#sometimes i forget how many people are enthusiastic about this project and its like

[naturelove106]

Imagine a place where your talent and creativity aren’t just celebrated but monetized too. Where your passion project gets real traction. Where your creations don’t just get a round of applause but get customers who love it and are ready to pay for it.

Yes, you are right! That place is none other than WEEKEND WINDOW! Ahmedabad’s largest curated flea market that’s not just a marketplace. It’s a platform of everything unique, creative, commerce, and community.

For over a decade, Weekend Window has been much more than just an event. It highlights local entrepreneurs, artists, and dreamers. If you’re a creator looking for a launchpad, it is a brilliant dais. A vibrant three-day celebration where your passion can turn into a flourishing business.

Real Business Opportunities

Weekend Window provides a powerful ecosystem for entrepreneurs. With over 200+ homegrown brands participating every edition, they cater to 30,000+ enthusiastic visitors. From Boho Jewellery, to Hand-painted journals, Vegan Skincare, Upcycled Décor there’s a place for your niche.

The audience at Weekend Window is also such who don’t just look to shop but to discover. They are people who value authenticity, craftsmanship, and stories behind the brand. And when you participate, you aren’t just selling your products- rather building a brand with a story the buy will remember.

Also, it is not only about the exposure. Many brands which started with Weekend Window have received a national recognition- including Shark Tank features. The nature of event itself ensures quality which means if you are chosen, you’re already in the league of serious creators.

So, if you ever wonder, how to turn what you love into something sustainable, this is the sign!

Turn Your Art into Income

Many artists/businesses struggle with the same question: How do I make money doing what I love? It is answered in most fun and inclusive way possible by Weekend Window.

At the event, the art isn’t just displayed or framed but its presented interactively. From tote-bag to caricature sketching, glitter tattoos to pottery workshops, creators are encouraged to engage with the audience. This is how passive appreciations are converted into paid participations. The emotional connection with every stall often translates into sales.

With thousands of footfalls over three days, its sell on-site but more than that it’s post-event orders, social media followers, and collaborations that follow. It’s proof that your creativity can pay the bills. Sometimes, better than you imagined.

Community & Networking

When you become a part of Weekend Window, you are not just setting up a stall/shop. You’re becoming a part of a wonderful community of talented artists and insightful businesses. You meet different food innovators, indie brands, storytellers, musicians and many collaborative projects and friendships have been born over coffee breaks and sound checks during the event. It also brings out that fire inside you when you meet like-minded people. Not to forget, Weekend Window is frequently visited by influencers, content creators, and investors. You never know who you end up meeting or what conversation might lead you to you next big break.

More Than a Market—It’s an Experience

Weekend Window is not just a flea market—it’s a full-blown festival of creativity and happiness. As a participant, you become part of a larger narrative that includes:

How to Get Started

If this sounds like your kind of opportunity, here’s how to begin:

Your window to changing dreams into reality:

If you’ve been searching for that spark to take your creativity to the next level, Weekend window is open for you. From earning through your passion to joining a massive community of vibrant creators, there are countless possibilities.

So, whether you're a fashion designer, an illustrator, a home baker, a candle maker or anything creative, different than the rest—your art deserves the spotlight. Let Weekend Window be the stage.

Your window not just to happiness, also, profitability.

[theblazewolf]

everyone wins and loses. its a fact of life.

but its been a tough ride this 2023 and it actually drains me to make a retrospective.

yes, looking at the good stuff objectively, ive done more than i couldve asked for. for the life of me i still dont know how i got more than a thousand likes on two paintings i didnt think would ever get seen. (simply proves to me that sometimes, social media is mainly RNG in disguise)

ive managed to maintain a consistent schedule of posting art; any art. quality may vary but that can be sorted in the near future. also ended up setting up a condo unit, drove by myself for the first time, attended my first furry convention since the pandemic.

once, for once, i was happier than ever being by myself. all that time alone was what i needed.

and im currently making a zine, and maybe other projects beyond that.

all things being objective, it was a good year.

i cannot forget the ones ive lost; the ones whose loss shaded this year.

my ex, my best friend, who i had to cut ties with, admittedly the source of my melancholy, drunken texts, and attempts at being civil, deep inside i find myself yearning for those days when it was okay for us to be idiots at 3am talking about dumb shit. but you find yourself watching the ties you set up slowly deteriorate, and nothing you do can fix it. seven years were way too long somehow. i still see them, but i know enough just to be civil, or to talk whenever youre needed.

my uncle, my mom’s older brother. my heart still breaks knowing he suffered a long illness. while we try to sing songs that he loved, we know the bitter taste of loss that cant be washed away in an instant. he was a staple at many parties that will never be the same again. i wish he saw his daughter graduate, or enter law school. i wish he lived long enough to be free of pain for just one day.

and my good friend, my fellow cities skylines 2/mekanism enthusiast; one of my ardent supporters. the voice calls will always have an empty spot for you. i will never let your tragic end overshadow the texts we had. I will live till im 30, and beyond. ive said a lot about you since your passing. somehow i still wish i was there to let you know we love you so much. take your rest, and let us know you’re ok.

also honorable mentions to budding relationships i tried to build but failed, another commissioner of mine who passed this year in the same week as my uncle.

i cant leave this year without thanking others.

my close friends, for listening to me scream and yap for 24/7 with unfiltered blazethoughts, and also reciprocating by screaming and yapping for 24/7 about yalls respective thoughts. thats friendship thats unbreakable.

my server, for being equally insane. all you 90% filipino/10% other people are so insane for accepting my invite to come and see me talk about random shit that god can’t allow. im overreacting when i say god wont allow what i say. but having a bunch of furry pals in one area is a luxury.

my gw2 guild, BURN, for the endless voice chats, helping me sort through the grief, the support and all the insanity you allowed this little lonely disaster entertain. i know we lost a lot, but we have much more to live for together.

my follows who have grown a LOT this year. your support keeps me going through and through. i love you guys.

see you in 2024.

-blaze

[nabesthetics]

MC getting the guys + Asra flowers 💐

A HC request from @sociallyacceptable that has been sitting in my inbox for over a month because I am like that :’B Muri’s is a bit different, but I got the idea and couldn’t just let it go, alright Also yes I did go overboard a bit by adding plot, what about it

FLUFF TIME. It’s just a tiny bit suggestive in a couple of places, but it’s all PG, I promise.

💙 Asra 💙

The Apprentice gets the bouquet on a whim.

They spot a flower stall at the market while shopping for spices and some ingredients for the shop; one of the arrangements, a mix of deep purple and pastel violet remind them of Asra and Faust at the same time.

On the way back, the MC adds a couple of enchantments to the flowers, to both make them last longer and leave a little personal touch: some of the blooms end up sparkling as if the live petals were made out of delicate amethyst crystals.

Asra is conjuring something in the kitchen when they return home; hearing the front door closing, he starts his regular playful banter without turning from the stove.

Faust sees the MC enter the kitchen first, popping her head up from Asra’s shoulder and blepping in greeting.

“Pretty!”

“Mmhm, they sure are Fa- oh.”

His surprise quickly gives place to delight, and moments later he’s pulling MC into a kiss.

They just can’t help but make him fall in love all over again every day, huh?

But if they say a cheesy line about the color of his eyes, he will tease them a bit for that, even if he is blushing at the same time and already tucking one of the sparkling flowers into their hair.

Everything else is forgotten for the rest of the day, he just wants to turn all of his attention to them, grateful to the universe for being able to hold them as much as they wish.

(He probably ended up burning whatever he was cooking, though)

The bouquet will stay in the bedroom, just for the three of them to see.

They have to go and get Faust her own flower basket the next day, because she wants to sleep in the flowers.

Asra puts his own spell on one of MC’s enchanted flowers, to complete its transformation into ice-like lavender crystal, preserved in time and kept as another memory that he would like to remember.

❤️ Julian ❤️

Unfortunately, Love Festival tends to be a very busy day at both the shop and the clinic.

While MC handles the expected influx of demand for pretty magical trinkets, Julian has to deal with the over-enthusiastic lovebirds who end up at the clinic after trying to “spice things up”; it is entertaining most of the time, but also means that the two have to be apart all day, to Julian’s great dismay.

He swears that he’ll try to make it home before dinner.

They both know that he likely won’t.

So around midday, MC closes the shop for a while and heads to the numerous festival stalls.

And in the first minutes of Julian’s lunch break, they dramatically show up in his office with a no less dramatic crimson bouquet, nearly making the poor doctor spill his (third cup of) coffee all over himself and the papers he’s been working on.

He’s having troubles processing it.

“H-hello, darling, did you- ah, I mean- are those... foooor me?”

He almost adds an “are you sure” in there before his brain catches up.

Once it does, he grins and hurries to get up from his desk and sweep the MC off their feet, sending them laughing.

He’s deeply touched and somewhat sheepish: for all his theatrics and love of cheesy romantic gestures, this man will never get used to being on the receiving end.

Oh how he loathes the fact that he doesn’t have the time to thank them properly right there and then; stealing their breath with a kiss will have to do for now.

The flowers are definitely enchanted - Julian can barely take care of cacti - and will stay in his office once MC fetches a vase from their shop next door; he may or may not tear up just a bit while looking at them at some point.

He does make it to dinner, by the way - other workers at the clinic practically kick their boss out because he’s overworking as it is - and takes the MC to a lovely evening in the city.

💚 Muriel 💚

It’s been a long project, with the hardest part being keeping Muriel in the dark about it; MC managed to talk Inanna into helping.

Finally, when everything’s ready, they “go for a walk” in the forest together, with MC leading them to their secret spot.

A small clearing in the forest has been transformed into a colorful island of flowers. Carnations and wild primroses from the depths of the palace garden; a few plants from the Heart’s clearing, their soft glow visible even during the day; and of course, forget-me-nots and MC’s own favorite flowers.

There’s enough space to walk freely between the flower patches, and few charms decorate the surrounding trees, keeping the plants flourishing and covering the area with a blanket of calm, peaceful aura.

Muriel freezes on the edge of the clearing, stunned, looking over the carefully selected plants and then turning to MC with a silent question in his eyes.

It’s been a year since the two of them confessed their love to each other, they explain. So they wanted to create something special, to remind of that moment.

There’s a blush on his cheeks as his expression softens into a smile.

“...you never stop surprising me. Thank you.”

He leans down for a kiss, softly at first, then picks them up to kiss them like he did a year ago.

Really, the only reason he doesn’t take it further is that Inanna is right there, somehow looking very pleased with herself before she trots into the clearing to lay down next to a wild lavender patch.

They stay there for the entire evening, enjoying each other’s company.

Muriel teaches MC how to make flower crowns, and doesn’t try to take his off this time; Inanna ends up with a flower necklace as well.

They head back home when the stars above match the shining flowers scattered throughout the clearing.

That place becomes one of their favorite spots for years to come, with them maintaining and modifying it together.

🤍 Lucio 🤍

Lucio “I should be showering YOU with gifts!” Morgasson isn’t as used to receiving gifts as one might expect.

Oh, there were many people trying to get in his good graces through expensive gifts back in his Count years, but those were basically expected grandiose bribes, really; never a simple genuine gesture of affection.

Lucio himself goes strongly overboard with gifts at any given opportunity, and that does sometimes include flowers - or at the very least petals on the bed, he’s that kind of guy.

MC figures that “revenge” is long overdue.

It takes a little while to turn that idea into reality, but finally, after completing a few rather intense contracts in a row, the two go back to Vesuvia for a week to catch up with others and take a break from adventuring, with Nadia letting them stay in MC’s guest bedroom.

After sleeping in, Lucio wakes up to an empty bed and the intense smell of vanilla and chocolate in the room.

There’s a plate of freshly baked cookies on the desk, clearly not the “typical palace type”; it’s a pleasant surprise, if slightly confusing - but he is alright with being slightly confused with a cookie in his mouth.

That’s when MC quietly opens the door, beams upon seeing that he’s up, and enters with a bouquet of white, yellow and orange flowers in their hands.

The absolutely dumbfounded mid-chew expression on his face is fascinating to watch, as his eyes dart from the flowers to MC and then to the walls: there are a few seconds of badly concealed panic as Lucio frantically tries to recall what date it is, did he forget something, are they expecting something in return and he’s not ready-

Then, that one slightly wavering grin, “Gooood morning. What’s the occasion, dove?”

“The occasion is that I love you.”

How dare.

Well, good thing that the bed is right here, because he really doesn’t know how else to deal with this situation.

The flowers stay on the desk for the rest of the week, and Lucio turns pink every time he spots them.

He soon figures out how to deal with the situation, though; little does MC know that they just started a gift war.

[dee6000]

LoSlavery Is Not OUR "Original Sin" The thick lines show majority of African slaves went to Spain’s (they started trans-Atlantic slave trade) Latin American & Caribbean slave colonies, Muslim and African Countries. Few went to colony that became the US

How many times have you heard that slavery was “America’s original sin”? I’m not quite sure what that means, but I think the idea is that slavery was a uniquely horrible thing that defines the United States and will stain whites forever. It’s one of the few things Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Barack Obama agree on. There are books about it. Here’s a college course at UC Davis called “Slavery: America’s Original Sin: Part 1."

The fact is, there has been slavery in every period of history, and just about everywhere. The Greeks and Romans had it, the ancient Egyptians had it, it’s all over the Bible, the Chinese and the pre-Columbian Indians had it, the Maoris in New Zealand had it, and the Muslims had it in spades. But I have never, ever heard of slavery being anyone else’s “original sin.”

About the only societies that never had slaves were primitivehunter-gatherers. As soon as people have some kind of formal social organization, they start taking slaves.

You’ve heard about slavery and mass human sacrifices of Central and South American Indians, but North American Indians were enslaving each other long before the white man showed up.

Tlingit and Haida Indians, who lived in the Pacific Northwest, went raiding for slaves as far South as California. About one quarter of the population were slaves, and the children of slaves were slaves. During potlatches, or huge ceremonial feasts, the Tlingit would sometimes burn property and kill slaves, just to show how rich they were. What’s a couple of slaves to a guy who lives in a house like this?

When we bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867, Indians were furious when we told them they had to give up their slaves. The Tlingit carved this image of Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator, to try to shame the government into compensating them for slaves.

What were called the Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast happily bought black slaves. In 1860, there were 21,000 Cherokee, and they owned 4,000 slaves. And that was just the Cherokee. Many took their slaves with them when they were forced to move West.

Free blacks in the South owned slaves. The fact of having been slaves didn’t stop them from wanting to be slave masters themselves. In 1840, in South Carolina alone, there were 454 free blacks who owned a total of 2,357 slaves. Only about 20 percent of Southern households had even one slave, but 75 percent of the free-black households in South Carolina owned slaves.

Don’t believe me? It’s all in this book by the expert on the subject, Larry Koger of the University of South Carolina. And he demolishes the idea that most blacks bought slaves only to get family members out of slavery. Like whites, some were kind masters and some were mean, but, for the most part, they owned slaves for exactly the same reasons whites did.

There’s a whole book about this black guy, Andrew Durnford.

He had a plantation of 672 acres along the Mississippi in Louisiana, and close to 100 slaves. Another black slave owner in Louisiana, P.C. Richards, owned 152 slaves. Black slaveowners avidly supported the Confederacy. There are no accurate estimates of the number of slaves held by free blacks at the time of the Civil War, but they would have been tens of thousands.

If slavery is somebody’s Original Sin, it’s sure not ours. Take a look at this map of the slave trade, beginning in 1500.

[Source: SlaveVoyages.com, click to enlarge]

The thicknesses of the lines represent numbers of slaves. What became the United States imported just around 400,000 slaves—about 3 percent of all the slaves who crossed the Atlantic. Look at all the slaves who went to Brazil and to the Caribbean Islands.They needed millions because, unlike American slaveowners who raised slave families, they bought grown men and worked them to death. And let us not forget, virtually every slave on this map was caught by blacks or Arabs.

And look at all the slaves who ended up in North Africa and the Middle East.

That’s millions of them going to Muslim countries at exactly the same time slaves were crossing the Atlantic. And Arabs had been taking black slaves out of Africa, across the Sahara, for 900 years before America was even discovered—and a forced march across the desert was a lot worse than crossing the Atlantic. In this article about Africa’s first slavers—the Arabs—historian Paul Lovejoy estimates that over the centuries, Muslims took about 14 million blacks out of Africa [Recalling Africa’s harrowing tale of its first slavers – The Arabs – as UK Slave Trade Abolition is commemorated, March 27, 2018]. That is more than the 12 million who went to the New World.

And you might ask, where are the descendants of all those Middle Eastern slaves? America has millions of slave descendants. Why don’t you see lots of blacks in Saudi Arabia or Syria or Iraq? Arabs castrated black slaves so they wouldn’t have descendants.

Muslims were even more enthusiastic about enslaving white people. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, by Prof. Robert C. Davis is the best book on the subject. Remember the Barbary Pirates of North Africa? Between 1530 and 1780 they caught and enslaved more than a million white, European Christians. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Arabs took more white slaves south across the Mediterranean than there were blacks shipped across the Atlantic.

Mostly, Muslim pirates captured European ships and stole their crews. In just three years, from 1606 to 1609, the British navy admitted it had lost 466 British merchant ships to North African pirates [Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast Past & Present, August 2001]. Four hundred sixty-six ships in just three years. Arabs took American slaves. Between 1785 and 1793 Algerians captured 13 American ships in the Mediterranean and enslaved the crews. This is a 1804 battle between Arab pirates and the USS Enterprise.

It was only in 1815, after two wars, that the United States was finally free of the Barbary pirates.

Muslim pirates also organized huge, amphibious slave-catching assaults that practically depopulated the Italian coast. In 1544, Algerian raiders took 7,000 slaves in the Bay of Naples in a single raid. This drove the price of slaves so low it was said you could “swap a Christian for an onion.”

After a 1566 raid on Granada in Spain netted 4,000 men women, and children, it was said to be “raining Christians in Algiers.” Women were easier to catch than men, and were prized as sex slaves, so some coastal areas lost their entire child-bearing populations. One raid as far away as Iceland brought back 400 white slaves.

Prof. Davis notes that the trade in black Africans was strictly business, but Muslims had a jihad-like enthusiasm for stealing Christians. It was revenge for the Crusades and for the reconquest of Spain from the Arabs in 1492. When Muslim corsairs raided Europe, they made a point of desecrating churches and stealing church bells. The metal was valuable but stealing church bells silenced the voice of Christianity.

It was a tradition to parade newly captured Europeans through the streets so people could jeer at them, while children threw garbage at them. At the slave market, both men and women were stripped naked to evaluate their sexual value. In the North African capitals—Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli—there was a big demand for homosexual sex-slaves. Other Europeans were worked to death on farms or building projects.

Prof. Davis writes that unlike in North America, there were no limits on cruelty: “There was no countervailing force to protect the slave from his master’s violence: no local anti-cruelty laws, no benign public opinion, and rarely any effective pressure from foreign states.” Slaves were not just property, they were infidels, and deserved whatever suffering a master meted out.

For a man, there was a fate even worse than being a sex slave. Hundreds of thousands became galley slaves, often on slave-catching pirate ships. They were chained to their oars 24 hours a day, and could move only to the hole where the oar went through the hull—so they could relieve themselves. If the men were rowing, they fouled themselves. Galley slaves lived in a horrible stench, ate rotten food, were whipped by slave drivers and tormented by rats and lice. They could not lie down and had to sleep at their oars. Many never left their ships, even in port. Their job was to row until they died, and to be tossed overboard at the first sign of weakness.

Muslims have taken slaves for as long as there have been Muslims, which is about 1,400 years.

Mohammed himself was an enthusiastic slave trader. Muslims still take black slaves. As this article points out, Libya still has slave markets, Mauritanian Arabs take black slaves, and there is still slavery in Niger, Mali, Chad and Sudan[Libya’s slave markets are a reminder that the exploitation of Africans never went away, by Martin Plaut, New Statesman, February 21, 2018].

And, of course, it was white people who abolished slavery, both in their own countries and, except for a few stubborn holdouts, the whole world. Africans, just like the Tlingit Indians, screamed about all the wealth we made them give up.

But slavery’s still our “original sin.” As Time magazine wrote just this month about slavery “Europeans and their colonial “descendants” in the United States engineered the most complete and enduring dehumanization of a people in history."[Facing America's History of Racism Requires Facing the Origins of 'Race' as a Concept, by Andrew Curran, July 10, 2020]

What a small minority of Americans did for 246 years—and in a relatively mild form—is worse than anything that was ever done anywhere by anyone.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of white privilege. I hope you are enjoying it. Watch this video:

[sugar-petals]

Bts voice analysis anon here! I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to respond ❤ it made complete sense why yoongi is the deepest I kinda feel bad for him everytime he wants to sounds cheerful or speak in a way so people can hear him he strains his voice

lot to talk about, i’d like to expand on this. especially what his voice being the deepest means for bts’ songs. plus, where his undiscovered vocal talents are, and in what manner his voice will not strain.

that he’s very introverted contributes to what you say, but yoongi is certainly the odd one out voice-wise, such low baritones hardly sound upbeat. similar to how taehyung being the odd one out in the vocal line whose head voices are literal superpowers. i really respect him for singing with jin and jimin who can climb one octave higher than him, up to C#5! and with jk who has the best technique and breaks into the 6th octave if he goes on like that.

it’s very much like yoongi who probably has to mix their tracks back and forth to fit his parts with hobi (who is a tenor as a rapper! — very uncommon) and namjoon who raps in several modes. very low, very high, very impactfully. he’s the most full-bodied baritone in the group even if he’s only the third-deepest. the tone is just so rich. both hoseok and RM are extreme vocal chameleons on top of that. in speaking and in their music you can hear the difference to yoongi all the time. they don’t suddenly drop in pitch and they’re vocal acrobats.

hobi in particular, this guy can do anything. the sheer agility my god, he connects his registers. he can go up and down, impersonate and do a million effects, adlibs, you know the drill. it’s him who actually owns the “cheerful/loud and clear” brand you mention. which is good if not fantastic for yoongi’s production endeavours, the group mood, and how bts cannot be ignored — but tough for yoongi’s voice and comparison thinking, and when he tries to make a point in interviews. maybe it’s not bad that bts have to slow down sometimes to let yoongi speak, but his tone is drowned out (not intentionally of course) in other occasions and he wakes up hoarse often as we saw. which might sound hot, but it’s not good for him as you say.

to be clear. i wouldn’t chalk down his more monotonous and silent tone as a weakness, it’s just outside of bts’ other vocal variety. he makes up for it with speed and good lungs anyway. we just have to listen more closely to him in talks/episodes/conferences but i think he shouldn’t worry about it either or try to sound more enthusiastic, the fans love his soothing speech for its pure sake. he does change it regardless to be more poignant and blend in. it has pros and cons but it wears him out.

yoongi’s voice is under that strain not just in conversation but also in the studio if he wants to bring connection to the rap line parts instead of having 3 songs in 1. which usually ends up happening anyway. that’s also why the cyphers (!) switch genres mid-song so often: their voices are all strong in different registers! yoongi the lowest, joon midrange, and hoseok up high. 

that’s why cypher pt2 is a HUGE stunt and production masterpiece: hoseok’s part is tuned differently, then other instrumentals start with namjoon. and you can literally hear, okay alright a deep voice is coming! from there it just gets deeper and deeper until yoongi is just rapping over a bass guitar (every baritone’s best friend lmao!). god, please give yoongi a big bassline for his every part. “ugh” is the exact opposite: yoongi has to start too high and namjoon also has problems with the key, only hoseok can fully take off after 1:50 with perfect vocal stability. guess which song is autotuned: it’s not cypher pt2! a 3 in 1 song fuels the rapline in a way where they are most comfortable. it’s crazy how far apart they are among each other vocally and it has to be considered.

it’s a dilemma but also why bts’ rap line can tackle any song with at least one member suiting it. they complement each other, every register (except the rare whistle register, aka what mariah/ariana do) is covered. i think that contributed to bts’ fame, it’s so important. however usually, the song caters to hoseok since tenors are preferred in kpop music, or it caters to RM as he’s the central songwriting entity even if mind you, he always thinks about all the members and works closely with yoongi.

but even with joon’s support, it doesn’t work if yoongi is caught in his wish to be a tenor. we’ve seen how much the guy talks about wanting his range to become wider and how he even tried singing quite high for his standards on d-2. he goes as far as collabing only with sopranos to help him achieve that pitch. yoongi is invested to pretty much change his entire vocal type 🙁because the environment simps for high notes so bad (which is fair, falsetto is related to releasing certain happy hormones and highlights parts in songs, but still).

... he actually can’t, unless he wants to damage his throat. that’s the last thing we want. a listener can get the serotonin from a very deep voice equally if they got good taste.

thing is. you cannot morph yourself into a different vocal type and shift your range to the opposite of your comfort zone unless you’re whitney houston. even one in a million tenors like baekhyun can’t make themselves a baritone. his lowest notes are less clear no matter how hard he practices, even if his chest voice is almost operatic and his technique excels. meanwhile, chanyeol (who’s a lyric baritone and exo’s deepest voice) effortlessly hits them without (!!) that kind of decade-long training. have baekhyun or jimin been called bad singers for not being able to cover the other end of the spectrum? nope. so: why would yoongi be a bad vocalist who needs autotune. with lessons, oh man, he could do a lot and many things he dreams of. he has a very unique timbre and enough musical knowledge to do so.

so, we see the magic of your natural supported range. it’s simply given to you. imagine that: if you know you’re not a tenor, you could sort of outsing jungkook — obviously not by technique, but projection— as long as the song is tailored to you and the notes are low enough. yep, jk’s lower register is not extremely forward. each note is perfectly sung because he’s jk, but his power vocals are settled much higher. joon/tae/yoongi would sound much fuller with huge oomph in those lines. that’s where yoongi would be much more clear-sounding to us. a lot of baritone rappers in kpop would be damn good singers. 

that’s why it’s good how a lot of rappers produce solos on their own so they can try it out. 

you just have to respect that your range usually (not always) goes in one direction. once yoongi rightfully decides to abandon his high note fantasy and goes lower just for fun, we are not safe anymore lmao! exception for range: female singers have an advantage there. trained mezzo-sopranos have great access to the head voice and lower registers since they’re in the perfect middle of the scale. but the guys, forget it, even the baritenors. yoongi’s fullest voice will always be coming from a chesty depth and we love him for it. guy just needs to realize.

that’s why his real challenge is rather somehow tweaking the rap parts so his voice finds good resonance like in “혼술” or even “ddaeng”. where his voice is strong, relaxed, and full and flowing. ddaeng — “boy with luv”, too— is ironically in a very high pitch and again caters to hobi’s tone the most, but: yoongi just scales down to his own octave and it still fits, so — great key choice and musicality! and adaptation. it’s not easy to do. you can tell he plays piano.

he either becomes less easy on the ear or has to autotune himself entirely if he works against his voice. or: goes on a track way outside his supported range (dynamite, WOW). it’s a shame. “daechwita” and “agust d” are such a case: both go into the head voice where your resonance should show the most aka the chorus. there are aggressive belts/snarls/shouts that make more sense for higher, trained voices. yoongi is most famous for raps that are literally designed to fuck up his vocal cords 😷that he’s so skilled as a rapper prevents him from that to a degree, but it’s still not healthy. he adapts a lot to bts’ overall delivery but he doesn’t have to, in fact: he could go in the other direction and it would work even better.

the reason for the title track issue: they are the most energetic. in k-pop, energetic means amping up the pitch. and that’s probably a logical choice and a natural human association. if you make a baritone kpop track with a lot of energy, it probably becomes pretty creepy, uneasy, film noir. but i think that’s exactly yoongi’s thing: to unsettle and critique and rage. i think it could work out. lil nas x is a baritone pulling it off. he achieves energetic title tracks, he honors his vocal type well imo. his live singing is cool af, i need this so hard in the rap landscape. so, it’s not impossible to do.

the trick is probably setting everything to minor key. surprise... yoongi’s challenging title tracks are all in major key. boy with luv: minor key, interesting. the former are extremely difficult for him to do so hats off. “shadow” is more suitable for his baritone as is “burn it”. it needs a very heavy, dark track. which is why it’s good that yoongi has that kind of public image. a baritone’s best genre is not super light and whimsical. that’s why all of our baritone faves are not main vocalists but main rappers. kai, taehyung, jaehyun: low voices in vocal lines are soldiers.

---

now a note on yoongi’s best method of singing since it reflects his voice type and brings out the fullness of it. as in, how does it crack and strain less? guess why “사람” is yoongi’s favorite d-2 song to sing. it’s ALL his comfortable range and the singing — very beautifully done —  is in mixed register (= head + chest)! which imo might be his secret weapon. it allows him to do what he longs to do successfuly without going extremely high. bingo.

because: even with baritones, the golden middle is still important. they’re not as deep as a bass, after all. that’s why their voices are so honey-laced in the mixed range and it sounds amazing. heaven, their timbre sounds so seductive. so, it’s wonderful when they find their middle and dare to sing. 

i wish yoongi gets/makes more tracks aimed at just that. in “outro tear” he has to go both too low and too high so it takes a lot of production effort to patch it together. the rapline is doing god’s work to make all their voices sound cohesive without being trained singers. it’s always a trade-off and risk, an immense balance act. “paldogangsan” is hard on yoongi’s voice but works as a whole plus it caters to namjoon to carry the song’s message. the cyphers are chopped up and not chart-friendly but each member is in their comfort zone. 

PS: i said bts’ rap line covers all registers except one. i think that jin is the one to complete bts’ entire spectrum coming from the vocal line. i’m no whistle note expert but dionysus went pretty high up there, i think he might be able to do it. it’s very impressive, even jungkook and jimin probably don’t have access to that register. so, another point for bts being a very ‘complete’ group.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

(1/2) I know this is some controversial topic and that you sometimes cover US politics, but what do you think the american left needs to improve to reach to more people and be taken more seriously?; It's unbelievable that in the very 2021, apolitical folk are still fallin into the whole "the leftist are a bunch of crazies" narrative, we may do some pushback the last three years against conservative politics.

(2/2)  But it's still not enough; on your personal opinion, what fundamental core value needs to be changed to engage to these apolitical people and that leftist want politics to improve the quality of life of the population without being labeled as a "petulant, whiney children" There's some greek-flavored advice that we can apply to our discourse? Thanks in advance :)

========================== END OF ASK ======================

Ooooo… Great question! And by “great” I mean “Do you want me to go down in flames and get cut a thousand times with pitchforks??” xD But it’s very interesting so I will answer it! And you will be subjected to an essay of 3.200 words 😘💅 (I want to be meticulous, don’t come at me)

Please assume the tone is light and conversational. I am not in a very serious or dramatic mood, and I don’t want to estrange any group by assuming the role of an all knowing tutor or someone who always has the high moral ground. This is just 1am blabbering.

I am not against leftists. On the contrary, I know their side so well that I think I have a solid opinion on its flaws. (I have friends who are left- okay I’ll stop xD) Needless to say, the right side also has flaws and the two sides often share flaws. But right now, we are only talking about the leftists. And of course, #notallleftists xD I recognize that leftists are ordinary and diverse people with empathy and capability of critical thinking and problem-solving (Did I mention I have friends who ar--) Jokes aside, I think my following is quite left leaning and I am not bashing them here. I am criticizing the movement as a whole and trying to see where it can be improved.

***** Anyways, I will generalize the bad traits for the sake of everyone’s time, it’s what I am saying! So, when I say “they” I will probably mean “some” or “the bad apples” etc.  *****

To begin, US leftists don’t want to, but they are accidentally imperialist xD Unfortunately, they don't know much about other countries, and they don’t usually have knowledge of countries they are talking about if they don’t have an immediate connection to them. Not knowing things is fine, but when people on this site are like “ugh Americans” this points to an ignorance and a sort of entitlement that doesn’t occur this often in other countries. My internet cycle is overwhelmingly leftist and yet I continue seeing willingness for ignorance all around - and when I check it’s not by conservatives.

Leftists think their (social and not) politics apply to every country and culture, that people in different countries classify themselves as they do in the US. And when people from those countries talk about their problems, there is always an American that wants to give input based on American politics, and without knowing the situation in this other country they want to talk about. Ironically, the last one is a behavior of conservative politicians. Conservative politicians and citizens sometimes think it’s fine to intervene in other countries for “the greater good”. Well, leftists do the same but on the internet. It stalls conversation and makes it messy and force foreigners to apply to American standards.

Because leftists don't understand social differences between countries, they project their own politics, and that can make them seem obsessed with skin color and blind to cultural diversity. They act like only Americans or certain countries have every lived through colonialism and suffered slaughter and slavery. (Because they don’t feel the need to study and learn further.) To an American that might not be the case, but when Americans converse with foreigners about foreign issues, they seem to have a blind spot.

They act as if only white, cis, straight people can be perpetrators of imperialism. Booyyy I have news xD Yes, of course white, cis, straight people can be perpetrators of imperialism, but the attitude that they are the first to blame, always, it’s faulted. I have many experiences, but let’s start with a very simple one, of an Indian American young woman who thought only a lota can clean you with water in the toilet, and that Europeans haven’t heard of bidets or any other means of cleanliness (or that they have the bathtub RIGHT THERE xD) One of the highlights was a Black woman insisting “Medusa was Black because my grandma told me” despite what Greeks were telling her.

Another thing that stuck with me was the case of a Greek who wanted to write about the people who happen to be a minority in the US (you would call them poc I guess). Many people from those countries were enthusiastic about the project and aided the writer as much as they could, sharing culture and realizing how many things in common they had. But it was from same populations in the US that the writer found people who blamed them for daring to write something outside of their culture. (To explain, most US Americans were fine, but only in the US were some who were hostile). Or, I have seen Chinese Americans being offended by a certain thing (I think it was something about fashion) saying “this is an offense to Chinese culture” meanwhile Chinese people from everywhere else in the world (99% of Chinese, I’d say) said “I don’t understand… this is fine!”

Many US American poc categorize all light skinned Caucasians of the world as White Americans and the rest are the “cultured” Black or Brown people. US Americans are now learning that Slavic cultures exist and it’s… something else to watch leftists realizing light skinned people can have great embroidery and they are not actually stealing Mexican traditional clothing xD (reference to an obscure “calling out” comment on tik tok).

I don’t specifically target US poc here, I am just mentioning that everyone conveniently forgets them as if they are untouchable and never said anything ignorant, while they are as active on social media causes as other Americans. In fact, if most poc are aligned to a side, that would be the Left. They are a very big part of the progressive movement – and that’s why I am giving so much space here for them – but then it seems they can’t have a share of the “bad” things of the leftist movement, only the good. Which is humanly impossible, to be always correct.

That’s one of the problems of leftism, that in a way pardons certain minorities and by doing that it not only lets the problematic bubbles grow but also infantilizes those minorities because it passes the message that “they can never do anything wrong”. While background matters when having an opinion, I see that skin-color goes ridiculously above opinion on these matters, which is not very egalitarian. When I argue with a person, the last thing I see is the person’s skin color. When someone says “ancient Greeks were actually a Black nation ad then they became White” I don’t care how this person looks like. No matter your skin color, you must take responsibility for the misinformation you are spreading. I won’t assume that because someone is a poc that they can’t study and learn more about the matter of discussion.

So… the “issue” doesn’t come from being white, cis, straight etc but from being raised as a US American. I don’t imply by any means that being a US American is bad. The last thing I want to do here is enforce guilt. (If you are feeling guilty already I must be mistaken in my wording so I am sorry for that). I am talking about certain beliefs that come with raised as a US American. Similarly, many beliefs a Greek can have are because of their environment. Everyone is affected by their background in one way or another. 

American leftists believe that even the piss poor British farmers benefited from colonialism – and still benefit perhaps on a systemic scale. So, with the same logic, even the lowest layers of the US American society benefit from imperialism and war crimes overseas. (Truth is the quality of living in the US is great and extremely progressive compared to most of the world, because of the US’ politics. I had analyzed this in a previous post). But American leftists never mention that when it comes to THEIR case, because it doesn’t give them an advantage.

To tie it up with how American leftists see the world, there is youtuber I like, who is a US American woc and one time she said “My country is bombing Brown people” in an annoyed tone and it just sounded so offensive I closed the video. It’s obvious the youtuber doesn’t support the bombing, but it was just the phrasing which left a bitter taste in my mouth the whole day. It was the fact that 1) she could make a statement in an annoyed/joking tone 2) people in those countries don’t identify as “Brown” outside the US (and you are talking about them now) 3) your country is indeed bombing them so maybe at least categorize them as they wish?? They have a certain ethnicity, so mention that and stop categorizing them like dog breeds! They already have the bombs, do you want them to hear Americans categorize them like that?

Moreover, many US leftists think they care about other countries while, in actuality, they don’t. They just want to make other countries have the exact progressive US politics - because that’s the only “correct” political system they know. That shows even in kind of superficial matters. In a movie about Greek mythology, they will make sure there is an American Arab, an American Black person, an American East Asian person etc (which would be a cast that would reflect American diversity, not Mediterranean) and are hesitant to cast Greeks or ask Greeks how the portrayal of the story and figures could be better and respecting.

Another thing, they take everything too personally. They think success and failure of a movement is highly dependent on them as an individual. It’s difficult for them to approach a harsh past or present situation in a levelheaded manner because they don’t realize this situation has been universal. So, they feel a special kind of guilt and that makes them over apologetic but also overzealous (like a righteous self-flogging zealot) and that is what drives people away. They combine that behavior with ignorance about the rest of the world, and you can see why a non-US American might want to keep their distance.

I had some Americans apologizing to me because their ancestors did something to Greeks and just… don’t. I know you have the best intentions, but it makes everyone – even me – feel bad. There is no need for apologizing because 1) you and your family did nothing wrong 2) it was centuries ago 3) this bad shit happens/happened literally everywhere. You might as well apologize for your people knowing how to cook. It’s FINE, really, it’s FINE. For instance, do you think I have a grudge on YOUR people running a slave trade six centuries ago while there was dozen active slavetrades in the area, and while Greeks of the Byzantine empire probably bought slaves some decades before they were sold to slavery themselves? Do you see what a mess this is? Not only it doesn’t fix anything, but you also put unnecessary weight on yourself, as an individual. It’s fine to be aware and trying to fix past mistakes - if it’s possible - but there is a certain delicate process that must be followed. Not… whatever this is.

To continue on the extreme individualism, leftists think it's the end of the world if they have done or said something controversial (and that's also because they have cultivated a culture where any small transgression is a potential danger to the whole society :p aka "the left eats itself"). Around them people feel they must tread on eggshells just in case they phrase a thing wrong or post something that could be linked to a person the Left doesn't like.

The left is also on the extremes, so I have to put 1000 disclaimers every time I say something. (I guarantee that the example with the Chinese people will be translated by some Americans like “Theitsa promotes Asian hate!!”) Do you know who doesn't annoy me if I don't put 1000 disclaimers? Certainly not Conservatives. I had more harassment from leftists than I had from actual nazis, even though my blog is not conservative or (god forbid!!) supportive of nazism or any type of supremacy. Even nazis completely understand my beliefs before they send hate. (It might be odd but I never had one not understanding my point xD) But the leftists who sent hate misinterpret stuff, or they don’t bother reading actual posts. The funny thing is that I usually agree with these progressives in 99% of issues but they don’t care asking or learning, they just decide our morals are opposite. I mean they don’t have to like me, but many leftists don’t even read the basics.

On top of that, leftists rarely want to have a conversation with a conservative. I don't say go and AGREE with a conservative, I say just talk. (see? I feel the need to clarify here because many leftists might say “Theitsa wants us to go and AGREE with conservatives! Does Theitsa want us to become nazis and homophobes???”) How does one feel they have to be sooo righteous and then cauterize every member of society who disagrees with them? Why do leftists rarely want to have a conversation? Some people were ready to attack me for referencing a meme which referenced Steven Crowder, as if that shows I am his supporter 😩 (Guilty by association is strong on the leftist side and it’s very reminiscent of authoritarian tactics, another thing that needs to be improved, to my opinion.)

I don’t support Crowder (I know Crowder has done awful stuff) but I shouldn’t be scared to admit I like the “change my mind” episodes. (Flash news, leftists, you might like a part from a person’s work and not 100% support that person!) I like the episodes because both sides are heard, the conversation is civil (for the most part xD) and I can see the thought process of the two speakers as they explain their worries and what solutions are out there.

Most of all, in those episodes I see how BOTH sides CARE about the SAME problems, it’s just the perspectives that differ. And those conversations highlight the issues the left hasn’t studied very well, so it helps the leftists understand what they need to learn in order to better society. But where the “immaturity“ of the leftist side can show is in the unwillingness to approach the “opponent“ as a human just like them.

(They might instead prefer to call Mexicans white supremacists and claim that “whiteness” has no color because quite a few poc voted Republican, as some leftist news sources have stated)

What is more, is it just my idea or conservatives understand leftists better than leftists understand conservatives? Of course both sides jokes about the other one but I am talking about the serious talks. Leftists just describe conservatives as horrible people who want all minorities to perish and we must not talk to them while, surprisingly, the conservatives are the ones who stereotype less the opposite side. (I am talking about the normal, moderate people). From what I have seen, most simple people who are conservatives DON’T want the US’ ethnic and sexual minorities to perish. They are worried about problems they don’t have a good understanding about. And the only way to make them understand it’s to… talk to them, show them what good the left to offer.

Some leftists think conversation is “emotional labor” but 1) that applies to actual labor as in… jobs, so stop invalidating doctors, nurses, teachers etc, 2) yeah, sorry, sometimes things get difficult and you have to explain your side. (As non US-Americans endlessly have to do for US-Americans). That was, is and will be life until the sun swallows us all. You can’t be THAT militant on social media with 100 posts per day and remembering 50 different campaigns about social issues but the moment someone genuinely asks you for directions on your side you shut them off with “why do you demand labor from me? Do your own research” (hint: most likely they have done their research, but they are stuck, and you don’t help them like this).

If you are very tired and don’t want to explain (as it is your right) you can be polite about it and not blame the individual about their circumstances when they are trying to learn. If you DO want to explain but you get tired, be more organized. Have posts and F.A.Q.s ready, or send them to someone else (a friend, a blog, a youtube channel, an article, whatever). Instead of leftists arguing their positions, sometimes they are like “Do more research and realize I am right.” Yyyeah the other person is not gonna do that – especially because you haven’t pointed them anywhere or supported your position with arguments. Moreover, leftists can have the attitude of “I stand for PROGRESS, how can I ever be wrong??” Weeell things are not black and white and me, you, everyone has the potential to not have a not that beneficial to society position at some issues no matter where we stand on the political compass.

For the “petty whiny children” thing, I believe a lot of people might think that because the youth is usually making noise about progressive issues on social media. It’s true that oftentimes in social media discussions their emotions get the best of them (it’s happened to everyone) but combined with the lack of life experience they may have about the world, the argument sounds silly. (I heard one leftist university student say that the US shouldn’t have borders because borders are bad but then they realized they don’t want people to come and go as they please in the US, so she said there should be SNIPERS in the borders to shot everyone who tries to get in…….)

And, as I mentioned, the leftists are very quick to cancel and attack for the slightest transgression so people prefer to deal with the conservatives who can, at least, take a slight misstep, than meddling with people who are going to cancel them for doing or not doing a small, insignificant, but not ‘woke enough’ thing. Leftists are constantly checking each other to see if they are doing better and better (even in silly issues) and that can be intimidating to someone who is new to politics.

Some leftists get REALLY turned on by righteousness (Frollo villain style) and instead of trying to unite the society, they aim to divide it further. They don’t want to create bridges but burn them and find themselves on the “right side“ of morals.

And, last but not least, they don’t realize leftist propaganda is a thing. Malicious people are EVERYWHERE and they don’t just magically avoid the left. Leftists are not automatically super virtuous people. There are some manipulators and bullies around, so one has to be cautious even with leftist sources. (Cross-examine stuff, always. You might have the best intentions but accidentally share something nonfactual because you trusted a source).

Ok that was all, I think. To anyone who comments, PLEASE keep the tones down, have a conversation, take it slow, remember it doesn’t help us being hateful towards each other. (And causing serious friction wasn’t the purpose of this post). Oh, and if you need a clarification on something I said, before gossiping with your friends about how awful I am, do me the courtesy of first asking me what I meant xD

[trh-thesussexes]

[raibebe]

I don't know much either but astrologycafe has some pretty good breakdowns for Natal Charts

Okay this is me life-reacting to the explanation to my Sun, Ascendant, Moon, Mercury and Venus sign:

Restless, cheerful, and friendly, Sun in Sagittarius people are generally on the go. They have a deep love of freedom and disdain for routine. Usually quite easygoing, Sagittarians make friends with people from all walks of life. They love to laugh and tease, and they get along well with pretty much anyone, as they're entirely undaunted by social differences.

Just... no. I don't think I'm particularly cheerful and I like having routines. I do like to tease though and I don't get along with many people...

Sagittarians are known to have often blind faith in people -- and in the world. Their optimism is infectious, although it can get them into trouble from time to time! These are curious people who love to learn. Their idealistic nature is hard to miss.

This is just straight up a lie. Except for loving to learn maybe.

Although easygoing, Sagittarius is a member of the Fire family, and this gives natives of the sign a quick temper. Fortunately, they're usually as quick to forget what got them angry in the first place!

Oh no, I hold grudges like no one else.

With your Sagittarius Ascendant, you see the world as filled with adventure, new things to experience, and, most of all, hope. There is an unmistakable faith and enthusiasm with Sagittarius rising people. Grand schemes, big promises, and a willingness to explore and experiment are themes, although follow-through is not a strong characteristic of this position. Of course, other factors in your chart can modify this, but taken on its own, Sagittarius Ascendant may at least appear to be a free spirit.

........ew...... I agree that I am bad on following through with shit.

You are enthusiastic, a good sport, and friendly. You are somewhat restless and often active. You always seem to be looking for something that is just out of grasp -- and many people who share this Ascendant with you do this their entire lives. You can be quite direct at times, yet you are likable enough to be forgiven for their faux-pas. You are likely to have a lot to say and offer. Your insights and opinions are usually interesting and exciting, although sometimes lacking in details.

I don't know about friendly... The direct thing though, yes.

People generally find you approachable and are attracted to your spontaneity and sincerity. Others must learn not to take what you say or how you express yourself too personally - you seek to express the truth, and it's more philosophical than anything, as you have no interest in hurting others' feelings.

Oh yes, I like this passage, okay. I feel like especially irl people need to get to know me to a point to know when I'm joking and when I'm not. But apparently, I am not approachable but scary and intimidating.

The Moon was in Capricorn at the time of your birth. Being useful and productive are basic needs for those born with the Moon in Capricorn. Because you generally keep your emotions under check, you tend to project an image as competent and reserved. However turbulent your feelings may be under the surface, you tend to keep cool-headed--and you come across as steady and reliable, too.

I am literally the most useless and unproductive person in this whole village. But the feelings thing.... I do not like it...

With Mercury in Sagittarius, you seek freedom. You communicate in an optimistic, forward-looking manner. Your ideas are often very big, but you're not always concerned about details. You have vision and mean well. In fact, you may want to change the world, and you're very excited about sharing your viewpoint.

I'm so sick and tired of these happy-go-lucky Saggitarius placements... This is just bullshit.

Bluntness of speech is a trademark of Mercury in Sagittarius. You become impatient with indirectness and beating around the bush. It baffles you, in fact! It may even piss you off for a while. A sure-fire way to get under your skin is by playing mind games with you.

This is literally the only thing I remotely relate to.

With your Venus in the Cardinal Earth sign of Capricorn, you win others' hearts by displaying self-control, presence of mind, and responsible behavior. You project a goal-oriented, witty, savvy, and controlled image in your social life and in your love relationships. Nobody can get the best of you! When you're interested in someone, you want them to know how competent you are. You prefer some measure of predictability in your relationships as you are cautious in love.

I'm literally such a mess...

Venus in Capricorn people are usually serious about their finances. You're likely to be talented at creating artistic structure and form, perhaps far more comfortable with these things than the more freeform elements of creativity.

ahahahah.... do not look at my photocard collection......

[the-unknown-storyteller]

The Sight Of Such Pretty Things

Summary: Wilbur is dead and Ghostbur fills the place he has left behind, mending the broken relationships he has thrown aside.

Wilbur is dead, but Ghostbur is alive in the sense that he gets to experience all the little things his former self may have taken for granted.

Talking with Philza about the colour green, stargazing with Tommy until deep into the night and collecting wild potatoes with Techno remind him that he is not that person anymore. That these moments are his and his alone.

Nevermind the fact that he can't talk freely, breaching sensitive topics left and right and touching people with hands that can only seem to remind and hurt with memories he himself cannot remember.

__

It all starts with Philza. With him and his green-striped bucket hat that ignites an irrational interest in Ghostbur's mind. It's such a nice green, is all he can think, as he walks laps around Philza's living room, mindlessly chattering and rambling on about his day. 

His restless hands throw a small piece of lapis that he found the other day from side to side, palming it in his right hand whenever he raises his hands in exaggerated sweeps and gestures to accompany his excited words about his newest project.

"-saw it just the other day and I really wanted to build it and Tubbo said he didn't mind it, so I just went right ahead and, Phil, I just gotta say, it's coming along great! Fundy is helping me balance it properly, so that it won't topple over and accidentally crush the main walkways and-" 

Ghostbur can hear his father hum every now and then to let him know that he is listening, as he mends the latest rip in one of his green shirts. Green like the stripes on his bucket hat. Both his feet and his words come to a stop, strangely fixated. It's so green.

"Hey, Phil, have you ever noticed how green your bucket hat actually is?" Ghostbur drifts over to his father to get a closer look at his hat, his crane building story forgotten. "Like, it's really green. One might think that, with all the fighting and running it has probably endured, it must have definitely lost its colourfulness. But look!" He raises his hands to frame the hat, as though it were something exceptionally precious. "Still as green as the day you got it, I'm sure!", he exclaims with a grin, his face mere centimetres away from Phil's.

"Uh, thanks, I guess." Philza laughs awkwardly, shuffling on his seat. "Never knew you were this enthusiastic about green clothes, mate."

"Oh, I'm not," Ghostbur chirps, playing with his piece of lapis, "I just really like yours, especially your hat!" He rubs his thumb over the stone one last time before putting it away, missing the way Phil's smile becomes strained. 

"It's funny that you say that. Someone I knew had the exact same sentiment towards green," Phil says softly, pulling the bucket hat from his head, rubbing at the worn fabric. "Especially towards my hat."

"Oh, how fun! Who was it?" Ghostbur loses concentration in his excitement and can distantly feel his body slowly float upwards, rotating until he stands upside down on the ceiling. Unbothered, he keeps talking. "Maybe you could introduce us sometime and we could talk about the colour green, about your green! I don't know what-"

"I… I don't think that will be possible, mate. It's been some time since I last… saw them," Phil apologizes, his voice catching at the end of the sentence.

Ghostbur sinks back down to the floor with a frown. He's done it again. "Are you okay, Phil? Here, have some blue. Calm yourself," he says, folding his hand around the blue he's just placed in his father's hands. He knows he's upset him. He keeps upsetting everyone because he keeps forgetting what is taboo to talk about and what isn't. Apparently, Philza's bucket hat is one of those things. What a shame, he really likes how green it is.

__

Tommy lets his almost broken axe fall to the ground, before flopping down himself. Sitting next to the small fire he lets out an annoyed groan.

"You know, you could have helped me chop down those trees instead of just standing there, watching and shit", he scoffs, picking at the splinters in his hands. All afternoon he had been chopping down tree after tree. Probably for his tower, which was looming behind Tommy in the far distance.

Ghostbur gives him a smile, quietly picking at the strings of his guitar, as he ignores his complaint. The soothing melody accompanies the constant crackling of their campfire and the sizzling of the fish above the flames. He starts humming for a bit, letting his gaze wander, and then he starts talking. 

"You know, I think you're quite lucky, Tommy. To be out here-", he starts, rotating the fish to keep it from burning. He resumes his strumming.

"Wha-?! What the fuck are you saying, Wil-"

"Where there is barely any light to taint the night sky", Ghostbur continues, undeterred by Tommy's protest. He repositions his left hand and the song becomes a bit more somber, bringing down the mood of the conversation with the descending chord progression. "I mean, the sky is just so beautiful out here, look," he breathes, tilting his head upwards. He notices his little brother frowning in his peripheral, but he follows his instructions and looks up as well.

"And what am I supposed to be seeing?"

"The stars, Tommy!" A grin spreads across his grayed out cheeks. The soft strumming stops for a moment, as Ghostbur makes a sweeping motion across the horizon. "The stars." A breath of admiration leaves his empty lungs.

"What about them?", Tommy asks, an annoyed tint to his voice. He sounds exhausted. Maybe he should have helped with the wood chopping, actually. Next time, maybe. Because right now, all he can think about is the twinkling and shining of the stars above him. How has he never noticed how many there are? How bright they are?

"Are you not seeing the same thing I'm seeing? Look at the stars, the milky way, they're all so incredibly clear out here in the wilderness." A shooting star flies across the sky, making Ghostbur gasp in child-like glee. "Quick! Make a wish, Tommy!"

"That's stupid, Ghostbur. I'm not a stupid child, believing in something stupid such as-"

"Ah, come on, Tommy. What's the worst that could happen? Just make a wish with me." Ghostbur claps his hands together more forcefully than was really necessary and closes his eyes. He peeks at the boy in ragged and torn clothes next to him, looking more tired and broken than a boy his age should, and mouths his silent wish for his little brother to please, please, come out of this alright. 

"Your turn!" He smiles, quietly rubbing at a piece of blue from his messenger bag when he's done.

"Ugh, fine," Tommy groans. He claps his hands together and closes his eyes with much less enthusiasm than the former did. His lips don't move along with his silent wish, but Ghostbur trusts his sincerity. Knows that the other can't be anything but sincere in almost everything he does. Whether he wants to or not. After a few moments he opens them back up. "There, done," he grumbles, "happy?"

A grin in approval and a nod, making Tommy roll his eyes. A shiver runs down his arms with the dropping temperatures of the night. Ghostbur stands up without a word, dumping three thick blankets on top of the younger when he returns. Satisfied when Tommy is adequately bundled up for the night, he sits back down at his place in front of the fire, picking up his guitar from the ground, and begins to strum yet another melody, more soothing than somber this time. He leans back against the tree log behind him, continuing to play long after the other has finally fallen asleep, only occasionally stopping to throw a log in the flames to keep the fire going. His eyes stay fixed at the stars that are so much brighter than they ever were in any of his faded memories.

__

The third time he gets fixated on something arguably insignificant, he is with Techno. They're out on a hunt for wild potatoes, since most of his old crops lay abandoned in their old ravine and the few that he managed to take with him long ago were not enough to start a proper farm. 

So here they were, quite a few thousand blocks away from Techno's base, where the ground isn't permanently frozen and manages to support the occasional berry bushes and even some wild carrots. When they come across some tall yellow-white flowers, Techno immediately puts down his bag next to them and gets out his shovel. He plows through the dirt, bringing up large chunks with every scoop he takes. They're littered with the beautiful golden glow of potatoes. 

Ghostbur floats up to the piglin, watching him check every potato he finds and throw the good ones in his bag. The dirt, damp with recently fallen rain, sticks to Techno's clothes, getting stuck in the fur of his red cape and leaving dirty smudges on his crown whenever he adjusts it. Ghostbur tilts his head, feeling a strangely familiar itch in his hands, urging him to go, go, touch it, touch it now, take it. He ignores it.

It's dirty.

"You know, I've always been curious, Techno." He picks up one of the bigger potatoes on the ground to keep his hand busy and turns it over in his hand, looking for any faults on its skin. He throws it up in the air a few times, judging its weight. "Why are you so… fascinated with them?" He throws the large potato, which the other catches easily. His eyes drift down to the red of his cape and the white of his fur collar, clumps of dirt and mud spread throughout. He tears his gaze away. "I remember you having a large farm in the ravine and I think I've never seen you eat anything other than a baked potato." 

"I do not only eat baked potatoes," Techno protests, picking up his bag and walking towards the next yellow-white flower cluster he sees in the close distance. The ghost follows with impossibly light steps.

"I only eat them most of the time," he admits, driving his shovel into the ground. He throws his falling cape back over his shoulder, ignoring the way it accidentally gets dragged through a muddy puddle next to him.

"Which is most of the time if we're being honest," Ghostbur remarks with a grin, his hands still itch with the thought of Techno's red cape getting dirty, he's always so careless with it, the white fur is getting ruined. He starts plucking the yellow-white flowers, delighted when he finds a slightly purple variant of it.

"Because they are clearly the superior food source," Techno shoots back, throwing the last potato in his bag. He notices that Ghostbur's is still completely empty except for a piece of lapis and the sack full of blue that he is so fond of carrying and handing out. With a sigh, he keeps moving. They change location a few more times, whenever the ground has no more potatoes to give, until both bags are finally filled to the brim.

Satisfied with the amount, Techno puts his shovel away and they start the trek back to his base. The sun is only two hours away from setting and they're quite a long way away from home, so Techno picks up his pace, pulling the ghost with him, away from the bees and their nest in the tree.

With nothing to preoccupy his hands Ghostbur takes out his piece of lapis, running his fingers over its rough ridges. His crown is smudged with mud.

"There is dirt on your crown," Ghostbur points out, looking up at Techno's head with a frown. "And your cape." He picks at some clumps of mud and pulls out a few small twigs.

"It's fine, I can just wash it, when we get back." And that's that. Except Ghostbur knows that Techno will just hang it up at the entrance, brushing off the worst of the by then dried mud the next time he has to go out and wear it. How does he know that. Now that he's pointed it out and begun cleaning it, the itch in his hands has grown to be unbearable. This feels familiar. He won't be able to clean the cape right away without any soap or water, he's always so careless with it, never properly taking care, and his crown is dirty with mud.

"Give it to me," Ghostbur suddenly demands, extending his hand towards Techno's crown. Why is this so important to me? "Give me your crown." The piglin raises an eyebrow at the demand, but hands over the golden crown with a shrug, curious as to what has the ghost riled up so suddenly.

Ghostbur snatches the crown from the other's hand and starts to clean it with the fabric of his sweater. The mud that has since dried slowly flakes off and reveals the shiny surface underneath. He almost obsessively rubs at the inlaid jewels, scratching away the dirt. He turns it over a few times when he is done and returns it to his owner with a slight huff. "Please take better care of it next time."

Techno chuckles at the ghost antics, but his brows are pulled together and he looks anything but amused. He doesn't hide his small frown fast enough.

Ghostbur mentally adds Techno's crown to the taboo list, as they continue walking home. At least the itching in his hands has stopped.

[dantesinfcrno]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐘.

I N  S U M M A R Y   –––   𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒚𝒑𝒆 ; the explorer . 𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒎 ; two .  𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆 ; slytherin . 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒚 𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒆 ; four .  𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒖𝒂𝒈𝒆 ; physical touch . 𝒎𝒃𝒕𝒊 ; istp . 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 ; chaotic good .  𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒖𝒔 ; runespoor . 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏 ; sagittarius . 𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 ; sanguine .

𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒚𝒑𝒆 ; the explorer .

the explorer archetype’s goal: to live an inspiring and fulfilling life. the explorer is authentic, curious, and independent. they want to answer questions such as: “why am I here?” or “what is my purpose?”. the explorer wants the freedom to forge a unique path and focus on self-discovery and the meaning of life. although one to criticize the establishment, the explorer would rather venture down their own path than put up a fight. just as much as they crave freedom, they also strive to help others feel free. their biggest fear is feeling trapped.

C L O S E  R E S U L T S   –––   the rebel + the caregiver .

𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒎 ; two with a three wing, sexual/social instinctual subtype . 

twos are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. they are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. they are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed. they typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging their own needs. unselfish and altruistic, they have unconditional love for others. their basic fear is of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved. the twos with a three wing are more driven and extroverted. they’re supportive and empathetic, and tend to search for the spotlight. they fear being unwanted or worthless, and avoid this by building personal connections with others and working hard to meet the needs of the community. their most basic desire is to be loved and accepted, and they may express this by being extremely attentive and attached to other people. they also tend to suppress their own negative emotions, which, when done frequently, can lead to high levels of stress or unexpected outbursts.

the subtype that exudes the most raw charisma and sexual energy, sx/so. they may identify so strongly with whatever they’re involved with that they often become the symbol of its core essence, and sometimes its lead agent for change. hardly content with the status quo, this subvariant seeks to alter the fundamental structure of something while at once embodying it’s purest or most extreme form. they enjoy pushing other’s buttons, especially those resistant to their modes of expression. may exploit and seek to redefine sexuality to reflect their own colorful and uncertain understanding of it. can feel pulled between wanting a life of maximum intensity and reassuring episodes of peaceful convention. motivation: to impact others, question assumptions, challenge convention. familiar roles: provocateur, activist, exhibitionist.

C L O S E  R E S U L T S   –––   type seven .

𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆 ; slytherin .

the slytherin house is known for being associated with a tendency to look after their own. they are always striving to be the best, but will never leave their own behind. they’re cunning, resourceful, determined, and ambitious. slytherin has produced its share of dark witches and wizards, but members are not afraid to admit it.

C L O S E  R E S U L T S   –––   gryffindor .

𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒚 𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒆 ; four .

predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual.

𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒖𝒂𝒈𝒆 ; physical touch .

a person whose primary language is physical touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. hugs, pats on the back, and thoughtful touches on the arm — they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive. appropriate and timely touches communicate warmth, safety, and love to you.

C L O S E  R E S U L T S   –––   quality time + words of affirmation .

𝒎𝒃𝒕𝒊 ; istp, the virtuoso or the artisan .

an improviser type, best at handling crisis situations. their core needs are to have the freedom to act without hindrance and to see a marked result from action. their energies are focused on skillful performance, variety, and stimulation. they trust their impulses and have a drive to action. some of their unique themes include: actively solving problems, observing how things work, unsettled by powerful emotional experiences. virtuosos are actually quite enigmatic. friendly but very private, calm but suddenly spontaneous, extremely curious but unable to stay focused on formal studies, virtuoso personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones. their decisions stem from a sense of practical realism, and at their heart is a strong sense of direct fairness. instead of being overly cautious though, they are likely to go too far, accepting likewise retaliation, good or bad, as fair play. while they’re creative and energetic, istps are known for being stubborn, reserved, and prone to risky behavior.

𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 ; chaotic good .

a chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. they make their own way, but they’re kind and benevolent. they believe in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. they hate when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. they follow their own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society. they do what is necessary to bring about change for the better, disdain bureaucratic organizations that get in the way of social improvement, and place a high value on personal freedom, not only for oneself, but for others as well. they usually intend to do the right thing, but their methods are generally disorganized and often out of sync with the rest of society. 

𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒖𝒔 ; runespoor . 

the runespoor patronus is very rare. it is cast by a very complex witch or wizard, an individual who has deep thought and uncommon understanding of the world. it is said that each head of a runespoor has its own job, there is the head that decides what the creature will do, the head that often drifts off into fantasy, and the head that criticizes the other two. someone who casts this patronus is precise in decisions they make, but they can loose themselves in deep thought. they are incredibly wise and often live to bring greatness to their names. snakes are symbolic of change, fertility, healing, energy, and the duality of good and evil.

𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏 ; sagittarius sun ; libra rising ; scorpio moon . 

restless, cheerful, and friendly, sun in sagittarius people are generally on the go. they have a love of freedom, and a disdain for routine. generally quite easygoing, sagittarians make friends with people from all walks of life. they have an often blind faith in people, and in the world. their optimism is infectious, although it can get them into trouble from time to time. these are curious people who love to learn. the need for escape is generally strong, and some come across as a little irresponsible. 

sagittarius sun / scorpio moon people are independent, capable and usually successful at whatever they are doing. there is the sound judgment and great wisdom of the sagittarius combined with the scorpio’s determination and ability to turn everything they want into a project. they’re intense and astute, but can also be temperamental, blunt and hypersensitive. discrete and intelligent, they will come up with great plans and strategies that will help them advance quickly in both professional and personal life. renewing themselves is one of their abilities. they love to dig deeply into unusual subjects and the exotic and the uncharted fascinate you. they seek to experience as much as possible in life and they are sensual and pleasure loving. they always get up from falls, no matter how many times they are setback or personal misfortunes they encounter.

the sagittarius sun / libra ascendant is known to be clever, intelligent and educated. their environment is delighted by their charming personalities and the joy they have in life and so, all hearts are easily won. these people know exactly how to take center stage and thus gain popularity. they have amazing artistic and psychological skills, besides their exquisite taste and knowledge on how to deal with others.

𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 ; sanguine / choleric blend .

sanguines are naturally people-oriented. they have an active, positive movement in a favorable environment. they influence their environment by encouraging others to work together. the sanguine is by far the most versatile of the four temperaments and has the potential for the widest range of behavior due to possessing the widest range of emotions. they are extroverted, fun-loving, playful, activity-prone, impulsive, entertaining, persuasive, easily amused, and optimistic. they are enthusiastic, expressive, tend to be very affectionate, and are word smiths. sanguines are very competitive, and they usually like sports of any kind. they tend to be disorganized and easily forgetful, and sometimes have difficulty controlling their thoughts and emotions. they fear rejection or not making a favorable impression. individuals with this personality have a hard time doing nothing and engage in more risk seeking behavior.

the sanguine-choleric combination is driven by the primary need to be accepted socially and the secondary need to get results. they are more assertive than the other sanguine combinations, being very persuasive and making good debaters! they have an outgoing interest in others and the ability to gain the respect and confidence of various types of individuals. they exhibit poise and confidence in most situations, especially social events, and will become bored without activity and social involvement.

[athela-3]

mankai company: cyberpunk

I never asked for this. But that’s just how ideas work, ain't it? One minute you’re mindlessly going through the daily grind, and the next moment it hits ya like a sucker punch to the gut. Then your mind’s racing, and you think: Why not? Whaddaya have to lose? You’ve rambled your way through semi-coherent flashes of inspiration before. Why should this one be different?

Note: everyone is aged up, oh, let’s say at least five years. Also, long post is long. I’m not joking. The page break is there for a reason.

Mankai Company is a modest-sized corporation specialising in biotechnology and cybernetics. But operating beneath its public face is a semi-covert band of mercs, private eyes, and fixers called Kaga Solutions, fully-equipped to navigate the mean city streets on command. Their founder and CEO, Yukio Tachibana, has recently disappeared; as per his express wishes, the company leadership is transferred to his estranged daughter, Izumi. 

Izumi Tachibana: the new CEO, more experienced in programming than in biotech, she wants to lead Mankai in a new direction focused on augmented reality and fluid human-machine interfacing, while also investigating her father's disappearance with its covert Kaga operatives.

Isuke Matsukawa: Yukio's—and now Izumi's—personal assistant who also handles most of the day-to-day finances, a seemingly bumbling man with hidden talents. He has more connections than you'd expect, and his loyalty is bone-deep.

Yuzo Kashima: a major shareholder in the company whose investments helped Yukio jump-start his dream into reality. Initially skeptical of Izumi's direction, he slowly grows to believe in her vision, even if he's still brutally honest about many things. He's aware of Kaga and the hidden side of Mankai, and is implied to have once partaken in it more personally.

Tetsuro Iwai: the local hardware genius. If you need something built, he'll figure out how to do it in record time. He's happy to work with the old boss' daughter, even if her ideas can stretch him to his limits sometimes.

Ken Sakoda: nobody's really sure what his official job is. He's just always there, usually appearing out of nowhere to do whatever Sakyo asks him to (there's rumours of a personalised cloaking device). This ranges from coffee runs to, ah, semi-legal inventory procurement.

Kamekichi: a robot parrot Yukio personally built as a pet project. Originally a prototype for robotic therapy animals, his code gave birth to his own emergent sassy personality.

Sakuya Sakuma: head of Engineering, what he lacks in experience he makes up in talent and dedication. Has politely declined playing a more active role in Kaga's assignments, declaring his current job to already be his dream job anyhow.

Masumi Usui: a tech prodigy, a quick learner who's always keen to impress Izumi for reasons which may not be strictly professional. Built his own memory implants from scratch, and is always willing to help with Kaga if ever asked.

Tsuzuru Minagi: the top dog when it comes to programming and software. Tends to overwork himself, especially at crunch time, but he writes top-notch code that leave Mankai's competitors scratching their heads. Also helps oversee and plan Kaga's missions, especially when it comes to concocting cover stories and identities.

Itaru Chigasaki: yet another punch-clock worker whose only skills lie in testing and bugfixing… or so he'd have you believe. In reality, he's one of Kaga's most reliable operatives, using his salaryman persona to relieve suspicion and gain people's trust. By the time his targets notice the "GG EZ" hacked onto every screen, it's too late.

Citron: another Kaga operative, people see him and think he's the expat office worker who struggles to string a coherent sentence together, so they don't always pay attention to what they say around him. Big mistake. If he can't evade you in conversation, then he'll evade you the traditional way and vanish seemingly into thin air.

Chikage Utsuki: formerly Itaru's senior at their old job, who followed him to Mankai for reasons of his own. He does minor coding for them now, but his primary focus is on being a field agent for Kaga, where his charm and covert investigative skills really come into play.

Tenma Sumeragi: a former child actor, now the company's face, appearing in advertisements and endorsements. He's great at both presenting Mankai's personable, human-interest agenda and selling Kaga's sharp professionalism to potential clients.

Yuki Rurikawa: hired fresh out of university, his sharp sense of aesthetics led Izumi to trust him with practically all of their product design. Every concept has to have his seal of approval before moving to the production stage. He also handles disguises for Kaga's operations.

Muku Sakisaka: formerly slated to compete in the Olympics before an accident, he now provides another public face for Mankai alongside Tenma. He writes a good deal of the company's promotional material, and has a strong sense of what would affect their clients.

Misumi Ikaruga: officially, he tests the more physical cybernetics, such as Sakuya's impact-dampeners or Tasuku's mountain-climbing legs; his videos performing literally superhuman parkour feats often end up as promotional material. Under the table, he's Kaga's go-to operative for situations requiring speed and agility.

Kazunari Miyoshi: head of the PR department, in charge of keeping their public image in the positive while also keeping Kaga’s activities mostly out of attention. He keeps everyone in the loop with current affairs, often feeding intel to his old friend Tsuzuru for planning.

Kumon Hyodo: baseball's new rising star, he started doing sponsorship and endorsement deals after Muku and Juza introduced him to Izumi. He's enthusiastic about working with them and often helps coming up with ideas for reaching into the sports demographic.

Banri Settsu: a bio-augmentation enthusiast and grey hat hacker, he once breached Mankai's firewalls basically out of boredom; when Izumi tracked him down, she decided to offer him a job in her cybersecurity division, and he agreed. Of course, as soon as he hears about Kaga, he all but jumps into it headlong.

Juza Hyodo: wanted to be a cop as a kid; that was before the city's corrupt police force disenchanted him of the idea. His cousin Muku convinced him to work for Mankai, so he thought he'd give the corporate samurai gig a chance. His earnest dedication quickly wins him a spot on Kaga, as do his excellent combat skills.

Taichi Nanao: initially a mole from Godza, sent to tear Kaga apart from within, he went turncoat within months and is now their primary source on Godza's methods and internal affairs. He balances quick and dirty combat tactics with his boyish charm and knack at appearing harmless.

Omi Fushimi: former military, honourably discharged after a terrorist attack took out his best friend and left him heavily injured. Now he works for Mankai as head of security, with a bit of unofficial HR thrown in there. Unlike the rest of Akigumi, he isn't part of Kaga, as he believes his focus should be on keeping the company safe and secure.

Sakyo Furuichi: head of Kaga, and its oldest member still on active duty. These days he mostly sticks to mission control, but occasionally lends support on the field if he deems it necessary. His sharp mind and eye for patterns makes him particularly good at planning missions, exit strategies, and backup plans.

Azami Izumida: the son of a yakuza boss who decided to leave the family business behind to strike out on his own, he still keeps a number of his old underworld contacts. Officially an intern, he's also eager to get into fieldwork with Kaga, putting his years of swordsmanship lessons to use.

Tsumugi Tsukioka: head of biotech, his research on how cranial implants can be used to treat sleep disorders turned him—and Mankai—into a household name. He infrequently lends a hand to Kaga by developing and fine-tuning their cybernetics.

Tasuku Takato: a former member of Godza, he quit his job to work for Mankai instead, and is now a valued member of their biotech team. He specialises in developing prosthetics for their more athletic clients, and like Tsumugi, focuses on his R&D most of the time.

Hisoka Mikage: formerly working for a similar fixer/PMC group, a near-fatal neuro-implant malfunction caused him to forget everything that happened since its installation. As Mankai found him, removed the bad implant, and nursed him back to health, he thought it's just apt to repay the debt by working for them. One of Kaga's most well-rounded operatives, he is strongest in stealth and wetwork.

Homare Arisugawa: an eccentric professor to his core; his studies range from urban to agrarian, sprawling across fields and topics, but his passion project lies in developing ocular implants that can read micro-expressions on the fly, allowing its owner to identify and record people's emotional reactions easily.

Azuma Yukishiro: the face of the biotech divison, he works closely with Mankai's clients to help them find the perfect cybernetics for their personal needs. He also often gleans information and gossip from his endless well of unsuspecting acquaintances and old contacts, passing them on to Kaga for their missions.

Guy: a friend of Citron's from his homeland; extensively cybernetically augmented after a major accident years ago, he claims to be more machine than human by this point. Ostensibly Homare's research assistant, he is a field agent for Kaga, equally skilled in hacking as he is in hand-to-hand combat.

[afterourhearts]

Eyeliner Tears

Why are Asian eyes so ugly? I thought to myself as I outlined their shape with the blackest liner I could dig out from the free Lancôme makeup samples Mom never used. This was my daily routine since I first discovered the beautiful black pencil when I was 12 alongside lip gloss, mascara, and blush. But eyeliner was my favorite – changing most dramatically what I hated most passionately. • Monolids are ugly because they make eyes look like slits. • Double lids are ‘mutant’ because, as my white medical professor once so aptly described, “Epicanthic folds are a prominent feature of Down Syndrome. If you don’t know what they are, Asians commonly have this feature.” Let’s face it: we can’t win, at least not in the beauty arena. But with my eyeliner adding the illusion of a larger eye, I felt halfway there. Not everyone, however, appreciated my foray into adolescent self-transformation. The Chinese beauty culture operates very differently than American beauty culture: pale skin, small mouths, soft bodies, and youthful innocence are prized over glowing tans, wide smiles, athletic frames, and sultry seductiveness. To achieve the Chinese beauty ideal of youthful innocence, heavy makeup such as eyeliner is unacceptable, and makeup at all is frowned upon for younger girls. Mom called them “raccoon eyes” and told me I looked uglier with it on but I never heeded her advice. She also said respectable girls did not waste their time on vanities like makeup, but rather immersed themselves in their studies. She especially hated when I wore makeup to church, a place where teenage girls are supposed to look extra pure. I rolled my raccoon eyes. One year, I met a new girl at our Chinese Christian Church. She was talkative, witty, similarly loved makeup and rebellion, and we became fast friends. This same year, a new youth pastor arrived at our church. He was funny, fluent, and finally our first youth pastor who wasn’t middle-aged. So how do they tie back to eyeliner? Prior to their arrival, I dreaded attending church, paranoid that the judgmental eyes of multitudes of Chinese parents hated my appearance and shared the Chinese cultural views held by my mother. Was it paranoia, or was I just observant? Adults would enthusiastically praise my younger brother’s handsome features and say nothing about my appearance other than, “She is tall!” Their smiles seemed disingenuous and their attitudes towards me distant. Or maybe I was just overly sensitive. Regardless, much of that paranoia melted away with the arrival of a new friend and youth pastor – two characters who seemed more attuned than the other members to the Asian-American dichotomy that was my life. I began to loosen up at church, smile more, and even happily greet the adults. I felt … safe. Maybe not enthusiastically accepted, but also not frowned upon with disdain. One might wonder why I was so concerned for approval from within my Chinese church. When you live in a country spearheaded by people who don’t view you as truly American, you cling onto the safe spaces that still might take you in and consider you a member. I wasn’t aware of how shaky my walls of comfort had been built, though, until one sentence caused them to tumble back down again. “He said he doesn’t like you because you wear so much eyeliner.” She told me. She being my new best friend and he being the cool and young youth pastor we both adored. “How do you know this?” I asked, disbelief and doubt at each other’s throats in the battleground that was now my mind. “Because he told my mom. And my mom told me that it’s not just him who thinks this way, but a lot of other parents. They tell their kids to stay away from you because you are a bad influence.” Bad influence. Me, the introvert who rarely speaks, a bad influence? I let that sink in. That night, I considered giving up my eyeliner. I thought all my fears about being hated by my friends’ parents were unfounded and paranoid. I thought my youth pastor would especially not judge me by something so exterior – actually, why would he judge me at all? Why would a grown ass man concern himself so heavily with whether a teenage girl wears eyeliner? Anger and sadness bubbled up around me. How did one of my greatest fears, one I thought had been pushed away and laid to rest for good, one which only my new friend knew so intimately, suddenly come to surface all over again? And that’s when it hit me: maybe she lied. The seed of thought that this supposed best friend might not actually like me at all was planted. And over the next few months, it thirstily drank up water and sunlight. I befriended other girls and began to uncover bits and pieces of the horrifying truth: she did hate me, and they had evidence. Screen captures and chat conversations were forwarded to my inbox. Not only did she tell others about how terrible I supposedly was, she also told them I disliked all of them and fabricated statements I had never uttered nor so much as thought. I could not believe it – why did she want to destroy my life and capitalize on my insecurities? What did I ever do but consider her my friend? Sometimes, you never get answers. Not too many months after, she moved again. We stumbled across each other’s Instagram accounts a few years later. She had dyed hair, tattoos, piercings all over, eyeliner wings bolder than I had ever applied, false lashes nearly reaching her thickly painted eyebrows, the same deceptively sweet smile as when we first met, and was surrounded by other Asian girls. I once burned with the anger of her betrayal, but all I could think about now was her new embodiment of the criticisms she claimed were the reasons for my rejection from our community and how ironic our appearances were now – me being the studious medical student who sometimes forgets to wear eyeliner and she being the girl who refuses to be seen in public without it - the pictorial epitome of the bad influence she once used to mark me for social abandonment from our only remaining community. Irony, Karma, or Hypocrisy? Today, I won’t know if sprinkled between her lies were grains of truth, and if her comment about my reputation was one of them. I won’t know if my eventual submission to certain Asian cultural values drew its main roots from my teenage experience of potential two-fold community rejection. I won’t know if she ever realized the extent to which she hurt me or if she continues to hurt in similarly sneaky ways our other Asian sisters struggling to find acceptance and self-love in a land which has subjected them to unwarranted rejection. What I do know is this: We All Cry The Same Eyeliner Tears Yes, we do. They trickle down from our unmistakably Asian eyes, glide along our sunscreen laden faces, and leave smudgy black streaks to remind us of both our perceived physical imperfections as well as our efforts to conceal the ugliness we feel inside. 

Feeling ugly is not just some manifestation of low self-esteem as these American schools/media/counselors might tell us in order to erase from our mutual history and from their responsibility the ‘chink’ comments that we heard or the fingers-pulling-eyes-upward-to-mimic-us that we saw.

Our damaged self-esteem is not some personal mental and emotional disorder or a reflection of our weakness but a collective experience caused largely in part by the pervasive belief that some belong here but we don’t and that some are beautiful but we aren’t. Don’t think that just because dating apps are now asserting, “Asian girls are the most desired race!” that the girls who come after us are protected from the less-than we endured. The American dating scene did not just become more “accepting” of us – we changed to look more like them. But underneath the beautifully and extravagantly drawn eyeliner wings, the perfectly filled in eyebrows, the time-consuming application of fake lashes, the hours spent at the gym to avoid ‘Asian flat butt’ stereotypes, and the sharp cut of the surgery knife on our eyelids, we still cannot help but wonder: is this beautiful yet? And when he says, “Yes”, we still worry, was I not beautiful before? Do we really want to be with the ones who only want what is made-to-order, and overlook the ones who saw the original, in all its imperfections, as worth discovering? So while I have every right to be mad at my Asian sister for the hurtful actions she made against me as a result of her wanting to be more accepted by our community than I was, I cannot lose sight of the more formidable barrier to our collective inability to self-love: not the lies she told before, but the lies they still tell today. Why are my Asian eyes so ugly? I used to think to myself constantly. And if you’ve read this until the end, I think you know the answer.

_____________________________________________________________

Comments: Friends who have read this far or read my shared thoughts at all, I know my experiences are not isolated. My past shared posts related to familial pressures and relationships have shown me just how overlapping our experiences can be. The feelings of low self-esteem and self-image at some time or another in your life is probably a universal one. Experiences of betrayal are sadly quite common. Hopefully you enjoyed this short piece - it’s a bit different from the other posts I’ve written (a little more cleaned up and narrative when compared to my usual frenetic ranting) ... anyways, I wanted to share that I’ve been working on putting together some more shorts + poems in my free time (this is how I destress from school haha) and something I hope to achieve through writing with this project (and since day one) is unfiltered and unapologetic storytelling highlighting the Asian voice that is so often completely ignored in discussions of race and discrimination. I’m not saying our experiences are to be equated to the experiences of other minorities because noo, but I am saying we should at least be included in the discussion. 

This brings me to my next point: I want to continue to share your stories too. If you have experiences you want to share related in any way to your identity as an Asian-American female, I want to hear them and with your permission, try to make prose or poetry of it. Text me, message me, or call me and let’s get in touch :) Thank you for being a part of this whether as a reader or direct contributor. Let’s shape our collective voice!!!

[moviemunchies]

I have long been a fan of the Hellboy comics so when the recent film came out I watched the trailer and said, “That looks terrible! Let me watch something else.” So decided I’d see Missing Link instead. But it turned out that it wasn’t showing in any of the local theaters. So I decided I’d see Hellboy after all! But it turned out that it wasn’t showing in any of the local theaters. So I had to wait a while before I saw either of them.

Now you guys know what I thought of Hellboy, but I am happy to inform you that I liked Missing Link much better.

Missing Link is the most recent film from LAIKA Studios, a studio known for its stop motion animated projects like Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings. Basically everything they’ve made in the past decade has been a critical hit, but very few, if any, were financial successes. Missing Link had the misfortune to be running against Avengers: Endgame in theaters. The studio takes on these projects for the art of it, and it shows when you see how much detail is put into every single character and prop. All of the clothing is made of actual fabric. All the characters move like natural people, and not with exaggerated gestures.

It goes like this: Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) is an English adventurer who desperately wants to join the esteemed English adventurer’s club. Unfortunately, all of his attempts to prove his worth as an adventurer are by tracking down legendary beasts that no one else thinks exist, and he can never hold on to proof, and so he’s dismissed as a joke. When he receives word of where to find a Bigfoot, which he believes might be the “missing link” in humanity’s evolution, he makes a bet with the club’s leader, Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry), that if he can find and bring back proof of the creature that he can join the club.

However, when he does meet the creature in question (Zack Galifianakis), the creature asks for help: see, Mr. Link (as he’s known for most of the film) is the last of his kind in America, and having heard of the yetis of the Himalayas, he thinks they might be distant relations, and wants to go live with them. So, gaining a map from Frost’s old acquaintance (and his ex) Adelina Fortnight (Zoey Saldana), they travel across the globe in order to unite Link with his long-lost family. However Piggot-Dunceby has no intention of losing the bet, and sends a mercenary (Timothy Olyphaunt) to make sure that Frost never comes back home to England.

Like most LAIKA films, Missing Link is not particularly subtle with its message. You can probably guess from my summary where, at least, Lionel Frost’s character arc will go: he is an individualist who desperately wants to be part of a group that never wanted him there. Obviously his story in this film is learning a lesson about that. Really there’s nothing much subtle about the movie; the villain is a sexist, colonialist prig named is Piggot-Dunceby after all.. Which is fine! A story doesn’t have to be subtle to be effective. In some ways I think it works, because it’s a movie that tells you upfront what it’s about, and shows you that you can talk about serious topics and themes through the medium of stop-motion animation.

One thing that LAIKA excels at is showing the world in a way that doesn’t obscure that it’s sometimes messy. That’s both a statement on its themes, as well as on the general design. Seriously, there’s so much stuff lying around in this movie, like books and papers and artifacts, all of which have print or writing on them that actually say things. It’s enough to make you forget that it’s all little models slowly being animated by taking it one frame at a time. If you lose yourself in the world of the movie, that’s fine, but if you stop and pay attention, you’ll be baffled by how they made all of it work with the medium they had.

And this film is fun! There are gun fights, chases, fight scenes and lots and lots of jokes peppered throughout the movie. If you don’t care about animation at all this is an excellent family movie by virtue of all the wonderful things in it. You’ll laugh as you watch, from gags both visual and verbal. You’ll be excited as there’s a chase through a crowded ship during a storm. It’s a great popcorn flick.

That being said, there is one thing about the look of this movie that didn’t work for me, and that was eyes. Not the eyes of any of the main characters, thankfully, but many of the animals that appear in the film have forward-facing eyes, even when they shouldn’t. Frost’s horse, and elephant later in the film, and the seagulls you see have little eyes,barely spaced apart, facing forward in a way that just looks wrong. It’s jarring because the rest of the movie looks so good, these bits stand out and take you out of the moment in the worst way possible.

Still, that is, in the run of things, a small mark against the movie’s credit. In all other respects it is a great film, and I can recommend it for all enthusiasts of animation, for all fans of family films, and for those who enjoy a good laugh.

[aion-rsa]

Marissa Meyer Reflects on Her Iconic Lunar Chronicles Series

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New editions of The Lunar Chronicles has author Marissa Meyer looking back on inventive cosplay and forward to new fairy tale retellings.

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Upon glimpsing the dynamic covers for the new paperback editions of Marissa Meyer’s reimagined fairy tale series The Lunar Chronicles, one can’t help but notice there’s something familiar about them—especially the gorgeous stepbacks that feature Cinder in a ballgown and Cress staring wistfully in the opposite direction of the strapping Thorne, silhouetted by moonlight. They bring to mind… Sailor Moon.

Meyer laughs when this comparison is brought up, considering her background as a Sailor Moon fanfiction writer, but says that it was not intentional: “I think that’s just Tomer [Hanuka]’s style.” However, when her publisher Macmillan sent along the artist’s portfolio, she was certainly struck by Hanuka’s work.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why I was so drawn to him," says Meyer. "Because it does have a little bit of that Japanese/manga vibe to it, which I love. And coming from that fandom and that background, there’s definitely a lot of influence in the books. So, I think that it plays really well; the artwork very much complements the series in a great way.”

While The Lunar Chronicles concluded with its fourth and final novel, Winter, in 2015, fans have been able to spend more time in Meyer’s science fiction fairy tale universe with subsequent releases including the short fiction collection Stars Above and the graphic novel Wires and Nerve.

Now, a re-release of the original quartet with brand-new covers showcasing each of the key characters proves that the series is still relevant to readers today. To wit, part of the new covers process involved crowdsourcing favorite scenes from the active and enthusiastic fandom via Instagram. Meyer describes seeing the same scenes suggested over and over, which made their way into the new designs: Wolf spiriting Scarlet away from danger. Winter and Jacin in a romantic clinch in her menagerie.

read more: Marissa Meyer's Renegades Trilogy is Riveting Superhero Fiction

It’s quite the departure from the original covers, each of which featured one key element from its respective book: Cinder’s mechanical leg (in place of Cinderella’s glass slipper); Scarlet’s (or Little Red Riding Hood’s) cape; Cress’ Rapunzel-esque hair; and Winter’s plague-laced apple. While the series has long been celebrated for centering the stories of princesses of color—Cinder is Asian/Caucasian, while Winter is black—and for its representation of mental illness, now those women are actually on the covers in the (human and cyborg) flesh.

“They’re so beautiful and so vibrant,” Meyer says. “I love what [Tomer] does with colors, and so when you see all four of them together, it just stands out so much. I couldn’t be any happier with them.”

That said, this is not the first time that the series has been illustrated. In addition to the aforementioned Wires and Nerve, there is also The Lunar Chronicles Coloring Book. While most authors do not experience the opportunity to see their work adapted thusly, let alone three, Meyer says it feels “incredible,” though she hastens to add that there is a fourth lens: fan art!

“It’s unbelievable to think about these characters and this world that lived inside my head for so many years, and then to see other people putting their interpretation behind it,” she says. “And in a way that there’s such wonderful justice to it, and [that] really captures the same sorts of emotions that I was trying to put into my writing. It’s just like one giant compliment. There’s nothing quite like it!”

Recent years have seen more and more science fiction and fantasy authors talking candidly about their fanfiction backgrounds, including N.K. Jemisin (the Broken Earth series), Naomi Novik (Spinning Silver), Tamsyn Muir (Gideon the Ninth), Tochi Onyebuchi (Riot Baby), and Brooke Bolander (The Only Harmless Great Thing). But Meyer has always drawn a line connecting her professional work and her fanfic persona, Alicia Blade, as seen on her old website via the Wayback Machine. It’s no surprise, then, that Lunar Chronicles fan art and fanfiction began cropping up online not long after Cinder was published in 2012.

read more: Den of Geek Book Club Podcast Talks with Marissa Meyer

“That’s the fantasy,” Meyer says, “for there to be fanfic of your own work, because I know what love goes into creating fanfiction, and how fandoms can really rally around it.” And how must that feel for a former fanfiction writer? 

“It’s a little weird, honestly! But it’s wonderful, and I’m hugely honored to know there are so many people who have taken the characters and gone off and done their own things with them.”

Early on, Meyer had to decide whether she would actually read the stories on Fanfiction.net and the Archive of Our Own (AO3). Despite her burning curiosity, she considered that “if Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of Sailor Moon, regularly went on and read Sailor Moon fanfiction, I think that that might have changed what I was writing and what I was putting out there. And so early on I decided, ‘No, I want that to be for the fans; I don’t think I should be involved in that side of it.’ But knowing that it exists brings me much, much joy.”

Another way in which The Lunar Chronicles’ heroines have made their way into the world has been through cosplay, which Meyer describes as “one of my greatest pleasures” to see at conventions. One group costume that stands out in her memory is a quartet of women in ballgowns representing the albino wolf, peacock, and other animals in Winter’s menagerie on Luna: “It was this amalgamation of ballgowns and formalwear on Luna, but also the animals of the menagerie, and I just thought it was so clever.”

In addition to fanfiction, Meyer is an alum of another online-centric writing community: National Novel Writing Month. Cinder and four subsequent books began as NaNoWriMo projects, but the life of an author has made it more difficult for Meyer to time drafting to every November. When asked if she might participate this year, she says, “I hope so! I haven’t been able to do it for the last couple of years; it never seems to line up with my deadlines anymore. [...] It’s a tradition for me, and one I would love to continue. I can’t say for sure if I’m doing it this year or not; but if I can make it work, then I definitely will.”

However, Meyer fans who are considering undertaking NaNoWriMo themselves will have to juggle a tempting distraction this November: Instant Karma, her contemporary romance novel with a magical twist, will be published November 3. Meyer describes the story, the first in a planned four-book series, as “about a girl who lives in a sunny, beachside town and one day inexplicably gets the power to exact instant karma on people. And she goes around punishing all of the snobs and the bullies and the people that she can’t stand. There’s one boy that she absolutely despises, but every time she tries to use this power on him, it ends up backfiring on her. It will be a love story and secrets will be revealed, etcetera etcetera.”

On her Alicia Blade website sometime before 2012, Meyer described herself as “beloved Sailor Moon fanfiction author and future romance novelist.” While each of the Lunar Chronicles books featured romance, there is something exciting about seeing her fulfill that description with her first romance novel. “It’s been a big change from my previous works,” she says, pointing out that “this is the first thing I’ve written that doesn’t have huge superpowers or futuristic technology. There are no fight scenes! Which is awesome. [...] It’s been really nice now writing something that still has romance, still has a theme of good versus evil and what is true justice, and all of these same sort of themes I like to play with, but in a much more subtle, quiet, sweet sort of way.”

But while she expands the Instant Karma world with contemporary happily ever afters, she won’t stay away from fairy tales for long. Meyer teased a new fairy tale retelling—and while she couldn’t say which story she’s adapting, she did share that it will be an epic fantasy what-if story...

“It is going to be fantasy—kinda my first ‘quest’ fantasy novel, which I’m super excited about because growing up, Tolkien and epic fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons—all of that was my jam. It was always weird to me that my first published book was science fiction, because I thought for sure I would write an epic quest story. So this is kinda my first [of] going back to my teenage roots a bit.” The book is tentatively scheduled for fall 2021, though that timing may be subject to change.

Even as she explores new genres and stories, Meyer will never forget the idea that first set her on this path. “I have so much love for this series,” she says, “and not just because it was my first series. I think for every author, the first one you get published is always going to feel really special. From the moment that I had this idea about writing about fairy tales in the future, and this cyborg Cinderella character, I was just so smitten with it, and I loved the idea of bringing all these characters together and throwing them on a spaceship and seeing if they could save the universe."

"That spoke to my heart and to my nerdiness on so many levels," she continues, "and I just had so much fun writing it. To see it now in the world, and see how readers have responded to it, and that there’s so much love and interest in the characters, it’s really been incredible. And of course I hope to have many more successful book series throughout my career, but I don’t know that there will ever be anything that’s quite the books-of-my-heart as The Lunar Chronicles have been.”

Close to a decade since Cinder was published, with a dedicated fandom returning to the books over and over, Meyer has one hope for the legacy of the series.

“Gosh, it’s so cheesy—I’m gonna say world peace,” she says. “That’s one of the things that I loved writing, was a world in which Earth and the countries of Earth have obtained world peace, and they have been at peace for over a century. I don’t know if it’s naïve, but I truly like to think that that is a potential future.”

The new, gorgeous paperback editions of The Lunar Chronicles will be available for purchase on February 4th. You can order them now via the official website.

As a former fanfiction writer herself, Natalie Zutter is mightily inspired to finish all of her WIPs. Talk fairy tale retellings with her on Twitter @nataliezutter.

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Feature Natalie Zutter

Feb 3, 2020

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[latenightdrabble-blog]

Looks Can Be Deceptive

a/n: I know its been forever, but I’m writing this one because it was requested. This one’s for you bub! Hope you enjoy it :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the first day of college and you were nervous. After being in the same school for so long, you wondered if you could even make new friends anymore. You wiped the sweat off your hands and grabbed your satchel tightly. Your parents had helped you settle in to your dorm room the previous night, and the only person you had spoken to far was the warden. Your roommate was yet to arrive. 

You walked toward your first class hoping things would be alright. It took some time to find the right lecture hall, but with some help, you located it easily. Unfortunately, you were late to the class. The professor excused you but it didn’t mean that your new classmates didn’t take the opportunity to snicker at you. You took a seat at the back of the hall and wished to disappear. A tall boy made way for you to sit down, You took a peep into his notebook and he already seemed to have taken down a lot of notes. This experience was going to be difficult if  you didn’t keep up. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The library soon became your safe place. All the time you weren’t at class, you spent there, in hopes of catching up with the curriculum. It seemed like a big jump from the kind of studies you were used to, and the assignments were endless. 

You tried to reach the top shelf for one of the books you needed to complete your latest Computers assignment. Unfortunately, you couldn’t reach, even though you stood on your toes. 

“Do you need help with that? I can get that for you.”, you heard a deep voice behind you. You lost your balance in fright, and had to grab the bookshelf to steady yourself. Shutting your eyes in embarrassment, you turned around to find the source of this voice. It was the tall boy from your class! He had black spectacles on today, something he didn’t have earlier. You often sat beside him in class, since the other students didn’t really leave place for you. In spite of your sort of poor eyesight, you always felt at home with all the tall folks at the back of the class However, the two of you never talked, except for the occasional ‘Excuse me’ when you needed to get to your place, or a ‘Thank you’ when you borrowed anything from each other. 

You stepped aside and told him the name of the book you needed. He fetched it for you and stared at it for two seconds. 

“Oh no. OH NO. We have an assignment due right? Oh no I haven’t even started on it.” he said, his eyes widening in realisation. 

“Yeah we do, but don’t worry, it’s not due until next week!”, you said, in attempt to calm and quiet him. A couple of students had looked up from their books when he started rambling. 

“Yes but I won’t be free this weekend to finish it.” he said. 

You didn’t want to pry, you barely knew the guy, but you figured, this could be a chance to get to know him. You hadn’t made many friends. They were more like ‘people who are in my classes’. Spending time outside of class was not something you did, since you were in the library all the time. 

“I could help you... Uh... I mean if you want, we can work on it together so that’ll cut down the time we need to finish it.” you said, unsure of what his response would be. 

He stared at you for a few seconds, as if trying to process a couple of things all at once. You fiddled with the edge of the book as you waited, each second filling you with growing regret for suggesting it in the first place. 

“That would be really great. That would be wonderful really. Thank you so much! I’m Chanyeol, by the way.” he said, smiling and extending his hand for a shake. You took it and introduced yourself as well. 

Every evening for the rest of the week, you and Chanyeol spent your evenings in a corner of the library, away from the other students, as you realised that he was sort of excitable and had very little control over the volume of his voice. You managed to finish the assignment before the weekend, and for once, had nothing to do on Saturday and Sunday. Normally, other kids would spend it with their friends. So naturally, when Chanyeol asked you what your plans for the weekend were, you fumbled over your words and tried to come up with something.

“Hey, its okay. I know you don’t have many friends here, I’ve noticed. And that’s okay. I thought you were a really quiet kid, and was surprised that you offered to work together on the assignment. I’m really glad that you did, because now I know just how talkative you can be!” he said, cheekily. 

You punched his arm in retaliation and he pretended to be hurt. That made you burst into laughter, because he was a lot taller than you, and his arms felt solid under your punch. 

“Damn, Chanyeol, you work a lot huh?” you said, feeling his arm. 

“A guy needs his gains. We need to be able to protect ourselves from friends who punch you. Self defense.” he said 

You smiled at him, a funny feeling washing over you. He called you his friend, and it made your heart flutter. 

“Okay so now I know you have no plan for the weekend, so do you want to come see my band ?”

“Wait, you’re in a band?” you asked, in disbelief.

“Why, do I not look like someone who’s in a band?” 

“No it’s just that..... Never mind, we’ve hardly known each other, so it makes sense I’d love to come watch you guys practice.” 

He immediately perked up on hearing your reply. After giving you the details, he walked you to your dorm room and waved goodbye. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Shit, Chan, you’re brilliant! I didn’t know you played guitar so well! And the rest of the band is amazing too !” you said in delight. It was one of the best Saturday mornings you’ve had since you joined this university. Chanyeol introduced you to his band mates and friends - Baekhyun, Jongdae and MInseok. They were super friendly and welcomed you warmly. 

“Oh he does much more than play guitar, dear. He also plays the piano, the drums and he sings pretty well. Oh and how can I forget, he can rap too!” Baekhyun said cheekily. 

“Okay mom, are you done showing off about me?” Chanyeol retorted, rolling his eyes. You giggled at their antics, but were also impressed. 

“I did not take you for such talented guy! Insane. If you will allow me, I would like to come see you play all those instruments!” you said. 

“What about you, do you play any instrument?” Jongdae asked, joining the conversation. 

“Well... “ you trailed off. You were sort of shy to say, but you were pretty darn good at singing. However, you could hardly compare to Jongdae and Baekhyun. They were brilliant in their own right. 

“I’m guessing she sings.” Minseok said, not looking up. 

“How did you guess?” you asked, stunned.

“I saw you trying to sing along. That’s the sort of I see Baek do more often that I like.” 

Chanyeol almost turned into a puppy on hearing this. Baekhyun, however, turned into a pouting puppy. It was quite a sight. 

“YOU NEED TO SING FOR US!!” Chanyeol yelled, in his unintentionally loud voice. 

“I don’t think you want that I mean like hahaha you guys sing so well and..” you tried explaining, but it was futile. Chanyeol was already setting up a mic and grabbed his acoustic. 

“I know you like that song, Shut Up And Dance, I think I can play it. Come, sing.” Chanyeol called you. 

You knew there was no winning this battle. You did as you were asked and sang for them, They clapped for you at the end, and you couldn’t help but blush. 

“I can’t believe you were hiding those pipes from me!” Chanyeol said, as he put down his guitar. “I think we can all agree that with a bit of help and practice, she can actually utilize her voice to the maximum extent.” 

Baekhyun and Jongdae agreed enthusiastically. Minseok however, looked a bit reluctant, but shrugged in agreement. 

“Thanks guys, but I really do not want to detract from the main agenda, which is your practice. So I guess, help me out only when you have spare time.” you tried to reason. 

“Ah no, we can spare sometime on the weekends. It’ll be like a mini project!” Baekhyun said. 

So, a deal was made. You and Chanyeol would work together to complete all the assignments during the week, and rehearse on the weekends. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the days passed, you found yourself spending more time with Chanyeol You’d find yourself laughing at his antics quite often, and the other students wondered what changed you. At lunch, the other boys would sit with the two of you and cause quite a fuss, most of it started by Baekhyun. They also introduced to their other friends, Junmyeon, Yixing, Sehun, Jongin and Kyungsoo. They were part of the dance and theatre courses at the university, and soon, you became part of their friends circle. It surprised you, how quickly they took to you, and all your initial worry of being friendless through your time at university faded away. 

You also found yourself getting specially close to Chanyeol. Baekyun seemed to catch on and would tease you endlessly, but in secret. 

“I know you like him, why don’t you just tell him?” he asked you seriously, one day. 

“Well, I don’t want to ruin our friendship. Right now, my friends circle consists of mainly you guys. If he doesn’t feel the same way, then I’m back to square one. I’m so terrified.” you admitted. 

“Hey, I don’t think you have to worry about that. We’re friends with you because you’re cool and we enjoy your company. That’s what I’ve discussed with the other boys. And also, I think Chan is mature enough to not screw up a great friendship, no, a symbiosis like yours.” Baekhyun said. 

“Symbiosis?” you asked, surprised. 

“Yeah! You guys work really well together, it’s nuts. I think you should just tell him how you feel.” Baekyun said, knowing all too well that his tall friend had indeed fallen for you already. He didn’t bring a lot of girls to band practice, and he knew that you were special to him at the very least. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The minute you stepped in to the party, you realised you should have trusted your gut and stayed at home. It had been two months since you had that conversation with Baekhyun, and you finally worked up the courage to ask Chanyeol out. Although he was being a little distant off late, you though you might as well clear the air and confess.

But the minute you entered, you spotted Chanyeol by the bar, chatting up a pretty girl. You felt sick in the stomach, but before you could turn away, Jongdae came up to you and pulled you in. 

“Hey ! Someone cleans up really well !” he said, gesturing to your outfit. You could barely register what he was saying, as hot tears filled your eyes. His kitten like smile quickly disappeared as he hurriedly led you to a side room. Baekhyun stood there, his hands on his hips, looking tense. The minute he saw your face, the frown grew. 

“Did you see him already?” he asked, in a serious tone. 

“Yep. I couldn’t steal her away soon enough.” Jongdae replied, his voice quiet. 

You were surprised. They were the most energetic people you knew, and yet here they were, their mood sullen. Letting out a breath you didn’t know you were holding in, you quickly wiped your tears away. 

“I should just go home, guys.” you said.

“No way! You’re not going to miss Sehun’s party just because Chan decided to be an ass.” Baekhyun said, his frustration showing. 

“In his defense, he didn’t know I was going to ask him out today.” you said.

“Wait, what? Is that why you dressed up so fancy?” Jongdae asked in surprise. 

“Yep.” you laughed incredulously. 

“Oh God no. Good God. Holy crap.” Baekyun huffed. 

The door suddenly opened, surprising you. 

“Hey guys! What’s up? We were looking for y’all all over, the party is really getting started now, hurry up!” Jongin gushed, clearly already inebriated. He didn’t seem to catch on to the tension in the air. The four of you stood in silence for a few moments. You didn’t want to ruin Sehun’s birthday for him, so you made up your mind. Survive the night and then get away. 

Clearing your throat, you tried your best to smile. Taking a deep breath, you said, “Lead the way!” and followed Jongin out the door. 

You spent the rest of the evening with the boys, dancing and laughing, and drinking, and actively trying to avoid Chanyeol. You tried to have fun, after all, no one should stop you from enjoying your life. The news however, seemed to have spread to the other boys. They were taking turns trying to cheer you up - everything from a shot contest against Jongin, a dance contest against the birthday boy, and a singing contest against Jongdae. It was no surprise that they did badly on purpose, making you laugh at their antics. Chanyeol was however, clueless. You noticed,however, the girl from earlier wasn’t anywhere around. It didn’t bother you though, because you finally understood Baekhyun’s words. The boys did care for you, and that meant that you had real friends. 

By the time everyone left, you were too drunk to even stand. Chanyeol came up to you, and offered to take you home. You began to protest, your bottled emotions rising to the surface. 

“I haven’t got a chance to talk to you at all today, what is up with you?” he asked. 

“Why don’t you ask that pretty girl who was all over you earlier?” you spat back. 

“Who? Oh her. Okay look, it’s complicated. I doubt I can explain it to you right now.” he said, sighing. 

“Am I dumb? Chan, we don’t hide things from each other, so how come I’ve never heard of this girl before” you said, your sadness taking over. 

“Because she doesn’t matter and I’m stupid. C’mon let me take you back. I’ll explain everything, I promise. No secrets.” 

You conceded defeat. As he helped you up to leave, Baekhyun came upto him and said “You better take her home safe and take care of her or I’ll beat you up so bad. You made her cry, Chan, I hope you’re happy.” 

Chanyeol looked between the two of you, not knowing what to say. Finally, he spoke up, “Yes. I’ll take her home safe. Thank you for being a good friend Baek.” he said, sincerely. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you got home and got changed, with Chanyeol’s help, you sat him down on your couch. Sipping water slowly from a cup helped you sober up slightly. “Care to explain ?” you said. 

“Yes. I’m sorry I made you cry, I’m sorry I ruined your mood and hurt your feelings, that was not my intention. I just wanted to make you feel jealous and that backfired. I should’ve been more sensitive to your feelings- ” he said, before you cut him off. 

“Jealous?” you asked in a quiet voice. 

“Yeah. If it wasn’t obvious...” he trailed off, trying to steel himself before he continued, “I really like you. Like, a lot a lot. And I didn’t know how to go about tell you I should’ve just straight up told you. I was so immature, now that I look back at the evening. I’m sorry, love. If you chose not to forgive me, I understand. If you don’t feel the same, I understand that as well.” he finished, his eyes trained on you. 

You were stunned to say the least. You had planned so much to say to him when you were going to confess, but now your mind was blank. 

“You idiot.” you managed to croak out, before reaching forward and placing your lips on his. You’d imagined your first kiss with him in a lot of different ways, but never like this. He was surprised initially, but gave in and pulled you close. Your hand slowly sneaked around his neck and into his hair. He grabbed your legs and helped you straddle him, as your lips moved over his. Pulling away, your chest heaved as you tried to decipher his expression. 

“Wha- What does that mean?” he asked softly, searching your face for answers.

“I like you like a lot a lot, you damn fool. I was going to confess to you tonight, but then you had to go and bring that girl. “ you said, red rising in your cheeks.

His mouth went from an ‘O’ shape to a full blown smile when your words sunk in. He pulled you close to him and buried his face in your neck, laughter rising from his throat. 

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” he asked. 

“Why didn’t YOU tell me earlier, instead of resorting to silly measures to make me jealous?” you retorted. 

He pulled away and held your face in his hands. “I’m sorry, love. I truly am. But I’m so grateful that you like me back. So let me ask, will you go out with me?” 

“Yes, a thousand times yes!” you said and he pulled you in for another kiss. He didn’t hesitate this time, tasting you with a curiosity you had never imagined. His warm breath fanned over your face, as you continued to kiss, sending shivers down your spine. He moaned as his mouth moved over yours, which drove you wild. Pulling apart, he began trailing kisses down your chin and down to your neck, where he continued to taste your skin. The way he nibbled at your neck caused you to moan and tug at his hair. Satisfied with this mini adventure, he pulled away. 

“Are we, I mean, did I move too fast? I’m so sorry if that was not what you wanted, I will just stop-” he said, realising what he had just done. 

“Babe, Chan, relax. I wanted this. I’ve been wanting this, and more for a while now. I’ll tell you if we’re going too fast, okay?” you said, trailing your fingers through his hair. 

“How long have you liked me? If you’ve been wanting ‘more’ ” he asked, cheekily.

“Remember that time when you helped me stack the paper cups for Baekhyun’s birthday, and it kept falling over, so you carried me so I could reach the top? From then. That entire party planning experience basically had me whipped for you. Weird, I know.” you said shyly. 

“Did Baekyun hire cupid or something because that’s around when I fell for you too! This is crazy. He even told me to confess to you after that party.” 

“He told me to confess too! Baekhyun didn’t hire cupid, he is cupid.” 

“Well, we have one friend to thank tomorrow morning, provided we can get out of bed.”

“Oooh what did you have in mind?” you asked, wiggling your eyebrows. 

“I thought we could watch Ghibli movies” he said, faking innocence. 

“Chanyeolllll !” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can find my masterlist here. 

[gg-astrology]

Hey! What are your thoughts about Gemini Sun and Sagittarius Moon? With them being opposite signs how would a person with these placements feel its energy? Thank you so much for all your hardwork!! 💞💞💞💞

Hey there! 💝 Just got a few opposition Sun-Moon so this is right around the same theme! 💝

[Below Cut: Gemini Sun - Sagittarius Moon 👭]

You asked about how it feels to have sister signs in the Sun-Moon combo, let me tell ya it’s Really Tiring 😩

Your sister sign is always Trying You, you wanted to concentrate? Lmao watch me do this instead. You wanna go somewhere? Nooo stay at home I need you to do something...

This is because your sister sign is in your Vitality/Core-Ego versus your Emotionality/Subconscious ---you can’t control it, and different sister signs have different relationships to each other. But your Gemini/Sagittarius combo tends to be more like the above example

Whilst you are pretty enthusiastic about a lot of things, excitable and concentrated. You can tend to lose interest pretty fast (or lose concentration just as fast) on something you were interested in just 1 minute ago.

Your sense of perception, the ability to grasps things (from the Mind) feels like an epiphany to you, but because you also tend to be quite forgetful--- you have to act quickly to make notes/memos of it because You Can’t Trust Yourself (watch ur own back)

Your sister sign may be an annoying pain in the ass, always a bother and actively Out to Sabotage You just by being itself-- but it’s still your sister and together you have so much strength united

You have strength in your communicative skills, often your intuition and deductions are on-point even if you didn’t think about it That Much (or so thoroughly) you may Feel like time spent on something would provide better, more substantial results.... but the Way you work is in the unconventional and that’s the beauty of it

Learning to appreciate and really stand by (stand up for) who you are is hard, especially since you’ve been ‘taught’ and nurtured to think that you should spend time being quiet in order to concentrate. The way you Do yourself Best is by manifesting things out loud, as they come. Rather than wait and try to concentrate for it to happen.

It will just feel like constipation for you, because you’re forcing yourself to be what you’ll have a harder time methodically striving in.

Gemini/Sagittarius are creatively inventive, as long as they have the incentive to do that to themselves they can create many different methods that might benefit others as much as them

Try not to conform, you’re more of a ‘looking like a conventional person but isn’t really conventional’ person anyways. You’re more of a trail blazer, and will have more purpose finding yourself in those areas than trying to please others around you (*however this is conditioned, you don’t have to conform to certain types but you’ll benefit well with structure and systems you can work along/swing along in. The idea is to find balance between not being restricted but still being functional, and to do that you’ll have to engage with some structures.)

Earth signs especially Virgos will be good for you, since they can make some of your immaturity more ‘mature’-- this will transform you greatly when you learn how to ‘Hack The System’.

 As you often have good common sense and ingenious disposition that just needs a little trimming (bc it’s unruly on the side)

Anyways, the thing about you is that you’re not afraid to get better despite your mistakes. You’re DETERMINED to gain more, experience lots. And letting your past mistakes Shame you is a no-no to your ego.

Some people like this wakes up with an entirely new disposition-- they’re like ‘I’m going to end this today because it doesn’t give me joy’ --- really konmari people. And end a project they’ve been working on for months just because they’re resolute in themselves.

No regrets, only progress. You try your best not to live life in self-pity so you do everything that you can to search for inner happiness. You might not realize this (since you’re so hectic) but you’re quite an optimistic person compared to everyone else.

Your strength is in your revitalization, you have an uplifting refreshing youthfulness about you that makes others feel like they can do stuff as well. Like ‘yeah, I can do it...’ because you said so

With yourself however, you don’t really take notice. If you’re down in a slump, you’re gonna be down there for a while. You don’t like to burden others, but you know you can seek help from one/two people who can pull you through this successfully. 

Gemini/Sagittarius has a zest for life, or rather, the things In life that they can dig their hands into. They like to experiment, and try different things. And while they may be frustrated with themselves sometimes, they are honest about their mistakes ‘lol yeah I suck at that 😂’

They aren’t afraid to admit their doings, because they always grow from it. And it’s that strength in them that allows progression-- that truly makes them admirable.

Phew! 💞 I hope you enjoyed! 💞