A Speed Reader's Blog

"Because life is a gradual series of revelations That occur over a period of time It's not some carefully crafted story It's a mess, and we're all gonna die If you saw a movie that was like real life You'd be like, "What the hell was that movie about? It was really all over the place." Life doesn't make narrative sense"-Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 2017

[the-fallen-blue]

Ok, shit got long, so starting a new post. This is a continuation of the dream-to-nightmare AU provoked by @fishyupmywishy & taken up by @kenkuheart, with the most recent installment here at kenku's tumbl. To recap: our Celine is in a world where Miyeong is alive, the two of them have Rumi and two boys together, and the Golden Honmoon happened when Rumi was four; the Celine from that world is in the movie!verse. Neither of them are having a good time.

--

Just breathe. Celine just has to breathe. That's what her mentors taught her when she was young and stupid, as anxious as Zoey had been and angrier than Mira. Just breathe until you can work, and work until the feeling is gone. So she counts, and she breathes, and she sits down at the desk and opens the laptop and pretends her chest isn't caving in.

She doesn't really have a solid plan, unfortunately, just the conviction that she needs to know more about what's going on. Her initial vague thought was the VPN on her personal computer; a direct line to the internal SLE network. From there she could send a few careful emails to department heads asking for updates, use the company's resources to do searches, get a better picture of what the rest of the world looks like and how far this impossiblity spreads.

But, while the laptop lets her in easily enough -- there's a post-it on the desk with the password, which Nayeon in IT would have Celine's head for if she knew -- there's no VPN to be found. In fact, a number of increasingly confused Naver searches and several frantic googles later, Celine is forced to conclude that Sunlight Entertainment does not even exist.

What in the hell has she been doing for twenty years, then?

The Sunlight Sisters, she discovers, have two extra albums and two world tours to match, which accounts for five of those years, at least. She listens to some of the music, old rips posted to YouTube with lyrics and grainy concert footage. She breathes. She counts. She splays her hands on the desk so her nails don't mark her palms. She goes back to her search.

Celine finds herself on an English fan forum, reading through a contentious thread about Sunmi's solo career (expected) and specifically her latest album (completely unrecognizable, though admittedly Celine hasn't tracked her work since the girls took over care of the Honmoon). At one point a moderator has to step in, and Celine knows just enough about American pop culture to recognize that their handle, "CheloniousMonk," is a turtle music pun worthy of Zoey.

Wait.

Celine stalks CheloniousMonk's profile. She's a woman and was young when the Sunlight Sisters were big. She lives in California and speaks five languages, including Korean. Her bias is Celine, but she has an extremely long and well-researched post about Sunmi's importance to the entire kpop genre as the originator of the maknae archetype. She visits Korea regularly but hasn't seen it in the winter.

Because, Celine knows, the terms of the divorce included summers with her mother.

Celine stares at the laptop for what feels like a very long time, and then slowly goes back to her Naver tab, her heart in her throat, and starts looking for Lee Mira.

There are a number of Lee Miras, of course, but it's not hard to find Celine's. She's an idol with Endless Music Entertainment, in a group called Forever. She's skinnier than Celine has ever seen her. Her hair is black. Celine watches a Forever video, sound low. The choreography is basic hip-hop moves. If Celine didn't know their lead dancer like her own ssang geom, she'd think her smile was authentic.

Celine closes the laptop and stares at the Nintendo Switch, thinking, of course, and that's how Rumi finds her.

"Hey," Rumi says, reaching out to hand her a cup and saucer, and for a moment the fog breaks. "I brought tea. You've been in here a while, I thought you might be thirsty."

"You're very sweet, thank you, Rumi-ya," Celine replies gratefully, nursing the cup in front of herself and letting the jasmine-scented steam float up across her face, grounding herself in the kindness.

Rumi lingers a moment, uncharacteristically off-balance, and then says, a little uncertain, "You know, I'm twenty-four, now. I graduated. I have a steady job. I vote. I even have a little apartment and a cat that I've managed to keep alive for three whole years."

Celine raises an eyebrow, and Rumi tilts her chin up and puts a little more confidence into her voice.

"I'm just saying. I know you used to take antidepressants and I know sometimes you still go out to the garden and just stare at the leaves until you feel like you can be around people again. I know you're not fine this morning and you're not letting Eomma help. And I may not be an actual real-life superhero like you guys used to be, but I'm not a kid anymore. You can tell me things and I won't break."

Celine can only stare at her.

Rumi seems to take it as disagreement, and presses her case. "You always say that family is the people who are always there for you. Well, we're family, you're my Maman, and I'm here for you. Okay?"

--

Celine is wondering where this world's Celine keeps her phone when she notices the looks on the girls' faces. Zoey and Rumi are both cringing, their eyes meeting in some kind of silent but slightly frantic conversation, but it's Mira who speaks, glancing sideways at Zoey's wince.

"Why do I feel like I should know that name?"

There's a half-beat of silence that feels much longer to Celine, and then Zoey says "Kwon Sunmi was the third Sunlight Sister," and a look of understanding crosses Mira's face, almost immediately replaced by her own pained cringe.

It's Rumi who manages to address Celine, apology in her voice. "She might… not want to talk to you." A fortifying sip of tea later, she adds, "I'm actually not sure we even know how to get ahold of her?"

Celine stares. "What do you mean, she might not want to talk to me?"

"Well, she'll think you're our Celine, right?" Zoey, again. "She and our Celine don't talk. We've never even met her. Unless you count Eunbi's funeral, but I don't think I would, she never said anything to us and she left after the first day and we only even knew it was her because I recognized her from my many years of fangirling."

"It wasn't disrespectful!" Rumi rushes to add. "Leaving early. She's super busy, she's on tour everywhere all the time. She always sends dasik for Seollal for the Hunters who came before."

"Wait, those are from her?" Mira asks, and Rumi says something back, all three of them slipping into banter again, but Celine can't process it. She and Sunmi don't talk? How can this Celine and Sunmi not talk? Especially since -- If Miyeong died Celine would never let Sunmi out of her line of sight again.

Unless --

When they'd first found out Rumi was coming, first learned about Jeongho, they'd both been so furious with Miyeong. Celine, her pain heavier than her anger (for reasons she wouldn't admit to herself for years), had stayed at her side through the pregnancy regardless. But Sunmi had left, had taken advantage of the hiatus they managed to pry out of the label to disappear completely, hadn't returned until Rumi was two months old, when she walked through the door sobbing and sorry and forced them all to actually face the hurt between them.

Her eyes sting viciously. It can't be, surely. They'd been so much stronger, so much more honest, so unbreakable after that day. But if, if that never happened -- if this world's Mieyong had died when they were still broken --

If this world's Mieyong had died then, she would never have known her daughter at all --

It's the sudden silence that brings her attention back to the girls, and then Zoey says, eyes wide, "Wow, you really aren't our Celine, are you."

Celine can only blink wetly, and Mira says, "Don't be rude, Zo," but then allows, "You have cried more times tonight than our Celine has in -- actually, have you guys ever seen Celine cry?"

Zoey shakes her head, but Rumi looks thoughtful.

"Once when she broke a few ribs," is her conclusion. "She teared up a lot when she tried to do… anything."

"Oh, I bet, broken ribs are awful," says Zoey sympathetically, and then cracks into a tremendous yawn and immediately apologizes -- both hands moving and a much-too-concerned "Sorry! Sorry" -- and Celine realizes, abruptly, how late it is. Rumi had served that first round of tea, before the cabinet came off the wall, with the last shred of sunset in the sky (it occurs to Celine, like a note of distant madness, that all that wood and shattered porcelain is still on the floor), and now, three cups later, there are morning stars out the window behind the tree's dark silhouette.

"Don't be sorry, it's late," she says, the autopilot of years of parenting letting her speak through her wrecked confusion. She doesn't talk to Sunmi. "We should all try to get some rest. We'll think better for it, and we can get back to solving all this tomorrow."

[fishy-my-wishy]

Celine never taught Rumi how to speak French.

It wasn't necessary for an idol, so she focused on drilling English, Japanese, and Mandarin into her instead.

She regrets it now, as she looks at this girl—this girl with short, jet-black hair and clear arms. This girl, who says words like "Maman" and phrases like "je t'aime" so easily mixed into her Korean.

Would Rumi have said words like that? Would she have blended the languages into something that was hers entirely? Would she have been Celine's? Truly Celine's?

This girl, who somehow manages to look more like Celine than the woman and demon man that gave birth to her.

Celine only ever tries to see Miyeong in Rumi, but this girl...

This girl is—

"—Maman? You good?" Rumi quirks a perfect eyebrow, a trait that only Celine herself could have taught her.

Celine shakes her head subtly, trying to empty her head of the regrets. She can dwell on them after she manages to get back home.

"I appreciate the offer, Rumi," Celine smiles. Strained. But she succeeds nonetheless. "But it's nothing you have to concern yourself with."

A look of puzzlement crosses Rumi's face as she tilts her head at Celine quizzically (a trait surely learned from Miyeong, or inherited, perhaps. Though she's never seen her Rumi do something like that).

Celine doesn't understand the confusion.

"Strange," Rumi mutters, eyes downcast. "Speeches like that usually works."

Oh. Celine finally understands.

This world's Celine is a pathetic, vulnerable loser.

Shit.

----

This world's Celine sucks. What is her problem?

The more Celine thinks about it, the angrier she gets.

Sunmi is their soulmate, a third of their entire being. It doesn't matter that Celine and Miyeong didn't love her the same way they loved each other; they still love Sunmi just as deeply.

So why did this Celine let her Sunmi go?

They couldn't possibly be this different, could they?

Celine tosses and turns in bed. The bed that's harder than a slab of stone.

The bed that belongs to the Celine of this world.

Genuinely, what is wrong with her?

From what Rumi, Zoey, and Mira said, she seems to be the most emotionally closed off, dysfunctional person ever.

Celine doubts she's even been to therapy.

And Rumi. Her daughter. The happiness and joy in her life calls her by her name.

Not even a familial title like imo. Just straight "Celine."

Celine is aware of self-punishment. She knows what it's like to torture herself to hell and back. But to completely distance herself from the child?

To the point where that child is uncomfortable because Celine chose to hug her?

Celine groans loudly, as she tosses in bed again, pressing the heels of her palm to her eyes.

This world's Celine fucking sucks.

Quelle connasse.

[kenkuheart]

(Ramadan Mubarak fishy, and don't apologise for your writing at all - I'm having so much fun playing in this sandbox with you both and I love your Celine angst & how you contrast her internal monologue with what she chooses to say/do! And @the-fallen-blue I really love the way you write dialogue, the voices for the girls + Celine all sound very natural!)

--

There was a children's book she once read to her Rumi, back when she was pregnant with the twins and Rumi had been extra cuddly. Two little girls who used to trade lives with each other while they slept. Rumi, her Rumi, used to tuck herself into Celine's side and toy with Celine's pyjamas while she listened. Celine finds herself thinking of that now, as she lies in this other Celine's bed, face pressed into a pillow which smells of nothing but her own shampoo.

A silly, childish hope that she could fall asleep and wake up back where she belongs. She could horrify Miyeong with this other universe's failure to protect Rumi - tell her how not only had this other Celine allowed Rumi's patterns to grow so that she had ended up covered in scars, the poor girl had never had the same choices they'd fought so hard to give their Rumi.

Eventually, she gives up. The bed is too cold, too empty without Miyeong. Their home feels oppressively quiet; Celine has spent the last twenty-something years losing the argument over whether or not Miyeong should turn the radio off before she goes to bed, and now the only thing she can hear is her thoughts.

This Rumi, who isn't her daughter. The boys who never had the chance to live. Sunmi, who keeps so much distance between her and this Celine that Rumi doesn't even know how to contact her.

Miyeong, cold, alone, beneath the dirt.

Her heart lurches. She can't stay still with her thoughts, not here - where Miyeong should be in her arms. She pushes herself out of bed, walking past the empty bedrooms - this world's Rumi and her girls having taken themselves off to the bakgeori, leaving Celine to rattle around in a monument to her grief - and begins to pick up the mess in the kitchen.

Dimly, she knows that she's falling into old habits - keeping herself moving, looking for the next thing to do so that she isn't alone with her thoughts. But what else is she supposed to do, when there is nobody in this world who can look at this grief-warped shell of a woman and think that Celine could ever be anything else?

Her hand closes around one of the shards and Celine hisses, drops it immediately. Small red beads of blood well up instantly and - fuck, it stings, but it focuses her attention on that instead of the ache in her chest. She presses her thumbnail against the edge of the cut, and watches it begin to trickle down her palm.

--

"It isn't your responsibility to take care of me, aegiya," Celine reminds her. This version of herself is still an adult - should still have certain responsibilities towards Rumi, even if this Celine has been allowed to--

(You're my family, she hears in Rumi's voice, so straightforwardly. But Rumi was always Miyeong's, or Miyeong's and Jeongho's at least, and Celine had wanted, shamefully, and hated herself for wanting, and promised she would never do anything that would make Miyeong uncomfortable.)

(It would have been wrong - inappropriate - to overstep. Take things that were supposed to be for Miyeong, that were never meant to be Celine's.)

(This Miyeong. Shares the same bed as Celine. Calls her love.)

Her head hurts.

"Then do a better job of it," Rumi huffs, settling onto the sofa and looking suddenly much younger as she hugs her legs against her chest. Her knees, Celine realises, have little freckles.

Her knees have freckles and Mira's arms look like they're nothing but bone and Zoey had been so badly prepared for winter in Korea Celine had sent them off on a shopping trip as soon as she saw the contents of her suitcase, and the three of them had been distracted by boba and snacks and little trinkets for their rooms, and then they'd all trailed after Celine like sheepish little ducklings while she'd picked out a sensible coat and boots for them.

"...Tell me about work," she says, instead of examining that further.

The same eyebrow trick as before. "Seriously?"

It feels important that Celine should know - the job, and the cat, and whatever friends this Rumi had made instead. The life Rumi might have chosen for herself, unshackled to her duty towards the Honmoon.

"Rumi," Celine sighs. Takes another sip of tea, mostly to have something to do with her hands and an excuse not to talk.

"It's been good? Normal?" Rumi pulls a face - the kind media coaching would have long since trained out of her - and gestures with one open palm. "Normal-busy, anyway. What are you asking for?"

There is no good way to say that she is trying to figure out what Rumi actually does. So Celine prods at her keyboard and pretends to be fascinated by the computer while she thinks of something to say.

"Just thinking about my own career," she mumbles vaguely. No SLE, which means - what? What would Celine have chosen, without the Honmoon to hold together and Rumi to clear a path for?

Who would she have chosen to become?

[the-fallen-blue]

Unhelpfully, all Rumi says is "Which one?", rhetorically, like an old joke.

Celine did have years of media coaching, though, so she just gives an enigmatic smile in response. It seems to be enough for Rumi, who is probably just pleased that her -- that Celine finally has control of herself.

Rumi rubs her thumb rhythmically back and forth along the side of her other hand, another habit that would never have made it in front of the camera. "Do you ever miss it? Being a famous idol superhero?"

Celine hopes that "superhero" is a framing that Rumi came up with herself after too many years of Hajoon's Spider-Man pajamas, and not the way any of them actually explained it to her. And how could she possibly answer? It's not a question that's easy for her to begin with, and she can't guess what a Celine with this life would say.

Rumi, she realizes, hasn't asked her anything like this in years. Celine has never tried to discourage it, has always been as honest as she can, but somewhere between the relentless curiosity of childhood and the terse awkwardness of adolescence, all her relentless inquiry about her parents, the Sunlight Sisters, life before Rumi, had trickled to a halt.

"Those are very different questions," is the start of it, at least. "It wasn't... a good time to be an idol. The industry was new. And not particularly kind." She shrugs off the memories, the abuses Miyeong and Sunmi had never known before and never should have suffered. "The music wasn't ours, but we still liked most of it. We loved performing. The crowd, the rush, the --"

Rumi asked. Rumi deserves the truth.

"The connection, even without the Honmoon. Building something like that with people you love."

It wouldn't hurt this Rumi's Celine to say it, would it? Miyeong and Sunmi and Celine teasing each other in their group text. Its just another Saturday to them. She doesn't know if the thought is enraging or absurd.

Rumi watches her, careful and quiet, her attention focused. It's the most familiar she's looked since Celine woke up.

"Hunting..."

Celine can't miss her calling, she's never left it. She's killed demons her whole life, Rumi's whole life. She trained the next generation for a decade. Even once they took over, there were always strays, stragglers. Even officially retired, she spars with the girls, sings to the Honmoon, tends the tree and the library and the graves of her ancestors. Even now, she summons her ssang geom when she can't sleep, dances through forms in her soul's starlight in the hanok courtyard.

Well. She did. She hasn't tried to reach for them since --

Since this morning, she realizes, madly, and it wasn't her Honmoon, and they didn't answer.

Rumi sits patiently, waiting for Celine to finish her thought.

"If it means a better life for you," says Celine, "it's worth giving up."

--

The first aid kit is where Celine expects it to be, at least, tucked neatly under the sink in the bathroom, although it's far more comprehensive -- the kit of an active Hunter, someone for whom acid and fire and claws and bone fractures are things that require a ready contingency.

The Honmoon chooses its Hunters, she knows that, she knows this Rumi was destined for this, but how could this world's Celine possibly stand it? How cold must she be?

Noise from outside the angeori interrupts her thoughts, boisterous laughter and intermittent singing. Clearly, the girls did not get enough sleep, but she's not really one to talk today, is she?

Stale and sore and wanting to feel at least a little human, Celine takes a quick shower, her hand still stinging. This world's Celine shares her taste in shampoo, but her makeup selection is more sparse, the spaces where Celine would keep a full palette of eyeshadow filled instead with half-empty tiger balm, a tube of Mederma, a mostly-full bottle of Ambien and a nearly empty box of valerian root.

It's probably hypocritical to be judgy about the Ambien, but Celine went and got help. This world's Celine has that option too, and it's on her if she hasn't taken it.

Her wardrobe, though, Celine has to admit, is exactly what she herself would choose. Practical, comfortable, simple. Boring, says Miyeong's voice in her head, but she's never had a proper appreciation for the power of understatement and probably never will.

It's a little past eight when she steps out into the courtyard, and sees the girls -- running laps?

Mira's in front, Zoey in the middle, and Rumi behind, yelling like Celine herself thirty years gone, "Pick up your heels, Mira!"

"Pick up your face, Ryu," Mira shoots back.

"Come on, there's a demon chasing you," Rumi urges, laughing. "Get a move on, you don't want to get caught!"

"I'm glad we can joke about that now," says Zoey, who clearly is not. She perks up when she sees Celine, though, and shouts "MILF alert!" in loud English, provoking an anguished "Zoey, why!?" from Rumi behind her.

The girls divert, and literally pile to a halt in front of Celine; Mira stops smoothly, Zoey deliberately smashes into her from behind and throws her arms around her waist, swaying her forward, and then Rumi smacks into them both and wraps around Mira's shoulders, which actually forces Mira to move a foot and brace herself.

"Thanks for your gross sweaty hugs, guys," she says, dryly. "Just what I needed to start my day."

"Anything for you, Unnie!"

They peel apart and offer Celine quick shallow bows. "Good morning, Celine. Did you sleep well?" asks Rumi politely.

"Not really," admits Celine wryly. "A little too stressed, I think. But thank you for asking. And you girls?"

They're all staring at her; Zoey's the only one she can read, but she assumes they're all feeling the same shock that's on their youngest's face.

"... right. Not our Celine," says Mira.

Zoey reaches out and squeezes Rumi's hand, but when Celine glances over, Rumi's expression is a camera-ready neutral.

"I'll start breakfast," she says. "Zoey, would you call Bobby and tell him to clear our schedule? At least for a couple days, and make sure things are flexible past that."

"Got it, no Tuesday photoshoot," says Zoey, and peels off to the garden, already dialing her phone. The other two head inside with Celine, commit her firmly to the chair at the head of the table, and start seamlessly moving around each other in the kitchen, Mira cleaning counters and handing over pots, Rumi cracking eggs and slicing scallions with quick precision. Sometimes when they pass each other, the Honmoon flickers a little, like it does around Celine and Mieyong when they dance.

It's soothing, a small sign of Rumi's happiness, and it relaxes Celine enough to tease gently. "Remember to oil the pan, Rumi-ya."

"... not a problem," says Rumi curiously, glancing at Mira, who's giving Celine a strange look, and Celine sits in cringing regret as breakfast is completed in awkward silence, Rumi pressing the pajeon with a smooth and startling competence as Mira starts a pot of dark coffee.

They clearly know their way around the hanok, grabbing dishes and raiding the fridge with thoughtless instinct, and Celine feels like she's trying to write a song with keys missing on the piano. She's sure now, that they're their own Celine's students. Despite the unreality of the moment, she vaguely remembers them calling her seonsaengnim when they found her last night, and they know the hanok and slept in the bakgeori. But she can't square that with any timeline for her own generation that makes sense. Had this world's Sunlight Sisters shattered so completely that Celine left Miyeong, too? Did not see her again, did not see Rumi until she showed up as a Hunter? It's completely impossible, there's no world where she would leave Miyeong. No world where she and Sunmi both fail to take care of Miyeong's child if Miyeong died young. No world where Mieyong lives to care for her daughter and that tiny swirl on her arm still becomes the all-consuming scars on Rumi's face and hands and feet.

Celine blinks, and says, with thoughtless reprimand, "Rumi-ya, who raised you to go around barefoot in the house?"

Mira and Rumi both go stock still.

The moment feels like a precipice, like the anxious thrill before the drop --

-- and then Zoey bursts through the door, singing bright nonsense about gardens and potatoes, strands of silver and green Honmoon trailing around the music as she kicks off her shoes (she is wearing socks, like a civilized person), and Rumi makes a noise of startled distress at the stove and flips the slightly-too-dark pancakes.

Celine says very little over breakfast at first, watching in awe as the girls inhale so much food it would put the twins to shame. They get more talkative after they go back for seconds, slowing down their culinary rampage long enough to start talking about business practicalities, rescheduling, publicity, appeasing vendors and fans.

And it's another thing she'd heard last night and hasn't processed until now --

"You girls are idols?"

This is, apparently, a strange question (Celine is beginning to despair that every question she could possibly ask in this world is ten times as strange and complicated as it should be); they look bewildered at both the words and the sudden, incandescent rage with which Celine has said them.

"You were idols," is Mira's confused attempt to articulate the problem.

"We were an experiment," bites out Celine, and she cannot believe. She cannot believe this world's Celine has done this to Rumi. "The industry was new, its reach was new, our mentors had no idea what they were signing us up for." Rumi, pawed and prodded by an endless litany of entitled strangers. Rumi, never permitted to dress, to speak, to sing, to think for herself. Rumi, three hours of sleep between promotions and going to bed for dinner, no wonder they're eating like this while they can. "They had no idea of the abuse, the control -- how could she," and she's snarling, "how dare she," the girls look alarmed and no wonder, she feels like an animal, she will find this other Celine and rip her apart --

"Celine," says Rumi, very seriously, cutting through her anger with a calm air of command that's even more startling than her proficiency with breakfast. "What the hell are you talking about?"

[kenkuheart]

Rumi doesn't know. The thought ricochets inside her, meaningless until it finds its logical conclusion: Rumi doesn't know any better.

Rumi thinks the way her Celine has treated her - sent her out there for the world to devour - left her riddled with scars and still forced in front of the cameras -

Rumi looks at her like all that is normal, like she doesn't understand the depths of that violation, and Celine staggers backwards, reeling as if she's just been struck. She would have preferred it if she had.

This Rumi is thinner than her own.

Bile rises in the back of her throat. Celine makes a fist and presses it against her stomach until she thinks she can open her mouth without snarling.

There are parts of her that never really stopped feeling twelve years old, gorging herself on rage because even back then Celine had known it was that or starve to death. She'd learned to temper it - admittedly, the medication had helped - but this world seems uniquely designed to worm its way past every single one of her defences and make her look at the worst possible version of herself. Every single nightmare Miyeong has had to talk her down from, and now she's been forced into this world where all of them are true.

This Rumi's eyes are huge, white; her hand reaches out towards Celine but stops before it can make contact. Celine feels the nauseous urge to grab hold of it again and pull her out of this house, burn the fucking building down if she has to, and then she feels horrified at the thought of leaving Miyeong all alone and even more horrified at the idea that this is what the other Celine must have felt. She's angry at her horror and angry at her other self and angry at Sunmi and angry at Miyeong and angry at her anger and angry at this whole world for daring to still exist when Miyeong is gone.

Images flicker through her mind - hands under her shirt - ice and cotton wool - Sunmi holding her down and threatening to feed her like a baby bird - cameras flashing outside Miyeong's bedroom window - and Rumi. Rumi, her baby, has been thrown to the industry like chum in the water, for Dispatch and the sasaengs and the men, always the men with their hands everywhere, to eat her alive.

Miyeong returned from hiatus about ten hard-won pounds heavier and had been forced to apologise to her fans for not making more of an effort to lose the weight. That's what this Celine wants for Rumi, is it? This Rumi, with all of her scars. Celine doesn't even know the kinds of things people will be saying to her--

Celine turns on her heel and slams her fist into the wall. The girls flinch and Celine, already turned inside-out and upside-down with self-loathing for a self that is not her own, just thinks, Of course.

"...I would like to maybe revisit the demon possession theory," Zoey is saying, in a whisper which is considerably more voce than sotto.

There's an undignified snort. Celine doesn't know which girl it comes from.

Bleakly, Celine looks at the girls. Drops to her knees and rests her head against the floorboards.

"She should have protected," Celine mutters. "Your Celine-- Rumi, bunny, you deserved so much better--"

---

The others return - with no Asterix, which Celine is supposed to be disappointed by, but the boy who is not Hajoon dangles a book in front of Rumi's face that makes the tip of her ears turn pink.

Celine, who recognises mischief when she sees it, plucks it from his fingers and makes a show of flicking through it.

"Hm, is this the kind of thing you're into now? I'll be sure to remember that for your birthday," she tells him.

"Maman!"

Rumi and Hajoon both laugh at his plight, and Miyeong sees them and wraps her arm around Celine's waist, hugging her from behind. Which. Is nice.

After a moment, in which Miyeong doesn't let go, Celine dares to rest her own hand over Miyeong's. And. That is also. Very nice.

(The inadequacy of her language makes her want to kick herself. 'Very nice', to have Miyeong choose to hold her like this - hold her on purpose - and to feel the warmth of her skin against Celine's own. She hosted the 46th Baeksang Awards, for God's sake.)

Eventually, Rumi excuses herself, saying she needs to wash some clothes before she heads back home. The boys disappear off to their rooms, citing the need to study.

"Study their new manhwa, more like," Miyeong mutters into Celine's shoulder. "I swear, they get more like you every day."

She punctuates that thought with a pinch to Celine's hip - a light one, meant to be teasing, but one that makes Celine remember things. Miyeong was always so tactile, always touching one or the other of them, and then Celine had realised that she was reading things into those touches that Miyeong could not have meant - that it would have been grossly unfair to let Miyeong carry on touching her as though Celine wasn't trying to burn that secret fault out of herself - and so she'd made sure to stop taking advantage of her friend and kept her distance.

Celine is starting to suspect she might be the biggest idiot on the planet.

There's no time to think about that further, though, because Miyeong brushes her lips against the side of Celine's neck and says, "Glad you're feeling better, love."

Celine turns to tell Miyeong - something. She isn't sure what, exactly. But as soon as she does, Miyeong pulls her forward by the lapels of her jacket and kisses her.

There are no sensible warnings echoing in her head - no remnant of their mentors' warning about faults and fears - just twenty five years of aching, and Miyeong's mouth warm and soft against her own. Celine has been kissed before - she's sure of it - but somehow, in this moment, it feels like every other kiss was just preamble. All of it only leading to this.

She feels herself lurch forward - sick with wanting, she's been hungry for so long - and bunches her unworthy hands in Miyeong's blouse, parts her lips, and allows herself to take.

[the-fallen-blue]

Miyeong moves. Her lips, her hands, she leans up into Celine and Celine wants --

she wants --

Celine wants, crackling and consuming and directionless. She wants her hands on smooth and sunburn-hot skin -- Miyeong is backing up, or maybe Celine is surging forward -- she wants noise, breathy pants and moans in Miyeong's perfect soaring voice -- Miyeong's shoulders hit the wall with a thump and a gaspy laugh rolls out into the kiss -- she wants Miyeong to know, needs her to feel as good as she is, needs her body and bones and soul to sing with the knowledge of what she is worth -- Miyeong's thighs are under Celine's hands and she lifts with Hunter strength, feels legs lock tight around her hips and thrills -- Celine wants everything --

Miyeong breaks the kiss, puts another, sweet, on Celine's jaw, throat, leans her head down on Celine's shoulder, breathing hard. Celine chases after her mouth and she laughs again. It's rough with panting, Miyeong is short of breath and it feels like the first time Celine touched starlight, the sudden and sure knowledge that this is what she is for.

"Don't start what you can't finish," Miyeong cautions, breathy and joyful, and Celine kisses her again, hot, soaring.

"I am very prepared to finish this," and her voice is a low rumble she barely recognizes, and it should be one hundred percent boasting bluster, Celine doesn't have a clue what she is doing, but she means it, Miyeong has always done this for her, Celine has always known that whatever Miyeong asks of her she will find a way to make it happen, a confidence beyond bravery or doubt, and she no longer cares if this is a dream or a wish or the last wild hallucination of her mind finally breaking, nothing has ever felt more real and she needs Miyeong to feel the depth of her devotion --

"Trust me, love, I'm well aware," and oh, Miyeong's voice is still so full of laughter, and she presses her forehead against Celine's, "but we don't have time, it's almost one o'clock," and Celine shifts her grip a little, unthinking, as she tries to pull her mind back toward language enough to remember why one o'clock could possibly matter, and Miyeong rolls against her a little from the movement and her breath catches, the briefest hitch that blazes through Celine's whole body in hot fire, every inch of skin set buzzing her core pulling tight her vision spinning away from her and she wants, God she wants --

-- she wants Miyeong to have want she wants, and Miyeong wants to stop. She lets her down, gently, and Mieyong's feet light on the carpet like the dancer she is, and she lets out a little happy, regretful huff and leans her head against Celine's chest, and breathes, and Celine --

-- Celine still wants, her blood is still pounding, her hands are still on Miyeong, on Miyeong's hips, thumbs under her shirt on her hot skin and she wants so desperately to keep touching, she wants so desperately to feel Miyeong's mouth again and of course, of course she wants more than Miyeong does, of course she wants things that Miyeong does not, because Celine is a twisted and greedy thing, a walking, breathing fault who cannot help but try to take what is not hers --

"Hey, look at me." Miyeong's hands are around her wrists, gentle. Celine doesn't remember her putting them there. "Regarde moi, ma coeur."

Her accent is as thick as Celine remembers, all those late nights in their dorm after vocal practice when Miyeong, always insecure about her English, insisted Celine teach her French and then cheerfully butchered it.

"Mon cœur," corrects Celine, instinct, and pulls herself to focus, searching Miyeong's face to make sure she heard, that she's paying attention.

"There you are," smiles Miyeong, and Celine realizes she did it on purpose. Miyeong's hands are soft on her lapels, now. Miyeong likes jackets on her, Celine remembers. That final year, the label had started experimenting with their looks, putting Celine in skinny ties and fitted coats, still cut to be feminine, of course, but just suggestive enough otherwise to be daring, to create contrast with Miyeong and Sunmi. Celine had liked the look fine -- more comfortable than leotards, certainly -- but hadn't thought much further than that until Miyeong had tugged on her tie, smoothed out her collar and said it suits you.

Celine closes her eyes, feeling wrung out and dumb and twenty years too old, and lets Miyeong's touch keep her standing.

She is so tired.

"I haven't seen that in a while," murmurs Miyeong, sympathetic. "This really is a bad day for you, huh."

Celine wraps her hands around Miyeong's and holds them there against her collarbones. It's all she knows how to say, right now, but Miyeong will understand. She always does.

"I shouldn't have started anything," apologizes Miyeong, rueful. "You just looked so handsome, standing there with your shoulders all square, harassing our children."

It's teasing, loving. Miyeong does not, somehow, actually regret kissing her. Celine opens her eyes, and the look on Miyeong's face lodges itself in her chest, sharp and squirming, right next to Rumi's maman.

Miyeong cups Celine's cheek with one hand, goes up on her toes to put a gentle, chaste kiss on her lips, and slides out from between Celine and the wall, her other hand trailing down Celine's arm until it reaches her hand and holds it as she leads her to the kitchen.

"Come on, love, come shell shrimp for me, I'm making sinigang."

Another thing that hasn't changed, apparently; Sunmi's always loved Filipino food.

Celine still doesn't have the words for the blooming rot in her heart, the feel of Miyeong's fingers threaded through hers, the molten crack of something, new and alien and painful, threading through the calcified shell of her self. So she simply stays silent, and lets herself be led.

--

There aren't -- there aren't words. When Sunmi had come back, when they had finally all admitted to how badly they had broken each other, Miyeong had told Celine that she had never apologized because she couldn't, because some things were just too big for sorry, too tangled and cruel for forgiveness. Celine hadn't understood.

She does now.

She stares at nothing as the floorboards go blurry in front of her, there is a ringing ocean in her ears, and all she can think of is Rumi, fifteen years old, backstage before her first orchestral solo, terrified and pretending she wasn't, her anxious and unconscious tapping through the fingering on her flute, and this Rumi would not have even had that, would have had all fidgeting and hesitance hammered out of her with unforgiving indifference. There could never be enough apology for this.

Slowly, she becomes aware that someone is speaking.

" -- please, you do not have to do this, please get up, Celine --"

Rumi, fifteen and terrified, it's thick in her voice, the way her usual effortless precision of language has turned to babbling repetition, and Celine let it happen.

" -- what exactly you're thinking, but if we can talk about it --"

No. Not fifteen. Rumi now. Not her Rumi, but a Rumi, a Rumi who needs her.

She slowly bends upward into a sorry little kneel. Rumi is on one knee in front of her, both hands out, hovering, fingers splayed wide like she wants to touch but has no idea how. Her face is open panic, her chest rising and falling with heavy, too-fast breath, and when she says "Thank god" and it sounds broken and wet. Her arms still hover, a little lower, still shaking and uncertain.

Celine blinks through her own tears. Behind Rumi, Mira is standing, muscles stiff but weight on her legs in what is, probably unconsciously, a defensive L-stance. Zoey is half behind her, both arms wrapped, clinging, around Mira's right.

Mira is watching Celine, but Zoey is looking at Rumi with open and profound distress.

"Celine on the floor," Mira says. "I'm going to have nightmares about this," and it feels like it should be another joke but she sounds completely serious. Her eyes flick over to Rumi, and her voice goes low and careful, like she's talking to a cornered cat. "Unnie? Maybe come back here, give the woman a little space to stand up?"

"... yeah," says Rumi. "Yeah, okay."

She stands, still shaky, and backs up far enough to reach back her hand. Mira has to step forward to take it, and she says, quiet and firm but not unkind, "We're going to talk about this."

"Yeah," says Rumi again, her eyes still on Celine. She takes a deep breath, grips Mira's hand, and fortifies herself, sounding far more calm and normal when she agrees, "We will, I promise. But for now let's deal with one crisis at a time?"

"Fair enough," agrees Mira, and Zoey moves around to grab Rumi's other hand in both of her own, nodding as she goes, though Rumi, still facing Celine, has no way to see it.

Celine feels emptied out, the anger gone and nothing there to take its place. She stands, as shaky as Rumi had been, and tries, again, to make sense of this picture despite missing half the pieces. She can understand why they don't understand her apology. She can understand them fearing it, as sick as it makes her. She can't understand why Rumi's acting like it hurts.

"... I have a thought," says Zoey, "but I'm not sure it makes sense."

"I will take literally anything," says Mira, and Rumi's lip curls a little.

"So you remember that time that Dispatch caught Mira sneaking out to--" Her eyes cut sideways to Celine. "Sneaking out, and then after Celine dealt with it she came and lectured us on being careful and made us do a bunch of stealth training --"

A noise rips out of Celine's throat without her permission, raw and animal, and Mira and Rumi look at her like she is being weird, but Zoey seems excited by it, tapping Mira's arm and pointing. "See!"

Rumi looks back at her, puzzled. "What are you thinking, Zo?"

"Okay, well, you know how at the end of the lecture she apologized to Mira and said it shouldn't have happened, I still remember her exact words, it wasn't even to me but it was the first time I ever saw someone bow to someone younger than them and say they were sorry like they meant it, and I don't actually know where I'm going with this I told you I'm not sure it makes sense but, it feels connected, right? Sort of? Apologizing for not protecting us?"

Zoey might remember the moment fondly, but Celine, still feeling distantly removed from both anger and sorrow but aware that they're still coiled around her chest, just waiting for the moment when she has the strength to hold them again, is not fucking mollified.

[the-fallen-blue]

"So, what, she's... sorry about the drawbacks of fame?" Rumi asks.

Zoey shrugs, Rumi furrows her brow at Celine, and Celine has no idea how to even begin to help these girls, but she has to try.

everyone please pretend i didn't fail to copy+paste the last two lines of this bit and not notice for literally the entire day thank you

[kenkuheart]

In her home, she has a calendar on the kitchen wall where they keep track of activities. Work and school and appointments and shows and Seojoon's baseball games; when Rumi plans to come back and visit, when they plan to go and see her; when Sunmi needs them to water her plants. Over the years, they've developed a shorthand of symbols and initials to try and cram everything in.

In this house, this Celine has a calendar on the kitchen wall. There is a single 'R' on yesterday's date. Every other day is blank.

Bitch, Celine thinks to this other Celine, and feels only marginally better for it.

She would like to hold Rumi again, but this Rumi is being folded into a protective hug, Mira and Zoey huddling around to keep Celine away from her, and the Rumi she would like to be holding is a lifetime away. So she grips her own arms and stares at the picture of the lighthouse while she talks.

When she can’t see the girls, her home doesn’t seem so far. “You should never have been put in that position,” she tries to tell them.

Without her earlier fury clouding out all her other thoughts, what she means is this:

When Sunmi was fourteen, their dance teacher slapped her so hard across the face her lip split, and Miyeong helped her up, and then they’d just started the dance from the top while the blood dripped from Sunmi’s mouth onto her sweatshirt. Practice continued until well after midnight, and Celine had made them go out hunting anyway, so by the time they managed to get back to their dorms and soak her sweatshirt under some cold water the stain was well and truly fixed.

When her Rumi was fourteen, Miyeong and Celine still tucked her into bed each night.

This Rumi deserved that gentleness - Celine knows this, because there is no version of Rumi in any world who could ever not deserve it. And that had been denied to her.

She wants to go home. Wants her wife and kids and their angeori brimming with life, not this sad empty shell the other Celine has retreated into. Wants to crawl to the dirt where this Miyeong is waiting and promise that she’ll do something to help Rumi.

Reaching over to touch her ring finger, Celine tries to recentre herself and mostly succeeds.

“Yeah, it’s incredibly difficult being rich and successful,” Mira says flatly. Celine has raised too many teenagers to be goaded into a silly argument, so she just raises an eyebrow and lets Mira be the first to look away.

She feels too drained to get into the details. “Being an idol, it’s demanding work which comes with a lot of pressure. All your mother ever wanted was for you to be free to make your own decisions, Rumi-ya. She loves you so much–”

“My mother’s not here,” Rumi blurts, and then looks faintly nauseous at her own admission. Her twin sentinels wince.. 

“...I know. Yesterday, when I woke up here, I saw–” Celine breaks off. “I’m sorry, bunny. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not– It’s not a big deal,” Rumi lies. Her little tells - the way she tugs at the cuffs of her sweatshirt and looks away - are much the same as Celine’s own Rumi, but this girl is much quicker to realise what she’s doing and put a stop to them.

“Big or little, you’re allowed to miss her - no matter how long it’s been.”

Zoey inhales sharply. “Oh God, now she’s talking about feelings.”

“So. Many. Nightmares.”

Rumi is holding herself rigidly, her hands scrunching up inside her sleeves. Her face is carefully blank. 

“You should finish eating. You’ll need your strength. And I could… tell you about her, if you’d like?” Celine offers tentatively. 

While she’s here. She can make sure this version of Rumi carries some of her mother’s love and hopes for her future with her. She can try to explain what this world’s Miyeong would have thought about her being forced into idol training. She can help.

—

True to her word, Miyeong puts her to work preparing the shrimp, and Celine - dazed, stupid, fighting the urge to press her fingers to her lips like some sort of blushing schoolgirl - does as she is told. 

It’s been a while since she’s cooked like this, with another person. When Rumi was small, she used to stand on a small wooden footstool and help by swiping bits of cucumber or dipping her finger into sauces; when the girls were all in training, sometimes they’d all sit at the table and make mandu together like an assembly line. Then, after they moved to Seoul permanently, it had been simpler to prepare all the food before their visits - and that had been nice too, the anticipation that came from doing something with her hands for the girls to enjoy.

Sunmi might enjoy this, but Celine doesn’t want to examine the confusing tangle of memories that evokes. So she focuses on deveining the shrimp, and if she thinks for a second that there is something very satisfying about being able to cut inside and extract that one gross thing to make something that other people will like then she at least has enough presence of mind to recognise she’s being maudlin and mentally kick herself. Jealous of a shrimp. Jesus Christ.

The radio is playing a song she doesn’t recognise, and Miyeong shimmies along to it as she cooks. Strands of gold light ghost along her thighs, the outline of her hips, and Celine averts her gaze. It feels almost as if this Honmoon laughs as she does.

Distracted, flustered, she hears the door open but doesn’t connect that to anything until Kwon Sunmi stands before her.

Six years ago, just after Huntr/x debuted, Celine had no good reason not to cheer them on at the Idol Awards, even though Sunmi was nominated for Album of the Year, and with the cameras on them they had both fallen back on pleasantries. Sunmi had asked after Rumi and the girls, and her eyes had said Go fuck yourself. Celine had said they were all doing so well, and her own eyes had said Choke, bitch. And then Huntr/x had won and Sunmi had not, and at some point Celine had leaned over to whisper “Miyeong would have been so proud”. And Sunmi had said “Don’t ever talk to me again.” 

So Celine hadn’t.

“I made yakwa,” Sunmi is saying, holding the box out. “And another Tupperware for Rumi to take with her, let me just grab it.”

Celine does not. Every thought in her head has teeth, and they are all wrestling one another for control. 

“Bad day,” Miyeong says lightly, and Sunmi nods sympathetically. As though that’s supposed to make sense. As though she understands this when Celine herself does not.

“Need a minute, unnie? I can go bother your rude children,” Sunmi says, projecting her voice, “Who have not yet come to say hello to their favourite aunt.”

Embarrassingly enough, that’s what tips her out of her memories and back into this moment - the sudden burst of jealousy at Sunmi referring to herself as their favourite aunt, a flare of what about me?

But.

All three of Miyeong’s children call Celine Maman. So.

Celine decides not to think about that again.

“I’m fine,” she lies, and tries very hard not to bristle. “I need to find something in the library.”

She doesn’t even have to phrase it as a request and Sunmi - who has done nothing to help her, not a single thing in twenty five years - just shrugs.

“Sure, I can take a look.”

The bitch.

[the-fallen-blue]

“Actually,” says Celine, because she has not made a rational decision yet today, and why start now, “it’s fine. I’ll go over there myself. You hang out with the kids for a while. I don’t want to cut into your time with Rumi.”

Sunmi gives her a piercing look, then glances over at Miyeong, who is staring at Celine just as suspiciously. But when Miyeong meets Sunmi’s eyes, she just shrugs a little, and Sunmi, after another long beat, says, “Okay.”

Celine stands, eating sinigang and not tasting it, as the boys stampede into the room, slam into Sunmi on both sides, then bounce back to bombard her, rapidfire, with a list of movies they have planned for their (apparently regular) weekend trip. It's one long unbroken sentence, delivered in turns by both at apparent random. Celine has no idea how they know when the other one will speak, but they don't overlap or interrupt each other once.

Rumi is just behind, and waits them out to give Sunmi a more sedate greeting, a simple hug at a normal velocity, and her smile is wide and genuine, and she's delighted over the yakwa.

The image sears into Celine's brain, the two of them standing together, and for just an instant, Celine can picture it -- Sunmi teaching Rumi to catch frogs in the hanok pond, the way she had once taught Miyeong and Celine. Sunmi, who could have been an engineer, maybe a physicist if she hadn't been chosen by the Honmoon, tutoring Rumi in math. Sunmi, bandaging Celine's wounds after a rough hunt, Rumi still sound asleep because she hadn't been alone. Sunmi banging through the door on Rumi's birthday with baked sweets.

Celine looks away, bile churning in her stomach. Miyeong tries to take her hand, but Celine squeezes it and shakes her head. “I just need some air,” she says quietly, thinking I know sometimes you stare at leaves in the garden, “and some time to myself.”

Once again, Miyeong clearly doesn’t like it, and once again, she lets Celine go.

The walk to the library is better, mercifully quiet, and Celine manages to claw back a little equilibrium. She's seen sketches of the hanok all the way back to its initial design; the library started as a room in the angeori, but a small outbuilding was built for it by the fourth generation of hunters, when the volume of texts became too much for the space. It's been expanded twice since then, as years upon years of hunter lore has built up. There are journals and diaries kept by those inclined to make them, bestiaries of demons, studies on the Honmoon and its workings by mudangs both hunter and not. And music, a whole world of music, generations of hunter songs. Mantras and poems and notes first scratched out in personal notations long since lost to history, and their translations into modern scales and sheets.

One of Sang Hana's favorite punishments for misbehaving students had been hours in this building, transcribing the oldest texts to newer pages so they wouldn't be lost. Celine, who had never felt that punishment nearly as keenly as Sang-seonsaengnim had meant it, had set her own students to a similar task years later, digitizing the collection piece by piece. It must not have perturbed Huntr/x all that much either, since the summer after their debut, Zoey installed a satellite uplink and wired the place for internet, rather than try to run cable messily across from the angeori.

This library has an empty roof.

Inside it’s dim, and dusty, and it doesn’t look like anything has changed since the day the Sunlight Sisters left for their last concert. A large brick of steel cabinet looms against the wall, representing three generations of Hunters’ desperate attempts to make a rational card catalog out of all the disorganized history. Celine is not one hundred percent sure she still remembers how to use one of those.

She’s also not particularly sure what she’s looking for to begin with, so maybe it doesn't matter.

What could be twenty minutes or an hour later, she’s still paging blindly through the cards, looking for a topic that seems like it might have anything to do with I woke up and everything was insane, when Sunmi walks through the door.

Celine knows it’s her without looking, still, even after all these years, even when they have no Honmoon connecting them. She takes a deep breath and doesn’t look up.

“So I’ve been talking to Rumi and Miyeong about your ‘bad day',” Sunmi says, conversationally, like Celine had answered her like a civil person instead of sulking rudely, and god she hasn’t changed a bit in twenty years, has she? “Miyeong said what Miyeong will always say, which is that I should talk to you about it when you’re ready. But Rumi. She said you were missing your Hunter days.”

Celine says nothing. They both know Sunmi doesn’t need her to.

“I know when Miyeong is trying to hide something from me, which she is. And I know when you’re mad at me, which you are. And I know you don't lie to Rumi, which is strange, because I've also never known you to miss our Hunter days at all.

"So why don’t you tell me what’s really going on, so we can try and fix it?”

The absurdity of what Sunmi knows, that Sunmi could know anything, that Sunmi is, despite this, correct in nearly every way, almost chokes her.

“…‘Bad day’,” she finally manages to grit out, instead. “You all all keep saying that, like it means something. Like I could just walk around in a daze, display this pathetic failure of self-control, any time I feel like it, and that would be normal and fine. Like it could go without a single consequence, because the people around me will just smile and say nice things and make it all better.”

Sunmi waits. Celine hates her for it. She hates Sunmi’s patience, hates Sunmi’s care, hates Sunmi acting like they know each other, could ever still mean anything to each other, like she didn’t rip away half of what was left of Celine’s heart and never look back. She hates that the first minute Sunmi actually pushed, Celine couldn't stop herself being far too honest despite all that. She hates Rumi trying to console Celine like it’s in any way her job, she hates touching Miyeong and hating herself for it, she hates this whole goddamn day and its long chain of endless confusion only broken by her oldest, deepest wounds ripping open and spilling out, she hates how everyone here seems to want that, wants her to be soft and weak and naked to the world. Wants her to be the Celine they expect, in constant need of care, known for regularly breaking down.

She looks Sunmi dead in the eye, locks all the things it makes her feel into a tiny unimportant box and shoves it to the side, and says, as calmly as she can, "Every single thing about the world is wrong. Try and fix that."

---

When Celine was chosen by the Honmoon, she learned that places could be safe, and people could be worth looking up to, and that where a person came from could be something to be proud of. She had been voracious, for that first year, when life was small and simple on the hanok, to learn everything there was to know about Hunters past, both her own mentors and their mentors and all the way down the line. And even though she's long since grown past the need herself, she still remembers that feeling, the sense of being offered a legacy that she might actually want. She remembers being given soil to know she was rooted in, after a life of floating loose. She remembers the near violence with which she latched onto it.

But somehow, Celine's offer seems to have made Rumi even stiffer, and she just says, emotionless, "Let's just finish breakfast and get over to the library."

Celine doesn't understand. But she will do what Rumi needs.

The girls shovel the rest of their food away and get up almost as soon as they've all sat down again, and it's awkward and quiet on their way out of the angeori. But Zoey, bless her, seems to decide she's had enough of it quickly.

"So you were asking last night about the new Honmoon," she says, and if the cheer starts out forced, it very quickly becomes genuine as she spins up into the topic. "In case it has something to do with the swap? Our Celine thinks it's as strong as gold would have been, but we're not totally sure. We haven't seen any tears, but it's only been a couple months and the last Honmoon once went a whole eight months without any tears so that's not conclusive, and we have fought some demons but they could be stragglers stuck on this side after it formed so that's not conclusive either. We're still gathering evidence."

"It seems to work the same as the old one," adds Mira, dryly, reaching out to pluck a string and watch it form, vibrate and dissipate under her fingers. "Which is probably good. If randomly stealing Celines from other worlds is a new thing that only the new Honmoon can do, there won't be anything useful in the library."

"There could be something hypothetical!" says Zoey, undeterred. "The Golden Honmoon was hypothetical, but the old mudangs knew enough about the magic to know it was possible. Like nuclear fusion! We haven't done it ourselves yet but we know it's a thing."

"It is," agrees Celine. There can be no forgetting or denying the shimmering strands that have danced around her family for the last twenty years. "Your Honmoon is beautiful, I'm glad I got a chance to see it. I wish I could show you mine, in return."

"I wonder what makes the colors," muses Zoey, academically, "and why they're so different?"

But Rumi, who had loosened a little on the walk, seems to stiffen up again, and Zoey makes a tiny little flinch and lets it drop.

From the outside, the library looks the same as her own, but the inside is just as odd and slightly-to-the-left as the angeori. Celine can hear some kind of climate control running, maybe an air filter to help protect the oldest books; instead of the old outdated card catalog, there's a small bank of up-to-date LCD screens on a neat desk, next to what looks like scanning equipment. More of the collection is behind protective glass, too. Zoey goes straight to the nearest monitor and starts some kind of search; apparently this generation of Hunters managed to get the entire card catalog digitized. Celine remembers how complex the collection is in here and has to concede she's a little impressed.

Zoey sends her partners in two different directions, but keeps digging in the catalog herself, and Celine turns her back on them for a moment just to look around and take in the history. She reaches out to feel this world's Honmoon herself, presses against the strands just a little as though she was gearing up for a jump. The mood of it may be different, but the faint pressure of it, the sense of readiness to catch her or push her if she asks is perfectly familiar.

"You said you had to make this because Gwi-Ma completely destroyed the old one?"

"Yeah," says Mira, behind her, voice a little tight. "Not a great night."

"I suppose I can understand how he can have gotten so powerful," murmurs Celine. "From everything you've said, there would have been no harmony to strengthen it for so many years. You must have started almost from scratch."

She can picture it all too well, Rumi and her girls and a frayed, splintering Honmoon, instead of the warm and solid waves Eunbi and Hana had gifted to the Sunlight Sisters.

"It must have been so hard. Knowing how many you couldn't save, having to fight so many more demons than we ever did. Never being able to rest. I'm so sorry. Your Celine should never have let it get like this. Driving away Sunmi, leaving the Honmoon so vulnerable to the demon king that it could be lost completely --"

"Actually," cuts in Rumi, a catch in her voice. "I do have a question about my mother."

Celine turns to face her, near the back of the room where she holds an old Hunter journal like she's forgotten it's in her hands. "Of course, bunny. Anything you want."

"Rumi --" starts Mira, sounding slightly alarmed, but Rumi talks right over her.

"What exactly was going through Ryu Miyeong's head when she decided to fuck a demon?"

[kenkuheart]

As it happens, Celine asked herself the same question once before. More than once, those strange quiet months between Sunmi leaving and Jeongho's death.

Her own Rumi - for whom demons were almost entirely make-believe, something that only existed in storybooks - had never really thought of it as a betrayal. Truthfully, by the time Rumi was old enough to think of her father as anything more than an abstract biological prerequisite, Rumi had almost forgotten that her mother was a demon hunter.

This Rumi curses, speaks about Miyeong as though she's something to be ashamed of. Celine remembers that time after Miyeong told them, the nights she'd spent staring up at her ceiling feeling

"Rumi, that is no way to speak about your mother!"

Rumi looks like a spring, coiled tight. The cover of the journal she's holding is starting to bend and Mira, in one practiced move, tugs the book away and replaces it with someone's rubber band ball. Rumi doesn't appear to notice.

"Hey, maybe we could-" Zoey tries to say, but Rumi speaks up again.

"Why shouldn't I? She was supposed to help you fight demons, wasn't she?" Her voice sounds brittle. "Didn't you hate her for letting you down?"

Not for the first time, Celine's heart aches at whatever this other version of herself must have been saying to the poor girl.

"Not for a second, bunny," she says, truthfully.

Celine had hated herself a lot more. For the way she looked at Miyeong - the way she wanted Miyeong to look at her in turn. But she'd been used to that kind of hate; learning that Miyeong had developed feelings for a demon had made her jealous, but it had still made sense to her, back then, that Miyeong might look at her and see something even lower and uglier and more monstrous.

Sunmi, who had escaped the worst of that tangle of self-loathing, had been furious. And then she'd got over herself.

"She didn't-- It wasn't an easy time," she tries to explain. "We were working a lot, and Miyeong had just wanted someone to talk to."

"And she picked a demon?"

(Zoey, quietly, coughs something that sounds like "Jinu", which Rumi doesn't acknowledge.)

"He was... There for her. She was having fun. And they liked each other a lot," Celine eventually settles on. She's made her piece with everything that happened with Jeongho, and she knows that without him Rumi - perfect, miraculous Rumi - would never have existed.

Still. He did also fuck her wife. She doesn't love the guy.

So she adds, "Anyway, she'd had worse boyfriends. Jeongho might have been a demon but at least he picked up a book once in a while--"

It's the sort of joke she wouldn't think twice about making to her Rumi; in fact, she probably has, just to see her squirm about her eomma having had any kind of dating history at all. But all three girls jolt in surprise.

"J-Jeongho?"

Celine knows what's coming. She feels the need to steel herself for it all the same.

"You didn't know his name?"

---

"Huh," Sunmi says. She boosts herself up to sit on the edge of a table and then doesn't say anything else. Celine slides the drawer back into its slot a bit more vigorously than is really warranted, and starts shuffling through the next lot.

She should have come down here sooner. Shouldn't have waited for Sunmi, like she was going to help. Shouldn't have spent all that time indulging herself, spending time with Rumi and Miyeong and the boys as though--

"Is that the only clue I get?"

Celine shoots her a look. Sunmi just grins and holds her hands up, playing at surrender like they're kids again, and Celine hates her for that too.

"Just saying, unnie. I might be great at it but I'm not able to read minds. Anything more specific?"

The only thing, the single thing that has been playing on repeat in her mind all day - today and every other day for the last 25 years - is: "Miyeong's dead."

That at least wipes the smirk off Sunmi's face. Celine notices and feels a savage thrill at the way she flinches, decides to push even more.

"Miyeong died twenty five years ago."

Sunmi's mouth falls open at that, horrified. Celine keeps her voice even, controlled as she looks away from the drawers to meet Sunmi's gaze directly.

"I raised Rumi alone, with all her patterns. And I taught her to hate herself so much that she asked me to execute her."

Fear and disgust pass over Sunmi's face. Celine feels only a cold satisfaction over it. Let her see. Let Sunmi be the one to carry this. To be alone and helpless and ashamed. To hate Celine as fiercely as she deserves to be hated.

Celine takes a step back and opens the next drawer, mechanically starts to page through its contents.

The version of Celine who lives in this world would probably fall to pieces over such an admission. Show the most disgusting, weak parts of herself and expect the others to coddle her over it, act as though she could ever be anything more than this.

[the-fallen-blue]

Celine gets through another entire, useless drawer, and another half past that, without Sunmi so much as breathing loudly behind her.

What Sunmi says, though, when she eventually replies, is just,

“Did you?”

Celine looks back. Sunmi’s face has gone casual again, and she’s leaning back against the table, but her feet are on the floor now and her weight’s not actually on her arms. She always was the cagiest of them.

“Did I what?”

“Execute her.”

Celine’s hands spasm on the cabinet door.

“Does it matter?” she grits out, once speech returns to her, stupid and hot, like anything could matter more than Rumi’s life. “Does the request alone not tell you enough?”

“That’s a no, then.”

Like her face had never even flickered, like she hadn't been ready to literally summon her spear thirty seconds ago. She's so fucking unruffled, leaning back on the table like she just proved something. Celine has never wanted to hit anyone more.

At least the smirk hasn’t come back, but the thoughtful, piercing regard she’s aiming at Celine now isn’t much better.

“Twenty-five years, you said?”

Sunmi hadn’t been there when it happened, but she’d burst through the door three hours later, summoned by the shrieking agony of the Honmoon. Celine doesn’t remember much of those three hours, doesn’t remember what she was doing when Sunmi found her. She does remember the heavy thud of Sunmi’s knees hitting the carpet. She remembers holding each other, and Sunmi packing her into the shower, then sitting on the closed toilet while Miyeong’s blood washed down the drain and they talked, numbly, about what story to tell the police. All of Celine’s sticky-sick rage over the demon had cracked open, like a roach under a boot, the second she saw Miyeong fall -- she’d felt so childish and guilty for the cold, petty distance she’d been holding between them all those months -- and she’d thought it must be the same for Sunmi. Thought they’d been on the same page, in perfect synchronicity right up until Sunmi had said I know she thinks the cousin in Australia hates her but maybe he’ll still take the kid –

Sunmi is in front of her, saying, softly, “Show me your hands.”

Celine doesn’t know why she lets Sunmi take them in her own, the bones of Celine’s knuckles resting loosely in Sunmi’s palms. The heel of Celine’s left thumb is sore under its wrap, and the long white ridge that crosses that hand – a souvenir from catching a joesung saja’s blade – is stark against the pink skin around it, flushed by proximity to the wound. Her right wrist aches, a little; Celine was far too distracted to do her finger stretches, this morning, though they don’t always help, regardless.

“My Celine,” says Sunmi, still so soft, “got flipped over her motorcycle by a drunk driver about twenty years ago and broke her left arm. They had to brace it with a plate. The Honmoon healed the surgical cut clean, but there’s still a little knot where the bone poked through, up near her elbow.”

She gently pronates Celine’s hands, revealing the fine criss-cross of long-healed defensive wounds on the backs of her forearms. An odd frisson shivers up and down Celine’s spine. Sunmi’s hands are dry and warm. Celine thinks, for no reason she could name, of Zoey, last Chuseok, tipsy off the blackberry wine Celine had gifted them, wrapping her hands around Celine’s wrists and dragging her into a circle dance with the girls.

Sunmi lets her go and steps away, and Celine feels like she’s just dropped back into herself, like the sharp jolt of Eunbi rapping her knuckles for daydreaming during lessons. Anger roils, surging home into her chest, and she yanks her hands away from nothing, balling them into fists, far too late.

“We’re looking for Moon Yongsu’s journals,” says Sunmi, and it’s matter-of-fact but far more subdued than she has been, holding onto the quiet, as she heads toward the south corner of the library. “Possibly others, but I remember her in particular. She wrote about one of her sister Hunters changing, one day, waking up with different scars and a memory of a different life. Another version of her, stepping through from a whole other world, like something out of Hajoon’s Western comic books.”

I didn’t make this, Celine thinks, dumbly, and doesn’t know what to do with it.

Sunmi pulls open another file cabinet – Celine dimly remembers that’s where they used to sort loose papers and unbound manuscripts – then pauses, and looks back at Celine.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through, or what it’s made of you,” and Celine knows Sunmi well enough to hear the condemnation in the phrasing, no matter how evenly she says it, “… but I’m sorry about your Miyeong.”

“Fuck. You,” seethes Celine.

Sunmi’s mouth turns up, a sad little smile that makes Celine’s blood boil, and she lays a sheaf of fragile, timeworn journal pages on a nearby table. “Let’s get to work.”

--

Whatever the knowledge had done to shock Rumi out of her anger, she falls right back into it at Celine's question, knuckles white around the rubber band ball.

“I don’t need to know his name," she seethes. "He’s a soul-eating sperm donor who’s given me nothing but a lifetime of shame and secrecy. He does not matter, and frankly the only reason that Miyeong does is because no one will ever shut up about her.”

“Rumi, are you –”

But Mira doesn’t have any better luck than Zoey did, Rumi plowing forward right over her words, a low “Miyeong,” and it’s almost a snarl, “did not take me to the teddy bear museum for six straight weekends no matter how sick of it she must have been. Miyeong did not sit at the side of my bed and sing me to sleep when I was afraid the Haetae was going to come and take me away for eating too many cookies. Miyeong did not teach me to drive or sing or throw a punch or make a snowman. And I am sorry, if it hurts you,” Rumi’s shaking, her voice is wet, “but Ryu Miyeong is not my mother. She is a grave, and a story, and a person whose –” she gasps for air, and the ball slips out of her hand and bounces away along the floor in punctuation, “whose incredible mistake has cast its shadow across everything I have ever tried to be. I don’t need her, I have never needed her, and I am long past wanting her. The only thing I want now is for – I just want –”

She trips on her tongue, hyperventilating, short shallow pants that steal her words. Her girls are next to her, careful, so careful, reaching out, and Rumi crashes backward into Mira’s arms while Zoey wraps around her from the side, both of them glassy-eyed and fierce as Rumi finally heaves in a long hard breath and sobs, “I just want it back like it’s supposed to be.”

And Rumi is right, it hurts. It hurts, like Miyeong’s grave hurt, like seeing that curl of demon purple on a tiny helpless shoulder hurt, like the acrid smell of her father’s study hurt, like watching a third of her soul walk away hurt, like her whole chest has been cracked open and hollowed out and filled with cold scraping fire at the thought that this scarred young woman never had that love, will not only never know Miyeong, but cannot think of her without anger, cannot even see it for a loss.

But Celine’s feelings have only ever been as important as Miyeong and Sunmi and Dr. Yun can convince her they are, and none of them are here.

Rumi is.

Celine reaches out, cautious and slow like the other two had been, putting her hand just in Rumi’s reach.

Rumi, not looking, weeping against Zoey’s hair, takes it.

It’s a start.

[kenkuheart]

Celine runs her thumb over the back of Rumi's knuckles carefully. Even the unscarred skin feels different: whereas her own Rumi's palms are much softer, this Rumi has callouses at the base of each finger. She's a fighter; it's a shame she ever needed to be.

This Rumi isn't her Rumi. She didn't live the same life as her Rumi, and it wasn't fair to treat her question as if it was the same as when her Rumi had asked her about her mother's relationship with her father. Then, Rumi had been looking for reassurance, needing to know that things wouldn't change after the babies were born, and enough time had passed for the answer to be simple. If Miyeong hadn't been with Jeongho, there would never have been a Rumi, and by then that had felt unthinkable.

If this Rumi was her Rumi, and if this place was her home, Celine could wrap her arms around Rumi and comfort her while she cried; if this Rumi was her daughter, Miyeong would hold them both and together they would fix whatever was hurting their girl, and if Celine knew how to go home then she would do it in a heartbeat, sick as she is of this monument to her own weakness. But if this Rumi was her Rumi and Celine was her mother, and if wishes were horses then this would already be resolved, somehow, with a long hug and some Kleenex and a cup of hot chocolate.

"You're right, I'm sorry," Celine says. Three pairs of eyes spring towards her, and she has to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the other Celine again. "You don't have the same relationship with Miyeong as my- as the Rumi I know."

Her heart hurts at the thought of it. She gives Rumi's hand a gentle squeeze, hoping that at least this bit of comfort won't be rebuffed.

Rumi, after a long moment, squeezes back. Her long fingers grip Celine's hand tightly - she watches Rumi notice the plaster and turn their hands over to look.

"Just a scratch," she tells Rumi.

"There's gotta be something here that tells us how to fix this!" Zoey says brightly, despite the shininess of her own eyes. "We'll get our Celine back and send this other one to her world in no time!"

Mira nods. "And Celine's got to be trying to solve it from her side, too. Can you imagine her stuck in the Land of Talking About Feelings?"

"Oh my god," Rumi groans, smiling despite some of her tears. "If this is the way everyone talks in that world-- Uh, no offence."

"None taken. I'm sure I don't want to think about what your Celine might be doing to my life, either," Celine says drily.

She hasn't given much thought to it, what the other her might be doing, how Miyeong and the kids would cope to find some stranger wearing her face. The best part of twenty years has been spent trying to shield the kids from seeing the parts of herself that this other Celine seems to have given in to a long time ago; Celine chose to learn how to be gentle and calm and how to remove herself from a situation when she was struggling to be either, and nothing Rumi and her friends have said makes her think that their Celine knows how to do the same.

She'd never wanted the kids to know those things, really. They've worked so hard to make sure all three could grow up happily, safely, protected from the worst the world had to offer. It had taken a long time and a lot of effort for Celine to stop counting herself as part of that.

---

Moon Yongsu had, evidently, been one of the more prolific diarists of her era. Celine, who has settled into the familiar armour of anger given a direction, decides to resent her for that too when they find the thick stack of papers she left behind.

Silently, Sunmi splits the stack in half, taking the top for herself and leaving Celine with the bottom. The papers haven't been kept in chronological order, as one of the first entries she reads describes Yongsu's climb up the slopes of Moaksan and the following pages are talking about the training she was undergoing. Celine takes a moment to miss the database she and the girls had painstakingly pulled together, everything indexed by date, author and theme, and feels a vicious pleasure at the thought. Huntr/x had done much better than this Sunmi and her false Celine, who had wasted years getting fat and happy from indulging in her every weakness.

"I can take it from here," Celine says stiffly.

"I'm sure you can," Sunmi tells her, and makes no move to leave. They skim through their pages a while longer until Sunmi lets out a low whistle.

"Got it. Here, listen to this: Chunja woke today, very distressed, telling a strange story. She is convinced that I was married and apologised for some argument she thought we had about me neglecting my responsibilities to the Honmoon - she only became more upset when I told her this never happened and I had no intentions of leaving her. Sound familiar?"

Celine does not wince, or flinch, or react outwardly in any way. She just forces herself to unclench her jaw.

"Is that all she had to say?"

"Looks like this happened in May 1942. Anything dated from around then should help." Sunmi spreads out another chunk of papers, plucks out one or two that must match the date, and sets the rest aside to sift through the next chunk.

Celine watches her for a moment, head bowed over her work. Sunmi's curls are gathered into a loose ponytail at the back of her neck, little flecks of grey running through them, and there's a scar in her eyebrow that Celine doesn't remember her ever having had. For a second, she thinks she could scream at the sight of her, sitting there as calmly as if they were back in class and the years between them had never happened - but for this Sunmi, she supposes they never had.

"I can do it myself," she says again, mostly so she doesn't say something else - worse - more pathetic, like Why would you come back for her here? or Why wasn't I enough? She doesn't want to know the answer anyway. It wouldn't change a thing.

"What, are you trying to get rid of me?"

The yes is obvious enough that Celine just glares at her. She doesn't want to be sitting here, relying on Sunmi's assistance to do anything. She doesn't want Sunmi to see her like this, raw and split open in ways that don't mean anything - aren't real, or a reflection of her, or anything to do with this version of Celine who has survived this long without Sunmi and has every intention of continuing to do so for the rest of her life.

When she doesn't answer, Sunmi glances up and blinks at whatever she sees on Celine's face. "OK. Fine. Someone should go tell Miyeong what we found, anyway."

Something cold and heavy slams into Celine's gut at the mention of Miyeong. Celine's shoulders stiffen. An image crosses her mind - Miyeong, back pressed against the wall, lips kiss-swollen, breathing heavily with her arms wrapped around Celine. That hadn't been meant for her. That had been for someone else - someone with her name and face but nothing else in common with her. Someone who might have been the kind of person that could say things like Rumi asked me to execute her and nobody would have to check whether or not she actually had. Someone who would never need to say that kind of thing at all.

She grabs onto the table to keep her hands from shaking, and reaches back for her earlier fury to steady herself. But in this place, unchanged from her own childhood, it's easy to let her anger run its most familiar course and turn itself inwards.

You should have known, she tells herself, and breathes in unsteadily.

You touched her, and she'll feel sick every time she thinks about it, now that she knows what you really are.

[whatacartouchebag]

Crawling out of my hole to remind people that with this current update to Firefox (version 144) they've gone and dumped in their lot with a buncha lil AI tools, namely Perplexity as a new search engine.

So if the sound of that leaves your mouth tasting of tar, here's what you want to do:

In the url bar, type in about:config

It'll give you a big scary warning page that you might poke holes in your browser. Good. You want to do that. Click continue.

One by one, you're going to need to put each of these into the search bar in the page, not up top:

browser.ml.enable browser.ml.chat.enabled extensions.ml.enabled browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled

Each of these are gonna have a lil toggle icon on the right hand side that looks like a funky double-ended arrow. Click that and the value next to it should change to false. It all auto saves as you go. Some of these might already be set to false by default and that's peachy.

The next best thing you can do for yourself is to set your default search engine to udm14 or Qwant, but for now, we're just tidying the garden a lil bit.

Edit: This wildly broke containment for a post that was supposed to be me basically ranting and grumbling like an old man on my porch to my homies. If I’ve inspired you to follow through with this, peachy. That was mildly intended. Better yet, I hope I’ve spurred a buncha you on to do your own bit of digging and research.

If you were one of today’s lucky ten thousand to learn something new, I hope you keep doing it. I won’t be here to hold your hand through it, as I simply don’t have the time nor spoons for it, so I implore you to go down your own rabbit hole and chase knowledge with wild abandon.

[melyzard]

As more and more people are being forced to switch to Windows 11, Microsoft's most AI-malware-ridden OS yet, I've been putting together articles and links for how to undo the damage and save your battery, your RAM, your disk space, your privacy, and your sanity from this bullshit.

FIRST:

The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:

GitHub - Raphire/Win11Debloat: A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform v

A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customi

It's very easy, even if you're not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying "ARE YOU SURE?" Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).

Now that you've done that, here's the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it's good to double check).

Sick of AI in your Windows 11 PC? Here's how to get rid of it

Microsoft wants to put AI everywhere on your PC, but you can take back control.

Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and "Discover" AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there's this uncanny valley garbage:

No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple "smooths your skin" add on).

Stop Windows 11's most intrusive ads with these 9 easy tweaks

Tired of Microsoft pushing ads throughout Windows 11? Here are the settings you can tweak to turn them off and reclaim some privacy.

The truly insane number of places they have stuck ads on your own home computer is sickening. Become Unmarketable.

Bonus:

Some background programs you probably don't need that are taking up space and how to remove them (Microsoft forums, 2024)

Your Samsung Galaxy Phone comes with 22 apps you don't need (Android Police, 2025)

How to disable the AI in firefox (still the only browser that lets you do this permanently) (Windows Report, 2025)

[steinpughhawke]

➳ ⧗ a MASTERLIST of all my bishova fafic rec threads 📚💜💚

all credits go to the rightful author. thank you to every single bishova author out there. you are appreciated so very much. thank you for feeding us!

[transferred from twitter]

Green - Completed

Purple - Ongoing

100k stories

high school/college au

jealous!yelena

5+1

fake dating au

underrated stories

underrated oneshots

soulmate

haven’t been updated in year(s)

outsider’s POV

pitch perfect crossover

sad/angsty

enemies to lovers

18+ stories

top!yelena

top!kate

omegaverse

recent completed (9/28/24)

[theweirdwideweb]

Dudes healthcare is so fake. My ADHD meds are $940 without insurance. But they gave me a website of "coupons" which straight up looks like a scam website, and I got it today for $60! Just a coupon from a random website and it was $900 cheaper. America, I am confusion!! America explain!!

[theweirdwideweb]

For all my uninsured judys out there it's for Walgreens only: walgreens.rxsense.com

[theweirdwideweb]

[handsmotif]

as a pharmacy technician i can share with you some websites that give you those "coupons" for your meds!

goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you

some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!

if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too

good luck out there 👍

[bitchesgetriches]

How to Pay Hospital Bills When You’re Flat Broke

[rayneydayss]

another one is singlecare.com, brought my duloxetine from $240 a month to $20

and there are coupons for hrt on there as well :) different options for different pharmacies

[izzystizzys]

As High Marshall Commander, a title foisted on him by the Galaxy’s fakest bitch aka Chancellor Palpatine, Fox theoretically has privileges and authorities like no other clone. In practice, he has a headache and gets ignored more obviously than before.

What he also has is a fancy new function on his personal comm unit modified to broadcast GAR-wide to all commanding officers, up to and including Jedi. It gathers dust next to his own modified button that sees much better use - a private channel to Stone, the only vod that will let Fox bitch at him to his heart’s content without hanging up (Thire) or bitching right back (Thorn).

It’s been a long shift of 72 hours, the maximum Stabby allows him to do without a well-placed hypo to the neck, when Fox finally collapses on his rickety cot in the Command quarters and hits the private comm connection to Stone without looking. He’s already rolling his eyes so hard it tweaks at the migraine that’s been building since hour 18 and heaving a put-upon sigh.

“Everyone is stupid, Stone, and asking to be thrown face-first from the Dome balustrades”, he begins, settling into a low, dead tone of voice to warm to the building monologue. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. “I swear to haran I’m going to wring Amedda’s stringy neck one of these days. I don’t know what magical Force gods his mother pissed off, but they made sure to punish her and the Galaxy at large a hundred times over. He sucks the joy and competence out of every room like a black hole of stupid. I’d call him a has-been, but I trust in the power of nepotism and also just don’t believe he ever was. I swear he’s doing it on purpose and - oh, kriffing Sith-damned hells, you know who’s definitely doing it on purpose?! The kriffing Chancellor, that wrinkly ass-faced ballsack!”

Taking a deep breath, Fox lets that sit in his chest for a moment, indulging in the feeling of bright weightlessness. “I swear he’s trying to keep the war going - no one man can be that incompetent and still draw breath, not even Amedda or Taa. Goddamn Taa - but anyways, kriffing hell, Stone, either the senility isn’t an act or he’s a bad cartoon villain from Dooby Scoo. Yes Sir, sending Senator Amidala to a Seppie-infested planet for negotiations is a great idea after her fourth bomb threat of the week. No Sir, I can’t hear you cackling evilly with Count Dooku under your lame two-credit robe as you’re definitely not colluding with the Republic’s enemies. What, you have a red lightsaber?! Oh, of course I don’t know what that means, I was dropped on the head as a tubie!”

Barely pulling in a harsh breath, Fox continues, palms pressing into his eyeballs hard enough to cause sparks. “And speaking of lightsabers and senile fucks, haran smite my ass off but who the kriff thought it’d be a good idea to give absolute tactical and military authority to the kriffing eldritch space monks! The Force didn’t bless them with the collective good sense it gave to a kriffing rock, and I’m tired of pretending otherwise! Has anyone kriffing read the Theed Convention of Sentient Rights in Wartimes?! NO?!! Well, color me UNSURPRISED, because war crimes ARE NOT! GOOD! BATTLE! TACTICS!!”

“They run around in crop tops, Stone, in crop tops! Oh, the Force provides - WELL I’M GOING TO PROVIDE MY FOOT UP YOUR ASS, AND IT’S GOING TO HURT BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT WEARING KRIFFING ARMOUR!”

“Sure, let’s send the preteens into active warzones under heavy artillery in kriffing party wear! Surely nothing will ever go wrong! And give them commanding positions equivalent to CC-clones, WHO WERE LITERALLY GENETICALLY CREATED FOR IT! WITH A DECADE OF INTENSE TRAINING! LET’S DO THAT, BECAUSE WE’RE ALL KRIFFING STUPID!”

He’s gesturing wildly at the ceiling now, face heating up as his blood boils beneath the surface. “And you know what really gets my lowers in a twist, apart from the preteen commanding officers and blatant kriffing high treason and war profiteering?! Is it the complete lack of recognition? Gratitude? Basic sentient rights?! No, Stone, no, I would take all that in stride if it meant I never had to see Skywalker and Amidala kriffing canoodle right in front of me again, and pretend like it isn’t the galaxy’s worst conflict of interest case in the making!”

“By all levels of Sith-hell, what the kriff is wrong with that woman? You have it all, you could have anyone, and you choose that twatwaffle?! And then they have the gall to lock themselves in a broom closet for twenty minutes straight and have me guard it! ‘Oh yes, Senator, naturally we all go rattling brooms with our good friends! Nothing dodgy happening at all! I definitely believe you were looking for detergent and have used a washing machine before!’ The absolute nerve on those two! And then last week - you’ll never believe this - High General Windu passed by, and I swear he looked like he wanted to throw himself off the roof! I’ve never been less impressed by anyone in my life, and I’m batch-mates with Bly!”

“Speaking of Bly, that little bitchtit - if I have to edit one more, one more kriffing propaganda piece of him staring at General Secura’s bits, I’m going to stab my eye out! And if I have to edit one more of Secura staring at his bits, I’m going to stab the other one out! The only good thing I have to say about them is they’re more subtle than Skywalker and Amidala, which means nothing really. I will never understand that woman - but then she’s worked with Jar Jar Binks for a decade and not had a nervous breakdown, so she either has nerves of steel or is on some good-ass drugs.”

“Girl, your choices. And you know what else is a choice? Kote kriffing roundhouse-kicking heads off droids when he has a perfectly good blaster right there! I don’t know what the Longnecks put in his tube, but I hope to kriff it’s not contagious. I’d say I’m glad he has Kenobi to keep him in check, but that man wouldn’t know common sense if it punched his nose clean off his face. Flirting with General Grievous, ugh. I’d say he can do better, but honestly, they deserve each other.”

“And Wolffe - “, panting, Fox pauses, considering. “Well, Wolffe is an asshole and stupid, and I hate him because he’s stupid and has a stupid face. Also he keeps drunkenly submitting adoption paperwork on General Koon’s behalf - I wish I could say something mean about that, but honestly, his existence is roast enough. Anyways, bitches are trying me today, and by bitches I mean everyone. Commander Fox signing off to go not commit treason, unfortunately.”

Thoroughly powered out, Fox sinks into his hard mattress with a deep sigh. Several seconds of silence reign, and then his comm unit starts blaring in alarm.

Somewhere in the Jedi Temple, Mace Windu is knocked flat on his ass by a gargantuan shatterpoint exploding.

[failchild]

this article is behind a paywall but i'm obsessed with the headline + photo combo

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Like to charge, reblog to cast.

[anarchistmemedistro]

[karalovesallthegirls]

Also have another “first words spoken to you are on your skin” soulmate AU idea where Kara is a journalist assigned to shadow the controversial CEO of L-Corp for the day. It’s a big deal for her to get this assignment, so of course she trips the second she’s near the other woman and tries awkwardly to redeem herself.

The CEO stares at her almost in shock, and then says nothing. At all. Ever, for the entire day.

Kara spends hours following Lena Luthor around trying to fill the silence, but no amount of questions get her to talk. Lena almost seems to be running away at some points - like she’s trying to lose her? - and the few times she’s managed to catch her actually talking to someone she goes silent the second she sees Kara.

She asks around if Miss Luthor is usually like this and everyone looks at her like she’s crazy. Apparently she’s the only one who gets the silent treatment. By the end of her first day shadowing she’s walking away with half a page of observations and not a single quote. Miss Grant is going to kill her.

But that’s okay. It’s fine, this isn’t over. She has four days of shadowing ahead of her and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t finish this with a quote from the woman herself. It’s only a matter of time.

[karalovesallthegirls]

I was told to post with the tags!

[babblingblueberry]

Pretty hilarious to me how cringefail ozai calls himself the Phoenix king when if anyone of that family can be considered synonymous with the legend of the Phoenix it's Zuko

[spock-shock]

i do think medical & sciences should have different shirt colors. after you've been attacked by sentient plants or the hull has been breached by klingons or a malevolent space cloud has incapacitated the bridge crew, i think you'd want to be able to tell immediately if you're running towards a doctor or a geologist. design flaw

[spock-shock]

#the possibility of rushing to an electrical engineer for help instead of security when being chased by the latest hostile salt vampire #also seems like a problem #engineering and security both being red shirts makes me concerned for every random nerd on the ship #in hindsight maybe this is why the red shirts keep dying #someone keeps handing a phaser to Fred from IT and assuming he knows combat tactics

tags @thewingedwalrus also an extremely fair point

[chrispineofficial]

i’m actually kind of surprised that Leverage (2008-2012) and Leverage: Redemption (2021–) don’t have a bigger fanbase on tumblr lol like it’s literally sexy polycule vibes with a focus on diversity and inclusion plus aldis hodge looks like this in s2 of Redemption so what are we even doing

[chrispineofficial]

i am being so fucking fr right now when i say you can and should stream both leverage (2008-2012) and leverage: redemption (2021–) on freevee FOR FREE you will have such a good time and honestly it’s the right thing to do

[surrexi]

when i was live-tweeting my way through the second half of the first season of redemption, i tweeted that everyone on the team is at least a little bit queer and the series creator liked the tweet so it's basically canon now i don't make the rules

also the whole enterprise is basically an anti-capitalist revenge fantasy it's so fucking soothing to watch it while trying to survive in our late-stage capitalist dystopia

[ekjohnston]

Watching Leverage in Canada is EXTREMELY challenging, but if you can, I definitely recommend it.

[afloweroutofstone]

I'm the "voting is good" guy but I intend to direct basically all of my you-should-vote energy next year towards the reelection of the 18 progressives who've stuck their necks out to call for an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire. They've dedicated themselves to a basic standard of human decency, and for it they will be punished with an immense tidal wave of financial and political resources seeking to get them kicked out of office, to say nothing of the threats against their lives. Biden's on his own.

[kalichnikov]

None of them are from my state, unfortunately but predictably. But OP is right: if you live in one of these states, and in the right district, you're in a position to cast a vote that could actually matter.

[glitter-stained]

More of trans allegory Jason and the goons VS the batfam:

Transmasc older goon, trying to connect: Hey out of curiosity boss, when did your egg crack?

Jason, thinking this is a bird pun about how he became Robin: Uh, 12 I guess...

****

Penguin henchman: Wow, you really are okay calling yourselves goons? Isn't that like a little demeaning?

Red Hood Goon: Inclusivity my guy -Henchperson is a mouthful, and that way, we don't have to assume.

Penguin Henchman: Oh my god that's so thoughtful!

*they resume shooting at eachother.*

*****

Batman You're not okay Hood, you need a professional. Please, we can help you!

Jason: There's nothing wrong with me, I won't let you throw me into Arkham!

Goon of the week: Yeah Batfreak, the boss doesn't need help, there's nothing wrong with him! How would you like it if we tried to convert you out of being a furry, huh?!!

Batman: reconsiders life choices.

****

Angry goon: *beats the shit out of Nightwing with a trans pride flag*

Dick, a bisexual cis metrosexual: I'm not sure what is happening but this feels offensive.

****

Batman: Please, I know there's a lot of bad blood, but you're still my child...

Jason: Really? Because I clearly remember you saying you weren't my father and didn't have to deal with my "teenage angst"!

The Goons: You said what?!

Oracle : You said what?!

Dick, standing up and picking up the pride flag: You said what.

[redstuffs-ig]

this rots anakin concept art with him wearing Dooku's cape is so funny like

*fresh off committing cold-blooded murder*

Anakin: "I shouldn't have done that; it's not the Jedi way."

Palpatine: "He was too dangerous to be left alive."

Anakin: "You know what, fair enough." *loots Dooku's body for his unique cosmetic like a videogame boss*

[willowcrowned]

time travel fics where it’s Luke and/or Leia who goes back to the prequels as opposed to prequels characters going back to the prequels are incredibly funny because instead of emotional tension you could cut with a knife and horrible grief overlaying every action it’s just one (or two) ridiculously powerful people running around with absolutely no idea what’s going besides (a) that the chancellor everybody loves is pure evil and plotting the downfall of the republic and (b) that their dad (with whom they have a VERY complex relationship) is, at best, old enough to be barely out of space college. who needs complex and carefully rendered plans based on a million different remembered factors when you can have one of the space twins seeing Palpatine and trying to kill him with their illegal laser sword on sight

[phoenixyfriend]

Leia: That’s a Sith Lord.

Mace: That’s the Chancellor.

Leia: He’s a Sith. He’s ready to blow up entirely planets for the fun of it as soon as he’s got the weapon built. I can prove it.

Obi-Wan: And how do you plan on doing that?

Leia: Hm…

[five minutes later, when nobody’s close enough to tackle her]

Leia, her laser sword in one hand and a blaster in the other: HEY SIDIOUS

Yoda: Taken our eyes off her, we should not have.

[willowcrowned]

Leia, cocking her gunsaber: Diplomacy is for people who didn’t blow up my planet

[thatgirlonstage]

@thefancytomato ask and ye shall receive

[willowcrowned]

au contraire my friend

[shadowjsm]

the order of the red and blue implies that leia kills him after she loses the gun. this has me thinking of the prequel cast having some epic quest to stop her from killing palpatine and when they finally get the gun she just strangles him

[starwarsheritageposts]

star wars heritage post

[uncahier]

Yeah, I’d watch Muppets Lord of the Rings

[jedi-starbird]

A happier galaxy where the disaster lineage is somewhat less on fire constantly and senior padawan Obi-wan has developed a fixation on Mandalorians:

Sometimes Feemor regretted just how much he had given away when he had spent 5 expensive months bribing a traumatised Obi-wan to call him brother when he was 14. His dignity, for one, his access codes and shadow cloaking techniques, another. So he had a very dignified reaction when he was awoken to the shine of his younger brother's eyes in the dark at the foot of his bed. "I wou-stop screaming it's just me-I would like a Mandalorian. How do I procure one?"

"How the fuck should I know?"

Obi-wan scowled as if Feemor was being difficult, he wasn't, he wasn't quite awake enough for that yet. "You're a shadow, you're supposed to know things."

Ah, if being a shadow granted you the secrets of the universe instead of just a great many planetary governments, Feemor wouldn't spend so much time wondering what dark rituals Dooku had committed to result in Qui-gon Jinn. (He already knew what regular rituals Qui-gon had committed to result in Obi-wan)

"I know that I'm about to punt you out of my room right now."

"...My birthday is coming up, I believe I deserve compensation for all the traumas."

Obi-wan's eyes were very big now. Feemor sighed. He flopped back down into bed. He resisted the urge to pull his blankets back up and roll over. 'Oh sure when it's time to see mind healers everything's fine but now-'

"Shouldn't you be asking Master then?"

"Master would not approve of how I plan to use the Mandalorian."

He squinted at Obi-wan for a long moment. Obi-wan stared back. He did some quick mental maths and tried not to feel old. Eh. Fine. Feemor swung his legs out of bed. "You had me at 'Master wouldn't approve'."

"Do you think I could get one by walking into little Keldabe and asking very nicely?"

As it turns out, yes he could. A few too many in fact, apparently Jedi, their ancestral enemy, in the Mando district attracted attention, who knew? Feemor knew, Feemor would have known if only he had been properly awake when this semblence of a plan was proposed. He stalked through the cantina towards Obi-wan who was leaning slightly forwards against a pillar, ah...speaking, to a Mandalorian with painted orange armour while surrounded by a larger crowd of Mandos. At least they seem mostly amused. He ignored the youngers squawk as he yanked the back of his robes so that he moved away from the Mandalorian and spun him around.

"You cannot solve centuries of animosity by batting your eyelashes."

"I'm not batting my eyelashes " Obi-wan sniffed," I'm shaking my ass, there's decidedly more effort involved."

"I miss when I was an only child." Feemor sighed deeply. He used the force to scruff the neck of Obi-wan's robes and dangle him slightly in the air. He ignored the shouting from beside him and bowed politely to the staring Mandos. "My apologies for the disturbance, this will not happ-" He considered his brother who was now yelling out his personal comm code with a wink. " Please excuse us, this very probably will happen again, we shall workshop it. May the force be with you all."

I don't have a fully planned AU but it is Codywan!!! cause I love those bitches but have some more dialogue I came up with for this AU. I'm imagining them both as like 20-23, Obi's close to knighthood. He's still a padawan for this because I think him causing Qui-gon headaches is funny. Feemor fully thinks this complicated courtship dance Obi's created is funny, he likes studying his little brother like a bug, he just wasn't prepared for him to just waltz into little kelbade and start hitting on people, though he really should have been.

Hand wavy timeline with Jaster alive but the clones are still clones, Jango was kidnapped and held in stasis or something, Jaster claimed them as Mandos. This is really just about Obi's first and biggest diplomatic achivement being friendly Jedi-Mando relations purely cause he was in his thot era. This also somehow saves the galaxy from the sith.

I like to imagine that Cody's brothers recorded that little exchange between Fee and Obi on their helmets and uploaded it online where it went viral on MandoNet before going viral galaxywide because wait holy shit is that a Jedi saying that????. Qui-gon gets called in for a very weird meeting where the council's like ok so the entire holonet has seen your padawan being horny on main but also this is like the biggest jump in our diplomatic relationship with the Mandos in centuries so like can we keep this up somehow? This results in Obi-wan being holonet famous, first through vode recordings but then he starts a space tumblr and twitter account and he's famous now. Then his friends and other jedi start accounts because wait we're allowed to do that? and those become big as well and this is literally the best PR the jedi have had in hundreds of years. the holonet loves them. the sith are fuming.

Obi-wan, scoffing: What were they gonna do? Shoot me? Feemor: Yes. Obi-wan: I don't believe in blasters. Bly: ...like as a concept...? Obi-wan: No, spiritually.

Obi-wan: I'm sure there's a nice Mandalorian we can find for you Feemor: I'm not sure those 2 words belong together Obi-wan: No of course not, we can't find a nice one, then they'd be all alone, we need to find an absolute bastard of one so that you two match :)

Obi-wan: Oh so Master gets to take in pathetic life forms but I don't? This one's already domesticated! Wolffe: Debatable. Feemor: Cody's a person! Not a stray tooka! Obi-wan: Master takes in stray people all the time! That's how he got me!

Qui-gon: How do you explain this behaviour Padawan ? Obi-wan: The force pushed me towards the Mandalorians Master, it was quite insistent on me developing better relations with them given our difficult history. Feemor: Fascinating, please do elaborate, I'd love to hear the theological implications of a force-assigned kink.