Celine blew out a sigh of relief after opening the box and getting a look at what she’d gotten herself into. From the franticness of Bobby’s call— who had evidently received an equally frantic call from the girls —she had expected Byeoul the teddy bear to be shredded beyond recognition.
But no, she’d know that furry face anywhere as it stared up at her from the box; sans one eye.
“Hello Byeoul,” she murmured as she picked him up to get a better look. Besides the missing eye button and the numerous cuts across his body, he was also short a leg and undoubtedly a bit of stuffing.
“That demon bird really did a number on you, huh?” Celine stated, gently pulling the detached leg from the box and carrying her armful of fur over to her little work table and pulling out her sewing kit. After raising a child prone to climbing trees and crawling through bushes— and dragging toys like Byeoul along with her —Celine had quickly grown adept to using a needle to extend the life of clothes and stuffed animals alike. It’d been a while since she’d had any need to use it; the last time had been fixing the seam of one of Rumi’s favorite hoodie, right before the girls debuted.
“I think I might still have some stuffing left over form the last time I had you under the needle,” she chuckled as she dug through her supplies. She lifted a tray on one side of her kit to check the compartment underneath, letting out a quiet ‘aha’ as she found the stuffing she was looking for.
She replaced the tray, only to pause as her eye got caught on what was in it. The tray was full of embroidery floss, still as neatly bundled together as when a young Rumi had given them to her as a gift. Until now she had never had reason to use them— sewing was for fixing things, not something she did recreationally —but as she looked at the variety of colors, Celine felt the beginnings of an idea.
It’d take more than just plain stitches to really work, she mused as she eyed Byeoul’s ‘wounds’. It would be more like embroidery, I think. I’ve never done that before.
“Would she even like the idea?” Celine asked Byeoul, lifting him up by the shoulder, “Would you?”
Byeoul’s lone eye met hers silently before slowly falling forward in what could generously be considered a nod.
“Heh. Alright then,” Celine decided with a slow smile, “Worst case scenario, I just undo it later.”
Laying him back down on the table, Celine picked up a thing of floss— do these bundle-thingys have a name? she wondered —and got to work.
=/=/=
“Oh, Rumi~!” Bobby called as he strolled into HUNTR/X’s penthouse, “Guess what I got~”
Rumi’s head— along with Mira and Zoey’s, as Bobby expected —popped up from the couch with hopeful eyes, followed by a gasp as she clocked the box held in his hands.
“Byeoul?!”
At his nod, the trio leap up from the couch, swarming him as he placed the box onto the counter.
“Yup! Arrived downstairs just as I was walking in,” he explained, holding out a safety knife and stepping back once Rumi gingerly but eagerly took it.
It felt like the room itself was holding its breath as the singer carefully sliced through the tape; pulling the flaps back with a small smile as she saw Celine had gone the extra mile to further wrap the contents of the box with a trashbag as waterproofing. She’d even taped the top of the bag shut with another piece of tape; all to make sure her favorite teddy bear arrived home unscathed.
Poking a hole with the safety knife, Rumi tore it wider, grinning at the first sight of brown fur poking through-
Only to pause as she got a better look.
Gazing down to what she would bet to be Byeoul’s chest, Rumi was surprised to see a pale streak dancing across her bear’s fur. For a moment, she thought Celine had further protected the bear by adding torn bits of paper to the bag for cushioning; but no, this was something different.
Tearing the hole so wide it almost tore the bag completely in two, Rumi carefully pulled her teddy bear out of the box, eliciting gasps from everyone as the bear came fully into view.
Where before Byeoul had been a simple light brown teddy bear, he had since been transformed into something new. Something more. All across his body— far more than than the number of lacerations he’d left with —were embroidered lines that zigged and zagged in every direction. The core color was white, but a closer look revealed seemingly random lines of every color of the rainbow, giving a light impression of the lines- of the patterns changing colors.
The missing black button eye had been replaced one that shone in a metallic gold. The end of one arm now had little felt nubs that brought to one’s mind of claws.
And on his chest, where the biggest of the tears used to be, was a little heart, stitched back together.
What once was a normal teddy bear, now looked more like a demon. Looked more like-
“Rumi~” Zoey whined wetly through a quivering smile, “He looks like you!”
Rumi whined an agreement before she pulled Byeoul in for a warm hug, burying her face in his fur and breathing in his familiar scent.
She caught a whiff of Celine’s favorite flowers, and broke out sobbing; her girls and Bobby quickly following suite.
=/=/=
Celine sat back on her heels with a sigh as she felt her phone buzz in her back pocket. Pulling off a dirt smeared glove, she pulled the device out and swiped it open. Her notifications told her she had a text from Rumi; the message preview reading, [I love him! Thank you so much!] along with an image too small for her to see.
Clicking on it, Celine felt a warm smile grow on her face.
It was a picture of Rumi, her grin broad and bright and genuine in spite of the tear streaks on her face, Byeoul clutched in a hug right beneath her chin, his new be-clawed arm raised in a wave.
Kicking aside the voice in her head that hissed “you could have made her smile like that sooner had you done better”, Celine replied to the message with a rainbow heart, saved the message to her Rumi album, and slipped her phone back into her pocket, pleased at a job well done.
Dragging her gardening glove back on, she made a mental note to pick up some more sewing supplies the next time she left the estate.
Just in case any other plushies were in need of repair someday.
'and occasionally releasing covers or new songs online just to cause an uproar then disappear to retirement again.'
Celine covering 'your idol' to connect it away from Saja boys. Soda Pop isn't her style anymore.
I... yeah. Yeah. I mean yeah. That'd be amazing and horrible and one way to start erasing those guys.
Celine just casually taking over the studio since she does own it and co-opting people away since Huntr/x is on hiatus anyway. Everyone's used to Celine in boredom mode just stirring things up for her own amusement, so her stealing a recording studio, some artists, an entire damn film crew... well she pays them all anyway right?
Technically.
Huntr/x on like week 4 of hiatus when the internet blows the fuck up with a random drop of 'Your Idol' by Celine complete with full music video.
It certainly takes talk away from the Saja boys, and away from whatever... incident happened at the Idol Awards.
Things Celine does even if she hasn't really talked to them since everything went down, giving them space and now she's REALLY giving them space even from the media.
Even if giving them space came with 'sacrificing her dignity' in leather boots and a lace up vest with more eyeliner than she's worn since her 20s.
Even if giving them space came with 'sacrificing her dignity' in leather boots and a lace up vest with more eyeliner than she's worn since her 20s.
Rumi nearly throws her phone out the penthouse window the next day. Her entire social media is flooded with messages from people thirsting over her mom. Better than messages about her own new, patterned look, but......They're finally going to meet for lunch again next week, and Rumi knows she won't be able to look Celine in the eye.
A hush fell over the audience as Celine's robe slipped off her shoulders revealing, not the body of a fifty-something year old CEO who had once been in shape, but that of a hunter who had spent near a quarter century slaying demons and who had never allowed herself to stop training.
It was at this exact moment that Rumi realized that convincing Celine to enter into this charity match was perhaps, for the sake of her own media feed, a giant mistake.
MMA Celine. It's finally done 😭
(I can't tell you how long the ugly phase lasted for this one. The amount of times I started over on shading because it just was not working 💀)
The thing about the "all evil fictional women from myth and legend are misunderstood and in reality their story was retold to make them evil because men were afraid of their power" trend is that it's low-key also misogynistic to assume women are incapable of being terrible people purely due to being women.
In the 1989 Batman movie, the Joker’s big scheme is to draw out the citizens of Gotham to a parade he’s putting on under the pretense that he’s going to be giving out free money. …Despite his previously having publically notified those same people that he’d poisoned random domestic products, leading to the death of one newsreader right on air.
Now, in the movie it’s just kinda assumed that the Joker is giving out ACTUAL money, but in the comic adaptation of the film it turns out that the money he’s giving out is counterfeit, with his own face on it.
Aside from explaining where the Joker got the money from, it also calls back to a line he has in an earlier scene with Vikki Vale, where he mentions wanting his face on the one dollar bill.
The christian family in these memes (which are absolutely all over facebook these days) genuinely do always look miserable. Who the fuck is relating to these stock mormon farm cultists. That is a couple who made love only once in pitch darkness with bags on their heads then celebrated the pregnancy with a feast of uncooked potatoes and warm tapwater. The baby seems intrigued though. Maybe only by the bottle of pills??
The cute as fuck queer goth here looks like my kind of person <3
The god-bothering cattle on the other hand look like lobotomised braindead sheep
Which is what they are
It's also hilarious that this AI dogshit still has the baby smiling at the goth in a way that seems to scream "Oh so that's what a PERSON looks like" given that all its had to see for its short life so far is the fucking androids that gave birth to it
It also really says it all that the worst thing that right wingers can think of "accusing" left wingers of is caring about LGBTQ rights and having a bag that says "Be kind"
And...owning cats?
The horror
Meanwhile that Christian couple would 100% sell their baby to Ghislaine Maxwell just for tickets to Mar-A-Lago
And friends who wont betray and abandon you because they like someone else who hates you... or because you were making some mistake that they held a secret grudge over instead of communicating....
it's actually so amazing she helped save the lives of the honorable men who did not wish to fight, while killing the most vile men, that is so fucking based
The heat’s been brutal this summer but we still gotta eat! If you’re like me, heat might suppress your appetite, and the last thing any of us want is to sweat over a hot stove and oven when it’s already boiling outside. Here are some of my favorite hot-weather recipes to keep hydrated and fed with when the weather is unbearable! (All recipes should be un-paywalled).
NYT’s best gazpacho (lives up to its name!!)
Persian cold cucumber soup (if you like tzatziki you will like this!)
Eric Kim’s cold noodles with tomato (infinitely riffable Korean flavor profile — for a creamier and less brothy take, try these cold sesame noodles too)
Vietnamese chicken and herb salad (this is an excellent time to get a rotisserie chicken so you don’t have to turn the oven on)
Radish sandwiches with butter and salt (and in a similar vein, if you dig this flavor combo you should try this Polish cottage cheese dip on some good rye bread or even crackers)
It’s still a little early in the season, but you can never go wrong with a BLT (or, if you don’t eat bacon, try this tomato furikake sandwich in its place)
Infinite iterations of pasta salad! You can use anything you got but here is a template I like.
Assorted dense bean salads. This back pocket canned salad is a weird combo of jarred ingredients but it slaps, this hoagie-inspired one is super satisfying, and cowboy caviar is a classic for a reason.
Poke bowls! Canned tuna mixed with some kewpie mayo and sriracha is a budget-friendly riff on the usual ahi and makes everything taste like a spicy tuna roll, but use whatever proteins you like, this is more of a loose template.
Please feel free to add some of your own favorite summer recipes in the replies and comments! We’ll get through this together. 🤝🤝🤝
If you can buy pre cooked or canned beets at the store, chłodnik (beet yogurt soup) is a great choice. You can leave out the radishes if you can’t get them.
I also love sardines on fresh bread and butter with assorted vegetables. Buy the fanciest canned sardines you can afford but even regular ones are pretty good. Plus, very healthy!
This has been sitting on my drafts completely done for a few days because i couldn’t figure out what to do for a background. At the end the empty space w some outline thing and a frame i found was what did it.
Thats not important what’s important is Pyke’s hair. Look at it, im so proud.
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