser Tod scene beginning with Shinji strangling Asuka in harsh coloring, Naoko’s same action toward Rei plays right after. A few disturbing child drawings follow after, predominantly featuring death. (seizure warning, body horror warning)

End of Evangelion’s flooring nature comes from the fact that it builds up on the subtly horrific and makes these terrors explicit. Whatever existed beyond closed doors becomes now available for us to see,

XVIII. Humans Are The Villains in Eva

At the penultimate point of the abyss lies a horror as old as much of time. Of the humane being more disgusting than the monsters.

That we can be monstrous.

This fact becomes known with the appearance of the JSSDF as dispatched by SEELE, methodically mowing down NERV personnel with little to no weaponry of their own. We’re treated to NERV’s personnel in their hallways, some forced with the moral dilemma of leaving their own to die while surviving or helping their own while both end up being gunned down.

It becomes apparent that SEELE has been gradually, intentionally chipping away at NERV’s Defense Budget, getting rid of the (little) competition they have after the defeat of the Last Messenger.

There’s a degree of contempt and casual sadism that comes with how they kill the personnel. In one instance, a NERV worker surrenders to the JSSDF, before being killed off in execution style in the distance (one headshot plus two extra shots for good measure).

When you look back at it, this sort of sheer, unabashed brutality wasn’t felt about the angels. Human attitude about the angels is largely fearing, anxious. This attitude accentuated itself through a sometimes nervous soundscape. Of observing these weird, ghastly creatures as they creep and swim. And the feeling’s mutual. The problem is that we don’t know.

But here? We do know.

When the JSSDF move in, the anxiety of angels graduates to the full-force dread of creatures that have killed before. The greatest enemy to humanity has always been with them all along, forcing them to a catch-22. The dread falls on Maya because she understands this perfectly. NERV has only ever shot at targets rather than living flesh…

...and SEELE knows this.

SEELE’s slow, but sure suppression of NERV’s budget is kicking a man while he’s down, but the man in question is a child instead. The JSSDF have more than enough firepower, calling it overkill goes beyond an understatement.

The JSSDF demonstrate the lack of remorse further with the discovery of Third Child, Shinji Ikari. One of the members presses the barrel to Shinji’s head before Misato steps in and kills the members.

The JSSDF isn’t the only damning evidence of how ugly members of humanity can be, however.

Humanity’s on-occasion grossness shows itself in small ways throughout the series, in dislike and conscious emotional distance for individuals, or beliefs of the angels being unintelligent and/or savage. Other times it manifests fiscally, in orchestrating more ethical approaches to stopping certain destruction to go seemingly haywire in order for NERV to receive more funding. This all due to a rival company of NERV challenging the very idea for its usage of child soldiers.

The worst of this damning fact is that many of the morally repugnant members exist on a higher echelon of society. There are Gendos running around, doing as they so please and they’re the tip of their echelon iceberg.

XIX. The Ultimate Paradox of Evangelion

“Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live.”

We’re treated to these words as Shinji finds himself on shores surrounded by an isolate hellscape, with Asuka next to him. The strange and altogether horrific nature of End of Evangelion has gotten fans believing on End of Evangelion’s endgame was in certain, nihilistic. But Eva dipping its hand in the likelihood of meaning in the existentially meaningless isn’t even the ultimate terror of Eva’s self-aware universe, nor is it the tendency for man to become contemptible towards itself.

Evangelion greatest terror is the paradoxical nature of free will.

Yui’s words to her son as she drifts off into the ever-expanding cosmos, her status as a deity realized, is that paradise is universal. EoE assumes this unconventionally positive approach to a whole series worth of characters’ woes. The issue is: finding paradise is ultimately conditional.

Free Will’s paradoxical nature is what gives credence to the ongoing Free Will vs. Determinism dilemma. People can use their free will to take away yours entirely and this is most evident with Rei. Her existence is the result of a man’s unhealthy attachment to his wife, her lack of self-preservation the result of being conditioned as a multi-purpose vessel; her desire to merge with Lilith to become an omnipresent mother-figure was not hers. The nature of disallowing free will exists on a spectrum, as people can use their free will not to take away the whole of others’ freedoms, but to disallow them proper emotional growth. The adults around Asuka weren’t around for her during the series, leading to her eventual downfall.

Unit-01, throughout much of the second part of EoE holds the power to give or deny people’s physicality due to her status of having both Fruits of Life (the s2 engine held by angels) and Wisdom (from the Lance of Longinus merged with the Eva earlier on). This gives Unit-01 her deity status and while within Lilith-Rei, Shinji realizes that not everyone would be there in his life, that he can’t be in the center of others’ lives. It’s for that reason why he denies people’s physicality (“They can all just die.”), which turns people into LCL.

Shinji gives allows people the ability to come back from Instrumentality after realization arises that without other people, there’s no way to tell if Shinji, himself exists or not. Kaworu and Rei also give him the reality that with people back, pain will become an inevitability once more. With all the souls gathered by Lilith-Rei, they are released after her death.

With the souls of those cast into Instrumentality dispersed, those turned into LCL now hold the ability to come back from Instrumentality if they so choose.

While the idea of anywhere being paradise rings true, it’s not entirely satisfying to say that EoE is unconventional in its uplifting message to the viewer. Evangelion is at its core a cautionary tale. It warns the viewer into extensions of empathy and openness that others would properly live. This goes double for those with power. Without that compassion, we’ll have Asukas, Misatos, Ristukos, as well as Reis, those in the world whose downfalls come from emotional absences, neglect, objectification, and forced baggage. We would have Shinjis, those wanting to be at the nexus of others’ importance because they were deprived while young.

Kindness is a powerful thing and the lack of compassion present in all of Eva implicates most everyone. It leads to yet more abusive cycles, with the only thing breaking that cycle being a hand for those in need.

XX. Conclusion

What more can be said over this juggernaut which is a host to a bevvy of darkness? Evangelion is testament that anxieties and horror don’t need to start out as blatantly shocking or visceral to make an impact years down the line. They also don’t need to be out in the open to initially hook you either. You pick up on a few anxieties as well as horrors and you realize deep down, there must be more, which drives many of us to engage in this often times unabashedly dark source material.

Some of us are doing it later in the throes of adolescences, others are doing so well into their 20s, possibly dipping into their 30s. Point is, it draws in a lot of us and for a lot of us, it doesn’t ever let go.

Some of its charm could be chalked to the visceral ways in which characters interact. Even after years of re-watches, I’m still learning new things about the child soldiers, and I’m quite sure there’s others finding small details. There’s also the possibility of Eva’s approach to terror. I think Evangelion “humanized” its horror. It didn’t make horror a universally human feeling, but made it so that the true big bads looking to cause apocalypse weren’t actually the eldritch. Many of the angels are more or less lost kids looking for their mother (I still think Ramiel’s “singing” in episode 5 was it calling for its mother!).

With those newer details after 20+ years, there will be more added to the iceberg. Hell, there should be more added to the iceberg. This iceberg is the tip of an even greater iceberg. I’m still learning about their adults and their desires as well, how cyclical their actions are. For others, the draw-in factor lies in its low budget. Personally, it’s all of these for me: the low budget helped cement these darker aspects of the series due to horror and the genre’s overall relationship with limitation. It works best on limitation and had Eva worked with a much higher budget, I don’t think the content would be as effective, or perhaps it’d be much more difficult to make it so.

Evangelion is such a well-done, deceptively compact series that each lens a fan assumes has its own interesting rabbit hole. Your circumstance shapes the experience, and this too involves how you navigate the series’ menagerie of terrors.

I’d also like to thank the reader for getting through the largest rabbit hole in Evangelion. I’d also like to thank you for getting through the whole of this meta from a fan who slowly began to resonate with the characters as the years went on!

#neon genesis evangelion #shinji #kaworu #asuka #rei #seizure warning #body horror warning #suicide mention #correct me if im wrong #credit goes to twitter user decoratedboar for the iceberg picture help #and fixes

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exuberantocean · 3 years

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So a while ago I wrote a piece offering advice called On Writing Panic Attacks. I’d just like to point out that this clip from Ted Lasso (a show I might be cyberstalking because I will not pay the subscription to Apple TV) does an EXCELLENT job of portraying a panic attack:

youtube

Right on off the bat you can see his breathing seems a bit heavy for the situation he’s in. It has definitely started but it is so easy to miss. There’s a few shots of everyone else (including some great singing btw) but when the camera focuses back on Ted, the sound sounds kind of distant-elsewhere. Panic attacks are so bodily focus that everything around you often can seem secondary. Plus they often come with some level of disassociation. Camera focuses down on his hands, which he moves in reaction to the tingly/numbness that also comes with panic attacks. And they start to shake, an effect of the adrenaline flooding his body now. Now everything disorts, awareness of his surroundings has been compromised. Note that if your character’s panic attack is caused by something specific in their outside environment like a trigger, they’d be hyperfocused and hyeraware of that object, but it a situation like this, he’ll be so aware of his body’s sudden seemingly insane behavior that everything around him will be a lot less focused (not necessarily blurred, but it’s a special effect that gets the point across).

Now Ted’s really in. Panic has fully set in and he NEEDS to get OUT NOW.

Please note, Ted’s behavior isn’t outlandish or all that abnormal from anyone else’s perspective. Yes, everyone’s focused on Rebecca’s singing, but even if they weren’t, his behavior doesn’t seem that strange. No one realizes he’s panicking.

I like that time also seems to be not flowing correctly here. Panic has an amazing way of warping time. We’ve got this affect where time slows but also skips? Totally the way I have experienced the flow of time during panic attacks. One breath takes an eon. Suddenly I’ve walked across the parking lot with no memory of doing so. All within the same panic attack.

He’s outside in fresh air, but can’t seem to find his breath. Hyperventilating looks much more like this the the dramatics I’ve sometimes seen or read. You can be fully hyperventilating and have no one notice sometimes. Of course curling up on side of the street is now the first readily observed sign something is not right.

Now listen carefully. Rebecca calls him a couple times but her voice is distant, the audience can barely hear her at first. But once she gets through, she provides a something he can focus on. Rebecca is very good here (I have to assume she’s had personal experience with a panic attack. She knows what to do.) The only thing she should have done different was ask permission before touching. I for one, find it incredibly helpful but I know some people who, when panicking, cannot stand to be touched. Fortunately Ted’s apparently like me and seems to find it helpful.

The dialogue is spot on. All stuff I’ve said when panicking. He calms then wants to remove himself. I haven’t seen full episodes so I don’t know how it fits in with story and character (though I got the sense he doesn’t open up his own pain to others which is very common among people who frequently get panic attacks). But that also can be some of that “flight” instinct giving him the strong urge to escape. Notice how he shakes his hand though when he gets up; still got those pins and needles. By the way he walks away, stiffly, you can see his muscles are still tightened from the adrenaline and anxiety.

I mean, this was perfect.

#writing advice #panic attacks #ted lasso

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eternalstargazer · 3 years

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So at first, I thought it was really odd how big of a deal Gary was making over Ash having a friend, because after all, Gary knows Ash has tons of friends (and not all of them are even dedicated trainers - or at least not on Gary's level when it comes to battling). He goes out of his way here to point out Goh's unworthiness to be Ash's friend, which seems pretty mean on the surface.

Then when the trio reach the valley where Moltres is suspected to be, Gary tests Goh's knowledge as a researcher and appears to further point out his inadequacies by telling him he missed something in his analysis. So, as of now, Gary has pretty much told Goh he's not only not good enough to be Ash's buddy, but he's also not as good of a trainer or researcher as he is, and it makes Gary sound more like Paul than, well, the Gary that we saw after the Johto Silver Conference.

Later on, Gary tells Goh that it was smart on his part to turn down the chance to join Project Mew because he could never hope to pass the trial missions. After saying that, he merely smirks at Goh before saying his goodbyes to both his grandfather and Ash... but not Goh.

After all this, what does Goh decide to do? Join Project Mew! Why though? Just to prove to Gary how wrong he is about him? In part, maybe, but Goh was clearly listening when Gary was talking about wanting to go about "researching everything to do with Pokémon. To do so means I need to research Mew, who holds the genes of all Pokémon". My take on this is, after listening to Gary and after what happened during the battle in the valley against Moltres, Goh had come to a realization that up to this point, what he has been doing isn't nearly enough to achieve his dream.

It was a realization that Gary had already come to, perhaps even before he met Goh (Gary was aware, at least to some extent, of Goh before he ran into the two of them, and he was aware of Goh declining an invitation to join Project Mew).

Professor Oak clearly understood Gary's intent, as he has in the past when Gary has treated Ash in a similar way. The good professor recognizes this behavior in Gary and he knows this is Gary's way of bringing out the potential that he sees in someone (again, something he did with Ash, which I'll go into detail about now).

So as a palletshipper as well (it was my first ship and my only Ash ship up until firstfriend/journeyshipping), Gary on more than one occasion treated Ash in a similar way. Sure he was mean at first, but after Ash got cocky upon winning the Orange League, Gary showed up and beat him in a battle, essentially pointing out how Ash had to work a lot harder at his dream of becoming a Pokémon Master and that winning one league meant very little. Gary then headed off to Johto and what does Ash do? Go to Johto as well!

When Ash was struggling to beat Brandon and conquer the Battle Frontier, Gary dropped him a postcard and told him he shouldn't give up because he didn't have any time to be wasting on a loser. Professor Oak gave Ash a knowing look at the time, fully aware Gary was (in his own way) encouraging Ash to push himself beyond his current level as trainer, and Ash did - he got his confidence back, largely because of Gary.

Then when Ash did conquer the Battle Frontier, Gary again showed up to remind him (by defeating him in battle, once more) that he needed to keep pushing himself and expanding his horizons because defeating the Frontier Brains didn't make him a Pokémon Master. Ash then followed in Gary's footsteps and traveled to Sinnoh.

So time and time again, Gary has (despite their friendship) been hard on Ash to get him to tap his unrealized potential and become stronger. He knows that Ash needs to do more, a lot more, to achieve his dream. Gary doesn't need to play the "supportive friend" role when Ash has Misty, Brock, May, Dawn, Cilan, etc... (and besides, that's not his style). Gary is aware that Ash needs someone to make him realize "you're doing good, but you need to do more, especially if you want to impress me" and so he says/does stuff to get that reaction.

Just like Gary knows he doesn't need to play the "supportive friend" role with Goh - Goh has Ash. Gary knows what Goh needs because he's already been through this once before (and may not be done yet) with Ash. Gary may seem like he was being a jerk to Goh all episode, but for someone who has been a palletshipper for years, I can pretty confidently say this is Gary giving Goh some tough love and I bet by the end of the Project Mew arc, Gary and Goh will become pretty good friends that respect each other.

Goh will grow as a character as the arc unfolds, and while it will be painful for Goh at times (as it was here, just as it was for Ash when Gary popped up only to remind him that he needed to work harder), Goh will be happier and stronger as a result.

Goh even says at the end of this episode that he's going to "try harder" and that "and then, the future will be in my hands!" so Gary is definitely pushing Goh much in the same way he pushed Ash, bringing about a new sense of determination, confidence and focus for the road ahead.

If you've read this far I just gotta ask what is wrong with you!? 😉 Nah, if you actually took the time to read all this then thanks! Hopefully someone out there found this mildly interesting. 😅

#pokemon journeys #pokeani #anipoke #gou #goh #trainer goh #gary oak #ash ketchum #palletshipping #firstfriendshipping #journeyshipping

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lunar-wandering · 3 years

Text

Sparkling Laughter

the giggle glow au is the only thing keeping me sane right now

Word Count: 2.6k

Read on Ao3

MK hadn't really noticed it at first.

Between always being in a brightly lit area and mainly focusing on training, it wasn't exactly like he saw Wukong laugh often.

So maybe it took him a while to notice.

But after he noticed, it was kinda hard to miss.

Wukong straight up glowed when he laughed.

And MK didn't mean that figuratively. No, he meant it very literally.

A single chuckle was enough to get Wukong glowing like a nightlight. Full out laughter could very nearly light up a whole room.

"You know, the stories never mentioned that you glow." MK said, one day, a few monkeys climbing all over him. The monkeys messing his hair up was what had prompted Wukong to start laughing in the first place, and MK figured there was no better time than the present to bring it up.

"It was never really something that others deemed important, I guess." Wukong said, shrugging, still faintly glowing with a few remaining chuckles as he helped remove some of the monkeys from MK. "It's definitely not showstopping or cool, so it was just left out."

"I think it's neat." MK said, "You're kinda like... a light up toy or something."

"Hm, not sure how I feel about that comparison." Wukong said, pulling the last monkey off of MK's shoulders, and ruffling MK's hair, fixing the mess the monkeys had left it in. "There you go, bud, all good as new."

"Thanks, Monkey King." MK said, scooping up his bag from where he'd laid it on the ground, summoning the staff and getting ready to vault back to the city. "Y'know, we are just doing game night tonight. You're welcome to join if you want to-"

"It's fine, I've got something to do tonight." Wukong said, giving MK a smile that didn't feel...fully real. "You go have fun with your friends."

MK slowly nodded, not fully believing Wukong, but figuring that arguing would probably get him nowhere. So he turned, jumping off of Flower Fruit Mountain, and leaving Wukong all by himself.

Two months later, on the ship, Mei found a game of Twister in one of the closets.

It hadn't taken much to convince everyone else to join in, that is, other than Macaque, who insisted on not taking part. Not even 4 minutes into the game, Red Son forcibly kicked Wukong out, on the grounds that his tail gave him an unfair advantage. This left only Tang, Pigsy, Sandy, MK, Mei, and Red Son on the Twister mat.

Macaque lazily spun the spinner with his tail.

"Left hand blue." He said, voice a complete deadpan. Mei moved to reach over across MK-

And Tang fell down, bringing Pigsy down with him, who accidentally bumped into Red Son, who, knocked off balance, fell into Mei, who fell down on top of MK.

In the end, only Sandy was left still in 'standing', the others in a pile on top of the twister mat.

".....Sandy wins?" Macaque said, a questioning lilt in his voice, prompting MK to look over at him-

Which caused him to notice the expression on Wukong's face.

It suddenly struck MK that within the one week everyone had been on the ship, Wukong had yet to laugh, which in hindsight was rather concerning, but right now that meant that the other's didn't know-

"Uh guys? You might want to shield your eyes." MK said, barely managing to say it before-

Wukong burst out laughing, doubling over, and lighting up like a flashlight, accompanied by a few sparkles shining in the air. Macaque startled at the sudden noise, and ended up falling off the couch, which just made Wukong laugh harder, glowing brighter as a result. The others yelped at the sudden brightness, MK's warning not having registered in time.

Wukong, registering the fact that he was currently blinding the others, calmed down a little, the glow lessening as he went from full out laughter to soft chuckles.

"S- sorry I just-" He started, clearly trying to keep himself from falling back into hysterics again. "You looked so funny I just- I couldn't help it-"

Mei was the first to manage to blink the residual spots out of her vision and register what had just occurred.

"You glow?!" She asked, incredulous, the others also sporting similar expressions of surprise.

Things proceeded to go downhill from there, questions getting thrown out without any answers. At some point, in the chaos, Wukong straight up left the room without anyone noticing he was gone until Macaque pointed it out.

Of course, after a day or so, the hype of the new information had died down a little.

But not completely.

It was early morning, and almost everyone was in the kitchen. Mei and MK on their phones, Pigsy working on breakfast, Sandy pouring some tea, Red Son sipping some coffee, Tang reading a newspaper, and Wukong leaning against the kitchen wall, looking lost in thought. (They'd all long since learned it was pointless to try to wake Macaque up, he was not a morning person.)

Overall, it was an average morning.

And then Wukong started giggling, glowing softly. He was clearly lost in thought, probably completely forgetting where he was at the moment. Mei looked up from her phone to glance over at him.

"What, did you think of something funny, 'Sparkle Snickers'?" Mei asked, and Wukong-

Wukong's giggling abruptly cut off as became aware of where he was again, and as soon as he registered what Mei had just said, he looked away, rubbing the back of his neck in a flustered motion.

It took a moment for the others to connect the dots.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me." Mei said, an evil smirk appearing on her face. "Glitter Gleam."

Wukong's tail waved back and forth in a nervous gesture.

"Giggly Nightlight."

A nervous smile formed on Wukong's face.

"Twinkle Toes-"

"Okay, stop." Wukong said, a hand covering his face, a faint blush visible on the tips of his ears. MK almost felt bad for him, but at the same time...

"C'mon, after everything I've tried teasing you with, nicknames about your Giggle Glow is what gets to you?" Mei asked, laughing a bit herself as Wukong squeaked as the word "giggle glow" left her mouth. "Seriously? This is what embarrasses you?"

"It's not embarrassing-" Wukong said, which was a sentence nobody really believed, considering the way he still wouldn't look at them and the fact that the faint blush still hadn't faded. "It's just, not....cool, y'know?"

"No, I don't know." Mei said, leaning forwards on her elbows. "Please, enlighten me."

Wukong stuttered, clearly trying to figure out how to explain it, as MK set his phone down on the table.

"Is that why the stories don't mention that you glow?" MK asked, "You don't think it's cool, which, by the way, it totally is, but since you believe it isn't you got them to cut it out cause you're embarrassed over it?"

"It's not cool! And I'm not embarrassed!" Wukong denied, fur bristling as the others leveled him with a look that clearly showed that they didn't believe that statement one bit. He looked around the room, registering everyone's expressions-

He could tell they weren't going to let him live this down.

So he did the first thing he thought of.

He turned and ran away, hitting the light switch as he did so, sending the room into complete darkness so no one could see where he went.

"Wh- hey!" MK cried out, standing up and fumbling for the light switch. As he did so, he heard a thump, a muffled yelp, and a door shut, but he was mainly focused on trying to find the stupid light, why could you never find it when you need it-

The light switched back on, revealing that MK had been a good distance away from it. Macaque stood beside it, looking confused.

"What is going on?" He asked, looking confused.

"Monkey King ran away over something stupid." Red Son said, filling the shadow monkey in on the situation.

"So, what, you're all going to go look for him?" Macaque asked, sighing when the others nodded in response. "I should've expected that...."

"C'mon! You can search with us!" Mei said, grabbing hold of Macaque's arm and dragging him with her, MK and Red Son following close behind. Tang, Pigsy, and Sandy opted to stay in the kitchen, in case Wukong ended up circling back. MK, Mei, Macaque, and Red Son ended up walking through the halls, keeping an eye out for any sign of the Monkey King.

"Couldn't you just, y'know, use your hearing to find him?" Red Son eventually asked Macaque, who stumbled a little at the question, having not expected to be addressed.

"Who, me?" He asked, looking...oddly nervous. "Nah, he has ways of getting around it anyways."

"...Are you sure?" MK asked, now feeling just the slightest bit suspicious. "I remember you saying that you could hear anything-"

"I'm sure! I won't be any help here, I assure you!" Macaque said, shrinking down a bit as the three continued to stare at him.

"Y'know, you've seemed a little off this morning...." Mei said, and Macaque scratched the side of his face nervously. "Are you....okay?"

"What? Oh, I'm fine." Macaque said, chuckling nervously- and immediately realizing his mistake, as a faint glow resonated from him for a few moments. It wasn't long, but it was enough.

"Monkey King." MK said, and Wukong turned, dropping the Macaque glamour as he ran down the hallway, the trio chasing after him. he rounded a corner, and the trio turned to follow, but MK paused, hearing a faint banging coming from the closet door. He stopped, letting the others continue to chase Wukong, and turned, opening the door-

And the real Macaque tumbled out, onto the floor.

"I'm going to kill him." He mumbled, distractedly letting MK help him stand up. "He locked me in the closet. I'm going to kill him."

"Yeah, maybe save the murder for later." MK said, turning to follow where he'd seen the others gone.

He eventually found them, standing in the common room, looking around them with a healthy does of suspicion.

"Where'd he go?" MK asked.

"We know he hasn't left this room. Red Son made sure of it." Mei said, Red Son holding up a tablet to show he'd hacked into the ship's security systems. "But as for where in this room he is...."

"...As much as I hate this, I've got an idea." Macaque said, the others looking at him with mild shock. "Don't look at me like that, I'm only doing this because it'll be funny, and cause I wanna get revenge on him for locking me in a closet."

"The floor is yours." Red Son said, doing an over dramatic bow as he said it. Macaque rolled his eyes (and MK mentally decided to bring up the shadow monkey's own dramatics later-) but he stepped forwards, into the center of the room.

A shadow clone appeared, slowly emerging from Macaque's own shadow. It stood there for a moment, still, before turning and merging with a shadow on the wall.

A few seconds passed.

And then a faint glow, as well as some muffled giggling, came from behind one of the cabinets. MK quickly moved forwards, reaching behind it-

And pulling out a doll-sized Monkey King, holding him up by the edge of his clothes.

Wukong squeaked, quickly switching back to his usual size, sending MK a bit off balance, and trying to run away, but MK refused to let him, holding tight to the edge of Wukong's outfit. It took a few minutes of struggling, (which Macaque clearly enjoyed, if his own muffled laughter was anything to go by.), but eventually Wukong gave up, sighing as he fell down onto his back, laying there, defeated. Mei and Red Son moved to stand closer to him, and MK lightly nudged him with his foot.

"You ready to admit that your Light-up Laughter is cool now?" He asked, and Wukong groaned, rolling over so that his face was hidden by the floor.

"Stop giving it stupid names!" He whined, "And it's not cool!"

"I should warn you." Macaque said, sitting down on the nearby couch, "You're not going to make much progress on this. He was like this even back when we we're 'friends'. I'm surprised he didn't grow out of it, honestly."

"You shut up." Wukong hissed, sitting up a little just to glare at Macaque before going back to laying face down on the floor. "I should've never let myself laugh in front of any of you."

Well. That sentence was, on some level, mildly concerning, but MK decided to brush past it for now.

"Aw, c'mon Monkey King." Mei said, kneeling down and poking Wukong's arm, repeatedly. "You can't just mope over a few nicknames forever."

"Watch me."

"If you keep this up, we'll have to start calling you the emo monkey, instead of Macaque." Red Son said.

"Should I be offended by that?" Macaque asked, "I feel like I should be offended by that-"

Wukong didn't respond, continuing to lay face down on the floor. Mei continued poking his arm. After a few minutes of consideration, MK started to lightly nudge Wukong as well. Red Son knelt down beside MK to start poking Wukong in the back with a pencil he'd found on a nearby desk. Macaque watched this go down with thinly veiled amusement.

After a few moments of no response from Wukong though, Macaque sighed, standing up and making his way over. Silently, he created a few pairs of sunglasses, handing them off to each member of the trio, indicating for them to put them on. A bit confused, but willing to go along with it, they complied, sliding the glasses over their eyes. Macaque, having affirmed that their eyes were protected, slid his own pair of sunglasses on, then looked down at Wukong, contemplating.

And then he leaned down and skittered his fingers behind Wukong's knee. The reaction was immediate, Wukong squeaking before breaking into loud laughter, lighting up like a beacon, sparkles shining all around him. It was nearly bright enough to make the trio shield their eyes, even with sunglasses. Wukong kicked his leg out, very nearly missing hitting Macaque in the face, rolling over and getting up, practically scrambling to get away from the other monkey.

"Don't do that." He hissed, once he'd managed to get a hold of himself, the light dimming and vanishing completely. (Mei, quietly, mumbled something about wishing she'd gotten that on camera.)

"Either you stop moping around and accept the facts about your, what did Mei call it- right, 'Giggle Glow'-" Macaque said, giving Wukong a threatening look. "Or I tickle you again. Your choice."

".....Fine. Fine!" Wukong said, "It's cool! Whatever! Can we just drop this already?!"

They didn't drop it. They very much didn't drop it.

Whenever Wukong so much as lightly chuckled, someone would comment on the glow. At some point, he genuinely considered the idea of just never laughing in the others presence ever again, but that plan was quickly laid to rest-

The others were just. Too. Funny.

"Kill me." Wukong muttered, his face on the table, a faint glow still surrounding him from residual laughter. "You guys are going to kill me."

"Yep, that's the plan!" Macaque called from the door way. "Can't believe it took you so long to figure that out, Sparkling Peach-"

"I hate all of you."

#Monkie Kid #Giggle Glow AU #my writing #i procrastinated on all my other fics for this

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