now i feel

i'll be your friend but i can't stand you right now. multi. literate. nsfw.

[monchewie-blog]

always be willing to throw away work you’ve done, things you’ve bought, dreams you’ve dreamed when they no longer serve you. 

strong opinions, loosely held. 

you should give up all the time, but you should never quit. 

no matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong path, turn back. 

always operate free from the ideas you held and the decisions you made yesterday. never be afraid to change directions.

[monchewie-blog]

she ambled through the narrow lane between several fleets of bungalows and chalets on either side cemented with an uneven stretch of glossy, varnished cobblestones. she was visiting an old friend after what felt like an eternity, or what must have been, in an arranged meeting; a sort of rendezvous where they used to frequent when times were much simpler, and when she didn't have to make it a point to keep a low profile and operate within the shadows.

still the vicinity seemed untouched by the usual terror and macabre. it must have been the incense of each of the houses that drew the beasts off. the white stucco bungalows on her sides were tinted with peeling lemon colored paint at the corners. several blotches and stains of brown colored sludge were splattered over the walls.

the area was deserted, as much as any other. the streets at least. most of the townsfolk were wise enough to keep away from the night of the hunt, as safely as they could within their homes. after walking a few more yards she saw a cluster of tall, thick trees which streams of the blood moon's light piercing through the spaces between its dark leaves, and behind them stood the great chapel glistening in the moonlight, making it impossible to look directly at.

once there, murim realized she couldn't just do what she's supposed to and then leave. it was a gamble with sanity.

the familiar smell of the hunter lingered in the air so that when she crossed the threshold it was like a shot of adrenaline right to her heart. silence crashed down around her. even the fall leaves had ceased their scudding along the concrete path, from the gushing of the wind as the doors opened. then she stepped out from behind altar in her crowfeather garb, manchettes, trousers, and her beak mask that was unmissable.

she approached in the most civil of manners, but anyone could tell she was prepared, warped swords concealed within the palms of her hands. she smiled. she stepped nearer, the scent then so heady it was almost poison. murim wanted to hold her breath but that was not going to be quick. encounters with her never were.

"i'm here now, just as you asked. happy?"

"ecstatic." murim replied, expression unchanged.

[monchewie-blog]

nayoung: babe you can’t do this every time i come home.

mingyu, laying on rose-strewn bedsheets, illuminated by her favorite scented candles, champagne in hand while the bathwater runs: but i love you.

[monchewie-blog]

vousmvoyz:

long time no see.

( @monchewie – gunhee )

TIME: 8:30

It was her standard time out — her time-out.

Meanwhile, most of MBC’s employees have already stepped away from their stations before 7:00PM as courtesy and merely just out of respect for the work place. However, Soojung has obviously gone past the tolerance. She’s aware how much she’s enslaved herself to her work already and she wasn’t the only one who knew of this since she’s formed friendships with the cleaning personnel and security guards in the building.

“I’m going home tonight. I’ll see you whenever? …….Okay, bye.”

After the brief phone conversation with her roommate, Soojung finally arrived beside her car and dropped her iPhone X into her hard-earned Chanel tote. She was about to reach for the remote of her car when she felt a presence behind her.

Suddenly. everything and nothing zipped past her. But a word from her didn’t even stand a chance when she made the first mistake of turning around to acknowledge the unknown fellow. Soojung was first greeted by a tall male holding a white handkerchief. The garment looked so immaculate, but little did she know that it held harmless poison that took her to unconsciousness in a matter of seconds.

— TIME: unknown.

She smelled leather. She took another whiff and her brows furrowed when she caught another aroma that she couldn’t put her finger on just yet. The strain in her neck was the next sensation that drew her attention, making her realize now that she had fallen asleep in one of the most uncomfortable ways.

For how many hours now? she wondered, feeling drained of energy.

The muscles in her shoulders felt sore and her wrists have grown numb. She tried to move her arms but saw that she was bounded too tight with high quality pull-tight plastic seals when she opened her eyes. Her vision was still hazy, but like murky water, a movement made the picture clear.

Soojung brought herself to sit up straight and blinked quickly until she was sure of who she was looking at. A tall man stood before her. He looked broader now with sharp, masculine features. Then she couldn’t help but think about the last time she met him. A couple of years ago, he was just a boy that time, astute with kind eyes, and despite his aversion for smiles, he surprisingly became Soojung’s source of comfort.

Yet with the way he’s looking at her right now, she could barely recognize the look in Song Gunhee’s eyes. This wasn’t the up and coming philanthropist she’s seen in the television screens anymore.

that night was for their ghosts. not about a poltergeist or a phantom that glows at night. it's about things people try to make sense of, things that no one can explain other than the simple concept of habits.

it's difficult to grow out of habits.

knives, saws, cleavers, shears. all of them gleamed under the ray of light through the window that reflected off the hanging plastic. they were so perfect and precise. it was almost a shame to dirty them but there was mild joy in that as well; the clash of colors. out of all the phases he’s gone through, the sight of his tools, his art, and glory he gets to fulfill from his deeds was something he couldn’t get bored of.

everything was ready. photographs covered an entire wall of the rv. photographs of victims, all unknown. photographs of suspects, all wrong. a complete list would likely fully plaster a warehouse. among those were stolen photographs of jung soojung, the subject of his late night thoughts. those same ones that plague him for the rest of his days. it was absurd how much power one person can hold and the walking genocide's naivety to human emotions made him susceptible to something he couldn’t fathom as easily as any other mystery he was able to solve or formulate.

all the imagery was to intimidate her. though he was sure it wouldn't do much, it was worth the shot.

his head slowly turned in a fluid swivel when he had heard her wake up, eyes focused straight ahead with a bare glow. the rest of his face was obscured by the darkness, as much as it could. but he had thought beforehand that once he starts to speak, he could easily be recognized. the pair had spent years knowing each other and every voice transition he had gone through, she was able to experience with him. 

“do you know why you’re here?” he put on the lowest register he could talk in only to be reminded of batman, or at least a something that pales in comparison. he’s trying his best. this act usually wasn’t part of his methods. 

[monchewie-blog]

act i. 

everything revolved around the heretic-filled town called yharnam, named after queen yharnam of the pthumerians.

in the age of the ancient pthumerians, a race superior to human beings, the old labyrinth was carved out where they resided and preceded in unlocking the wisdom of the eldritch truth. this underground civilization were mere humble guardians and worshipers of the slumbering great ones. they have made contact with a great one called the formless oedon and their leader, queen yharnam, conceived his child. 

unfortunately, every great one loses its child, and so the unborn meruko dies in the womb. although meruko does not exist in the real world, her stillbirth creates a new nightmare in the cosmos: the nightmare of mensis.

act ii.

in the age of loran, a tragic, ailing land devoured by the sands of which tragedy was said to have its roots in the scourge of the beast.

act iii.

cainhurst housed nobles, royals whose ways were a mix of nostalgia and bombast. they took great pride even in the blood-stained beasts that they left behind, confident that they would stand as examples of decadent art.

act iv.

the foundation of byrgenwerth college, a highly prestigious school of knowledge, rose with the leadership of provost seokku who was one of the first settlers in yharnam. apart from the college’s dedication into studying the pthumerian society, he zealously sought a measure to unlock a greater potential in man of which was the idea of elevating the mind to the plane of the gods through insight. by this, he believed in the procedure of wiring eyes into the brain. to ascend; to reach enlightenment; to become the great ones themselves.

act v.

provost seokku would hear of a tale of a distant hamlet where a great one’s corpse washed ashore. the finest scholars of byrgenwerth, donggil and murim, would be sent to retrieve its body teeming with parasites. an infection and an unknown source of the locals transformation into something more than human would spread through the village which then would soon be desecrated by the pair of hunters. by this deed started a curse that would last generations as well as further inspire seokku’s interest in eyes to further his knowledge.

murim was disgusted with herself after the events of fishing hamlet, too much that she put behind her duties as a hunter; discarding her beloved weapon, the rakuyo, stepping away from the life she had built to perfection and carrying these secrets to her grave. she was disillusioned with the hunt, and unwilling to cause any more suffering.

the remains of the great one kos’s carcass would be sent back to byrgenwerth after the purge. its child, the orphan of kos, a stillborn created another nightmare: the hunter's nightmare. this nightmare would haunt donggil until the orphan is vanquished.

it was by this discovery that they were able to create rom, the vacuous spider, whose birth created a quasi-dream in the moonside lake. this success has lead lolangseu, an eager researcher under seokku’s guidance, to become encouraged in his desire to experiment on humans.

act vi.

expeditions were sent into the old labyrinth to uncover the secrets of the ancient pthumerians. there they find the knowledge of the great ones and the old blood, from which the healing church would base its ministry upon. 

the scholars of byrgenwerth became divided.

unlike seokku who pursued knowledge and truth, lolangseu along with some others were inspired by the discovery of the old blood. they believed that the blood’s healing properties were of divine nature, and was the ideal medium to transcend humanity through transfusing it into human bodies; that it was the path to evolving mankind. seokku remained staunchly opposed to using the blood, warning against "evolution without courage." he held distrust towards the substance, believing the material to be far too dangerous. from the sound of a labyrinth beast, the nature of beasts was already known to seokku. he found the risk too high, and only with insects and arachnids would he cautiously practice the use of the old blood.

unable to convince his master otherwise, lolangseu went on to found the healing church, becoming its first vicar. it was then that the biggest shift in yharnam’s history would come to be.

act vii.

an act of betrayal put rise to the existence of the vilebloods. a scholar of bygenwerth brought the so-called forbidden blood back to the cainhurst castle, carrying on the birth of a vampiric aristocracy.

act viii.

we are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood;

fear the old blood.

act ix.

a rapid surge of popularity brought believers to listen to lolangseu’s teachings of the good chalice and its miraculous properties, allowing them to build the grand cathedral and the astral clocktower at the heart of old yharnam.

lolangseu designated certain members of the healing church to be blood saints: individuals who will be injected with the blood of the great ones, whose blood will then be used for healing purposes.

act x.

experiments of the old blood began. the scourge of beast would follow soon after. yharnamites who have gone through the procedure of blood ministration began experiencing a strange sickness known as beasthood, where they transform into terrible creatures with a thirst for blood.

act xi.

the church enlisted some of its tomb prospectors, explorers of the pthumerian labyrinths, to hunt these beasts, and to arm and train members of the population for the many hunts to come. in time, these hunters formed their own covenants with their own objectives.

donggil remained by lolangseu’s side, entrusted with a workshop of his own to aid those who would hunt down the beasts that lurked the streets of yharnam. it was the first of its kind and training under donggil, the first hunter, was a special privilege granted only to a few fine hunters. unique and associated to the healing church by need, they operated under the cover of night.

act xii.

opposed to this group of hunters were another that knew of the beasts’ innocence. the hunter of hunters were established to eradicate those hunters addled with blood. they gave the dead virtuous funeral rituals rather than a blasphemous yharnam burial service. the leadership of the covenant is quietly passed down from generation to generation, usually to an outsider from the hinterlands alike the founder whose origins were foreign.

act xiii.

an even more fanatical side of the healing church took shape by the leadership of martyr heegun, declaring vilebloods as enemies of the church. an uprising began, with their corruption and opposition against the church, against its scientific enterprise; its blood healing and the widely revered purity of it. 

in a daring raid through the castle, executioners hunted down every single one of them. among those lead to their demise, a sole survivor remain. it was intended, however, as a punishment. ushered upon the leader of the covenant, queen mukunghwa, was an exile in a castle covered by mist and guarded by heegun, to shoulder the crimes committed by the ancestry. 

act xiv.

the healing church devised a plan to poison the populace of old yharnam through the river that ran through the valley, the baffling sickness dubbed as the ashen blood, creating an incentive to use the old blood on a larger scale. through this act was the attempt of the healing church at forcing evolution’s hand. within their deception, introduced was the miraculous blood that would heal the people and lead to a time of prosperity... but not for long. 

eventually the scourge resurfaced and spread even more rapidly.

despite such, with the help of the healing church’s hunters eliminating those who had turned into beasts, the economy grew at a fast rate. buildings towered over the grand cathedral and the clocktower. lolangseu commissioned a building of a district reserved for the church aptly named the cathedral ward.

act xv.

the research hall was built along with a branch for orphans.

while the people of yharnam were transforming into beasts, the blood saints were transforming into kin. murim oversaw the choir's experimentation with creating celestial beings. these creatures were intended to bridge the gap between humans and great ones, but the initial kin had become living failures.

murim was indeed with a remaining amount of loyalty to offer to the church, by way of a caretaker in the establishment. a kind of security; a soothing presence in a place of horrors. to atone for her sins; to repent for the horrific deeds she had done in the past. the patients adored her, as many of the ones that can be spoken for desperately sought her time and attention.

the orphanage, shadowed by the grand cathedral, became a place of scholarship and experimentation where young orphans became potent unseen thinkers of the healing church.

[nobodysflower]

a girl falls

down a rabbit hole

past a hidden door

through a looking glass

under a spell

a girl finds

a skeleton key

a hidden treasure

a lost crown

a secret

a curse

a girl fights. a girl learns. a girl returns. less timid than before. no stronger than she was to begin with.

[monchewie-blog]

Your writing is so phenomenal!!

if only i actually wrote!!

[monchewie-blog]

welcome to yharnam, a distant forgotten city in an isolated valley far to the east. a place said to be cursed; infamous for its local affliction known to the scourge of the beast.

the scourge erodes one's reason, until man becomes beast. at night, the hunters track down these inhuman creatures.

yet this heretical town is also home to an ancient medical practice. those with incurable afflictions brave the long journey to the city, seeking yharnam's mysterious treatment.

before the nightmare, there was arrogance. before the scourge of the beast, there was ambition. before the fishing hamlet, there was murim. the tale of lady murim is one steeped in sorrow and regret.

but tonight, lady murim joins the hunt.

[monchewie-blog]

the piezoelectric effect.

the concept might sound unfamiliar to most but millions of people have seen the effect in practice. it’s what happens when the needle of an analog record player reads the grooves of a disk. those vibrations the needle makes are transformed into electrical impulses and those impulses then are turned into sound waves. at its most basic level, the piezoelectric effect is how mechanical movements generate electricity and then how that electricity can be used elsewhere.

while the silver-haired neet virgin seems like most everything we’ve seen before, he’s a mediocre, unlikely model superhero that embodies this effect. despite appearances, he survives death after death through unconventional means. he can deter enemies with his cannon’s electrical blasts. how this happens? by applying pressure. more specifically, it’s triggered by stress. yes, stress. test his limits! combine it with his mobility, his power to generate stress-produced electricity, a weapon that can deal devastating damage at both short and long range, and voila! this formula makes him a persistent menace that can easily disrupt his opponents through constant harassment.

when his stress levels are at its peak, the electricity that his body generates are stored within electron charge packs which powers his cannon. this weapon causes continual damage and automatically targets anyone within a cone’s range. but that’s not all of it. whenever in contact with tears or he himself shedding some of it, his body charges a power-boosted energy surge.

anyone would imagine what a grand and adventurous life this underachiever might lead but it paints a much bleaker picture in reality. with the world shaken by the discovery of his abilities, he had become sought after by government agencies for research purpose. to protect himself, he had been forced into incognito. quitting his job and cutting ties with most people who once knew him, jooheon lived the life of a hermit. instances of assassins being sent to track him down has caused great casualties which the media orchestrated to be in favor of the government while also marketing the research’s potential to be useful for every facet of life. painted as the devil, the conspiracy had broken out the general public into protests calling for the freak’s head.

[monchewie-blog]

“another day, a different dream perhaps.” she sighs deep, killing the light of the lamp that stood on her bedside. eyes shut as she repeats the words ‘i know i’m dreaming’ in her head. soon, she falls into slumber. it had become a routine to chant herself to sleep. that way, she would be able to control whenever she had to wake up. she had to be at least half conscious. 

much has changed since her last visit. it must be that it came with her growing up that her thoughts had become rather complicated, resulting to the darker dreams she has been having. nonetheless, to her they were still dreams, only not as good as the others and lucky for her, the episodes for when she isn’t asleep has submerged to the back of her mind. that’s one less of a headache.

the dreams; the lands in it were her territories, she believed, hence the attitude of invulnerability being embedded in her. nothing has harmed her in this world. not completely anyway. but tonight seemed a bit too horrid than what she has braced herself for. a figure too tall had its shadow cast over her entirety. how hideous it looked was beyond her tolerance. it had no face, that much wasn’t very unfamiliar. in fact, the creature as a whole shouldn’t be with how many strange creatures had loomed over the lands. yet it felt as if it didn’t belong in this place. yes, it didn’t. she was sure because again, this was her territory. her wonderland.

its body was full of corrosion. on its head, attached was a safe. was it inside or was the storage its actual head? she could so easily ask the entity to answer her curious thoughts but there was hesitance in her approach. “e-excuse me…?” she knew her voice wasn’t loud enough but she murmured either way so to not infuriate the creature. it seemed the likely result apart from the nature of this land’s limitless possibilities. no response, however. she hasn’t been heard. and again, she tries. “excuse me, sir? madam?”

as simple as her words were, she felt the weight of this possessive stare. next was a roar that swept her brunette locks which then turned a dreary colour of grey, down from the roots to the very tips that became tangled with frizz. eyes unsteadily shifted from a fiery red hue and quick to its brown default. a sign of fear. a sign of vulnerability. 

her wonderland was threatened of its ownership. 

this entity was no mere visitor. it was not here to wage a war. its intention was far worse than that. it was beyond ready to dwell within the realm, ripple and replace its hard-earned peace with the entire nation’s demise and a new army wired from its terror. this should explain the deafening silence, the kind that caused even the bravest of allies to cower in fear.

this is her dream. is it? was it? will it stay as it is? a sudden shock. a sudden consciousness of what toll it would take in the parallel which was reality, she stood a dauntless stance. park sooyoung — rather known as joy, the champion, in this land — would not let this happen. not even if it meant risking her life.

[monchewie-blog]

i am a flesh ghost; an “adoptee.” it’s nice to meet you. how should i address you?

“..the korean language strictly reflects the hierarchical order. speech styles are divided according to a system of honorifics, and this system is complex and richly textured. in fact, it may well be that no language on earth has a more finely differentiated system of honorifics.”

the american boy with an american life. he who listens to music of the west, not korean; an order of intimate estrangement. when bending over a simple plate of water, they meet at night. when passing through the gates, going opposite directions, into the past, into the future; in dreams.

his doppleganger speaks in tongues. moves when he moves, drinks black air with his wine, fills and fills. he clings onto his back and whispers in his ear. they have their own language. he curses him, he pulls his hair. he is afraid of water.

within the context of the law, he becomes a person with the barest of social identities. within the context of culture, he lacks the basic requirements of social personhood; namely, family lineage, and genealogical history.

his existence is, among other things, a kind of deformation, a defamation in his home country. an ill report, rumor, scandal. a secret, one that’s open yet unspoken. a social custom forbidding discussion. he is a copy and an original. he will make a record.

he is a colony of one.

always seemingly caught between worlds, neither here nor there, neither this nor that, eluding tidy description, belonging nowhere.

he walks through the dark forest and out beyond to steal the fire from the skulls for his stepfather. his mother dead, her gift of a worn out cassette tape, scratches and dents all over, torn out cover and glue sticking to the surface, deep in his trembling pocket. all day he walked on. towards the evening, he came to a glade. he looked into the glade and saw a hut; all around it was a fence made from human bones. on the fence were human skulls; human leg bones served instead of a gate, there were hands instead of bolts, and sharp teeth acted as the lock. at this sight, the boy was terrified; he stood rooted to the ground.

suddenly a horseman rode past; he was dressed entirely in black, was riding a black horse, and the horse’s harness, too, was black. he galloped up to the gate then vanished as if he had been swallowed into the earth. light escapes at the corners. night came on.

a coup d’etat of this, his abandonment, his miniature overturning. a sudden end.

to compose this migration as it comes on and on like black night on its black horse, the melodies his glade and his harness.

[monchewie-blog]

風俗嬢 (fuzokujo) (n.) female workers who give sensual service to men in exchange for money by their own volition.

a happy life, a happy home, a happy childhood: a social belonging. virtually posessing everything yet you see her here. you ask her, “why?” she answers it was by choice. it has been a decade, years within it earning her prestige. you’ll see her walking around in high-end street wear, carrying herself in fashion.

“she uses her real hair.”

“she has too many hair ornaments.”

the gaudy streets, the predominant bordello architecture that put even the most fanciful love hotels to shame. the usual shoguns castles dwarfed by edifices with stucco baroque facades arrayed with colorful son et lumière, and the odd rickety little old japanese brothel is eclipsed by adjacent chrome-and-smoked glass pleasure domes and sci-fantasy ferro-concrete extravaganzas from some babylonian lunatic fringe. here and there, touts in proper yakuza uniform lunge in front of the doorways, all short-cropped frizzy hair and neon lights winking kaleidoscopically in their dark glasses. otherwise panderings are undertaken entirely by the descendants of the old yarite (someday she’ll be), aging women sitting on chairs and hailing passersby.

“she’s living in the wrong side of the country.”

she’s in both and on her own. there, they protect her. by herself, she has her terms. it was technically illegal, but that way was more convenient and to her pleasure. that way, she dons a mask of white; painted, hiding her defining features. she wears her hair as a high chignon decorated with elaborate combs and pins, and then a kimono, colorful as can be, with its obi tied upfront. unsuspecting foreigners never know. they’re only here to have fun. so was she with all her directions loose.

“she’s too old."

people don’t just change the way they do things easily because someone tells them to. when something becomes impossible somewhere, one just moves to another place to do the same things.

“she can’t be.”

[monchewie-blog]

the driver.

    what’s montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,     nor arm, nor face, nor any other part     belonging to a man. o, be some other name!     what’s in a name? that which we call a rose     by any other name would smell as sweet.

what does it mean to have a guilty mind? let’s start with a confession.

you hate him because everything he says is witty, his words are always laced with sarcasm. but he would flash you that smile and it’s almost creepy. creepy only because it’s endearing in the same way. as if he’s telling you, there’s no harm to any of it. underneath, there were plenty. he had the mechanics of a smile right straight out of his manual, but he’d seem more authentic whenever he didn’t try to feign a smile in his preserved face that looked well under his actual age.

inadequate to handle emotions. emotionally crippled. void of sentiment. something about him was artificial. clinical.

keeping fit had always been an obsession of his. long runs on the beach, daily workouts, a healthy diet. he would preach about red meat. don’t eat red meat. red meat, red meat. he’s never spotted with a drink either despite his peers deep into the occupational feature. most everything about him screams, ‘i’m not who you want to hang with.’ he’s simple at best. you wouldn’t even suspect he has his own secrets even when you’re aware everyone does. nothing about him draws your attention because he’s open. or is he? not exactly. it’s all part of the act. you won’t know him unless you were behind his eyes, absorbed into his perspective, convinced of his justice. if you’ve said just now, ‘there’s no way i’m anything like him’, think again.

show me a person who’s never encountered a mosquito, preparing to pierce its tube-like mouthpart into one’s skin and didn’t take pleasure in squashing the fly in self defense. tell me you’ve never found a kind of grim joy in every fresh blood stain you’ve left on your skin, on your walls, wherever else they may have sat still before taking you as their prey. if you can, i’ll tell you the conclusion to this story. give up yet? now tell me you’re not similar in any way. if you can’t, you’re in. feel free to read through in shared confidence.

take a boy; a fifteen year old boy who didn’t know how to stop. or rather, if he ever could. a numeric threshold in terms of the number of victims, and an element of time; a period of cooling off in between and spree spanning over years. take all three and you get cold blood, inside and out. crimson pooling thickly on the carpet. going back, were they victims at all? he’s ruthless, that’s for sure, but if there was one thing his late foster father had left him in a world so cruel, it was to separate the cleansing execution of moral justice from the persisting evil that leaks from numbed slaughter. to this day he follows the code; his only means of a moral compass and the gateway to his yearning to connect.

as a way to control the demon inside, he went after the guilty whenever the law couldn’t do anything about it. he has eyes everywhere. once someone falls into that condition, it’s over. he takes them and he keeps them down. good or bad? the lines are blurred. he makes sure no innocent is harmed. on top of that, he rids the world of malevolence. that’s justice to him. doesn’t that sound like a continued success in fulfilling a heroic destiny? doesn’t that give you the security that what lurks around, threatening your very life for reasons selfish and impure is decreasing in the surface of normalcy? we do want him to fulfill his destiny, don’t we?

[ewz-blog]