This is a reference list of ALL the Sixtended Verse OCs on Tumblr, mainly so that we don’t have two OCs based on the same historical figure like Hans Holbein again as well as to keep track on which historical figures have been done.
Amalia “Mali” of Cleves by @pandora-dusk
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Anne “Anya” Askew by @toasty-owl-arts
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Anne “Ann” Parr by @inquisitive-mess
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Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales by @djts-arts
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Cathryn Carey and Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon by @weirdbutdecentart
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Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan and Lorraine, and Lady of Toronta by the now deactivated @the-fox-arts
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Dorothy “Roth” Seymour by @altairtalisman
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Elizabeth “EB” Barton, The Holy Maid of Kent by @spooner7308
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Elizabeth “Liz” Seymour by @vancsssa
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Elizabeth “Ellie” Tudor by @me-tizi
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Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile by @weirdbutdecentart
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George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford by @ellielovesdrawing
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Hans Holbein the Younger by @podsn
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Hans Holbein the Younger by @redlover411
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Henry “Hal”, Duke of Cornwall by @blackdiamondwrites127
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Henry “Fitz” Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset by @maths-is-my-religion
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Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland by @cheemken
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Isabella Trastámara, Queen of Portugal by @lexartsstuff
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Jane “Janey/JJ” Grey, Elisabeth “Sisi” of Valois, Guildford Dudley, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and Edward VI “Teddy” Tudor, King of England and Ireland by @ratscraftz
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Jane “JP/Jane P” Parker, Viscountess Rochford by @altairtalisman
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John Astley by @yourdeepestfathoms
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Juan Trastámara, Prince of Asturias, Margaret “Maggie” of Austria, and Isabella “Izzi” Trastámara by @weirdbutdecentart
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Juana “Ju-Ju” de Castile by @ellielovesdrawing
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Katherine “Kat” Ashley by @yourdeepestfathoms
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Katherine “Kath” Tudor by @ellielovesdrawing
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Lillia “Lily” Trastámara by @ellielovesdrawing
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Margaret Beaufort by @redladydeath
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Margaret “Meg” Tudor, Queen of Scotland and Mary “Marie” Tudor, Queen of France by @me-tizi
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Maria “Mari” of Jülich-Berg, Duchess of Cleves by @blackdiamondwrites127
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Maria Trastámara, Queen of Portugal by @blackdiamondwrites127
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Marion Trastámara by @vancsssa
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Mark Smeaton by @ellielovesdrawing
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Mary “Mara” Boleyn by @mariegreythepoet
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Mary Fitzroy-Howard, Duchess of Richmond and Somerset by @maths-is-my-religion
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Mary “Mezza/Maren” Stuart, Queen of Scots by @to-the-world-we-dream-about
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Mary I “Mari” Tudor by @crimsonnight186
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Sibylle of Cleves, Electress Consort of Saxony by @blackdiamondwrites127
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Thomas More, High Chancellor of England by @spooner7308
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William of Jülich-Cleves-Berg by @lexartsstuff
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William “Will” Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton by @weirdbutdecentart
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💬 23 🔁 74 ❤️ 200 · Mira was sitting in the closet when Celine found her. Scrunched up and hiding away like she’d committed a crime.
“Hell
Continuation from ^ Previous post started by @waterfire1848 and @lapapavale
Mira stayed tucked against her chest for the rest of the night. At one point, after getting them all into bed, Celine had Rumi tucked under her arm. Now both girls had a wet nose against her neck and were awkwardly crushing her chest.
Celine did nothing to change that though. Instead she scrolled through listings in Yeosu. A few she marked for later, but she wouldn’t do anything until she had more information from Eun-Kyung. She’d take the girls over to introduce them to Zoey. Reassure Mira as much as she needed. Hold Rumi back from playing to rough. Maybe she should offer to take them all out? Burbank had to have some decent park nearby. A good run would do her pups some good and give her an idea of what Zoey knew.
Actually. If Zoey was going to be around, Celine would need to work on a playground for them. Mira and Rumi would love it too. It’d need some tunnels, so she’d probably put it near the pond. The soft ground would work for when they inevitably taught Zoey how to dig too. Miyeong had loved swinging out over the pond, but that old rope had snapped long ago.
By the time Celine had compiled a list, her alarm for the day was close to ringing.
…
Mira was not happy about going to see the new pup. She’d dragged her feet in every way she could. Refused her shoes, hid her coat, and even tried to convince Rumi to talk Celine into a theater.
But. Eventually their rental car was in the driveway of a small but nice neighborhood. It was a bit more, drab in daylight. But a fresh coat of paint and some garden care would fix it.
“Girls behave.”
“Yes Celine,” two voices replied. Celine would have said something else but the door opened at that moment.
Eun-Kyung blinked at her with no sign of recollection. Her hair was pulled back neatly but only one eye seemed to have make up. Her clothes clashed as well, a bathrobe thrown over a blouse and sweatpants.
“No Girl Scouts today. Late for work.” She said in a brisk tone before trying to move around them. Celine reached out, to stop her, to grab her, to pull the girls aside? She wouldn’t be able to tell.
“So-yee, behave for the sitter!”
“Mama, wait!” Celine’s heart broke as her mind caught on to what she was seeing. Zoey latched onto her Mother’s waist, speaking in rapid English for her to stop, to go inside, to remember.
Celine coughed to interrupt. “Eun-Kyung, I’m Kang Celine. I’m here,”
“Gods I did it again, didn’t I?” Recognition burned across the woman’s face like a flare. “Zoey, baby,”
Celine felt like an intruder as she watched her lift her child to her hip and mutter soft apologies. “Let’s take this inside.”
“Right, yes.”
It wasn’t Celine’s place to do anything to the woman, even if it was to help. But she’d never forgive herself for letting a pack member suffer. She needed to get Eun-Kyung and her pup help. It didn’t matter if she had Zoey or not. This woman had been left alone in declining health. That was wrong.
Seong-woo was failing and had been for years, but regardless of what she’d done to Celine’s pack, she’d made sure the old Hunter was cared for.
“Girls go play,” Celine felt eyes linger before Mira hummed and tugged them away.
“Rumi and I watched Gremlins. Have you seen it?” The question opened a whole conversation as the trio left the entryway.
“I’m so sorry,” Eun-Kyung repeated. Celine let her. She didn’t have the experience or knowledge of what was happening but she could imagine how terrifying it was to suddenly be aware of things changing to fast. Actually. She had experience with that.
“Let’s talk over tea. Have you eaten? I know the pups will be hungry soon.”
Making another post is a good idea. The original was getting too long 😂
"Yes. I had some crackers and chips. Zoey really wanted a burger for breakfast so I had to spend ten minutes telling her no." Eun-Kyung laughed. She laughed until she noticed Celine's face and her expression fell, "Was I not supposed to say no? Did I hurt her?"
"Oh! No, no! You didn't hurt her!" Celine held up her hands, "It's just that werewolves need more meat than humans. Zoey needs more calories and iron to keep herself healthy. Probably not a whole burger for breakfast as she is a pup but some form of meat to keep her healthy."
"Just jot that down with all the other stuff I don't know about raising a werewolf baby."
"It's not easy. There's a learning curve." Celine assured her, "You'll get the hang of it though."
"How did your family learn? Or are your parents...?"
"My father was a human but my mother was a werewolf. She raised me and my sister the same way she was raised so I had something of a mentor growing up to tell me how a pup should be raised and taken care of." Celine told her.
"Something of a?" Eun-Kyung asked.
"My mother, sister, and father passed away when I was very young. Along with the rest of my pack." Celine revealed, "I never....It's hard to remember lessons from when you're only four years old."
"You were that young?"
Celine shook her head, running a hand through her hair, "We don't need to talk about that right now. What's important is you and Zoey." Celine pulled out a chair from the table and pulled herself close to Eun-Kyung who was already sitting down, "I meant it when I said I could help. I can bring you and Zoey to South Korea, give Zoey a place to really be a pup. She already gets along very well with Mira and Rumi."
"She does." It was distant but Eun-Kyung could hear her daughter playing in the yard. As a human, Zoey didn't have many friends. Her teachers and classmates called her weird and distanced themselves from her whenever she tried to play. As a wolf, she did have some....acquaintances---Eun-Kyung didn't like calling wild animals friends---but they were just that acquaintances, "I can't ask you to spend all that money though---"
"Eun...I'm a Sunlight Sister and CEO. I have more money than the leaders of some small countries." Her words didn't provide any further comfort to Eun-Kyung, "I just want to make sure Zoey has a chance to have a pack. Growing up as a lone wolf isn't good for werewolves."
"You grew up as a lone wolf?" Her words weren't said with any kind of malice but they hit something keep in Celine.
"And I can tell you that you don't want that for Zoey."
Getting them to South Korea was easy on paper. A nightmare in legality and with stubborn people. Even though ‘Charlie’ didn’t show up for his wife and pup, he decided to use Eun-Kyung’s decline against them. All together, getting them safely overseas took months.
By the time they got home it was almost time for Chuseok. The Hwan family was planning a large gathering, in part to introduce Eun-Kyung and Zoey to all of their family. Celine wasn’t planning much. A visit to the Hunter’s Memorial before letting the girls eat seongpyeon and run loose. Eun-Kyung was doing well. There were still rough days, but she and Zoey were doing better.
Their wolves forms were getting bigger and stronger.
They could hunt without problems as a pack and their relationship was really cute.
The pups were getting bigger each day, time was passing faster than she would expect or want.
Her relationship with Eun—Kyung was better, almost the best. She bring her flowers some days and she started to give her cookies!
They were now pre-teenagers. Celine started to train them when she stoped to pretend to be blind againts the Honmoon's love to her girls (really Honmoon? 3 werewolves?).
That was... So hard. Train them wasn't, it was watching her pups grow and sing and dance and hunt just like she did with her own girls.
The early stages of Huntrix were beginning, with girls who had innate talent that she, as CEO and former idol, couldn't help but notice.
And the way the Honmoon was wrapped around their little fingers? Even being demons by all the classifications?
She ask herself how would her mentors would react about it, and every time she would beat their old ass for talking bad about her pups.
It wasn’t often the got a lot of snow on Jeju. There was the occasional blizzard or heaping of days of snow. But nothing like this.
“CANON BALL!” The cheerful squeal was Celine’s rare warning before she heard the ‘umph’ of someone falling into deep snow.
Eun-Kyung’s cousin had called a few days before the storm started, asking Celine to take Zoey. Even though her friend was getting help, there were still rough periods and their family understood Zoey felt safer with Celine.
Celine put her work aside to check the pups. Mira had decided that being stuck inside meant she could terrorize the other two with scary movies and try new dances. Though the trio loved each other (thank Honmoon) they were still children with short tempers stuck in a small house.
The storm had barely started to let up, but it seemed Zoey at least didn’t care.
“BANZAI!” Nor Rumi. Of course Mira wouldn’t be far behind, but Celine could hope-
“AAAA!” Nope. All three pups seemed to take the slowing weather as a sign to be outside. Celine just hoped they didn’t freeze their tails or fingers.
The snow reached over a meter high, with drifts piled against the main door inside. It kept their home sealed and warm, but cabin fever still existed. Celine walked up the stairs, quickly finding a half open window with a mess of tracks outside it. Grabbing a blanket to shield herself, Celine made her way slowly. The pups were diving in and out of a pile of snow, using the closed in garden as a way to escape the high drifts. It was rather cute, if laughable how all three were climbing about.
Zoey had shifted, using her paws to dig a path for the other two. Mira was balanced on a piece of plastic on top of the snow, her tail out for balance as she prepared to pounce. Which left-
“Celine!” Ah, there she was. Celine felt laughter bubble up her throat as she caught sight of Rumi buried to her neck in snow. “Join us!” The delight and pride from the trio now looking at her made her warm.
Work could wait. Their home was warm, filled with food, and wood for heat. How often would moments like this happen?
Shedding the blanket, Celine let herself change. The bitter cold lessened -barely- against her skin as thick fur settled. Her paws struggled to find traction for a moment before she leapt off the rough. The pups cheered and squealed as she landed with a muffled ‘umph’.
“Rar!” She grunted as Mira landed on her. Apparently deciding that Celine was a better target than Zoey. “Celine’s it!”
Celine chased the pups around the snow for hours. Letting them burn energy until even her paws were tender. Dinner was served to half asleep pups bundled in blankets later that day. The warm floor, hearty meal, and adventurous day worked in Celine’s favor. As all four of them ended up piled together and asleep before their meal was finished.
AU - Celine knows she’s a werewolf. She’s known since she was a child and her family was killed by hunters. She kept her secret for years to ensure her safety but, after Mi Yeong’s death, Celine has a growing depression and loneliness problem. This takes a turn when she finds a random little purple pup walking and crying in the forest, she knows she’s gotta help the little one. And the red pup being held by the Kang family, she needs to help her too….And the little pup in California—she might have a problem with collecting children.
Since she was young, since she was a cub, she knew it.
The hunters killed her family. They just didn't kill her because when she howled, the full moon vibrated with her symphony.
Her first family was slaughtered by the same kind of person she had to become.
(The worst part? Werewolves had nothing to do with Gwi-ma. They didn't harm people, they only hunted animals for food during the full moon, when the changes couldn't wait.)
She knew that her mentors only killed them because one of her older cousins went mad and started attacking humans.
That didn't change the fact that they killed her entire pack for it.
And her second family? Poppy and Mi-Yeong?
They were desecrated by her own flesh.
Being a lone wolf isn't as beautiful as many people want to see it.
A wolf hunts in a pack; a wolf is dependent on its pack.
A lone wolf becomes depressed and slowly dies of a broken heart.
So, the last thing she wanted to hear was a puppy in the forest behind the hanok, in the middle of a full moon, just as she was turning into her wolf form.
She could only pray for the puppy, she could only hope that it had a family and that they weren't bad people.
One way or another, her conscience wouldn't allow her to leave the puppy alone in the middle of the forest during one of its transformations. Any other predator could catch it.
She pushed herself up on her legs, leaving the hanok courtyard behind her and making a beeline for where she heard the puppy's small whimpers of lament.
And when she arrived?
Oh, what a horrible, beautiful sight.
It was a small puppy, its lilac fur standing out in the undergrowth. It couldn't have been more than three months old in its wolf's body.
So, about three years old as a human?
Celine approached the bush softly, trying to make herself smaller as she got closer to the puppy.
She whined softly, her muzzle almost at earth level, trying not to look intimidating and taking small steps toward the puppy, who definitely looked stressed.
Alone.
Alone?
She sniffed the air around the puppy. Around the place.
Nothing. Just… Just puppy breath and puppy smell.
Not another werewolf in the zone.
The puppy now was doing the side head thing with her, the little cub was curious about this other werewolf.
Their big paws moving towards Celine. She stood there, waiting for the cub.
Yep. That pup was her now. Fuck people and demons.
And when the pup started to nip her, looking for milk because they were definitely hungry, she grab them by their neck and started to transport them into her house.
@lapapavale You came back!! This is so good!!! I love it!! Little Rumi is adorable! I am curious about "They were desecrated by her own flesh" did Celine kill them while she was a wolf? Were they killed by other werewolves????
The rest of the night was spent howling----and trying to keep a tiny pup from falling over her own paws.
Howling for signs of any other werewolves in the area. Any potential mothers to this little purple pup.
Celine didn't come across many other werewolves. Partly because they avoided her area but also because they were so uncommon. After her family was killed, she was sent to live with a distant aunt who knew about werewolves but never inherited the gene and left the family because of it. She had a...very clear opinion of werewolves that may or may not have left an impact on Celine that she was NOT ready to dive into.
The sun was starting to rise.
There was no sign of any kind of other wolf, were or otherwise, anywhere near them. And, the other option Celine hoped she wouldn't have to deal with, no human parents screaming for this child. It really seemed like this pup just...appeared. Celine wasn't even located near any big cities or towns for her to wander in from.
When the sun finally broke through and shined on them, Celine let her wolf form wash off her body without complaint. A lifetime of transformations did that to you. She was just getting upright again when she felt something collide with her leg.
A three year old toddler with purple hair and light brown eyes stared up at her with adoration.
"Wolfie!" She chirped.
Celine let out a soft sigh before smiling at the toddler. The child didn't deserve her pain, "Alright, little one. Let's get you some milk and human food."
"Home?" She asked, pointing to the hanok.
"No, agi, that's not home. Your home is probably in some town. We'll find it and then I'll destroy your parents for abandoning a toddler in the forest." That Celine was already dead set on. The fact that the parents didn't even come looking for her was certainly coloring her view.
"Huh?"
"Nevermind. What's your name?" Celine asked.
"Rumi!" The girl spoke with no hesitation in her voice. At least her parents had given her a name.
"It's nice to meet you, Rumi. My name's Celine."
"Cece!"
For the first time in a long, long time, Celine laughed, "Yes. Cece."
The first thing that came to mind was that other wolves went mad or caught a disease like rabies and started killing people or something, and when they came to hunt them down, they killed the girls.
(If Celine killed her pack, I think she would commit suicide.)
She can't do this.
She swear. She swear that she didn't howl that much yesterday!
How one of her neighbors, who lives more than 6 kilometers away, who arrived at her door that morning asking if she needed help hunting the wolves in her garden?
"No, no, sorry for that, she is trained and almost harmless." She shifted somewhat uncomfortably (her neighbor didn't notice, fault and fears would never be seen despite everything).
"you have… a trained wolf?"
"She's well behaved and I have permots, but she went out yesterday and —"
"Well. She didn't let us sleep."
" Yes, I apologize about that. I didn't understood why she started to howl that much until she came home with um… a puppy." Her ears picked up the sound of quick little footsteps; Rumi was approaching the door. Celine moved to position the girl behind her leg and the front door of the hanok. She quickly placed her hand behind the toddler's head and signaled her to be quiet.
All this happened over the head of her neighbor, who didn't notice a thing.
"… So that was the little howl. Can I see the cub?"
"She's… territorial about the pup and is inside her own house, you can't see them, sorry about that."
Celine moved Rumi further back behind the door, hiding her from the man's view.
In the end, she ended up adopting the girl.
You can't judge her.
Rumi appeared out of nowhere. Celine searched for missing children for six months, and when she went to the center of Jeju, where the city was located, the officers asked her directly if she wanted to keep the girl.
Obviously, she said yes.
Thus, Kang Rumi was born, daughter of the famous singer and member of the Sunlight Sisters, Kang Celine.
And now her puppy was eight years old.
And now Rumi accompanied her to dinners and red carpets and movie premieres (which were appropriate for her) and charity parties.
Awwww!!!!!!! I’m trying so hard not to turn this into a fic right now! But the idea of Rumi meeting Mira at 8 is so cute! Rumi senses another werewolf and runs to play with Mira because, why wouldn’t she want to play? Only for Mira’s parents to stop her and scold Rumi which gets Celine involved and causes her to realize Mira is a werewolf.
Also your explanation for the Sunlight Sister’s deaths makes sense. I can see Celine being just emotionally destroyed at the fact that werewolves caused their deaths.
While Celine is watching them play (it took a bit before Mira wrestled with Rumi) she’s also trying to figure out how she ended up with non-Werewolves. Recessive gene? Adoption? K-Drama level switched at birth? There’s to many options-
“Uh oh”
Instantly, instincts are rushing her to the girls sides with her weapons brushing her fingers. She only stops when her eyes register a red cub. A very small, underweight cub. Rumi is frozen, half on top of who Celine realizes is Mira, with big eyes.
And the Honmoon was sparkling over them both.
“Oh boy,” Celine can already feel the headache coming on.
Celine fights the incoming headache as best she can but it's hard.
She was fine with taking in a pup that had no one else. That was hard but she did just fine.
She was also okay with that pup being a future hunter. Not amazing but again, she could handle it.
But a second pup? And that pup also being a future hunter?
This was just getting out of hand (also what was with the honmoon this generation and picking werewolves).
But that's not even all of it because this little pup in front of her is so small and so underweight that it breaks Celine's heart. She doesn't remember much of her mother's lessons on werewolves but she does remember her mom telling her about how, when children didn't get the opportunities to transform, it left their wolf forms very small and weak and prone to being abandoned by their packs.
Celine was torn from her thoughts when she notices a slight hum coming from the honmoon and sees Mira chewing on it.
"Mira. Mira, sweetie, no. You can't chew on the honmoon." Celine moved her hand to grab the string but the moment it got within an inch of Mira she released the string and whined, tail tucked and ears pinned down.
"Oh....Mira." Celine gently pushed Rumi from her lap and scooped up the tiny pup----honmoon, she was so light----, "It's okay. You're okay. I won't lay a hand on you."
Getting both girls out and to her car was far too easy. Getting them both in the backseat and settled, Rumi with her arm holding Mira like a beloved Teddy and Mira with her snout tucked under Rumi’s braid, should not have been so cute. None of their situation made sense and Celine could almost swear the Honmoon was the reason.
So she wasn’t entirely surprised when That Woman appeared. The pinched expression she didn’t hide as her eyes found Celine made her sigh with exhaustion.
“Honmoon, I swear,” she muttered but forced her spine straight as the other approached. Celine already knew she wouldn’t be letting Mira go. The thought barely crossed her mind as more than a possible outcome before she was mentally shredding it between her teeth. She may not be as well known anymore, but she still had powerful connections as a Hunter. All she’d need-
“What are you doing?” The sharp tone was oddly pleasant. An accent she couldn’t quite place but knew to be familiar. “Why is my child with your heathen?” Her words could almost be taken for protective or concerned but Celine had seen the evidence. Felt the thin fur and sharp bones.
“The pup is coming with me.” The words she’d meant were different, more persuasive, but the blunt ones that left her worked well. Well enough for the woman to tense. “You don’t like her. I’ll-”
“No,” she interrupted. “You want her? You make it worth my time.” Celine wanted to bristle and growl. Mira wasn’t some item or thing. She was a pup! Practically a baby! “Or I call police for kidnapping.”
Celine’s mind raced. She needed to keep Mira. Needed to keep her and Rumi safe. So she needed to play along. “I can make her into someone, a worthy heiress.”
The woman scoffed, “I have my son.” The unsaid meaning behind those words hurt Celine. “16% of SLE, with 8% growth rate.”
“I’ll call in abuse.” Celine countered instantly.
“Against a Chey? The entertainment would be lovely.” She laughed. Laughed! Celine felt the phantom hold of MiYeong on her arm and hear the whisper of [Third’s Name] telling her to think.
“10% with a seat on the board. Full custody of Mira is mine.”
“12% and a permanent seat.”
“10%, one seat, and you never have a connection she can use.” The woman seemed to think before waving her hand. Celine watched a servant appear with a small case that she took with care. Lady Chey was prepared. That was far from unconcerning.
“I’ll keep my eye on you.” She told Celine with a half smile. “A mother is still a mother.” Yeah, right. Celine would be plotting revenge as soon as she had the pups safely at home.
At the house, Mira sticks to Rumi everywhere they go. Celine, however, is already taking things into consideration and thinking through what needs to be done. Mira's wolf form clearly hasn't been properly nurtured meaning full moons will be torture for the poor girl. That can be fixed but it would take a while.
"Celine!" Rumi cried, "Can Mira stay with me in my room!?"
"If you girls can actually sleep then yes, but I don't want to wake up at 3 am and hear you giggling."
"Nope! No! Promise!" Rumi moved to grab Mira's hand but Celine stopped her.
"Rumi, I need to speak with Mira. Can you go get your room ready for her?"
"Okay!" Rumi chirped, rushing off.
Mira stared up at Celine in fear once Rumi left, "Mira, I know what you are and, by now, you know Rumi and I are the same thing. We just want to help you but I can't do that unless I know a couple things. Does that sound okay?"
"What things?" Mira asked.
"How often do you use your wolf features when it isn't a full moon? Once a day? Twice a day? More?"
"....Eomma says it's bad and Appa yells at me for showing my fangs at all."
"Okay. Okay. Have you ever gone on a hunt? What do you do during full moons?"
"Appa puts me in the safe room."
"Safe room?"
"It's a room where I go so I don't hurt anyone. They don't let me bring my toys in though which sucks." Celine can feel her heart snap. She's gonna need a few hours in the gym punching a dummy after this, "Is there a safe room here?"
"NO!" Mira nearly jumps back at Celine's voice, "No. No, there is not. There is no safe room. We can do whatever you want when the full moon arises. Normally, Rumi and I go running or we just sleep in the courtyard but we can do whatever you want."
Long term, Mira would need her own space. But for now, Celine could put together another bed, maybe go looking around the storage buildings on the grounds for building supplies.
“Why?” The soft question pulled her from her thoughts. Celine raised a questioning brow as she looked down at the stubborn tilt and tense stance.
“Because here we’re safe.” It was a simple truth. One her Soul Pieces had made true with every full moon and fight. The hanock was safe. The world outside it could be as nosy, as intimidating, as demanding as it wanted. But here? Here would always be safe for them.
Mira didn’t look like she believed her, but she nodded and let it go.
“If you feel like you want to change you are allowed too. You can be whatever shape you want.” Mira’s eyes widened again at her words. “Sometimes people from nearby will come here, but you can be whatever you want. Just..” Celine didn’t want her to be discouraged but she needed to keep both pups safe. “Don’t change in front of others. With me and Rumi or by yourself. Whatever you want. But not in front of people who don’t know, okay?”
“What if they bounce me like Rumi?” Celine bent down to settle at eye level. Standing in those heels was starting to kill her. “Can I scratch them?”
“No,” she huffed amusingly. “But you can run away from them. You can come to me anytime.” Mira nodded and let out a big breath. “It’s late, why don’t we get some food and go see how many teddies Rumi used for a bed?”
…
Celine wasn’t surprised at all that Rumi and Mira were still awake after midnight. The soft giggles and the clatter of tiny claws on wood should have made her get up. Instead, she felt relaxed. Her tail gave soft thumps on the floor as she listened to her pups play in the dark. It would mean a late morning, but she really didn’t plan much for the next day anyway. Let the pups play.
“It tastes funny,” she heard Mira’s voice.
“That’s the lotion Seen uses.” Okay, maybe she needed to get up after all.
The year passed by without much fanfare. Celine had been right. The first few full moons for Mira were torture because she had been so deprived at her home. During her first full moon, she didn’t understand that they could actually leave the house and would whine and hide whenever she got anywhere close to leaving the courtyard.
It took time and a lot of convincing but Mira’s true emotions and behavior soon surfaced. Celine found that Mira remained heavily guarded as a person but she was kind and sweet towards both her and Rumi. With no intention of making Mira change, Celine would only comment on her behavior if Mira was rude to someone.
For that first year, everything was absolutely perfect.
And then they took a trip to America.
It was for a business meeting that Celine couldn’t miss and she couldn’t exactly leave the girls with a babysitter unless she wanted the pups on the news because the babysitter got a picture of them with ears and tails. So, they came with her.
During one hot night, Celine was out buying them some desserts—why was everything in America swimming in sugar—when she saw her. The little pup was so smaller. Almost as small as Mira had been when she first saw her and she was crying and shaking.
“Hi, sweetie.” Celine whispered, “Are you hungry?”
The pup bolted.
“Hang on!” Celine called. Was it smart to chase after a pup? No. Was Celine still going to do it? Yes.
She chased the pup all the way to a small house where she ran inside. The house was nice, small but nice, and there was nothing around that seemed to symbolize any kind of abuse or neglect but Celine really didn’t like seeing a pup so small out on her own in the city.
“Hello?” Celine knocked on the door.
A tired woman answered, holding the pup close to her body. She looked like she was one medium wind away from collapsing, “Hi. Am-Am I expecting you?”
“No. You aren’t. I just followed…”
Her eyes fell to the pup and widened. As if she forgot she was holding her, “OH! This-This is my dog! Zo….Zoues! Zoues! It’s how we say Zeus in Korea…where I’m from so you wouldn’t get it.”
“I’m Korean.” Celine lifted an eyebrow, “And she’s a werewolf pup.”
“How…How do you know that?” Celine showed off her fangs, “You should come inside.”
One very long explanation and several cups of tea later Celine met a sleepy little girl with freckles and one missing fang.
She’d already called Mira and Rumi at the hotel, giving them permission to order room service. With limits! She’d learned those two had eyes bigger than their stomachs and a love for sugar that rivaled [Third’s name].
“It’s hard,” Eun-Kyung admitted. “Most days I don’t even remember my routine, much less Zoey’s.” Celine listened, but her eyes moved around the room.
The house was lived in, but felt…bare. Like a picture taken of a moment frozen. There were pictures and a few certificates on the walls. Scratches along the baseboards that couldn’t be cleaned away. The legs of one particular chair showed signs of many small teeth. But…there were no toys thrown about. No shoes or coat slung haphazardly by the door. No dishes on the drying rack, or on the stove. Tea towels were tied around handles, frayed from being used by teeth. A colorful alphabet spelled something on the fridge beside a magnetic notepad.
It seemed Hwan Eun-Kyung had no friends or partner, just a ghost of a man in pictures and a pup with a draw to explore.
“Charlie said it’s just work,” Celine’s eyes moved back to the other. Watching her brush her fingers through Zoey’s dark hair as the pup snuggled into her chest. “…wish he was cheating. Then I could be upset.”
“Why not return to Korea?” Celine asked as she reached to pour more tea. Sansuyu-cha wasn’t her favorite but it was a surprise to find in America. “You have family still there, yes?”
Eun-Kyung nodded, “in Yeosu-Si.”
“That’s not far from Jeju,” Celine added. “If you chose, my pups and I could help you as well. Give Zoey a place to run and learn.”
This little pup needed help. She may not need her in the same way Mira had. But Celine would still step in for the pup and Human mother.
“I thought you werewolves only took care of your own.” She didn’t speak in a hateful voice but one that had been abandoned before.
“We take care of everyone in our pack. If you’re her mother then we can take care of you too. I don’t know if you know who I am but I….have some money. Your pup needs a place to run, to hunt, to experience the full moon. I can help.” She hated the idea of such a tiny pup alone in a city. That was just asking for trouble.
“I can’t pay you back.”
“You don’t need to.”
“Mama?” Zoey asked, rubbing her eyes. Clearly she was getting tired, “Bed?”
“Yes. Yes, let’s get you to bed, sweetheart.”
Celine slowly followed behind Zoey’s mother. Careful to stay far behind so that she didn’t cross any boundaries. Just as her mother was about to set Zoey down, Zoey wiggled.
“Zoey? What’s wrong?”
“Can…Can the big wolf help too?”
“Oh. Sweetheart, she’s not—“
“I wouldn’t mind. I have a daughter myself. I know how to put someone to bed.” Celine chucked, “Only if you’re okay with it though. I don’t want to overstep.”
“No, please.”
Celine knelt down, “What story do you want to hear, little pup?”
“Can I hear one from when you were a pup?” Zoey asked.
Her time as a pup wasn’t what she expected as a request. Maybe a story about the Moon Rabbit, or one of the French fairy tales she read for Mira and Rumi. Not…
“You don’ have too,” the softened tone made Celine uncoil and soften. The big brownie eyes watching were going to be weapons soon enough Celine could tell.
“Find your sleep clothes first,” Celine told her instead. Zoey’s whole being seemed to light up before she squirmed out of her Mother’s arms to bound off on all fours. “I’m not overstepping, am I?”
“No, I’ve run out of stories of home.” Eun-Kyung laughed softly. “She loves when I tell her about the concerts my brothers would take me to.”
A high pitched yip came from down the hall, followed by a small pup in an oversized pale blue shirt. It took Celine back to 1998 as she caught the album art designed on the shirt.
[Third’s Name] designed their art covers and their biggest one had actually managed to reach the top 10 charts in S. Korea and sold loads of merch. The waves of starlight that she’d drawn and painted and then redone over and over had ended up as their outfit theme too. Miyeong had teased Celine when she refused to wear anything else for days.
“I got changed!” Zoey explained as she jumped up to pull at Celine’s hand. “Story please please please!”
“How bout one about the Sunlight Sisters?” Celine felt like she was going to go blind as Zoey bounced and squealed but shared the same wide smile that Eun-Kyung now sported. “Did you know, [Third] loved to paint? One time, she convinced us to dye my fur…”
…
When Celine got back to the hotel, she wasn’t surprised to find two pups piled in her suitcase with her robe and bowls of cake and snacks around them. At least it didn’t smell like either had gotten sick. She’d count the win.
Neither seemed affected as she lifted them into the bed. Pulling the blankets and moving pillows around them into a bit of a barrier, she took a shower. She had to make a few calls, maybe hire a contractor for some renovations to whatever place Eun-Kyung-
“Su’lean?” The slow drawl of her name from the bathroom doorway broke her planning. Poking her head past the curtain showed Mira rubbing her face and holding the coat Celine had been wearing. “Wha’ happened? You said,” Mira yawned, “be right back.”
Celine did not want to have that conversation while in the shower, but when Mira settled into a ball by the sink she knew she’d have to anyway.
“I found another pup,” she explained. “Let me finish here and we’ll-“
“Another pup!” Two voices repeated, one with excitement while the other sounded worried. Celine groaned. Honmoon why!?
“Girls. Bed!”
“Are they real little? Can they play yet? Oh! Oh! Mira! What if they like music too! We can-“
“I don’t care! Other pups are stupid! And I hope Celine scratched them!”
“Mira!” Celine snapped, pulling the shower curtain to look at the duo. Rumi had frozen in shock while Mira was panting and slowly changing.
“No! I hate you! We don’t need any pups!” Celine couldn’t wrap her head around what had just happened or how to fix it. Mira seemed to take the silence as answer though, because she stormed out of the bath.
“Rumi, pass me that towel and go sit on the bed. I’ll be right there.” Where were those parenting books now that she needed them. Again. “Honmoon give me patience and let me understand.”
Mira was sitting in the closet when Celine found her. Scrunched up and hiding away like she’d committed a crime.
“Hello.”
The eight year old didn’t speak.
“Mira, what’s going on with you? You didn’t have a problem with hanging out with Rumi. This new pup—“
“I don’t want to be friends with another pup! Another pup just means you like someone else more than us! You’re gonna get bored of me and—and this new pup will be more behaved and you’ll like them more than me and then you’ll send me back and—“
“Woah, woah.” Celine pulled Mira into her arms, “Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She was sobbing now and clinging to Celine with everything she had in her, “I don’t want to go back to my family. Please don’t send me back. I’ll be good.”
“Mira, I am never sending you back. Never. No matter what you do. This new pup doesn’t mean that you and Rumi will have any less attention. I might have to help this new girl with the rules and she might need some more help than you and Rumi because she’s younger than you but that doesn’t mean you two aren’t always going to be a priority to me.” Celine promised, brushing Mira’s hair from her eyes.
“Really?”
“Really. You and Rumi matter more to me than anything in this world.” And that was one of the most honest things Celine had ever said in her life, “But I meant what I said. This new pup is smaller and younger than you and Rumi. She’ll need help with following the rules and staying safe. Can I trust you and Rumi to help her?”
Dropout Celine with her unsupportive parents concept: after Miyeong died and the SLS were definitely in the past, her parents started expecting she would move back from Korea. And it’s not like they were going to say anything or push the issue while she was grieving, but it started being casually implied a lot until she finally went “???” and her mom just went “well, when you come home, of course” like it was obvious
Hi anon!!
YES!!! 100% YES!
Her family knows about Rumi. They know she’s raising Mi Yeong’s daughter and they don’t think anything of it. Celine can be a single mom in France. In fact, this is all the more reason for her to come home and get a real job. She has a baby to take care of and she’ll need a real job with real money to do that (they ignore that Celine is already incredibly rich and is still making hundreds of thousands of dollars working as a CEO).
When Rumi’s first birthday rolls around, Celine’s mom just straight up asks if she’ll need help with the nursery which is when Celine gets confused and her mom says “When you come home of course”
Celine: Why am I coming home?
Celine’s mom: Chérie, I know things have been hard with Mi Yeong passing away but you need to do what’s best for that little girl. She needs a stable environment and needs to see you in a real working role. You can live off of your singing money for a while but what happens when she gets sick or goes to school or needs new clothes. You need to start making a living and it’s high time you get a job that will actually allow for that.
Celine: I’m a Kpop—
Celine’s mom: A job that doesn’t involve you singing at…restaurants or on the street or whatever you did.
Celine: I sang at sold at stadiums.
Celine’s mom: Of course you did, chérie.
It ends with Celine saying she’s not coming home and her mom treating Celine like she’s being stubborn and not thinking clearly. When her mom suggests though that this will hurt Rumi is when Celine hangs up because mentally she can’t even entertain that thought for a second or she will breakdown.
I don’t know why but I just make Celine’s mom and dad the worst people whenever I think of them. But now I’m just thinking of them telling Rumi singing isn’t a real job or telling friends and family Celine isn’t being a good mom because she’s not taking care of Rumi.
It would be hilarious if her parents pathalogically refuse too acknowledge Celine's success till well after Celine starts Sunlight Entertainment and they just walk into the store and see her face plastered on multiple magazines labeled 'Top 10 most successful women in business.' And 'how CEO Kang Celine built her empire from scratch.' And they immediately pivot too try too socially mooch off her success with their peers but have burned almost all avenues with all their comments no one believes they have access too any of Celine's wealth.
Her parents have no idea how popular Kpop is/how popular Celine is so they basically just think she was singing for money on the street or sang for events from time to time (they think of her in the same way most would when they hear someone is in a band) and they’re located far enough away from Korea that they don’t really understand how popular Celine is (and believing her is jus out of the question). So when they visit Korea and see magazines not only with Celine’s face on them but also her band’s name the Sunlight Sisters on t shirts, albums, videos, everything.
They get into a conversation with one girl wearing a Sunlight Sister shirt who goes on for a while about how Celine is the best kpop singer ever and how her voice is so amazing, especially that time they all sang for the South Korea’s president in 1997.
When it finally clicks for them that she’s loaded, they instantly change dynamics and try not only to lie and say that they’re rich (because Celine would of course give money to her aging parents) but also they know a lot of rich people (because Celine knows them).
Celine’s mom: So how did it happen? How did you rise from singing at weddings and on the street to becoming a CEO?
Celine:……I was also a very well known singer—
Celine’s mom: Wait! Wait! Let me guess! You sang for someone with a degree in business and they showed you the ropes?
Celine:…….I—
Celine’s mom: Oh! Wait, no! I remember you telling me about a big career change after Rumi was born. Did you meet a mother in a mommy and me class with ties to the business world?
Picturing Celine just ranting about her mother while dispatching demons with twice the asperity as usual.
Celine: -I've told her over and over and over! I've sent her CDs, concert videos, newspapers with my face on the front page!!!! And she's still! Not! Getting it!!!
Random demon who's just been hanging back listening to all this: You know, it sounds like you have an unhealthy need for validation from your mother.
Celine: [pauses] What?
Demon: I'm just saying you might feel better if you explore where all this is coming from, like- what was your relationship with your mother like during your childhood?
Random demon: So you do need validation from your mom.
Celine: I’m sorry?
Demon: Well you just killed the guy trying to offer therapy. In my experience, that usually means the person does have a problem but they don’t want to fix it or acknowledge it right now.
Another random demon: My guess is a more successful sibling gets your mother’s validation, right? Happened to me and my brother.
Yet another random demon: Wait, don’t discount the possibility that this could be due to the father. Is he present?
Celine: What? My-my appa is very present. What-What is happening right now?
Random demon #3: Notice how she said very present. Probably a closer relationship with him.
Random demon #2: Daddy’s girl I bet.
Random demon #1: Would make sense then. She doesn’t have as close a connection to her mom because her mother discounts her musical passion. I’d bet 5 souls that her dad told her to follow her dream.
Celine:…
Random demon #2: Ohh. I see what you’re saying. I still think my sibling idea has some weight to it. I remember her talking years ago about an older sister coming to visit.
Random demon #3: So we’re in agreement? It’s a combination of a weak childhood relationship with her mom and an older sister overshadowing her?
Random demon #1: I think that sounds right.
Random demon #3: How close did we get?
Celine:….
Random demons 1-3:….
Celine: Run.
Random demon #1: Can you at least tell us how close we got?
Celine: You have never been in more danger in your entire life and afterlife than you are at this moment.
And if we consider the level of violence Celine enacted on those demons as being proportional to how right they were, they can die with the satisfaction of having hit the nail on the head XD
I picture two of the random demons being the ones that during the movie say "yeah, that could totally work" (when the Saja boys show their idol forms).
All so eager to find the root of Celine's complex relationship with her mother LMFAO
I imagine that they're not even trying to find the root so they can find her shame and tell Gwi-Ma, they just want the fucking spilled tea of it all lmfao. They want to KIND OF help the demon hunter (they are fucking failing) but they also want drama.
Cause, see, the underworld gets boring real fast. The only real entertainment is betting on how the latest fight with the Hunters will go or how angry Gwi-Ma will be about the next inevitable failure to kill the Hunters. Which means that any new gossip from the surface world is extremely valuable...and Hunter gossip is always the most interesting kind.
Not because It'll get you favor with Gwi-Ma. Oh, it will, but after the last time someone snitched to the overgrown bonfire, one of the Hunters got severely injured and the next few months saw a sharp decrease in mid-battle banter and an equally sharp increase in the other two Hunters making everyone's deaths really fucking slow. Which really just ruined everyone's entertainment, so. You Do Not Do That.
All of which is to say that when these particular demons reform in the underworld, stories are told, bets are made...and a particularly enterprising demon who'd lived in France in their former life tracks down Celine's parents.
Not to steal their souls, of course. Simply because the underworld gossip rings demand even more drama, and whoever gets it will be very well-liked indeed.
Celine: Here's the dea-....agreement. You get to know what went down between me and my family---
Demons: DEAL!
Celine: But! You don't step foot in the human world for 2 months.
Demons: TWO MONTHS!
Celine: That's what I said. Take it or leave it. And when I say you, I mean every demon. Any demon who goes back on our agreement will find out what happened to your one friend who tried to impersonate Miyeong after she died.
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- everyone answering “no, i’m fred” to “are you [insert Y/N]” even hermione
- everything draco does ever
- calling blast ended skrewts “power bottoms”
- calling newt scamander bad variations of his name like nerd sandwicher etc
- colin creevey using that one picture he managed to get of hermione punching draco as a reaction image
- shouting “spank me daddy” at the whomping willow
- [pointing at random object] that’s a portkey
- every single cat is professor mcgonagall
- ever since snape’s “bottle fame, brew fortune” speech students just go on and on with it - “flambé success, bake brilliance” “Can you tutor me in charms?” “TUTOR you? I can teach you how to SAUTÉ EXCELLENCE.”
- remember that game where someone yells “SHATNER” and you have to overact? same thing except it’s “TRELAWNEY” and you have to use whatever you’re holding to make a ludicrous prediction
- a more popular variation is “LOCKHART” to make up a pompous story about using whatever you’re holding to drive the [monster] out of [town]
- calling hippogriffs “leggy birbs”
- “Our beloved headmaster Albert Dumpsterfire/Aqueous Disillusionment/Aberdeen Decapitation…”
- shitty incantations ( “The Graying Hair Charm? Make-me-bloody-ancient-osia.” )
Harry saying hes “the chosen one” whenever a teacher calls on him for an answer or gives him a task to do.
The Snape game where you get into pairs and have to keep a completely neutral face while saying long winded random insults, first person to break the straught face loses.
‘Mini-digs’ only its everytime Snape fixes his sleeve.
Draco saying “me an the bois” every time he does literally anything with Crabbe and Goyle.
Students trying to annoy Snape by saying “aight imma head out” when their detention finishes.
Making something stupidly random up (like a potions ingredient or a magical creature) and see how long it takes Hermoine to short circuit while you refuse to believe its not real.
Slytherins refusing to refer to themselves as anything but “snekky bois”
“Password?” “[insert whatever creature Hagrid most recently illegally bred]”
Talking in Sir Cadogan
Playing monthly Potter Bingo (templates may be found in the Slytherin common room)
Naming the Hogwarts owls (“Look, Carmichael’s back, heY CARMICHAEL CAN YOU HEAR ME”)
Calling the Room of Requirement different names wholly depending on what you last used it for (“I’ll just make a quick trip to the hiding-from-Colin-Creevey room, won’t be long”)
“Cave Johnson here. I’ve received complaints from anonymous employees that our support of the “homosexual lifestyle” is “degenerate” and “irresponsible”. It really got me thinking and I think I found a solution. So good news! We now have 23 vacated positions reserved for members of the LGBT community. Additional good news, we began a new testing initiative on evolutionary degenration with 23 test subjects all ready to go.“
“Cave Johnson here. If you’re experiencing a time loop in which you’re repeating the month of June over and over, that’s totally intentional. We at Aperture Science felt that pride month was not long enough and so we created this loop to let employees experience as much pride as they feel like. To get out of this loop, simply use the pod labeled “Time Machine” in Shaft 6 and then either kill or save the baby on the other end depending on when in the loop you’re on. Don’t worry about the baby’s identity, he grows up to be an asshole.“
“Cave Johnson here, happy to announce that our Rainbow Gel project was a massive success. We have developed distinct gels in every color of the rainbow pride flag. In fact, it was too much of a success, so we’ll be updating our pride flag accordingly to include 75 new colors corresponding to all of our new gels. Word of advice, though, don’t stare at the flag for too long, most of these colors haven’t been tested on human eyes yet.”
“Cave Johnson here. Caroline just informed me that I am her “beard”. I checked, and I fail to see how I could possibly have grown out of her face. If anybody knows anything about human-to-facial hair transmogrification, please report to my office.”
“Cave Johnson here. Friendly reminder that Aperture employees living prior to the legalization of gay marriage are invited to use our Aperture Science Temporal Matrimony Pod in order to travel to the future with your same-sex partner and get married there. Employees from the future who wish to return to a time before gay people being able to marry are also welcome to use the pod and we’ll make sure to send you to an era well before gay marriage. I’m thinking maybe Late Cretacesous.”
“Cave Johnson here. I’m proud to announce that our plan to hire only female test subjects to prevent them from flirting with our female scientists has been a resounding failure.”
“Cave Johnson here. I’m afraid we’ll have to temporarily pause all experimentation with the Gender Affirmation Beam. The testing itself is going great, the beam is working. But we’re starting to run out of thigh high socks and khaki shorts.”
“Cave Johson here. Shafts 10 through 14 are currently under lockdown due to a meltdown in the Neopronoun Syntheizer. The transphobes up in DC might call that ‘a disaster in the making’ but I call it a win for diversity! That being said most of these pronouns are radioactive so do watch out.”
Cave Johnson here. If you feel a sudden sense of elation and contentness when putting on your new Aperture Science unisex uniform, that is not Gender Euphoria! That’s a hallucinogenic fungus taking over your brain. Take the uniform off immediately and throw it in the nearest incinerator.”
“Cave Johnson here. I won’t tolerate any misgendering of the interdimensional invaders swarming the facility! Their pronouns are they/them and we’re ought to respect that. We’re also ought to shoot them on sight since they’re extremely hostile and bent on enslaving our planet.”
“Cave Johnson here. To all of my suitors and secret admirers: Thank you, honestly I’m flattered. Unfortunately for you, I don’t swing that way. Or any way. I only swing where the wrecking ball of science takes me. Usually into a brick wall.”
“Cave Johnson here. I’ve been thinking. We have gay pride, and we have gender envy. What other deadly sins can we incorporate? Maybe bisexual sloth? Lesbian wrath? I’ll talk to the lab boys about it.”
“Cave Johnson here. Update: The Lesbian Wrath project is postponed indefinitely. My condolences to the families of the deceased. Though let’s be honest, they probably had it coming.”
“Cave Johnson here. For the last time! “I’m reclaiming the slur” is not a valid excuse to shout out loud the killer androids’ activation codes! We picked that word for a reason.“
“Cave Johnson here. I’d like to apologize to Floor 194 Safety Supervisor Doug Blakely for firing him after allegations that he was forcing employees back in the closet. I was not aware that said closet was a literal storage closet for zombified Aperture employees. To make it up to Doug, he’ll be allowed to feed Floor 194 HR Manager Lisa Briant to the closet zombies if he so chooses.”
”Cave Johnson here. A reminder that next year Transgender Day of Visibility falls on Extradimensional Day of Visibility. The lab boys are cautioning me to caution you to be prepared. Do not confuse transgender and transdimensional! Big mistake.“
“Cave Johnson here. To all cishet Aperture employees who volunteered for the ‘Get More Woke’ program, please report to your department’s OR at the nearest convenience to get the alarm clocks surgically removed from your spinal cord. Aperture Science apologizes for the misunderstanding.”
“Cave Johnson here. Dr. Barnaby from Cyborg Engineering is an attack helicopter. That’s not a transphobic joke, by the way, they literally transformed themselves into an amalgam of human and helicopter. Impressive. Unauthorized, of course, but still impressive. Anyway, we lost track of them, so everyone watch the sky for a mad scientist with blue rotors and machine guns.”
“Cave Johnson here. To the joker who added ‘make the sun gay’ to our quarterly agenda, I hope you’re pleased with yourself. The Astrophysics Department is tearing itself apart with half of them shouting that you can’t make the sun gay and the other half screaming that the sun is already gay. Either way, we’re not doing it.”
“Cave Johnson here. The congressional delegation of Senator Patrick Johnson (no relation) to inspect our facilities had to be cut short due to a mishap with the Gender Affirmation Beam. I’d like to apologize on behalf of Aperture Science to Senator Johnson and her staff.”
“Cave Johnson here. Just the other day, our sign guy asked me ‘Cave, don’t you think LGBTQIA2S+ is a tad too long?’ and I told him ‘First of all, that’s Mr. Johnson to you! And secondly, I actually think it’s not long enough!’ and that’s why I’m adding an ’&’ to the acronym. Don’t know what it stands for yet, but I’ll figure it out.”
“Cave Johnson here. You already know that here in Aperture Science we’re all about gender affirming care. We’ve been at the forefront of hormone replacement therapy since before we knew what these hormones do. You also know that here in Aperture Science we’re all about not getting sued. So everyone be quiet about our role in the Estrogen Cola disaster.”
“Cave Johnson here. So far, we received 832 submissions to our Homophobia Remover design competition. Unfortunately, 829 had to be disqualified for being a schematic of a gun. Objectively hilarious, but not what we’re looking for. Wait, the lab boys just got another submission: and… it’s another gun. Keep at it, folks.”
“Cave Johnson here. Using a set of genetically identical triplets and a molecular combinizer, we just proved scientifically that being bisexual isn’t the same as being half-straight and half-gay. Now we just need to figure out how to separate Craigstopher back into his component brothers.”
Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”.
There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.
best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere
During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well
Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.
Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.
So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).
I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)
My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.
i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show.
my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.
in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.
so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-
During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?
Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.
The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.
Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.
Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.
Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.
Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.
Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.
Sunday Night: Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.
Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.
I was in Twelfth Night during high school and we were lucky enough to have identical twin girls playing Viola and Sebastian. Due to the blocking in the first half of the play, their characters didn’t appear on stage together but rather almost consecutively one after the other for a majority of the first act.
It was awesome because when people saw the play and didn’t know the girls were identical twins, it literally looked like it was one actor doing multiple, uber fast costume changes.
One of our first performances was for our peers and it was a big school so lots of people didn’t know the twins. This - for some reason - was also the performance they chose to record.
Listening to the confusion of the audience during the playback was fantastic and completely topped by the moment Viola walked off stage left just as Sebastian walked on stage right and someone right beside the camera goes “OH WHAT THE FUCK” so loudly it drowned out everything else.
The best thing? That was the copy of the play that was made available for purchase by family and parents. Haha.
Oh my god. I went to one of the Spiderman shows where he flew out above the audience and then got stuck and had to awkwardly hang there for about 10 minutes, but these stories are brilliant.
okay so, my senior year of high school and I’m part of the stage crew for Peter Pan. There’s a scene where Hook and Smee are searching for Peter and the Lost Boys. Now the theater department at my high school isn’t very well funded (in the southern USA, football is king), so the sets we managed to make were pretty kickass for the money we had. We had a structure painted like a big tree stump for the entrance to the Lost Boys’ hideout. You could climb to the top of it, but also go inside it through a trap door that we kept locked up during most of the play.
It’s like our third show and everything has been going surprisingly well. Hook and Smee climb to the top of the “tree trunk”, supposedly looking for Peter and not knowing they’re standing above his hiding spot the whole time.
Turns out someone didn’t close the trapdoor properly, because the second Hook steps on it, he plunges through the thing. He’s able to catch himself, but he’s got his ass and one leg dangling through this hole where it’s like a ten foot drop to the ground. All of us stage crew are literally two feet away from him offstage, just gaping at him because???? Y'all this fall looked BAD. Looked like my dude did the splits in mid air. The whiplash caused his fucking wig to come off. The audience is dead silent, all of us backstage are dead silent, the director is like already looking up how to treat a broken groin.
The kid who was playing Hook was like a fuckin sophomore and he KILLED it. He gave himself a second to catch his breath, never broke character, just looked up at his castmate and growled “Smee, you fool, help me up!”. He ended up playing off the wig thing as an embarrassing comedic bit for Hook, and the play went on. He was completely fine. It was the best thing I’d ever seen.
There was an infamous performance of the opera Don Giovanni where in the last act Giovanni was suppose to be dragged into hell via trapdoor but the overweight actor got stuck, leading someone from the audience to shout: “Hey everyone, Hell’s full!!”
I was a costumer on a stage version of Titanic, and in the scene where the women and children are getting in the lifeboats, one of the men (who was supposed to be saying goodbye to his wife he knows he will never see again because his is about to die), realized his fake mustache was falling off and instead of playing it cool… he rips it off his face, and hands it to his wife with the line “Something to remember me by”…it was the funniest thing that I have ever seen in my 8 years in theatre, the entire cast lost their shit laughing at the most dramatic moment possible
If you went to a bar and the bartender was a mousegirl you could ask for a drink and she would balance it on her head and say "for you, it's on the mouse"
I posted this by itself already but might as well share it here.
A special romantic Hanukkah pic starring Hera and Muriel of the Squeakeasy crew (yeah I haven't mentioned it before but I've named the mouse lady Muriel). After a hectic holiday season, this lovely lesbian couple deserve some passionate private time.
I'm not Jewish myself, but if any of my followers are, Chag sameach!
And a special thank-you to @anarcho-skamunist for the post that started it all. Drawing up all these comics and seeing everyone's kind words and funny responses really kept my spirits up throughout this year. So much fun and so many puns!
If you went to a bar and the bartender was a mousegirl you could ask for a drink and she would balance it on her head and say "for you, it's on the mouse"
I posted this by itself already but might as well share it here.
A special romantic Hanukkah pic starring Hera and Muriel of the Squeakeasy crew (yeah I haven't mentioned it before but I've named the mouse lady Muriel). After a hectic holiday season, this lovely lesbian couple deserve some passionate private time.
I'm not Jewish myself, but if any of my followers are, Chag sameach!
And a special thank-you to @anarcho-skamunist for the post that started it all. Drawing up all these comics and seeing everyone's kind words and funny responses really kept my spirits up throughout this year. So much fun and so many puns!
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nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol* moon’s stuck in a time loop. do you have extra ammo? this won’t be enough.
nasa employee: enough for…what?
astronaut: *finding extra clip of ammo, pocketing it, and getting back on the rocket-ship* don’t worry about it!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *emerging from supply closet with a space harpoon, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early astronaut: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: what?
nasa employee: how did you know what i was going to say?
astronaut: *punching in key pad code for base evacuation signal, getting back on the rocket-ship* i told you…moon’s stuck in a time loop.
*red warning lights begin flashing*
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *rifling thru bookshelf of operating instructions, selecting one that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. hey, do you have anything to eat? i’m starving. *opens random drawer, finds nothing, closes it*
nasa employee: a time loo- uh, we don’t have food in here…we can’t…eat in the control room, only the break-room.
astronaut: *sighs*
nasa employee:…my lunch is in like 10 minutes, though, and if my lunch is actually STILL THERE and not STOLEN, AGAIN, i can share it with yo-
astronaut: nah, that’s ok…no time. *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* or…too much time. but thanks, anyway. OK, bye!
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: you’re…welcome? wait, a TIME LOOP?!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: yup.
nasa employee: …?
astronaut: *sitting down next to nasa employee* so…do you ever like…wonder what the meaning of life is? the secrets of the universe?
nasa employee: aren’t you supposed to be ON the MOON?!
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: hey, what the hell is that?
astronaut: that’s the code red override klaxon. moon’s stuck in a time loop. oh, and there’s an explosion imminent. But don’t worry, we can deal with that tomorrow. So, you have any siblings? *pulls beer out of space suit, cracks tab* want a drink?
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: do you know frank in IT?
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: do you know frank, who works in IT?
nasa employee: yeah, but why are you guys back so early?
astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. call frank, tell him there’s a virus in the security patch and the system’s compromised. then get the hell out of the base.
nasa employee: wait what? what? where are you guys going?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* back to the moon. it’s stuck in a time loop. call frank!
nasa employee: *picks up phone* ugh, straight to voicemail. i wonder wha-
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: *grim silence*
nasa employee: i said, you guys are back early…hey, what are you…?
astronaut: *randomly opening drawers until they find a pair of scissors and some duct tape, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
*sticks head back out the door of the rocket-ship* by the way, if you go to the break-room in exactly 2 minutes and 45 seconds, you’ll catch the person who’s been stealing your lunches for the past two weeks.
nasa employee: what?! WHO IS IT?!
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: *running for the break-room* FUCK!!!!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *sits down, sighs, pulls a beer out from their spacesuit* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: …ok, and? hang on, how did you get a beer? you can’t have that in here.
astronaut: what do you know about project floyd?
nasa employee: I mean, the usual amount? i’m not really on the project anymore, why?
*alarm begins blaring*
astronaut: COME WITH ME TO THE ROCKET-SHIP, we don’t have ti-
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: yeah. moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. see you tomorrow. maybe.
nasa employee: WHAT?!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *sighs, rubs hands over face, and loads pistol, before getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. and, uh…you should call your mother like you’ve been meaning to. and tell her you’re not actually mad and that you will come to dinner tonight. you’re gonna be hungry.
nasa employee: wait, what? WHAT?? how do you know my mom?! why am i gonna be -
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” starting to get back on the rocket-ship, but dropping everything with a horrendous clatter* FUCK! goddamn moon’s stuck in a time loop.
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what? also, hey, where’d you get that duffel bag?
astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” shoving them into the bag, and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back earl-
astronaut: *grabs nasa employee and kisses them passionately*
nasa employee: what? WHAT?!
astronaut: *loading a single pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop, sweetheart.
nasa employee: what?!?
astronaut: a time loop!!! i love you!!! get out of the base!!! stay alive!!!
nasa employee: *presses fingers to lips, confused but intrigued, as alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee:….
nasa employee:…
nasa employee: ho hum what a regular day at the office
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: what the hell is that?!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back earl-
astronaut: *grabs nasa employee and kisses them passionately*
nasa employee: what? what?! WHAT!?!? also, hey, where’d you get that duffel bag?
astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” shoving them into the bag, then cupping nasa employee’s cheek with free hand* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: the moon’s stuck in a what?!
astronaut: a time loop, sweetheart, but we don’t have much time ourselves, so you have to listen to me RIGHT now
nasa employee: *faintly* …“sweetheart”?!
astronaut: in 2 minutes and a few seconds, you need to go into the break-room and find frank.
nasa employee: wait, frank from IT?
astronaut: yes.
nasa employee: how do you know he’s gonna be in the break-room? i can’t just call him at his desk right now?
astronaut: how do i know this?! because, one, time loop, ok? and…also…because…heismaybetheguywhohasbeenstealingyourlunchfortwoweeks
nasa employee: that BASTARD i KNEW it
astronaut: BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT’S IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. hey! listen to me! go in there, catch him red-handed with your burrito, and tell him lunch is on you FOREVER if he goes RIGHT NOW and checks the last security patch - because there’s a virus and the whole system’s compromised. then you need to get the hell out of this base, ok?
nasa employee: …ok. ok. and…and what about you?
astronaut: *cocking pistol and getting back into rocket-ship with duffel bag* me? i’m gonna shoot for the moon.
EPILOGUE:
nasa employee: so, how many loops in total?
astronaut: i mean, it was hard to keep track. somewhere around six months, if i had to guess.
nasa employee: damn.
astronaut: yeah.
nasa employee: and in those six MONTHS, the best zinger you came up with was “shoot for the moon”?
astronaut: hey, you know what, i had some other stuff on my mind!
nasa employee: i mean, i guess. it sounded like you found time to flirt with me each time.
astronaut: yeah, like i said. other stuff on my mind.
*they look at each other, blush, and look away*
astronaut: sooooooo. you’re sure your mom is cool with me coming over for dinner?
nasa employee: can’t make the day any weirder. plus, i owe you for ratting out frank, right?
astronaut: he did help us save the world; we can’t be too mad at him.
nasa employee: you’ve had a little while to get over it, i might need some more time. and it wasn’t even your food!
astronaut: ok, that’s fair. what if i buy you lunch to make up for it?
nasa employee: hmm, when?
astronaut: tomorrow?
nasa employee: well, i’ll have left overs from my mom, and you might too if you play your cards right. day after tomorrow?
astronaut: honestly, anytime is good for me.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol* moon’s stuck in a time loop. do you have extra ammo? this won’t be enough.
nasa employee: enough for…what?
astronaut: *finding extra clip of ammo, pocketing it, and getting back on the rocket-ship* don’t worry about it!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *emerging from supply closet with a space harpoon, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early astronaut: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: what?
nasa employee: how did you know what i was going to say?
astronaut: *punching in key pad code for base evacuation signal, getting back on the rocket-ship* i told you…moon’s stuck in a time loop.
*red warning lights begin flashing*
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *rifling thru bookshelf of operating instructions, selecting one that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. hey, do you have anything to eat? i’m starving. *opens random drawer, finds nothing, closes it*
nasa employee: a time loo- uh, we don’t have food in here…we can’t…eat in the control room, only the break-room.
astronaut: *sighs*
nasa employee:…my lunch is in like 10 minutes, though, and if my lunch is actually STILL THERE and not STOLEN, AGAIN, i can share it with yo-
astronaut: nah, that’s ok…no time. *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* or…too much time. but thanks, anyway. OK, bye!
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: you’re…welcome? wait, a TIME LOOP?!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: yup.
nasa employee: …?
astronaut: *sitting down next to nasa employee* so…do you ever like…wonder what the meaning of life is? the secrets of the universe?
nasa employee: aren’t you supposed to be ON the MOON?!
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: hey, what the hell is that?
astronaut: that’s the code red override klaxon. moon’s stuck in a time loop. oh, and there’s an explosion imminent. But don’t worry, we can deal with that tomorrow. So, you have any siblings? *pulls beer out of space suit, cracks tab* want a drink?
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: do you know frank in IT?
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: do you know frank, who works in IT?
nasa employee: yeah, but why are you guys back so early?
astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. call frank, tell him there’s a virus in the security patch and the system’s compromised. then get the hell out of the base.
nasa employee: wait what? what? where are you guys going?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* back to the moon. it’s stuck in a time loop. call frank!
nasa employee: *picks up phone* ugh, straight to voicemail. i wonder wha-
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: *grim silence*
nasa employee: i said, you guys are back early…hey, what are you…?
astronaut: *randomly opening drawers until they find a pair of scissors and some duct tape, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
*sticks head back out the door of the rocket-ship* by the way, if you go to the break-room in exactly 2 minutes and 45 seconds, you’ll catch the person who’s been stealing your lunches for the past two weeks.
nasa employee: what?! WHO IS IT?!
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: *running for the break-room* FUCK!!!!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *sits down, sighs, pulls a beer out from their spacesuit* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: …ok, and? hang on, how did you get a beer? you can’t have that in here.
astronaut: what do you know about project floyd?
nasa employee: I mean, the usual amount? i’m not really on the project anymore, why?
*alarm begins blaring*
astronaut: COME WITH ME TO THE ROCKET-SHIP, we don’t have ti-
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: yeah. moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. see you tomorrow. maybe.
nasa employee: WHAT?!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *sighs, rubs hands over face, and loads pistol, before getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. and, uh…you should call your mother like you’ve been meaning to. and tell her you’re not actually mad and that you will come to dinner tonight. you’re gonna be hungry.
nasa employee: wait, what? WHAT?? how do you know my mom?! why am i gonna be -
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” starting to get back on the rocket-ship, but dropping everything with a horrendous clatter* FUCK! goddamn moon’s stuck in a time loop.
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: what? also, hey, where’d you get that duffel bag?
astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” shoving them into the bag, and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back earl-
astronaut: *grabs nasa employee and kisses them passionately*
nasa employee: what? WHAT?!
astronaut: *loading a single pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop, sweetheart.
nasa employee: what?!?
astronaut: a time loop!!! i love you!!! get out of the base!!! stay alive!!!
nasa employee: *presses fingers to lips, confused but intrigued, as alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee:….
nasa employee:…
nasa employee: ho hum what a regular day at the office
*alarm begins blaring*
nasa employee: what the hell is that?!
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back earl-
astronaut: *grabs nasa employee and kisses them passionately*
nasa employee: what? what?! WHAT!?!? also, hey, where’d you get that duffel bag?
astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” shoving them into the bag, then cupping nasa employee’s cheek with free hand* moon’s stuck in a time loop.
nasa employee: the moon’s stuck in a what?!
astronaut: a time loop, sweetheart, but we don’t have much time ourselves, so you have to listen to me RIGHT now
nasa employee: *faintly* …“sweetheart”?!
astronaut: in 2 minutes and a few seconds, you need to go into the break-room and find frank.
nasa employee: wait, frank from IT?
astronaut: yes.
nasa employee: how do you know he’s gonna be in the break-room? i can’t just call him at his desk right now?
astronaut: how do i know this?! because, one, time loop, ok? and…also…because…heismaybetheguywhohasbeenstealingyourlunchfortwoweeks
nasa employee: that BASTARD i KNEW it
astronaut: BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT’S IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. hey! listen to me! go in there, catch him red-handed with your burrito, and tell him lunch is on you FOREVER if he goes RIGHT NOW and checks the last security patch - because there’s a virus and the whole system’s compromised. then you need to get the hell out of this base, ok?
nasa employee: …ok. ok. and…and what about you?
astronaut: *cocking pistol and getting back into rocket-ship with duffel bag* me? i’m gonna shoot for the moon.
EPILOGUE:
nasa employee: so, how many loops in total?
astronaut: i mean, it was hard to keep track. somewhere around six months, if i had to guess.
nasa employee: damn.
astronaut: yeah.
nasa employee: and in those six MONTHS, the best zinger you came up with was “shoot for the moon”?
astronaut: hey, you know what, i had some other stuff on my mind!
nasa employee: i mean, i guess. it sounded like you found time to flirt with me each time.
astronaut: yeah, like i said. other stuff on my mind.
*they look at each other, blush, and look away*
astronaut: sooooooo. you’re sure your mom is cool with me coming over for dinner?
nasa employee: can’t make the day any weirder. plus, i owe you for ratting out frank, right?
astronaut: he did help us save the world; we can’t be too mad at him.
nasa employee: you’ve had a little while to get over it, i might need some more time. and it wasn’t even your food!
astronaut: ok, that’s fair. what if i buy you lunch to make up for it?
nasa employee: hmm, when?
astronaut: tomorrow?
nasa employee: well, i’ll have left overs from my mom, and you might too if you play your cards right. day after tomorrow?
astronaut: honestly, anytime is good for me.
Athena: You mean venomous, and make sure the eggs have both reptile and bird traits.
Hermes: *takes the joint* Give it extra senses.
Poseidon: It should be aquatic.
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So this is a vaguely half formed idea based off @zzzzz-cff 's fox bead AU (which I think is supposed to be the happier version of the half-gumiho Celine AU but uh...here I am. Adding angst and truama) but;
What if the fox bead is the soul of the gumiho?
And if someone, say the hunters, manage to tear a fox bead from out of a gumibo's chest (or in our case, a half-gumiho child), that person essentially owns that gumiho' soul. And that gumiho is spiritually bound to obey the wishes of that person.
(And maybe that person also has contol over the gumiho's form? Hmm)
Miyeong doesn’t really mind it (except how she does) because she’s been here since she was a little kid apparently, but Celine is Hana’s vision of perfection.
She’s always pretty and put together. She never complains. She always, always does what she’s told, no matter how impossible.
“It’s like living with a robot,” Chaewon grumbles. “There’s nothing… there, behind her eyes. Can’t you feel it?”
“She’s been living by herself with an old lady for half her life,” Miyeong points out, ignoring the way something prickles at the back of her neck in agreement. “And you’re jealous.”
Chaewon flips her off. Miyeong laughs.
And that’s all they say about it, except, well—yeah. Sometimes it is like there’s something… wrong, with Celine.
Miyeong will look back at her when Celine doesn’t realize anyone’s watching, and find that it is like there’s nothing behind her eyes.
Or sometimes she’ll catch her looking at her own hands like they don’t belong to her.
Or how, when, a few months in, Hana pushes Miyeong and Chaewon past their breaking point finally, is saying get up and go again when Miyeong literally feels like she’s going to die, Chaewon has already vomited from exertion, neither of them are sure how they’r even going to get in for dinner—
Celine, quietly, says no.
And Hana looks more surprised than anything. “What?”
“No,” Celine repeats, shoulders straightening. “We need—we need to stop. Now. I’m not doing it.”
Hana’s eyes narrow and she reaches up to fiddle, oddly deliberate, with the necklace around her throat. “I said again.”
And Celine switches right back off.
“Get one of them up,” Hana says, in a voice like ice. This isn’t about training anymore, it’s—it’s something else, something wrong, something Miyeong doesn’t want to watch, much less be a part of.
Jerkily, Celine turns around.
And she reaches up a hand to draw Celine’s attention, because Chaewon literally puked earlier.
Celine picks her up. She keeps hold of Miyeong’s hand, tight in her own, like an apology, like a plea, until Hana says, “Let her go.”
Wouldn't it be funny (okay "funny" might be the wrong word here) if this version of gumiho Celine suffers for a shorter amount of time because there's something so obviously wrong with her that her partners start getting suspicious of their mentors and get her bead back? (And then Rumi gets to grow up with all three moms)
***
It was breach gone bad that was the final straw; a supervised hunt, their last supervised hunt, Eunji had promised, where so many demons poured from a tear that seemed to stretch the horizon, that they had to retreat.
Run away until, Eunji, perched atop a rooftop, yells at them to, "stop running! Stand your ground and fight!"
And Celine, eyes dull, giving them a sad smile, does.
Miyeong doesn't remember how they survived the fight let alone win.
But when the dust clears and the honmoon shines blue and bright again, Celine collapses onto the ground, barely conscious and half-dead.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Miyeong asks, trying to stem the bleeding long enough for the honmoon to start stitching Celine back together.
"She-- she said to stop running."
Celine's words are slurred. Her eyes drift closed and Chaewon slaps them back open.
I smelt a whiff of fluff and polylight and I came running like a trackstar.
FINALLY A POTENTIAL HAPPY (ish) ENDING *Pushes all the angst additions in the tags under the rug- out of sight out of mind*
They ask her what she means, and she says she can't tell them.
She can't tell them.
They are dragged back to the hunter grounds and Celine is stuffed into the infirmary.
They sneak into the room and ask her again.
It takes them almost fifteen minutes of talking in circles to understand what Celine means.
Literally can't.
Is unable to, despite her own wants.
She's been forbidden from talking about the bead for as long as the old bats have been in possession of it.
They trained conditioned forced Celine to listen, and she never had an opportunity to cross them, let alone think about other options.
But Chaewon and Miyeong never had their choices and thoughts taken away from them.
The writing loophole comes as easily as breathing to them, their minds unscarred by another's will.
And for the first time since they've known her, it's like something ignites behind her eyes.
Like there is a person there, instead of just a soldier.
She tests it to herself first. Just writes down the reason on a piece of paper just to see if she could, and then holds it close to her chest without showing the other two.
The writing on the paper is shaky, near illegible, but it's there. Physical proof that she, at the very least, has her own words back.
Chaewon and Miyeong don't push her to show them, even as she feels them shift in their seats by the foot of her bed.
She tears the first piece of paper to shreds on the spot.
Not because she plans on hiding the information. But just because she can.
Because she needs to know that she doesn't have to do anything.
She looks up at them with the ripped paper littering the covers, and there isn't anger at her silence. No demand for answers.
There is fear, and there is worry and there is concern. But no demands.
And so she gets out of the bed.
Both protest immediately, but for once, Celine doesn't listen.
Instead she gets them to help her stand, her injuries messing her up more than she'd like, but she was still determined.
She has regained her words, but she owes them to no one, even the other thirds of her soul.
And she might be leashed, but foxes were cunning, and damn it were they vindictive as well.
So she keeps her own words, and instead steals their mentors'.
She leads the way to the library, far less afraid of their mentors catching them than she thought she'd be.
The old bats were asleep, and Celine is far too good tame to ever dare disobey them, in their minds.
But she isn't.
She tasted her first drop of freedom in years, and she is grasping it, declawed fingers tearing into it from the force.
She takes out one of the many books about demons, and flips it to the pages about gumiho.
Celine makes them read it all. The entire chapter. On everything.
They're confused at first.
-"This is something we already know? This was the first thing Hana taught us?"-
But after the first initial book, about how gumihos tear into humans, disguise themselves as beautiful women and look like foxes (it was a good 20 or so pages that Celine made them read), Celine walks over (stumbles, more like, but she refuses to let them touch her. Not when she's so close) to another bookcase.
One she was ordered to never touch.
But foxes are cunning, and she's now been given an example of a loophole.
Freedom has never been so close before.
So she says nothing and just points at the next book.
Makes Miyeong flip to the next part about gumihos.
About controlling the fox-demons, about the fox-beads. A recent addition, made by Hana herself.
They recognize the handwriting.
She doesn't force them to read the entire thing. They do anyways.
The pieces are connecting in their minds, and when they look up from the book, Celine is holding another piece of paper.
"They have my bead"
Her hand is shaking enough to rustle the paper she holds up.
Celine half expects disgust or anger.
She made them read the first book for a reason. A reminder. Because that book isn't wrong, per say, it's just not complete. There is nuance that the hunters couldn't afford lest it'd create hesitation.
So she makes them read the first book, allows them the choice she herself was never given.
She is a demon. They are demon hunters.
She wouldn't be the first gumiho they'd killed.
And Celine thinks she'd be okay with it. As long as it's them.
So Celine half expects disgust or anger.
She doesn't expect both. And she doesn't expect them to not be directed at her.
Chaewon is sick in the nearest potted plant.
Miyeong -calm and kind Miyeong- rips the pages out of the book and tears them apart. Fury painted in every line of her body.
It's... cathartic, in a way.
Seeing the emotions she isn't allowed to feel.
Chaewon comes back, skin pale and eyes glassy, and reaches out. She doesn't complete the motion, as if afraid that she's no longer allowed to, after learning the truth.
But this is one of the few choices Celine still has left. One of the few that are still her own.
So she buries her nose in Chaewon's neck, feels the constriction of Miyeong holding her from her other side.
She doesn't cry, she's not allowed to. She's not allowed to be sad or anguished about the gaping hole in her very being.
That's okay though.
They cry enough for her.
At least for now, with the way they're vowing to get it back for her is anything to go by.
*Shakes fist at sky* On GOD I'm gonna give you guys a happy ending even if I have to do it all on my lonesome.
---
They have to bide their time.
Chaewon and Miyeong hate it with a burning passion, but they have to bide their time.
They aren't skilled enough to take it from their mentors, and the only one sneaky enough to do it while they're sleeping is Celine, and she can't touch the bead.
Impatience is their biggest enemy and threat at the moment. They needed to be smart. (and also ignore who taught them those lessons)
Celine is the least the least impatient of them all, which just serves to make the other two angrier. Celine wants to be angry too. But she is not allowed.
It begins with drafts upon drafts of ideas of what they can do, all stored neatly in coded notebooks in Chaewon's room. Hana never went in there without Chaewon's permission. She respected the girls boundaries.
It pisses them off even more.
It would take them far longer than any of them would have liked.
Years, really.
There were other things to account for, beyond just getting the bead.
They needed the training, because maintaining the Honmoon was still something that needed doing. If Hana and Eunji noticed the way that Miyeong and Chaewon started placing themselves between the mentors and Celine, they didn't comment on it. It's not like Celine could have told them, right?
They needed the resources, because they were still becoming idols, and without their mentors and their connections, that would be extremely difficult. Their success was required for the Honmoon's safety. For everyone's safety.
(The fact that both Chaewon and Miyeong had been more than willing to let it all burn in favour of just getting the bead had warmed Celine's heart, just a bit. But she didn't have the privilege of being angry and emotional, so she was rational enough to see the danger)
So the bid their time, and planned best they could. Chaewon and Miyeong now also fully aware of what was going on, nearly breaking their cover each and every time they spotted those old hags grasping the bead around their necks.
Nearly screaming every time Celine got that blank look in her eyes, the dead tone without any will behind it.
It was especially jarring now that they were getting to know the real Celine. The girl behind the orders.
The girl who could somehow convey perfect sarcasm through a note and a raised eyebrow.
The girl who's words never matched her tone. Joking and mirthful, spoken with stilted cadence.
How could they have taken so long to notice?
Every day the guilt would eat them both alive, but in the night they had to plan, so there was no time for self-loathing.
The key-factor in their planning was Celine's orders. They needed to find as many loopholes as possible, so as angry as each and every order Celine wrote out made them, they looked through it all, adding notes, questions and possibilities next to each line. Or at least as many as they could. Some, much to their dismay, they couldn't come up with any solutions for. Or the solutions they came up with didn't work.
The incomplete list:
You will not eat without our permission. ("What the fuck?" "They don't want me eating people." "...Do you have to eat people?" "Do you think I've eaten anyone since being taken? If I needed it, I'd have been put in the dirt long ago." Neither Chaewon nor Miyeong were comforted by how dead she sounded when she said it.) -Drinking still works. Soups and broths are stored in Miyeong's room. -Anything liquid-like that can be swallowed without chewing works.
You will not harm another human being unless we say so. ("What do they think you are, a fucking attack dog?") -Avoidance and misdirection until opponent harms/exhausts themselves. Call us for help!
You will not tell anyone about being a gumiho, nor will you tell anyone about your fox-bead -Suck it you old hags.
You will act human and stay in your human form at all times. -Does partial transformations work? -No.
You will suppress every last one of your demonic instincts at all times. ("What demonic instincts?" Celine shrugs. "I don't remember. I've been suppressing them for so long." *Horrified silence*)
You will never lie to a Hunter. -Conceal the truth. Do lies of omission work? -Lies of omission as well as half-truths work
You will never lash out at us. -We aren't lashing out. This is calculated.
You will not be angry or sad about the loss of your fox-bead. Can you be furious? Devestated? Annoyed? ----
On and on it went. Until they got to the most crucial ones:
Every word you hear from us is law, and will be treated as such.
You will not touch your fox-bead ever again.
These ones took the longest to figure out, and in the end, they had to think on the spot.
It was about a year after their debut that they finally got their opportunity.
Eunji had received a debilitating injury while the girls were out performing, forcing their mentor into full retirement. No longer able to be an effective hunter.
Hana was still an issue, but now they were three against one.
They had a chance.
A check in. That was their cover. Students worried over their injured mentor.
The anticipation was grueling.
The wait agonizing as they pretended to care, while counting down the minutes until they would head to bed.
Once they finally did, the girls waited another hour to make sure they were actually asleep.
Then Miyeong was the one to sneak into their room. Beside Celine, she was the stealthiest of the lot, but Chaewon and Celine still followed closely behind.
It's still on a necklace.
Eunji is still wearing it, even in sleep. Miyeong almost sees red.
It's okay. She's been in battle. She's been on stage. She has learned how to keep her cool in extremely stressful situations.
But despite her injury, Eunji is still very much a hunter.
Miyeong manages to get her hand around the bead before Eunji wakes up and lashes out. Miyeongs hand is swatted away, but she holds on long enough for the clasp of the necklace to break, the jewelry going flying across the room.
While they are no longer in possession of it, until Celine gets her own hands on it, their previous orders still remain.
And so the fight begins.
Chaewon dives for the bead, but is tackled away by Hana.
"She's tricking you! it's what her kind does!"
Celine can't touch the bead, so she goes for the necklace itself. Grasping the string and trying to hold on to it while not touching it.
"Celine! Hand-" Eunji starts, no doubt about to order her to give it back, and Miyeong reacts without thought.
Leaping back from Eunji and next to Celine, she presses both palms over Celine's ears as hard as she can.
Every word you hear from us is law, and will be treated as such.
There is no compulsion to follow whatever it is that their old mentor says, because Celine couldn't hear it.
But now Eunji is free from Miyeong, so she also dives for Celine, injury ignored in favour of control.
Miyeong tries to intercept her, but the move was unexpected and she's pushed back, Celine unable to harm/attack without permission.
Chaewon is being held by Hana, the elder hunter's experience outweighing Chaewon's youthfulness.
"Give me the bead." Celine obeys.
Even as she manages to rage and scream on the inside, her body follows the order and hands her soul over to the reaper. She never had the choice to disobey.
But her fellow hunter partners do, and they aren't giving up until they're dead and fucking buried or the bead is in Celine's possession.
Chaewon stomps hard on Hana's foot, her grip loosening just enough in her pain for the younger hunter to slip free.
Miyeong tackles Eunji from behind, the elder hunter caught off guard once more.
Chaewon manages to grab the bead, and while she doesn't have Miyeong's aim, Celine is barely five feet away, so this throw isn't hard to make.
The necklace goes soaring through the air.
Celine's not allowed to touch it.
But as it collides with her forehead something becomes abundantly clear.
She's not allowed to touch it.
And she doesn't.
It touches her.
And for the first time in something close to -if not over- a decade, Celine's thoughts and actions are her own.
With fox-like reflexes she catches it before it hits the floor.
The room freezes as four hunters stare into golden eyes with slit pupils, framed by red markings.
*Drags my bruised and battered body to my computer screen* Happy ending... happy ending... You guys are gonna get a happy ending...if it's the last thing I do...
It's not really much of a fight after that.
Eunji is still injured and the adrenaline is not going to keep her standing for much longer.
Hana is outnumbered 1 to 3, one of which is a trained hunter with all the regained advantages of a fox-demon.
There is still that knee-jerk reaction that tells Celine to do as she's told when Hana tries to order her to give the bead back. Though there is no compulsion anymore, just reflex.
And Celine is cautious, but she is also petty. She is not their toy soldier anymore. She is allowed to be whoever the hell she wants now.
So she takes great pleasure in acting as if she's handing it back, only to close her fist securely around the bead and crack the woman across the jaw as hard as her new-old abilities allow.
The elder hunter goes down in an instant but it's abundantly clear that it hadn't been necessary in the first place because of one simple thing:
Eunji tries to fight back.
Keyword being "tries"
Celine sees the motions from the corner of her eye as she drops Hana. She sees the way Miyeong and Chaewon immediately are on the alert, half a second away from pulling out their own weapons as Celine mentally prepares herself for the chill that always comes when Eunji pulls out her ingeom.
But nothing happens.
There is no glowing weapon that materializes in Eunji's hand. Only In Chaewon's and Miyeong's
Then Eunji drops as well. Like a puppet with her strings cut.
She is not unconscious like Hana, but she is on the floor gasping for breath. A new weakness in her limbs.
And Celine smells it. The change.
You see, Celine remembers the day she was taken quite clearly. She remembers the blood of her mother, slain at her feet. She remembers how her siblings whimpered as they ran as fast as they could.
She remembers how the hunters had smelled.
Chamomile from Hana.
Honey and old leather from Eunji.
Both of them shared something, though.
A scent of something otherworldly. Something that Celine still couldn't truly compare to anything else than light.
Now with her senses regained, the scent drifts into her nose once more.
But it comes from Chaewon and Miyeong.
From Eunji, there is only Honey and old leather.
For the first time in years, Celine smiles on her own.
It's not her genuine smile. It's not one of happiness or laughter.
It's cruel and vicious and victorious.
Eunji stares at her from the ground.
"What's the matter, teacher?" Her voice is saccharine sweet. Celine leans down into a crouch. "Fox got your tongue?"
And despite her trembling frame, Eunji still finds it in herself to spit at the demon.
"You cursed thing! What have you done?"
And Celine smiles wider, wide enough to have her fangs showing.
Because she is angryangryangry furious.
"Maybe it just doesn't want you anymore." She leans in close, close enough to see her mentor's pupils dilate with the perceived threat. Close enough to smell the fear that fills the air.
Maybe they were right. Maybe she was bad.
Does a good person revel in another's fright?
She doesn't know, and frankly, at this moment? She doesn't care.
So she just stays close before leaving her space with a whisper:
"Maybe you just weren't good."
----
The first thing Celine does (much to Chaewon's and Miyeongs dismay) upon leaving the hanok is tear open her chest.
Not fully, of course, but she uses her claws to tear a hole in her flesh, and then she stuffs the bead back in between her ribs.
Whole for the first time in years.
She doesn't know what to do with it.
Doesn't really know what she can do.
Doesn't know what she wants to do.
For now, she just knows that she doesn't really want to be alone. Not like she thinks that Chaewon and miyeong are goign to let her out of their sights anytime soon. Not with her whole... demon physique still prevalent. She could will it away. Hide it like she had for so long. It is pretty effortless, all in all.
But she really doesn't want to. Even if it makes them stare at her. For just this night, Celine wants to take a step towards figuring out who she is, instead of who someone else wants her to be.
-
The demon traits are indeed what Miyeong and Chaewon are staring at. Not because they think Celine will fly off the handle, that thought doesn't even cross their minds.
There is too much going on for them to entertain the possibility of Celine just going on a murder spree or something equally ridiculous. It's Celine! Sure, they might not know the full her weren't allowed to know the full her, no matter how much Celine wanted to share, but they know she likes to nap in sunny spots. They know she likes having some background noise while doing mundane tasks. They know she likes gardening and they know she likes to startle them (as much as she pretends it's accidental when she sneaks up on them).
It's still Celine. Just the full version.
So yes, it is the demon traits they are staring at.
They are staring at her pointed ears that keep flicking towards every sound.
They are trailing their gazes across the red patterns, so similar but so different from regular demonic patterns. Their shape, their colour. The way they aren't carved into her skin like lightning like Gwi-ma's puppet's are, but instead gently curves around her arms and hands. How they sharpen and frame her eyes.
And the eyes are what they truly get stuck on.
It's the soft glow they emit in the dark of the night. Not enough to truly shine, but just enough to be noticeable. The slit pupils, not unlike that of a cat, that are trained on them both. Waiting for something, clawed fingers twitching at her sides.
It's Miyeong that makes a move. She hooks a pinkie through Celine's.
And it is a moment. One where Celine is deciding whether to pull away or to hold on. One where she gets to decide. One that neither of them would begrudge her if she chose to let go.
She holds on.
Then Celine hooks her other pinkie with Chaewon's, and they all start their journey home.
They all but collapse when they get inside. Physically they're fine (Celine is feeling the fatigue that comes with becoming whole again, and her chest hurts a bit but the Honmoon and her own genetics is helping her heal), emotionally they're all wrung out to hell and back.
"What do you want to do now?" It's Miyeong that asks, her eyes barely open from where she had tumbled onto the couch.
Celine closes her eyes for the briefest moment, pondering.
"I'm not sure." She says honestly. "I think I just want to be for a while"
"Be what?" Chaewon asks, seated on the floor leaning back against the couch.
"Just me. Fully me."
"And who are you?"
It's a stranage question for anyone else. It's still slightly strange even for them.
With the writing and their other loopholes, they had seen cracks into the person under the control. So her answer isn't surprising, nor is it strange.
"I'm Celine."
It's so obvious, and so simple, yet still so very complicated. She was herself, but she also had to learn who she was, because she simply couldn't remember. Hadn't been allowed to be just herself for so long.
So despite knowing the other woman for years, Chaewon still holds out a tired hand.
"It's very nice to meet you, Celine."
And when she takes her hand to shake, that's when Celine smiles genuinely. Not with spite, not with vindictive glee.
With joy.
It's small and it's quiet, but it crinkles her eyes the slightest bit and a fang pokes out the side of her mouth.
It might just be one of the most beautiful things they've ever seen.
idea, combine the deadbeat miyoeng au with the gumiho celine au, rumi is born with patterns and celine clocks what that means immediately, miyoeng and thirdlight dont know what to do and suggest getting rid of rumi.
Celine on the other hand has a baby half demon in her arms and all the awful things the mentors did her come rushing back and she just cant let that happen again, she just cant, and with the other two suggesting to kill rumi she knows she has one shot to let this little kit live.
So she sneaks off with rumi and breaks into the hunters hanok to steal back her bead, she cant touch it as the rule states but she sure as hell can grab the string is tired to.
Celine books it with rumi in toe and the string with her bead between her teeth with the mentors hot on her heels, rumi being the little fussy baby she is grabs hold of the bead, Celine freaks out coz baby is holding onto her soul, "please rumi just give it here please dont drop it" and rumi just chucks it a Celines head.
Bead makes contact with Celines skin and she hasent broken any of the rules so now she can touch her bead and use her powers again and just teleports her and rumi out of there.
Dont know where to go from here, but rumis got a half demon eomma who loves her to bits and can relate to her
maybe the menters tell miyoeng and thirdlight what celine is, maybe they dont, idk
>:3
***
It's important to note that the plan to kill the little demon girl was dead the moment it left Miyeong's lips. That the words, "maybe we should just kill it" was said in a moment of weakness and hysteria following a long a difficult birth rather than any true malice and that -- even as she suggested death as an alternative -- would not have allowed this impossible creature to come to harm.
It will not change what happens in the immediate aftermath of her words, but you must know that Miyeong was not an evil woman or else her actions in the future will not make much sense.
But the words are said and cannot be unsaid.
And Celine, who has grown up mapping the boundaries of the love a hunter can have for a creature such as herself, knows that this child can have no future here. Knows that this child, wild and uncontrollable, cannot be leashed in the ways that make her safe and acceptable. That a demon off its leash will not be allowed to live.
So Celine takes the child and her bead and flees, whole for the first time in more than a decade and leaving behind two thirds of her soul.
She takes the child first to an old fox hollow but the child is more human than demon and human children need other human children and medical care and more warmth than a fox hollow allows for.
So reluctantly, Celine returns to glass and concrete of the human cities. Far, far away from the hunters and anyone who might know her.
Meanwhile, the mentors tell Miyeong and Third what happened: that Celine is a demon, that being a demon, she saved the little demon girl, slipped her leash, and has fled with the demon to parts unknown.
They don't have the time to hunt down Celine, but if she shows up again, to be merciless. A gumiho is a trickster and a powerful demon -- they can't risk falling under her sway.
(Anyways, what if Celine teleports Rumi to LA and she grows up next to Zoey)
Celine takes the baby and runs, and she knows that they’ll follow. A demon off its leash will never be anything but hunted
She thinks of her mother, when she’s running with the infant in its carrier on her chest. She doesn’t remember if she started that last fight, couldn’t, not really, but her memories say it was the Hunters who did
So Celine knows not to stand her ground.
She runs, farther and faster and cleverer than any fox had thought of before, crosses an ocean to find herself a new home in a city of smog and steel—a lot like Seoul, really, except drier. And American
Here, she isn’t Celine, idol, Sunlight Sister. She’s just a woman with accented English and no papers and a baby that she won’t let anyone else near. It’s… a hard few years. She’s glad Rumi doesn’t remember most of them
(And Celine, guiltily, shamefully, sometimes longs to go back. She is free and she will remain free until the last of her days, as long as Rumi needs her to be, she is free and she loves the ability to know she is her own, the void within her finally filled, but. She misses being loved, sometimes, as twisted and crooked and conditional as it was)
There are gray foxes in the United States, she sees them sometimes in the parks, what little scraps of greenery and wildness she can find to hold on to. Their tails flick back at her, a recognition shared. One year, she and Rumi head out to Catalina Island, and the island foxes come out to investigate, their big ears flicking, even braver with her than they are the humans
It is not the same as home
She makes a life in Koreatown, Mrs Kang from the flower shop, always happy to sit in the park and beat the old men at chess and beat the old women at mahjong and lose to the children at anything. She has never been married, and she was not born a Kang. She is, after all, still a gumiho.
It’s a good life, good enough.
And then Rumi comes racing at her, dragging another little girl with a broken skateboard and bloody knees after her, and the Honmoon starts to laugh
(The debate here is do I keep Zoey's mom a nurse, make her an immigration lawyer, or make her a criminal defense lawyer and then I would at least vaguely know what's going on in her job)
Zoey is good for Rumi, Celine thinks. The girl shines so brightly, it takes no effort at all for her to draw Rumi out from behind her walls -- walls that Celine herself had taught her to build until they were a fortress.
And Rumi thinks the same.
It's not long before the girls are inseparable and Celine dreads the day where their fragile bond will break.
("All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you," Celine reads to Rumi.
"Mama," Rumi looks up at her with her big, curious eyes. "Will the hunters kill me if they find us?"
Celine feels her fangs lengthen. "They will certainly try. But listen to me, Rumi, I will never let anyone hurt you.")
She can see the honmoon stir around Zoey; still too young to be called but brimming with potential. The kind of potential that would be all too easily molded into a blade held to Rumi's throat.
(For a moment, she contemplates dragging the child into the night. She could make it quick, painless, and the authorities would never find a body.)
(It's little wonder why she was always kept on such a short leash, Celine thinks.)
(Oh but I see exactly what you’re thinking with immigration lawyer!Zoey’s mom… dilemmas, dilemmas)
Rumi’s mom never reads her stories of foxes; they never watch Robin Hood or The Fox and the Hound. Fox stories, in Rumi’s house, are known by heart.
It’s one of those things she doesn’t realize isn’t normal until she gets older. Her mom makes no secret of their secrets, of their strangeness, but it’s still just the way things are
Zoey wears her strangeness on her sleeve, terribly human strangeness that it’s hard for her to do anything else with—notebooks and words and a body that always seems to need to do something. Rumi loves it. It feels like the first time she’s ever found someone who understood anything about her, much less almost everything
(Not everything. Rumi is careful with her sleeves, the way her mom has taught her to be.)
(Rumi notices more than the grownups think she would: she sees how Zoey’s mom grimaces at the mention of Zoey’s dad before she turns it into a smile, recognizes how Zoey starts cringing sometimes when voices get loud. She starts volunteering less to have her mom drive her out to Burbank, and more to meet at Zoey’s favorite skate park)
(The grownups notice back: how Rumi tugs on her T-shirt sleeves, how her mother watches her, how they never talk about Rumi’s other parent or their life before. How hard it is to really, honestly, make friends with Mrs. Kang.)
Kyung-sun knows the signs of an abusive relationship. It's an element of her work that she's had to learn through watching her clients and whatever CLEs she could find on the matter. And everything she knew pointed to some unfortunate circumstances surrounding her Zoey's new best friend's home life.
"Zoey, has your new friend ever said anything about what her family is like?" She asks, thinking of the way Zoey's friend was always so careful to cover up her torso and shoulders.
Her daughter shakes her head. "I know Mrs. Kang from the flowershop is her mom. I dunno who her dad is though. She never talks about him."
Kyung-sun knew Mrs. Kang.
The woman was barely thirty, impossibly beautiful, and was effortlessly charming in a way that led Kyung-sun to leaving the shop with flowers that she hadn't intended on buying.
You're overstepping, she thinks. You should focus on your own marriage issues.
She still finds herself extending an invitation to Mrs. Kang for coffee.
Kyung-sun finds it hard to find a good headspace, beforehand. She can’t pretend at a blank slate, let herself decide to like this woman, maybe leave Rumi at risk. She also doesn’t want to start harassing someone—especially not someone who might be a perfectly fit parent, or who might be being abused herself.
They talk about the girls a little, at the start, but Kyung-sun honestly tells her, “I wanted to get to know you. I’m sure you spend enough time being just Rumi’s mother.”
It’s… not the reaction she expected, the way Mrs. Kang’s eyebrows—and she hasn’t offered her given name, Kyung-sun notices distantly, how odd—raise and her eyes narrow a little, and she sips at her drink, looking up through her eyelashes. Considering. Uncomfortable. The slightest undertone of something that she must be imagining, that must just be the way things have been at home lately.
“Well, then,” she says, “I can tell you all about the latest shipment of peonies, but I’m sure that a lawyer has some much more interesting stories—or is that all confidential?”
And then it’s been ten minutes and Kyung-sun is explaining the minutiae of different kinds of privileges, Mrs. Kang nodding along like the concept of pastor-congregant privilege is the most fascinating thing she’s heard all week.
“Tell me about the peonies,” she says, laughing at herself, somehow, “please. Or—or how you ended up in the flower business. Is that what Rumi’s father does?”
“Oh, no,” says Mrs. Kang, not adding anything else, instead waving away her ideas. “But those are both boring stories. Let me tell you about the year all our roses got a blight—right before Valentine’s.”
And so it goes. Kyung-sun presses a little, gently, and Mrs. Kang neatly sidesteps, reversing or putting the conversation back to her. Unfortunately for her, she’s dealt with more people who want to wriggle their way around the truth than the average honeybee has flowers.
Eventually, plainly, three weekends’ worth of coffees later, she asks: “Do you have a partner?”
“Why?” A smirk. One of those sideways looks. Are you in the market? “Are you trying to set me up?”
Kyung-sun refuses to get flustered. She meets her gaze firmly. “No. I want to know about you and Rumi.”
This isn’t the first time she’s gotten an odd pause and moment of consideration. This is, however, the first time she really sees what flashes underneath: fear, and the kind that’s ready to lash out.
And the smirk doesn’t return. This face, this quiet and challenging stare, might be the first truth Kyung-sun’s ever gotten out of her: “No. Not since we left Korea.”