Shipper of a thousand ships. And an aspiring writer who can't stay focused for long enough to actually write anything XD My icon is a drawing by @darantha, and the banner was made by @shugyos, so thanks guys :))))
my friend just told me that there's a secret second dashboard that solely contains posts from people you've turned on post notifications for, and when i click the link in the messages it opens it within the tumblr app, so the tumblr app also has a secret second dashboard for post notification blogs, and the only way to access it is to open the link for it within the app.
id love to see an adaptation of the iliad — or for that matter odyssey — that manages to convey the gods as they are in the book; literally picking up men and moving them around, taking sides and changing shapes and treating the greeks and trojans like literal game pieces. achilles is about to kill aeneas? well, poseidon objects and goes to hera and athena for their opinions, but hera has sworn not to help a single trojan ever, but says he can do what he wants. so he shrouds aeneas in mist and brings him to the edge of the battle, leaving achilles deeply confused; this all happens in the space of a half second. hector throws a spear? athena blows gently and it misses. apollo turns into one guy and then another to goad his favorites into attacking; hera seduces zeus to stop him paying attention so her team can meddle; achilles goes on a hunger strike so athena slips down on zeus’s command and fills him with food without achilles knowing.
like the gods are the most interesting part, because it’s just so. they’re so meddling. they’re invisible. they take other forms. but they’re constantly in ears, pulling hair, knocking weapons aside or filling the heroes with rage or energy or food. there’s no overarching goal: zeus decides to let the trojans win for a while, but knows achilles will triumph. apollo isn’t trying to save troy, just his special favorites. aphrodite gets scolded for playing at war. they’re literally playing with toys, picking sides and random people to protect, with no overarching goal besides maybe fate. i have no idea how you’d adapt the story from this perspective but i would love so badly to see it
me, whispering to the ao3 page of an author who wrote one life altering banger and nothing else: I hope your pillow is cool and your skin is clear and you find money in a forgotten jeans pocket
i don’t hate series finales because it’s the ending of a show.. i hate them because somehow writers find a way to fuck up the whole show in just one episode
Okay, this made me pause and literally write out every letter that 'fell' in order (‘oomngouuhhrsrtutpntnue’), then make sure they were all contained in 'turntomushuponthergroun'.
Slight correction to a lot of the comments--it's not "Baking guy plays piano too," it's "Piano guy bakes too"
Inspired by the entertainers of Bermuda’s “golden age”, composer and pianist Dylan Hollis is hard at work on what he does best — creating mu
I was trying to track down a non-soundcloud version of Chords of Humanity, the song he wrote that when he was 17 was used by Doctors Without Borders, and instead found that it was used in a Fallout New Vegas mod that he may also have made at 17?
A Large Expansive Quest Mod has the courier travelling across Post-Apocalyptic America. To reunite the Rockwell People with their Superstruc
which is a sequel to another mod that's also credited to a Dylan Hollis, which I'm not necessarily assuming is him. Could have been a different Dylan Hollis who happened to have found the song by searching his name--oh, wait, there's a video of game play (with the song as background), and there's a tiny bit of voice acting...yeah, that's him.
Zoey: Today, we are proving our manager wrong that we are unhealthily codependent by sharing some of our favorite games we play by ourselves.
Mira: Pay attention, Bobby.
Zoey: Mira was going to be first, but her single-player queue was empty.
Mira: Which proves nothing, Bobby.
Zoey: So we went to Rumi! What are we playing, Rumi?
Rumi: My go-to cozy wind-down-after-a-stressful-day game: A Little to the Left!
Zoey: Aww...there's a kitty on the icon!
Mira: Cute.
Zoey: So, what do you do?
Rumi: Well, you have these things- and they're all over the place in a mess, right?
Mira: Hey, who gave them a pic of Zoey's desk drawer?
Zoey: MIRA!!! Not fair!
Mira: Hmm, you're right; this is neater.
Zoey: GASP!!!
Rumi: Anyway, you have this mess and...you clean it up! :D
Zoey:...
Mira:...
Mira: wut.
Rumi: You organize everything into their own perfect little place!
Mira:...It's chores. Your game is chores.
Rumi: No it's not! It's a puzzle game!
Mira: About chores.
Zoey: I mean, I guess I can kinda see the appeal...
[victory sound as Rumi finishes a level]
Zoey: Wait. Why is only one of those achievement stars filled in?
Rumi: Because now you can go back and organize them a different way! :D
Mira: I dare you to find someone else who actually likes this game.
LATER:
Interviewer: So, Celine-nim, your joint gaming streams with Huntrix have been quite popular and you've hinted that you enjoy gaming on your own. What's been in your queue lately?
Celine: Well, my daughter introduced me to a very relaxing puzzle game that's proven quite enjoyable...
Mira yearns for the day when Celine will model for her so she finally has an excuse to update her momentors wardrobe 😆.
[Oops. The response was not supposed to be this long 💀]
Ever since Mira had seen some of Celine's old photoshoots -- hidden in a dust-covered box, pushed to the very back of the attic like a bad memory to be forgotten -- she had longed to get her old teacher to agree to another photoshoot.
Of course Mira had always known that Celine was pretty.
But being pretty was the baseline for an idol.
A prerequisite.
Celine, especially as she'd gotten older and gotten more control over her own image, had cultivated a languid, effortless sort of beauty. The kind reserved for panthers drapped atop branches and eagles soaring on thermals and grandmasters taking up their swords.
It was the kind of beauty that didn't need outfits or accessories, necessarily.
But goddamn did Mira wish she could take a blowtorch to Celine's entire closet of gray on gray on gray.
("What's wrong with how Celine dresses?" Rumi asks, sometime after the Idol Awards, as they watch Celine make a public statement about the state of Huntr/x and the incident at Namsan Tower.
Celine was dressed how she always dressed for these things -- neat button-up, black dress pants, brown penny loafers, and a black blazer.
There was nothing wrong with it per se.
Just...
"Her entire wardrobe is that and all those gray monstrosities back on Jeju," Mira says. "It's like she's allergic to primary colors."
"That's not true," Rumi says. "She's got that blue--"
"Dark navy isn't blue."
"It literally is, Mira, look it up," Rumi huffs. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with finding an outfit you like."
Rumi was wearing her third off-white hoodie of the week.
"You'd know," Mira says, dryly.
Rumi tosses a chip at Mira's hair.)
Weeks later, Mira catches Celine at the end of company meeting.
With Huntr/x now officially on hiatus -- and with Rumi busy filming a drama for the next three months, their hiatus might actually last as long as they promised it would -- their label looking to debut a new group during the lull.
Which meant meetings upon meetings.
Which meant Celine was spending an inordinate amount of time in Seoul and in suits.
Suits which, to Mira's eye, looked identical to each other.
If she broke into Celine apartment in Seoul, Mira was sure she'd find rows upon rows of identical black blazers and identical black dress pants and button-ups that differed only in color.
"Celine, do you have a minute?"
Celine pauses, waves away the suit she's speaking to, and steps towards Mira.
"Of course," she says. "Is everything alright? I didn't expect to see you in the office so soon."
"I'm using my freebie," Mira says, once they were alone in the hallway.
Tilting her head, Celine arches an eyebrow.
"A... freebie?" She says it as if she's never heard of the concept.
"You know, my one no-questions-asked request that you go along with because you feel guilty about how you raised us?" Mira says, leaning against the wall. "I've been saving mine and now I'm cashing it in."
Celine looks even more confused.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Mira," Celine says.
"You know, when Rumi wanted to cut her hair and you okayed it?"
"That was a decision Rumi made herself," Celine says, stiffly. "I had no say in it."
"Bullshit."
Mira ignores the quiet, almost instinctive, "language" that Celine mutters.
"She went to talk to you before she cut her hair," Mira continues. "You could have stopped her if you'd said something."
Celine chuckles quietly and shakes her head.
"You greatly overestimate the importance of my approval to Rumi," Celine says. "She would have cut her hair either way. It was... important to her."
"So's your opinion of her."
She watches Celine blink rapidly. Her jaw tensing and untensing as she glances away at some far off ceiling panel. She thinks she imagines the sudden wetness coating Celine's eyes.
"You were trying to guilt trip me into agreeing with something?" Celine asks, bruskly.
Kang women and their emotional constipation, Mira thinks as she says, "I want you to model for me."
The silence that greets her is long.
"Mira..."
"Just one photoshoot," Mira says. "It'll take like one afternoon, I already have the outfits."
Celine is shaking her head.
"This is for the fashion line you've been working on?" She asks.
Mira nods.
"You don't want an old, retired idol affecting the debut," Celine says. "I'm sure there's plenty of younger models who would love to get the chance to --"
"I want to honor my teacher, who has been raising me since I was fourteen," Mira says, scuffing her sole against the floor. This time, she's the one looking away. "Just say you'll do it, Celine?"
Celine sighs. Massages her temple.
"...okay. Just don't make me look silly? I've seen the getups you young people wear these days."
started listing out who wants to talk to who when they reunite and it's like. Murray, Occtis, and Bolaire all have some takers. Presumably Hal and Thaisha will want to talk to each other. Thimble's dance card is CHOCK FULL she will NOT be getting a break.
Chef Celine AU - Part 2 (Soy Sauce Mushroom Skewers)
Previous Chapters: (You can read!)
Part 1
So life happened, but I’m back with part 2! Tagging @dj-yukio for soy sauce mushroom skewers chapter. =D
TLDR: Celine slips on soap and is Isekai'd into a video game.
Notes: I'm still debating whether to post it on Ao3, so for now, I'll be just tinkering around with format. For HUNTR/X POV chapters, in-game Celine narration and dialogue are indented!
Synopsis:
Post Idol Awards, an ex-demon hunter 'dies,' and is isekai'd into a fantasy world that needs her power to defeat the Primal Demon King. Unfortunately for the Kingdom of Florana, Celine is so done with demon hunting (and singing) that she rejects the call to pursue her lifelong passion: cooking!
To recap: (Tw: Assisted suicide)
Rumi’s angry text caused Celine to slip on soap and fall into a coma. Rumi blames herself and realizes asking Celine to kill her to protect the old Honmoon has consequences. Back at the tower, the new Honmoon and the Maker (aka God) starts messing with the Switch2...
Part 2:
Moving a comatose patient to Seoul was out of the question.
Rumi had insisted that she would stay in Jeju to care for Celine, but Mira and Zoey took it as their leader punishing herself. If Zoey hadn't point out Rumi's teleporting abilities, their leader might as well chain herself to the hospital room.
The hospital staff and Celine’s lawyers also brought up questions regarding long term care too. One doctor had the gall to ask if Celine ends up brain dead, would Rumi pull the plug. (Celine never specify DNR parameters.) If Mira and Zoey weren’t present to hold Rumi back, she might have let her sword do the talking.
However, HUNTR/X's mired problems were far from over. Sunlight Entertainment ordered the trio to return to Seoul and address their laundry list of problems: the Idol Awards, Namsan Tower's impromptu performance bill, and Celine's supposed boar attack/slip on soap accident.
It took time.
HUNTR/X, along with Celine’s emergency team, had to placate the board and investors.
Eventually, all things came to pass and they're back at the tower.
The elevator dings and the girls trudge their way to the couch while Rumi trails behind. They’re all exhausted from the eigth board meeting this week. While Celine's team helped managed most of fires, Rumi still can't help but blame herself for the mess.
Guilt piles up on Rumi's shoulders. "I'm sorry, guys," says Rumi, "This is my fault. If I didn't sent that text, we wouldn't be here."
Already half-buried in cushions, Mira raises her hand as if trying to get her point across, "It's not your fault Rumi. You can't blame yourself on someone careless enough to slip on soap." She slowly gets up from the cushion pile, half-worry and caring. "No point in dwelling on it."
It's nice to hear it from Mira, but not enough to ease her ache.
Zoey asks, "So what's for dinner?"
Downcast, the girls haven’t even thought of dinner. Their large apartment feels emptier just from thinking of one thing: adult life sucks.
But their pity party is interrupted by the game menu screen loading on the living room projector, and the overflowing game music from their speakers catche's the girls' attention.
Puzzle, Rumi glances over to Zoey, "Uh, Zoey, did you leave the game running while we're away?" She sees the Honmoon threads weaving in and out of the Switch 2 dock. Huh, she thinks, that's weird.
"No?" Zoey is unsure herself. Squinting her eyes she see the game's title crossed out. "What the—hell?!"
Before them, the game's menu title went from:
Echoes of Light: Rebirth
to,
I Got Tired of Demon Hunting, so I Asked God to Maxed Out My Level to Avoid the Profession and Focus on Making Haute Cuisine
The girls don't know what's worse: the ridiculous longass title or that the new Honmoon is warbling in and out of the Switch.
Zoey is the first to grab the controller and presses the start menu. A young Celine (around the same age as Zoey) appears on screen in a chef's outfit. TurtsAreCool player is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it's Kwon Celine as the player name on the menu.
The girls blink, and collectively shout out, “Celine?!”
Zoey grumbles, "Okay, who the hell gamejacked my character?! I've spent weeks grinding my rogue talents for the final boss battle, and now the Honmoon is wreaking havoc?”
She tries moving the 'Kwon Celine' character, but the character has a mind of its own. In 4K hyperrealist graphics, ‘Celine’ is picking basil leaves and stuffing them in her bag. It’s surreal to see a young Celine in-game jogging and making grunt noises.
That can't be her, the girls think.
“Urgh, why can't I move her?” Zoey thumbing the joystick to no avail. "The Honmoon can't do this right?"
The girls sense no weak spots, and Rumi is trying to get a feel of the Honmoon too. The threads, stronger than the old, make weird noises, but nothing malicious or weakness coming from the harmonic threads.
Rumi reaches out for the threads; sure enough, all of the Rainbow Honmoon's threads lead up to the Switch intertwining in and out of the console.
The game morphs from a hyper realistic greenfields to an animated world with graphics similar to a bleak Isekai anime.
Not only that, a manhwa drawing of Celine appears whenever the dialogue box pops out.
Celine: *sighs* (I guess this is better than slipping on soap.)
Although her voice is not as deep, the game's voice is Celine. Heck, her animated self looks like Celine, the way she walks is like Celine, and the ‘mom is disappointed in you look’ on her animated face is just like Celine’s.
Collectively they agree: It’s Celine.
It’s strange to see their mentor a cartoon character walking—into a field of level 100 monsters.
Zoey loses her shit.
“Oh my god no…. Celine get out of there! Those are end game monsters!”
“What!” Rumi swipes the controller from Zoey's hands. “How do you use this again?”
Celine: (Hmm, I should collect oyster mushrooms. Rumi-ya really liked mushrooms with her veggies. Maybe I should make that for dinner?)
The girls shout out, “No!!! For the love of Honmoon save yourself and then mushrooms!"
Rumi is already panicking, looking to Zoey, “How do you even move!! They’re not intuitive for long fingers!”
Celine, irritated, waves her hand and the demons get KO’D. Slashed by a thousand blades before explosion. It’s just like her former life: demons would poof from her twin blades, but now it's threads (similar to the Honmoon) that slashes the creatures into bits before the demons disintergrate. Satisfied, Celine plucks a few mushrooms and tucks them into her bag. From Celine’s POV, it seems like a boring technic explosion.
On HUNTR/X’s oversized projector it’s a cinematic galore with Celine nonchalant aura farming—in a chef’s outfit.
Writer's poor attempt at drawing/photoshop.
Baffled, the girls question, How?
Zoey snags the controller from Rumi’s hands, and opens the menu wheel to check Celine’s stats.
And thats when their jaws drop on the floor:
Celine's stats.
All maxed out.
Apparently there isn’t a need to worry about their mentor. As expected, Miss-Your-Faults-Must-Never-Be-Seen has a perfect stat record that the girls were worrying over nothing.
S-tier in demon slaying.
S-tier in cooking.
S-tier in forestry,
but,
C-tier in family/relationships?
Rumi’s face is red. “What kind of grading scale is this?!”
Mira tries her best to not laugh, “I mean it’s not wrong. When one of you speak, the other is just a wall.”
Zoey maneuvers the menu wheel before explaining to Rumi, “In the original game you can date/marry NPCs for bonus stats. Like marrying a tankard would give defense stats or the empress for charisma—"
A eureka moment hits Zoey.
Zoey exclaims, “Oh my gosh, of course! That makes total sense!”
Rumi shakes Zoey’s shoulders, "What?! What makes sense?!"
Zoey points to the stats on screen. “Her stats are all maxed out which means Celine doesn’t need marriage or relationship bonus points! That’s why her romance/family is at a C tier.” Zoey seems proud to make the connection and even jokes, “I mean, why need it when you’ve accomplished it on your own, am I right?”
Rumi doesn't take it well.
Zoey backtracks, “Oh-OH! Um not like that.” Her hand rests on Rumi’s shoulder. “Rumi, this is just a game, we don’t even know if that Celine is ours.”
Another sigh from Celine interrupts them that Zoey turns to the screen.
Celine: Why is this world so bleak? It reminds me of that one game Zoey used to play. What was it? Cursed Souls?
Zoey, pissed off, “It’s called Dark Souls, teacher!”
Celine: It should be brighter.
At this point Zoey is pulling her hair out, “The game is like Shadow of Colossus meets Three-Hou—you know what never mind!”
By Celine’s simple words, the open world game transforms from bleak world into the many generic 4K cooking light novel with RPG elements.
Celine: Better.
HUNTR/X, dumbfounded and thinking, she can change the terrain?
And so they watch Celine plucking mushrooms, plops the ingredients what seems to be her magic bag, and see their animated mentor ignoring the demons who were running away from Celine.
Apparently, the Dokkaebi-like monsters got the memo.
On her trek, two other warriors, a blond mage and a lady knight appear on screen of what seems to be a battlefield. Or what’s left of a battlefield. Celine’s decimation had the npcs around her frazzled.
The mage and knight are surprised to see Celine, thanking her.
Celine: (A connection, wait no warmth? I haven't felt that in a while. I guess reincarnation takes depression away.)
The girls are facepalming, That’s not how depression works, but they soon see their mentor's pathetic expression as she meanders around, looking small in front of the two distinct npcs.
Curiosity gets the best of their mentor and she stands at the edge of the screen, flustered.
"Wait, teacher," Zoey catches it. "Are you shy?"
Celine: Um, sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.
She clutches her magic bag. Celine's eyes were dead set on the blond mage. There is a gentleness around stranger and her knight companion. Celine's pupils dilate and her heart races. It's been a long time since she felt something.
Mage: *smiles* No, I should be thanking you! You saved us! You’re not from here are you?
Celine: *blushes* Y-you are correct. My name is Celine.
"Hold it! That was that a blush!" Mira points to the screen as if Celine scored a homerun. "Her cheeks are red!"
"What, no! Celine rarely blushes!" Rumi fights back, not admitting Celine is visibly tong-tied and stuttering like the time she lost the seafood cooking competition. "You guys are reading too much! She can't be ga-"
Celine: (She’s beautiful…)
Zoey and Mira are gleeful. They turn to their leader with the 'admit it' look, and Rumi concedes, "Ok, I was wrong."
Her bandmates take it as a win, high-fiving each other.
They never seen Celine like this. The stoic teacher was like an average lady crushing hard on another lady.
Sure Rumi never knew much of Celine's former idol life (despite the band's illustrous discography and variety appearances) or that her guardian was into women. It's as if Life is throwing her sucker punches, and Rumi can't even catch a break. The next punch thrown at her face is an animated blond woman who is making eye-contact on her mom Celine.
Liliana: I’m Liliana, and my companion here is Fleur. We’re part of the Florana empire. Where do you hail from?
Celine: *face is red* oh um, Korea—wait, erm um Jeju. *still fumbling*(Goodness, this is embarrassing. I guess being young again means having those youthful feelings. She and the lady knight are professionals. How can you not string a complete sentence together! Breathe Celine! You held board meetings and finess through suitors! You can't be this pathetic!)
Huntr/x: …. (Is she addressing herself in 3rd?)
Fleur: *laughs* Someone's tongue tied. How about we take a moment to rest?
Celine: *stammers* I-I can cook!
Fleur: We can tell. *gestures to the obvious Celine's outfit*
4K sizzling sounds from the game catches the girls attention, and they see Celine is grilling mushroom skewers for her new NPC friends. Like anime food, it's a crime to see simple mushrooms look too delectable that they can taste the sweet soy sauce flavor. Even Rumi's growling stomach agrees.
Mira chuckles.
"We can make it later," Mira says to Rumi. "I still have her recipe."
During training days, whenever the girls ran out of food and Celine was away, their mentor would always have mushrooms and kimchi in stock. Mira would marinate them with soysauce, honey, and sugar, (like Celine would) and stir fry them on a pan. A quick dinner before they would head back to training. Sure it's not the same as Celine's version, but Mira is the closest of the three to mirror Celine's cooking.
Liliana: *sniffs and eyes sparkle* Oh my, this fragrance!
Celine: Soy sauce. *pulls a bottle from her bag.* My home blend. I used it, along with honey and sugar to marinate the mushrooms.
Her magic bag flickered blue. Who would have thought this magic bag can bring ingredients from her world?
Liliana and Fleur are practically drooling over the skewers, ignoring this foreign condiment. Their puppy eyes, watching Celine skewering a few more mushrooms and grilling them on a campfire. Celine offers them a stick of skewer mushrooms, and they happily accept.
A bite sends both of them to heaven. Their faces in pure bliss, tears streaming down to their chins.
Celine: *worry* I probably added too much soy sauce--
Liliana drops everything and clasps Celine's hands. Like a true shoujai ai moment, everything is rosy with the two of them are alone on screen.
(Or the Honmoon is bias.)
Liliana: THESE ARE THE BEST MUSHROOMS EVER! YOU NEED TO JOIN OUR PARTY!
Celine gulps, nodding and accepting her racing heart.
Another pop up appears:
Liliana and Fleur join your party!
Rumi and Mira nervously look over to Zoey who’s already fuming.
“THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS!” Zoey raises her controller. “NPCS CAN'T JOIN LIKE THAT! LILIANA AND FLEUR REQUIRE HIGH LEVEL BOND POINTS FOR A TRIGGER! GAH!”
"Who would have thought soy sauce mushrooms make you a chick magnet," Mira jokes.
Zoey doesn’t bother to comment. Rumi glares at Mira.
***
At this point, game logic is thrown out the window. Zoey has given up on lecturing Celine's poor choices in the game, while the girls is drooling over mushroom skewers and a basil salad that their mentor whipped up.
All while this is happening, Rumi has never seen Celine this laid back. Instead of the strict guardian who rarely spoke no more than a sentence, the Celine on screen has a goofy smile, her shoulders laxed, and genuinely blushing in front of whoever this annoying blond mage is. The npcs and Celine crowd around the fire and Liliana was too close to mom her.
The conversations direct to the subject of demons, and the in game ones wreaking havoc.
Liliana: Lately, demon attacks have been populating in towns and villages. For as long as we can remember, they’ve always plagued our homes, but a new breed of demons are more ruthless than their predecessors.
Celine: That’s troubling… (honestly the demons look similar from my world. Do Dokkaebi exists here? This world seems more western than Korea...)
Fleur: We’ve been traveling all over the regions to help out. *looks to Liliana and then to Celine* Her majesty has asked for volunteers to fight them off. The empire is willing to bring neighboring adventures, awarding them a good sum if we push them back to the borders. Liliana and I accepted the call, after all, Florana is our home.
Liliana: You’d accept if your home was in danger, right?
Celine: Accept the call…
She recalled her conversation with the Maker spouting, “You’re destined for greatness!”
How the God of the Universe was so much like her mentor clamoring her to lead the group. She believed in it, the call, their duty to protect people from demons, but in all of it, she failed them. Celine added a few more skewers on the grill.
Celine: In my younger years, I’d join in a heartbeat… Now, not so much.
Thinking back, her days as a Sunlight were a few years of bliss. Maybe there were good times as a hunter. The fans, Miyeong and Poppy, and the costars she'd met who would eventually join and build HUNTR/X together.
But good things never last long.
Miyeong and Poppy are dead. Rumi and the girls have their lives; why would they bother to come back? They never bothered to text during the Idol Awards, much less after what happened at Namsan tower. Strange that bits of that awful night is still foggy in her mind. Maybe it's for the best.
Guilt swarms the girls again.
Liliana: *surprised and looks hard at Celine before looking away. It’s strange, coming from you.
Celine: How so?
Liliana: *quickly smiles* You seem like the type to do things by the book. Killing demons without hesitation. I mean from presence alone!
Celine: You’re too kind. *pauses* I used to believe in it, a cause that demanded hope in lyrics, but from experience, beliefs and hopes are just blinding as our faults.
Celine sulks. Her companions take note.
Celine: Slaying demons... duty...It took someone to show me how wrong I was. Sure I accepted my roles, but it came at the expense of losing people close to me. A selfish choice, really.
A narration box appears.
She was foolish and pathetic to not see a daughter hurting. Let her grief and sacrifices hurt the one person she swore to protect. Pushing a daughter to be a hunter...I shouldn’t even be here eating skewers with new people. What of Rumi? And the girls? I know Bobby will take care of them. I guess that's the only correct choice I made in my former life. The rest are failures, haphazard decisions and regrets; perhaps this is punishment from the gods above: a reminder of my mistakes. Remembering your past life in your new one is never a good omen.
The Maker said they all lived their full lives so I shouldn’t worry. Yet the worrying never leaves. Even if this is supposedly my second life…
Celine offers the remaining skewers to Liliana and Fleur, and they’re shocked by Celine’s words.
Rumi is left speechless. Is this what Celine really thinks? Not only that, Celine thinks she's dead? Rumi's expression is the same as Liliana on screen who also seems hurt.
Celine notices that she ruined it again.
Celine: *guilty* Sorry for souring the mood. I didn’t mean to, um, ruin dinner. I’ll try to keep mindful. (Seems like everything I touch ends up worse.)
Liliana: What? No! I’d wish you told us sooner! We didn’t know that it was hurtful, talking about the demons!
Huh? Hurtful?
Fleur: *nods in agreement to Liliana* We battle demons on behalf of her majesty, but even we understand the mental toll of war on our people. Cec—I mean Miss Chef, please accept our apologies.
Apologies? Celine blinks, flustered that her two acquaintances are apologetic. It’s been so long that she could talk freely, but with these two strangers, maybe she can.
Not long before their conversation, a new alert appears on the menu taskbar. Zoey opens the menu wheel, and a book icon pops up on the wheel. The screen darkens and only the Honmoon threads and the highlighted book is the focus.
“Huh. It’s like tutorial all over again,” says Zoey.
Zoey taps 'A' and the book icon makes the cheesy sparkle sound. A book pops ups and opens, showing a spread of black rectangles organized in a grid and a giant question mark on each of them. At the very top of the screen titles:
CORE MEMORY
"Is this supposed to be in the game?" Rumi asks.
"If you're asking if Rebirth has core memories, then no." Zoey shakes her head, "The game does have cutscenes similar to Three Houses. Each route or 'relationship' you choose unlocks different cinematics. So for example, if you fall for the Empress of Florana, you'll have cutscens of the player fighting on behalf of the humans. Or you can pick the Demon Queen and burn the Empire for the sake of love. OR!" Zoey's smug smile can't contain her nerdiness, "You can two time and trigger a love triangle between the player and the two sovereigns."
Zoey is giddy just thinking of it. "The angst potential between the two rulers and the player is peak!"
"You would," Mira frowns. She kid elbows Zoey. "Does this means teacher is going to two-time?"
"Ew, no!" Rumi recoils just from thinking Celine (her mom) dating. "Celine doesn't date!"
"But we date too, Rumi!" Mira protests.
The scrollbar on the left shrinks as more of these black boxes populate, until the first black box unfades, showing an image of a young Miyeong and the play icon.
The image of her birth mother takes Rumi off guard.
Sure, Rumi has seen her mother on giant billboards or in documentaries. Celine would not talk much of Miyeong; always cagey whenever Rumi asked why her mom had to leave too soon.
But this image of Miyeong, smiling and holding someone's hand, differs from the sweet heart idol she knew on MVs.
The girls look at each other. Clearly the game has a mind of its own.
“Okay, interesting…” Zoey drifts down, seeing some boxes are greyed out at the bottom. The last three boxes are locked.
"You don't think these are Celine's memories?" Mira asks. Frowning and arms crossed, she says, "Isn't that a little too personal? We're looking at someone's life."
"After everything we've seen so far, and the Honmoon acting weird, I don't know what to believe." Rumi signals Zoey to tap play. "We have to figure it out."
Zoey’s nods and press play.
We'll just try to make better mistakes tomorrow @artyshort - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
