#this one takes place in like 1990 btw
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John woke with an acute feeling that there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. He was damn near hyperventilating within just seconds, gently extracting himself from Daniel’s unconscious grasp just so he could breathe. It still wasn’t enough, not really, so he pulled himself out of bed and stood up, maybe hoping to just let his lungs open up a little. He opened the window, just a crack. It was raining outside. He crouched and let his head lean against the windowsill, hoping his heart would stop racing.
Back home he would have been able to lean over his boyfriend and push the window open, rather than get out of bed entirely. It was an annoying quirk of the apartment, that and the lack of any lawn. He was just waiting for the band to get a little bigger, then he and Daniel could break their lease and buy one of the houses they’d been looking at.
God, he was so homesick. It was pathetic. They had only been in the apartment for a couple months, only a 10 minute drive from home, yet he was more homesick than he was when couchsurfing after gigs on the other side of the country.
Movement caught the corner of John’s eye, making him sit up. It was just Daniel, of course it was. Didn’t change the prey nerves that dictated John’s subconsciousness.
“Hey,” Daniel murmured. With his eyes not yet adjusted to the early morning darkness, he groped the nightstand until finding his glasses. “Why are…” he couldn’t find the words for the rest of the question.
“Needed fresh air,” John said. Say it felt like a gasp, but it really wasn’t at all. What a fucking nutcase, he thought to himself. “Mm, when we get a house we need a backyard—I miss grass.”
“Okay,” Daniel said through a yawn. He didn’t sound awake enough to have really understood what John meant, but that was okay.
Daniel had already sat up a bit, to get his glasses and inspect John, but apparently it wasn’t enough. He pushed the covers off of him and stood. John, heart and breathing starting to return to normal, stood in return. They looked at each other for a few moments, silent, awkward, exhausted.
“Hey, we haven’t really, y’know… how’ve you been doing since you dropped out?” Daniel asked. “I know you have the—the thing next week, but I still…”
“Yeah,” John said. The thing was an actual fucking therapy appointment, the first one in years, one that he probably should have set up a year or two ago. The band was doing well enough that he didn’t need an art degree, not if the label kept promoting them, but when he had a semester of C’s and D’s the year prior, before knowing whether or not a degree would still be worthwhile, he should have given himself an intervention and gone to therapy. Better late than never. “It’s like half of me is relieved, and the other half of me thinks I’ve destroyed my life, right? It’s always so irrational, but it’s so hard not to listen to,” he explained.
Daniel nodded. He prepared himself for a usual, poorly-worded anecdote where Daniel empathized via his social struggles, but it didn’t come. “So, so you’re doing okay?” He moved just barely and his eyes caught a dim reflection of a streetlamp outside. His eyes were so big, so pretty. They made John want to weep.
“You know you can just ask if I’m feeling suicidal. And I’m not,” he half-lied. It was always there, always in the back of his mind, always an escape option. But that wasn’t the answer that would make sense to Daniel, it would just confuse and upset him. It was confusing and upsetting for John, really, and that was why he finally bit the bullet and booked an appointment with a professional after, what was it, four years of putting it off.
“Yeah—” Daniel said. He turned his head and the dots of light in his eyes disappeared, darkening everything. It made John want to weep more. “—but I don’t want to say, like, ‘how much do you wanna kill yourself, one to ten?’, right? I’d sound like a bitch.”
John laughed. “But you’re my bitch, so it’s okay,” he said.
Though Daniel’s statement was clearly meant to be serious, it seemed to dawn on him how funny it sounded in retrospect. He had always been such a focused person that his own comedic chops usually went over his head. “Yeah right, big guy,” he said through a giggle. “I’m fucken cold, and you’re the bitch of this relationship, so you need to do something about that problem.”
The suggestion was pretty clear, and John had finally relaxed from whatever made him wake up in the first place. Conceding the argument of exactly who called the shots, John wrapped his arms around Daniel’s waist and pulled him a step backward, into bed.
#my writing#angry young men#drabble#i am so brainrotted i am thinking about them i cant do anything else#this one takes place in like 1990 btw#also some cw for mental illness discussion
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Love your Vlad headcanons. Do you have some of your Danny from Familiar as well? Big fan btw
Thank you! Unfortunately I don’t have many headcanons for Danny in general, or even from Familiar, except for notes and stuff. Let me see what I can dig up (without spoiling any plot):
🌿 Danny needs to be exposed to the natural world/frequencies to balance his spectral energy. Because he’s related to water (ice specter), he thrives on cool, water-based foods and environments; fish, hydrating fruits like melons and citrus, lakes, clouds, mist, snow, rain, etc.
📅 Danny was born in August of 1990. He was 14 at the time of his accident (2004). He is 15 at the time of the story, which takes place in 2005.
♌ For those who put any stock into astrology, Danny is a Leo (July 23 - August 22). It would make sense canonically since he was 14 and a high school freshman, meaning his birthday likely falls during the summer months. (I was also born in the summer, so I was always one year younger than most of my friends. It didn’t mean I was smarter or anything.) Of the summer signs—Gemini, Cancer, Leo—Danny strikes me as more of a Leo.
🎵 Danny is a typical American teen, and his music tastes lean toward rock bands like Green Day and Blink 182, pop punk, alternative, nu metal, and occasionally heavier stuff like System of a Down and Nine Inch Nails. Basically whatever can be heard on the radio in the 90s and early 00s.
🤬 Most of Danny’s anger has run out by the time he lands on Vlad’s doorstep in the first chapter. Grief and depression have sapped away his spark, leaving him at rock bottom. This is the main reason why Familiar Danny is so different from his canon personality (combative, lippy, defensive, all pretty typical teenager qualities). We never really got to witness much of his behavior after the accident in TUE, except for the scene of him being ferried to Vlad’s mansion and gazing morosely at the photo of his family and friends, unresponsive to the kind hand Vlad put on his shoulder. I suppose this is my way of filling in these missing and personally fascinating scenes.
That pretty much all I've got (or can share) at the moment. Like I said, I'm trying not to stray too far from canon as far as Danny's personality and backstory goes. Nevertheless, I hope you at least found some of this stuff interesting!
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MvA: The M Files, take-a-peek pt. 3
For starters, thanks to all the likes, shares, & comments. I hope you've been enjoying this
Chapter 3
fake foods from Counterfeit Chemicals: a lot of fast food joints & every other generic food product in America. At least it tastes good...a lot of times. Like, Taco Bell is in no way authentic Mexican food but I LUV it 🌮
This place was Old Man Carl's in the movie and the same company that later brought BOB that ill-fated hotdog stand in San Francisco
That chart lol
Root beer flavored spinach. Sounds gross. I'd also be deathly afraid to try it. Reminds me of the late 1990s/early 2000s when Heinz made purple ketchup, which was NOT a success. But nowadays, different flavored snacks & desserts (particularly ice cream) can be hits every now and then. fake foods (or Old Man Carl's) could've been on the brink of creating a new trend! Okay, moving on
In case anyone has a hard time reading some of the text in the second panel, it says, "it doesn't taste any different from a real tomato". Sorry for the kerfuffle
Designed or created?
Btw, there IS actually a limited edition ranch flavored ice cream
Ranch-flavored tomato. Sounds great with a salad or some types of pizzas
Red 7 lol
This would be. mildly. terrifying. Wth was even in either one of those foods?
Runs away & claims BOB is homicidal. So judgmental & assuming! *fake shocked face*
How'd he grow an eye out of all this?
BOB's quite eloquent for being a "newborn"
Ooh! Monger's a sergeant now!
Eating the building isn't too different from both Blob movies but a much lighter tone than eating people alive. I never saw the newer one but I watched the OG one years ago. A guy walks into a doctor's office agonizing in pain and fear because his arm's covered in this goo that's eating up his arm and in a few minutes the guy is gone before the doctor could amputate the arm. Very G rated
Welp, so much for eating a police car (movie) or a city block (video game)
The third soldier's mouth is missing
Evidently they eat lead. Sorry, wrong story!
So BOB's eye is just part of his anatomy? Not some specially made artificial eyeball?
Like Link's chapter, this is a total jump away from the origin story in the movie. It's a good explanation for the genetically altered tomato & chemically altered dessert topping but a slightly censored telling of BOB's origin. That explosion on the two scientists was a bit satisfying. Again, kids' book *sigh*
Monger's hands are black
So...BOB named himself?
Big lips Monger isn't real. Big lips Monger can't scare you
"Lots of people don't have brains...a politician..." DW, is that supposed to be a burn? Hot dang! Let's get out some aloe vera, cold water, and maybe a trip to the burn unit at the nearest hospital
Some day, son. Some day, you will contribute to society. Just not today
I'm kinda surprised that this building hasn't toppled on top of anyone. Istg, Monger isn't afraid of anything
Now where's BOB gonna go? Also, is Link still on dry ice? Will BOB be on dry ice too? At the end of the OG Blob movie, the blob is frozen/encapsulated in ice and dropped off in the artic/antarctic. Did Monger go in this direction? Capture a monster and then freeze it like Han Solo? Hopefully that monster prison will be in the making soon. Like, REALLY soon. You can only freeze and store so many monsters! Btw, can you imagine trying to freeze the Invisible Man?
Again, this piece of work isn't mine. It all belongs to you know who. See you soon!
#monsters vs aliens#mva#dreamworks#general monger#general w r monger#bob mva#benzoate ostylezene bicarbonate#origin story#childrensbooks#kidsbooks
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Welcome to the Freak House!
About Us
Audrey Arson
I'm the oldest of the band. I'm a bit of a self-proclaimed older sister to the others and I feel super protective of them. When I'm not making music with the band you can usually find me working on my comic or some other artistic pursuit. I'm a chronically exhausted college student. You can tell what songs I wrote by them having a more jazzy or melancholy tone to them or just being bat-shit off the walls insane. Some of my inspirations are MCR, Scene Queen, , Set It Off, and Demi Lovato (for some reason).
-Your resident garbage girl
Butchface
I’m that guy with the neon green hair in the blog’s pfp lol. pronouns are he/him, xe/xem/xyr, and it/its. I take a lot of influence from older punk rock and, surprisingly, country and folk music. my favorite bands are My Chemical Romance, Oingo Boingo, They Might Be Giants, The Cure, Talking Heads, Bikini Kill, Shilpa Ray, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Iron Maiden, The Magnetic Fields, The Daniel Pemberton TV Orchestra, Lemon Demon, Man or Astro-Man, Radiohead (not in a pretentious way, I swear), Will Wood, Creedence Clearwater Revival… oh boy, there’s a lot. I like music! I tend to disappear at unpredictable intervals due to chronic pain/fatigue and parental restrictions, but I always come back. I like writing songs about things I’m passionate about, which is often personal, sometimes political, and every now and then a ballad about freaky-looking deep sea creatures. or weevils. I keep my dad’s old stenobook by my bedside to write lyrics in - he wrote lyrics for the Panama City punk bands he was in in 1990-ish in there, and I figured I could put it to good use again after all these years. he’s cool with it. see you around, and stay safe out there 🪲
Harley Homicide
I'm sassy, I'm trashy and (if you pay me enough) I'll let you put it in my ass-y. I'm the band's second oldest and the token British person. I use any pronouns, I literally don't care what you call me xx. My music taste is all over the place, having been raised by a metalhead and a former chav during a time where pop punk and emo were more mainstream. I'd say my biggest inspirations in terms of performing are Freddie Mercury and Ronnie James Dio. You'll be able to tell which songs are written by me because they're shit! I'm not much good at writing, but I'm great at partying like I'm Paris Hilton. When I'm not doing band stuff, you can find me shopping, watching/reading/playing anything DC comics related or just sorta... Staring into space. I don't do much, but I'm still your fave member fer sure! Thanks for visiting The Freakhouse! We hope you enjoy your stay!
Xoxo Harlz <3
Dart Darling
Hi I'm Dart, I'm genderfluid (any pronouns), and I'm from under the ground at your local graveyard! I'm one of the youngest, and that's super tragic because I'm an undead zombie who died from being too damn glamorous. My idol is Melissa Marie and i love the Millionaires. Also, my ghostly tendencies give me a lot of appreciation for the dramatic, and as well as all things scene and crunkcore I love theatre, cabaret, and steampunk. I've been producing music for about a year now so if the synths crunching, just know it was me, tapping away and not understanding what the equalizer does. I'm bringing you Dead Girl Couture 25/8, 366. Don't mind all the Sanrio merch around the Freakhouse, I started a cult for Hello Kitty! I mean church. You should definitely join us 😁
Til death do we party,
-Dart <3
GRACIEEEE
YOOO WASSUP!!! X3 My namez GRACE! (if you dont know me, pls call me Grace, not Gracie)
I'm gendersylphen (he/they/neos) and I'm a super cool alien with adhd from OUTER SPACEEEE! My fav colors are all of them except brown, my special interests are space and doraemon, and I LOVE SCENE SM! Crunkcore 4 LYFEEE! I wanna be an astronaut when I grow up! Also I'm the youngest here 💀💀💀💀💀 (btw im a minor so plz don't be a weirdo, tyyyy)
I'm mostly new to music and I'm SUPER excited!!! X) Ik this is gonna be rllyrlly fun!!! For me, my music stuff is gonna be super bouncy, upbeat, happy, optimistic, full of rhymes, so tht's when yk smth's by me! My fav bands/artists are Amy Can Flyy, Green Day, Nikasaur, 4*Town (4townie 4 eva!!! Aaron T is best boy) and a LOT of other stuff.
When I'm not with tha band, you can find me playing with my sibs (including my dog), doing stuff with my homiez, reading/watching Doraemon or abt space, or doing idk whatever bc I do alot. XP
So ye! Thts a bit abt me! Tysm for reading abt us, may God bless u, follow ur dreams, and have a super duper fun day! 😄
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irl posting time, he'll yea
my mom, my cousin, her son and i went to a fall festival/carnival today! there's a long read ahead, so i'll leave everything below the "Keep reading" line this time.
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we started off trying to attend one elsewhere in the area, but we found out too late that the event was postponed for the next week, on days we couldn't attend due to my cousin having other things to do and my mom having work. no big deal tho, we still walked around the place.
this was at rocky point state park in warwick, rhode island. it used to be a full-fledged amusement park from as far back as the late-1840s, at least before financial issues ran it out of business in the mid-1990s. honestly i found it fun to just look around and see what was left of the place, as a few parts of it were left for viewing after reopening in 2011. didn't take any pics of that stuff specifically, but i did take some pics of the surrounding area of narragansett bay and a pic of a cliff in the park itself.
before we left to get some lunch, my cousin remembered another place that was holding another fall festival, the one we went to. it was a different place altogether: a combination of a greenhouse, farm and grocery store in hope, rhode island. despite my cousin having told us what the place was gonna be (again, more like a carnival), i had no idea what to expect whatsoever. so i was kinda floored to see actual mechanical rides behind this damn grocery store. didn't ride any of them btw, i was afraid i was too tall.
here's every pic i took there (with a liiittle warning for food here for anyone with eating disorders, cus i had a donut and apple cider (plus kettle corn)):
but yea today was fun! glad we improvised in the end cus i think i had more fun than i would have if the first event wasn't postponed. plus the cousin said she hadn't before been able to go to the event we went to due to work and weather.
there's also a pic of me holding a sugar pumpkin with a long stem that mom took, but i dunno if i want to post that specifically because, while i'm more than comfortable posting my face to strangers on the internet, idk if any of you actually WANT that, soooo you get what you get :)
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Chapter 65
(Link)
At this point I'm kind of losing track of what I already said vs. what's in my head, so if I didn't say it, I picture Mr. Plo's shop as Roman Customizing from the 1990's Disney Channel TV show Brotherly Love (which is still very watchable, btw, highly recommend, if I could ever talk myself into writing platonic Obikin I would happily write Obi-Wan as Joe/Satine as Lou, Anakin as awkward middle brother Matt, and Ahsoka as sunny youngest child Andy, with very-much-still-alive Shmi as Anakin and Ahsoka's mom/Obi-Wan's stepmom).
I had a summer job at 14, and do not in fact recommend it. (The job itself was fine, but I look back now and was like, what the fuck was I doing, let 14-year-olds have fun, jesus.)
Obi-Wan's first response, after Ahsoka telling him she got a job, being 'congratulations!' and only *after* that asking which job it was, just tickles me.
Obi-Wan strikes me as a person who would be uncomfortable bringing a private family photo to work and uploading it to his work computer to make it his desktop background, so he printed it out and framed it and set it beside his desk instead, and his actual desktop background is, like, the plain blue screen that comes with Windows when you first plug it in.
Half an hour before my first high school orchestra concert was due to start, my high school boyfriend comes to me with absolute panic in his eyes and tells me he doesn't know how to tie a tie. I didn't either, so I think we fastened it with, like, safety pins and called it good. Afterward I went home though and asked my dad to teach me to tie a tie. (We can discuss, later, about gender roles and expectations, and why didn't my boyfriend go to HIS dad and ask the same thing, because it was his tie in the first place. But I was sixteen, what did I know. Anyway.) So, next concert, I'm like, give me your tie, I'll tie it on me and then hand it back to you. (This is the mental image I was going for with Obi-Wan and Anakin at Anakin and Padme's wedding.) I ended up with a *queue* of teenaged boys all asking me to tie their ties. And I continued to do this! For the next two years! Every performance! High school, man.
Originally I was going to do more with the Anakin/continuing education plotline, but it ended up morphing into Obi-Wan going to a conference (again; I know that already happened once) and that subplot kind of fell by the wayside.
Valley Technical Center is a real place and, last I checked, you could study airplane mechanics there.
Anakin being mad about his bus pass running out of funds and not getting refilled is a callback to chapter one. All the way back to chapter one! I posted that back in July! We were all such different people then!
Now I'm sad we never got a canon scene with Obi-Wan taking Anakin and Ahsoka to Dex's. That would have been fun.
When I used to have cable I swear there was a Golden Girls marathon on every Sunday. Not that I'm complaining, Golden Girls is great, but it was a lot of Golden Girls.
I might as well have put blinking neon lights at the top of this chapter, this is about me being sad about not being able to go to Sunday afternoon Dodger games during the pandemic. (I realize there were more important things to be sad about. But that was on the list, for me.)
Do kids still play with Tinker Toys, or am I dating myself, here? (Or maybe Luke and Leia's daycare still has toys from the 80's.)
This story, in a lot of ways, is meant to be about Anakin realizing that he has had the power to make his life better all along. That's part of the way I read his fall in canon - he's so desperate for love, respect, affection (from Padme, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, the Jedi) that he already has. He just can't see it. In this story, or this part of the story, he's starting to look at his life, realize he's unhappy...and then instead of wallowing in that and making it worse, he starts to take concrete action to make it better. And the journey to that, and learning the tools that lets him do that, is why this story is so fucking long. Ha.
I love the 'parenting by committee' Anakin does for Ahsoka's birthday in this chapter. This isn't meant to be an indictment on his parenting in the slightest - I think it is non-sarcastically great that he puts Obi-Wan in charge of cake and Padme in charge of dinner and himself in charge of taking her to the DMV and Mr. Plo in charge of finding her a loaner car. They all, individually, have enough on their plates. Breaking it up into manageable chunks is the way to go.
That first solo drive after you get your license - Ahsoka uses hers to go see Korkie - it's a great moment. I still remember mine. I drove to the supermarket and bought ice cream. I am a very predictable person.
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all my stranger things ocs!! (mainly used for wattpad fics but yk)
btw whatever age i put on these babies is what age they would start s1 with - and also its so hard to type with these nails on mb yall
gertrude - gerty, gertch, gigi, geebs (5) - here we have my VERYVERYVERY first oc! this is one of the only ocs i came up with w/o using wattpad lmfao. gertrude has it rough. her mom is an abusive drug addict and her dad tries to help but he ends up leaving around s2. he comes around but he knows he cant take her bc she has the party AND his wife will literally kill him if he tries to divorce her or call the police or help his 5 year old. gerty usually is at the wheelers as an escape. EVERYONE KNOWS about her mother. but they cant do anything about it either. gerty usually spends her time playing with holly though shes 2 years older. how she got involved with the ud is a story for another day. :) i kinda want to have a hc where steve adopts her or smth bc her mama dies lol.
penelope - nellie, nell (12) - the only girl in the party (until max and el). shes dustins bae and they are literally soulmates. this oc was based off of a fic called "What do you think? I think you're an idiot." by Maia_Jane on wattpad!! she deserves all the credit for this baby.
emory jae - ej, em, mory (5) - basically gertrude but dustins baby sister, and has a way better life :) she also isnt based off of wp lol, and she plays flag football where s4 takes place. same with gertrude. steve says shes better than dustin.
mia buckley - mi (7) started in s3 obvs - robins adopted sister (all these ocs are based off of me bc im petty), shes been in 27 different houses since she was literally born. most of them were abusive and traumatizing so shes very paranoid and has severe ptsd. every time robin leaves her side for like one second she will break down. she also has a great relationship with steve. robins familly adopted her when she was 2.
dallas - dal, dally (12) - i made her up as a female, and gen z version of dustin. she would be a character for a stranger things sequel. along with levi, milo and wyatt. the four of these are basically younger versions of the og party. except dallas is a girl. these 4 time traveled because dallas whipped up what-was-supposed to be a blutooth oven (dont ask) but it ended up as a freaking time machine.
nala - nana, nal (somewhere around steves age) - based off the wp fic "paranormal" by emma_stilinski24. she deserves all the credit for nala. its basically a steve x reader enemies to lovers type thing. go read that and maia's story before i send nukes to your exact coordinates!! /j
mercy - merce (12) - dustins daughter. what else do i have to say ?? um but like this would be in late 1990s or early 2000s or somethinf. i would say mercy is like stacy friedman from you are so not invited to my bat mitzvah :D edit: she was born in 1995 and this starts in 2007 btw
027 - sevie, sev, desiree (desiree is her real name)(12) - another lab rat. came up with her b4 season 5 started filming but she was another idea for s5.
#oc#my ocs#stranger things#im allowing u guys to use these for whatever u want#imagine them as u want too#<3
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Mario Legacy Challenge: Outtakes
So basically moments that happened during my Mario Legacy gameplay (1964-1990) that I took screenshots of but aren't really considered "canon" to the timeline.
Btw my headcanon ages for the premade characters from The Sims 4 don't even align with what they are in this save.
Starting with the Robotnik household in 1964, before the Mario family even began, we have a fire starting on day 2. Colin is on fire, but fortunately, his uncle Geraldo is there to save him.
And is Julian Robotnik protesting against (or for?) COVID-19? I'm sorry, but it's the wrong Tokyo Olympics for that!
GeekCon is happening near Mario's new home, with his mother attending! 😮 I didn't think she even knew this place existed!
But it's not just the Robotniks. The Vatore siblings are here too! Lilith Vatore seems to be... sleeping on a bench? Even though she's a vampire?
During the night this screenshot was taken, I also spotted Caleb and some random guy in a raccoon costume. (No, I'm not posting every instance of premade Sims appearing. The only reason why I even posted this is because Caleb and Lilith being around in this time period isn't really that implausible. But I still don't it's very likely they were in Mario's home dimension, so I'm not considering this "canon".)
For some reason, Mario's evil grandma Jennifer keeps calling him (because she totally has his contact information and interdimensional phone calls are a totally normal thing in the 1960s). One particularly OOC call is when she wants to go on a date with Dennis Kim. Yes, the base game character. (I guess this is just what happens when you don't delete the premade characters.)
When Colin ages up into a teen, the game seems to be making him into a furry for some reason... not shown here but he even has the Friend of the Animals aspiration. Could this have something to do with me placing the Robotnik lot in Brindleton Bay? Still, not really fitting for the character who's openly racist against Mobians.
Regan wants to have a romantic relationship with Duane Talla, a premade Sim from Island Living (I didn't realize that at the time of taking this screenshot). Based on the timing of this, he must have only recently aged up into a young adult, since he's a teen at the start of the game. I said yes, but at least it didn't actually result in a relationship forming. (It never does, as far as I know...)
During the Humor and Hijinks Festival (or New Year's festival to celebrate the start of 1970), Mario joins the jokesters. His enemy uncle (the main reason why he left the Robotnik family) is also there, of course on the opposing team.
In 1972, Mario and Pauline go on a date, but are interrupted by none other than the infamous Agnes Crumplebottom, who for some reason decided to travel to a romantic dating spot in San Myshuno.
In late 1972, Luigeena and Tony adopt a toddler.
I ended up moving her to a different household with no relationship with her previous parents. She is not considered "canon" to this series, as Luigeena and Tony's children are the biological twins born in 1973.
And now a timeskip to 1981, when the Mario brothers have aged up into infants and Jumpman (Jumpman is the same Sim who was previously referred to as Mario, and "Mario" from now refers to his son - a similar thing also applies to his wife Pauline, who is now referred to as Lady and their daughter is Pauline) has been modifying the infant beds. While editing the apartment in build mode, one of the infant beds somehow ends up out of bounds. It can't be deleted and it's blocking the way to the Marios' home.
And so begins the bugged bed "subplot", where I spent an hour trying to resolve this glitch in order to resume gameplay.
Failed methods to get rid of the bed include going to manage worlds and back (which only causes Lady to leave work early), using a spellcaster Sim to set it on fire (it burns it somewhat, but firefighters arrive before it can be destroyed) and setting it as head (makes a duplicate). A kleptomaniac also can't swipe it if they have a low mischief skill.
Finally, the problem is solved! Once she has mischief level 10 (which, yes, I cheated), Bianca Barov manages to steal the crib and save the legacy!
In my main 1985 post, I included an awkward conversation between Pauline and Emmalyn. But here's one particular thing that happens: Pauline suggests that Emmalyn should get together with Kaori (who's already married) and she actually considers it! I actually tried to pick some random guy in the list of available Sims, but must have accidentally picked Kaori.
Later on during the year, Jumpman catches Emmalyn apparently WooHooing. He asks Emmalyn if she knows Kaori (of course, Jumpman would have no reason to suspect that Kaori is there, but it's mostly just me being curious). Fortunately, she does say that she hasn't met Kaori.
Kayla's pre-makeover look when she aged up into a teen (the light is just from aging up, it's not any CC).
During Kayla's visit in early 1988, she leaves the apartment in order to age up.
After the whole circus plot, Harrison Gibbs (Jumpman's boss in the circus career) ended up getting married to a now grown-up Maira Watson (a premade character from Cottage Living). They live with Donkey Kong Junior and Cranky Kong (yes, I actually renamed him in-game, even though it's unlikely we're going to see him again).
Turns out Harrison also has 2 kids with random Sims (those MCCC kids generated between 2 Sims who don't even know each other), and it even connects the family tree with Lana Yee's family as well as Kayla (Pauline's best friend), Juanita (Mario's friend from school) and most of the premade characters from the packs I have.
#mariolegacychallenge#sims 4#sims4#sims 4 legacy#the sims 4#thesims4#the sims 4 city living#ts4 city living#ts4 gameplay#ts4#agnes crumplebottom#ts4 glitch#sims 4 gameplay#sims 4 screenshots#ts4 random moments#robotnik family#jumpman mario#covid-19 mentioned but not relevant#that one protest sign text from the sims 4 just makes me think of it because it looks like co19!!#but ik city living came out before the pandemic so the resemblance has to be purely coincidental
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Movie Reviews - Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues / Spinning Gold
This week I got to review two music-themed movies:
Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues
movie poster
Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954-1990) was a guitar legend. I mean it. He elevated blues and rock with his extraordinary guitar playing in unbelievable ways. I became aware of him in the late 80s as a teen. On August 27, 1990 he died at age 35 in a helicopter accident following a performance at a blues festival. At that point and time, I was taking guitar lessons and my instructor talked about SRV quite a bit. I watched the MTV News special following his passing and began to get into his music. His 1983 debut Texas Flood and his Greatest Hits compilation are among my faves. In 2004 while visiting Austin, TX I actually saw the SRV monument.
me with the SRV statue in Austin, TX in 2004
In 2019 when I interviewed biographer Alan Paul about his SRV bio Texas Flood, something we discussed is that SRV’s music does not sound dated at all. It is from the 80s but there’s a timelessness to his music. SRV’s older brother Jimmie Vaughan is quite an impressive guitarist as well. I first became aware of him in The Fabulous Thunderbirds (”Tuff Enuff” was featured in tons of movie soundtracks, too many to namecheck here) and I even included his solo album Baby, Please Come Home in my Best Albums of 2019 list. TX-based director (and former editor of the TX music publication Buddy Magazine) Kirby Warnock has directed a doc on both Vaughan brothers Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues, which was recently released on VOD platforms.
The doc shows the Vaughan brothers humble beginnings and their early interest in guitar and both of their musical trajectories. It doesn’t shy away from talking about their struggles with addiction and getting sober. It also goes deep into the music itself. Or course it also sadly gets into SRV’s untimely death just before the release of The Vaughan Brothers only album Family Style (pretty good album BTW). Featured interviewees include Jimmie Vaughan as well as Eric Clapton, Nile Rodgers, Jackson Browne, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and various Vaughan relatives and experts.
I’m a fan of SRV and while I’m not expert on Jimmie Vaughan, I have a deep respect for him. Therefore I was fully on board with this doc. At times it does veer into For Fans Only territory and Warnock does seem like more of a fan than a filmmaker at times (i.e., he narrates and at one point he recounts his own experience being at the concert being shown) - but stay with it. The doc has some amazing archival footage and it makes the point of why both brothers are guitar legends who deserve their place in the pantheon of music history.
For info on Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues: https://brothersinbluesdoc.com/
3.5 out of 5 stars
Spinning Gold
movie poster
Neil Bogart (1943-1982) was the founder of Casablanca Records, which turns 50 this year. The label was ground zero for so much 70s music: Kiss, Donna Summer, Parliament, The Village People and many more. Just a few weeks ago, I scored a vinyl copy of Kiss’s Alive II and there was the Casablanca logo in the center of the vinyl! Brooklyn native Neil Bogart founded the label and he thought big and gambled even bigger. Neil’s son Timothy Scott Bogart has directed, written and produced a big music biopic about his father with Spinning Gold, which opened this weekend. The idea of someone directing a film about their father kind of reminded me of Baadasssss!, Mario Van Peebles’ biopic about his father Melvin.
Jeremy Jordan plays Neil Bogart, who came from humble beginnings and with his trusty music-loving executives began a record label, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. The first few years they were in debt. But he had a passion for music and believed in the artists years before the public caught on. While the label was in the red, he gambled even bigger. All this while having a wife and kids (and an extra-marital affair).
The real Neil Bogart (center) with Kiss in 1973
I went into this movie a fan of many of the artists, so I was never bored with the movie itself. But I need to say: this is the argument for a limited series instead of a movie. As a stand-alone movie this felt like so much was shoehorned in and condensed. As a limited series, it could unfold over multiple episodes and say more over a longer period of time, much like the new Amazon Prime Video series Daisy Jones & The Six, also about the music industry in the 70s. The film has loads of tropes of music biopics, i.e. that moment when a musician comes up with a song that will one day be a classic and it blows away everyone in the room (that happens a few times in this film). We got pieces of Kiss’s story, pieces of Donna Summer, pieces of George Clinton - but not enough pieces to put it all together and be bigger than the sum of their parts. I will say this - I really liked a some of the supporting characters and seeing comic actors like Jay Pharaoh, Michael Ian Black, and Chris Redd do more than their usual comedic roles. Jordan is not bad as Neil Bogart, but I couldn’t help but think about Justin Timberlake in the role as he was attached to this over a decade ago. Fans of Kiss (or Kiss Army Members) are likely to be let down by the group getting reduced to a small supporting role in the film. Overall, movies about record labels are hard to get right, but this one swings high...even if it doesn’t always land on gold.
For info on Spinning Gold: https://www.spinninggold.movie/
2.5 out of 5 stars
#Movie Reviews#jimmie and stevie ray vaughan: brothers in blues#jimmie vaughan#Stevie Ray Vaughan#kirby warnock#documentary#music documentary#spinning gold#casablanca records#neil bogart#timothy scott bogart#kiss#donna summer#film geek#music nerd
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off the deep end | doyoung, xiaojun (m)
title: off the deep end
pairing: doyoung x black mermaid oc x xiaojun
side characters: gongmyung, seulgi, joy, haechan (mentioned), kun (mentioned), yuta (mentioned)
genre: mermaid au, romance, smut, hurt/comfort, angst, fantasy, 1990s au
request: Your magical ass writing with Doyoung was AMAZING btw! I wanted to request one with a Black female OC as a mermaid with Doyoung as the love interest 🧐 I think Xiao Jun would be a good side character somehow too. I'd love to see where you take this idea and I'm really down for angst, fluff, smut, anything really 😌
word count: 16.5k
warnings: grief/mourning as a running theme, mentions of death and murder, some gore and blood (eating human parts), some emotional manipulation, gaslighting?, some stigma around therapy/ableism, poly relationship (with m/m), xiaojun’s a total simp, threesome (mmf), outdoor sex, oral sex (female receiving), handjobs, fingering, unprotected sex
a/n: i gave xiaojun a bigger role than initially intended because there was too much plot potential to not feature him more prominently...also i wasn’t quite sure what to do with him as a side character lol. i have gotten several inquiries in the past about writing fic for xiaojun, so here’s my offering until i write him a solo fic
note that there’s not a ton of emphasis on the 1990s setting, i just set it a couple decades back because i didn’t want social media/smartphones to be a thing 💁🏿♀️
one. autumn, 1994
“I hate this place,” Doyoung says to no one.
Maybe he says it to the sea, to the seagulls hopping across the sand nearby, or to the wind itself. But not to anyone who is really listening. He tries to tuck his legs closer to his body to block out the cold wind, but his foot slips on the damp rock and goes splashing into the tide pool he’s sitting just above. He sighs and shakes his head, closing his eyes for a long moment.
It’s one simple, silly thing in the greater calamity of his life—a wet shoe. Something that can be easily fixed. But on top of everything else, it’s enough to have fresh tears gathering in his eyes for the hundredth time. He wipes them away with the sleeve of his sweater, though this is futile. They come tumbling out anyway, and he just tries to keep them somewhat concealed, hoping the rushing waves are enough to disguise the sound of his sobs to any living soul who might be nearby.
He doesn’t know why Haechan liked the beach so much. With autumn officially nearing, the beach is cold and wet and ugly, with its jagged dark rocks and colorless sand. He has never been much fond of living in a seaside city, always surrounded by water in some way or another, but this was his cousin’s favorite thing about it. Being at the beach now is just his desperate attempt to take comfort in something the younger man loved, if only to feel a little more connected to him.
It’s not doing a good job of providing any sort of consolation. Doyoung doesn’t know what else to do, though. He isn’t yet ready to go back home and be faced with all the grief there, the family members and friends dropping by everyday, the pitying looks and the uselessly placating words. So he stays right where he is, huddled on his sad dank rock with his hair blowing into his eyes and his face stinging from the chill of his fallen tears.
September has only just begun, and the weather has already turned so unexpectedly cold at night. He has a bitter thought that it fits his mood well. Fits the entire world—his world.
The air gets gradually chillier as the hour passes by, but Doyoung doesn’t make any move to leave. He flexes his fingers inside his sleeves and wiggles his toes inside his shoes, blinking his eyes quickly to keep himself from drifting off to sleep.
A sudden flurry of splashing catches his ears, and it awakens his foggy mind. It’s not the kind of noise that naturally comes from the wave’s motions; it’s more distinct, more abrupt. Like the sound of something sloshing around in the water.
Doyoung turns his head to the direction of the waves, searching for the spot where the sound originated from. He’d been staring at nothing but the tide pools for so long until now, but he sees nothing out in the ocean. Just water and more water, and the gray-violet-pink sky above as the sun descends into the horizon. He watches unblinkingly until his eyes grow dry and he has to close them.
Opening them reveals the sight of a green tail fin disappearing into the water—just the edges of it, almost too quick to catch, but it was undoubtedly there.
He doesn’t know what to make of that.
It was too big to belong to any regular fish. Maybe if he suspends disbelief, he can make himself believe it was a shark, but the coloring and scales aren’t consistent with any sharks he knows of.
Alleged mermaid sightings have existed for decades in this city, but they are not frequent enough to make them just that much more believable. Always the edge of a fin or a mop of hair or maybe even an arm in the water, but rarely any reported sightings of an entire mermaid. Any of those things could be any random person playing dress-up for their own entertainment, which has in fact happened before.
Still, many people believe the mermaids are real and live hidden in the waters. Their logic follows the idea that the sea maidens make themselves sparse, only seen by those they want to be perceived by. And they are not to be underestimated; their abilities for enshrouding themselves in mystery are supposedly unrivaled by even the sneakiest con man in the city.
Now is probably not the best timing for a mermaid sighting of his own, though he barely believes in their existence to begin with. Doyoung is not interested. He doesn’t know what she might do to him, if she’ll try to talk to him, or if she’s simply playing a game, which he is also not in the mood for. And with his sore lack of knowledge about the mermaid legends, he is nothing but apprehensive. He keeps his eyes on that spot until it seems certain he won’t see that glittering green tail fin a second time, and finally gets up from his rock.
He walks back home in silence, hands tucked into his hoodie for what warmth he can get, his mind refocusing on other things. Like the fresh grief settling inside his body as yet another scar.
two. annihilation
Doyoung goes inside himself where it is quiet and safer than the outside. Not much safer, with the thoughts of death and feelings of fear that continually plague him, but it’s better than the prying questions and endless platitudes.
For days on end, he doesn’t say much to anyone other than what’s absolutely necessary—or on the occasion when he feels well enough to say more. His family is visibly bothered by it. His parents keep trying to drag more conversation out of him, if only to make things feel more “normal” around the house; his brother doesn’t even attempt it. The feeling is still too raw for the both of them. Gongmyung leaves Doyoung to his own devices when the younger man becomes silent and aloof, unwilling to pressure him for verbal answers.
Doyoung has a few fleeting thoughts about therapy, is subsequently embarrassed by it, and doesn’t think about it again for the next few days. This cycle repeats over and over. He doesn’t want to be seen as that person in the family who’s “gone insane,” and he doesn't want to entertain the idea of anyone close to him knowing he’d been to therapy.
They’d surely think differently of him, seeing him as more of a ticking timebomb than a human; and though he prefers to think otherwise, maybe even his brother would too. He decides to shove all his feelings down instead—pack them away in a suitcase he’ll leave somewhere under his bed.
The thoughts and feelings he can’t manage to repress, he unravels in his room. On the rooftop of their house. On the beach. Anywhere he can get a moment of privacy, he collapses into himself and lets the emotions overtake him. It feels the opposite of “freeing,” but it’s the only other solution on days where he feels like he’ll burst at the seams if he doesn’t do something.
In the first few days after the accident, Doyoung decided to take a break from college. He’d already missed half his classes for that week; what would be the point in going back to that campus? He doesn’t really know when he’ll be back, but he doesn’t want the obligations of exams and schoolwork and projects weighing him down when he already feels like he’s sinking.
He only hopes it’s the right decision. Without the busyness of school, he does not have much left to distract himself with. The chaos of his own head is just a little too deafening sometimes.
three. as the sun rises
This nautical gift shop is one of the most frequented spots near the beach—meaning there will be little to no privacy. There will be too many people around, too many eyes staring at Doyoung even if they really aren’t, and too many interruptions.
Because of this, he goes during the early morning hours instead, when the stores have just opened up and there won’t be many people around other than the employees. He hasn’t talked to Xiaojun in a few weeks since the incident—and the immediate aftermath of it, including the rotating door of condolences and the funeral. He figures the younger man must assume he’s dropped off the face of the Earth. However, Xiaojun seems to be an accommodating person from the few interactions they’ve had—maybe a little too accommodating for his own good—so maybe he’ll still be open to talk.
The bell above the door rings as Doyoung walks inside. Early sunlight slants through the windows, creating bright patches of warmth on the floor and throughout different areas of the shop. He’s alone for a few moments. There’s no one behind the register, though he can hear someone rustling around in the storerooms in the back. His eyes follow the clean lines of the stripes of sunlight as he stands there awkwardly, wondering if he should just leave or wait for someone to appear.
“Oh, hey hyung.” Doyoung is startled by the sound of Xiaojun’s voice, and he realizes he’d fallen into a bit of a trance. “It’s pretty early for you. Do you not have classes today? I hadn’t seen you at school lately.”
When Doyoung opens his mouth to respond, it feels like trying to breathe through molasses. “My cousin Haechan died recently...I’ve taken some time off from school, so...if you don’t see me around campus, that’s why.” Maybe it’s too much to dump on Xiaojun all at once, but Doyoung’s ability for small talk is drained as of late.
Xiaojun’s face changes from its original friendly disposition to a sad expression, his thick eyebrows creasing with distress. Xiaojun puts a hand on the other man’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “I’m really sorry, hyung. You know you can come here and talk to me whenever you want to.”
Xiaojun is a nice guy. Doyoung doesn’t know much about him other than the basic things they’ve shared in small talk with each other, but he thinks maybe he should try to change that. Doyoung tells himself he’s doing this because he wants (needs?) the company, no matter how brief their meeting may be, and not necessarily because he has increasingly become frightened by the fleeting quality of life—of not being able to make connections with people before they’re gone, and of missing too many opportunities.
He doesn't know how to say all of that without sounding like he’s about to have a mental and emotional breakdown in the middle of a beach gift shop, though, so he only nods to Xiaojun’s words. “Thank you.”
Xiaojun’s hand leaving Doyoung’s shoulder makes him feel disproportionately lonely, which only causes him to be more sad and mad at himself. Mad at how grief has turned him into something he barely recognizes, some amorphous shape of a person with a mountain of emotions he has no clue how to reckon with.
“I, uh...well,” Doyoung stammers. He’s not sure what to say now, and he is having an even harder time trying to figure out whether he wants to stay longer or just be alone again. “I should probably leave you alone now. You have to work.”
Xiaojun shakes his head. “It’s still early, it’s fine.” Then he says, “We could go out on the water any time, you know. If you want. My family is pretty close to the people who run the marina, so…discounts.” It’s as if the younger man can read his mind, or at least how his body language betrays his desire to not feel left alone. Abandoned.
Doyoung nods again and hopes that suffices in lieu of an actual smile. Even if he has to spend more time around the water, he can be receptive to it if it means he’ll have some company…although he can’t currently muster up the energy to show his gratitude outwardly. “I’d…like that. But, I don’t think I have your number yet?”
“Oh!” Xiaojun goes to the front counter where the register is sitting and searches around for something, then suddenly holds up what he was looking for—a pen. “I can write it down for you, give me your hand.” Doyoung does, and he watches as the younger man pens his number on the back of his hand in neat little numbers. “Just call me later so I can get your number.”
“I will. Thanks.”
The smile Xiaojun gives him before he leaves is tinged with sympathy. It stays in the back of Doyoung’s mind for the rest of that day. He tries not to think of it as pitying, which would only make him feel worse, and just appreciates the other’s efforts. He strokes his thumb over the numbers on his hand, committing them to memory.
four. savior
i could tell from the moment i met you
that you are the savior that has come to ruin me
Despite not really being optimistic about it, Doyoung continues visiting the beach in a somewhat futile attempt to see if it’ll start comforting him at some point—though it has yet to do so. He can’t help feeling cheated. Isn’t the beach a relaxing, inspiring place for most other people? It’s supposed to be freeing, somewhere to be yourself and release your troubles. And yet, he feels even more anchored to Earth and all of its ugly realities than ever.
Doyoung only goes at night or during the latest hour of the evening when the sun begins setting. Sometimes he walks the length of the beach—or just as far as he can go, though it feels like forever. The beach is too expansive and not worth the entire journey. Whenever he does this, he tries to focus on the wet sand squishing between his toes and empty himself of anything that could possibly hurt him. Other times, he sits on the congregation of rocks and watches the tide pools and the life within them.
He’s doing just that when he sees the fin again. Unlike last time, he sees more of the tail that the fin belongs to as it breaks the surface of the water, the scales shimmering in the dying orange light of the sun—and then he is wholly shocked when a woman’s body follows the rest.
Her hair is a wavy curtain of curlicues around her face and shoulders. Her skin is a mahogany brown, not an article of clothing present, and he is too stunned to think about looking away. Her eyes are full and bottomless, like the blackest fathoms of the deep sea; they hold equal parts curiosity and knowledge. They are hard to look away from. She looks at him like he’s a stranger she’s known all her life, and it’s a contradiction that makes no sense in his mind.
“W...what are you doing h-here?” Doyoung asks breathlessly, the words practically punched from his lungs.
She tilts her head. “I live here. What are you doing here?”
He ignores her question, though he doesn’t really mean to. His mind is still working overtime to understand the fact that a mermaid has appeared in front of him. When she opens her mouth to speak, he is even more taken aback to see that some of her front teeth are sharp. It sets him on edge. “S-so close to the shore? You live here?”
“No. I swam near the shore because I felt like doing so.”
“Then...who are you?”
“I am me. Who are you?”
“You...don’t have a name?”
“It appears you don’t either, since you didn’t answer the question.”
Doyoung looks at her for a few moments, unsure how to proceed with this nonsensical conversation. “Okay—well...I’m Doyoung. But still, you don’t have a name?”
“Do you really believe you’re going to learn a mermaid’s name at first meeting?”
He furrows his brows, already growing irritated though his stomach still rolls with unease. “Why wouldn’t I be able to?”
“No one here has told you anything about how it works?”
“I’ve lived here for years. What the hell do you mean?”
“Then you would already know why I won’t give you my name.”
“Well, I don’t. Stop with the cryptic talk.”
She crosses her arms over one of the rocks to lean against it. Her expression doesn’t change much, but Doyoung feels like she’s peering directly into his bone marrow, and that unsettles him. “You’re a strange man. Most men would be salivating on themselves to see a sea maiden in person.”
“I’m not most men.”
“Clearly. I’m going to assume your dour mood has something to do with the same reason why you’ve been coming here every week looking depressed.”
Doyoung’s eyes slide away from her then. He subconsciously curls into himself, although he doesn’t mean to show his emotions so plainly.
“Am I correct?”
“I doubt you would understand. Either way, I don’t want to talk about it,” Doyoung says decisively, hoping that will be the end of it.
“That’s fine.” She lets go of the rock she’s holding and dips back into the water; when she resurfaces for a moment, her hair is wringing wet again. She swims around the rock for a bit, seemingly forgetting about Doyoung’s existence, and he watches her with his heart beating a bit faster than normal until she comes back up to the surface again. “But you are searching for something.”
“What?”
“That’s why you’re here, yes? You’re looking for solace.”
Doyoung’s heart picks up even more. “I don’t know how you could possibly figure that.”
“The how of it isn’t important. I just know.”
“This is ridiculous,” Doyoung mutters. He tries to get up from his rock a bit too hastily and slips, his feet splashing into the water again and soaking his socks through. The mermaid watches this without a word, waiting to see his reaction. This time, the incident doesn’t shock any tears out of him; he’s too worn out for that. Thankfully so, because he is not keen on crying in front of this strange woman. “Maybe I’ve been taking too many damn sleeping pills.”
“I assure you this is not an illusion.”
“I think I’d be happier if it was.”
“Maybe. But the things that benefit us most aren’t always what will make us happy...at least initially.”
“Nice psychoanalyzing,” Doyoung remarks. Standing up straight, he starts carefully picking his way through the rocks. “Not in the mood for it, though.” He doesn’t look back to see if she’s still there as he walks away, though his heart keeps fluttering like a caged bird, a subtle disquietude filling his veins.
She watches him retreat, his back slumped and hands tucked into his pockets. His hoodie swallows him up in its gray maw. Something about the sight brings out a tinge of sympathy, though there is a sneaking interest alongside it.
five. the myth
“This is kinda…random. But, do you think those mermaid legends are true? Like, do they really exist in this town? Or at all?”
Doyoung picks at his food as he asks his questions; he isn’t very hungry. Retrospectively, he thinks maybe a lunch date was not a great idea with his lack of appetite lately, but he forces himself to eat something as to not concern Xiaojun.
He just needs a reason to be out of the house. And to get some insight on things that Gongmyung won’t understand. If there is anyone more skeptical than Doyoung himself, it’s his brother.
Xiaojun visibly perks up at these questions, though Doyoung is too lost in his own thoughts and emotions to catch this. “Why do you ask that?”
“I don’t know.” Doyoung’s voice is quiet. “I guess I was just thinking about it lately, with going to the beach more often and all. I read up on some of the stories.”
“I guess you could speculate that it’s true,” Xiaojun says carefully. “People say they hear singing out in the middle of the water sometimes. You can’t account for that. The sailors—when you hang out by the docks, they’ll tell you stuff like that.”
Doyoung shrugs. “Some swimmers trying out their vocal cords, probably.”
Xiaojun chuckles. “Likely not that far out at sea.” Then he grows more serious. “The sailors say they’ve seen them. Not fully, but just...the shadows of them, beneath the water.”
“Do you believe the sailors, then? Half of them are known drunkards.”
“I think there are many things in this world that you and I don’t even know about. Things that can’t be explained.” Xiaojun seems perfectly earnest when he says this, which is honestly enough to make Doyoung believe the man is being sincere, even if he still doesn’t know what to make of this whole mermaid thing. “What about you? You must have an opinion on it if you’re asking me.”
“Huh? Oh, I...it seems...really out-there. Stories are...just stories.”
“I’m not surprised you’re doubtful, you’re a bona-fide science major. Evidence over everything,” Xiaojun snickers.
Doyoung finds it somewhat amusing and curious that Xiaojun even noticed that about him. “I guess you’re right about that.”
“Since you said the beach is practically your hangout spot now, have you ever thought about trying to find a mermaid? Y’know, since evidence and all.”
Doyoung isn’t sure how to confess that he already has. He’s seen the mermaid twice more since those first two encounters. Even though he was afraid to go back to the beach for a few days, he eventually ended up walking along its sandy shore again—and spotted her floating farther off in the distance, the sunset framing her figure like some eerie halo. Watching him.
He doesn’t think he wants to share that information, for some reason. It still feels almost too bizarre to be real, and he thinks maybe if he goes to the beach one more time, she won’t be there ever again and he’ll discover none of it was real. Or maybe he’ll realize the grief has been messing with his mind and causing delusions. He might just decide on therapy after all if he’s truly lost his mind; at least everyone won’t be wrong when they call him crazy. He shuts his eyes. “I’m not sure. I don’t know if that’s possible. You almost make it sound easy.”
“I believe it wouldn’t be as difficult as people make it seem,” Xiaojun says cryptically. “We live in a sea town. Hypothetically, there are plenty of places for mermaids to be. Just need to visit the right place at the right time, I’d presume.”
Doyoung stares at him. “Then, have you seen one?”
Xiaojun smiles slightly. His expression seems wistful, regretful maybe, and Doyoung doesn’t quite understand the emotions in it. “No, not yet.”
“Ah…I see.” Doyoung shoves his plate to the side, being pretty much done with it at this point. “Then...one last question, and I won’t bother you with this subject anymore. What do you know about mermaid names?”
“Oh.” Xiaojun chuckles. “They don’t share their given names with anyone, or else…” He trails off here, and Doyoung waits patiently to see what he will say—if there’s any truth to what the mermaid told him. “...well, that one I’m not sure about. Something bad happens, is all I know.”
“This is all much more complex than it needs to be,” Doyoung snorts.
Xiaojun grins. “Complexity adds mystery.” He checks his watch then, and his expression drops by a fraction. “Sorry to cut it short, but it’s about time for me to go back to work.”
“Oh, that’s fine. Time for me to go back to, uh...doing nothing, I guess.” Doyoung tries to make a half-hearted joke about his current lack of direction, but he can’t quite disguise his unease at feeling so lost in the world at the moment.
“Hey, it’ll be okay. Just take your time with coming back to college. It’ll still be there when you get back.” Xiaojun’s lips lift in a small smirk as he pats Doyoung’s shoulder.
“True.” Doyoung says, and gives him a small smile. He watches as the other male leaves, and he wonders if he should go to the beach today. Look for the mermaid, maybe. See if there are possibly others; he’s never seen any but her.
In the end, he ends up wandering through the busier part of the city for a couple hours, his body working on autopilot. He abruptly heads home when he realizes he’s been subconsciously tracing steps back to the places Haechan used to frequent.
six. the pearl
Doyoung dreams a cold, tense dream.
“Why didn’t you do anything?”
“You could’ve saved me.”
“All you had to do was come over.”
“I never would’ve left the house that night...but you refused to come over.”
Haechan’s voice echoes in his head repeatedly, ricocheting around his skull. The words overlap until they’re nearly deafening.
Doyoung clamps his hands over his ears to try to block the words, but they keep seeping through his fingers like a physical thing—something thick, suffocating, and inescapable. Something hot and viscous rolls down the sides of his face, and he pulls his hands away to see blood and tar mixing together on his skin, dripping down his palms and wrists.
He tries to wipe the mess off his hands and face, but it keeps sticking. Every time he passes his hands over his skin, the substance only increases and becomes more tacky. In just another minute it is drowning him alive, clogging up his nose and throat and blocking off his air, making him unable to shout for help.
But there’s no help coming anyway. He’s been abandoned, much like he abandoned Haechan that night, he supposes. In some dark part of his mind, he reasons that maybe he deserves this.
His chest burns from the asphyxiation, so much that it feels like his lungs might explode.
Just when Doyoung thinks he might die, he bursts awake with a scream, shivering and wet and flailing in his bed. He’s instantly confused, feeling around his mattress and finding the entire thing is soaked with water. His clothes, too, are wet all the way through.
It’s like an ocean wave has crashed on top of his bed, though there is no evidence of where the water came from or how it even got in his room. Doyoung sits up in his bed for a few long moments, confused out of his mind and unsure how to even begin to address this mess.
Finally, he shifts his legs out from under the soggy covers and makes an attempt to get out of bed, only for his hand to touch something small and round. Looking around to see what it is, he peels the covers back and spots something on top of the fitted sheet.
Holding it between two fingers, he squints to see it in the dark. It’s a pearl.
Despite the chaos surrounding him and rattling his senses, his chest and mind feel suddenly, blissfully empty of anything. He stares at the pearl in awe, rolling it carefully between his fingers, until the moment is suddenly interrupted by Gongmyung opening the door. Doyoung turns to the door, squinting at the sliver of light that comes pouring into his room from the hallway.
“I just came to—what the hell?!”
--
“Something weird happened.”
Doyoung doesn’t know why he’s telling the mermaid this, but his family already thinks he’s crazy enough for waking them up in the middle of the night screaming, his bed doused in water. Maybe she can give some idea of what the hell is going on, or even advice. At least not a lecture like the one he’s already received.
“I know.”
Doyoung opens his mouth to begin explaining, but then pauses. “You know? No, you don’t.”
“I tried to stop it, but...it didn’t quite work as intended.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The dream you had. You were suffering, and I felt...sympathetic.” Doyoung stares at her for a long moment. She continues talking when he doesn't say anything. “The pearl, though…it should help with the nightmares.” The pearl, which is presently sitting snug in his pocket, becomes suddenly obvious to him; he can feel the tiny weight of it pressing against his thigh within his jeans.
He holds his hands up. “Stop. Just, stop joking with me. I don’t know what you’re doing right now, and it’s not funny.”
“It’s not a joke, and you know that.”
“You can’t possibly know what I was dreaming about.”
“It was about Haechan.” Doyoung’s throat tightens. He’s never mentioned the younger man’s name in front of her, let alone informed her of his cousin’s former existence. He feels like simultaneously curling inside himself and desperately opening himself up to her to ask more questions.
All of his normal rational thinking is hanging on by a thread frayed thin with grief, and she isn’t making things any more logical for him.
“I’m sorry. I had to give you proof,” she says, noting his sudden reticence. “I just tried to...change the contents of the dream, or wake you up. Think I mixed the spells up, though.”
“Spells?” he scoffs, though it’s a weak sound. “My mattress is still in the backyard drying.” He’s not even sure how he feels right now. Irritated? Disturbed? Confused? All of it all at once? “I think my family must believe I’m cursed or something.”
For a brief moment, he wonders if she might know a way to make sense of this pain. Change it somehow, or reverse it. If you can do all this, can you…could you…? He doesn’t let that thought manifest fully, shoving it to the recesses of his mind and steeling himself against the shame that immediately follows for even entertaining such a concept.
“Just hold the pearl whenever you feel troubled.” Which is all the time lately, Doyoung thinks. “It can help calm your mind. It’s like a panacea.”
“A…what?”
The mermaid smiles slightly. “It’s just something that helps you feel better.”
Doyoung thinks back to the weird but pleasant emptiness he felt after holding the pearl. Once again, he’s forced to accept that this likely isn’t bullshit, though he wants to believe it is for his own sanity. “Well...thanks, I guess. But please don’t try any more weird spells on me without my knowledge.”
“If you wish so, I won’t do it any more.”
“...Thanks.” His gratitude is begrudging. “But you still haven’t explained how you could know what I was...dreaming about.”
The mermaid looks at him as if evaluating him, deciding whether she will tell him or not. “There is no how. Some things are just natural to mermaids.” Then she sighs. “Dream manipulation was never my strong suit, though.”
“That makes no sense. There’s a ‘how’ to everything.”
“Maybe for people like you who need to cling to logic to make sense of everything.” She sighs as if pitying him. “There’s much more to the world than you’ll likely ever realize, Doyoung.”
“Well—” He can’t argue with that, but it displeases him that there is no clear answer for this, no ultimate conclusion he can point to for this situation—or for the current dark chaos of his life.
“Use the pearl,” she reiterates, her voice serious, and starts swimming away from him. The conversation is too abrupt for his taste. He finds himself once again feeling untethered with more questions than he even started with, but he says nothing. Then she glances back. “I hope you’ll have more peaceful nights after this.”
He watches her hair trail in the water until she ducks under and out of sight.
seven. on the water
Doyoung finally decides to take Xiaojun up on his offer to visit the marina.
It’s a day where the sky is clear and the sun is out; the heavens painted in shades of deep, shining blue. Though the weather still has that autumn chill, the sunshine takes the edge off. With Xiaojun off from work all day and Doyoung not having any classes to worry about for a while, it’s the ideal timing for both of them.
When they get down to the marina, they rent out a boat for the day—presumably at way less than it’d cost anyone else, from what Doyoung can guess. He can assume that Xiaojun’s family’s connections at the marina helped; and his good looks definitely didn’t hurt either, judging by the near-starstruck reactions of the older woman at the boat rental shop.
It’s just the two of them on the boat, and Doyoung watches curiously as Xiaojun pulls the docking lines up, starts the engine, and pushes the throttle forward.
“You know how to drive a boat,” Doyoung speaks. It’s more of a statement than a question. He’s a bit surprised by this, thinking instead there’d be someone else on the vessel with them to navigate it. He’s embarrassed about the tiny thrill of fear that runs down his spine, but Xiaojun claims to spend most of his time around the water when he’s not in the shop or at home, so he must know what he’s doing.
“Yep, learned it from my parents. As kids me and my brother spent so much time around the water, they joked we might grow gills once we hit puberty.” Xiaojun’s lips quirk up in a smile at that memory.
“That would be a sight to see.” Doyoung watches as Xiaojun maneuvers the wheel and steers them away from the dock. They cruise past the rest of the boats in the dock and into the open water. At this time of day and in the middle of the week, there are few other boats on the water with them. “I guess you must be pretty close to your parents.”
“Yes! It was always so much fun coming out here with them.”
Doyoung chuckles softly. “Before now, I’d never imagined a life like that. I didn’t grow up around any water.”
“Oh, you’re not from here?”
“Nope...our parents decided to move here just before I started high school. Hyung hadn’t been too happy about leaving his high school friends behind. Because we already had family up here, it just made sense to them, I guess.”
“Was it a shock, then?”
“Yeah. I hated it intensely...I still kind of do,” Doyoung admits, and though there is no reason to, he feels a little bad about hating a thing that Xiaojun loves so much. “I just could never come to understand how Haechan liked it—” For one brief and blissful moment, he actually forgets about everything that��s happened, thinking he will once again have a chance to hear the younger boy asking him to come out to their pool, or to the beach—until the reality of it collides up against his mind.
Xiaojun gives him a concerned glance. Doyoung shakes his head and forces a neutral expression.
He decides to change the subject before the other man can speak. “How are things going at the college?” Doyoung leans over the edge to look at the water sloshing up around the side of the boat as they speed past. Although he doesn’t love feeling aimless, he isn’t sure if he misses the university itself yet, either. The idea of trying to go back to “normalcy,” of sitting in a classroom, listening to droning lectures, and virtually acting like his life is average again, gives him a strange kind of nervewracking, tightening sensation in his body.
“Same as always, I guess,” Xiaojun responds. “The theatre program has a new seasonal production in the planning stages, though, and I’m pretty excited for it…”
Doyoung listens to Xiaojun dive into a deep explanation of the play, more than willing to let the younger man do most of the talking if it lets himself ease his mind off more difficult things for the moment. Plus, hearing Xiaojun’s obvious passion about the theatre is endearing in its own little way.
Eventually, they get back around to that subject.
“So, did you try to look for a mermaid?” Xiaojun asks, chuckling.
Doyoung’s eyes widen, and he thinks back to the pearl sitting in his nightstand at home. “Eh, no...not yet.” He runs a hand through his hair and wonders if he should just say it, but quickly decides against it. “I, uh, forgot to ask you something last time though. Have you ever read any of those stories about mermaids eating, you know...humans? Let’s say, if they do exist. What do you think about that?”
Xiaojun’s shoulders tense. The movement is too small for Doyoung to catch, especially with the boat’s constant motion. He glances over at Doyoung for maybe a moment longer than he should while driving the boat.
“Hm...I’ve read about some incidents in newspapers when I was young, but most of those have been debunked.”
“Debunked?”
“Yeah, I mean, there are other sea creatures that can eat humans...though they often don’t. A couple freak accidents or shark attack fatalities could easily be passed off as mermaids eating humans if people are opportunistic enough about it.”
“I see.” The mermaid’s sharp grin flashes in Doyoung’s mind, and he isn’t so sure if he believes this, but he doesn’t argue it. “I guess that makes sense.”
“For a STEM major, you really do have a penchant for keeping up with weird mystical theories,” Xiaojun chuckles.
Doyoung flushes. “It’s not like that...nothing wrong with a little curiosity.”
--
By the time they make it back to the marina, the sun is setting.
“It’s a good thing we can still stay out here this late,” Xiaojun remarks, carefully docking the boat and cutting the engine off.
“What do you mean?”
“That recent curfew people have been talking about,” he says. “The government is still deciding whether they should do it or not.”
“Oh, that…” Doyoung had heard about the curfew in passing, but he’d been too consumed with his own issues to really pay any attention to what it was about. “That, uh…”
“The disappearances, remember? New one every month.”
“Oh, right.” Doyoung remembers seeing the first reports of them just a couple years ago. “They’ve mostly been criminals and whatnot? The occasional homeless person too.”
“People that no one will really notice or miss once they’re gone,” Xiaojun murmurs.
“Uh, yeah.” A shiver passes through Doyoung’s body, not wholly due to the wind. “It’s disturbing. I hope they can find who’s doing it soon.”
Xiaojun nods. “Me too.”
Doyoung and Xiaojun get back onto the dock after tying the boat up. Even though Doyoung experienced the most enjoyment he’s had in a while on the boat ride, he’s still glad to have his feet back on land.
“I hope it was fun today,” Xiaojun says, looking at the other man with a small smile. After their dark topic of conversation just minutes earlier, this gesture feels almost like a relief to Doyoung, and he gives a small grin back.
“It was great—thanks for all this. You can always hang out with me and my brother. I know some fun things to do, too...even if it might not seem like it.” They both laugh at that.
“Sure, I’ll do that. Just let me know when,” Xiaojun agrees, patting Doyoung on the back. “Now, let’s go find something to eat.”
eight. the touch of water
“You really like the water.”
The look the mermaid gives Doyoung says she’s not sure if she should humor him or not.
“I mean—okay yeah, I know you’re a mermaid. But...you just. I don’t know.”
“The water is a living thing, just like me or you. There are countless reasons to ‘like’ it. Marvel at it, venerate it.”
“A living thing?”
“Water cleanses you of whatever needs to be cleansed. It knows you, and it feels you.” The mermaid floats on her back in the water with her face pointed to the sky, glancing over at Doyoung occasionally as she speaks. “You should get in instead of always sitting on that rock. Your butt is going to erode it away.”
Doyoung rolls his eyes but decides to let that last comment go. He’s not in the mood for the back and forth...though that’s practically become inevitable whenever they talk to each other. “You always sound like my friend Yuta, talking about his tarot cards and all this pseudo-spiritual bullcrap.”
The mermaid simply looks at him. “I don’t really care if you believe it or not. It’ll still be true either way.” She flips back into the water and swims around a bit, as if showing off how good the water feels. Doyoung knows it’s colder than it appears, though.
“Anyway, I’m not interested in you eating me once I get in.”
She stops her dallying around and swims right up to the rock he’s on, placing her hands on it and stretching up like she’s trying to get as close to him as possible. “Do you believe you are someone worth eating? Do you think I would eat you?”
Someone worth eating? It’s odd to be offended about a statement like that—Doyoung is very much not interested in being eaten alive or whatever it is mermaids might do—but it still prickles him. “I didn't know mermaids had some extra-special criteria for choosing their meals.”
The mermaid narrows her eyes. Seeing her so up-close with her suspicious gaze and sharp teeth is disconcerting, but Doyoung is surprised to realize he still finds her face strangely appealing to look at. “We are living things like you, meaning we also have likes and dislikes.”
“So you do eat humans?”
“Stop being ridiculous. You should stop reading so many fairytales.” She lets go of the rock then, drifting back away from him and letting the rolling motion of the waves carry her. “Maybe you didn’t know it, but you can learn more knowledge from interacting with an actual mermaid than believing old myths.”
Doyoung’s embarrassed. “I didn’t—I’m not…”
“Anyway. Are you going to get in and try it or not? That’s the only thing I wanted to ask you about today. I’ll be on my way otherwise.”
Doyoung pauses. He doesn’t want her to leave, he realizes, even if he had already convinced himself that her consistent appearances were robbing him of his hard-sought peace. He hates the idea of getting in freezing cold water, but he might equally dislike the idea of her leaving. So on a foolish whim, he shucks his shoes and socks off and wades in knee-deep.
And then he stays rooted next to one of the big rocks for a long moment, trying to acclimate to the shock of the cold water, waves of it crashing around his legs with the high tide. “I-I don’t feel any d-different,” he stammers out through chattering teeth.
“You aren’t even trying to relax,” she remarks, drifting near his side and looking at him curiously. “It’s only possible to experience it when you let go.”
Doyoung makes a disbelieving sound. “H-how the hell can I relax in water that’s almost subzero?”
“Easily,” she responds, and grabs the arm closest to her. Doyoung looks at her hand clasping his arm, her long nails poking the material of his sweater.
“Oh...whoa. What?” Suddenly the cold is draining from his body, replaced with a warmth similar to that of a day during the height of spring, and the water around him is equally warming up. “Are you—? Doing that?”
“Everything isn’t pseudoscience,” she says. “And don’t worry, this isn’t one of those spells you told me not to do on you anymore.”
Doyoung grumbles at that but puts the skepticism to the side for a moment because there’s no other way to justify what’s happening. He gives a sincere effort to relax now that his mind is off the water temperature. He spends a few long minutes with his eyes closed, attempting to mentally sink into his surroundings. What does it even mean for water to be a healing thing? Should he try to interact with it? Run his fingers through it? He thinks that he’s lucky no one he knows is out here to see him make a mockery of himself.
Still, he struggles to loosen up. “I can’t,” he sighs, and almost pulls away from the mermaid in irritation before remembering she’s the only thing keeping him warm right now.
“That’s fine. It doesn’t always come on the first try,” she reassures him, which he doesn’t expect.
“And how many times would I need to try before it worked?”
“However long you need; it’s different for everyone.”
Doyoung sighs and starts making his way back to dry land. When her hand slips from his arm, the warm sensation lasts only a few lingering seconds more before flowing away. “Th-that’s not very reassuring. Or believable.”
“So you say,” she murmurs, watching him shiver like a leaf and clumsily hop back in his shoes. Then she brushes her hair away from her face and holds her head up. “Well, you know where to find me. If you want to try it again—and I really do mean try—”
“What if you’re not here that day? Do you really stay by these rocks every day? Am I supposed to look for you?”
She cocks her head, raising her eyebrows. “So far, I’ve been here every time you are.”
It’s an inconsequential thing to nitpick about, he knows, but he feels ridiculous and downtrodden for not being able to do something he’s not even sure he believes in, and that frustration must go somewhere.
“Right,” he mumbles, knowing she’s correct despite himself.
“Go home and rest.” She looks at him for a few moments before sinking beneath the water, and he can’t get that look out of his mind on the walk back to his house. It’s the look of someone who does not pity you per se, but who sees you as something worse—something weak and vulnerable and amusing. Like prey, maybe.
–
When Doyoung gets home later that night, his parents make a stir about the state he’s in.
“Why are your clothes wet?!” his mother asks, looking at him aghast. The sound of the door shutting brings her out into the foyer, and she is shocked by the sight of her damp and depressed-looking son.
Doyoung shakes his head, already feeling tired at what’s to come. “It’s nothing. I just...fell in the water. I’m fine.” What did he say that for? That admission only makes his mother more panicked, and it’s enough to bring his father and brother into the hallway too, watching in confusion and alarm.
“You’re fine? How could you be so careless? What if something had happened to you on the rocks, or you couldn’t regain your footing in the water—” His mother’s words break off as she rubs her forehead, lines of distress creasing her features.
The words splinter him on the inside. She is not wrong, but he feels babied, infantilized, and it makes him irritable all over again. He doesn’t need or want another reminder of why he can’t do anything right, can’t do anything to preserve his own life or anyone else’s—
“Maybe it’s not safe for you to keep going to the beach alone. And so late at night...at least take someone else with you next time,” his father suggests.
“I don’t need anyone to accompany me to the beach,” Doyoung protests. “I’m a grown adult.” A scratchy discomfort scrapes at the inside of his chest, but the statement turns weak and soft at the end at the worry in his mother’s face. There are tears in her eyes, and a few have already rolled down. Those little droplets give him pause before he can think to make any other argument.
“You may be an adult, but…” His mother chokes back a sob. “Between things like the car accident and the ongoing disappearances, how can you expect me not to worry? What can you say to that?”
“We are trying to look out for you, Doyoung,” his father reiterates. “No one wants to see another…” He stops himself before saying the words, sighing deeply and rubbing his chin. “Just consider it, please. Be more careful.”
“I will.” Doyoung’s reply comes out as a whisper. His mother takes one of his hands between both of hers and squeezes it, and he reluctantly squeezes back, feeling lifeless and guilty about his earlier reaction.
After that, he trudges up the stairs to shower and change. His family’s eyes follow him up the steps with varying expressions of sadness and concern. The guilt does not leave him until he crawls into bed that night and falls into a deep sleep.
In the morning, Doyoung is relieved to not have had another bad dream. His mind remains thankfully dark and empty until he wakes up. And he knows it has much to do with the pearl he’s had clutched in his palm throughout the night.
nine. the great outdoors
you already have a piece of my heart
which i have never given to you
October comes in the blink of an eye.
At the beginning of the month, Doyoung goes on a camping trip with Gongmyung, Xiaojun, Seulgi, and Joy. It wasn’t his idea—his brother’s, really—but he decides to go along with it. He figures they could both use the distraction and the change of scenery. Oddly enough, he actually finds himself missing the possibility of being able to go to the beach during the days they’ll be gone. Maybe he’s finally gotten used to the place.
Is it really the beach he misses, though?
Doyoung doesn’t want to entertain the other thought, his stomach twisting into a knot at the idea of the mermaid. He doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or fascinated by her. But he keeps going back to that specific part of the beach when he could go anywhere else and reasonably dodge her. She gives him something else to talk or think about other than the accident, and he is beginning to feel a strange sensation—some sense of familiarity—whenever he sees her there.
Either way, he should probably stop thinking about her before one of the others gets concerned about why he’s even more spaced out than usual.
Doyoung lets those thoughts drift away on the trip to the camping site, which is an hour away. He leans his head against the window and keeps his eyes closed for most of the trip, listening to his Discman. Seulgi sits on the other side of him, with Xiaojun next to her quietly telling her about some book he’d been reading recently.
The camping site is a quaint place. Not so wild that it’s deep in the middle of the wilderness, but still forest-y enough to make it feel like a real camping trip.
Joy throws an arm around Doyoung’s shoulder after they get out of the van, breathing in the woodsy air and smiling softly. “It’s nice here. Kinda reminds you of our old camping trips?”
Doyoung cracks his first smile of the day at that memory, though it’s abruptly colored with a wash of blue as he remembers similar trips with Haechan—few and far between, but still worth emblazoning into his mind. Still, he keeps his smile up in front of her, not wanting to worry her or make her feel bad. “Yeah...and how you’d always go running at the first bug you saw.”
“That’s not gonna happen. I’m not a little girl anymore, and I’m not giving you more footage to laugh at with your friends.”
“I think Gongmyung still has that video on his old camcorder,” Doyoung remarks, smiling at the blush on her face at the remembrance of that embarrassing footage.
Joy has been the best at treating him the same as usual, not constantly trying to remind him of the grief or alternatively forcing him to not think about it, and he’s thankful for it. It makes him feel like his life is a little less upside-down.
In general, it’s easier to relax here among old friends who know him well—and even with Xiaojun, who’s still fairly new to their group.
Later that night after the tents have been set up and the fire has been adequately stoked, they share sandwiches and chips and other food around the flames. Afterwards, they roast marshmallows until they’re a pretty toasty brown, perfect for s’mores.
“It would be fun if we had some entertainment,” Seulgi says, and she eyes Xiaojun with a mischievous smile as she speaks.
“What about ghost stories?” Gongmyung suggests, which makes Joy shudder.
“That’s scary! And I’m not sure Joy will be able to handle it.” Seulgi giggles. Joy sticks her tongue out at her. “I was thinking more like...music, maybe?”
“I think she’s implicating me,” Xiaojun speaks up, blushing slightly.
“Yes! Pleaseee, if you don’t mind? I know you brought your guitar.”
Despite Doyoung being familiar with Xiaojun’s involvement in their school’s theatre program, he’d never heard the other man sing before. He raises his eyebrows, interest piqued.
Xiaojun gets his guitar out from the van and carefully takes it out of its case like it’s a newborn baby. Joy and Seulgi watch with barely concealed excitement as he tunes it. Their faces light up like they’re about to witness their very own little brother play at a school recital, both girls sitting on the edge of the log they’ve turned into a makeshift bench.
“Okay, me and one of the guys from theatre are putting together this song—Gongmyung, you know Kun, right? it’s like a duet—and it’s not complete yet, but here’s what we have. It’s called Back to You, by the way…”
--
The second day of their camping trip is filled with exploration, more singing, and some not-so-great attempts at fishing in the lake. Xiaojun is the only one remotely successful at catching any fish, which Doyoung is admittedly not surprised by at this point.
By the time the sun sets, they have another fire going strong and are huddled around it telling scary stories this time—by Gongmyung’s suggestion, of course.
Everyone’s a bit too unsettled to go to bed right away, but when it gets past 1 a.m., they eventually make their way into their tents.
The two girls tent together while Doyoung, Gongmyung, and Xiaojun sleep in the other one a little ways away from them.
Before falling asleep, Doyoung unzips his hoodie pocket and slips a hand inside as he lies in his sleeping bag. He finds the pearl there, and he skims the pads of his fingers over it. He’d almost forgotten about it, not needing to use it while being caught up in the fun of hanging out with the others. Its smooth surface quickly warms up as he brushes his fingers across it. A warm, hazy fog drapes over his brain as his eyes drift shut.
Doyoung wakes in the middle of the night with the urge to pee and realizes Xiaojun isn’t there; the flap of his sleeping bag is neatly peeled back, but he’s not in it. This sparks curiosity in Doyoung. He climbs out of the tent, careful not to jostle his brother, and finds a spot far enough away from the tents to do his business without worrying about being jumped on by some wild animal.
He’s about to head back towards the main campsite and attempt to look for Xiaojun when he hears a noise. Standing still and listening for a while longer, he realizes it’s not just a random sound of leaves rustling or the wind blowing; it’s a voice.
This place isn’t that deserted—maybe there’s another group camping nearby. Still, the unknown voice sends a chill up his back, and the scary stories they told earlier doesn’t help. Despite the option of going back to the tent, he heads further out to find the source of the noise and see if it’s anything they’d need to be concerned about. He keeps a light foot as he does, careful not to possibly alert the other person to his presence.
Following the sound leads Doyoung back to the lake. He keeps to the shadows of the trees as he edges closer, and he is shocked to see Xiaojun crouching there at the bank where the dirt and sand meet the water.
He is not alone, either.
There’s someone else there with Xiaojun, though the last thing Doyoung expects to see is that same glimmering tail, its wide, curving fin, and the flash of the mermaid’s sharp teeth as she smiles at the younger man.
Why is she here? How is she here? How would she have known to find Xiaojun all the way out here? Or Doyoung? Seeing this scene, though, Doyoung realizes quickly that he isn’t the one she’s come looking for.
He’s still a bit too far to hear their conversation, especially over the noise of the night insects and animals. He doesn’t think he needs to hear it to guess what’s going on, with how their bodies lean towards each other in a way that speaks of familiarity. Intimacy.
Doyoung cannot fathom why he feels jealous of this—or of the kiss they both share and the way Xiaojun’s fingers curl into that black hair. A kiss with teeth so sharp can’t be pleasant, Doyoung tries to convince himself, and he is a fool and a glutton for punishment, and yet Doyoung mentally superimposes himself into Xiaojun’s place anyway, if only in the furthest reaches of his subconscious.
He goes back to the tent confused and disgruntled, reimagining that kiss until it’s the only thing he sees when he closes his eyelids. Later, he registers Xiaojun’s body next to his as the other man climbs back into the tent; he doesn’t know how much time has passed between Xiaojun returning to the tent and when he first discovered Xiaojun with the mermaid. Doyoung pretends to be asleep, his back turned to the younger man.
He forgets about the pearl in his pocket entirely. Otherwise, he’d have used it to get a more peaceful night’s sleep.
--
Their last few days in the forest go by relatively peacefully, and it’s a welcome break from life in the center of the city. However, Doyoung can’t completely rid himself of the twinge of jealousy he feels when he thinks back to that night or interacts with Xiaojun.
That makes him feel guilty. He wishes he didn’t, but he doesn’t quite understand it, either. Why didn’t Xiaojun tell him on the boat ride, or during any of the other times they’ve talked about mermaids and other strange sea legends? Doyoung wonders how long the man has been keeping this secret; making that first realization that mermaids are not just myths is no small thing to keep to oneself.
Perhaps it’s really none of his business. He, too, holds plenty of his own secrets tight to his chest.
All Doyoung can think about is what he might say to the mermaid the next time he sees her.
ten. so inviting, i almost jump in
i don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch
everybody wants you
everybody wonders what it would be like to love you
Despite the mermaid’s past words, she isn’t always there when Doyoung comes to the beach. Those days disappoint him—make him feel like the trek to this rocky, chilly place wasn't all that worth it. After the camping trip and their return to the main part of the city, he doesn’t see her for nearly a week.
When she randomly appears again one evening, his heart leaps into his throat, which shocks him.
“Doyoung,” she greets him, peering at him from behind a small boulder. Her fingernails tap against it in a rhythm he doesn’t know.
Her bottomless black eyes immobilize him. “Uh, hi,” he whispers.
She doesn’t say anything else after his greeting—doesn’t feel the need to. For a while, he doesn’t speak either. Until...
“You know Xiaojun.” It takes him an embarrassingly long amount of time to work himself up to say this. He just sits there watching her swim for a while, her green scales shining under the moonlight and long hair trailing behind her, before speaking.
The mermaid stops swimming, and her face changes. The difference would be almost imperceptible if he hadn’t been staring at her the whole time. Then a small smile graces her lips. “I do.”
Doyoung’s mouth works silently, but he doesn’t know quite how to proceed. He wasn’t expecting this blunt response, but maybe he should know her better than that by now. “How?”
“Xiaojun is mine. That is really all you need to know.”
“Yours. As in, your latest dinner?”
“I would never. Though I am beginning to wonder if you have cannibalism fantasies with how much you talk about humans being eaten.”
“Shut up.” The glare she gives him is enough to make him regret his words; he shrinks away from her. “Sorry.”
“He’s nice. I like him quite a lot. He’s a...very romantic person.”
“Romantic,” Doyoung repeats. “So then, it’s that kind of relationship.”
“Are you envious?”
Doyoung immediately snorts as if he thinks the idea is sheer ridiculousness. He finds his cheeks heating up, though, when that familiar bitter emotion begins souring in his chest and stomach.
She has already peered inside his dreams by way of some “magic” he can’t even begin to comprehend, so he’s not sure if he can hide anything from her.
He attempts anyway. “It just surprised me. That’s all.”
“Did he tell you about us?”
“No, I...saw you two. At...the lake.”
“Hmm.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“No reason to be. He told me where he’d be, said he’d be camping with his friends, in case I wondered where he was. Told me I was free to come see him. I came to see him. I knew you’d be there. I did not realize you’d be spying, though.” Doyoung opens his mouth to speak but then pauses. “Are you sad I didn’t come for you, Doyoung?”
Doyoung blushes harder. “No. I just…”
“Or maybe you just wanted Dejun all to yourself? He really is a cutie, you know; he’s told me himself how people are always flirting with him…” Doyoung scoffs at that, turning his face away for fear of her saying he looks like a tomato or something just as ridiculous.
“I don’t know what games you’re playing,” Doyoung blurts out. “You knew about both of us and didn’t say anything.”
The mermaid leans her head against one of the rocks, her eyes fluttering like she might fall asleep from this conversation. “I didn’t see a need to. What I choose to do with either of you isn’t the other’s business...unless I make it so.”
“Are there more?” Once again, the words tumble out without his control.
“How brash.” The mermaid grins. “No. But would you even believe me?”
Doyoung groans and puts his head on his knees, feeling incredibly silly at being played by a mermaid. And what’s even more embarrassing—there is no tangible relationship between them, barely even a touch other than that time she’d led him into the water. Certainly no love confession or anything of the sort. What did he really have to be mad over?
“I feel like a fool,” Doyoung says quietly.
“Yes, I tend to have that effect on men. But…if you’re very upset about it, and with me, then I can leave you alone from now on. Let you resume your normal human life.”
Doyoung’s head shoots up. “What? No. I never said…” The idea of another person leaving him so unexpectedly grinds against his nerves like metal on metal, stirs up raw fears, makes the back of his neck sweat.
She simply smiles back at him, already knowing how he must feel about her suggestion. “Then, shall I stay?”
Doyoung looks away from her, chewing his bottom lip. Some part of him knows she’s holding his fear of abandonment against him, but he feels too weak and too alone to push back against it. “If that’s what you want.”
“But is it what you want?”
It takes him a few moments to part his lips and make himself give voice to it. “…It is. Yes.”
The mermaid spreads her arms out in the water, gesturing to the space around her with gleaming, voracious eyes. “Then here I will remain.”
eleven. love bites
love bites, love bleeds
it's bringing me to my knees
Xiaojun visits the mermaid late one night to give her a present.
He doesn’t go to the beach this time, or even the lake, but a far-off lagoon that not many people know about. It’s one of the many bodies of water in their city that connects to the ocean, so there’s always an easy way for her and the other mermaids to get there.
His gift for her isn’t wrapped in any special bows or sparkly papers—just a black tarp. Once he gets it out of his truck, he drags it carefully across the dirt and sand, the parcel being a bit too heavy to comfortably carry.
She swims up to their small meeting place a few minutes after he gets there; he sees the green of her scales glittering in the water as she swims close to the surface. When she surfaces, she pushes herself up onto the shore until she can’t go any further. Xiaojun is already there to meet her as he always is, uncaring of the cold water at his feet. His shoes remain abandoned in a dry spot further back on the lagoon’s shore, his jeans rolled up above his ankles.
“My love.” The endearment is a prayer on his lips—the first drops of water after 40 days in the desert.
“Dejun.” She reaches out to touch the side of his face, and her fingers leave wet streaks on his skin. He unconsciously pushes his face further into the press of her palm, the movement being a muscle memory at this point, and they lean towards each other at the same time to share a kiss. Xiaojun comes away with the taste of saltwater on his lips.
Xiaojun turns to the black tarp and begins carefully pulling it apart. She observes him with a tiny smile on her face.
“Do you remember mentioning Doyoung...one of the guys you talked about from your camping trip?” she asks him as he works.
“Uh, yeah...what about him?”
“What do you think about him?”
Xiaojun’s spine stiffens, and his actions falter for a few moments. He hopes she is not implying what he thinks. “Why do you ask? Do you...know of him?”
“He comes to the beach all the time. We have talked often. I’m surprised you haven’t run into each other, at this point.” That revelation stirs jealousy in Xiaojun, though he tries to suppress it. He knows she’s claimed him as her own, but she has never allowed the same kind of ownership over her, remaining free to do whatever she wants with whoever she pleases.
He thought he didn’t much mind this arrangement over the last two years. But knowing the other person is Doyoung, specifically, makes him feel oddly inferior. How can he measure up to a man like that—one who is older, more accomplished, and apparently interesting enough to be one of the few men to hold the attention of the mermaid Xiaojun’s been in love with for so long?
In front of Doyoung, he could not help but feel like a clumsy teenager again. He initially thought he’d done a decent job of impressing the older man with his knowledge of boats and the marina and the mermaids, but ultimately, he wasn’t sure how much that stuff would really matter to a man with a soon-to-be degree in something as prestigious as Information Security. Doyoung was someone who’d already done his time in the army and came out more mature for it. Someone who seemed a lot more…adult than himself.
“Is...that why he was asking about mermaids?” Xiaojun asks, though he’s mostly talking to himself. “Then why pretend…?” Maybe it’s better that Doyoung does pretend. The further he keeps his distance from this odd web Xiaojun and the mermaid have woven, the better. He is not confident things will stay that way much longer, though.
“Does that displease you?” the mermaid asks, staring at his back as he keeps it turned to her.
“No, I…I understand what’s between us.” Xiaojun swallows. “Were you planning on…?”
“No, not that. Not with him. He’s interesting. I’ll keep him around—if he’s even the kind that can be kept, that is. He’s still quite independent. That’s admirable in it’s own little adorable way.”
“I see…”
She laughs. “You don’t have to act unaffected about it if you aren’t. I know how you men can be.”
Xiaojun shakes his head. “Nothing you do can bother me. I’ve gotten used to much worse things.”
Finally, the tarp is peeled completely back to bear the gift Xiaojun procured for her. The dead body lies unblinking and still within the black material, the man’s clothes stained with blood from his stab wounds.
“Oh, perfect, perfect,” the mermaid purrs, leaning in closer to study the stranger’s features. She slides a hand up the man’s arm. “The skin is even still warm. You did well, Dejun.”
Xiaojun sits back in the sand and watches as she lowers herself on top of the man’s body, her long tail leaving slime behind, her face level with his chest. She strokes her hands across the man’s body for a moment as if memorizing every clothing detail, hair follicle, and imperfection, before opening her mouth wide and biting a hole into his chest, right where his heart should be.
Though Xiaojun has gotten used to the sneaking around, the lying, the preparation of the bodies, and even the killing itself, this part always manages to turn his stomach. (She has told him before that eating the heart gives her a taste of that person’s memories, fears, and loves—everything that makes them human. On most days, that vaguely unsettles him. On some precious few days, he wonders what it might be like for her to know him wholly in that way, for them to meld completely as one.)
Still, there is something darkly appealing about her when she’s in this carnal state, feeding both for necessity and for the pleasure of it. Knowing that she is capable of this but still keeps him around instead of turning him into just another meal, and that she trusts him with procuring her food and maintaining their secret, makes him feel worthy of her.
So, he forces himself to watch as she scoops the man’s heart out and bites into it as if it were a soft pastry, the blood leaking down her chest, hands, and arms. The tarp catches most of it, but the rest will be washed away by the lagoon’s waters either way.
And when she is done, he helps her drag the body into the water like they have done many times before—the ritual ingrained in his mind at this point—so the other mermaids can feed on the remains. The scent of blood in the water will attract them soon. They will leave no evidence behind once their feast is devoured. Even the bones are woven into pretty necklaces and earrings and bracelets, worn mostly by the mermaids who stay far below the surface.
“Thank you, Dejun.” The water has washed away most of the blood on her brown hands, but he still tastes the metallic intensity of it in her mouth when she cups his cheeks and kisses him, and it makes him nauseous. He refuses to show this to her, instead returning the kiss fully.
He places a hand on her tail, feeling the slimy, smooth scales and the grit of sand underneath his palm. “Anything for you.”
twelve. full moon
Doyoung has yet to explore the cove on the beach, finding it a bit too insular and creepy for his tastes. The rocks and the tide pools have become his frequent hangout spot at this point, and he…doesn’t love them, but there is always some comfort in familiarity. However, he goes to the cove now at the mermaid’s request; she’d asked him to come specifically on this night during one of the other days when they were spending time together. The thought of being so obedient to her whims makes his cheeks flush. He’s not sure why he feels so compelled to do what she asks of him, but he can’t deny that she has carved out a space in his mind.
The moon is full tonight, and it provides enough light to make him feel less nervous about being at the cove, though not quite enough to make him completely let his guard down. He has a sudden, surprising thought that he’s not actually sure if he’s more afraid of the cove or of her. It seems stupid. Despite his half-joking quips about mermaids eating humans, she’s never shown any real intent of harming him.
Doyoung rubs his pointer finger over the pearl in his jean pocket, and it works to soothe his fears.
When he makes it to the cove, three things shock him at once.
She is wrapped in a blanket, and though it is cold outside, this is still unexpectedly odd to him.
Her tail is not poking out of it like he’d expect; instead, there are two fully formed human legs.
Xiaojun is sitting beside her.
A lantern provides extra light inside the dim cove and casts a warm glow on their faces. Xiaojun doesn’t seem particularly surprised that Doyoung is there, though his expression couldn’t really be called ecstatic, either. The mermaid is leaning her head on his shoulder, though she lifts it up once she notices Doyoung.
“What is he doing here?!” Doyoung blurts out.
“I wanted you both to be here for once. You’re always visiting me separately,” she answers, standing up to face Doyoung. “I’m surprised you’re not more curious about the legs, really.”
The mermaid steps into the cove’s entrance, dragging the blanket behind her, and Doyoung watches her with intrigue as she walks. There’s nothing awkward or inexperienced about her gait, even though she spends most of her time with a fish tail. The blanket falls open a little from where she holds the two sides of it together, and he looks away abruptly, his face burning as some of her lower half is bared to him.
“I—um. Okay. How do you have...legs?”
She points her finger to the sky, and as Doyoung turns his head, he realizes she’s gesturing at the full moon. “The moon and the sea are tied together, right? During full moons, things become possible that you normally wouldn’t foresee. It only lasts for as long as the moon is in its full phase, night or day.”
Doyoung doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just nods dumbly with his mouth open. He’s not sure he’ll have cause to call himself a healthy skeptic for much longer.
She grasps his hand and pulls him in the direction of the cove. His feet move a little slower than hers, but he allows himself to be guided as Xiaojun watches them with almost plaintive eyes. “Sit,” she says, sitting down beside Xiaojun again and pulling on Doyoung’s hand for him to join. He realizes belatedly that there’s another blanket underneath them, so at least he won’t get sand all over his jeans.
“Hyung,” Xiaojun says by way of greeting.
“I guess you’re used to this,” Doyoung says, his eyes drifting over the entirety of the scene in lieu of expanding on what this is. “You didn’t say you knew any mermaids.”
“Well, neither did you.”
“Okay, well...that’s true,” Doyoung huffs. “I just thought…maybe you’d think I was insane if I said it.” And maybe he just wanted to have something he could keep to himself.
The mermaid laughs at this, though it comes out more like air whistling through her nose. “Dejun is obsessed with the ocean. If anyone would believe you, it’s him.”
“I see…”
A quiet falls over the three of them. Doyoung tries not to feel awkward in it, but he doesn’t know what to say or do, if anything. The mermaid goes back to resting her head on Xiaojun’s shoulder and rests her hand over top of Doyoung’s. Doyoung’s fingers twitch at the proximity. A few long seconds pass before he rearranges their hands so he can hold hers properly. He’s never touched her like this before, but her allowing him to do so now makes him yearn for more of it.
He doesn’t know how much time passes. Maybe just a few minutes, but it feels longer than that. He finally decides to break the silence.
“Do you...gain legs every full moon?”
“Yes. Many of the mermaids would rather not switch, preferring the water, but I like the duality of it.”
She rearranges herself to lay her legs across Doyoung’s lap, and her hand slips from his as she does. He’s a bit disappointed about that, but that’s quickly replaced by surprise.
“Touch them if you want.”
Doyoung glances at her. When she looks at him expectantly, he brings one of his hands to her shin and glides his palm over it. He’s not sure what he was anticipating, but they’re just like human legs. He wonders what happens to her tail whenever she’s like this. He still has a hard time wrapping his head around the concept of “moon magic.”
She moves away from Xiaojun, and both men watch as she leans closer to Doyoung, touching the side of his jaw. Doyoung’s throat tightens at their increased nearness and those burning black holes for irises. “Do you want to feel good?” she asks him in a whisper.
“F-feel good?”
“You’ve been hurting so much, for so long. You deserve to feel good for a while.” Then she adds, “That’s all I want to do. I’m not trying to ‘fix’ you. Only time and acceptance can mend any pain.”
“I...” Doyoung wants to hesitate, but all at once, he acutely feels the weight of everything that’s been weighing on him for the past couple of months. He is incredibly tired of pretending to be okay when he is not. Tired of going in circles about how to move on, how to “let go” of a magnitude of hurt that he’s barely begun to comprehend for himself. For a while, it would be nice to simply forget and untie himself from his mind. Lose himself to the physicality of just being. “Okay.”
“You’re positive?” she asks again. “We won’t do anything you don’t want. We can stop whenever.”
“Please.” There’s a note of desperation in his tone now.
Xiaojun watches attentively as the mermaid closes the remaining gap between her and Doyoung, pressing her lips to his timid ones. Doyoung’s eyes flutter closed as he leans into it, reciprocating the movements of her lips. It is the kiss he’s been deeply longing for, yet did not allow himself to consciously imagine. He finds that her teeth aren’t painful on him as he’d thought they’d be. Her kiss is deceptively gentle as she suckles his top lip and the curve of his cupid’s bow. She lets her tongue teasingly slip into his mouth, but only momentarily.
A soft moan comes from Doyoung. The older man almost forgets Xiaojun is there until he hears a shifting noise that isn’t coming from either him or the mermaid. She pulls away from him then and turns to Xiaojun, who’s looking at both of them with an expression Doyoung can’t decipher. Then she kisses Xiaojun the same way, and he relaxes into it almost instantly, clearly having done this with her on multiple occasions.
She still keeps one hand on Doyoung’s and leads his hand to the gap in her blanket, pressing it against her breast. His breath hitches at the feeling of her warm skin against his, and it’s as if his brain short-circuits; he doesn’t know how to react for a moment.
Then, tentatively, he comes closer to her, bringing his mouth to the side of her neck, brushing her curly hair away from her shoulder with his other hand. He pauses there for a moment, running his fingers over the softness of her neck and shoulder and the firm bone of her collarbone, before kissing her neck.
With his hand still on her breast, he squeezes it slightly, feeling the nipple harden underneath his palm, and kisses her neck all the way down to where his hand is. More of the blanket falls away from her shoulder as he does, baring her upper half to both men.
Doyoung hasn’t done this in a while, and the movements feel clumsy, but he brings his hand away from her breast and replaces it with his mouth, kissing her soft skin and grazing his lips over her nipples. Her skin smells of the sea, though it isn’t anything overpowering or unpleasant—just like boundless water and the tang of salt. He does the same for both sides of her chest, pressing his lips into her skin repeatedly with the slightest graze of teeth. Her pulse beats steadily underneath his mouth.
He listens to the wet kiss between her and Xiaojun, and something stirs inside him at the sounds of it. He doesn’t know whether to be weirded out by that or not—the fact that witnessing this intimacy between them is arousing—so he tries not to focus on his feelings about it and just remains in the present.
He does not get to listen for long, because she soon parts from Xiaojun—and from Doyoung’s lips searching their way across her breasts, too. She shuffles herself to sit in Xiaojun’s lap, back facing his front, as she pulls Doyoung closer to her by the fabric of his hoodie. Then she slips her hands underneath it, feeling his stomach all the way up to his nipples. Her long nails skimming across the hard nubs makes him shudder, and he feels the beginnings of a familiar but long-forgotten heat rising in the pit of his abdomen.
She eases the hoodie up and over his head and lifts his shirt so she can kiss his chest. One of her hands snakes around to his back as she wraps her lips around his nipple, and she traces her nails over his back and across the vertebrae of his spine. It’s not hard enough to hurt, but enough to have him tensing up and sighing into a moan.
At the same time, Xiaojun’s hands make their way to her waist and hips, sliding over her thighs and then between. Xiaojun’s mouth parts with a soundless moan as he dips one hand further down and feels her slick and hot against his fingers, and he presses further into that soft wetness until it yields for him.
She sighs appreciatively at Xiaojun’s actions, settling herself further in his lap. Her hands drop lower to the front of Doyoung’s jeans, and she undoes them. She rubs her thumb along the line of his boxers, smiling slightly against his skin at the way his abdomen tenses at the tickling touch. She soon slips her hand into the space between his pants and underwear, feeling him half-hard against her fingers.
Her lips travel back up to Doyoung’s neck, and she kisses his jawline tenderly as she keeps rubbing her palm against him, feeling him grow stiffer with her movements. When she finally reaches her hand inside his underwear and grasps him, an airy noise drops from his lips at the feeling of her thumb sliding across the slickened tip and her mouth sucking softly at the hinge of his jawbone.
Xiaojun’s hand presses into her inner thigh to spread her legs a bit further open, and he leans forward to kiss the nape of her neck and down her back even as she kisses Doyoung’s face. Xiaojun tastes drops of saltwater from her dampened hair as he goes. He presses his cheek against her back and his own length throbs underneath her, but for now he ignores it in favor of pleasuring her.
She presses back on him, grinding against his arousal, and Xiaojun moans in response as he curls his fingers deeply inside her.
Though they don’t consciously intend to, the three of them fall into a compatible rhythm together, all rocking and stroking together like waves—her hand on Doyoung, Xiaojun’s hand on her, and her slowly grinding against Xiaojun. Doyoung finds himself getting swept up in it, grasping her hair, tugging her mouth to his, and pushing his hips up into the tight circle of her fist.
Doyoung releases first, spilling over her hand with a soft and high-pitched sound; he is still overly conscious of being outside and tries to keep himself quiet. It is the best sensation he’s experienced in months, and he immediately feels attached to that rush of pleasure—wants to feel it again and again. The mermaid smiles widely, her teeth glinting in the light of the lamp, and licks his cum off her hand. She comes soon after Doyoung, with Xiaojun’s fingers pushing inside her and his palm rubbing against her clit, all while rocking her hips against his hand and tilting her head back onto his shoulder.
When Xiaojun pulls his fingers back, they are wet with her release, and he watches enraptured as the sticky strings of her wetness glisten on his fingers in the lamplight. He moves to bring them to his mouth, but she grasps his wrist. He looks at her questioningly, and his expression turns into a flustered blush when she guides his hand towards Doyoung.
“Taste me.”
Doyoung is equally flustered. He looks to Xiaojun, trying to read his eyes for signs of dissent. To his surprise, the younger man gives him a bashful nod, so Doyoung accepts, letting Xiaojun’s fingers tickle the seam of his mouth and then push inside. The mermaid lets go of Xiaojun’s hand then, letting him maneuver himself as he tentatively shifts his fingers around in Doyoung’s mouth. The wet heat of the older man’s mouth reminds him of how hard he still is, and he groans quietly as his cock throbs.
When both men pull back, the air is thicker than before, more tense. Xiaojun is too embarrassed to hold Doyoung’s gaze for much longer, averting his eyes to the blanket. The mermaid gets off Xiaojun’s lap then, sitting down on the blanket.
“Poor thing. You still haven’t come,” she murmurs, stroking her finger across Xiaojun’s bulge and giggling when it twitches. Xiaojun watches her touch him with his eyebrows drawn together. “Wait a little longer.” She kisses Xiaojun’s bottom lip, then the top one, and pulls away before he can think about reciprocating. “I want Doyoung tonight.” The older man visibly perks up at hearing this, and then feels a little embarrassed at anticipating it so strongly. “Do you want to take it further?”
“I...yeah,” Doyoung breathes out, his stomach warming at the idea of experiencing more of this with her. He is becoming less nervous about the idea of Xiaojun watching them and being present while they have sex; it rouses something in him.
“Take your clothes off,” she instructs him. She turns to Xiaojun. “You too.” Xiaojun does as she asks of him without question, nothing but a small nod to show his acknowledgement as he begins pulling his jacket off. Doyoung hesitates for a moment longer, biting his lip. She looks at him with a small smile, though it’s not a mocking one; his reluctance is cute. “No one’s going to see us, Doyoungie. Promise. Dejun and I have done this plenty of times before.”
Doyoung blushes at that, and Xiaojun makes a muffled noise from underneath his shirt as he tugs it over his head. “Uh...right. Okay...” Doyoung follows suit and pulls his own shirt off, immediately shivering a bit when the cold air hits him.
It doesn’t take much longer for both men to get fully nude alongside the mermaid. Both men’s eyes linger on each other’s bodies for fleeting moments—Doyoung’s eyes scouring over the planes of Xiaojun’s abs, Xiaojun studying the lines of Doyoung’s shoulders and thighs. They’d seen each other in various states of undress during the camping trip, but not as wholly as this, and not within this charged context.
The mermaid lies on her side on the blanket, her hair spreading over the fabric and across her breasts. Propping her head up on her hand, she gestures to both men with the other. “Well, come over here then.”
Doyoung lies behind her while Xiaojun settles in front of her, staring at her with an anticipatory expression. She reaches between her legs, slides her fingers through the slick, and wraps her hand around Xiaojun’s length, listening to the way his voice catches and trembles in his throat at finally being touched bare. Doyoung’s cock twitches where it prods against the back of her thigh, and she shifts her hips closer to his, silently asking him to enter her. So he does.
When Doyoung slips inside her, he gasps at the wet grip around him and pushes further into that heat, wanting to reach the depths of it, adoring the way it envelops him. He grasps her hip tightly.
He rocks into her with his face buried in her neck and hair. He feels completely enshrouded by her, her scent and warmth all around him and seeping into his bones, fusing into them. The noises she makes are soft and sound to him like a song—one made up of his name.
Xiaojun’s moans meet Doyoung’s ears too, lower than hers and a bit breathier, as she pumps his shaft and latches her lips to his neck and shoulder. Doyoung’s hand slips further across her hip, sliding between her legs and rubbing at that bundle of nerves, and a short cry bursts from his lips at how she tightens around him.
With all their legs tangled together and minds clouded with desire, it becomes hard to tell where one person ends and the other begins, and none of them much care.
Doyoung moves his hand to press it to her stomach, leaving barely a centimeter of space between their bodies as he increases his pace and drags his lips over her nape, parting the thick curtain of hair to access the smooth skin of her neck.
“Please...oh, please…” Xiaojun pants, his voice growing more desperate as he sails closer to that zenith of pleasure. He grasps the mermaid’s face to kiss her, and she purrs against his mouth from having both men’s lips on her body at once.
Xiaojun comes with a groan, his tip rubbing against her thigh and smearing cum across her skin, which drips down onto the blanket. His hips twitch as she keeps stroking him through it, milking him until there’s nothing left to give.
Xiaojun shuffles himself down to their lower halves, laying his lips across her stomach and abdomen as he goes, and reaches the swollen little bud that he takes between his lips. The three of them are a messy jumble of bodies as Doyoung thrusts into her and Xiaojun drags his tongue across her clit, and the blanket has been messed up and shuffled out of place by now, sand covering part of it. She doesn’t mind the grit of the sand, but the men might complain about it later.
Then Xiaojun lets his tongue slide against Doyoung’s shaft as if it were an accident. Doyoung’s breath seizes in his chest for a few moments as he savors the pleasure of two very different wet warmths at once.
The mermaid comes with one hand buried in Xiaojun’s hair and the other running against Doyoung’s skin, no clear path in sight—just trying to access whatever part of Doyoung’s body she can from this angle. Doyoung comes a few minutes behind her, clutching her closer to his body and murmuring a broken moan into her mouth as if he can make her feel exactly what he does if he only connects their lips, tongues, and spit.
When their breathing slows and hearts stop racing, Doyoung drifts off to sleep against the mermaid’s chest, and she lets him stay there awhile. They will need to get up soon enough, certainly before dawn to avoid being discovered, but she lets him rest for now; he looks too peaceful to disturb.
Xiaojun crowds in on the other side of her like he did earlier, tucking his head into her shoulder and listening to her breathe. He looks at Doyoung across from him and realizes, despite his own uncertainty and jealousy, that he has come to find a certain affinity for this face—one he has never seen look quite so tranquil until now, even in the deep shadows the lantern creates.
“...Should we tell him?” Xiaojun asks her, his voice miniscule beneath the rushing of the ocean waves outside.
The mermaid shakes her head. “One day, I suppose we will have to. But not now.” She looks over at Xiaojun. “I’m sure you can continue keeping our secret.”
“Of course,” he agrees, his words a rushed breath against her neck.
She brings her hand to the side of his face and brushes her knuckles across his cheekbone. “Good.”
thirteen. spring, 1995
on tiring nights and busy daytimes
please make room in your heart for me to rest
“Your hair has gotten so long.”
The mermaid runs one of her hands through Doyoung’s hair, and he shivers slightly at her long nails ghosting down the nape of his neck.
“It has, hyung. You almost have a mullet now.” Xiaojun snickers.
“I know. Should I cut it?”
Her eyes turn big and incredulous. “Absolutely not. It looks good on you.”
“I have a big presentation coming up soon,” Doyoung mutters. “I’ll probably need to cut it anyway. A trim, at least. Just so it doesn’t look messy.”
“What a shame,” she sighs, tracing her index finger across his cheek. “Promise you’ll grow it back out after that.”
“I don’t know, I can’t walk around with my hair like this at an office job…”
“You’re both graduating soon, that’s right,” the mermaid remarks, digging her toes into the grass of the steep hill beneath them. “Being a human is...terribly exhausting.”
“We’ll still make time for you, though,” Xiaojun quickly pipes up. “We aren’t going to abandon you just because we have to go out into the real world now.”
“Of course you’ll make time for me,” she says, and they share a word-filled glance that Doyoung doesn’t notice as he looks in the picnic basket. One that speaks of their long-standing collusion.
When the mermaid has her legs, it is easier for the three of them to get together on dry land. They still cannot be around other people—others would only wonder about her sharp teeth and ask too many questions—but they take opportunities whenever possible to meet in remote places and spend time together. Riding in Xiaojun’s pickup truck to get to this grassy, empty field and its rolling hills was just one of their latest adventures.
Xiaojun smoothly changes the subject, gripping a section of the mermaid’s pale pink sundress between his thumb and forefinger. “I like this dress I bought for you.”
“And this bow I got,” Doyoung adds, playing with one of its bright pink ribbons as it rests in her curly hair.
“Well, it’s all very cute. But you two have made me look like I’m a schoolgirl or something. Humans sure love their strange fetishes.”
“That’s not it,” Xiaojun argues, blushing fiercely at her claim. “I just thought it’d look nice!”
“It does,” she says, casually throwing a leg over his lap. “Relax, Junnie.” She leans against Doyoung as she drapes her other leg over Xiaojun’s lap, and Doyoung enjoys the weight and warmth of her body against his.
Doyoung has turned towards that same weight and warmth numerous times since that night in the cove. She and Xiaojun have passed their hands, mouths, and ardent gazes over him more times than he cares to count, even over the course of that one winter. Just as she said, she was not able to “fix” him and never intended to, but her company was an undeniable form of solace for him. Both of them had, in their own ways, tethered him to a less painful world and helped him piece himself back together. Being in their presence consoled him in the darker moments—along with the pearl.
Doyoung glides his hand across her back, brushing her hair. He remembers how he’d envied Xiaojun for being able to touch and kiss her so freely that day at the lake, how he’d desired to know her as intimately as the other man did. He presses his nose to her temple and breathes her in, that everlasting scent of ocean spray, and closes his eyes as he listens to her and Xiaojun banter with each other. Doyoung thinks he could probably spend forever just like this with these two; no matter how many responsibilities they take on, there must be a way to make it work.
Oh, what a joyous thing it is to have love in the palm of your hand…
...even when you’re in the palm of someone else’s.
#doyoung fic#doyoung scenarios#doyoung imagines#doyoung smut#doyoung angst#xiaojun fic#xiaojun angst#xiaojun scenarios#xiaojun smut#xiaojun imagines#nct imagines#nct smut#nct angst#nct fic#nct scenarios#wayv scenarios#wayv fic#wayv angst#wayv smut#wayv imagines#mermaid au#ambw scenarios#ambw fic#ambw imagines#ambw smut#ambw angst#halloween au#poly au#poly nct
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FNAF PROJECT SAMSARA AU TIMELINE (MY VERSION OF THE FNAF TIMELINE) PART 1:
**'lego step' is code for 'sewer-slide' btw.
1983- FNAF 4 was the first game that took place. Evan was fatally injured on March 13th 1983 in the Bite of 83 on his eleventh birthday as a result of having his head, neck and upper torso crushed by machinery as a result of the Fredbear Suit’s springlocks failing. He dies in the hospital five days later. Two months later, Charlotte Emily dies.
1984- His mother (also kind of a neglectful parent), wracked with grief like the rest of the Afton family, divorces William out of hatred that he neglected her and his own kids, and a feeling of personal betrayal that one of his creations killed her own youngest son, and that William blamed Michael. She tries to gain custody of her kids, but loses the case and ‘does lego step’ a couple days after she loses the custody battle.
1985- The MCI Incident takes place. William creates the Funtime Animatronics for his children in order to distract them from their true purpose- collecting and harvesting remnant in order for him to continue his research from where it left off- it seems to cheer Elizabeth up for quite some time, though he has to repeatedly and explicitly warn her not to get too close to Circus Baby. She doesn’t listen, though- she never really does. And it was her tenth birthday as well.
1986- William, researching into how he can bring his son back to life, utilizes the knowledge of remnant he discovered (or more or less ‘re-discovered’) to construct a new and perfect vessel for his youngest son to be reincarnated anew into. He knew some ancient religions theorized the failsafe for the soul upon death for those who were ‘deemed unworthy’, so he uses dark and questionable methods to descerate and modify Evan’s body, altering the fundamental chemical composition of it via remnant to make it house an infinite tesseract of power within the body before combining it with advanced technology and machinery in order to construct the perfect vessel. The consciousness is housed within a computer chip, and within the Fredbear plushie that acts as it’s primary heart, which, over time, will merge with and become one with the vessel that houses it. Artificial and mostly cyber-organic organs and systems that serve the new physical body are created as a result of this process.
1987- FNAF 2 takes place, and so does the Bite of ‘87. Gregory is complete and is first activated, unbeknownst to everyone else. William completes printing the triskelion identification barcode on his back and runs a couple of tests relating to reflexes, performance, and senses before sealing the vessel for his son away in a stasis-like state, keeping him safeguarded in a glass case within a secret, remote location in a compartment underneath the Sister Location facility. In this state, Gregory’s corrupted and tumultuous consciousness could be reset and stored in the back of his mind for safekeeping while he was suspended in his 57-year long slumber, stabilizing him effectively via the memory ‘wipe’ and cleansing him thoroughly and entirely.
1990- About a year after Michael moves out and William continues harvesting remnant to further his research, he gets his dumb self springlocked and trapped. Henry expresses his condolences to Michael, but Michael doesn’t truly care after learning of what his father has done.
1993- FNAF 1 takes place.
1995- Sister Location takes place, and so does that one torturous week with Ennard. The remnant inside Michael’s body due to the scooper prevents him from dying.
2006- FNAF 3 takes place.
2007- The animatronics are roaming. Baby is ‘exiled’ from Ennard and becomes Scrapbaby, Ennard becomes Molten Freddy, and Charlie the Puppet becomes Lefty.
2017- Pizzeria Simulator takes place. Michael opens his restaurant and burns the whole damn place to the ground, trapping the animatronics inside in an attempt to render the inhabited physical remnant useless and put the souls to rest. That didn’t go well.
2018- UCN begins. Elizabeth is reborn as Vanessa via self-initiated reincarnation (merging souls with a compatible vessel such as Vanessa whilst Vanessa was still in the womb, hence her green eyes instead of blue like both of her parents). Samuel Emily, 38 years old now, and being the only one that has not died, takes over Fazbear Entertainment and his father’s inheritance, turning it into a large, multimillion dollar corporation.
2022- Freddy Fazbear’s Grand Mega Pizzaplex opens, and so does GlamMike. Vanessa visits it for the first time as a young toddler with her parents for her fourth birthday in hopes that she can fix the problem of never laughing nor crying as a young child, and at the time, it was big, but not as big as it was during the events of Security Breach. She feels a vague sense of familiarity and heartache around Freddy, but her parents drag her away before she can truly ponder about such things. The cult of Glitchtrap is created, and children begin to go missing at night.
2025- UCN ends, and the spirits of both Cassidy and William end up inside the Help Wanted VR game. Vanessa’s parents divorce, and the custody battle takes place. A few days after Vanessa’s mother loses the custody battle, she also ‘does lego step’, which Vanessa gets a strange sense of deja vu from. It is after this incident that she begins to have proper emotional responses provided the context.
2030- Glamrock Bonnie is decomissioned by Monty under the control of a mysterious force. Monty is left with crippling guilt, and the camera evidence was soon after corrupted, of which the tech staff at the Pizzaplex had no luck tracing anyone to.
2031- Glamrock Foxy is decomissioned. Roxy is introduced to the gang.
2033- Vanessa gets a job/internship as Senior IT representative for SteelWool studios, a dummy company for Fazbear Entertainment (in game) while also trying to complete her education (she also develops a crush on her coworker Luis Cabrera but shhhhh~).
2035- The events of both FNAF AR (inside the emails) and FNAF VR: Help Wanted take place. Gregory finally awakens from his half-a-century long slumber, albeit reeling from the effects of amnesia, starvation and drowsiness from being placed in stasis for so long. This is also the time where Gregory kills the mechanics who tried to deactivate him and flees to the Post-It cave.
2036- Vanessa makes the ‘Vanny’ costume. Gregory regains his memories and regains his memories before resolving to hide out in the Pizzaplex to recover his strength and wits, and to find his family.
2038- The events of Security Breach take place. The AU of my ending is the ‘Burntrap’ ending combined with the ‘Savior’ ending, but it’s actually really batcrap crazy and can’t be summarized with just one sentence. Cassidy is freed from the Princess Quest Arcade Game, and frequently hangs out with Gregory. The broken animatronics are fixed, and it’s a happy ending for all (until I decide to update the timeline with new ideas lol)
#FNAF Gregory#FNAF Glamrock Freddy#FNAF Vanessa/Vanny#FNAF Project Samsara AU#FNAF Evan Afton#FNAF Michael Afton#FNAF Elizabeth Afton#GregEvan/GregBot/GregVessel#Golem/Android Gregory (Creation Gregory)#Reincarnated Vessel Gregory#Glammike#Vanbeth#Vanessa is Vanny and Tape Girl#My AU#my FNAF timeline#AU headcanons#All FNAF Games#FNAF 1#FNAF 2#FNAF 3#FNAF 4#FNAF Sister Location#FNAF Help Wanted#FNAF AR Special Delivery#FNAF Pizzeria Simulator#FNAF Security Breach#Springtrap/William Afton#Afton children#Afton Familiy#Afton reunion
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hi!! can I request #1 from promp list 2 for fred x reader? maybe y/n helped Fred and George pull a prank and now they’re all running from filch. I love your writing btw!! <3
assumptions |f.w.|
pairing: fred weasley x reader
summary: you just keep ending up in small spaces with your crush fred weasley, don’t you?
prompt: there’s people chasing us and I pulled you into the alley with me and wow you’re close
warnings: none
guide: (Y/N) = your name, (Y/N/N) = your nickname, (Y/L/N) = your last name, italics = flashback
word count: 1990
a/n: omg I absolutely ADORE fred like so so much!! I haven’t written him in so long so I hope this does him (and your request !) justice :) hope you like it!!
“Go, go!” Fred shouted at you, taking you by the wrist and tugging you down the hall. George ran beside you, throwing glances over his shoulder at a particularly angry Filch charging at you three.
“What did you get?” you asked between pants.
“Now’s not the time for questions, love!” George replied. You didn’t notice as he received a sharp glare from his twin over your head.
“Lookout, (Y/N), lookout. Does that word mean anything to you?” Fred stared down at you, feigning anger.
“I’m sorry, I got distracted!”
By what, you’d never tell him. As the twins had browsed through Filch’s office in hopes of finding their canary creams prototype, Fred had gotten rather warm. He decided to remove his sweater, accidentally tugging his shirt up with it to reveal his Beater-toned body.
You had fallen for Fred a long time ago. It was a few years back, you were staying at the Burrow. Your ex boyfriend had broken up with you a few days prior, claiming that you were just too close with those Weasley twins, especially Fred. You were up for days, racking your brain about what you did wrong. You felt you made a terrible houseguest in that state, rather opting to wear a bright smile around the family when you truly weren’t at your best.
You couldn’t sleep that night. You tiptoed down to the kitchen for a glass of water and jumped out of your skin when Fred popped out at you. He muffled a chuckle at your mortified demeanor before frowning and quickly apologizing when he saw your puffy red eyes.
“Are you okay? I swear I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he whispered, bending down to meet your eyes.
“No, no. You didn’t do anything, Fred. It’s just...the breakup has been hard.”
“Oh.” Fred looked off to the side, his brow knit together. “Do you want to stay with me tonight? I know that that sorta thing is terrible when you’re alone.”
Your traitorous heart skipped a beat. “Your mum would kill us.”
“That’s not a no,” he teased in a singsong tone. A soft giggle escaped your lips; wait, since when did Fred make you blush?
“Come on,” he offered. He motioned you towards him with a flick of his hand as he stalked towards the couch in the living room. He turned around, noticing that you hadn’t budged. “Come on, love, it’s just me.”
“Why does that give me a bad feeling?”
Fred shot a devilish grin at you that had you weak in the knees. He sat down on the couch, tugging you down beside him. You sat politely beside him, glancing at him from the corner of your eye.
“What’s all this? Since when have you been afraid of cuddling with me?” His face grew wide with embarrassment. “Merlin, I smell, don’t I?”
You slapped a hand over your mouth to fight back a cackle. “No, no!”
“Then get over here!”
Fred outstretched his arms and you clambered into them, your face entirely red. You rested your head against his chest, feeling the soothing rise and fall slow down as he, too, began to fall asleep. His arms moved up and down your back, calming you instantly.
At some point, you had fallen asleep. You only woke up when Fred had picked you up to put you in your bed. He had no idea you were awake and you weren’t about to test that theory by saying something as he carried you up the stairs. He placed you in your bed, tucking you under your sheets with care. He faltered a moment before leaving, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead.
It was then you knew you had completely fallen for Fred Weasley, whether you liked it or not.
Your head turned for a fraction of a second but that was enough time for Filch to catch up to you. George groaned, rolling his eyes as he breathed, “You two better thank me for this!” He then shoved you and Fred in a tiny broom closet as he ran off with the stolen items.
Filch ran past your little hiding spot and Fred tucked you close to his chest. You could feel his heart hammering and his breath was hot against your face. You had heard Filch’s footsteps trail off towards George but you didn’t dare say a thing, not with the position you were in.
“You know,” Fred began, “I believe that Filch is out of the way thanks to Georgie’s little stunt.”
You hummed in content. “Maybe we should wait around for a few more minutes just to make sure that he doesn’t come back.”
Fred’s lips twitched upwards in a smirk. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re using this as an excuse to be close to me.”
“W-what?” You cursed yourself for getting so flustered by him.
“That’s a yes if I’ve ever heard one.”
You sucked in a sharp breath as his eyes flickered between yours and your lips. Was he implying what you thought he was? He most certainly was as he was slowly inching towards you, his strong hands anchored on your hips.
“Oi!” George called out. You jumped so fast out of Fred’s arms that you slammed against the wall behind you. “Get a room!”
“That was kind of the plan,” Fred added, throwing you a glance. You were sure that you had never looked so embarrassed in your life.
Just to make matters worse, Filch appeared beside George, sneering at the two of you. You and Fred let out a loud groan as you stalked over to the man, prepared to get punished unjustly for your crimes.
Things had been so strange after that. It certainly felt like a heat of the moment situation so you didn’t dare bring it up with Fred again. However, you seemed to catch a few lingering glances from him but brushed them off as nothing but a friendly stare.
You had gotten a week’s detention with the twins, doing anything from cleaning off the desks in the Potions classroom to setting up the materials for the next Charms class. Unfair? Absolutely. Grueling? Never, not when you had Fred and George with you. They always found ways to have fun during detention, even if it meant getting scolded.
Fred, George, and you were placing down small white feathers for the first years to use during Charms the next day. You three circled the desks, positioning the feathers ever so carefully atop them.
“Hey, (Y/N/N)!” Fred called out.
As you turned around, you were attacked by a feather that Fred had enchanted to tickle you. You cackled involuntarily as you patted your pockets for your wand, yanking it out and enchanting a hoard of the feathers to do the same to him.
Just as the fun began, it ended.
“Miss (Y/L/N)! Mr. Weasley! And...er, Mr. Weasley?” Professor Flitwick bellowed as he entered the classroom. The feathers fell to the ground an instant.
“What?!” George threw his hands up in the air. “They started it! I was just a spectator! Honest!”
“That’s exactly what the true perpetrator would say.” A wicked grin spread across Fred’s lips that had a fleet of butterflies occupying your stomach. Fred then turned towards you as you walked over towards him, leaning against the desk beside him. “Don’t you agree, (Y/N/N)?”
“I most certainly do, Freddie.”
“I hope you three understand that I’m not blind. I know that Mr. Fred Weasley and Miss (Y/L/N) were ignoring their duties,” Flitwick informed, his arms crossed. “Detention. Just you two, tomorrow night.”
“But Professor-” you began to protest.
“I expect you to be here right after dinner.”
Flitwick left the room shortly after, throwing careful glares over his shoulder. George sneered at his twin, feigning annoyance. However, you didn’t have to pretend. You slapped Fred’s arm as he snickered.
“What’s so funny? I have to spend another night with you! And without George this time!”
Fred threw a wink at you that had your heart skipping a beat. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
You could feel your face heat up as you scrambled for a response, praying to Merlin that it wasn’t obvious how flustered a single action made you.
“Anything that has Fred Weasley in it is a bad thing.”
You thought that you were going to faint, Fred was so close to you. Flitwick had forced you two to clean out the supplies closet. You were pretending to be upset with him for landing you yet another detention but his stupidly handsome face made it so difficult.
You were just about to scold him for the thousandth time that night when he had placed a hesitant yet firm hand on your hips as he reached above you, placing a small glass jar on a shelf. All intelligent thought flew right out of your head. All you could do was blush-- it was embarrassing.
Fred leaned down so that his breath fanned over the back of your neck. You shivered at the sensation while he whispered, “This just keeps happening to us, doesn’t it?”
“H-huh?”
Smooth, so incredibly smooth.
“Getting stuck in broom closets and such together.” Fred stood up to his full height but his hand was still anchored onto your hip. “If no one knew any better, they’d start assuming things.”
You chanced a look over your shoulder at him-- that was a mistake. He had that lopsided grin that made you want to melt. You cleared your throat and turned back around, hoping that he hadn’t noticed.
You settled on avoiding the topic, seeing as you couldn’t do or say anything without sounding like a complete idiot.
“Assuming things?”
So much for avoiding that topic.
“Yes, assuming things.”
“What sort of things?”
“If I saw two incredibly attractive people going in and out of broom closets, I’d assume that they were snogging.”
Your heart leapt into your throat. Your body went rigid and your eyes wide. It took your brain a few seconds to process what he had just said. A quiet chuckle left Fred’s lips, his chest rumbling against your back.
“You think that I’m attractive?” you asked, gaining confidence.
Fred spun you around so that you were flush against his chest. You sucked in a sharp breath, feeling the upperhand slip from you.
“Love, I think you’re gorgeous.”
You laughed nervously and stepped backwards out of his grasp. “These things sure are small.”
“You’re doing that thing,” said Fred, stepping towards you.
You gulped. “What thing?”
“That thing you do when you’re nervous. That adorable little laugh.” Fred brushed some hair from your eyes, his gaze piercing. “Do I make you nervous?”
“What?” That same nervous laugh fell from you again. You frowned, pursing your lips in a tight line.
“That laugh. I do make you nervous, don’t I?”
“What? No.” Your laughing spilled into your speech now. Merlin, this was humiliating.
“Is it me? Or is it the assumptions about us?” Fred quirked a brow up, awaiting your response. When he didn’t hear anything, a lazy grin twitched his lips upwards. “It’s both, isn’t it?”
“Yes!”
You did not mean to say that.
“Oh?” Fred placed a hand on the shelf over your end, effectively boxing you in.
“No, wait-”
Fred leaned down, planting a passionate kiss on your lips. It was heated, like it was pent up from years and years of yearning. Your hands ran up his chest and tangled in his hair. You felt the world was spinning; it didn’t feel real.
Fred was the one to pull away, placing gentle pecks on your lips. He rested his forehead against yours as he panted, a wide smile on both of your faces.
“So,” he breathed, “how about we confirm those assumptions?”
“It’s like you read my mind.”
#fred weasley#fred weasley x reader#fred weasley x you#fred weasley x y/n#harry potter#harry potter fanfiction#fanfiction#fred weasley imagine
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Yo I've never heard of endogenics or whatever that is but wanna support systems. Sounds like a basic google might not be a great resource with how stigmatised yall are, would you be able to point me towards some information?
i have a post that addresses some common misconceptions, with citations from clinical sources, which i think is probably an okay place to start. the apa's page on dissociative disorders is also good for basics. if you have any specific questions, i don’t mind trying to answer to the best of my ability!
in my own words, i'll try to explain the issue with endogenics. you're aware of the term system, and maybe also aware that it's a shorter way to refer to a system of dissociated parts. DID and OSDD1 are classed as dissociative disorders, but are more easily understood as trauma disorders, essentially the most extreme variety of complex PTSD; there is no way to have them or the cardinal symptom without trauma, because trauma is the only verified etiology for DID and OSDD1. period.
the problem arises because endogenics are an entirely separate community of people claiming to have "systems" formed without that requisite trauma, and sometimes extending this claim to mean that DID and OSDD1 themselves are not caused by trauma, but are conditions possible for any system experiencing issues related to alters. (alters and related issues are not the sole symptom constellation of either condition, btw.) these claims - that the multiple self-states some people claim to experience in the absence of clinical disorder are neurologically identical to those in DID and OSDD1, and that DID and OSDD1 are not caused by trauma - are dangerous not only to individuals with those conditions whose denial of traumatic events is exacerbated, but are dangerous to the understanding of people without those conditions, who then treat individuals with DID and OSDD1 as if they don't have trauma conditions when they do.
some endogenics also go as far as to make incredibly specious claims about "system resets" (wherein all alters in one's system disappear permanently and a new roster takes its place) and "system hopping" (where alters can be exchanged between individuals, which obviously is patently ridiculous from a scientific standpoint). while not everyone who believes in or practices these things is a manipulator, the potential for manipulation using these concepts is incredibly high, and many people with DID and OSDD1 who are pulled into endogenic communities and deny their trauma have had issues with such things. traumatized people are, unfortunately, at much higher risk to be ensnared by manipulation, so this is important to keep in mind.
the origin of the endogenic community was a highly ableist and anti-survivor movement in the 1990s centering around demedicalizing DID and OSDD1 entirely. there's a lot of history i can't touch on here, but @pluraldeepdive is a great place to learn about it.
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Hogwarts House Parties ~ Headcannons~
Gryffindor: Oh well, they are the wild ones and they know it. They make a big fuzz about their party the previous days, inviting everyone - Fred and George for sure fly enchanted little paper planes to everyone in class and stick posters in front of portraits, ignoring their shouting and insults. As soon as you enter the Gryffindor common room, it is noticeable the furniture have been pushed aside - they are now used as tables for the enormous amount of butterbeer and firewhiskey they have smuggled in - except for 2 couches that are filled with everyone’s coats and bags. People wearing their uniforms finally loosen up completely, the magic fireworks occasionally lighting up the whole room. Everyone has a mug full of alcohol in hand, their ties tied around their heads, drunken sweaty bodies dancing frantically at the biggest pop song hits, like S&M-Rihanna (Fred’s favourite btw). Some daredevils of the lot play around with diluted Amortentia shots. Dare or Dare and Spin the bottle are played in the corner of the room, with some brave ones making out and blaming it on the firewhiskey and other drunk people gossiping about what’s going on.
Hufflepuff: Everyone is welcome there. The best food in the whole school, and that’s a fact. Even before entering the room, the smell is enticing. Casually clothed students enter the Hufflepuff common room, where warm mulled wine, butterbeer and fruit punch are placed on the main table. Drinks in hand, students roam while dancing to the rest of the tables to eat the best sweets that can be found in Hogwarts. Drunk people take photos posing while Doja Cat’s “Say so” is playing. Some are dancing on chairs with their friends hyping them up from below, some are playing Never Have I Ever and some are laughing at Cedric’s ability to trip while walking after practically drinking a full bowl of fruit punch. Anti-hangover pills are crushed and laced in the drinks though, so the alcohol is not something the students really care about.
*Also, one word: Karaoke. And, there miiiight be some edible things at the hufflepuff party*
Ravenclaw: Underrated as hell. Ravenclaw parties come straight from the 1990s, with their common room being practically transformed into a neon disco. The dress code is simple: White or neon clothing. Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” plays as soon as the doors open. Luna offers neon markers and glow in the dark body paint. Blaise has helped her smuggle alcohol in. The entry fee is two full jello shots in front of him. Some people get flirty with drawing on each other’s bodies and dancing, smearing paint on each other, while others already head to the “VIP” area of the room (which is normally the study area) and play intricate crime / drinking games. They are searching for clues among people dancing, and the losing team gets to drink as many vodka shots as the clues they missed. In the end, everyone is so drunk. Some Ravenclaws also prefer to live an... out of this world experience, certain pills are passed around. Thank goodness their parties are always on Friday nights, because they could NEVER study the next day.
Slytherin: Always memorable, and when not, the alcohol is the one to blame. Hookahs are also available. They are extravagant AF. Their common room reeks old money and they know it. They have the most exquisite drinks, the most expensive, the most hard to find, the ones that do the most damage. The dress code is not “smart”, but is always the same: “Dress to Impress”. Girls wear their best outfit - the one that will turn the most heads, while boys usually rock their fashionable jeans with their expensive shirts, and make their way to the bar to get some drinks for their group. “Daisy” by Ashnikko is playing while Draco takes a tequila shot with Blaise and Theo. It’s the kind of party that the whole room is shaking, because everyone is screaming the lyrics while jumping and dancing. The wildest drinking games ever seen take place in the centre of the room. Sweaty drunk students dance till they can’t anymore, laughing at whoever can’t hold their liquor. Random accessories like masks, sunglasses and crowns get passed around, with people taking multiple drunken photos with them. The Weasley twins always find their way in, and are placing bets on who is going to pass out with fellow Slytherins. Overall, its an experience.
#hogwarts#harry potter#hogwarts houses#house parties#slytherin#ravenclaw#hufflepuff#gryffindor#slytherpride#drunk#parties#alcohol#harry james potter#harry#ronald#ron weasley#hermione#hermione granger#neville#neville longbottom#luna#luna lovegood#draco#draco malfoy#blaise#blaise zabini#cedric#cerdic diggory#fred and george#fred weasley
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Otherkin/Otherkind: Identifting As an entity that is nonhuman Involuntarily
For Fictionkin[d], replace 'Nonhuman' with 'a fictional character (that can be human)'.
I thought I'd make a little post countering some claims about Otherkin I've seen it is rampant unfortunately.
I mean to inform, but ofc, feel free to correct me if I've gotten anything wrong as a non-kin, I wouldn't want to spread misinformation either so Otherkin feel free to correct me!
• “ Otherkin is a term that is new / Otherkin originated from Tumblr ”
It has existed as a term since 1990(though some even say earlier).
It did not originate from Tumblr, which launched in 2007.
It were written for the first time in the Elfenkind digest, in 1990: the '' Other '' in Otherkind referring to Other than Elves, as people needed a word that would define a Kin experience similar to Elfkin's, but who weren't kin with an elf (Elvenkind existed before Otherkind as a word, the latter was based off it).
• “ 'Kin equals identifying as something nonhuman/fictional ”
I've seen it's been common to exclude the fact that being 'Kin is to Identify involuntarily As something nonhuman/fictional.
If it weren't involuntary, that would make Otherlink a synonym for it: which it isn't, Otherlink being Voluntary unlike Otherkin + the word Otherlink had been based on, Copinglink, had been coined by tumblr user Who-Is-Page in order to cease the use of '' Copingkin '', if you do not believe me tumblr posts are still up), so saying Otherlink and Otherkin are the same isn't fact.
• “ Being Kin is a spiritual thing / Otherkin are either Psychological or Spiritual ”
Otherkin have an endless list of possible explanations for how they interpret their own Otherkinity with their kintype(s). Spiritual and Psychological are common ones, but others such as Energetic Resonance or Magic operating exist as well. Could be a mix of those. Or could be none of those, if the Kin person doesn't wish to find an explanation for it or anything similar.
• “ Words change ”
Otherkin have had their community for so long. They are not gatekeeping, they're just saying you can't misuse their terms, it's a term that defines a specific experience that matters. The Otherkin community IS against it: taking into account a few Fictionkin —the ones that had been only shown misuse and presented Kin as an umbrella term before they discovered the Otherkin community— validating the misuse of Kin, meanwhile ignoring the rest of the Otherkin community (plantkin, therians, etc.) doesn't add up.
The community's space have been invaded: if you go in the Fictionkin tags, a lot of wishkins have taken place of actual Fictionkin's safe space. That's why it matters, because people literally do not care about Otherkin and twist their terms to no end both in meaning, and in phrasing.
A lot of the time, the misinformed people that insist on misusing Kin terms only utilize it as some kind of meme / catchy post thing (for example, Judging you on your '' Kins '') and act as a self deprecating meme community. The Otherkin community may make jokes about their Otherkinity in the same fashion, but their safe space is utilized to discuss their Otherkin experiences as well, this is an entirely different type of community which bonds over the actual Kin experience.
• “ Otherkin aren't oppressed ”
They aren't, but it doesn't mean they shouldn't be given respect for their identity. The community has been bullied and such, with people making light of Kin beliefs such as making fun of people who believe they were the reincarnation of any nonhuman entity.
• “ Kins are what I relate to! / I don't Kin seriously though it's for fun / I kin to cope ”
Otherkinity is based on a person identifying as-involuntarily.
Kin do not choose their kintype, hence why they may dislike their kintype / not relate to their kintype if it is a fictional character / they may have very graphic/troubling memories in case they get any of those, —for example— their death in a past life.
Non-kins puts on Fictionkin the weird non-kin standard of having to be similar to their kintype to be valid Fictionkins, and a lot of wishkins invalidate Kins with basic Fictionkin needs like “ No Doubles rule! ” etc. and may make fun of people who identify As anything nonhuman and/or fictional while saying they '' kin '' everything themself.
Misusing Otherkin also makes other identities such as being a Synpathizer or being (Otherlink but I'm gonna assume)Fictionlink for example demeaned to label everything that isn't a kintype your '' Kin ''. I have seen Synpath as a word used in the rank of ''''' Low Kins ''''', when Synpath, coined by tumblr user stirdrawsandreblaws, was meant to describe a very deep connection to something/someone, as you can see in their Synpath FAQ that is still up (+ it says Synpaths aren't Kintypes in there). Seeing Linktypes put under the name of '' Kins / I kin for fun / I kin to cope '' also is demeaning to it, to estimate being a [insert any non-kin other- Alterhuman identity] is inferior to being 'Kin and that's pretty much the imagery people got.
Making Kin to be this identity term people want to use so badly it is somehow above and more worthy of use than Otherlink, Fiction-Hearted, person who has Synpath/ Synpathizer... Alterhuman is the umbrella term people seem to be looking for.
It is still strange people want to use Kin for everything and make like every Alterhuman term lose meaning / twist those ones too.
'' Kinning '' makes it look like an activity/hobby, but Otherkin is an identity. Also this weird idea of '' Kinning '' people have gotten originated from a tumblr group called the Yandere B*tch Club, around 2008, who were really awful individuals. Among other things, they pretended to have DID and to be Japanese while they weren't. Also are the ones who spread misinfo about Otherkin's meaning and who began all this.
Btw the term ''Kinnie'' was used for bullying Otherkin for their beliefs way back and though it is not a slur, it still isn't to be used on Otherkin without their consent as it may make some uncomfy / some use it for themselves but it doesn't mean you can call a whole group of people '' ___ Kinnies '' randomly / also non-kins such as me should avoid the use that word in the first place because of its nature though not a slur
~
Please respect Otherkin is the conclusion, hope this could help with some claims I've seen
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My take on a Genshin Impact Circus AU Part 4 with Noelle as a strongwoman and Amber as a death-defying archery stuntwoman. Their backstories are under the cut!
Noelle:
First off I have a very self-indulgent headcanon that she is ridiculously strong. Like. Can benchpress people. Canonverse or AU.
She used to help out around the circus and she was kind of indifferent to the fact that she was likely going to be a maid. It's a respectable profession. And helping out at her childhood friends' (Kaeya and Diluc) manor as she'd been born into doing seemed like a good job.
How she got into the circus life requires a bit of backstory. Back when they were kids, Kaeya, Diluc, and Noelle would mess around (as kids do) and have little challenges for themselves. Who can run the fastest, who can do the best cartwheel, who can jump the highest, and the like.
Noelle got a little hesitant as she got into her early teens bc she was always told to be ladylike, so she spent one or two of their hangout sessions watching Kaeya and Diluc and talking. One day, however, Kaeya and Diluc are being Teenage Boys and lifting heavy things trying to outlift each other. Noelle has lifted furniture when cleaning up after these two so she figures this one unladylike thing would be okay.
She comes up behind them and just. Picks them both up. On top of the things they were lifting already. Kaeya and Diluc have to take a second and just look at her like "yeah no you are never sitting out of our competitions again"
And so they try other things like cartwheels and tests of courage like who can climb the highest on a tree and things are back to normal.
Skip forward a few years and Crepus dies. There's a huge mystery around it that not even his son's attendants are privy to. The only thing people know is that the sons have been sent away to boarding school. The whole manor is abandoned, all the workers fired.
Noelle for the next few years spends her time working at laundromats, and other odd jobs, but eventually she runs out of luck and suddenly there's too many people and not enough opportunities.
One of her friends from one of her old jobs invites her to go out and see this new circus that happens to be in town. She goes because why not. And wouldn't you know it one of the acts is her childhood friends doing these death-defying stunts that hit her with a wave of nostalgia bc their entire act consists of essentially the song "anything you can do" but with more and more dangerous stunts.
Noelle of course has to say hi, so they catch up and Noelle's lack of work comes up and would you look at that Aether and Lumine happen to have an opening for a maid.
So Noelle settles in, continuing to lift heavy shit to clean under it (Bennett swears up and down he saw her lift a fridge once but he might've been sleep-deprived). She also got into helping Chongyun with the techy stuff so sometimes she'll be at tech rehearsals moving things around and one time a rope holding up a person breaks near Noelle and she. catches it.
Now, one night. One of the acts drops out at the last moment bc injury or last-minute commitment or the like. And it leaves a gap in the show. Everyone else is busy. And panicking bc the circus is still relatively new and they really need to build their rep rn.
They start wondering what kind of last-minute acts they can put together like "what about the gymnasts??" "They all have group routines" "do they have old routines??" "Not polished enough for what we need" and someone somewhere pipes up "man I wish we had a strongman or something" and Diluc and Kaeya immediately whip their heads around to look at each other for like half a second before Kaeya bolts. He finds Noelle doing her usual rounds she's been doing for like a month now and Bennett was right, she is currently under a mini-fridge that she is lifting over her head whilst leaning it against a wall.
Kaeya takes Noelle by the shoulders and just zooms her over to where the commotion is happening and pitches the idea to Aether and Lumine. They're hesitant as hECK bc this is a huge risk they're taking since Noelle isn't even a performer but Diluc pitches that they could literally just scatter really heavy items and have Noelle clean under them and as long as she looks at the audience every once in a while it can be played off as a bit.
Noelle with qUITE the stammer says that she'll try her best but at this time is in need of a moment. She has never performed before. Kaeya and Diluc have to go perform so they leave her with a shoulder squeeze and a thumbs up.
She gets on-stage. She flinches under the lights for a second. She takes a deep breath and focuses on the first thing before her with her best "oh heavens, it's filthy in here", and she gets through the entire act by doing that for every object. So the audience is seeing this seemingly petite young girl lift the equivalent of a hecking car in order to clean under it.
Needless to say, there's roaring applause the second Noelle leaves (which she hears from far away because holy shit I just cleaned for people and they liked it)
This was a bit of a one-time thing and she goes back to her regular maid duties until the circus gets a new strongman by the name "Zhongli".
His style is more about lifting exTREMELY LARGE ROCKS, and breaking them in half whilst giving a history/geology lesson on them.
He quietly observes the maid who he hears fantastical stories of That One Time She Charmed An Audience By Cleaning. He was bewildered at first but saw the merit of it while watching her clean. He immediately decides that this girl has sO MUCH. POTENTIAL that is being wasted by having her work as a maid. He has nothing against maids or their profession, but he invites her to train with him.
Noelle gets hELLA stronger and they come to a conclusion. Noelle performs part-time and is a maid part-time. She doesn't have a particular performance style. She'll sometimes play catch with Zhongli and his big rocks, other times she'll be in the background of performers like Amber in the art lifting some hEAVY SHIT.
She gets along with Chongyun super well bc Chongyun has to make less trips to move his equipment since he's worked with her. She's a blessing for when they have to pack up and move.
Amber:
Amber's story is a little more straightforward. She started out engaged to a suitor. Amber was the kid in kindergarten who was learning about dragons and "idk what everyone else was doing". She's known what she wants for a long time, and what she wants at the moment, is not a relationship.
Throughout her childhood she was a very lonely child. Her family exposed her to lots of academic or ladylike things (do not ask me when this au is set, it's the 1800s and the 1990s at the same time or a suspendes steampunk time) to get her away from the thing she liked most: archery. She'd been exposed to it as a kid and latched on.
This drove a bunch of suitors away, so her family got more desperate and exposed her to more classes and activities to get her away from it. She went "that's easy, I'll just practice at night"
So she does that. She practices at night and underperforms in the coming weeks. It is during this time that her parents (high class ppl) find her a man to marry for some business deal idk.
The man's nice enough. It's just obvious he can only take Amber in small doses, and Amber takes full advantage of this to practice and stay in shape.
How Amber gets into the circus life was essentially running away. She bonds with Eula over this.
So because of all the attempts to make her fit into the ideal lady description, her rebellious streak said "yeah we're going to go as far away from that as possible" and she goes "I'm going to run away with the circus" bc that's what the books she's read say is the most rebellious thing you can do.
She finds THE FIRST circus she sees and begs to be let in. This is the shadiest most sketchy place but Amber sees it as the key to her freedom. She signs a contract.
They treat her like the US treats their students. She barely gets time to practice for performances and she's mostly doing dirty work. When they ask her what she can do she's like "I'm really good at archery" and they go "cool, you're going to be doing that while everything is on fire now. Can you do a handstand"
Essentially they push her and push her and push her to do more and more hazardous things she has to pick up on under the threat of being kicked to the curb.
After a while of this Amber is extremely burned out (pun intended) and as she's packing up after one of her shows, covered in burns but proud bc she hit all her targets without killing anyone, she's approached by a blond foreigner.
Tbh for all she's read, Amber really doesn't consider leaving and this time she can't run away since she's now bound by a contract (not Zhongli's btw in case anyone was wondering).
This foreigner tells her that there's so many ways to improve her situation and that he runs a circus looking for members.
Amber refuses since she's not getting tangled up in another legal mess, but she takes his advice on how to take care of her burns, and improve safety while she's performing.
Skip a few months. She hears word of this mysterious new circus around. Her encounter with who she'll later know as Aether stuck with her, and so she goes. To see whether she could really shoot her arrows without being burned alive.
After a show one night, she tries to get past security and fails repeatedly. She turns to leave and wouldn't you know it there's Aether. And Lumine. Waiting for her once she turns the corner. Amber's biggest concern is her existing contract and when Aether and Lumine say they have a nICE lawyer, Amber sees her next step to freedom.
Aether and Lumine essentially gain custody of Amber (but like for adults) and Amber is. Shocked. She's walked through her new contract of employment clearly and essentially treated like a human being.
And now that she knows things and has more freedom (though still under the watchful eyes of Aether and Lumine to see how she does) her creativity and competitive streak flourish. She decides she actually doesn't hate fire, she just doesn't like when she doesn't know when or where it's coming. And she makes fast friends with the gymnasts, so she ends up incorporating that into her routines. Now she uses her canon goggles to protect her from the burning eyes of prolonged smoke exposure when she uses fire.
When she meets a little pyromanic girl named Klee, she's thrilled that someone this chaotic and sure of herself exists.
#genshin impact#genshin#genshin impact noelle#genshin impact amber#genshin amber#genshin noelle#genshin impact circus au#genshin circus au#circus au#genshin impact fan art#genshin impact fanart#genshin fanart#genshin fan art#genshin noelle fanart#genshin amber fanart#genshin impact headcanons#genshin amber headcanons#genshin noelle headcanons#my art
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