#(both events sold out before i could get a ticket lol)

[bizarrequazar]

08-27 Zhang Sanjian/Scam Gang Recent Events Space

This was a Twitter space held to review recent events with the scam gang and Zhang Sanjian, as well as to address topic about fandom culture and likely reasons why Zhang Zhehan’s case is taking longer than many would hope. Notes are organized by topic, then by order presented in the space. [Recording]

KL concert and review of the Bangkok concerts

Another Zhang Sanjian concert is going to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on September 17th. The previous concerts were held in Bangkok on May 10th and 11th.

Things seem to be operating fairly similarly as with the Bangkok concerts, though whalers are not rushing to buy tickets the way they were last time.

Tickets went on sale yesterday (08-26); ticket release seems to be similar, ie. not all tickets—including VVIP and the front few rows—are currently available. With the Bangkok concert, these held back tickets were partially due to the tour packages they were selling. I (the note taker) am not aware at this time of any similar tour packages with the KL concert, and none was mentioned in the space.

Quite a few of these held tickets for the Bangkok concerts were only released generally a week in advance. Part of this was because Xie Yihua had been working with scalpers who were trying (with little success) to sell them at roughly twice the original price. Flora and MB talked to one scalper separately who offered them both the exact same ticket for the Bangkok concerts that was being sold by another scalper, and blatantly lied about his own location.

Chinese citizens are able to get a travel visa at the airport when traveling to Bangkok, meaning that the short notice (announcement less than one month prior to the date) was less of an issue. The same is not true for Malaysia, visas have to be obtained in advance and tend to take a couple weeks.

The VVIP tickets included a backstage meet and greet after the show. With these, fans were not allowed to take photos themselves but were sent the photos by Zhang Sanjian’s team. These photos took weeks to arrive (likely due to the amount of editing done to the photos) and were quite low quality. 

Zhang Sanjian was quite physical with fans during these meet and greets, with photos including his arm around their waists and fans reporting hugging him. This is completely inconsistent with Zhang Zhehan’s behaviour—the only time he would ever initiate contact was with children (and some fans would specifically bring his children for that reason lol.)

The tour group for the Bangkok concerts had not been in operations for quite a while prior but suddenly came back, did not seem to have any proper registration, and was run by someone with a gambling addiction who had had a number of complaints against him about him and his company scamming people, as well as employees reporting not being paid. Whalers who went on the tours admitted to being afraid to talk about it because of the amount of personal information they had given, but some who spoke said that they were not picked up from the airport and were taken to a place very out the way. Some of these whalers returned early (implied to be by their own choice.) 

A direct business partner of CAPA is the producer for both the KL and Bangkok concerts. If, hypothetically, Zhang Zhehan caved and agreed to work with CAPA, why would they be doing these international concerts rather than rescinding their blacklist against him so he could work in China where it would be much more profitable?

Before the Bangkok concert, a number of bought articles in oversees publications were published, always saying that Zhang Zhehan had gone to the shrine without any clarifications about those allegations being false. This is the exact opposite of what any logical PR would do. The information for these articles and the similar radio blurbs given with the fake songs have been provided directly by Zhang Sanjian’s team.

Paid PR articles can be 100% made up. Sheena talked about a friend of hers who was hired to do a PR piece for a member of BlackPink and wrote the entire thing, questions and answers, herself, with the manager only reviewing it before publication.

Whalers have repeatedly reposted the various articles about Zhang Sanjian, blatantly blurring out the lines repeating the slander about Yasukuni and/or omitting it completely from their translations.

(A reminder to seek out information and confirmation yourself. Keep in mind that it is very easy for your own views to be manipulated by translators if you do not speak/read Chinese.)

The venue for the Bangkok concert was designed for conventions, not concerts, ie. there was no raised seating. It wouldn’t be surprising if this was done specifically so that people further back would only be able to see the screens rather than Zhang Sanjian himself.

Ticket prices for the concerts are ridiculously expensive, more than you would pay for even many A-list artists. One Malaysian tabloid paper ran an article talking about how expensive the tickets are, again including mention of Yasukuni with no clarifications. Comments underneath the Facebook post for it were filled with passersby questioning why someone they had never heard of was charging so much.

Money laundering

The article Flora translated on money laundering in c-ent

Basic economics: prices are set based on supply and demand. 

Whoever is putting on the Zhang Sanjian concert clearly works in the industry, yet is charging enormously inflated prices. This makes no sense if the goal is actually to sell a large amount of tickets. 

The main idea behind laundering is that you create opportunities to falsify and inflate sales records. The Bangkok concerts were clearly not sold out despite claiming to be.

The production for the concerts is not high: these are small cheap venues, there are no opening acts, etc. Another part of laundering is to claim that production costs were higher than they really were.

When your goal is money laundering, it doesn’t matter if you actually make money or not. Your aim is only to create records for the movement of money, preferably as large an amount as possible.

Thailand and Malaysia have looser regulations for moving money than China.

Changing currency is another way to make it easier to falsify records, as is the case if you are holding concerts internationally. 

This is very serious. Corruption of high enough financial levels can receive a death sentence in China, and it’s not uncommon for whistleblowers of money laundering to be murdered. This is another potential reason for Zhang Zhehan to not speak out against the scam.

[my post of collected info about the Bangkok concerts]

The Chens

The Chen family in particular are really not smart about how they’ve been doing their sketchy business, given that they’ve been opening dozens of companies in their own names and the names of their relatives. 

Flora suspects that the shell companies are more likely for tax evasion than money laundering. Their product releases have been tracked to see which company is responsible for each, and every clothing release is under a different one. This is likely to avoid hitting a higher tax bracket, and is literally the most obvious form of tax evasion.

The tea shop has been fined for other things (ex. unsafe food production, false advertising, etc.). These are pressing safety issues, unlike tax evasion.

It’s quite likely that the government IS aware of the Chens’ activity but that they aren’t a big enough concern yet. The longer someone is allowed to get away with something, the more bold they become, which is apparent in the Chens’ behaviour. Letting them get away with it now means that the authorities should be able to book them on heavier charges later.

To reiterate for the millionth time: Zhang Zhehan’s name is not on any of the paperwork for any of the Chens’ companies. The HZ Baobao brand is owned by Chen Ahyi’s boyfriend’s son and his wife, how is it there is any realistic connection there with Zhang Zhehan?

The main motive for the Chens’ involvement with the scam seems to be the money they are able to leech off of fans.

C-Ent politics

The unfortunate reality is that CAPA is very powerful in c-ent. For the people whose livelihoods depend on being in the industry, they have little choice but to cooperate. Xiao Chu, the screenwriter for Word of Honor, is likely an example of this—notice that she has not had any more projects despite the popularity of Word of Honor.

It’s important to remember that c-ent is a very different environment than what westerners might be used to. Keep in mind that, while we are international fans, we are in a Chinese fandom and need to try to understand how the significance of own behaviour might differ from in western fandoms. 

Artists in c-ent have little independence and control over their careers, that power is held much more heavily by the companies holding their contracts. 

Fandom is also VERY manipulated by capital. Planted fans are extremely prevalent for the purpose of increasing sales and traffic. Fan culture and endorsements are much more for important—a celebrity’s success hinges heavily on how they do in endorsements, not just their own projects. 

Toxicity in fandom often is created and/or manipulated by a celebrity’s own company for the sake of increasing traffic. The celebrity might or might not be aware/involved in this—Gong Jun’s studio has done this.

Buying fans (ie. plants) or otherwise artificially inflating traffic (ex. water armies) is extremely common in order to create the appearance of popularity. Nearly every current big whaler has been found to be a plant, and some of the real big whalers were intentionally driven away early on, likely because the scam wanted to make sure they could control the fandom.

If you see a “big fan” loudly saying they’re leaving a fandom, often they were a hired fan and their contract is almost up. With Zhang Zhehan “fans”, notice that there is an uptick in these sorts of posts around August. 

Virginia and Yajing

Virginia worked for Pulin, Zhao Wei’s company. When Zhang Zhehan worked for them, she seems to have sometimes accompanied him. She closely follows the Zhang Sanjian accounts and it is known that she’s involved in the scam.

When Zhang Zhehan lost access to his Instagram account for a while, Virginia was the one he thanked after getting it back (2020). It’s not known exactly what she did. The phone number the account is registered under is not Zhang Zhehan’s. The account was created for him while he was working under Yu Zheng, so it’s suspected that Virginia put him in contact with the person in possession of that phone number. The phone number was not changed.

Yajing is a livestream host who did a number of livestreams with Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun after Word of Honor’s success. She’s quite popular for having a non-threatening motherly vibe, and a fair bit of candy came from her livestreams with them.

In July 2022, Yajing posted a photo of herself wearing the EHz.Z slippers, then deleted it shortly afterwards because she lost a huge amount of followers. She has not said anything else related to this since. At the time people questioned if she posted it in ignorance, however, it is now known that she and Virginia follow each other online and have worked together multiple times in the past, including with stage productions funded by CAPA.

This again comes back to the topic of how powerful CAPA is. It might not be that Yajing and many of these other people have any malicious intent or ill will towards Zhang Zhehan personally, but they’re in a position where if they don’t stay in line with what CAPA wants, they could lose their entire careers. How many people would be willing to do that for someone they only worked with a few times? That doesn’t excuse their actions of course, but it does explain them.

Legal matters

People involved in legal cases (including jury) are advised to maintain Internet silence. This gained more public awareness recently due to a case of a woman whose daughter was killed oversees trying to seek justice, who was advised not to speak despite being slandered heavily by the accused. Kris Wu’s victims are another example of this. Speaking online easily complicates your case, sways public opinion, and muddies the story that you want to tell in court.

A major aspect of defamation cases are what the damages of the defamation were. Zhang Sanjian’s activities are a way of trying to sway public opinion into thinking he sustained less damage than he really did. 

With that being said, have faith in the Chinese legal system—as stated above, the online culture is very extreme, but the courts are aware of this. As well, Chinese people culturally place a lot less significance on what happens outside of China (ie. the concerts and aforementioned articles.)

It’s important to keep in mind everything that has been discussed above about how corrupt c-ent is and how many different things are at play in the background. While on the surface Zhang Zhehan’s case seems like it should be open and shut, there are a lot more factors at play that complicate and prolong the legal process. What Zhang Zhehan is doing is extremely brave given the circumstances, and it’s obvious that he has not caved despite indications of them giving him opportunities to do so.

Misc.

A CPF was able to train AI within a day to change her voice—feminine and with a Northern Chinese accent—to Zhang Zhehan’s in real time, with the only significant noticeable difference being some of the Northern speech habits.

Ranyi Music was created in June 2021, before 813. One of the shareholders is one of the Chen Ahyis. She recently created a subsidiary company where Zhang Mama is listed as one of the executives. When creating a subsidiary, everything can be done remotely electronically, so likely all they would have needed to do was fake her signature. It is also known that they have a copy of Zhang Mama’s ID (as well as Zhang Zhehan’s and possibly Xiao Yu’s. This would be because the Chens were helping with things such as travel bookings prior to 813.)

The various online accounts of Ranyi Music were accounts repurposed from ones previously run by other companies (ex. the Weibo was for a company run by Xie Yihua’s brother.) Just because a social media company says it’s related to Ranyi doesn’t mean it’s actually registered to them.

Zhao Wei (Zhang Zhehan’s former boss)’s Instagram recently updated for the first time in a while. Flora et al. do not have enough information to speculate about this at this time; there is not currently reason to believe she’s involved in the scam. Some background: Zhao Wei’s husband is well known to be part of the Chinese mafia, and she has a number of connections to many other very wealthy people in China. Both she and her husband have been in legal trouble in the past, including at one point shortly after 813. 

It’s hilariously obvious that the scam has been regretting trying to cut out CPFs via the divorce video (22-05-04): there was recently a fan group created for JunJian shippers, the Instagram post that used the 😺🐶 emojis, the concert video that showed Zhang Sanjian interacting with someone in an orange hat, etc. They’re very obviously trying harder to appeal to CPFs, likely because they’ve squeezed solo whalers dry.

Xie Yihua recently posted some photos from Tibet when she supposedly was traveling there with Zhang Sanjian and captioned it “Find Our Voice.” She quickly took it down because of how much whalers came after her for it, ie. they don’t like her “trying to leech attention off him” because they refuse to acknowledge that he’s a fake character created by her.

Whalers proudly talk about how they don’t go back and look at Zhang Zhehan’s old material anymore because of Zhang Sanjian’s narrative of “wanting to forget the past,” seemingly with no awareness of how obvious it is that that’s a ploy to make them not see how different Zhang Sanjian is from Zhang Zhehan.

Candy to lighten the mood

A reminder that during the Friendship Institute interview, Gong Jun said that he thought Zhang Zhehan had a cat, and Zhang Zhehan corrected him by saying “I also have a dog.” (Timestamped in the link.) Fans were confused about this because Zhang Zhehan is not known to have a cat. It has been found out that Zhang Zhehan used to foster stray cats. Specifically, it was discovered that he once took in a stray kitten that he posted pictures of in his WeChat friends circle, which is presumably what Gong Jun was referring to. Supposedly, this is the same kitten that Don’t Want to Be Anonymous posted pictures of. (Below, thank you to Harry for sharing these with me.) Given that some people in the scam gang were in Zhang Zhehan’s friend circle, this is not evidence supporting Anon—only that Anon at the least was someone who had access to his circle. 

On the topic of Anon, it’s been noticed that Gong Jun has been posting scenery photos much more often since that account was shut down. Anon’s IP also always stayed consistent with Gong Jun’s location.

It’s worth noting that in the time that it was active, Anon never posted anything harmful, ie. unless it comes back and does something, there’s no harm in believing in it (with a grain of salt.) ❤️

Harry, Coya, and Zell are organizing a fandom event for the Mid-Autumn Festival! Stay tuned for more info! Harry has also recently been running a group for Russian Zhang Zhehan solo fans, please check it out if you’re interested. :D

[masterlist of my posts about zzh]

[monstersinthecosmos]

is it okay if I talk about cruises? lol

What's interesting about the world cruises is that the crew have very divisive feelings about them.

On one hand, the thing every crew member has in common is that they took this job like a fucking lunatic because on the inside they're adventurous people and love travel. The world cruises tend to hit some ports that aren't regularly visited, so it's a fun way to check some extra countries off the list and see some really cool places that we don't really see in our regular contracts very often, like going around North Africa and the Middle East, and going through the Suez Canal!

Long cruises tend to be really laid back, too, because the crew is less concerned about impressing the guests and being On 24/7. Gala nights get very boring. All the money making events and sales pitches get stagnant and everyone stops bothering.

So on the other hand, the longer a cruise is, the less money you make. :( Crews rely on the turnover--they want fresh faces to tip and they want to be able to sell things. You can't sell a photo package to the same people for nine months. You also can't have a good turnover in the shops--there are so many basic retail items that people buy because they forgot theirs at home. Hoodies! Sun block! Bottles of Pepto! That bottle is going to last a while! We will sell more hoodies if these people get off the ship and we can prey upon the next group! We can only sell so many hoodies to the same group of people for 9 months! The booze sales are even down because people are settling in to like, actually just live on a ship for 9 months, and aren't in vacation mode where it's permissible to get hammered every night.

And while there's some people who request world cruises for the travel, there are a huge number of crew members who really do need the money. There are recruiters in certain countries and you'll see lots of departments that employ almost entirely one nationality. And those are people for whom the exchange rate is EXCELLENT. They are making bank to send back home. They also tend to be departments that work really fucking hard and don't get as much time off and might not even get a chance to go out in port. There's definitely a microcosm within a ship crew of global economics and you can tell apart the privileged folks who are okay with making shit money because it's free travel, and folks who have been at this for 10, 15, 20 years and have been to Cairo 50 times and it's not interesting to them anymore.

NOW THE THING PEOPLE DON'T REALIZE ABOUT LONG CRUISES THOUGH is that sometimes they sell shorter cruises inside the long cruise. For example, when I worked a 52 day cruise from Vancouver to Sydney, the guests could buy a single ticket for the whole 52 days, but they also sold tickets for a one way Vancouver to Honolulu, or Honolulu to Sydney, or for just dicking around Polynesia, or even just dick around New Zealand for the last week before we got to Sydney. So there might be other weirdos coming and going within the world cruise. I also did Ft. Lauderdale to St. Petersburg (Russia) where we did the Caribbean first, then dicked around in Bermuda & the Azores, then did the UK & Iceland and then Northern Europe/Baltic Sea, went to St. Petersburg, turned around and ended in Copenhagen. So people could split that trip into all those little parts, too.

AND SOMETHING ELSE PEOPLE DON'T REALIZE is that there are a lot of retirees who opt to live on ships!!!!!!!! So yeah some people do buy back-to-back cruises for a year because it's comparable to paying rent or paying for assisted living. They get a housekeeper and food is included and there's medical staff available! I met a bunch of these people on ships and they'd be on longer than I was LOL.

So having said all that LMAO. I both love & am horrified by the idea of Armand running a cruise line. A while back there was this new cruise line who like redesigned what they thought the crew quarters should be and instead of giving us cabins they wanted everyone to have like a POD with their bed inside and a small TV, and all the pods would be lined up in different hallways that shared bathrooms. LIKE NO. NO. LOL. They sent the drafts around to ship crew to let us vote & give feedback and it was a resounding FUCK NO WE ARENT CATTLE LOL so they walked it back.

But you best believe Armand was always in there inventing things and being a pest and treating the crew decks like an ant farm. I bet he loved being in the forward crew cabins where you can hear the anchor machine. I bet he loved the rumble of the engines at night and the constant white noise.

There's something so surreal and weird about ships because the crew areas are so spartan and mechanical and there's constant alarms and warning of death by the watertight doors and you can hear the water hitting into the hull and there's always some guy giving haircuts in the hallway with a radio and a B DECK BARBER SHOP sign on construction paper and there's the most raucous ping pong games you've ever heard and there's always 30 people jamming into the crew elevator because we can't wait for the next one and there's always drunk people sneaking into the bakery at 3am to steal fresh croissants and the whole environment is so sterile and metal and it has a smell that bothers you for the first 3 days until you stop noticing it but you're always sort of aware there's a smell that you've forgotten about.

Everyone is fucking, constantly. Even in the modern day with the internet, no one has service and the internet is expensive as fuck, so we're just cut off in the middle of the ocean with nothing else to do. The walls are thin so you always hear it. The drama is never ending because you know the guy next door is fucking the girl from the shops even though last week he was fucking the nail tech from the spa. Everyone knows everything. And we have crew only parties in weird secret spots like the bow or the engine room or the kids club house after it's closed and everyone is wasted and we see who's making out in the dark. It's in our contracts that we're not allowed to drink but no one follows it. There's, in fact, three different crew-only bars. But if you ever get too sloppy it's their excuse to send you home. Sometimes at parties you look around and wonder, if the alarms went off, would everyone be okay to help the guests to their lifeboats.

Then amongst all this is just the palpable human misery! So much homesickness. So many hurt feelings. So much burn out. People go out and have a beach day and take cute photos and it seems fun and exotic but then they come back to their cabins and cry. You live at your job. You don't get a day off. Your room is 10 feet away from your work station. You can close the curtain on your bed and be cozy in the dark but when you open your cabin door you're back in the brightly lit sterile metal hallway.

And you go up the stairs and it's the most tacky 80s hotel aesthetic you've ever seen with the most entitled rich people you've ever met. And all the handrails are gold and there's a group of guys who go around all night while everyone is asleep to polish all the handprints off of them. People will complain about anything and everything. The level of privilege is astounding. One time we floored it across the Pacific to get to port one day early because a guest had a stroke, and other guests complained that they booked a cruise for the sea days. Another time, a guest yelled at me in the cruise terminal because she couldn't find her room, and I had to politely inform her that she wasn't inside the ship yet. We've ruined someone's entire vacation because there was extreme weather and it wasn't safe to enter the port they wanted to see the most.

Armand would love all of this, I think. It's really premium people watching with all walks of life. Sometimes I wonder if people become more chill & less entitled on long cruises because they can settle in and be people and they're forced to exist in a space, but I have also seen when people become way too familiar and in fact behave worse because they think they're allowed to. On the 52 day cruise to Sydney, we got a scathing complaint about how we ran out of "Cheerios (cold cereal)" during a 9 sea-day stretch and how that was very unacceptable and disrupted their routine.

And like how would he feel about the ship theatre?! How many shows does he make them learn for a world cruise, without letting them repeat any? On regular cruises they learn idk 4-5 shows to do and they don't have to repeat! And how weird are the shows?! Like, you're not just stuck on the ship for months, but the live entertainment just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

How much night life does he require for his own amusement, even when the guests are over it and the entire ship is dead after midnight? Does he pay the crew handsomely because he can feel their resentment over working night shifts and making no tips?

How much extra money does he pay in port & docking fees to be doing tons of overnights or late sails so that he can see the ports, too? Is that something he wants to do or is he just happy to go sleep in a crew cabin while the ship is in port?

It's so safe down there for vampires. No windows and watertight doors and they're below the water line. You get rocked to sleep like a baby. The anchor noise won't even wake him up. (It stopped waking me up after a few weeks, too, though, but I don't sleep like I'm dead.)

Or like, how often does he want to do cool scenic cruising at night? Or go through the Panama Canal at night so that he can watch? This is the least profitable cruise ever, the guests are asleep lol.

And the big big question is how does it feel in relation to his mortal life and experience with ships? Is it different enough to not remind him of it? Is it similar enough that he re-contextualizes and revisits to make new memories? Does he still love watching the shipyards? DOES HE LOVE DRY DOCKS? (Crew fucking hate dry dock, it's miserable, 0/10 do not recommend.) I bet Armand would love dry dock and getting to go under the ship and see it's belly!

ANYWaY this was more about ships than it was about Armand but I just think Hashtag Ships Life is such a very surreal subculture and since Armand is a massive fucking weirdo I think he'd be really interested in witnessing it and I'm horrified that he owned cruise ships and I hope he didn't make the crew too crazy.

this part of the devil's minion is so disturbing to me, personally

He ordered Daniel to make purchases without counsel or hesitation: a fleet of cruise ships,

[theflyingfeeling]

All I want is Aleksi and Olli taking Rilla and going for the most cozy week in some cabin in the woods to celebrate their birthdays by spending the time cuddling, exploring the forest, doing some cooking together and lazily making out... 💕

So...something like this, maybe? 🥰👬🐶🐿️

~

One fact about Aleksi Kaunisvesi was that he was not a religious person, per se. He did celebrate Christmas with his family in a traditionally Christian way, yes, and he had appreciated the long weekend they were always given from school during Easter, even if he had usually spent the four days stuffing his face with overly sweet chocolate and watching cartoons rather than contemplating the Passion of the Christ, but he did not believe in an “invisible force” that allegedly controlled all life on earth as if it was his personal puppet show. Likewise, he wasn’t entirely convinced of the existence of places like Heaven and Hell, or any other form of afterlife for that matter; the moment he’d be lying dead and stiff in a wooden box, Aleksi supposed (and partly hoped) the only place he was going was six feet under.

He did think, however, that if there was a heaven somewhere, it would be a lot like where he was right now: under a blanket on the couch of his family’s summer cottage, with scented candles and the remains of a birthday cake on the coffee table, and two sleeping figures pressed tightly against him, one curled up in the crook of Aleksi’s neck and sighing dramatically in his ear from time to time, the other resting his head on Aleksi’s chest with one of his arms wrapped around Aleksi’s waist. To him, heaven was the smoothness of Olli’s lips, the look in Rilla’s eyes when she hurried to him with her favourite toy in her mouth, Olli’s sleepy moans in the morning when they pleasured each other in bed, and all their footprints on the front porch of the cottage after a morning walk on foggy fields and mossy forests.

Indeed, if the clouds in Heaven weren’t as soft as Olli’s curls or Rilla’s fur just behind her ear, Aleksi sure as hell wasn’t going to bother living a life free of sin. On the other hand, if the life hereafter was anything like this, Aleksi wouldn’t have minded passing away this instant, as long as it meant he’d get to spend eternity exactly where he was now, all snuggled up with the two creatures he loved the most in the whole terrestrial world.

The drumming of the rain against the windowsill was almost like a lullaby that nearly made Aleksi lose the battle against sleepiness, which he had been fighting bravely ever since they all had settled on the couch together; not because he wasn’t feeling drowsy from the three-course meal they had had – minus Rilla, who had turned up her nose on the filet mignon flavoured Cesar meal – but because he simply couldn’t resist savouring the sight of his loved ones clinging on to him like touch-starved baby koalas. He was, in fact, maybe just a few seconds from nodding off himself, had it not been for the smallest, barely audible rustle sounding from behind the front door.

“Ril–” Aleksi didn’t have any more time to react before Rilla bolted up and sprang to the door, barking sharply at the visitor behind it.

“Mmhhuh?” a sleepy voice mumbled against Aleksi’s sweater. 

“The darned squirrel is back again,” Aleksi sighed. “I told you we shouldn’t have started feeding it.”

“But it looked so sad and starved!” Olli exclaimed as he lifted his cheek off Aleksi’s chest and rested his chin on it instead, locking eyes with Aleksi. Although Aleksi knew it was unintentional on Olli’s part, he couldn’t help but smile fondly at Olli’s face which was an impeccable image of the expression the squirrel had pulled the other morning as it had looked at them through the window while they had been having brunch. Olli had insisted the poor animal had been staring at their late breakfast snacks, and before Aleksi had had a chance to point out that he doubted squirrels were particularly keen on chocolate muffins or yoghurt, Olli had taken a handful of blueberries and put them on his already empty bread and butter plate before tiptoeing to the porch and placing the humble offerings on the small glass table under the window. 

Now, Aleksi had always considered himself a man of reason and rationality, and this part of him argued they should restrain from interacting with wildlife like this, no matter how cute. In a few days, their little vacation in the middle of nowhere would be over and there’d be no one leaving the squirrel blueberries fresh from the grocery store anymore. But when it came to Olli Matela, he knew this sort of reasoning was no use; sharing his life with Olli, Aleksi had learnt not only that ‘a second breakfast’ was more than just a silly quirk from the pencil of Mr. Tolkien, but also that some matters were simply meant to be dealt with by your heart rather than by your (annoyingly logical, as his bandmates often complained) head. 

Inviting a lonely squirrel to your breakfast table was clearly one of these matters, and since then, their new friend had paid them a visit at least once a day, making subtle noises on the porch to attract their – and especially Rilla’s – attention. Aleksi thought the furry rodent was trying his luck a little too boldly, climbing up the wooden pillar of the porch just inches before Rilla’s teeth would snap its furry tail, but Olli admired its persistence and bravery and rewarded it with a squirrel-sized portion of salad seed mix (whereas Rilla, Aleksi assumed, was of the opinion that the squirrel would be better off as far away from her territory,  which consisted of the area surrounding the cottage as far as Rilla’s eyesight could reach and a little beyond that, just to be sure). Yet, no matter how stern Aleksi tried to be, it only took him one glance at the way Olli’s eyes brightened as he observed the squirrel nibbling on whatever little snack he had given it from their travel cooler, and Aleksi knew he wasn’t going to stop Olli from feeding the animal the next time it would arrive either.

When the squirrel had finished its meal of the day and scurried back to the nearby pine where they suspected it slept in, Olli turned to Aleksi and shuffled closer, right into Aleksi’s personal space. 

“Shall we continue where we left off now?” Olli’s low voice was like hot chocolate on a winter evening, especially now that Aleksi had already lost all the body heat they had built together under the blanket. 

“Mmmmh,” Aleksi hummed and let himself be dragged towards the couch, slowly and a little clumsily, as neither of them couldn’t bear letting the other go once they were entangled in an embrace once again. “Or maybe…we could do something else?” 

Olli didn’t answer;  he didn’t need to. The answer was given in the curve of his lips, in the brilliant gleam in his thunderstorm coloured eyes, in the tongue that immediately found Aleksi’s when their mouths touched. As Aleksi felt himself be pushed back on the couch cushions, gently but with certainty and purpose, he knew he wouldn’t have to second-guess whether or not Olli had understood his indirect suggestion.

Divine, Aleksi thought when Olli’s hungry eyes undressed him before his hands could. Celestial, he sighed in his mind when Olli’s hands groped his body wherever they could reach, in perfect sync with his equally celestial tongue. Angelic, he almost whispered out loud when Olli’s lust-filled eyes met his. Holy, he wanted to scream when their bodies moved together, the windows of the small cottage fogging up. Heavenly, when Olli finally collapsed on top of him, panting heavily, sweat glistening on his chest.

Heaven, when they kissed slowly by the kitchen counter, waiting for their mulled wine to brew; when they sat wrapped around each other at 3 am, chatting idly about everything and nothing; when their naked bodies melted together as they finally fell asleep.

To think of it again, maybe Aleksi could find a little bit of religiousness in himself after all.

[sailorspazz]

Remote 10 Dance Ball

I know this is coming way late (as in, 3 months after it occurred!), but I’d always been planning to write up a report about the Real 10 Dance event that took place shortly after vol. 6’s release in Japan. Before I get into the explanation of what exactly this is under the cut, enjoy this promo image that ticket holders were able to print out at Japanese convenience stores (mine had to be printed by friends who live there and then scanned to me)

The Real 10 Dance is a series of events that have taken place over the past few years featuring real life pros performing routines inspired by the manga, meaning that most of the dances feature male-male couples (though they all have female partners in their regular careers, for these performances they dance together, and the women are given a group number to perform). The most recent live event took place in September 2019 shortly after vol. 5’s release, and there was another planned for 2020 in Osaka, but it was delayed and eventually completely canceled due to Covid restrictions. Wanting to still put on the event in some form, they later announced that it would take place virtually, and would be branded as the Remote 10 Dance Ball. For the cost of 1,000 yen, viewers could watch a stream of the event as many times as they pleased from the time it went live on March 20 until the viewing deadline 72 hours later. Unlike the in person events, there were no merchandise buying opportunities, but there was the option of paying additional 1,000 yen tips to either the performers, the production committee, or Inouesatoh herself. Choosing any of these options would give that ticket holder access to a code to print the postcard shown above, as well as a link to view a 17 minute making-of video of the event.

Before I get into the rundown, The Real 10 Dance Twitter account posted a preview video a couple weeks before the event, which you can watch if you’d like to see some of the action instead of just still images (and the only ones I’ll share here are those that were posted publicly, since they were pretty adamant about no screenshotting/recording of the event…not gonna lie, I did attempt to screenshot a couple parts, but due to the shaky streaming quality, the official photos are much better than what I was able to capture anyway :P) Also, I only made bare minimum notes while I was watching this (and was drinking hard cider), so I’ll give as much detail as I can remember, but there are definitely things I’ll have forgotten by now.

The show started off with one of the female pros giving a demonstration of how to apply makeup for competitions. After this came an introductory show with all of the participants dancing to the opening theme from La La Land.

Next up was some of the pros talking about the characteristics of their costumes, such as the Latin outfits having features like illusion netting to make their limbs look longer, and fringe to create movement.

After this, some of the pros gave tours of the dance schools that they run, which also served as advertisements for those who may be interested in signing up for lessons.

Then came some step demonstrations, showing specific panels from the manga and then describing how to perform the moves. This included Al and Suzuki’s rumba walk from chapter 18, and the throwaway oversway from the chapter 4 scene where Sugiki turns Suzuki into a princess. For the oversway, they performed the move a few different times, using prompts such as “do it like the world’s about to end” to show how the same move can feel very different depending on the emotion behind it.

This was followed by an interview with former standard world champion Christopher Hawkins. The interview was conducted in Japanese, as he is fluent in the language (Inouesatoh tweeted about him being the inspiration to have Norman speak some Japanese in the story, though she acknowledged that Chris’ abilities are far above Norman’s very basic phrases). It included two interviewers asking questions that were submitted by Inouesatoh and her editor. It started off with some basic talk about the process of training and getting prepared for competitions, then moved on to topics like whether he had any competition related superstitions/habits, such as how some dancers will have a pair of lucky underwear they always wear when competing. He said he had a specific order to how he would button his shirt and attach his cufflinks (as in, not just going straight up or down, but skipping over some and coming back to them), and if he didn’t do this specific routine it made him feel like the competition would go poorly. After telling this story, he laughed and said that he’s never told anyone about this before, so it was definitely an interesting question. Then came probably the most important question for fans of 10 Dance: since the series centers around men dancing together, what sort of experience does Chris have dancing with other men? (Funnily enough, for some reason, the male interviewer first asked this question in Japanese, then rather enthusiastically asked the question in English as well lol). Chris said that of course he’s danced with male students a lot in the course of teaching them, but outside of that also had times where he would train in the female role so he knew how it felt to be the following partner, and therefore could become a better lead. He mentioned some performance he did with another high level male dancer that was pretty amazing (forgive me, I didn’t catch the name at all, or even whether he was a standard or Latin specialist), which caused the female interviewer to joke about writing a love story about the two of them.

Then came the main draw of the event, the dance show! I’ll include the song, dance style, and an image from each performance below.

One Way or Another by Blondie, jive

Lady Marmalade (I believe it was the Moulin Rouge movie version), ladies group cha-cha

Half of Me by Ken Hirai, rumba (I don’t know if it’s just because it made me think of the melancholy rumba shown on vol. 6’s cover, but this made me both want to cry and watch it multiple times over, definitely my favorite because apparently I like to punish myself with sadness :P)

All of Me by Michael Bublé, foxtrot (this was filmed both in the performance space and out on the streets in one of the locations used in chapter 33, as shown in this video from one chilly looking morning. Also, this dance featured a leader switch partway through!)

If I Can’t Have You by Shawn Mendes, cha-cha

Finale with all participants to It’s Time to Dance from “The Prom” musical

Last up was a virtual art exhibition featuring 17 sketches by Inouesatoh, including the most powerful sexual stimulant in the known universe, Bathrobe Sugiki.

Overall, I was very happy to get the chance to witness this event. Normally, the number of people would be limited to just those who were in Japan and able to purchase tickets before they sold out, but this remote version allowed a much larger number of people from all over the world to watch (I bought my ticket not even knowing if it would be region locked or not, but thankfully it wasn’t). I hope that the world situation improves and they can put on the event live and in-person again (even better if I could somehow find a way to attend when that happens!), but I think this was a great alternative, and probably a good way to make some revenue in a time when the ability to stage events is limited. The price of 1,000 yen was an incredibly good deal for all the content that was presented (and you better believe I slammed an extra 1,000 straight to Inouesatoh; the only merch I’ve been able to buy is secondhand, and while this satisfies my needs as a collector, it unfortunately doesn’t provide any support to the author). If real life performances are still a long way off and they decide to do a virtual one again, you bet your ass I’ll be right there in the (imaginary) front row!

[yandere-ac]

Hey buddy, do you know a channel named Etce? It's a guy that makes gameplays of Animal Crossing, and his favorite is Maple. It's so funny how he sounds low-key like a yandere for her, with made me imagine what it would be if we, the darlings were villagers, and maybe the yandere villagers played the role of humans trying desperately to cage us in their islands lol (like Audie being human and trying to take you with her) sorry, it's just so shitpost idea I hoped it made you laugh a bit tho :D

Yandere Human Audie x Villager Reader x Yandere Human Raymond

Rescue me

Another day in hell. That’s pretty much how life was for you nowadays. Each day you wished it would be your last and everyday just got worse and worse. Even if you wanted it all to end, you couldn’t. But let’s start from the beginning shall we? Your name is Y/N. You are a F/A villager who, unbeknownst to you, was a REALLY popular villager. People had online groups talking about just how badly they wanted you, people drew tons of art of you, some really cute, other a bit...questionable. Some people were even selling you for millions of bells. Of course, it all started small. So when a moderately big group of people on the internet started to talk about how cute you were and how they wanted you, you didn’t put much thought into it. You were very flattered at their compliments and left it at that.

However, once it came out that you would be signing up for the nook inc island getaway package, all hell broke loose. It was the day before the move when you decided that, why not check out the little fan group you had. As much as you hated to admit it, you did get a small boost in confidence from all the nice people who seemingly liked you. And right now you were pretty nervous about the whole move. So you quickly typed in your name into your phone and searched up. Your eyes widened at what you saw once you hit search.

947 619 results in 0,8921 seconds. What the hell?! Why did your name have so many results?! This...this had to be some weird coincidence, I mean, maybe you just shared a name with a popular actor who just blew up. Yeah that’s probably it. But all rational thought left you head once you saw that the little group was now the top result, and the little group wasn’t so little anymore. No, quite the opposite. It had gone from maybe about 5000 people to around 230 000 people. Each and every one of them, praising you, talking about how much they loved you. Some of them even wrote out detailed descriptions of what they would do with you if they found you, things that made your face flush scarlet red, why in the world would someone write that?! What reason did they have?! You felt disgust and discomfort flow throughout your body. Now feeling even worse than how you felt before! Should you even move?! What if you encountered one of these weirdos?!

Yet, you still went. You couldn’t exactly cancel your flight now could you? You’ve already sold your home and you couldn’t buy it back. You just hoped that you didn’t get paired up with a crazy person. And still, it would seem like luck wasn’t on your side.

Knock knock knock

Oh god.

“Y/N! Good morning my sweetheart!” And so, it began. You turned to look at the human in front of you, trying to push down your instincts to whimper and tremble. You had found it easier when she believed you weren’t horrified of her. Last time you shook in her presence she came very close to you and asked what was wrong. When you told her she was scaring you she simply picked you up and carried you to her house. There she spent the next 3 hours spooning and cuddling you, whispering various things in your ears all while you quivered in her arms, terrified of what she would do. Who was this woman? Why it was the island representative, Audie. The girl had long orange hair that went down to her waist and blonde bangs. On her head rested a pair of white sunglasses with purple glass, she never really used them for sun protection so you guessed it was for the aesthetic. She had yellow eyeshadow and winged eyeliner, bringing out her intense blue eyes. Eyes that would strike fear and dread throughout your entire body once they made contact with yours. She was wearing the same tropical muumuu that she always wore. Audie was looking at you with a big smile on her face. You would be lying if you didn’t say that she was a very beautiful girl. But all that beauty was overshadowed by a possessive and clingy nature. She was crazy, she saw you as hers and would make sure you belonged to her and her only. She seemed normal enough when you, her and a third islander moved to the island together. A little strange but still very bubbly and happy to be around you. You probably should’ve realised that she was one of your fans sooner than you did.

She would get annoyed when you hung out with the other resident, Kevin, a yellow bird. Soon you started to see her hitting him with a net, telling him to get out of the island along with other horrible things. And you realised that the more you tried to comfort and hang out with him the more Audie would hit him. You didn’t know what to do. You would report this behaviour to Isabelle but she told you that there was nothing she could do since Audie was the island rep. She was untouchable, and so, you could only helplessly stand back as Kevin was being harassed. You knew if you tried to intervene, Audie might do something more drastic. The whole situation was bad and apparently even Tom Nook has privately told Kevin that it might be for the best if he moved out.

All of the abuse led to Kevin finally moving out. You felt bad for the poor guy. But you were even more scared of Audie. What was truly scary was the fact that Audie had acted nothing but sweet around you. Giving you cute outfits and accessories and furniture. In a way it scared you more than if she would be hitting you as well. Because she was honestly terrifying when she acted nice around you. She would be unaware of how strongly she came off while near you. As a result she would usually be oblivious to your fear of her, which would result in very little personal space and a lot of touching. Not anything inappropriate, no, touching your shoulder, twiddling with your hair, stroking your arm, even giving big hugs that would shake you to your core. She was so much bigger than you, so to have her overpower you like that, you felt completely helpless in her strong grip. She could do anything and you would be powerless to stop it. And that’s why she was so much scarier when nice. She would practically drown you in affection that you did not want. Yet she either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

Going back to present day however. Audie was now walking towards you and you could feel yourself Yelp as she grabbed your hand and kissed you on the cheek. “H-Hello sweetheart...” you didn’t want to call her that, it’s literally that you couldn’t NOT say that. She changed your catchphrase to “Honey” and your nickname for her to “sweetheart”. So you had no choice but to call her that. You could feel your hands start to shake slightly and you tried to make it stop, but that only made you tense up in your whole body as trying to calm your nerves only made them worse. Audie was quick to notice this. “Oh? Why Y/N, your shaking. Is something wrong?” What do you say what do you say? “N-No I’m fine! I uh...I’m just a little cold that’s all...” you probably should have said something else as once she heard this, Audies eyes lit up and instantly you knew you weren’t gonna like this. “Awe you poor thing. Here let me help you!” And so, she lifted you up in her arms and carried you to your bed, where she proceeded to spoon you. At this point you figured you might as well not hold back, as long as she thought you were just cold and not afraid. And so, your whole body started to tremble. No matter how many times she did this, it would never be any less scary. “Oh my. Your shaking very bad. You must be absolutely freezing! Looks like we’ll be here for a while.” Shit.

But this sort of suffocating intimacy was not even the worst part of Audie. As island representative, she was the only one who could build and terraform the island. And she used that for bad things. The first thing she did when she found out she could move houses was to move yours next to her. After that, she completely surrounded both of your houses with a fence. Audie could exit the “yard” anytime, all she needed to do was pick up a part of the fence and put it down. But you, you were stuck. You could not get out and could only watch the island from inside your little “enclosure”. She also started to decide what you should wear. Sometimes she would give you cute clothing, things that you actually enjoyed wearing and felt comfortable with. Other times...other times she would give you skimpy outfits that barely covered you and made you feel very uncomfortable. At times like that you felt grateful no one else could see you. It was only you and Audie. But that didn’t exactly make you feel good. Anytime you wore them, Audie would squeal and blush and inspect you. She would walk circles around you, like a wolf circling a terrified bunny. Just waiting to pounce on it and sink it’s teeth into the poor critter. Luckily, Audie has never done anything...like that to you. She at least respected you enough to not force you to do anything. And that was at least a comfort for you. It was one of the very few comfort you had.

However, you weren’t ALWAYS trapped. Sometimes, Audie would hold a strange sort of...event? It’s very weird. She would open the fence and let you wonder around but shortly after you could see people arriving through the airport and drop off hundreds of Nook mile tickets. It would be insane to see how much they would give Audie. And at first you didn’t know why, you were aware of the fact that some people sold their villagers, but from what you knew, Audie didn’t do that. It was only later that you realised why they were here. They were here for you. They would pay up to 200 nmt just so they could get an hour of talking with you. You thought that was really weird, but to be honest, you didn’t mind it at all. It was the only time you could walk around the island and you could even talk to other people. Those other people being the paying humans of course. But it was nice, you enjoyed talking to some of them. You didn’t particularly like the humans that would only gush about you, telling you how much they loved you, and only asking you about stuff over and over again. It was just tiresome and very annoying. But every now and again there would be the humans that would talk to you like a normal person. Those were your favourites. Out of everyone, three humans stood out to you.

The first one was a girl. She was pretty short, maybe a few inches taller than you. She had light brown skin with freckles and blond hair. Her eyes were big and said hair was tied up in two pigtails. She was wearing a beige layered tank dress that looked very cute. Her name was Coco. She used to see you all the time. She was a frequent costumer, but then one day she just...stopped coming. Maybe she ran out of tickets, maybe she just lost interest, or maybe she found or bought her own Y/N. Yeah, that was a concept that made you really freaked out. The fact that there was apparently a bunch of copies of you out there. It happens to everyone who buys the nook inc getaway package. Either way, it didn’t matter. She stopped showing up, and you never saw her again.

The second one was a tall chubby man with yellow curly hair and a brown moustache. His skin tone was a bright shade of yellow. His eyes were kinda narrow but you could still see his very prominent blue eyes. He was always wearing a red ringmasters coat, always wearing it with such pride, you thought it was very cute. His name was Chops. Chops was always very nice to you. He would treat you well and act like a gentleman, sometimes it would come off as a bit weird but you knew his intentions were good. But after one visit where he asked if you would ever like to see his island, you never saw him again. And you were really excited as well...you thought that you could get away from this place but...apparently not. You didn’t believe that he just stopped going here like Audie said. By now you were smart enough to know that Audie wouldn’t let ANYTHING like that fly. You see, she kept a close eye anytime someone was there to visit. It was all part of the deal. They would get to come and hang out with you just as long as she was there with you. She would of course stand back a little, giving you and the customer some space. But never the less, she would be there, watching.

And the third person was a tall skinny guy named Raymond. Out of all three, Raymond was probably your favourite. He was around the same age as you, maybe a year or two older. He was very pale, you got the impression that he wasn’t exactly the type of person to tan. He would wear a grey waistcoat with a blue tie. His hair was blond and very neatly kept, he was very adamant about being precise. He wasn’t a neat freak per say. But he wanted things to stay orderly. But one of the most captivating things about him was his eyes. He had heterochromia, his right eye was brown and his left eye was green. On top of his eyes were a pair of glasses. And although he himself had said that he didn’t like his eyes, you thought they were beautiful. And anytime you would say that, you could see his face heat up as he muttered a thank you. You really liked Raymond, and you got the feeling he liked you as well. You liked him a lot more than Audie and you hoped she didn’t figure that out. Because once that happened, Raymond would probably get thrown out and not be allowed to see you.

Luckily, you don’t think she suspected anything. She seemed to trust Raymond since she left you two alone when he was over for no extra charge. It was amazing really, you don’t know how he did it but he apparently got her to trust him. And you were grateful for that. Because you and Raymonds conversations were usually the most genuine out of all your interactions.

“Hey Raymond? Could I ask you something?” You asked the guy sitting next to you. The two of you were sitting under a cherry tree near by the beach. He looked at you with a smirk. “Of course you can! You can tell me anything my dear Y/N.” As he said this, you could feel a smile form on your lips. He was always so sincere with you. “Okay so...how many tickets have you spent visiting me? A lot right? Why wouldn’t you just save up those tickets to buy or go for a villager hunt to find a copy of me? Wouldn’t that be easier than spending so much just to get an hour of speaking time with me?” This so something that had bugged you for a while. You didn’t understand this man. Why would he spend so much just to talk to you? Raymond let out a deep chuckle at this, pushing up his glasses on the bridge of his nose slightly before looking at you.

“It’s because, my dear Y/N. I don’t want a “copy of you”. I want to hang out with the real you, you who are living on this island. You mean a lot to me, and to see you not remember me...well it wouldn’t feel right...” he said. You could feel tears prickle your eyes. Did he really mean that? Did he care so much about you? “Woah woah what’s wrong?! Was it something I sa-“ before he could finish that sentence, he could feel two small arms wrap around his waist. You were now crying into his chest, with him awkwardly trying to comfort you by patting your back. “Hey now, don’t cry. It’s okay-“ “No no it’s not! You don’t understand!” But as you said this, Raymond pulled you out from his chest, grabbing your shoulders as he stroked one of your cheeks with his hand. “But I wanna understand! Please Y/N! If there’s something going on, I want to know so I can help! Just...please...tell me what’s going on? I care about you Y/N...” as he said that you could feel your heart skip a beat. Should you....

And so, you told Raymond about the whole thing. You told him about Audie, about Kevin, about the strict rules. About everything. You tried to keep your breath steady but it was hard as all your emotions spilled out. Once you were done it was easy to see the disgust that lingered on Raymond’s face. You didn’t blame him. It wasn’t exactly the lightest thing to process. But after a few minutes of silence, Raymond grabbed your shoulder and looked at you with a serious yet sad look. “Y/N I-.....I’m so sorry....I didn’t know how bad Audie was and I-....I’ve been supporting her...I’ve been paying her nmt just so I could see you. I’ve been giving her the satisfaction and encouraged by directly contributing to-“ before he could continue you grabbed his hands. Raymond looked down at you and got the message. Right now there were more important things to dissolve rather than blaming someone. “Okay okay...you’re right. Well what can I do? Do you need anything?” He asked you. You didn’t know. Should you...yes. “Take me away from here.” You said short and simply. “What?” Raymond responded, making sure what he heard was real and not something he imagined. “Take me away from this hellhole! I don’t wanna live here! To Audie, I’m just some toy for her enjoyment. I don’t want to live here! I don’t want to live here! I don’t-“ Raymond quickly pulled you in for another hug. Both to comfort you, and to silence you. He didn’t want Audie to hear... “Okay okay. Shhh, it’s okay. I’m here Y/N....” Raymond got quiet for a few seconds, almost like he’s considering something. “Come to my island. You’ll be safe there and I’m sure my residents would love you.” He told you, gently stroking your cheek. “Thank you Raymond. Thank you so much!” “Of course Y/N. I promise you. I WILL get you out of here...”

And so, the two of you started planning. Planning on what to do, planning on how you’d do it. There was barely any time left for Raymond’s visits so he agreed to come back the next day. You and Audie waved goodbye to him as he entered the airplane and left the island. Audie grabbed your hand as she looked down at you. “Did you guys have fun? What did you guys talk about?” She was acting and talking very sweetly but you knew what that question meant. It wasn’t “I’m interested in what you discussed” it was “I’m paranoid and need to know what you were doing without me.” But by now you were used to these questions and knew how to get around them. “Oh you know, just life in general. He talked a little about how his island is going and I talked about my life. I told him about the delicious peach pie you made last week.” Any and all suspicion that Audie had melted away once you aged her a compliment. You knew that if you ever wanted to change the subject or get away with something, you needed to sprinkle in a compliment. And just like always, Audie let all of her guard down. “Aww! That’s so sweet of you! I love you so much!!!” And just like most times, she wrapped you up in a big hug. You tried to steady your breathing as you responded to her. “I love you to...” and you stayed like that for a couple of minutes before Audie released you. “Well I just wanted to say, this was the last visit! I’ve got so many Nook mile tickets now that I don’t even need any more! So you don’t have to interact with these weirdos anymore! And guess what? The first thing I’m gonna do is fix up our home. Maybe I can convince good old Tom Nook to give us that big Villa so we can live in the same house! Imagine it, we could hare the bed, I could hold you every night. We would eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together! I could spend my mornings and nights with you! Oh just thinking about it is making me all giddy!”

As she said this, you could feel your whole body tense up. Your eyes went wide and you felt all the air escape your lungs. You wanted to cry, to scream, to yell out for help. But only meekly whimpers came out of your throat. “Oh darling, you’re so happy you can hardly breathe! Well don’t you worry dear. There’ll be plenty of celebration time later!” “N-N-NONONO! H-Hold up i-why...why can’t we celebrate a little tonight? W-why don’t I...sleep at your house tonight? I-I mean if we’re gonna sleep together, we might as well start getting more accustomed to it...” as you said this, you could see Audies face turn into a shade of dark red. It seemed the two of you had very different ideas of what you would be doing once you shared a bed. Of course, nothing happened later that night, just you asleep in Audies arms. Her grip on you was very strong. To get out, you had to slither your way away from her, it took about 30 minutes to do this as any time you made a slight movement, Audie started groaning and moving. You had to be careful, if she woke up it was game over. Once you were free of her grip, you carefully searched the whole room for her phone, making sure not to step on any creaking floor boards in the process. After about 3 minutes, you found it lying on the nightstand next to Audie. So carefully, you approached it and picked it up from the table. Now walking out of the room, preparing to rummage through it. You entered all messaging apps and looked through them all to find Raymond. Finally you found a conversation between Audie and Raymond on an app called “Discord”. You wasted no time, quickly typing in a message for him. You just hoped he would be awake at this time...

“Raymond? Is this you? It’s Y/N. I’ve taken Audies phone. She’s planning on stopping the visits and she’s gonna limit my freedom even further. Please I need your help.” As you sent this you felt even more panic rush over you. The reality of the situation hasn’t quite settled in yet but now? Now you truly realised what could happen if Raymond didn’t help you. Your hands started to shake and your eyes filled with tears, it was getting harder and harder to breathe quietly. You needed to get out of the house before Audie heard you! But just as you opened the door you could feel the phone vibrate. It was Raymond! Before you opened the text, you quickly went out of the house, making sure to carefully close the door. After that you ran towards the big fence, it was higher than your entire body. But you couldn’t stay here. Looking around you saw a tree stump with a sharp golden axe lodged into it. Should you? You have no other choice! So you ran towards the axe, picking it up with struggle. And then, with all your might, all the pent up fear and anger, you struck the fence with force. After maybe two swings you had broken up a small part that you could fit through. And so, you ran, you ran to the beach near dodo airlines. Picking up the phone to look at the new message.

“Y/N?”

“Okay calm down, we’ll figure this out...I made a promise to help you and I’ll be damned if I don’t keep that promise.”

“What if I double the amount of nmt to see you? Would that work?”

You thought about it. But no. Audie wouldn’t care. “No, that’s not gonna work, Audie probably has ten thousands of tickets by now...” And after about 20 seconds you got a reply. “I’ve got it! Why don’t you go to the dodo airport, open the gates and tell me the dodo code!” This....this could actually work! You wiped your tears away and quickly replied. “Yes! I’ll go do it right now!” And with that, you quickly ran into the dodo airlines. You asked Orville to open the gates and that you wanted visitors, and after a quick weird look he complied, telling you the dodo code. He was probably not used to villagers wanting to go but it wasn’t exactly any rules against it. You pulled out your phone to text Raymond, he had left a message to you. “Alright! Let me go to the airport!” You smiled to yourself as you read this. Is this it? Are you really gonna escape? You texted him back. “The dodo code is B2GT7.” And now you just had to wait. You sat down on one of the stools in the airport, twiddling your thumbs as you waited. But then. Something awful happened.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?” You quickly turned around in shock to see the person you wanted to see the least. It was Audie, standing in the doorway. Her hair was disheveled and she looked this close to snapping. Your whole body started to shake more violently then it had ever done. “A-A-Audie?! I-I-I ca-an exp-plain!” You couldn’t keep your voice steady as you hastily backed up against Orvilles desk. Orville was looking at the both of you, very concerned but mostly scared. “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE OUT HERE!!! ESPECIALLY AT THE DODO AIRLINES! WERE YOU GONNA FLY AWAY AND LEAVE ME!!!!” Audie was now approaching you at a rapid pace. It didn’t take long before she was towering above you. “I really thought I could trust you Y/N! But it seems I’ve been giving you to much freedom. Until we get the shared house, you’re gonna be locked inside my house!” As she said this, she grabbed a hold of your arm and started dragging you

away, you were punching and trying to pry off her hand but it wouldn’t budge. Once you were outside of the airport Audie continued. “Maybe I’ll have to put the new basement to use. Yeah, until we get the shared house, you’ll be chained up in my basement. I can’t trust you on the main floors, they have windows and I wouldn’t want you to escape again!” Once you heard this, adrenaline kicked in to the max. You used all your strength to kick Audie in the shin. She instantly released you to grab her leg. Letting out strings of grunts and curse words. You tried to run back to the airport again but Audie tripped you and grabbed your legs. Now dragging you back to the house. You tried to grab onto anything, digging your nails into the ground. But nothing slowed her down, she was determined to take you with her. So you cried out for help. Hoping that someone, ANYONE would hear.

And just then you could hear footsteps approaching and Audie letting out a grunt. Suddenly, her grip on your feet released and you could hear a big thud. Turning around, looking back, you could see Raymond. He was leaning over Audie, two hands pressed against her throat. He was strangling her! You quickly ran up to him and tried to pry him off. “Raymond no! Stop! Please stop!” He looked at you, hate in his eyes, yet none of that hate directed at you. You gave him a pleading look. And so, Raymond stood up. Taking his hands off her throat. Audie immediately started to cough, desperately trying to get air back into her lungs after it being forced out. Raymond wasted no time however. Grabbing your hand and running off to the airport. He slammed his hands onto the desk that’s Orville say by. “TAKE US AWAY FROM HERE! NOW!!!”

The flight home was very quiet. Neither of you wanted to bring up what happened before you left. Raymond felt ashamed over himself. He decided to try to break the silence. “Listen I-“ “you tried to kill her...” He didn’t know how to respond in a way that wouldn’t make him sound like a psycho. “...yeah...I did...I’m...im sorry Y/N. I tried to stop myself, but right then, that moment. When I saw how horrified you looked...I guess the adrenaline took over...a-and I know that’s not a valuable excuse! I know that! What I did was inexcusable! But...I don’t know, I guess I just lost control...” as he said this, you leaned your head against his shoulder. “I don’t care what happens to Audie. I care about what COULD have happened to you. What if she got loose and attacked you?! What if someone saw it and called reinforcement!? Do you really think I’m worth going to jail for!?” You turned around to look at him as you said this. There were tears flowing through your eyes. Raymond cupped your cheeks with his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away your tears. He looked into your eyes and leaned closer, kissing your forehead. “You’re worth dying for Y/N...”

After maybe 2 minutes of flying you finally arrived at Raymonds island. Salamacis. You always liked that name and this would be the first time you ever visited Salamacis. The island was still very bright. It appeared to be around 5pm at the island when you arrived, and as the plane flew closer to the ground you could see the decor of Salamacis. It was beautiful, the entire island was decorated in a very classical manner. The ground was covered with stone paths except for the flower gardens full of white and black flowers. There were full of zen gardens everywhere, In fact the whole place screamed of “Zen”. It was very nice. You could also see the occasional islander running around. Some of them saw the plane and waived, some of them even ran after the plane. And sure enough, as you and Raymond walked out of the airplane, A small group of villagers had gathered around you. They all looked curiously at you. Your grip on Raymond’s hand tightened, but Raymond stroked it gently with his thumb, trying to calm you down. He let go as he walked toward them all, with you following behind him. “Everyone! This is my friend Y/N! She’s going to be living here from now on! I want you all to treat her with respect and kindness. As she is a new addition to the family.” Everyone was quiet for a few seconds before a small rabbit ran up to you. She was black with a few white spots here and there and had a black tuff of hair on her head right between her ears. She was wearing a black box skirt uniform and a black beret. “Hello! I’m Mari! Welcome to Salamacis! You’re Y/N huh? We’ve heard so much about you! If you want we can give you an island tour!” “Yeah! Let’s give them a tour!” “Follow us!” They all said as they ran away, you felt much easier as you ran after them. But you stopped midway and ran to Raymond. “Thank you Raymond. Thank you for everything.” And with that, you gave him a quick pick on the cheek and ran after the others. You got a feeling that you were gonna enjoy it here. Meanwhile, Raymond was standing by the airport wide eyed and blushing like crazy.

“So we don’t actually have an open plot for you to live in...so you’re gonna have to sleep in my house.” Raymond said as he led you up the stairs to the bedroom. “I know that it sucks that you just got out of the Audie situation and now still have to share house with someone, but don’t worry! I’m gonna sleep downstairs on the couch!” As he said this, you two arrived in the main bedroom. Just the mere sight of it made you let out a small “woah” to which Raymond laughed slightly. He thought your amazement was adorable. The room had a king sized bed in the middle, with a big fluffy rug under it. You went up to it and sat on the bed. The blanket was made with a soft material and the mattress was so comfortable that you practically fell into it once you sat down on it. You immediately laid down, basking in the comfortable material as you stretched. “So, again, if you need anything, and I mean ANYTHING, feel free to come down and ask. Alright? Goodnight Y/N.” And so, as you got down under the blanket, Raymond turned to walk down the stairs. “A-Actually Raymond? There is one thing I wanted to ask...” as you said this, Raymond made a total 180 and looked at you. “Yeah?” “Would you...would you sleep with me tonight?” Once you asked this, Raymond’s eyes went wide, it looked like there was about a thousand thoughts going through his head. “Y-yeah! Of course!” And so, he walked up to you. Lifting up the blanket and laid next to you. You crawled up to him, embracing him. And he did the same, he was wearing a silk rope with some imperial print. It felt very comfortable. You rubbed your face against him, feeling yourself drift off to sleep. “Goodnight Raymond....I love you...” and just like that. You were out like a candle. Raymond felt his heart beat faster. You...loved him?

“...hhhehheh....hehehe, oh Y/N...” Raymond laughed quietly to himself. He had you, he finally had you! After months of searching! After thousands of Nook mile tickets! At first, he just wanted one of you. But when he found out that you were the original you! That made him interested in you specifically. And that interest only grew and grew until it became a monster-like obsession. He wanted you, he needed you. He was gonna do everything it took to get you. When he attacked Audie, he went in full intention to murder her. Such a disgusting individual! How dare she treat you like nothing but a mere pet! Raymond felt ashamed for what he did, not because he regretted it, but because he did it in front of you. You should never have had to see that side of him. But not to worry, you would never ever HAVE to see him like that again! Now that you lived here with him there was nothing that could come between you and him! He was gonna treat you so much better than Audie did. You would be allowed to walk around freely! Talk to anyone you wanted! Dress in any way you wished! If he found you at the Ables sisters and you wanted the 1 000 000 bell crown? He would buy it! No questions asked! He would even let YOU decide where to place your house once you got it! ...but there’s no rush. If he could have you like this, next to him, for a few more weeks...maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing...he knew that he would eventually have to let you move out into your own home. After all, he just said that he wouldn’t be like Audie. But maybe a little bit more time with you wouldn’t hurt. You wouldn’t mind! The proof was right in his arms. He didn’t even suggest that he slept next to you, yet you still asked for it! And you said you loved him! Oh you were gonna be so happy here! He was gonna make sure of that. He’s your friend. Your saviour. The one who’ll always be there. The one who’ll always have time for you.

The one who rescued you.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Oh was this a shitpost idea? How about I turn it into a 6 0 0 0 W O R D F I C ? No but for real. This is probably one of my favorite ones. It was such an interesting idea and like...I got so much inspiration. Also sorry to the anon that wanted a wholesome happy ending. It’s more of a bittersweet ending. But if you feel bad for Y/N, I don’t think Raymond is gonna do anything since Y/N is pretty much in love with him. There. Happy ending! So yeah...more Raymond :D wooo! Hope y’all are hungry because I am serving some food! This time featuring friends as the villagers beck didn’t want to come up with villagers myself!

[greymattermaelstrom]

Ozlander Fan Gathering 2020  -   The Rik and Sophie Show

I attended Ozlander in Melbourne. What an incredible weekend so would like to share my Ozlander experience with you. Of course, it was during the very early days of covid-19 which I’ll address shortly. I’d never met any of the cast before, nor any group of like minded fans. Of course, you are usually lucky to know anyone who watch the TV show (not counting a partner) in your circle of friends let alone personally know a group of fans to chat with. It’s funny though, I’m not sure what I expected, but I thought people would have in depth discussions about OL characters/plots during coffee breaks or in line ups for autographs/photos. I didn’t experience that. I think it was a given that we were all deep into OL. Instead, I found we just chatted and got to know each other, ‘Where are you from?’ etc. As this was the first formal Outlander convention held in Australia, this was big news. I bought my ticket the day they were available (Nov 2019). It was a long way off but I knew the gathering would occur a short time after the first few episodes of Outlander S5 were broadcast, so when S5 started airing, my anticipation grew. Prices were steep admittedly, but a number of us felt it may be the first and last opportunity to meet a cast member, so we did what we could to get there (i.e. sell the healthiest child, blackmail the rich, etc).

Article from “The Scottish Banner” Feb 2020.

Unfortunately, 4 weeks out, Ed Speleers withdrew due to work commitments but local, David Berry, was announced as his replacement on the same day. Then 10 days out, Graham McTavish withdrew due to work commitments in Slovakia. No news of a replacement was announced (I learnt at the event that organising a visa etc with Covid-19 developing had made it nigh on impossible to organise a replacement in time). Ozlander organisers revisited the program and added extra value features to the various tiers. The gathering weekend was so close, yet seemed so far away in these uncertain times. Every day, I anticipated receiving an email stating it had been cancelled. I knew the organisers must have been pulling their hair out. Selfishly and as long as it was safe to do so, I was hoping it would still go ahead. The virus was not as advanced in Australia. Most of our relatively low number of cases were brought in by travellers (residents returning or tourists) from Europe/Asia before flying was cancelled. The Federal Government had restricted public gatherings to less than 500 at the time. Attendance was actually under 200.  FYI, below are the global covid-19 stats as of 19 April 2020, a month later. Australia’s population is 25 million.

A few days after the Ozlander event, only crowds of less than 100 were permitted by the govt. We were so, so lucky!! Of course, that reduced further as precautions were implemented over time. We have self-isolation and a lot of business closures, cancellation of sports/entertainment etc. It is dreadful, but not a total lock down in Australia. We could walk dogs and make necessary trips to the supermarket, pharmacy, doctor or special court appearances. Anyway, just wanted to address this concern. ~ Tickets sold well (premium tickets sold out). I saw fans on sm stating the date of the event clashed or it was a bit expensive so I know more wanted to come. Yes, the cost was relatively high. Return airfares for cast, accommodation, plus I assume their appearance fee was always going to be an expensive venture, especially as our AUD had been declining sharply against the USD for some time. Australia can miss out on some things because of distance and a relatively small population, but overall, I think we have done well over the years. ~ Rik (Richard) and Sophie posted IG photos from Melbourne a couple of days before the event. Yay!! They were in the country at least, enjoying the sunsets, cuddling koalas and hypnotising wallabies lol. Sophie posted a selfie from a public toilet (bathroom) - as you do. See Sam’s comment below. Toilet paper was becoming a precious commodity....🤔

So the odds looked good and finally, Ozlander arrived.🥳 Before we took our seats, a lone piper slowly walked into the throng playing Waltzing Matilda (iconic Australian bush ballad) which segued into Outlander's theme song. Goosebumps! Applause all 'round. The piper was a big fan too.

What a thrilling start to proceedings. We took our seats and Meagan Taylor (the one who dared dream the dream), welcomed everyone. The age range of fans was predominately 40-65. We were excited and expectant. Housekeeping announcements focused on coronavirus precautions of course. Wash hands, use hand sanitiser when you can't, no handshaking and no touching the cast. This last request was a little disappointing after seeing photos from other OL cons, but it was quite understandable. I think we were just over the moon Ozlander went ahead so we were more than happy to comply and consider the health and safety of others. Then Meagan had the unenviable task of informing us David Berry had unfortunately cancelled his appearance due to health reasons. Yikes! What a shame. (David released a press statement 15 March(?) outlining his difficult decision. Sydney is Australia's Covid-19 hot spot, so David being a Sydneysider, had to consider this I guess). There are IG photos of David, Rik and Sophie together in Australia, just not sure where. So of course, it surprised everyone that David wasn't attending. Refunds of his meet and great and the re-jigging of tiers was to be announced on the fly. Then there were two, Rik and Sophie (and no pressure whatsoever!)🤪. Meagan then advised that the five panels across the weekend would be all audience Q & A which got a loud cheer. On with the show! The Rik and Sophie show! 🎉 They came on stage ready for a good time. Rik opened with 'G'day'. Great start I thought and continued his half decent Australian accent. It's a hard accent to imitate as we know. Rik's was a bit exaggerated but that was part of the fun. 

‘G’day. ‘How are ya’?’

Sophie in an outfit she bought here. Same brand as Saturday’s dress that she brought with her.

Roger Mac is in da house.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I have seen Rik and Sophie in a lot of interviews, OL promos (talking to camera) and taking part on OL panels on YouTube. I can find their rapport a little strained and snarky at times. Luckily, I was very pleasantly surprised that their 2020 version was very endearing and entertaining. I think they’ve worked on this. I also think, that the spectre of Sam and Cait, through no fault of their own, does loom large at cast events. Therefore, it was great to see Rik and Sophie rise to the challenge of working the room in the absence of their cast mates. And I think they really relished this (albeit exhausting) opportunity and the small theatre made it a casual and intimate affair. They answered questions in an engaging manner and often expanded on it, citing on set examples, many I’ve never heard before, and I’ve seen a lot of OL interviews. Almost as soon as they came on stage, Rik was asked if he would play his guitar and sing for us. While flattered, I think it was too early in the piece and he said maybe he would do so during the weekend sometime. Alas, time wasn’t on our side so it didn’t eventuate. ~ Rik was asked if his hair ticks were under control (ep 501)😂. Combing his fingers through his hair, he replied in his strong Scottish brogue that most of them were gone now. Good sport. ~ He was told the OL bts photos he posts on sm (taken on set) were great and much appreciated and to keep them coming to which the audience applauded. I think he quietly enjoyed that moment. All creatives will take that, knowing their skills and hard work meant something to someone, much like our appreciation for OL and these sorts of events!

Then on to costumes, wigs and make up. It was thought that it must be nice to have your scalp/hair attended to in the makeup. ‘No, it’s not’ R&S said in unison.😂 Verra uncomfortable process apparently. The hair is flattened and held down with clips. The hairline edge of the wig is ‘glued’ to the top of your forehead and then alcohol is used to get the glue off after shooting, which dries the skin. Some hair falls out over time with this process also. We know this has happened to Sam to an extent.😬 Rik is hoping to grow his hair long enough so he doesn’t need a wig, which accounts for his current hirsute glory. ~ Sophie said they both share a make up trailer and added that Rik has a magic make up chair. Being early morning, he often goes to sleep in it and upon waking up, hey presto, it’s Roger Mac. At make up time, they do know if the other is a bit touchy, so they try not to annoy each other. Too much.😂 ~ At one stage, we were a bit shy in asking questions. Meagan said if this was in the US, there’d be a line up for the mic.😂

Ozlander Fan Gathering 2020 selfie. 

~ Sophie responded to a geeky question about wearing wireless mics secreted in their costumes or hair as well using the usual overhead boom mics you see on bts videos. She was asked about her experience with ADR which she’s not a great fan of it. The audience asked, ‘What’s ADR?’ There are a few accepted terms in the industry, Additional Dialogue Replacement is one. It’s when some dialogue needs to be re-recorded late in post production if the original dialogue audio recording at the time is less than optimal for a variety of reasons (thanks Google). Sophie gave an instance when in S4, Bree told Claire she had been raped. The stream in the background got into the dialogue mics too much in this particular outdoor location, so Sophie had to re-record her dialogue (like lip syncing) saying exactly what she said at the time, whilst watching the scene on a screen in a recording studio. It’s hard to get the context and emotion of the scene back into your voice and that’s why some actors hate doing it and plead to have the original dialogue kept as much as possible. But ADR happens more than you realise and for various reasons (see Google). It is impossible to tell when you watch the show, what scenes have had ADR done, it’s blended so well. They would record the stream/ ambient sounds separately at some point and then mix it in lower against the dialogue after ADR is done. 😅

 ~ Sophie talked about her audition process and was sat down in an exec’s office and was told OL fans are very passionate! (we are?🤔😁). They have an idea of how book Brianna should look and Sophie confirmed she wasn’t tall enough, eyes the wrong colour, etc and that yeah, as expected, she received some not so nice things on sm. But she tried not to read too much of it and pressed on with the role of Bree. Her tone wasn’t sarcastic or indignant at all, but humble. I was impressed. 

Queuing for photos with Rik or Sophie on this occasion. We weren’t allowed to touch but we all had a squirt of hand sanitiser (just to be super safe?).🤔            

There were a few photo opportunities over the weekend and a bonus or two thrown in make up for the cast that couldn’t make it. A refund was offered for people with meet and greet tickets for David. However, R & S kindly offered to do a meet and greet for David’s fans instead and they happily accepted. Legends! I don’t know where they found the energy to be constantly ’on’ with so many people over the weekend. Chocolate? Youth?  ~ As it was a small event, there weren’t any extra security staff that I could see. I think it was only the Museum staff and the security cameras which were hardly noticeable. ~ When getting my autographs, Rik and Sophie didn’t ask for my name, but when I read their personal messages, they had used my name (which they’d seen on my Ozlander lanyard. How cool is that? Very slick!). There were assorted costumes, the de rigueur wedding dress of Claire’s which added to the ambience. Of course, most of the audience were women but good to see a handful of men there, some even in kilts! Saw some Aussie Peakers in their MPC tees too. Cool. 

To settle a pronunciation question, Sophie asked the audience after lunch, ‘Is it scone (as in, phone) or scone (as in, shone)? 

An emphatic SCONE (shone) came back. Rik said “Oh, wow, a shouting(?) majority?’ 

Just to be sure, someone asked who lost, Rik pointed at Sophie. He didn’t gloat too much. Poor Sophie!

Of course, what would an OL event be without the cast having a drink or two to lubricate the tonsils (as we say).

Here are a few more tidbits. All the info I’m sharing has been gleaned from the panels and time spent with Rik and Sophie over the weekend as my tier allowed (which was a lot). ~ Yes, they had tried Vegemite (similar to marmite/promite), courtesy of David Berry. Sophie has some in Scotland. Onya Davo! (good on you David). Incidentally, Sam tried some when he was here in 2016 on Studio 10 (morning talk show - March 2016, his interview is on You Tube). It’s a thing. ~ Rik didn’t know if Sam’s whisky would be his cup of tea, but said it was ‘good actually’. ~ Rik was sometimes surprised by the particular take post production used for the show, but was more surprised by what was edited out of a scene (to add dynamics or guide the narrative a certain way which would apply to all productions everywhere). ~ The pyre scene with the Jesuit Priest at the Mohawk Village Ep 412 was hard to watch on TV. He said it was hard to watch them shoot that scene on set as it was so dangerous!😬 ~ Sophie very occasionally discussed the historical accuracy of things in a scene with directors ie. birthing stool or not in Ep 413 and 1960′s The Mashed Potato moves in S5 are different to how we know them now. She convinced the director’s on those 2 occasions. To me, it shows her passion for the show! ~ When asked about Bree meeting Jamie for the first time in S4, Sophie was asked about the eww factor but didn’t think about Jamie’s hand touching her face after he had relieved himself as he had only used a fruit juice bottle.🤣 ~ R & S were asked to respond to: ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!’ And with relish they replied: ‘Oi, Oi, Oi!’. Someone did their homework. Cool. It’s a parochial call and response thing some aussies do at sporting events etc. ~ R & S often went for an early morning run. Before Sunday’s program began, Meagan asked us all to be very quiet. ‘That sound’, she said, ‘is Rik having his hair blown dry backstage.’ Laughter at Rik’s expense all round. Sophie came on with her’s still damp.

Graham McTavish ‘popped’ in from Slovakia to say hi and sorry I can’t be there. Rik and Graham had a good rapport. After some banter, the audience was now supposed to ask a question and GM rolled his eyes as he heard Rik’s voice again, this time asking him what he conditioned his beard with? ‘Well”, said GM, ‘well Richard, um, I, ahh (chuckle), I condition it with...., obviously a little bit of your love ..’. Much laughter in the theatre.

Then GM commented further, (which I missed, sadly), to even more laughter.

Who knows what would have happened had GM been at the event in person?! There is so much more I could share, but you get the idea. 

Sophie wasn’t feeling the best during the last panel just before the close of the event, but she pushed through like a trooper. Rik said she had eaten too much chocolate. A weakness of Sophie’s. I think fatigue was catching up with both of them. They did so much.

Meagan presented Rik and Sophie with an Akubra (pron. uh·koo·bruh) each (iconic Australian outback hat) as a memento of their time here at Ozlander. Rik had the Crocodile Dundee style whilst Sophie’s was more demure. In his best aussie lingo, Rik said: ‘I’m Richard Dundee and this is my partner, Skippy (Sophie).’ (Referencing Skippy the bush kangaroo ? - a much loved Australian TV show 1968-1970). 

The Scottish Banner article promised an intimate relaxed chance to get to know stars from the Outlander TV series and I’m happy to say that this is exactly what we got. Whilst it’s a shame we didn’t get to know Ed, Graham or David better, we certainly got to know Rik and Sophie better than we had ever anticipated. As a result, I see Rik and Sophie in a new light, esp in S5, where they have more scenes together. In a small way, I’ve gotten to know a little of the person that inevitably informs their TV persona (ie facial expressions, mannerisms, speaking cadence and inflections). What a memorable time I had (can you tell?). Thanks to Rik and Sophie, the gathering organisers (who got a special mention on stage at the close) and the other fans I met there. Thanks for reading this far on a rather lengthy post.😊 I know it’s my take on the weekend, but I’ve tried not to editorialise it, but present it, as accurately as I can, hence, it may be a bit dry to read.😅  I think Ozlander is a great name and I look forward to Ozlander Fan Gathering 2021.  

Ozlander graphics: Ozlander Fan Gathering (I tweaked the circle logo in the title)

Ozlander Fan Gathering 2020 selfie: Ozlander Fan Gathering

other photos: all permissions obtained    

Ozlander Fan Gathering article: The Scottish Banner February 2020

Sophie Skelton post: Instagram

global covid-19 cases stats: Wikipedia

[misssunflowersandsangria]

Where the Wind can Reach

Hello my lovely dearies!  I've had this in my drafts folder for a while.  I hope that you enjoy some cute Suna family fluff!

Summary:  Leaving Suna to be with Shikamaru wasn't an easy decision.  A quiet moment with her brother reminds Temari about what matters most.

*

** Where the Wind can Reach 

“Hey Tem, you ready?”

Temari turned to look at her brother who smiled brightly at her. Kankurou wasn’t often stunned speechless but this was one of those rare occasions. 

“Well ...who knew that you could clean up so nicely.”  He teased her not used to seeing her in fancy clothes and without a weapon.   She probably had one somewhere.  Seeing her in a sparkling white, elaborate kimono hit home that his big sister was getting married.  She was a vision of excitement and joy. 

“I hate you.”  The smile on her face took the bite away from the statement.  

“I know.”

“You look nice.”  Temari complimented him smoothing down his hair.  It reminded him of their younger days when she’d make sure that he was presentable before any meetings.   

“I don’t know why you insisted that I couldn’t wear my face paint.  I look like dad without it.”  He was genuinely surprised by the request and initially called her a bridezilla.  That earned him a few well deserved slaps to the face. Ultimately, he was smart enough to comply with her wishes. He was there bare-faced and it felt unsettling but there were very few things that she’d asked him to do for the wedding.

Her eyes were soft and contemplative.  “I know you do.  I think that for today, for this occasion.  It’s okay.”  He waited, staring at her confused. 

“I know it’s silly but it's kind of like both you and dad are giving me away.”

Kankuro had to bite back a sob.  He pulled her into a tight hug.  “Damn it Tem, making me cry is really going to mess up my reputation.”

She chuckled returning the hug, hiding her own tears. 

Temari knew that it was strange but there was a part of her that wished that her father was there.  Unlike her brothers, she had a few hazy memories of life before the jinchuriki. When her mother was alive and her father wasn’t a monster.  

Kankuro hated that he looked so much like the previous Kazekage. Seeing himself in the mirror oftentimes felt like a cruel reminder of his father and what he’d done. They’d all tried to work through the issues of their past but the scars remained. Regardless, if Temari wanted to feel like their father was there for her wedding, he’d happily do this for her. 

“To be clear.  I’m not giving you to Nara.  If anything you’re just on loan.  You sure you wanna go through with this?  I could make a big scene, hide you in one of my puppets, leave you in the desert where no one could find you.  It could be like a fun treasure hunt.”

She rolled her eyes, this wasn’t his first time he had some hair-brained idea to stop this wedding.  “You moron.  Shikamaru would find me.”  

Kankurou shrugged.  “He is as stubborn as you are, you’re probably right.  However, say the word and Gaara and I will start an international incident and bring you right back here.”

She began to worry the pendant on the necklace Shikamaru had given her the night before.  She’d been avoiding this conversation but it was now or never.  “Are you two going to be okay without me?”

“You’re talking about the Kazekage and his adviser, of course, we’re not going to be okay.  Being with the deer keeper is what you want so we will survive.”

She sighed before admitting her true feelings.   “I feel like I’m being selfish, leaving you and Gaara, moving to Konoha.”

Kankurou waved off her concerns, not surprised by the admission. “It is totally selfish and it is completely the right thing to do.  If we didn’t fight that war for you to be able to be with the person that you want, what was the point of all of it? You deserve whatever it is that will make you happy.  And Nara makes you the happiest I’ve ever seen you.  Nothing means more than that.”

She knew that she loved Shikamaru and wanted to be with him.  Still, it was hard not to worry about everyone else in her life.  This was never her dream.  She wanted to be helpful and acknowledged by her brothers.  Now, a happy life with Shikamaru was what she wanted. 

Kankurou could see the hesitation in her eyes.  His sister had always been selfless and loyal to the core.  If he or Garra made a fuss she would cast aside her own happiness for them.  He would never allow that to happen.  

He wrapped a comforting arm around her.  “Come on Tem.  It’s like you always warned me when we were kids.  There’s nowhere on Earth that the wind can’t reach.  Even when you’re in Konoha you’ll be here.  The work that you do will have far-reaching consequences here.  You’re still our Princess.” Temari leaned into his side, thankful for the reassuring words.  Her homeland and brothers would be okay.  She raised them well.  

“How’s everyone doing out there?”

“It’s a circus act.  Tons of dignitaries and important people from all the great nations.  Thanks for saving me from it. Garra is out there playing host. We could have probably sold tickets to this. It’s not every day that the Princess of Suna gets married.”

Initially, she and Shikamaru wanted a small wedding.  They very quickly discovered that was never an option.  Between their respective roles in their villages, the political ties, and familial ones this wedding was going to be an event. She hadn’t realized how many people were invested in their relationship.  It represented not only the bringing together of two families but two nations. Their marriage ushered in a new era.   Proof that peace had been achieved.

“How’s Shikamaru?”

Kankurou was ready with a snarky remark but just smiled reassuringly.  “He’s ready to be married to you.”

He’d check on the groom as one final chance to play the protective brother role. To his credit, Shikamaru hadn’t been intimidated. Whether it was because he knew Kankuro only wanted the best for his sister or that he knew Temari would be more than capable of taking care of him herself, they bonded. Kankuro may joke but he knew that his sister had found the best partner for her.  He recognized without a doubt that Shikamaru would love and protect his sister with all that he had.

“I’m ready to be married to him too.” They’d spent so much of their relationship apart, she was excited to finally wake up each day knowing that he was there. 

“Stop it, you’re being gross and romantic. It’s weird.” 

Temari rolled her eyes but was thankful that he could help calm her nerves.  “It’s my wedding, what do you expect?” 

He just chuckled giving her another affectionate hug.  

“I love you, big sister.”  For so long it had just been the two of them. Eventually, Garra completed their set.  The famed sand siblings against the world. Their lives were much different now. Filled with so many people that they loved and stood by their sides.  It was reassuring to know that at the core would always be the three of them.  They weren’t losing anything their family was just growing. 

“I love you too Kankuro.” 

Surprising them both another set of arms enclosed around them. 

“Garra?”  He just nodded and they held onto each other tightly.  Temari tried to subtly wipe away her tears.  How many times had she held them together just like this in less happy circumstances?  Now it was for something much different.  Her brothers were holding her together. 

‘Mother, father, I hope you can see how happy we are now.’ 

“Ready Temari?”  Garra asked while both of her brothers reached a hand out to her. 

Taking their hands in hers she nodded. “Yes.” 

*

**

Temari held onto her new husband tightly. Shikamaru danced so awkwardly but she refused to let them end the night without slow dancing.

She smiled feeling his warm lips kiss her forehead. 

“I love you wife.”

Wife...she was someone’s wife.  Not just anyone’s wife. She was Shikamaru’s wife. So much for marriage being a drag. 

“I love you too Shika.”

“Have you enjoyed everything?”  It had been a busy and emotional day but she was finally married to the love of her life.  For all that it was, it was perfect for them. 

“It’s been a lot but something I’ll always cherish. Can you believe that we’re actually married?”  She grinned, joy sparkling in her eyes. 

“Honestly, no.”  He chuckled and she couldn’t help but agree. They both probably would have remained single if they hadn’t met.  How their wants in life had changed. 

He placed a kiss against her palm.  His lips meeting the cool metal of her ring the outward symbol of his love for her.   “Still, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.  Thank you for marrying me.”  She nodded resting her head against his chest overwhelmed by emotion and relief.

“Are you okay?”  He knew all about her worries and anxieties about leaving home. There were moments that he was genuinely afraid that her love for Suna and her brothers would outweigh her need to be with him.  He’d asked her for so much.  For the rest of their days, he would prove that her decision was a wise one. 

She gazed out at the crowd.  The people that they loved the most in the world enjoying themselves, happy and carefree.  Kankuro was celebrating with the best of them and had a pretty intense drinking contest against Killer B.   He was now trying to convince Garra to let loose. 

“Come on Garra! Your sister just got married, you should dance!!!!” 

Temari just smiled to herself watching the scene play out.  Her heart felt at peace seeing them there happy and at ease. She knew that no matter where she was she carried her brothers with her. 

So she nodded settling back into her husband’s arms before reaching up to kiss him. They had all been through so much and could have lost everything time and again.  In the end, she had everything that she wanted.  

“Yes, I have you, we’ll be together. Everything is perfect.” 

*

**

This story was born from the headcannon that Kankurou wears face paint because he looks so much like his dad.  He hates it so the facepaint.  I have a special place in my heart for him being a middle child as well lol I love the Sand Siblings so much!!!!

Maybe one day I’ll actually write out ShikaTema’s wedding. 

Thanks again for reading!  Likes/Comments are never required but always appreciated! 

If you're interested I have a few smutty prompts that were shared with me that I can't wait to get my hands dirty with lol and I have a few other ideas jumping around but work is starting up again soon. :sigh:  I'll be back soon!  Till then take care of yourself and know that I love you!    

[popliar]

Ateez in Seoul, 8 and 9 February 2020

Olympic Hall at Olympic Park

No one will believe this but I actually had my holiday with @flywithturtles planned before I knew the dates coincided with Ateez's Seoul concert dates. But it's true! I have the WhatsApp conversations to prove it!! Anyway I secured the tickets and all was well.

This is the first concert I've been to where they were handing out masks, making sure everyone had hand sanitizer and checking temperatures as you entered. Haha. Well they also checked our temperature going into the Line Friends store that day so, that's corona virus life. I was actually really worried the concerts would be cancelled, given so many other events have been, so it was a relief that it went ahead.

Structurally this is the same as the show I saw in August last year, after Wave/Illusion: starting hard with pirates, a lighter middle section, and a mythology-heavy last third. And then the encore which went for ages.

What's great to see is that the gaps and pacing downsides of the previous year have been corrected and improved. The pacing has been tightened up, the banter and ments flow much more smoothly and the show just feels very professional and well run.

Here's my post about last year's show: https://popliar.tumblr.com/post/187095347758/ateez-in-sydney-11-aug-2019

It's a shock to realise they've only been around one year four months but they were able to fill out a full 2.5 hour set, every song solid. And KQ spent proper money on this, the production was good - it's not like LAVISH but there were good stages and fancy screens and new VCRs and plenty of back up dancers, and it all worked well. There were maybe too many fireworks on the first night (I hate it when it obstructs the choreo) but they'd adjusted well on the second night.

Surprising but welcome - they had English subs for some of the ments. I don't think they were "live" subs because sometimes they'd get ahead of what the members were saying. But it was helpful. Even without them, body language and tone says a lot. Though I'm regretful that I don't understand Seonghwa's acrostic poems or all of their stupid jokes lol.

The show is called Fellowship and they leaned into it hard, asking Atiny to be part of their shared journey and to stick with them forever. It's a familiar refrain from other shows, but each time I find it both surprising and effective - this very overt, explicitly stated entreaty to be a fan, to enter into this imagined relationship, the appeal to reciprocity. "We've made you happy, make us happy too, be with us and we'll be with you."

But you can know a thing and it can still be effective. I did love the shows. I want them to be happy too!

A list of observations and random things:

Spoilers follow, I'd put it behind a cut but I can't figure out how on mobile haha

OK REALLY SPOILERS NOW

-first VCR to open the show expanded on the Treasure theme.

-Desire opens with blindfold choreo. Was this a gift for me? THANK U.

-for Lights, they had cute moments where they held up little speech bubbles over each others heads. They paired up with Hongjoong and Mingi, San and Wooyoung, Seonghwa and Yunho, and Yeosang and Jongho. Both nights, Woosan held hands. On the second night Yunho held Seonghwa's hand and Seonghwa was like a shy maiden. Mingi and Hongjoong had very strong flirty energy. Yeosang and Jongho are cute.

-the VCR in between part 1 pirates and part 2 fun boys showed what felt like a series of different dimensions? An ocean, a mountain, fields of flowers, cosmic surrealism, etc. As though each of them was alone somewhere in time and space.

-During If without you, they threw out balls to the crowd as gifts (mini riots ensued). Mingi put the empty basket on his head both nights, what a beautiful fool.

-Night 1 was the first time with the light stick! Hongjoong announced its official name: Lightiny (light of destiny) but also Tinybong lololol. The light stick is super pretty. I was tempted but didn't have time the first night. The second night it was sold out when I arrived!!!

-The VCR in between parts 2 and 3 is the really intriguing one. It paired them up into the Lights pairs again. Yeosang and Jongho searched for each other in a hall of billowing drapes. Mingi and Hongjoong were rockstars (with great lipstick). San and Wooyoung were mirrorverse versions of each other. Yunho and Seonghwa put together the pieces of a puzzle in a set that reminded me of both Treasure and Wonderland.

-In the intro to Say My Name on the first night, Hongjoong went halfway down the stairs then turned around, went back and grabbed his mic, then went down again lol. The second night he very firmly took his mic before descending the stairs lol.

-The final VCR before the encore showed them uncovering items on pedestals as though in a museum: a camera, a gramophone, a painting, a book of poetry by Yeats... Then they all created a painting together. When viewed through a red screen (like the puzzles in their albums) the pattern revealed a compass. They then all showed their wrists to reveal each had a compass tattoo.... WHAT IS THIS OT8 SOULMARK FIC!!!!!

-They said they had planned for every audience member to have this compass stamp (the Fellowship again) but it was cancelled due to health concerns. But we could see it with our true eyes, right???? On the second night, the 99s swarmed Seonghwa at this point to try to look down his shirt. I see. I see. (Later on Hongjoong also tried to peek into Mingi's shirt also fine just fine.)

-Early in the show Hongjoong said there would be clues through the show about the next steps in their concept/narrative. The hourglass and compass were very recurrent but these are not new. Hmm. I wonder.

-In one ment on night 1, Jongho spoke to all his hyungs informally and it was HILARIOUS. He did something similar on the second night, patting Yunho on the head and pinching Wooyoung's chin etc.

-During Star 1117 on the first night, Hongjoong and San started crying. Then in the following ment, they and Yunho and Wooyoung were crying, and Seonghwa and Jongho were teary. Yunho cried so hard (missing his grandfather!) that during Hongjoong's ment, Mingi quietly went over and gave him a towel. There were like five members in between that he passed to give him the towel, it was so sweet I'll cry. Night 2 felt more joyful and upbeat.

-Some ppl really left way too early like before the encore. The encore is half an hour long omg! You missed out on so many songs!!!!!

-On night 1 between main set and encore the crowd didn't quite know what to do. Huge kudos to the fans who led some cheers otherwise it would have been so quiet. Second night was better and also they kept the light sticks on while we were waiting which added to the atmosphere.

-They didn't sell a couple of sections in the hall at all, they were curtained off. It's interesting to think BTS had their first Muster here at around the same point in their careers. Like BTS, Ateez too are more popular globally than at home. They were beaten quite handily in voting on music shows by SF9 this comeback, who are more popular at home than internationally.

-It is great being in a huge fandom like BTS but also you know this is actually a great time to stan a group like Ateez. They're big enough to be exciting and have good shows, they are interesting and still developing, they're still playing intimate venues... They're good!!!!!

-A few of them had fake neck tattoos. San helpfully labeled himself "San" on the second night lol.

-Hongjoong briefly went off stage during sunrise On night 2. Hopefully just a technical issue.

-Treasure and Precious choreo start and end in the same place, echoing their musical connection.

-They had different encore outfits for Answer each night, before changing into hoodies. On night 2, Yeosang saw some of the others had scarves/banners tucked into their back pockets and was like "where's mine????" Instead of a banner, Yunho had a baseball cap. Seonghwa took his off and Hongjoong tied it around Seonghwa's wrist.

-For Star 1117, everyone held up their mobile phone lights. On night 2, San repeated the request in English too. Very pretty to see all the lights.

-On second night, Seonghwa and San got their mics and necklace tangled up during a ment lol.

Setlist:

(Intro)

Win

Horizon

Pirate King

(Introduction ment)

Medley: Twilight, Stay, My Way

Light

Mist

Desire

(VCR)

Illusion

Crescent

Wave

Sunrise

(Ment, lightstick announcement)

If without you

Aurora

Utopia

(VCR)

Say My Name

Dazzling Light

Hala Hala

Treasure

Precious

Wonderland

--

Encore:

(VCR)

Answer

(Ment)

Thank u

Star 1117

(Ment)

Promise

Dancing like butterfly wings

Setlist from: https://twitter.com/updateez/status/1226112679728812032?s=19

[iwillbeinmynest]

The Ravens- Loki x Reader(f)   Part 5

Authors Notes: Holy. Crap. I am SO SORRY. but I’ve finally finished it. Finally. This is the last of my unfinished series so now i have caught y'all up on everything. Thanks so much for sticking with me y’all!!

AU: Rockstar!AU

Word Count: 2.2k+

Notes/Warnings: Fluffs all the fluffs, mentions of drinking, and...I think thats..it? Let me know if I've missed something! oh, i guess spelling errors should be a warning lol I tried to catch as much as I could but I’m sure i’ve missed some.

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4 

"Loki."

He felt a nudge to his side.

"Loki, sweetheart, wake up."

Ah. He knew that voice. It was in his dreams, his mind and his whole world. He groaned and rolled over, dragging the thin sheet with him.

She chuckled.

A smack of fabric and his eyes snapped open from the impact of the heavy pillow. "Ow." He lied with a grin.

"Get up." She smiled and crossed her arms. "We need to be at the arena in an hour." She walked to the bed and he reached for her. She pulled away before he could catch her wrist. "No. Get up, lazy bum." She laughed.

"I don't want to." He mumbled groggily.

She jumped onto the bed, shaking the mattress so much that his head bounced up. Y/N laughed at him. "I told you to get up."

Loki finally sat up in bed but grabbed Y/N by the shoulders and tugged her close. She laughed again as he rolled over, laying back down and spooning her. "I refuse."

He nuzzled his nose to her neck and kissed it twice.

"You rockstars are all the same. You just wanna stay in bed all day and party all night." She teased.

"I don't have any interest in partying, my love. Just this. You and me, right here. Forever." He confessed.

Y/N hummed and leaned into him. "I'd love that." She jerked forward and hopped off the bed. "But first you need to get dressed. There will be a limo here in 45 minutes and you better be downstairs. Don't stand me up, Loki Odinson!" She called as she left the room.

The hotel door clicked shut and Loki rolled to his back. He smiled to the ceiling at the thought of her. She was everything he ever wanted and more.

He huffed as he got out of bed and headed for the shower to get ready.

He thought about the last year. How quickly it had flown by, yet, at the same time, every moment with Y/N had seemed to last a lifetime. They had started dating right after his first solo gig at Harry's. The same night he first sang her song.

They'd kept things under the radar for a while; she was pretty hesitant about the possibility of paparazzi and crazy fans of his. And he'd understood that completely. But when a fan recognized him while he was on a date with her, a photo was sent to TMZ and things unraveled pretty quickly after that.

A week later they announced their relationship. Y/N still wanted to live in New York but when fans of Loki's began approaching her she quickly realized that normalcy wasn't in her future.

So, she moved out to LA where she took up a new job and moved into a rather expensive apartment at Loki's persistent request. He promised that to make up for her having to move, he'd put her up in a penthouse but she convinced him to settle on letting her take just a 4 bedroom with an ocean view.

And that's when things began to get really easy. Having been on a tour break, they saw each other almost daily for about six months. Loki really fell into the idea of domestication. Him and her together all the time, talking about their day and what to do for dinner. It was a peace he'd only heard about.

He wasn't about to give that up, either.

Loki invited her to go on tour with The Ravens, explaining that this would be his last trip around the globe with the band. He'd broken the news to Thor before plans for a world tour had even been laid. Told him that he needed to be done and to explore his own music, go solo, along with other plans. When Thor reacted with nothing but enthusiasm, Loki had been in shock. He was certain that news like that would have sent Thor on a rampage but all he got was a bellowing laugh, a hug that threatened asphyxiation and a soft 'I'm proud of you, brother'.

To say that Loki was relieved to be done with the rockstar lifestyle was an understatement.

One last show, he reminded himself as he ran his fingers through his wavy, air-dried locks. One last show and then forever.

He met Y/N down in the lobby with a smile. "Are you ready?" He asked with an arm extended.

She wrapped her hand around his elbow and rolled her eyes. "I've been ready for an hour and a half."

She looked up at him with a world-stopping grin.

"I'm sorry, my love. I'll be better next time."

"He says on his way to his last show." She chuckled.

Loki opened the door of the limo for her and she slid in. He sat beside her and shut the door.

"I'm actually nervous for this one." He admitted.

She looked at him confused. "You've been looking forward to this for weeks."

Loki shrugged. Now wasn't the time to get into it. He put an arm across her shoulder and kissed her head when she settled into his side.

They could hear the crowds before they could hear see the stadium. Playing their final show back in New York in Madison Square Garden was perfect. It was here, last year, that Loki had decided to play his first solo gig, inspired by the woman at his side. It was a full circle.

The flashes were dimmed thanks to the heavy tint of the limo's windows but they both squinted nonetheless.

"Time to put on that brooding expression everyone expects." Y/N teased. Loki's gloomy persona had originally been that of true unhappiness but now that he had Y/N, he kept it up for the band’s sake and reputation.

"My favorite part." He scoffed.

Y/N kissed his cheek and he turned on her, capturing her lips in a deeper, but tender, display.

"I love you." He breathed.

"I love you, too." She smiled with closed eyes. "We better get out before the fans tip the car."

They both chuckled and a security guard opened the car door.

Loki dropped his smile and got out, ignoring the screaming fans as he helped Y/N out of the back seat. He pulled her close and nodded to the crowd. They were quickly escorted inside where they only had a few seconds of peace before Loki was swarmed by hair and wardrobe and stage managers.

The roar of the crowd was like nothing Y/N had ever heard before. Sure, she’d been to many of their shows but this was Madison Square Garden. This was quite possibly the biggest crowd the band had ever had a t one event and they’d sold out within hours of the tickets going on sale. There were even rumors that the arena was selling tickets for standing room.

Y/N stood backstage and watched Loki and the band play all of their biggest hits. Song after song for the last hour. The pyrotechnics and lights matched the heavy music and the crowd was loving every second of it.

FInally, they were down to their last song of the night.

“Thank you, New York!” Thor shouted. They screamed back. “Thank you!” He raised his hands to try and hush them. “We are so glad to have shared this night with all of you and thank you for coming out to support us. We have an announcement to make and hopefully you won’t be too sad,”

The crowd began to get noisier with concerned chatter.

“Don’t worry,” Thor smiled. “We aren’t done rockin’ quite yet.”

They cheered.

“But,” he continued. “But Loki,” He gestured to his brother as the crowd quieted. “Loki has some changes coming his way and we couldn’t be happier for him.” Thor nodded to Loki who stepped up to his mic.

He waved at the fans and offered a solemn smile. “Firstly, before I get into all of that, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you for your support through the years. And a special thanks to those of you who prefer me over my brother,” A half serious jest.

The crowd laughed and a few even cheered.

“But the big news is that I have decided…” Loki took a deep breath. This was it. “To go solo.”

The area erupted in noise. A combination of chatter, cheers, boos and shouts.

Loki held up his hands and the noise lowered enough that he continued. “But that’s not the biggest change.” He looked to the side stage to see Y/N standing there with her hands clasped and pressed under her wide smile. She nodded at him.

Loki smiled back and then extended his hand out to her. “Y/N, darling, why don’t you come out here for a moment.”

Y/N eyes went wide and her smile disappeared. Her head ticked and her smile returned with suspicion as she walked out to meet him.

Loki took his guitar off and handed it to Volstagg. He took Y/N by the hand and kissed her knuckles before returning to the mic. “I believe most of you know my lovely girlfriend. She has been the light of my life since the very moment I met her. She inspired me and very quickly became my muse. She has given me courage to play my music, to write it, and to explore it in a way I hadn’t known. She is my refuge and my rock and I can’t imagine where I would be without her.”

Y/N’s cheeks were red with flattery and she shook her head. “What are you doing?” She whispered.

Loki smiled but didn’t answer. He looked to the crowd. “Tonight I’ve announced that I am leaving the Ravens. Flying away, so to speak, and never in my life have I been so nervous before a show. But my nerves had nothing to do with that announcement,” he took another breath, “And everything to do with this question.”

He looked to Y/N, took both of her hands and dropped to one knee.

The crowd burst into screams and cheers.

The sound, as loud as it was, seemed to fade away. Loki never took his eyes off of Y/N and asked, “Y/N, will you marry me?”

Y/N couldn’t hear a word but she knew what he’d said. She ignored the tears that were now falling down her cheeks and nodded her head. “Yes,” she sobbed and fell into his arms.

Loki scooped her up and spun her around. He laughed and kissed the side of her head until she pulled back and kissed him.

Somehow the crowd managed to scream even louder.

Loki finally released his fiance long enough to slip the ring on her finger, which he kissed then held up in victory.

Thor and the rest of the band rushed over and congratulated them both. After a few minutes of praise and cheer, the crowd settled.

“Alright,” Thor started. “Enough of that.” He joked and Loki actually laughed with him. “We’ve got one final song for tonight and I’d like to play it in honor of my brother who, adopted or not, I love above everyone else. I’m proud of you and wish you nothing but success, which I know you’ll have in both your life and career.” He nodded to Loki who smiled as he took his guitar back from Volstagg.

The band rocked as hard as they could with three encores. The show was followed by an afterparty for the band, crew and a select number of invited guests. It was hosted at Harry’s bar where Loki had played just a year ago. People continued to come up and congratulate Loki and Y/N who remained inseparable through the night.

Sometime around 4 am, the party had died out and only Thor, Loki and Y/N remained.

“I really am happy for you, brother.” Thor said after finishing the last of his beer.

As inebriated as Thor was, Loki knew he was telling the truth. He pulled Y/n a little tighter. “Thank you, brother.”

“I think it’s probably time for me to be heading out.” Thor stood up but almost toppled over just as fast.

Loki stood and caught him. “Okay, I think that’s a good idea. Lets get you in a car.” loki caught the attention of the driver and nodded.

After getting Thor sent off, loki returned to his fiance. “Ready to go, love?”

“Actually,” She grinned, “I was feeling a bit hungry and I know this great little diner not to far from here.”

Loki kissed her hands again as he remembered their dinner there. “I finally kissed you that night.” He ginned.

“Finally.” She joked.

“Oh, come on, admit it,” He said as he escorted her out to their car. “You loved the wait. You were playing hard to get.”

She gasped and swatted his arm. “I was not! Thor kept interrupting us, remember.”

Loki chuckled. “I do.” He gave the driver the address of the diner and the car pulled off. “I never did get to thank you, by the way.”

“For what?” Y/N yawned as she leaned her head on his shoulder.

“For saying yes.” He leaned his head on hers.

“Till the end of time, love.” She held his arm tighter.

“Till the end of time.”

*   *   *   *   *

Forever Tags: 

@heismyhunter  @sgtbxckybxrnes @pickledmoon @whimsicalrebirth @marvel-lucy @thisisthelilith @james-bionic-barnes @thedreamingowl @poemwriter98@kimistry27 @annie-lujan @buckyandsebsinbin @lilasiannerd @gypsy-storm-15 @cassiopeiassky @earinafae @the-stuttering-kiwi @obsessedwithatwell @shortiiqt16 @shifutheshihtzu @elaacreditava @nikkitia7 @theonewithallthemilkshakes @gallifreyansass @storytellingwanderer @palaiasaurus64 @iamwarrenspeace @engineeringgirlcve @magnolia-wanders @carameldaemoncakes @canumoveyourseatup-no @melconnor2007 @movingonto-betterthings @spideytrxsh @fantasticmiraclehologram @kapolisradomthoughts  @iamwarrenspeace @melconnor2007 @yesiamdeliciouslycaffeinated @mcu-avengerrs @archy3001@mmauricee @barnesvogue @feelmyroarrrr @beyondbarnes @marvelous-avengers @veronicalei @cornflax01 @kudosia @witchymarvelspacecase@beccaanne814 @inumorph @thisismysecrethappyplace @artemis521@darkhologramblaze @palaiasaurus64 @awkwardfangirl2014@diinofayce @youclickedthislink  @lille-kattunge @patzammit @amiquette @destiel-artemis @nea90sweetie@miraclesoflove @nickimarie94

The Ravens Tags:

@eyeofdionysus @lauxeyson @riptidethepen @17marvelousfreak @izzy-obwan@bellasett @4theluvofall @jasura @eternalanxious @holding-on-to-francis @ladydork @ex-bookjunky @kiwi71281 @jokesonjess@whatthehellisacastiel @heter-no-sexual @indaybella99  @blacwings-and-bucky-barnes @greenhands5 @finding–grace @movingonto-betterthings @wearethecanadians @mysticracoon @fuckthatfeeling@bookgirlunicorn @thisheartbeatsonlyforyou  

[hajimesh]

Best Friend.

word count: 1.5k

pairing: peter parker x reader

summary: waltzing with your crush to a hozier song. that’s it. that’s the tweet.

a/n: okay this deleted itself somehow!? so yeah, posting it again. this was based on a dream i had with ‘would that i’ by hozier as background music (totally normal lol). let me know what you think! masterlist can be found in my bio♡

“She should be here already.”

Peter mumbles as he looks at his watch for the umpteenth time.

You are currently at a charity gala hosted by Tony Stark and everything would be running smoothly if it weren’t for aunt May’s lack of presence. She said she’d be here twenty minutes ago and yet she is nowhere to be seen which has Peter, your best friend, on edge.

He had asked you to accompany him to the event since he would be giving a speech and there was no way you’d refuse his offer. Not only because you knew he could use your support but because you’d take any chance you could to be with him, seeing as you have been harbouring a crush on him for the past three months. Not that he knew, of course.

“Have you tried calling her?” Your voice is gentle, trying to calm his nerves a bit.

Peter shakes his head as he murmurs something you can’t make out but he pulls out his phone from his pocket. You watch as he dials and perks up as soon as he hears May’s voice on the other end, the stress dissipating slightly. A minute later he ends the call, looks at you and gives you a tight lipped smile.

“She’s stuck in the traffic.”

You can’t help but laugh. Poor thing has been stressing over nothing!

“Gosh, Pete. You need to chill.” Placing your hands on his shoulders you shake him a bit, trying to loosen up his stiff posture. “She’s gonna be here on time, you’ll see.”

“I’m just– ugh, I’m so nervous.” His jittering hands find yours, interlacing his fingers with yours. Once again he looks nervous, giving you a worried look. “This whole thing is so stressful and I’m afraid I’ll mess things up.”

He rambles, words spilling non-stop as panic engulfs him again. But all you can think of is how warm his hand feels against yours. Your heart starts pounding on your chest at the unexpected contact of your hand with his but you know he needs the reassurance so you act like you’re not about to combust in the spot.

“Hey, I’m here. Nothing bad is gonna happen and your gonna ace it. C’mon spider-man.” You give him words of encouragement, smiling reassuringly at him before making a funny face.

This finally earns you a laugh from him and you can’t help but feel the pride swirling on your chest. If only he could see himself in your eyes.

You are making small talk, distracting him for a bit when you see the Tony stark approaching and you try to free your hand from Peter’s, thinking that he might not want to give the wrong idea. But you are surprised when he stops you by squeezing your hand, a nervous look on his face. You smile at him reassuringly and squeeze it back, earning a tiny smile from him.

“Hey kiddo. I see you made it.” Tony Stark says as he claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Y-yeah. Everything looks good, the place-” Peter clears his throat which has suddenly gone dry and you look at him worried. “The place looks amazing, Mr. Stark.”

“Thanks, Pete. And you brought company?” The man himself smiles at you with a raised brow.

Peter seems to come out of his daze and he looks at you, eyes wide open and then proceeds to introduce you. “Ah, yes, yes. This is my best friend..”

As Peter introduced you to Mr. Stark you greeted him with a polite smile. Peter had warned you Mr. Stark wasn’t very fond of physical interaction so you refrained from doing so.

“Ah, best friend. Is that what they call girlfriends nowadays?” Tony says in a mocking tone as he fakes a confused look, his finger tapping on his chin. “Your generation is weird.”

Clapping his hand on Peter’s shoulder one more time, Tony turns to leave not before winking at you. You look at Peter and you’re sure you would’ve laughed if you weren’t feeling so mortified. Peter looks as if he’s seconds away from passing out, red as a tomato while his mouth opens and closes, utterly speechless.

“Well, that went well?” You try to lighten up the mood, turning the awkwardness into a joke but Peter seems to be on the verge of exploding.

“Oh my god.” He finally looks at you, big brown eyes filled with nothing but embarrassment which causes you to break down.

You start laughing so loud that some guests give you looks but you don’t care because Peter is right next to you, doubled over in laughter as tears fall from his eyes. Your laughs soon die down to giggles, and if you weren’t a coward you’d have probably grabbed Peter’s face and kissed him right then and there because he looked so damn pretty. Flushed cheeks and shiny brown eyes looking at you as adorable giggles escape his mouth.

Out of nowhere, you hear the faint sound of a song you know all too well. Peter has been obsessing over Hozier’s music for the past six months, you even tried to get tickets for one of his concerts but sadly they sold out before you could refresh the website, leaving Peter all sad and mopey for a week.

Apparently Peter heard it too because a moment later his head perks up so quickly you worry it will come off his neck. “My song!”

You roll your eyes as the overexcited puppy next to you starts mouthing the words. The song must’ve given him some sense of familiarity, dissipating his nerves a bit because next thing you know he’s pulling you by your –still– interlaced hands to the dance floor as if it were the living room of his home.

“Peter! How do you even dance to this?” You whisper-yell when you both reach the middle of the dance floor, a few curious eyes watching you.

“Umm,” He clearly didn’t think this through and now you’re both standing like dumbs as more people wait to see what you’re up to. Peter gives you a timid smile, his cheeks turning slightly red “Like a waltz?”

Your breath hitches, nervousness hitting you like a truck but if this will calm Peter’s nerves then you have no other option. Not like you don’t want to dance with him.

You place a hand on his shoulder as you feel him hold you by the waist. Interlacing your other hand with his, you start swaying softly. It feels as if every single pair of eyes focus on you so you try to zone them out, relishing on having Peter so close to you. Closing your eyes briefly, you ease out the tension from your shoulders focusing on the music.

“Is this okay?” Peter’s gentle tone catches your attention.

Distancing yourself slightly from him, you look straight at his eyes and smile, nodding your head. “Yeah.”

You sound breathless, being so close to him is certainly making your heart jump excitedly inside your chest leaving you agitated.

He gives you a toothy smile, his childish aura captivating you and unconsciously freeing any shyness you have been feeling previously.

Placing your arms around his neck, you pull him closer. He immediately corresponds by encircling your waist with both arms. A dreamy sigh escapes your mouth and he laughs, his mouth placed right next to your ear.

“This is nice.”

You answer him by holding him tighter, which sends Peter into overdrive. He kisses you on your temple, melting your heart in the process. Lying the side of your face on his shoulder, you sigh contentedly.

Eventually the song ends and you distance yourself from each other, goofy smiles on your lips as Tony Stark makes his way to the scenario and clears his throat, successfully catching everyone’s attention.

“Good evening, everyone. I’m pleased to be here...” Tony starts greeting the guests and thanking them for attending.

You glance briefly at Peter who looks at ease, less nervous and jittery than before. Once Tony  announces Peter will be the one to further explain the purpose and goals of the charity, you give his hand a squeeze. He hasn’t let it go ever since he grabbed it earlier today.

“Go get ‘em, tiger.”

After placing a kiss on your cheek, Peter walks away leaving you a blushing mess on the dance floor.

You watch as he walks up the stairs leading to the scenario and Mr. Stark greets him with a hug. You can’t help but smile at the interaction knowing that Tony cares about Peter as if he were his own son.

“So, what did I miss?”

May’s voice comes out of nowhere and you turn to look at her. She’s smiling, oblivious as to what his nephew has done to your heart the past hour.

Oh, not much. Just your nephew holding me in his arms, turning my heart into jelly as I fall harder for him.

Yeah, nope.

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

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Event Report: Wake Up, Girls! FINAL TOUR -HOME- ~PART III KADODE~ Kumamoto

This is an event report from 5th Jan 2019 archived from my Wordpress blog. You’ve probably already read it. I’ll add photos later.

Writing this on the plane back to Tokyo from what I would consider a treasure-filled three days in Kumamoto. I will never forget this weekend and I genuinely dread having to go to school tomorrow.

My flight to Kumamoto was on the day of the live itself, a 0710 flight from Haneda Airport bound to arrive in Kumamoto Airport at 0910. My plan was to head straight to bed as soon as I got home since I’d have to wake up at 3 AM to get to the airport in time. Much to my dismay, the blend of excitement over finally being able to go see Yoppi at Kumamoto, and the anxiety over the fact that if I’m unable to wake up in time I won’t be able to go see that, had me awake all night and I ultimately gave up trying to go to sleep at around 2 AM. Made myself some fried eggs (Yoppi’s favourite food her mom would make her, from her song Watashi no Ki), got ready, and headed to the airport without a second of sleep. Unsurprisingly, I was already dying when I got to the airport but for some reason I just couldn’t close my eyes. Afraid I wouldn’t be able to get any sleep in-flight, I asked some friends over what to do in order to die in the flight immediately.

The answer was simple: down a can of Strong Zero.

Thus, I grabbed a 500ml can of Apple flavoured Strong Zero (青りんご for 青山) at the nearest convenience store, and downed it in one go right before boarding the plane. Little did I know, turns out that was the same amount of alcohol as three cans of beer. I was so dizzy I bumped into people while boarding the flight, and while I did die when I got to my seat, I felt so nauseated and needed to go to the bathroom so often I basically only got 45 minutes of sleep.

I only recovered after arriving at the venue. What a terrible experience. Never doing that again.

In order to fully enjoy Kumamoto, I decided my only option was to go the ultimate TO route and buy 48 tickets in order to maximise my chance of getting front row. I was completely expecting to not be able to sell the extras, but I did! Thank god. Had to go around turning those tickets into money as soon as I got to the venue. I was still a bit tipsy, and one of the buyers even asked me if I was ok and was genuinely worried. WUGners sure are nice.

Thanks to Surname and Dalmo, I didn’t have to worry about buppan either. They helped me get what I want earlier on. God bless.

Finally, it was time to enter the venue.

Since most of the songs were the same, I’m not gunna write both separately, but I will mention when something is Afternoon or Night exclusive.

My seats were:

Floor 1, Row 3, Seat 31 for Afternoon

Floor 1, Row 6, Seat 19 for Night

Since there was no Row 1, afternoon was basically second row. It was two seats away from the aisle which kinda sucked, but at least I was super close. As for Night, it was right next to the left aisle, which turns out to be the best thing to ever happen, which I will talk about later on.

The live started with a message from Katayama Minami and Nanase Yoshino, both talking to each other about Kumamoto. Nanase offers to give Katayama recommendations for places to eat at. Katayama, surprised at how much Nanase knows about Kumamoto, asks where she got all this info from. Turns out Nanase knows someone from Kumamoto, who goes by “Aoyama Yoshino”. The conversation cuts into a phone call between Nanase and Aoyama, but for some reason Aoyama sounded more like Guri than herself… talking with her mouth full, and being completely uncaring of the conversation. They then continue on talking about how they should visit historical places in Kumamoto and how it’s important for everyone to visit Kurokawa Onsen and Hitoyoshi Onsen (LOL). Nanase then talks about how since this is the first WUG live in Kumamoto, she wished more people could come and see Kumamoto earlier. Katayama then ensures Nanase that it’s not too late, and since it’s KADODE, they still have plenty of chances to show everyone how great of a place it is. “KADODE is not a harbinger of end times, but rather a gate that leads to a new path.” Suddenly, they get another voice message from Aoyama, telling them to shower themselves in Kumamoto cuisine, breathe Kumamoto’s freshest air, and to not forget a single second they spend there, and to definitely come visit again, in the sleepiest, most uncaring Guri voice possible. Katayama then asks Nanase if they could come visit Kumamoto one more time even after the live is over. Nanase agrees, to not visit just as friends, but as family.

“Ikuzo, Ganbappe, Wake Up, Girls!”

All of a sudden, Oota-san’s voice appears out of nowhere, screaming his otaku screams, to which everyone laughs their arse off. He shills how Yoppi is back in Kumamoto and how happy she is over it. He asks if we got ready for the live by eating Yoppi’s favourite Kumamoto foods. He does a spot check on us, and he shills some goods, mentioning how “that specific WUGner” wearing the tour T-shirt, parka, and the windbreaker is wearing the perfect armour. Finally, he asks us if we brought with us our love for WUG, to which the crowd screams as loud as possible.

We then hear random rambling from WUG backstage. I don’t particularly remember what they were saying, but it was pretty random. They do the “Ikuzo, Ganbappe, Wake Up, Girls!” ritual real quick, after which Oota-san comes back to scream at us about how WUG-chan is all fired up. We start chanting “Wake Up, Girls! Wake Up, Girls! Wake Up, Girls!”

They show up in sillhouettes behind the stage curtains. The curtains fall with a bang, and we’re greeted with WUG themselves, wearing the 暴君 outfit, ready to perform their first song.

M01. 少女交響曲

That was so unexpected. Now it makes sense why they ended all of the Part II Lives with this song. They were trying to connect it together with Part III. Pretty cool if you think about it. Also, Yoppi was holding back tears with the biggest smile on her face. People in the back probably didn’t notice but being so up close it was really obvious how teary eyed she was. It must be so overwhelming for her. Kumamoto Shimin Kaikan. The biggest hall in all of Kumamoto. A place she has so many memories at. She’s finally standing there as WUG, looking at a sold out venue. It’s so amazing and I’m so thankful and happy for her. I almost cried looking at her.

M02. 素顔でKISS ME

Source: 初！熊本！あいり (2019 01 08)

Is it just me or did I never notice how people mix during the first instrumental? It was so loud and it was amazing and I wish I knew about it before lmfao.

MC1. Introductions

They introduce themselves and talk about how they’re all glad that they’re performing in Kumamoto. Mayushii tells everyone how if you start your year by screaming UWAAAAH, good things will happen this year, to which everyone screams, and then tells us that she made it up on the spot. BAMBOOZLED. Kayatan talks about how tasty dagojiru is during both sessions, and Yoppi talks about how we were all turned into vegetables during the start of Afternoon because of how nevous she was. She then tells us about how recently she had a dream where she was at Kumamoto stop and they were doing their introductions and when she welcomed everyone to Kumamoto, she was greeted with booing. She knows that it would never happen, but it got her even more nervous, and it made her feel like she was in hell. The audience was filled with laughter it was so funny. We then scream that we love her, to which Yoppi responds with how there will never be another chance again so everyone should boo at her. Wihtout hesitation, the entire audience starts booing at her. I will never forget this moment. I boo’d Yoppi at a WUG live in her hometown.

M03. 7 Girls War

HOLY SHIT. I didn’t think it would actually happen but everyone screamed 「熊本おかえり！よっぴー」 for Yoppi’s part, and the way Yoppi’s face brightened up hearing it, it was beautiful. God bless. I furicopied my heart out for this song as I always do.

M04. 言の葉 青葉

Beautiful. Is there anything more to say about this song? All I can do is just stand there and watch how gorgeous they are and how wonderful their singing is, while furicopying, of course.

M03. 7 Senses

Not many people did 「熊本おかえり！よっぴー」 for Yoppi’s part for this song, but when everyone screamed 「まゆしぃ！」 after Mayushii’s 「よ！」, Mayushii’s face brightened up too because there was never a Mayushii call in either 7GW or 7 Senses, but WUGners actually made it happen. WUGners truly are awesome, and it’s wonderful how obvious the girls make it when showing how happy they are. Oh yeah, Yoppi and Aichan did the USA dance in between too.

M04. 雫の冠

Beautiful. Is there anything more to say about this song? All I can do is just stand there and watch how gorgeous they are and how wonderful their singing is, while furicopying, of course.

TIE-UP CORNER

Only at Night, after 雫の冠, does Mayushii quickly mention that it’s now time for the Tie-up corner. Did she probably forget to in the afternoon?

M05. 僕らのフロンティア

I have been waiting for this song for so long. It’s one of my favourite WUG songs and it gives me the motivation to do pretty much anything. I furicopied so hard to this. One thing I don’t like about the live version is how everyone screams HAI during the instrumental before the chorus. I really appreciate the serene feel of the song and that call is really irritating. A movement against it is building up on Twitter though, which gives me hope for the future.

M06. One In A Billion

The calls for this song are so much fun because of how short but impactful they are. Screaming ONE IN A BILLION with WUG is always fun. This song is so good.

M05. One In A Billion

I actually didn’t even notice they skipped 僕らのフロンティア when they opened with this song! I was way too immersed into how good this song is.

M06. 恋？で愛？で暴君です！

Finally! I get to see this song again. It’s the song that got me into WUG and I love it so much. Fun fact, during Yoppi solo event, a certain something happened and it became a normality for Yoppi oshis to scream よしのー instead of オレモー for this song, and it made me really happy that a lot of people finally got the memo and did it too, or maybe my renban and I were just really loud with the よしのー calls. I was also really confused as to why they wore this outfit during Afternoon but never properly performed it, but at least we still got it at Night. Still wish I could see it twice...

MC2. Outfit Talk

They talk about how long it’s been since they last wore the Renai Boukun outfit and take their time to appreciate how cute of an outfit it is. In the Afternoon, they actually forget they last wore it in Shanghai and say Los Angeles multiple times and then correct themselves later. After this little exchange, everyone but Yoppi gets ready to leave but she quickly stops Mayushii and Nanamin, asking them to stay. With that, we enter the Kumamoto special corner.

SPECIAL CORNER

They start by asking asking everyone if anything comes to mind seeing these three specific people. That’s simple. If you’ve watched that Yonayona stream you’d know that these three are WUG’s チーム西日本. Yoppi being from Kumamoto, Mayushii from Osaka, and Nanamin from Tokushima. According to Yoppi, they’re also known as 飛行機組. Ever since before they debuted, until even after all their training camps and the Wonfes introduction, for those two years, these three were be the ones that would have to take the plane to Tokyo for events and training. At Night, Mayushii mentions that she still has the purikura they took together, which Nanamin remembered, but Yoppi, unsurprisingly didn’t, but later screamed “YES YES YES I REMEMBER”, in fact it was supposedly Yoppi’s idea to take it as チーム西日本. But these three aren’t the only ones that had to finally leave their homes behind for their dreams. Their kouhais had to as well. And since there might never be a chance again for them to do so, they perform their next song.

M07. カケル×カケル（チーム西日本）

Source: 7日だけどあけおめ@まゆ

The HAIs and claps were INSANE. Everyone was SO HYPED. RGR’s best song… performed by WUG? Unheard of! Some people even yettaiga’d! It was awesome. Yoppi did Mocchi, Mayushii did Hayamari, and Nanamin did Acchan. It was pretty well thought out, leader did leader, centre did centre, and Nanami did Nanami lmao. At Night, some people did some gachikoi call during the opening instrumental which I couldn’t quite catch, but it was fucking awesome as well. Furicopied so hard, screamed so loud, and clapped excessively. I was dead by the end of it, and I’m sure everyone else was too.

"I'm no longer afraid."

After that energetic performance, Mayushii talks about how they always end up having to follow along with Yoppi’s antics, and sarcastically mentions how she’s everyone’s beloved leader. Yoppi butts in with an “of course I am”. They ask if we saw カケル×カケル coming and if we were surprised. No fucking shit we were god fuck that was amazing. Yoppi talks about how the lyrics of the song has elements that really speak to her and that she’s been wanting to perform it herself, so she took her chance and did so. They then cut into the reading live section, mentioning how this song talks about “home” a lot.

Yoppi: Everyone, welcome to Kumamoto! How did all of you get here? By plane? By train? By walking? Thank you all for coming, whether near or far. The story we are about to tell you is about three girls with hometowns, just like all of you.

Nanamin: Yoppi, who are you talking to?

Mayushii: Talking to yourself?

Nanamin: You’re always like that.

Yoppi: No I’m not. Anyway, the three of us, standing here like this, feels really nostalgic doesn’t it. Here in Haneda Airport.

Nanamin: I wonder if that restaurant is still there! The one we always went to!

Mayushii: That bibimbap place?

Nanamin: Yeah!

Mayushii: If I recall correctly, it was upstairs. I know the way without even looking at the map.

Nanamin: I know right?

Yoppi: We sure did go there often.

Nanamin: We’re here!

Mayushii: That was fast.

Yoppi: My favourite bibimbap is gone!

Mayushii: You’re right!

Nanamin: Eh? I wanted to eat that too…

Yoppi: That nostalgic taste… not being able to eat it again...

Mayushii: But that smaller sized regular bibimbap is still there.

Mayushii: I can’t believe it’s been this five years since then.

Nanamin: It feels like it was just the other day.

Yoppi: During our training camps, we would regularly do airport rushes!

Mayushii: We would often run down staircases carrying up our luggage.

Yoppi: Yeah! That really stressed my body out!

Nanamin: Running while screaming over how we won’t make it.

Yoppi: And didn’t we often study for our tests?

Mayushii: Yeah!

Nanamin: Yeah!

Mayushii: If you think about it, we were at that age when entrance exams were right around the corner. Our centre exams were at the exact same time too.

Yoppi: I’d read out questions to you too.

Mayushii: Yeah, you didn’t understand the questions but you’d read them out regardless.

Yoppi: Yeah. We’d even talk about our school teachers.

Mayushii: And often hearing complaints about teachers I don’t even know!

Yoppi: Yeah! Nanamin and Mayushii did this a lot.

Nanamin: Yoppi, you’d do it too! You’d often talk about your choir teacher!

Yoppi: No I didn’t! (Shut up, she’s here today)

Mayushii: She did.

Yoppi: And Mayushii, didn’t you often study in the plane too?

Mayushii: Yeah I did. I’d listen to music while doing so though.

Nanamin: Music?

Mayushii: Yeah, in-flight radio. The anisong section had a personality I really liked! Not to mention, i☆Ris songs would play sometimes too.

Yoppi: I used to listen to §Rainbow so much! I’m getting flashbacks from back then all of a sudden… YUU-CHAAAAN!

Mayushii: What about you Nanamin? Did you listen to anything while on the plane?

Nanamin: Hmm.. let me think…

Yoppi: It was quite a while ago.

Mayushii: She was probably asleep.

Yoppi: You’re right, this is Nanamin we’re talking about.

Nanamin: Oh yeah! Yuzu!

Mayushii: Oh, you were awake.

Nanamin: Is that so strange?!

Yoppi: Speaking of, who was it that-

Mayushii: Ah! The last flight to Kumamoto is leaving soon!

Yoppi: Eh?!

Nanamin: It’s already this late?

Mayushii: Yoshino, dash! Speaking of, I need to leave soon too.

Nanamin: Me too.

Mayushii: Let’s go.

Nanamin: Yeah.

Mayushii: Alright, see you next week!

Nanamin: See you Yoppi!

Yoppi: You guys too! Bye!

Yoppi: I separate with them at baggage checking. The sounds of the airplanes echoed quietly. I headed to the gate. Five years ago, the feelings I felt in this place, were happiness and confusion around finally being able to go home. What I feel in this place now, are happiness and loneliness. But strangely, despite that loneliness, I find myself smiling, and that’s probably because I realised I have a place to call home. Kumamoto, the place I was born and raised, the place my friends and family built for my heart to call home. While it feels like a far away place, under this vast blue sky that these airplanes fly, it’s in a very close place. I’m no longer afraid.

Nanamin and Mayushii leaves the stage, and Yoppi gets into position.

Yoshino's Letter

After that energetic performance, Yoppi talks about how in the Afternoon they did a reading live, but for Night, she wrote a letter to everyone, which she wrote at 3AM the night before. She’s super awkward before starting to read the letter and it’s so cute, you could tell she was really nervous.

With a slow, piano-only version of the Polaris instrumental playing in the background, Yoppi begins reciting her letter.

Everyone, how are you? I’m fine. The Kumamoto stop is finally here. My first gaisen (凱旋). Are you all enjoying it? Did you eat all the delicious food? Have you fallen in love with Kumamoto? This city that you all came to love, this city where I was born and raised...

I used to hate it.

I’m sure there are plenty of people that know about this. All the frustration that built up ever since I started these activities, all the way until I moved to Tokyo, I can still remember vividly. An everyday life of succumbing to unfairness, and most of it was because I lived in Kumamoto. I was always extremely busy back then, and I never noticed just how many people were working hard for me. The resentment just kept building up, and before I knew it, everytime I’d come back to Kumamoto Airport after work, “I’m back… again…” was all that would come to mind.

In front of WUGners, I always wanted to remain cheerful and fun. So, I would throw all my pointless frustrations at my mother, and made her shed plenty of tears. All that she would do for me, from driving me around, to the bento she would ready for me every morning. I would never thank her, and all that would come out of my mouth were curses. I caused her so much trouble.

I’m so sorry.

Present day, four years have passed since I moved to Tokyo. I can’t get used to it at all. I don’t know any good restaurants. The train system is extremely difficult. For that, I am so thankful for Kumamoto that not only do most train stations only have one platform, but that I know where to get the best monja, which I told everyone about, and I know where to get the best pasta too, but I’ll keep this one a secret. I think to myself that these things exist in Kumamoto, and it makes me glad.

The pointless feelings I held, the frustrations, disappeared as the pointless feelings they were. That was my move to Tokyo.

What should have been obvious was never obvious to me. I terribly regret having ever hated this place that was always by my side. I have a place to come back to, a HOME. I will never, ever forget that.

But that’s not all, I have another HOME that I hold dear to me, and that’s Wake Up, Girls! Nanase Yoshino, who helped fulfill the dream I’ve had since primary school. The members, who are not only my greatest rivals, but my greatest companions. The pleasant staff, who supported us to where we are today. And the greatest family one could ever wish for, WUGners. Thank you all for showing me sceneries I would have never been able to see on my own. Thank you for showing me so many different HOMEs. Thank you for raising me up to where I am now.

Thank you, so, so much.

I don't want to regret a single second until March. I want to show as much gratitude as my heart can handle. I hope that every moment we spend together can be like treasure to you.

If I write any further, I won’t have anything to say in the final MC.

Finally, thank you all for coming all the way to my beloved Kumamoto.

5th of January, 2019. Aoyama Yoshino.

Pin drop silence. Not a single light could be seen. Yoppi’s eyes were glistering with the tears she was holding back. Faint sobs could be heard from around the audience area, mine included.

After reading the letter, Yoppi tells us about how you should never hate your own home, and that we should hold dear everything that brought us to where we are now. She then introduces the next song, while expressing her gratitude.

I cried so much while she read the letter. While she writes about Kumamoto, it’s extremely similar to my hometown of Kagoshima, which is incidentally right next to Kumamoto, and it echoed in my heart so vibrantly. Every single word she said, I could relate to. Being able to stand in front of so many people, and even her own friends and family who were there as guests, and recite this letter, she really is a strong person. I respect her so much.

M08. わたしの樹

Source: お正月明けはよぴの日@かやたん (2019 01 06)

Yoppi sings alone in front of her mic. Visuals of Kumamoto play in the background. Rivers, birds, trees, temples, occassionally pictures of Yoppi herself. I couldn’t take it. People normally talk about how something “made them cry”, but they don’t actually cry, they teared up, or their heart felt heavy, feelings like that. But I actually cried. I don’t know how many years it’s been since I cried like this. I’m asthmatic, and I was actually having trouble breathing. Just thinking about how Yoppi is finally getting to sing Watashi no Ki, a song that she poured her love for Kumamoto and her childhood into, in Shimin Kaikan, a venue in Kumamoto where she holds so many memories, it must be overwhelming for her. She was tearing up as she sang it, and in the night session, she actually choked on her own words and started sobbing. It was actually so painful. I couldn’t hold back my tears at all. The screams from the crowd… 「頑張れ！」「よっぴー！」... everyone started waving their penlights blue as well. She quickly got a hold of herself, and continued singing, but stronger than any song I have ever heard her sing in my life. It was Yoppi at her maximum potential. I’m sobbing just typing this. The images are so vivid in my head. Blurry, but vivid. What I saw in that moment was an angel. An angel named Aoyama Yoshino, and it was at that moment that I realised, I am so glad to be born a Yoppi oshi. The clapping after that god tier performance only got louder and louder. That was the second longest applause at any WUG venue I’ve been to, only topped by Morioka’s special corner.

V01. INTERLUDE

A slower, lighter version of the TUNAGO instrumental played while they showed pictures of Yoppi. From her childhood, all the way to her time in WUG. Pictures of her as a baby, pictures of her school life, pictures of her performances from when she was younger, off shots of pictures she’s posted on her blog, off shots from WUG events, all pictures we have never ever seen before. After that, handwritten messages from each member to Yoppi were shown. I don’t remember the details, but they were from heart to heart and it was beautiful.

The screen goes blank, and they come back on stage wearing the new Memorial outfit.

M09. HIGAWARI PRINCESS (PRINCESS Yoshino ver.)

They changed up this song completely! They use umbrellas instead, with the princess umbrella being pink with a golden rod while everyone else’s were white. The dance was changed as well to match this. Parts where they would pass the stick around turned into them passing the umbrella around while the princess walked under it with the current holder. It felt so fresh, and I’m so glad I got to see Princess Yoshino one last time. Also, at Night, she shouts “みんな、笑って！” to get everyone to smile because everyone was soaked in tears after that special corner. I thought that was really nice of her. God bless her.

M10. 16歳のアガペー

THE SCREAMS WHEN THIS SONG CAME OUT. This is one of my favourite WUG songs. Holy shit, screaming YOPPPPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII at Kumamoto felt SO BLOODY GOOD. What’s cool was that a lot of people read between the lines and screamed Yoppi too even if she weren’t their oshi, which was extremely thoughtful. I can’t say this enough but god bless WUGners. I furicopied like there was no tomorrow and even did all the spins. At Night, there was an Aichanfag that screamed AICHAAAAN during her solo, but we’re used to that at this point.

MC4. New Outfit, New Song

They talk about their outfit and how while we’ve seen it before but this is the first time they’re showing it to everyone. Everyone screams for them to spin. In the Afternoon, Myu takes one for the team and does her ballet spin for us. She then mentions how she is the princess for the day to which Yoppi gets angry and calls her names, to which Myu responds with “I don’t want my princess status stolen by anyone else” in the most ojousama voice she can put out. After that exchange, Mayushii starts shilling some other event goods, and then starts explaining the outfit and MEMORIAL. She talks about how there are four new songs each by a different composer from MONACA and that they will be performing one of those for us today. Yoppi then tells us to try and guess who the composer is.

And the name of the song is...

M11. 言葉の結晶

Source: お正月明けはよぴの日@かやたん

In the Afternoon, there was a group of Monaca oshis sitting by us, and as soon as the first beat dropped, one of them screamed “恵一！！！” which was fucking hilarious. How the hell did they know with that little information? Regardless, this song, the entire performance was amazing. It was so different from anything WUG has ever done before. The song had so many elements that just make you go holy shit, and the dance seemed so sophisticated it’s surprising how they managed to pull off dancing the entire thing while singing. It really felt like this was the product of six years of their hard work, and to think this is the first song they unveil. How mind blowing will the next three be?! I’m not going to explain anything else about the song in case people don’t want to be spoilt. The one complaint I have is that during the instrumental part everyone at the back starts clapping which was pretty annoying when I’m trying to enjoy the new song. A lot of other people feel the same way, including Minyami.

MC5. Last Spurt

They ask us how the new song is, to which everyone responds with loud screams of approval. They talk about how difficult the song is, and how it’s much much harder than any other song they’ve ever done. They then tell us that this song was composed by Hirokawa Keiichi, and the group of Monaca oshis sat near us screamed because they were right lmao.

Mayushii then tells us that it’s now time for the last spurt, and that it’s going to be a hell of a ride.

M12. Beyond the Bottom

I’m sure you all know this but this is my favourite WUG song. The lyrics strike my heart so hard and everytime I see this song live I just can’t wave my penlight. I can’t help but stand there and gaze at them, appreciating their powerful voices and goddess tier performance. Also, I never had the chance to talk about this so I’ll talk about it now. The dance for this song has a lot of elements of them “pulling each other up”. I don’t really know how to explain because I’m not very familiar with storytelling through dance, but the biggest example is when they sing “change your mind, my friend”, the six members singing behind the one singing that line stand diagonally two by two and pull each other to each others positions. I feel like the diagonality expresses vertical positioning, one being on top of the other, and them pulling each other to each others position symbolises how they sacrifice each other to pull the other up. I think it’s really cool, and I’ll think about talking about the song lyrics and dance in more detail some other time.

M13. タチアガレ！

It’s tachiagare. It’s been performed so much and everyone and their mom has seen it there’s nothing to talk about, other than the fact that Yoppi’s solo felt a lot more powerful than usual.

M14. TUNAGO

You wouldn’t think that a slow song like this would be performed after the likes of Beyond the Bottom and タチアガレ. But believe me when I tell you that this song is just as powerful, at least from the context of a WUGner. Although TUNAGO was the theme for 4th Live Tour and the Solo Event Tour, I think it was extremely fitting for today too. In this Final Tour, we’re connecting each member’s roots together, and carving the path to SSA. It was extremely apt for them to perform this song at Kumamoto, which serves as an important point for this tour, being the first stop of Part III, as well as Yoppi herself, as the path she’s walked for the past six years has finally connected and materialised itself to her first performance in her hometown as WUG, and that while it may be the final tour, it’s only the beginning of her story.

Also, I can’t believe I remembered the steps of the「手を繋ごう」part. I haven’t seen this song since… WUG 4th Omiya I think, which was the first proper WUG live I’ve been to. Memories from those times flashed in my head and it just felt really emotional.

After they performed TUNAGO, they said their thanks, and left the stage. Wait! I didn’t get my moneys worth yet! WAKE UP, GIRLS! WAKE UP, GIRLS! WAKE UP, GIRLS!

ENCORE

After what feels like hours of chanting “WAKE UP, GIRLS!”, they finally come back on stage. This time wearing the awesome KADODE shirts with the lovely SHIFT skirts.

E01. Polaris

I was wondering why they didn’t perform this. So glad they it happened in the encore. Sitting so close to the stage, I could clearly see Mayushii’s face light up like the stars of Polaris when everyone switches their penlight to red during her solo. Yoppi also gave my renban and I a LOT of responses during this song in both afternoon and night.

E02. 地下鉄ラビリンス

FINALLY. THIS SONG IS SOOOOO FUN. WE SCREAMED SOOOO HARD. THE UH HAIS WERE INSANE. Fun fact, during the 「ぜんぜんぜん　乗りこめないよ」 part, a lot of people screamed 「オレモー！」 because it was a running meme that day over how many people missed their flights and a couple of people actually spent upwards of 70k yen just to get flights on day to make it to the live. In the middle of the song, Aichan, Myu, and Mayushii legit RUN to the second floor, while the remaining four stay on stage and do call and response for the “rap” part. They said the line, and we repeat the line. It was super fun! After that, the remaining four also walk past the aisles. This is where I got what is probably one of my best responses ever. I was sixth row aisle seat for Night, and thanks to whatever stroke of luck, Yoppi passed by that aisle. She spotted me, waved towards me from the fourth row, kept waving at me, and at sixth row she waved at me from literally 5 cm away, and kept waving at me until the seventh row, after which she gave other people waves. I got the longest wave ever, holy shit. My renban was so frustrated he wanted to switch places with me for when they walk back. Yoppi didn’t even look at him! GET FUCKED IDIOT. Yappari Yoppi loves me.

MC5. Final Messages (Afternoon)

Source: 夢だね(虎>ω<)美海 (2019 01 09)

They talked about 地下鉄ラビリンス and then shilled some announcements, and continued on to their final messages one by one.

Myu talks about how it was her first time on the second floor during this tour, and how even people not her oshis changed their penlight colour to orange for her, and that made her really happy. While she talks about how the entire year of 2018 she spent thinking about WUG and WUGners, someone from the audience screams オレモー！ to which she responds wiith オレモ and continues to talk about how she’s so glad that she was able to come to Kumamoto.

Nanamin talks about how the little things that make her realise she’s in Kumamoto, like the changes in dialect, help her enjoy Kumamoto a lot. She talks about how performing songs like Kotonoha Aoba, TUNAGO, and HIGAWARI PRINCESS in Kumamoto made her happy considering the fact that those were songs that were mainly based in Tohoku but they were able to connect (繋ぐ) those songs together all the way to Kumamoto, and make tons of new memories.

Minyami talks about how she can’t believe it’s already 2019, and how during the new years vacation they didn’t do any practice and instead everyone (almost) went back to their hometowns, and Yoppi bothered her at her home, and how when they thought about how WUGners will be going all the way to Kumamoto while thinking about WUG in their respective homes made them feel really glad. She then casually mentions how the number of people in blue were a lot more than usual (you’re damn right they were), to which Yoppi responds with “you don’t know that, maybe they’re wearing the 継続して欲しいにゃん shirts” (which was actually true). She then finishes with how it’s their first time in Kumamoto and how warm Yoppi’s home is.

Mayushii talks about how Part III has finally begun, and that the theme of the live is to get people to feel what HOME is like, and especially Kumamoto, where the corners were thought up by Yoppi and you can feel Yoppi’s love towards her home a lot. She then talks about how WUG might be based in Sendai, each part of the FINAL TOUR is in various different places, and they want these places to all feel like they’re our homes as we go to each stop.

Aichan talks about how it’s her first time in Kumamoto, and that while she lived in Sendai, she always thought of Kumamoto as an extremely far away place. Now that she’s finally here, she feels like it’s a lot closer than she thought and that she was able to understand that there’s lots of things that she can do for the place, and even though she’s physically far away, everyone’s hearts are still connected. She finishes by expressing how glad she is that her first experience in Kumamoto was with WUGners.

Kayatan talks about how Yoppi was originally the one to bring up the idea of going to everyone’s hometowns for a tour. In response, Yoppi tilts her head, making Kaya go “right?”. Yoppi then finally remembers and mentions how long of a time ago that was. Kayatan then talks about how when Yoppi came to Iwate for the Morioka live, she was really happy over how Yoppi experienced Iwate a lot, and because of that she was determined to experience Kumamoto to its fullest when she’s finally here. She then talks about the reason that she’s able to work so hard today was not only thanks to WUGners, but thanks to Yoppi as well.

Yoppi talks about how everyone says such nice things and how happy she is over that. She talks about how the moment she joined WUG she’s wanted to perform with everyone at Kumamoto, and how the earthquake that happened two years ago made her feel even stronger about this. She wants the context of WUG to not be exclusive to Tohoku, but rather it should be spread to all sorts of different places, and so being able to perform so many different WUG songs in Kumamoto makes her extremely happy, and how glad she is that one of her biggest dreams have finally been fulfilled. She then expresses her surprise that she is standing in 市民会館. She talks about how this was the place she performed a really mundane role in some random music concour during her primary school. She talks about how surprised she is over it and how when she was told that they were gunna perform at Kumamoto she imagined it would be a much smaller venue and had all these different halls in mind that she would love to go to but when she was told it would be 市民会館 her jaws literally dropped. She believed that there was no way that it would be full but WUGners proved her wrong. She expressed her thanks, and then mentions how there is still one more wish she wanted granted. What brought her to where she is today, is choir, and that she wants to perform a choir with everyone. She throws a tantrum over it and everyone responds with “really? Do we really have to?” and casually gets into formation. They then perform that one song they didn’t perform despite having worn the outfit, in acapella.

E03. 恋？で愛？で暴君です！（合唱）

It was BEAUTIFUL. It was only the chorus part that was performed, but it was so mindblowingly amazing I wish they performed it in full. I really wish I had the linguistic ability to describe it to you but it’s impossible to put into words. They really are talented.

Yoppi then talks about how happy she is that her dream was finally fulfilled and it gave her a huge smile on her face. Wait, smile? SMILE?! IT’S HERE.

MC5. Final Messages (Night)

They talked about 地下鉄ラビリンス and then shilled some announcements. They announce the title of their Final live, 「想い出のパレード」, and talk about how they thought of the title together during their uchiage and it really made them think about how difficult of a language Japanese is, and how they looked up all sorts of different kanjis and turned into chuunis. After this, they continued on to their final messages one by one.

Myu talks about how this Kumamoto live ended up a huge success thanks to Yoppi’s hard work. How Yoppi can honestly express herself from the bottom of her heart really made her believe that Yoppi truly is the leader of WUG. She then talks about how difficult the new song is to perform but be prepared for there are three more new songs and they fully convey how much WUG has grown as a unit.

Nanamin talks about how she cried listening to Yoppi recite her letter, and during わたしの樹 when all seven of them sing at the end, she cried so much that she lost her sight (I was too focused on Yoppi to even notice this orz). Listening to Yoppi talk about her mother, she remembered how much she wants to see her own mother and talk to her about today. While Yoppi might be the leader of 底辺ズ, if Yoppi were really 底辺 she wouldn’t be a part of 底辺ズ, and that they aren’t really 底辺ズ! (This made so little sense we were all laughing so hard). Myu then mentions how Nanamin called Yoppi haphazard (行き当たりばったり) in her message during the interlude, to which Nanamin added that if anything that’s Yoppi’s strong point. Finally, she says that thanks to today she was reminded of how much she loves Yoppi.

Minyami starts by talking about how she wants to talk about Yoppi but if she did she’d end up in tears. In fact, she was already about to bawl as she said that. Yoppi also makes a crying face at her, and they both start crying while looking at each other. Minyami says she really wants to talk about her, to which Yoppi responds with a go ahead. According to Minyami, people that can speak their weaknesses are really strong, which is why she thinks that Yoppi is really strong. Being able to recite that letter and even going as far as to telling everyone about her nightmare where she gets boo’d by everyone, Yoppi just blurts out all of that. But if it were Minyami, she would never do it. Yoppi being able to speak her heart like that really makes Minyami glad that she’s the leader. She then talks about how Minyami’s mother is in the audience right now and she’s probably crying as well. Her mother always said that she wanted to go to a live outside of Kanto after seeing everyone elses mothers come from all over Japan to see their daughters perform in Kanto, so she went out of her way to come to Kumamoto. She talks about how being able to feel family ties like that is all thanks to Yoppi, and the fact that so many people came all the way to Kumamoto to see them perform is thanks to Yoppi as well.

Mayushii talks about how after hearing everyone else talk about Yoppi, it made her want to talk about her too, but she won’t, because it would end up really long. Yoppi sarcastically mentions to her that there’s time, so she does anyway. She talks about how Yoppi has troubled her quite a lot, but it’s only because Yoppi trusts her a lot. She talks about how Yoppi always talks about how much she doesn’t understand herself, but she’s probably the one that understands herself the best. She’s able to turn all her weaknesses into weapons, but she does it all unconciously, and how unfair that is. She talks about how close to a miracle it is that she’s able to do these things and get people to follow along with her, and that their trusts and bonds were built thanks to Yoppi in a way as well. So while everyone makes fun of her by calling her a klutz, she;s still the leader. She then says she’ll talk about her more later. Finally, she says that the 門 (gate) of 門出 (kadode) is not a gateway to the end, but rather a doorway to new beginnings.

Aichan talks about how she’s glad that her first live, and first job of 2019 was at Kumamoto. She talks how she learnt a lot from Yoppi today, that you only realise the good things about your hometown after you leave. She also talks about how when Yoppi was talking about her negatives, Aichan thought about how she would never say it like she did. She talks about how it’s difficult for anyone to talk about their weaknesses, and that Yoppi is really strong for being able to do that and that everyone is following her as a leader because of this. (I’m going to be honest, it really felt like Aichan was pulling this shit out of her ass, I felt no love in it and I have no idea why. For one though, Aichan didn’t look at Yoppi once while she was talking about her. It’s just so weird…)

Kayatan starts puzzled as to what about Yoppi she should talk about, and that there’s so much she wants to talk about and she wants to talk about it with Yoppi herself. She then talks to Yoppi about how back then she would often share hotel rooms but recently because they’re all in single rooms now they haven’t really had deep conversations much. She talks about how she was able to feel Yoppi a lot today, and how because Yoppi was the leader, she never had to work as much (sarcastically). Minyami then reminds her that during the first couple of days as WUG, for a very short period of time Kaya was made the interim leader, after which Kaya adds that that position was taken away by Yoppi (sarcastically). She makes fun of Yoppi a lot like this, and then talked about all of the good qualities Yoppi has that makes her a great leader.

Finally, Yoppi. Thanks to Animate Times, the (partial) transcription of Yoppis final MC is documented, so I’ll just translate that while adding the extra undocumented stuff in. Before she started talking though, Mayushii forcefully brought Yoppi to the centre of the stage.

Did you all have fun at my hometown of Kumamoto? Your’re all so loud! Everyone’s so wonderful, they say so much nice stuff about me, but it’s not true. I just can’t hide anything! Whatever it may be about, I want everyone to hear it. But, despite that, there’s still a feeling behind my head of not wanting to say anything (laughs). There hasn’t been any recently, but during watashikais and stuff the more you oshi me the colder my behaviour will be towards you (which explains EVERYTHING, Yoppi never hated me feelsgoodman). Everyone was being tested!

But today, I wanted to properly convey my feelings, which is why I wrote that letter. During the first 2~3 years as WUG, I would always think to myself that I will never come back to Kumamoto. I always regretted being born here, and I would even attack my mother asking her why she would birth me here, and thinking about it now I regret it a lot. But, after leaving Kumamoto did I realise how warm everyone was, and how pointless of a thing I’ve done. I want all of you to feel the warmth of Kumamoto, and impart it to future generations.

I’m! So glad to have met all of you! (audience screams オレモー) You all say such nice stuff to me but I too have something I want to say (言いたいことがあるんだよ)! 好き好き大好きめっちゃ好き! (Yeah, she said めっちゃ instead of やっぱ lol)

Standing here, I am reminded of my childhood when I was chasing my dreams, and finally having my dreams fulfilled, standing here with the members that I love, and the staff that are sobbing at the back there, turn the audience lights on! I can’t see everyone’s faces! (apparently according to some people on twitter the staff were laughing their ass off when this happened) Being surrounded by so many people and having my dreams fulfilled, I am extremely extremely happy!

Part III has finally begun, and we’ll be going at it with all our hearts, so everyone! Please live!!! Thank you all so much for today!

She then remembers that she forgot to talk about something, and starts talking about how this hall is a 聖地 to her, and that if this place didn’t exist she would never have been able to become a seiyuu, which is why she wants to fulfill her final dream of doing a choir with everyone here. They repeat the Afternoon process of exchanging words of unmotivation but ultimately get into position and start singing.

E03. 言の葉 青葉（合唱）

This brought back memories of the special corner at Morioka. It was so beautiful. I’m glad they picked this song, as it means so much as a WUGner, and it means so much to them as WUG too. As they said during their MC, being able to take all these songs that were originally written with Tohoku in mind, and bring it to such far away places and still be able to increase its sentimental value is an extremely wonderful thing. Thank you, WUG.

After this Yoppi talks about how glad she is that she could finally sing this song, as a choir, at Kumamoto, and it put a huge smile on her face. Wait… smile? Masaka...

E04. 笑顔！極上！スマイル！

NANDAKA CHIGAU

SHAAAAASHIIIIN

TEEEE MITAAAAAAA

SHIMAUUUUUUU

NATTAYOOOOOO

TAIGA FAIYA SAIBA FAIBA DAIBA BAIBA JAAAA JAAA

HOUSAKU HOUSAKU

HIIIIIROI

SUUUUGOOOI

NIII KITEEEE

KITE NEEEE

TORA HI JINZOU SENI AMA SHINDOU KASEEEEEN

*fast claps*

They say their thanks, Nanamin waves at me in the Afternoon, and they leave the stage. At Night, before leaving, Mayushii says that Osaka’s next, and asks if everyone is ready. As someone not going to Osaka, I remained quiet as everyone around me screamed. FeelsBadMan.

V02. Post-Live Video Message

With a music box version of Kotoba no Kesshou playing in the background, a small video message from WUG played. In Afternoon, it was them saying how their gunna put in their all for Night, and at Night it was them thanking everyone for coming to Kumamoto, and since Osaka is next, everyone should get ready.

After the live was over and everyone was getting their stuff ready, I screamed with all my heart.

「公式さん！WUG熊本公演！開催してくれて！ありがとう！」

「よっぴー推しに生まれて良かった！」

Everyone screamed, and a lot of people screamed back 「オレモー！」which was awesome. A lot of people screamed 「WUG最高！」 afterwards too and every time someone screamed the crowd roared. We found our way out of the hall, back into reality.

And that was the end. Thank you WUG. Thank you Yoppi. Thank you for showing me what is most likely the most beautiful stage I will ever see in my life. I will never forget this day. 5th of January 2019 will forever be marked on my calendar as the turning point of my life. I’m so glad to be born a Yoppi oshi. I have been saying since the end of November that now is the best time to be a Yoppi oshi, and this live only further strengthened my opinion. I can’t wait to be back in Kumamoto, and I hope the next time I’m back it’s for Yoppi Solo Live. I will always, always support you Yoppi. You’re the only one that matters. Ganbappe!

POST-LIVE BLOGS

Nanami

Firstly, I want to say my thanks for Kumamoto ☆

Yoppi, Mayushii, and me, the three of us Team Nishi Nihon performed Kakeru x Kakeru!

Ranga-chaaaan...!

Our debut felt exactly like the lyrics of this song…

But honestly, this song reminds me less of our past time, but makes us think about the present and what’s to come

It makes me feel sympathy, that’s the kind of lyrics they are （´-`）.｡oO

I wonder if Ranga-chan feels the same way??

Everytime I listen to this song I feel like hugging Ranga-chan with all my heart!

That’s the kind of song Kakeru x Kakeru is to me (*^^*)

The reading live written by Mayushii is our story from 5, 6 years ago.

We would go to Tokyo every week by plane, and we would always head to Haneda Airport together on our way back.

Since we’ve all moved to Tokyo now, it felt really nostalgic and that made me happy! ◎

WUG based in Tohoku, and the three of us from West Japan ^^

Kumamoto, Tokushima, and Osaka tomorrow as well

With the three of us, I’m sure we can bring WUG to West Japan with all our hearts!!

And that makes me really proud （＾ν＾）

Source: 大阪行き新幹線Nanaminn

Kaya

And the first event of 2019 was, WUG Tour Kumamoto!

It’s been a while since we last wore the Boukun outfit!

Also, we wore the new outfit that is being used in the cover art of our Best album that comes out on the 23rd of January for the first time ♪

How was it?

It uses a lot of lace and it’s so cute 💕

Patches and chokers too 💕

With that said, Kumamoto is our leader Aoyama Yoshino’s hometown ☆

She would always talk about how much she wants to go to Kumamoto with everyone! ♪

Her feeling of wanting to make it a success really echoed within us, and made me want to be as supportive as possible.

Everytime I sing the「祈り捧げるよ」part of BTB, what I’m thinking at that moment is different, but today, I prayed for Yoppi, who moved to Tokyo all the way from Kumamoto and is working hard everyday, to have all her future dreams come true ☆

There are people that are already working despite it being right after New Year’s, but came today instead of resting a little bit more!

Everyone, thank you so much!

Yoppi, otsukaresama! ☆

Source: お正月明けはよぴの日@かやたん

Yoshino

Ohayoppi---! It’s me, Aoyama Yoshino. How are you all? Tokyo’s really cold today!

This time, there only one thing I want to talk about! Den! HOME Tour Part 3 KAKODE has finally started!! Den! And the first stop, Kumamoto is finally done~~!!! Including the preparation period, I was sooooo nervous. Thanks to that, I see such weird first dreams. Lmao. But thanks to all of you! It was a success!!! Yay!!! 🎉🎉🎉

It’s finally calmed down a bit so I can write down my thoughts, but just the thought of everyone walking the streets of Kumamoto has me all excited! It makes me want to boast about everything I saw, and I’m sure Kumamoto WUGners feel the same way! ☺️☺️

Things I never would have guessed leaving an impression on people, makes me so glad 🙆‍♀

Something as normal as the taste of dagojiru, which is as normal as that feeling of entering your bed when you’re sleepy. It made me so surprised.

And this! Everyone was wondering what this was at the conbini and it made me so surprised. Is this only sold in Kumamoto? They show that Rakunou Mothers commercial so often on TV!

(Sorry for the sudden selfie)

And with that came the Kumamoto live! 🐻 Since the setlist is a secret for now, I’ll talk about the special corner.

In Kumamoto, Yoppi, Nanamin, and Mayushii formed チーム西日本 (Team West Japan) and covered カケル×カケル by our kouhai unit, Run Girls, Run! Ever since I head this song for the first time, I’ve been wanting to sing it in West Japan. I did the Mocchi part, since we’re both the leader~~◎ There’s a uniqueness to her singing and I love it. Fufu.

We might not be able to meet for some time

I hold my empty hands tight saying

Wait for me, don’t forget me

These lyrics pierced straight into my heart.

After that, in the afternoon we did a チーム西日本 reading live written by Mayushii, and at night I read everyone a letter.

After which, I sang my solo song わたしの樹, which was written with my hometown in mind.

I am glad to have been able to sing this song at Kumamoto.

I am so glad to have been able to sing it as all seven of us.

WUG-chan all talked about how I’m so strong, but in reality I am so weak, but being able to turn these weaknesses into a weapon was all thanks to WUG. On the other hand, everyone being able to hide their weaknesses is stronger! It’s wonderful!!

I am always of no help to anyone, I really am haphazard, I leave my actions to my emotions, and whatever I can’t do I immediately pass to someone else.

But, I was able to grow stronger thanks to WUG! Thank you for making me stronger.

はーーー好き。好き大好きやっぱ好き。

まじでわたしが生まれた理由みんなに出会うためなんだよなあ…？

俺と一緒に人生歩…んでるんだよなあ…？はぁ運命。

(Yoppi doing gachikoi, talking about how she loves everyone and the reason she was born was to meet everyone, and that she wants to walk her life with every- wait, she already is, and it’s fate.)

All of our feelings will be conveyed during this tour! Get ready!

And then, our new song 「言葉の結晶」

P-Professor Hirokawa~~~ Explosion~~~~!!!! The deeper you read into Tadano-sensei’s lyrics, the more complex it gets, but it’s the truth. It was the first time in my life having to erase my feelings and record and perform like this. This song has a lot of messages, and I want to do my best and improve the performance for this song until I’m happy with it.

There is a short version uploaded right now, but please listen to the full version! Although, currently you can only hear the full version at a live!!!!! ◎

Also, this time, I called all my elementary, middle, and high school friends. What all these friends have in common, is that they supported me in fulfilling my dream, and I’m so glad I was able to finally show them that my dream was fulfilled! This was how I showed my gratitude.

The person that wrote the final message in the background video for わたしの樹 came too! 😭✨ I cried so much… I layed down and cried lol.

Kumamoto ended with the staff, and me, crying our hearts out. A lot of things that could only have been done in Kumamoto have been fulfilled, and it was all thanks to everyone!!! Thank you so much!!!

After that, we did an uchiage with all the staff and the members. Everyone kept saying: basashi is great, karashi renkon is great, taipien is great, amakusa daio is great, akagyu is great… they kept saying how tasty all of Kumamoto’s cuisine were and seeing that made me sooooo happy!! I had a huge smile on my face that screamed “Right? Right? Eat more!”, and I probably said that out loud too lol.

Seeing WUG-chan eat like this after so long made me so happy!

Did you all get to eat good food too? Did you all have fun?

I’m so proud, to have been born here, and be able to meet all of you. I’m glad.

Source: 今週の総括・*・:≡( ε:)よぴ237。

[luvtessascott]

Battle of the Blades: Epi 1 Write-Up (Live Taping)

Last Thursday, I got the opportunity to attend the Battle of the Blades live filming with Danielle, her mom, and my mom. We had dinner at this great German restaurant in town and had amazing Schnitzel. [[Danielle wants you to know that Schnitzel and Spaetzle is the love of her life]]. Since Danielle was shooting the event, we got to the venue quite early around 5:45pm. Danielle went straight in while the rest of us stayed outside for a bit. We saw Mike Marinaro and Alma Moir outside so we chatted with them for a while (Danielle's Mom knows them more personally).

After that we headed into the venue and local skating clubs and hockey teams had some skaters paired together for a little show. These were the skaters that Scott had worked with a few weeks prior. They were all very cute, each pair containing a figure skater and a hockey player. Tessa, Scott, and Colby (the 3rd judge, who used to be a contest) came out to watch the little kids perform. Tessa looked like an ABSOLUTE DIVA in the black jumpsuit and the bangs and updo. I LOVED IT! My mom didn't even recognize Tessa with her hair and outfit. I pointed them out and my mom said "That's Scott but that doesn't look like Tessa". At that time they were in shoes so I had no clue they were going to wear skates. From the first time they sat in the judges chairs, you could sort of tell that Scott was uncomfortable in the tall chairs. He like sat down and then got up and sat on the edge with his feet on the ground. They left right after the performances and didn't come back till being announced at the beginning of the show.

The venue was nicely set up with the judges on one short end of the rink and the skaters entering from the other. They had giant screens on both sides of the rink and the Battle of the Blades signs on both sides with lots of sparkles. Just before the taping started they had all of us move down as close as possible to fill in all the empty seats. That worked out great for us as we ended up being 3rd row! So close that it was a better shooting location for Danielle that she came to sit with us.

When they introduced Tessa and Scott there was an arena wide standing ovation! I was surprised they were in skates while being real clothes, it was kind of funny LOL. It was so nice to see such a warm response to them and have the whole crowd on their feet. Since everyone was talking about the hand grab thing, it was one of those reaching for her hand without looking and landing on her wrist. If you watch my video again they turn to go back to their seats and hold hands properly, so calm down. Right after they launched into their retirement spiel. I have a video of it that I posted on my Youtube, linked here (x). Sorry about them being in portrait, you'd think by now I'd remember to make them landscape but it was a fast record it and I forget!

For the show itself, I was super excited to see Natalie Spooner because I'm a fan of hers. She was really great with Andrew, I thought her posture was so great for a hockey player. For sure Shelley and Kaitlyn were my biggest surprise. Danielle and I were SCREAMING when they started doing the polka-- how adventurous for a first outing! The crowd had a great atmosphere and was reacting well to everything it was a nice crowd to be in. The costumes for the most part were really well done-- kudos to Matthieu of course! I thought that the judges might change out of their skates after the intro but they were in them the whole time. Kurt was the first one to jump up and show a skater an example of what they’d like to see from them and then it made sense to why the judges were so far from where the skaters were standing to get their scores! The tv crew wanted the judges to stand up and show the skills as needed and left them ice space to do that. Danielle and I got the vibes really quickly that Tessa and Scott were playing good cop bad cop on judging. Tessa being positive and Scott giving those coaches corrections, it seemed to be working well. I wonder if they’ll switch that up next time.

During commercial breaks, all the judges would get make-up and hair touch-ups! Kelly was there fixing Tessa's hair as well as the make-up person. Scott was always quick to jump out of his seat (which he had been fidgeting in the whole time) and skate around or talk to Kurt. Tessa would also chat with Colby some of the time. Other times, Scott would stand in front of Tessa and they would chat. It was nice to see them looking at each other when dancing in their seats to the music, laughing, and whispering with each other as usual (typical VM dynamic!).

Since Tessa and Scott represented one score, they would whisper to each other during the performances. Tessa often holding up her cue card for them to look at and then they would quickly decide on a score. I know there was lots of talk about Scott talking over Tessa but I have to mention that the judges chairs were pretty far apart and there was a mic delay. Tessa and Scott were also seated side by side where in interviews they can usually sit on angles so they can anticipate when they finish speaking. I think it was just honest mistakes when they overlapped.

At the end of the night, we ran into Cara and Alma and had another quick chat with them. And just before leaving in the parking lot we saw QUEEN KIRSTEN MOORE-TOWERS!! She always has such great outfits and is SO SWEET-- she remembered me and HUGGED me (I DIE). After chatting with her for a bit, we called it a night. We had a really good time! We were planning on going to the finale but when we went to get tickets they were ALL SOLD OUT. So as of rn, I don't have ticket but hopefully they'll release more. I'm looking forward to watching the season on tv!

(This was a second time I wrote this, bc it got deleted so if I remember anything I add it after).

[kitto-toberu-sa]

Sailor Moon The Super Live Report - August 31st (first performance, heart team)

Place: Aiia Theatre Placement: Row 10, Seat 42 (middle, far right)

First, I swore I wasn’t going to buy merch and am SO glad they had so little on offer ;; I bought the pamphlet (which is basically a double sided poster, one of the main image and the other side being info with pics of the different teams) and the light stick.

Second, the show isn’t sold out. Sure, it started a little early (7pm) but it was a Friday night and opening night of a mega popular franchise? Strange for it not to have been sold out, especially since the theatre isn’t that big. (For reference, I was in row 10, seat 42, and the seat next to me was empty, as were others around me). There have been a lot of events and new merch recently though, so I can understand.

They’re also still selling tickets at the door, and are giving out freebies. Little bookmark things of the Inner Senshi with manga art (one of each Senshi, randomly given). They’re quite nice! Another enticement is different events happening after each performance. On opening night they randomly selected about twenty people to have photos with the cast. There is also a high five event on other nights, and it looks like they give out goods on other nights.

The show is VERY dialogue light. As in, there is maybe five minutes worth of dialogue the entire show (not including the live performance part). And that’s incredibly generous. This is understandable – this show is only doing two showings in France, so the effort to translate would be a lot. It’s not cost effective. The audience also more than likely knows the story. The story is the first arc, hugely condensed. I think it worked quite well without a whole lot of dialogue. The cast had to work that much harder on facial expressions and their body language to make up for not speaking.

The show is 80 minutes long. There is no interval. After the play part, there is a song part.

Now, onto the show!

We start off with Queen Beryl and her minions. She’s controlling them and their dancing. Like, SeraMyu is great and I love it, but there is still part of it that’s stuck in years gone by. This is very modern. I don’t really know or care who Takahiro is, but he did a good job! The music and dance throughout the performance is really good! It’s very modern. Perhaps because it was opening night, sometimes the music felt too loud. Not in a good way, but in a it sometimes makes the cast hard to hear way.

Anyway, they’re dancing, kinda like cool zombies? The scenery changes on a screen behind them, showing the battle for earth. Kunzite appears and shows off his sword before taking command of the troops. Unfortunately, the sword was almost dropped… We see a screen of Usagi running – it’s kinda clumsy and ugly, but it reminds me of the live action show, which I’m very fond of, so I can’t be too harsh on it. Beryl then attacks this screen, and we come to earth, present time.

Usagi yells about being late and runs through the audience. Her entrance is GORGEOUS! Why? She’s got glitter in her school bag, so as she runs, glitter is flying everywhere. It’s super shojou and anime. Very simple and cheap, but literally everyone was smiling. I feel bad for the staff who had to clean it up though haha

She stumbles on stage and drops her brooch, and keeps going. Mamoru picks it up, teases her and as she grabs it, they start to remember their old lives. Of course, that’s weird and Usagi’s late, so she grabs her brooch and goes. They part, but then stop, turn to look at each other, and are about to go back to each other when the music starts and sends them on their way. An instrumental version of Moonlight Densetsu plays. As it plays, it shows the characters and gives their names – interestingly, the names are Romanised instead of being in katakana, and the images shown are manga panels. It makes sense not to use the live images, as there are three teams, but I wonder why they choose manga over anime. I honestly think it was a great choice though.

We get a brief scene of Sailor Moon fighting a monster. She’s dodging and crying, but she also fights back. She also cheers for herself when she gets a good hit in, which is super cute. Makes her a very human character. Tuxedo Mask does save her and gives her a chance to fight back, and she runs off after him.

It’s time for school! Miss Haruna makes her appearance~ Honestly her look is iconic (the pink suit) and I love that they brought her back. The students do a dance as they start their daily routine and test results are returned. It’s pretty cute, though too long for me to care about. Usagi rushes in, gets scolded, realises she doesn’t have her textbook, is scolded again, isn’t able to share with her friends, steals Haruna’s book, and joins in on the dance while doing all of this.

Of course, things are going fine until everyone is suddenly infected with Dark Energy (a la Kunzite lurking in the corner). Cue zombie dancing again. This, again, went on slightly too long. It wasn’t particularly good, and the costumes were a little tacky – essentially the stage was mostly dark and certain parts of the zombies/infected people lit up (glow in the dark socks and so on). Usgai basically runs around screaming for a while until Tuxedo Mask comes to save her. Understandable – she doesn’t want to hurt her friends or transform in front of everyone.

Unfortunately, Tuxedo Mask dropped their cane and stepped on it, almost falling. She caught herself really well, so props to the actress there. (I believe it was this scene – could have been the arcade scene)

She fawns over Tuxedo Mask again and after the day is saved, class is over. Everyone leaves as Usagi daydreams with these ridiculous heart eyes. A scene that reminded me of the theme park episode from the 90’s anime – they have a sort of carousel thing going on, and it’s very fairy tale like. It was very nostalgic to see it and remember the old anime.

Afterwards she meets up with everyone who scolds her for being late. They sing about how they met – a very cute and sweet song. Then suddenly we’re in Harajuku!

This part is sort of odd if you live in Japan. Since this production was made for showing Japanese culture abroad, for the Japanese audience, this didn’t have a lot of meaning for the home audience. It was also horribly outdated. The gothic Lolita outfits were ugly and super outdated, and I don’t really associate Harajuku with gothic Lolita. Nowadays it’s a variety of different looks and it would have been super nice to see a variety of styles shown, as well as styles that are from this decade ;; The outfits that the Senshi changed into were ugly clown like outfits and I hate them too.

However, it was a nice attempt in showing off a variety of Japanese things. For example, the girls do a bit of traditional dance (fitting for Bon Odori at this time of year) and also eat fairy floss (cotton candy) and crepes that Harajuku is famous for (at least on Instagram ;p). They also have the dancing with the light sticks, which… isn’t a Harajuku thing ;; More of an Akiba thing, but it’ll slide!

Usagi is separated from the group and ends up the arcade. Mamoru teases her for being so bad, and plays himself. He gets a high score and they high five, before they both remember they’re meant to hate each other. Kunzite is in a mascot outfit, shakes his bottom at Usagi who touches it and shows her a new game to play. I’m… not sure why this was necessary? I mean, it’s low key great, and bizarre, especially because Kunzite initiates it? I just… don’t understand it…

Mamoru is sucked into the Sailor V game, and keeps getting beaten up because Usagi sucks so much. He’s trying to get her attention but she’s too focussed on trying to win ;; She gets better in the second round and Tux is pleasantly surprised. He then promptly dies ;;; On her third attempt, Kunzite throws her into the game too.

The Senshi appear to fight. Their introduction song is honestly a fave of mine. I believe it (and all of the songs) are remixes of old songs (both anime and musical). If I find out which ones they are I’ll edit this post (I currently don’t have internet at home..). This scene is pretty good. Unlike some of the other dance scenes which drag, this scene, through song, tells about the characters and their powers.

Tuxedo Mask is taken away, and everyone is unsure of how to comfort Sailor Moon. I think it’s fitting that Venus is about to step in, but Mercury ends up talking to her first. And by talking, I mean singing Otome Policy. A lot of the performances are predictable in that they go by the order of which the Senshi appeared, so it would have been nice to have that shaken up a bit, but it’s not that big of a deal.

In Beryl’s world, Tuxedo Mask is possessed. Beryl is very pleased and they start to tango. The actress is wonderful – Tux is possessed, but isn’t fully under Beryl’s influence, so there’s point he tries to break free or doesn’t follow along. This was pretty believable! Beryl, on the other hand, is unconcerned – she’s in control and enjoying having the man she wants with her. Meanwhile, Kunzite lurks in the corner.

They teleport to Beryl’s world where they fight Kunzite and his creepy zombies. Honestly if someone aggressively danced their way at me I’d be terrified lol! Kunzite is super strong, and takes down all of the Senshi. Venus gets her sword and fights Kunzite, but they both remember their past. Beryl isn’t impressed and he ends up dead.

This scene was really touching. I felt a lot for her. They show Kunzite’s soul floating away, and her following it briefly, trying to catch it. She realises it’s no use. Everyone goes to comfort her, even though they don’t particularly know what’s going on.

They then have to fight monsters and Mask. Honestly, everyone except Moon and Venus should have been stronger than they were. Venus just got an unwelcomed flashback from her past life and lost her former boyfriend, so it’s understandable when she fails. Moon is fighting the love of her life. Everyone else felt a bit weak.

The Senshi end up dying, and Beryl kills Mask when he responds to Usagi.

Usagi is left with Beryl, and kind of… interpretative dances her feelings out? The start is a little long and messy, but as she starts to go from no confidence, I’ve lost everything, why try?, to I have to do this, I can do this… it’s amazing. She’s taking all of Beryl’s hits and throwing them off and is the strong Sailor Moon we all love.

Beryl tries to suck her up with her darkness, and Sailor Moon walks straight in. She comes back out with her new Moon Stick, glowing brightly. She beats Beryl and dies? But Tuxedo Mask brings her back with a kiss. The other Senshi return as well.

Unfortunately, Mask accidentally turned the Moon Stick back on ;;; I don’t think it really need to be turned off in the first place. (Especially because it looks very ugly and cheap turned off – it’s also silver, when I think pink would be better suited) But that marks the end of all the obvious mistakes. For a first try, it isn’t so bad! I think they could have been fixed easily, with perhaps a bit of design done differently.

From here, there are some quick bows before the song portion.

Song part When it comes to singing, everyone was really good. However, Sailor Venus (Sena) stood out. Perhaps I’m a little bit biased, as Sena is the reason I chose this team over the others, but still. The others faltered a bit at times, or their mics weren’t properly in position, or their voices weren’t loud enough. Sena wasn’t perfect, but out of everyone, her voice was the clearest and most confident.

The songs were all really good choices. There were a few repeats of what was already in the show, most notably Otome Policy in a more pop version rather than the piano version from earlier.

Of course, I’m incredibly biased, but the best song was La Solider~ It’s honestly one of my favourite songs and I’m so so so glad they played it!

They left the stage to come back briefly for a few more songs. In between some of the songs were the dancers getting a bit of stage time, which was nice. Those girls do some really cool stuff, so it’s nice for them to get their dues.

Of course, everything ended with Moonlight Densetsu. Most the characters got solo or duet lines. This is the part where they ran around the audience, giving high fives. I was so close, yet so far T.T Buuuuut Sailor Venus blew me a kiss, so nothing else really matters haha~

We all got a little gift (clear bookmark?) and I got Moon. Some people in the audience were allowed to take pictures with the members. About twenty people I think? How lucky! I waited around with other fans to try and see the actresses as they left, but gave up in the end. It was a good night, and I’m really glad I went!

Summary Enjoyable: 5/5 Worth the ticket price: 5/5 Re-watchable: 4/5 If this was sold on dvd, would I buy it: 3.5/5

[arbitrarygreay]

Morning Musume NYC 2018, Saturday

Saturday was concert day, and I was determined to get on the railing. Since merch was sold at the con, the concert venue line wouldn't be split between merch and standing position, either. In the past, the line would be at the end of the block by 7AM, so we got to the building at 6AM, only to discover that people had still gotten there at 5AM. Thankfully, we were within the first 20 or so again. But, perhaps because it was shared concert, or because there had already been a lot of interaction with the girls the day before, there were shockingly few people who chose to camp the line. As always, camping an entire day for a concert is actually pretty fun, as everyone in line is there for the same reason, so there's little awkwardness in talking. As this was my third time for MM already, there were several people we knew from previous events, too. We interacted with the Japanese fans quite a bit. One of them was giving out A Gonna/Are You Happy CDs, as well as old member uchiwas. Importantly, the J-fen dished that while camping they airport, they noticed that Maria arrived from a flight from San Francisco, rather than with the rest of the group from Japan. The implication of this is a photobook shoot. One of my proudest accomplishments for this weekend was that I asked the Japanese fans if I could plug in my music player into their speaker, and then proceeded to play a bunch of mashups. It was hilarious seeing the reactions, as people further away in the line could also hear the music, and their surprise at every reveal and transition was great. I also had several people ask me to send them the links of where I found these mashups. I played around with the idea of also camping the stage door entrance to catch the guests entering the building for sound checks, but with no luck all morning, so I gave up. So, of course, as I did a jog around the building later to warm myself up, I caught Kitadani entering the building, hah. The entrance into the building was quite frustrating. They opened two doors, and both had both bag checks and metal detectors. So many people behind us got ahead because the bag checker for their door was more lax, and I also had to wreck my item organization in order to get all of the metal stuff out of my pockets (phone, music player, keys, etc.) Secondly, you were supposed to pick up your VIP badge before entering the venue, and they weren't taking it on faith that the ticket with the barcode was the real deal, so I had to dig through my email archive to find a record with the price paid on it, in order to get my badge, and the switch back to the ticket itself to scan into the concert hall. I definitely entered later than my place in the line had been. Again, thankfully, I still made it to the railing. We waited for an hour for the concert from that point, and the music playlist in the hall was all Lantis, no UFA. Boo. Was amusing when Country Roads came up once, though (as Kageyama had covered it once). I also discovered that VIP included a handshake-ish event, so I started actually thinking of what to say to the girls, unlike with the autograph session. It was funny, all of us MM fans were hoping that one of the collabs would be USA, while none of the anisong fans even knew what that was. One of them even though Da Pump was a Kpop band. The concert itself was fun. Most of VIP was MM fans, but there were just enough anisong fans to show how excited they were about the setlist from those artists. Us MM fans did our best to make every guest feel welcome, though. The concert ended up being between 3 and 4 hours. The other three guests performed about half an hour each, while MM got a full hour, though they did not perform last. There were also multiple collaboration songs between the guests. MM were great, of course. It was hilarious, one anisong fan said that she only vaguely knew MM through their Golden Age songs, and was completely bowled over at the new Kpopified version before her. A downside to this, though, is that few of MM's modern songs lend themselves to tradition lightstick patterns, so our movements during MM's set may have, ironically, been less organized than for the anisongs. But we made up for it in enthusiasm, singing along, and screaming our voices out at every opportunity. Abs watch was too good, but the real story was hair watch, and it was all fab. The girls repeated the introduction style of giving their names and favorite anime. Honey changed her choice to Jojo's, while Maa said just Disney instead of Disney Channel. I'd say that Maria got the best intro screams of the night. Eripon flubbed her line and we started an "eeeeehhh" and she was really ticked off, lol. During Cha La Head Cha La, Maa forgot where she was supposed to be in the line, and Sakura had to correct her. I went for yellow and white lights, for Honey and Chii. My setlist prediction was a bit of a wash. They did both songs from the single, NO SATURDAY NIGHT BOOOOOOOOOOO, no How Do You Like This Japan (as their jumping choice of song for the night was What is Love), and no Jerajera ;_;. All in all, though, it was a great time. No matter the song choice, the girls were going to give a great performance, and they did. Notably, there was no big concert screen, or any steadicams in the press pit. This indicates that there won't be a regular DVD release of this concert (the licensing for the other artists was probably too onerous). A big side effect of this, though, was that for anyone not so close to the stage, the solo performances weren't so exciting as the girls' formation dancing. At the end of the concert, we started a Harunan chant and a yellow ocean. Pretty sure we really ticked off the anisong fans at the point, lol. Some of them though we were trying for an encore. Honey blogged the next day that she heard it all way on the third floor, and later she had a few pictures with the other guests where she was holding one of the yellow glowsticks that had been passed out to help facilitate the yellow ocean. After all of the non-VIPs had exited the building, they set up the tables for us to high five all of the guests. The non-MM's went first, and then the girls went in reverse-seniority order. I AM SO GLAD I REHEARSED WHAT TO SAY, and it was complete and utter success. I both fist bumped and high fived the non-MMs. Gave a "Country Saikou!" to Chii, a "Yo Bonito Queen" to Yokoyan, who was really tired at the point, kind of froze on Dii, sorry. I was planning on asking if she had bought a Gunpla, if it was a handshake, but that would be weird for a high-five setting. I did a mustache twirl for Maria, which made her laugh, and then I was like pretty much about to freeze for the rest of the girls when my friend and I both all but accosted Maria with questions about if she was in San Francisco or not. She said yes, but in that setting she might have said yes to anything. But it carried me through Chel, Sakura, and Maa with us just telling them we came from San Fran and that they should perform there, so that kind of saved me from freezing. I told Ayumi "meccha kirei," and my friend did a "Snefuru kakkoi," told Honey "omedetou," gave Eripon a "yo subleader!" and saluted Fukuchan as leader. She saluted back! And then the high five line was done, a complete and utter success, with an autographed poster to finish it all off. It was magical. Best interaction line I've ever had. (Also, since it was explicitly a high-five line, all of the girls gave great high fives unlike Angerme.) We then headed to the stage door, and the security there was gracious enough to set up a railing to clearly delineate where we could stand, and it was hella close to the door, too. The downside was that we were originally going to sing Saturday Night to them, but then they told us all to put our phones away, so we couldn't look at lyrics, and that part fizzled. But we gave "Otskaresama deshitas" to the various Staff and the other guests. The girls were in two separate vans, sorted by age and gen. Maa looked like a complete diva, wearing a diamond-patterned fur coat, a hat, and sunglasses, swaggering to the van. Meanwhile, Eripon was like in a full head wrap, with just her eyes visible. None of them were as pro as Angerme's stage door exit, though, none filmed with their phones or did Dawa's genius phone flashlight in the van move. I tried dancing Saturday night a bit, but it probably just looked like more Furari Ginza dabbing, lol. There was both an afterparty hosted by the J-fen and a locally hosted karaoke session, but we declined both to grab dinner with some of the new friends we had made, and then headed to bed.

[cardcaptorcoconut]

Sakura Fest 2018

Sorry it took so long to write this up!  I’m finally on a proper “weekend” break for the first time in nearly 2 months (thank god for comp days!) so this is my first chance to really sit down and write up the rundown of Sakura Fes 2018.  It’s been a few weeks since the event happened, but I typed up a bunch of notes that night to make sure I remembered as much as possible. :)

This post is really long and text heavy, so apologies in advance!  Also, please keep in mind for those of you who have not caught up to the halfway point in the anime that there are heavy spoilers for the first half of the season.

For the Japanese rundown of with some additional photos during the event, there is a link here with some.

[EDIT]  There were mispellings for Saori Hayami’s name. I’ve fixed it now.

This year’s Sakura Fes was held at Maihama Amphitheater, right next door to Tokyo Disneyland.  It’s so close by you can hear and see the park rides.  This was a much larger venue than last year’s event at Rune Kodaira Hall (total capacity in the large hall there is 1,229 people vs Maihama Amphitheater’s 2,170) and much more centralized in Tokyo.  As with last year, there were two performances - the afternoon one and the evening one.

Tickets for the event really blew me away this time around.  I didn’t win the lottery tickets early on, but waited for the general ones to go on sale.  The morning they did, tickets for BOTH events FULLY sold out within only 10 minutes!  I tried to get tickets for the afternoon event, but they disappeared just as I was buying them.  Luckily, I snatched up ones for the evening event this time (and am SUPER glad that I did!).

#1)  Before the Event

Even though I was going to the later one, a good friend of mine in Tokyo had lucked out and gotten herself a lottery ticket for the early show, so I met up with her before it started.  I loitered around outside with her until it was time for her session to start.

There were TONS of people waiting around for the goods for the evening show to go on sale, and apparently a lot of stuff had sold out quickly for the early show.

I waited where I thought we were supposed to line up for a bit, but then someone with a megaphone instructed that everyone for the evening session’s goods line needed to form a different line elsewhere - it was almost like a stampede getting to where we needed to go!  I managed to get sort of close to the front of the line somehow, but even so by the time I got into to buy goods, some stuff was already sold out!

Here are a few photos of the venue, goods, lobby, & how everything looked on the day:

List of goods on sale:

The line for entry wrapped around the building:

Kero-chan flower arrangement from Good Smile Company!:

Easter Display:

Fanmail boxes for Aya Hisakawa, Junko Iwao, and Sakura Tange:

After wandering around and taking as many pics as I could, I made my way inside (my seat was in the very, very back of G Block in the theater).

#2)  Event Intro & Cast Introductions

The stage itself looked like this from where I was sitting.  Take note of the location of the magic circle on stage:

Once everyone had settled in for the event itself, the lights dimmed and the stadium made an announcement about the rules (no photography, filming, etc, so unfortunately I don’t have any photos or videos for this reason aside from the ones above).

Then suddenly, from where Sakura’s Clear Card magic circle was shining on the stage, the floor sunk down and opened up leaving a huge hole where it was.  It rose back up seconds later with the life-sized Kero and Suppie mascots dressed up on it.  Suppie had on a pair of bunny rabbit ears on his head (Kero did not).  Behind them, they had a whiteboard about Easter (much like they do in the Kero-chan Explains It All segments at the end of every episode).

As always, Kero (voiced live by Aya Hisakawa) greeted everyone with "Konanachiwa!!”  After getting the audience to do it back, they dove into an explanation about Easter.  Unlike Halloween, Easter is not a commonly celebrated holiday in Japan even in the secular sense (Easter Bunny, egg hunts, etc), and the majority of Japanese people don’t know what it’s about.  Kero started by explaining that Easter is a Christian holiday and is about resurrection and coming back to life.  He started going deep into the religious origins of the holiday, but Suppie held up a sign saying “Don’t give such complicated explanations!!”

Kero gave up and said that if the religious meaning of the holiday is too complicated for everyone to understand, then there is a secular meaning too.  He said that the Clear Card Arc is the resurrection of the Cardcaptor Sakura anime, which is why they chose to hold the event as “Sakura and her Friends’ Happy Easter” this year.  He also explained that bunnies and eggs are a motif of the holiday and that’s why Suppie was wearing rabbit ears.  Kero said that it was time for the event to begin and they both waved as the big monitor above cued up.

The platform they were on descended below again as Maaya Sakamoto’s “Clear” and the opening visuals for Clear Card Arc started playing.  As the opening credits progressed, the platform rose back up and all of the CCS cast members participating in the event were on it this time:

Sakura Tange (Sakura Kinomoto)

Junko Iwao (Tomoyo Daidouji)

Aya Hisakawa (Kero)

Motoko Kumai (Syaoran Li)

Megumi Ogata (Yukito Tsukishiro / Yue)

Minori Suzuki (Akiho Shinomoto)

Natsuki Hanae (Yuna D. Kaito)

Everyone waved at the audience and as the theme ended and the platform stabilized, they walked back to the main stage area, but didn’t take their seats just yet. The emcee came out at this point and went through a brief introduction of each cast member.  They were in this order from left to right on the stage: Ogata-san, Kumai-san, Hisakawa-san, Tange-san, Iwao-san, Suzuki-san, Hanae-san. [Note: I can’t remember if Kumai-san and Hisakawa-san were sitting in this format, but if not they were switched seats - everyone else was for sure sitting like this.]

The emcee brought up that this year’s theme is Easter again and did another explanation of it for the audience.  She said again that it’s originally a Christian holiday, but that in Japanese it’s known as 復活祭 (”Resurrection Festival”) and they wanted to use it because CCS came back too.

At that point, everyone went to sit down in the chairs provided and the emcee gave each staff a chance to introduce themselves.  During Tange-san’s turn, she said when they were downstairs before the platform rose up earlier, the Kero-chan mascot was dancing to Clear and was a pro at it.  Apparently it was really cute and she really wished she could’ve recorded it (which reminded me of the Cherryblossom viewing chapter with The Record).  Hanae-san’s intro was the funniest to me - he said he had a yakiniku bento for lunch and was super energized for the evening show, lol!

This was where it became apparent that the evening show was the “fun one” of the two:  After the yakiniku bento comment, Hanae-san said よろしく (”I’m in your care”) to the audience in Kaito’s voice and made a point to sound “sexy.”  Everyone laughed but around the same time Suzuki-san was readjusting herself on her seat cushion and sort of absentmindedly said 気持ちいい (”That feels nice”).  As soon as she said that everyone in the audience started laughing super hard because it was so unexpected.  She immediately got flustered and apologized and said “No, no no! I meant the chair is really comfortable and soft!! That’s all...!!” and laughed with everyone.

#3)  Question Time

“How did you feel about Sakura and Syaoran’s reunion?”

As everyone was seated, the emcee opened up for question time.  It started off with the question asking how Tange-san and Kumai-san felt acting out the very first SyaoSaku scene of the new series - the cherryblossom reunion.  The question showed up on the monitor and then they played a clip of the scene (and said that the clip was only played at the evening show - slightly different from earlier).

Tange-san said she was shy about it from the very beginning when she had to record it.  Kumai-san mentioned that during the recording session, she was nothing but happy with how it was written and how they performed it.  However, having the scene itself played in front of SO MANY people that day was embarrassing.

The cast on a whole then examined Sakura and Syaoran’s dialogue in that scene.  The main part they looked at was when Sakura said she had so many things to tell Syaoran, and he reciprocated that he did too. They the looked at the following exchange in particular:

Sakura: 教えてね！全部！(”Tell me everything!” - The word 教える can be translated as either “Tell” or “Teach” meaning-wise) Syaoran:  ああ。(”Yeah.”)

Ogata-san out of NO WHERE, turns to Kumai-san and goes “So I’ve gotta ask, but... What do you mean by 'Yeah' in response to 'I will teach you everything'?  What is this 'EVERYTHING' you’re gunna teach her?”  The cast and audience lost it again laughing.

Kumai-san got shy and couldn’t answer fully, but goes "Well uh... yeah... you'll have to ask that to CLAMP..." and the cast reminded us again that because we we’re at the evening event they were being goofy and making suggestive jokes like this that they couldn’t at the more “family oriented” afternoon event.

“Tomoyo records lots of personal moments.”

The next scene they examined was where Tomoyo appeared in the SxS scene above recording their reunion, and then in their date episode just before they entered the aquarium (the “This is my best shot!” scene).

The question this time was directed at Iwao-san, asking if she thought that Tomoyo’s recording sessions were growing in scale and becoming more extensive.  She replied that “Yes, they are. It’s because (she sees) the love growing (between Sakura and Syaoran) and wants to capture it along with their happiest moments.”

I think it was Ogata-san who jumped back in saying something along the lines of “I wonder just HOW MUCH (of their love) you’ll get to record, heh heh heh...” and everyone lost it again.  I was kind of surprised at how much they were implying, haha!

“Have Kero and Touya finally acknowledged Syaoran?”

The next question was whether or not Kero and Touya finally recognize Syaoran as someone who is an ally and cares about Sakura.  They played clips of the scene where Kero and Tomoyo were skyping during the date episode, and during the “ruined date” scene where Syaoran retrieved the soggy bento and Touya looked at him and sighed.

Hisakawa-san said that before, Kero would always say things like “You wanna go, brat!?” and try to pick fights with him, but now whenever he says “brat” there’s some love and affection in it.  They went on to say that Touya has also started to recognize him a bit and that neither he nor Kero do as much as they used to in protecting Sakura anymore.  I read this as meaning it’s not that they don’t want to, but they realize that they have extra help in Syaoran now.

They said that Yukito, Yue, and Touya don’t do as much anymore, but Tange-san said that no matter what everyone helps "Sakura” and that makes her happy.  But the reason they don’t do as much now is because “Sakura” has grown up and is more adult.

Something interesting got brought up here with regards to the voice recording sessions - the scenes are recorded in A and B parts separately.  Meaning that some of the cast who are in scenes together will record their lines, but don’t know what happened with the other casts’ parts in previous or simultaneously occurring scenes.

Ogata-san said that sometimes when recording their B part, they say to each other “Jeez, what on earth did they do in the A part!?”.  It then got brought up that they are close to the end of recording for the anime and they sort of gave the impression they know how things will be finishing up.  It was not clear and they avoided mentioning if this “wrap up” was just for the “season” or if there would be any more series to follow.

“Have Syaoran’s techniques stopped working?”

The next clip was from Episode 12 where they caught the Hail card.  It was when Syaoran’s fire technique didn’t work and he had to use his other “secret” power to stop the card.

They asked Kumai-san what exactly it was that happened there, but she replied that it’s too much of a spoiler and that they’re not really sure themselves.  It seemed like maybe the cast DOES know and just can’t say it because of non-disclosure.

When she was asked, she simply said “I’m not sure if it’s okay for me to say... but I think we have like 3-4 episodes left to record?”  Tange-san jumped in signaling "Nooo!” with her arms and corrected Kumai-san saying that they had “several” episodes more to go at that point.

“Is Yue an “Agokui” Type?”

[顎クイ “Agokui”:  Suddenly lifting someone’s face by their chin in an aggressive, yet sometimes romantic fashion]

Ogata-san talked about how she has played many "cool type / handsome guy” characters in the past.  They then played the scene where Yue says to Sakura “Tell me anything that happens, even if it’s something small” and touches her chin.

She said that during this scene and others, she was just acting it out naturally and how she thought would be a normal back-and-forth between them.  However, some of the lines that would just come out without thinking were deemed as not appropriate by the directors.  She said that the way she acted the lines came out naturally because as a woman acting out a male role, she was just saying what seemed appropriate and not thinking of what “male feelings” might be like in this situation.

For example, at the end of one of the Facetime/Skype sessions with Sakura, she would say おやすみ (”Goodnight”) as Yue.  After about 2 or so times of this, the directors pulled her aside and commented that “It’s a little suggestive saying ‘goodnight’ like that to a middle schooler...”

As such, she had to tweak how she replied in that scene.  She went on to say that she talked about it with Tomokazu Seki (Touya) as well on how they needed to act in certain scenes.

Apparently even at the Sakura Fes event, the staff was instructed not to ad-lib dialog anymore.  Hisakawa-san had done it at last year’s event and they were warned not to do it as much this year, but overall ad-libbing was too much fun and it’s something the audience audience enjoyed, so it couldn’t be helped.

“Who are the new characters?”

The next topic up was the new characters: Akiho and Kaito.  The scenes they played were Akiho’s self-introduction at the school and her competing against Syaoran in badminton.  They also showed the scene where Sakura and Tomoyo come over to her house and meet Kaito for the first time.

Suzuki-san and Hanae-san talked about how it felt to record their lines.  Suzuki-san in particular said that during the badminton scene, Kumai-san helped her match up the timing by playing air badminton with her in the recording booth.

They also talked about how Hanae-san constantly keeps reassuring everyone Kaito’s not a suspicious guy.  He said everyone suspects him and that the cast had asked everyone at the afternoon event what their opinions were.  Everyone reacted that they think he’s definitely shady.

Suzuki-san said that even SHE thought that and when she was acting out Akiho’s lines, the directors told her she had too much doubt in her voice.  The instructed her to reassess and act her lines out in a more Akiho-like way - that she loves him and thinks he’s a really good person, even if Suzuki-san herself doesn’t think that.

Hanae-san chimed back in and emphatically goes “But I am a good person!!!” and tried to convince everyone again.

“The new Key, new Magic Spell, and new Wand...!?”

The last scene they put up on the monitors was Sakura releasing the new key into the sealing staff and using her new spell.  Cue a shameless plug for the new Takara Tomy Clear Card wand toy that has voice recordings from Tange-san.

The cast collectively was like “YES, TAKARA TOMY EVERYONE. OF COURSE” and I got the impression they were a bit sarcastic like they had to advertise it as part of their job, but were a little like “Yeah, we know this isn’t what you’re here for, lol.”

They brought out the wand and had Tange-san use it.  She asked the audience to say the “Release!” chant along with her and said if we did that maybe some magic would happen.  When we all said “Release!” together, the stage platform opened up again.  She asked us to help her seal the stage back up and everyone repeated the sealing chant together.  Upon shouting “Secure!”, the stage went back to normal.

After this, the emcee made the annoucement for the “Sakura Hoeeee” Mori Arts Center Gallery Exhibition in Roppongi Hills later this year in October.  They asked everyone to please look forward to the event.

Apparently, this is where the live stream ended for the afternoon event, though there was no live stream for the evening event.

#4)  Live Cast Voice Acting Performance

Now it was time for a live voice performance from the cast.  The emcee explained that the story would be how Sakura and her friends spend Easter Sunday (that very day).  What surprised me the most for this was that for the sake of the performance, all of the characters seemed to know each other and of each other’s existence.  This meant that Kero was interacting in scenes with Akiho and Kaito.

Sakura spoke first and was humming along while doing something in the kitchen.  Tomoyo chimed in asking what she was up to.  Sakura replied that she and Akiho were making eggs/omelettes because that’s what’s done on Easter. 

Akiho said she wasn’t good at cooking, but wanted to try her best.  On hearing this, Tomoyo said that she wanted to record them cooking and Sakura gave a loud “Hoeee..."

Sakura asked Akiho to go and get the eggs out of the fridge, but when Akiho opened it they were no where to be found.  Everyone panicked a little bit, but then Kero appeared.  He said “Well did you know that on Easter people like to hide eggs!  So all we need to do is go find them.”

Kaito said “Let’s go look" and Yukito agreed with him.  The whole group then traveled all over the world looking for the eggs!  They ended up in a strange place... EASTER ISLAND!

Syaoran remarked saying “What is this place?” when they saw the monoliths on the island, so Kaito jumped in explaining that these were the Moai of Easter Island.  Kero then explained that the Moai were mysterious carved figures shrouded in mystery.

But the group couldn’t find any eggs on the island, so they moved on.  The next place they appeared was somewhere they initially thought must be “far away” from Japan. They thought that it must be overseas, but then found it out it was the “Land of Dreams” - AKA Disneyland right next door!  They decided to split up and look for the eggs.  

Sakura and Syaoran were paired off and while looking around and each found a matching egg.  Their eggs’ image was shown on the monitor and were green with pink designs.  Together they made a pair.

Syaoran once again saw some helpless foreign tourists and whipped out his English skills again.  (Kumai-san has really mastered the “Do you need any help?” line lmao). He also said “The cat is in Disney Sea” in English.  Sakura went CRAZY about the English and was like “Syaoran-kun, what did you say!?” so Syaoran ad-libbed and said “Ahh… well if I do a direct translation… I said 'There’s a cat in the Land of Dreams” (which was a reference to Geratoni - a plush stuffed cat of Tokyo Disney’s Duffy & Friends collection.)

Sakura was impressed and begged him to teach her English again.  They had basically the same exchange as the date episode and he said “I'll try, but I don’t know if I can teach you anything useful...” to which she responded that she already remembered the word for “cat” so it was okay.  As always, Tomoyo suddenly popped out of nowhere recording them and they got embarrassed.

The scene switched to Kero and... Yue!  Yue was in full form and searching for eggs too!  He said he could search better in this form and was doing it to assist his mistress.  Kero remarked that “Well it's true that in Disneyland, people will just think you’re cosplaying someone, so I guess it’s fine.  But wait!  I should be in my true form too!  I will change now into my--”

Yue cuts him off saying “Don’t you dare! If you do, you'll draw too much attention and you'll get petted and hugged and kicked by all of the children here!!”  Kero was like “Ahh... oh man... you’re right... Maaan, but I would look so cool if I did!!”

The scene changed again, this time to Akiho and Kaito.  They were searching for eggs on their own and she thanked him for helping her.  Kaito said that he was “just happy that you seem to be having a good time with everyone.”  All of the sudden they both stopped and said “What on earth is that??”

Akiho and Kaito had discovered the BIG GIANT EGG...

While the cast had been performing, a larger than life egg shaped... thing(!!) had risen up out of the rising platform floor again.

Everyone approached the egg and were like “Whoa! You could make a HUGE omelette with this!”  However, the egg was so big that they couldn’t take it back home.  So Kero said "Well one thing that is done on Easter is egg decorating!  We should all decorate it...”

Then they temporarily stopped the voice acting session and the whole cast moved up to the egg.  It turns out that it was a giant egg shaped whiteboard.  Right next to it on the platform was a cart with lots of markers, cherryblossom petal shaped stickers, and decorative balled up tissue paper.  The emcee explained the cast were going to be given 3 minutes to decorate the egg and the started playing a little tune while we watched them bustle about.  But in the end they had so much fun that they went a bit over time!

One of them dropped their mic during the decorating session, but I couldn’t see who it was.  Everyone jumped though, haha.

Hisakawa-san and Tange-san drew two Suppie faces: One was regular Suppie, and one was “evil Suppie.”  They said that without knowing it, they had both drawn Kero at the afternoon session, so during the break between the two they decided to do Suppie for the evening session.

The cast drew a Momo, a random crab using cherryblossom petals for claws, happy faces, a cherryblossom tree, and a panda.  But the best part was that they also wrote a few inappropriate things!

Hanae-san wrote 真実の愛 (“True love”) and Suzuki-san wrote right beneath it 夜だから (“Because it’s night time”).  And - echoing what she’d said earlier about how saying “goodnight” was inappropriate - Ogata-san wrote おやすみ (“Goodnight”) in really big letters.

Regarding the panda, Hanae-san said he drew it because he was wearing a panda pin.  Everyone had asked him at lunch why he was wearing that and the reason was really cute.  He said he was confused about what Easter was and thought that it was a holiday where any animals would be appropriate, so he wore a panda instead of a rabbit.

After that, they all returned to the main stage to resume the voice acting performance.  A staff member wheeled the egg off and put it on the side of the stage.

Sakura and her friends were all happy as they finished decorating the egg.  I think Syaoran said “Where do you even display an egg this big?” but no one knew the answer.

Then Kero said part of the Easter tradition was that God would choose whichever designed egg was the best and grant the person who designed it a wish.  That wish would come true.  Everyone reacted saying “Oh wow, really???” (I was sitting there thinking thinking “wtf that doesn’t sound right...”), but then Yukito spoke up saying “I’ve never heard that.”  Kaito joined in saying the same thing.

Kero laughed nervously and said “Ahaha... I’ve been found out...” indicating he had made it all up.  Tomoyo said he was just like Yamazaki lying to them like that.  But in the end, they all had a nice time decorating the egg and doing the Easter egg hunt.

(I don’t fully remember how this came about, but) there was a part where Yukito said to Sakura that she was very adorable and she reacted by saying “Hanya--n!!” (I was hoping Syaoran would react somehow, but he didn’t so I guess he is very secure with their relationship now ♡).  They then said they should take a photo with the egg to commemorate the day.

There was a pause again in the session and the emcee announced that the cast would be taking a photo with the audience from the stage.  Since it was a huge amphitheater, they were taking 3 or so shots - left, center, and right side of the seating area.  They said that anyone who was shy and didn’t want to be in the photo could cover up their face.

Center stage was first, then the left side, then the right side.  After that, they finished up the voice acting portion of the night:

The scene changed back to the Kinomoto residence.  Everyone had gone home for the evening and it was just Sakura and Kero.

Sakura said there had been a lot of tough things that happened earlier, but that it had been a fun day.  She said “Oh, I even forgot we were supposed to make eggs today!”

Kero replied saying “What? You couldn’t find the eggs? But, I’d taken them out of the fridge earlier and I put them back...”

Sakura raised her voice and said “WHAT!?” and Kero replied “Yeah, they’re right here...” revealing that they’d been hidden in the fridge the whole time.

Sakura then ad-libbed in Kansai-ben and said ケロちゃん！！！なんでやねん！？！(“Kero-chan, what the hell!?”)

The cast finished up at that point and thanked everyone for watching.  Then they said “You gave us an Easter photo together with you, so we will give you a present also!”

Suddenly, tons of paper stickers/notes from the cast began falling from the ceiling!  I think they were egg shaped, but it was hard to tell because I was in the very back.  They fell into the audience and a few lucky people got them.  Some people rushed out of their seats to get the ones that had fallen into the aisles.

Some of the “gifts” fell onto the stage too, so Ogata-san and Tange-san helped pick them up and give them out to people in the audience.  Ogata-san was really awesome and shouted out “Are there any little Sakura-chans in here!?” and called for any kids present to come up and get the stickers.  One very happy little girl came running up and received one directly from Ogata-san.  After that, she asked if there was anyone present who had been at both the afternoon and evening performances (I think there might have been a couple people).

After handing the remaining gifts out, all of the seiyuu thanked the audience again and left the stage together.

#5)  Live Musical Performances

Maaya Sakamoto

Next, they introduced a special video message from Maaya Sakamoto on screen, who unfortunately couldn’t be at the event because it overlapped with her own international tour dates.  In the message, she said she was so happy to sing “Clear” as the theme song.

The show runners gave her the theme of “clear things” for her to use for direction when writing her song.  She explained that the word “clear” has multiple meanings: “transparent” or "definite and precise” or "to succeed with a goal”, so she wanted to write a song with all of these meanings rolled into one.

She let us know that she was so happy to be part of CCS again and although she wasn’t there, her colleague Saori Hayami was and would be joining us as the representative today.

Saori Hayami

The emcee came out with Hayami-san and said that as the second half of the season would be starting the next week, it was time to pass the baton over to the new OP and ED singers.

Hayami-san explained that everyone has little things that shine in their hearts and are like “Jewelry of the Heart.”  After her explanation, she gave a live performance of the “Jewelry” ED.

To be honest (and I hate to say this), but I didn’t think that Hayami-san was very energetic in her performance.  She seemed a little lacking in enthusiasm and just walked one circle around the stage, but as always the song itself was very nice.

While she performed, they played clips of the anime on the screen and showed the Jewelry ED clips as well.  At the very, very end, they FINALLY revealed what Sakura had seen on her smartphone at the end of the ED (where she’s showing Tomoyo and Kero and they all smile):  It was the “photo” they just took earlier that day on April 1st -- the official artwork for Sakura Fes this year.

The text message she had gotten read “Thank you for taking a photo with us!”

When the performance ended, the emcee came back out and thanked her.  She reiterated that they were “passing the baton from next week.”

Kiyono Yasuno

Kiyono Yasuno and Minori Suzuki came out on stage.  Suzuki-san had changed her clothes from earlier to red outfit and yellow shoes.  The emcee introduced each of them and they talked about CCS and what they liked about it.

Yasuno-san said she’s watched CCS for a really long time.  The very first time was when she was really young and her grandpa watched it with her.  To her, it was like a dream being chosen to sing the new OP and that this was her first single.

The emcee asked who they thought was “cool / good-looking” from the series.  Hayami-san said that she thought Yukito and Eriol were attractive.  Yasuno-san had watched the CCS syndication in elementary school too and was the same age as Sakura through it. Because of that, she thought Syaoran was the coolest guy.  Suzuki-san also thought the same.

Hayami-san then “passed the baton” and they left the stage to let Yasuno-san perform Rocket Beat.

It was my first time (and all of the audience’s too) to hear Rocket Beat and right away I thought it was an awesome song.  It really seemed fitting for CCS.  In addition, Yasuno-san was super energetic and gave a very spirited performance.  She was actively all over the stage.  As before, her performance was also synced up with scenes from recent anime episodes.

When she finished, Suzuki-san came back on stage and the figuratively “passed the baton” again.

Minori Suzuki

Suzuki-san is in charge of the new ED “Rewind” and also gave a really awesome performance.  The song was super cute and (as everyone knows by now) clock themed.

She did motions of the clock while performing, syncing up with the “Tick Tock, Tick Tock” lyrics.  More clips from the series played, but nothing new to that point.

#6)  Closing Out the Event

When Suzuki-san finished her song, the whole cast came back out on stage.  The staff then wheeled out a birthday cake again in front of Tange-san - just like last year.  Once again, the audience sang Happy Birthday to Sakura and Tange-san blew out the candles.

They talked about what birthday this would be for Sakura, and Tange-san confirmed that this would be Sakura’s 13th birthday.  She then said “These past 20 years – Ahhh!  I mean... it’s been 20 years but Sakura’s not 20!  She’s definitely 13!” and laughed.

They showed an image of the cake on screen and it was the one that was currently being sold by Animate.  They then said it was time to close out the event and the audience started groaning, so the emcee had to apologize for how “short” the event was.

Everyone said their goodbyes, starting with Yasuno-san.  She said it was a dream come true to sing the theme song for an anime she had loved so much as a child and that exactly one year ago on April 1st she had started her singing career.  She promoted her first single (a mini album came out just before this). 

Hayami-san said her Thank You’s next for everyone enjoying Jewelry.

Hanae-san was third, saying “I will do my best, and from here on it’s going to be Akiho Akiho Akiho taking center stage!”

In response, Suzuki-san said “I will do my best and so will Kaito-san! I’ve loved this anime so much!  Last year at this time, I was wondering ‘who is going to play Akiho’ and never thought that it would be me!!”  She said she feels so lucky to be both a seiyuu and the singer of the second ED for the series.

Ogata-san was next, but was caught off guard and sort of spaced out.  But she said thank you to everyone for all their support.  She said that at last year’s Sakura Fes, they found out really soon after it ended there would be another one this year.  So she shouted out to all of us “that means THERE SHOULD BE ANOTHER ONE NEXT YEAR RIGHT (EVENT SPONSORS)??”.  She said that even in this industry, it’s super rare for the whole cast to come back for a show’s reboot and that really demonstrates how beloved CCS is.

She passed the mic to Kumai-san - who was also spaced out and wasn’t paying attention again.  But she also said thank you to everyone.

Next was Iwao-san who said thank you and did a mini-voice over of Tomoyo saying 超絶によかったですわ！(“It was absolutely fantastic!”).

Hisakawa-san was next, and like Ogata-san, she said that last year she got a call about a week or so after Sakura Fes ended asking her to save the date for this one.  She said “I mean, after today, I’m sure that just a few days will pass and then I'm sure I'll get another call… Hahaha!  You guys want another one right!?” and everyone cheered.

Finally, it was Tange-san’s turn and she said they almost made it through the whole thing without a "Kero-chan Check.”  At last year’s event, they always seemed to come out of nowhere and no one ever knew when to expect it.  She begged Hisakawa-san to do one and Hisakawa-san laughed.  She got a bit shy and was like “For real???” but in the end shouted “KERO-CHAN CHEEECK!” as Kero. Tange-san then thanked everyone for their support and for loving Cardcaptor Sakura.  She hopes everyone will continue to love it in the future and bowed. 

The cast came out into the circle stage to say one final goodbye and then they waved and departed the stage from both sides of the main stage.  The emcee left last after deep bow.  The Jewelry ED came on the big screen and played through to the end.

After the song finished, the Kero and Suppie mascots once again rose out of the platform floor.  BOTH of them were wearing rabbit ears this time.  Kero-chan started to talk about how awesome it was that he grew another pair of ears too.

Suppie had a new card this time that read “Just say what you have to say!” so Kero started talking at super-sonic speed thanking the cast and staff in batches:

The singers

The companies that made it possible

The seiyuu

And said thanks to all of us for watching him be awesome every week

He said to tune in next week for the start of the second half of the season, and also to keep watching him be so awesome in the Kero-chan’s Corner segments.  Suppie violently shook the sign!! lol!

Then gave one last “thank you” to the audience and brought the event to a close, saying “We definitely kicked up even more of a fuss than ‘some place’ that’s right next door” (again, Tokyo Disney lol).

The platform lowered, bringing them back down underneath the stage, and just as they disappeared there was another final “Kero-chan cheeeeck!” shouted.  The lights went off and then came back on with the ending announcements.

As I was leaving, I made a friend who was a big fan of Suzuki-san from when she was in Macross and had only just recently started watching CCS because of her.  This fan had only seen Clear Card Arc so far, so I said to definitely watch the rest of the series!

I hope if there’s another Sakura Fes next year, I’ll have the chance to go again. :)

以上、さくらフェス2018の報告でした！(That’s all folks!)

[toshler]

tyler #019267

(science fiction erotica, tyjo x female, plenty of kink, some lighthearted shade thrown at deb lol)

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I crossed over to an alternate reality about a week ago. Let me explain. One day, twenty one pilots were on day 284 of their hiatus, then the next, an album had been out for about 3 months and they were in the midst of a world tour. As you can guess, i was in shock. I went from being in the middle of the “hiatus depression”, to having tickets to their show and it was fast approaching. Obviously, i was ecstatic yet overwhelmed by this drastic change of events. Everything else in my life seemed to be the same except for some small variances. I am talking very small, like tyler joseph’s shirt in the poster on my wall was blue and i could’ve sworn it was red. i couldn’t really complain, so I just looked at it as if the universe gave me an early birthday present.

As with any odd experience in my life, I scoured the internet for what this could possibly mean. All kinds of stories came up, from glitches in the matrix to the mandela effect. I’ve heard of some of these things, but i never really believed in any of it. So I just moved on with my life so that no one would think i was crazy. That is, until i stumbled upon something that just wouldn’t exist in my former reality.

One day, while researching inspiration for my smutty fan fics, i discovered something else that was quite fascinating. It seemed very strange and futuristic, but i had to see for myself. There had been several positive reviews which left far too much of an impression on me. I figured, what better way to please my readers than by experiencing tyler joseph firsthand? the boys were “off the market” so to speak, but a certain technology existed that was incredibly lucrative. tyler mentioned having “no problem with fan fiction” in an interview, even finding it “flattering”. if he could fulfill the fantasies of his fans without personally doing so, then he was all for it. So it was no surprise when his label proposed the idea, he was on board from day one, providing his DNA and consciousness to be duplicated and sold to the masses. I’m assuming you want me to tell you what the hell i am talking about. Two words: idol recreation. Artists were able to “be there” for fans by practically being cloned. The only rule was that the clones must stay within a certain parameter of the owner’s home or it would self destruct. You may be wondering if josh signed up for this. Well unfortunately, his girlfriend flat out said “no way” and his decision was made.

Admittedly, it felt a little weird ordering a “tyler joseph #019267” on the internet, but i figured i’m doing a few good things. 1 - I’m satisfying my own curiosity, 2 - i’m supporting the band, and 3 - i’m passing my experience onto those who are skeptical. I ordered it around christmas and it arrived a couple days before valentine’s day. A box appeared on my doorstep with instructions to empty the contents into my tub, fill with water, and wait. I anxiously paced outside the bathroom door while hearing weird splashing sounds, wondering how this tyler duplicate would respond and how realistic he would be.

About 45 minutes later, when the splashing died down, i put my ear up to the door and heard a quiet murmuring. I had a lump in my throat because the longer i listened, the more the reality set in that a tyler joseph copy was in my bathtub right on the other side of that door. he was sitting in my tub, casually humming and most likely stark ass naked because i don’t think that kit came with clothes. I must have gasped or accidentally made a noise, because in tyler’s raspy voice he called out to me.

“Hello? You can come in, i won’t bite.” tyler announced playfully. The lump in my throat swelled twice its size and i tried to swallow it down in vain. He sounded so realistic that i would think tyler joseph himself was in there. I was nervous, but i knew it was too late to back out.

Slowly, i cracked the door and looked inside, gasping immediately at what i saw. Tyler sat in the water-filled tub, covered in a strange light pink slime and yes, stark ass naked. he was smiling at me as if nothing was wrong and everything in the world made sense.

“D-do you feel okay?” i asked, trying not to look at his junk. Modesty didn’t seem to concern him, because he stood up in the tub facing me and held his arms open.

“I feel great! Do you want to join me?” he asked, giggling slightly at my shocked face. my own curiosity got the better of me and my eyes followed the line down the center of his torso to his well-endowed package. instantly, i felt myself getting wet. Oh great, it was already starting.

“Sure, but I will need to clean you first.” i explained, feeling it was necessary to clean my new “toy”. I had to admit, it was interesting pulling my shirt and bra off with tyler’s eyes trained on me the entire time. He sat back down in the tub, watching as i pulled my pajama pants and panties down. i could not wait to get in there and get my hands on him, pink slime or not. This tyler “copy” was realistic as heck.

“You’re so sexy, tyler. And such a great listener. I’m glad to have you here with me, this was so worth it.” i praised while running soapy water over his chest with a sponge. He sighed happily, closing his eyes as i took my time, working to get all the slime off. It tinted the water a pale pink, but i didn’t mind at all, far too focused on tyler’s happy noises and how life-like and real his skin felt. It made me more curious to see how “real” tyler was, how much he could actually feel.

“Do you like this, tyler? Do you like it when i talk to you and touch you like this?” i asked. I needed to know that he was loving this as much as i was, so that i didn’t feel so fucking creepy. Although soft, happy sighs and gentle humming was welcome, it was still not enough.

“Yes” he whispered, staring into my eyes meaningfully and nodding. My hand on his knee moved up his thigh. As i went higher between his legs, i leaned forward and placed my lips on his. My mind went wild with how soft and plump they felt against mine. When my thumb grazed the tip of his cock, i heard his breath hitch which answered my question. He could definitely feel. I pressed my lips to his harder while wrapping my hand around his length and pumping. to my delight he was completely hard, so i pumped slowly. He moved his lips against mine, catching my lower lip with his and his tongue slid over it. his excitement was evident in his rapid, short breaths and my patience was wearing thin. i whimpered needily, the logic part of my brain gone and filled with the need to be caressed.

“Touch me” i moaned against his lips. He seemed to understand immediately, because a sexy grin spread across his face.

“How do you want me to touch you?” he taunted, placing his hands on my shoulders and moving them down my arms. This alone caused me to shiver.

“Oh god, i don’t care however you want.” i answered, both desperate yet curious where he would take it.

“Ok” he said, moving his hands to my breasts and circling my nipples with his thumbs. He seemed both fascinated and encouraged by my response, by the way my nipples perked right up from the slightest touch. I arched my back and moaned slightly, watching as his thin fingers worked.

“Does this feel good?” tyler asked. I couldn’t help but laugh a little, stopping when i seen him frown in response.

“Oh i-i’m sorry, yes tyler, it’s so good.” i said, and he seemed to regain his confidence. He stooped down to take my nipple in his mouth, sucking gently. i could feel his tongue swipe over the sensitive bud and my eyes rolled back, pleasantly surprised by this initiation. It’s safe to say that my clit was throbbing by this point and if it weren’t for the icky bath water, i’d be dripping.

“ohhhh mmmm tyler, l-let’s take this to the bed, ah-alright?” i asked, panting and running my fingers through his hair. When he looked up at me i swear i could see lust-glazed eyes and a hint of a smirk. I stood up, legs shaky, and we helped each other step out of the tub. I handed him a towel and we dried off as quickly as we could, making our way back to the bed.

“Let’s see what else that mouth can do” i teased, splaying out on the bed and beckoning him to come over. He smiled, crawling on top of me and passionately kissing from my collarbone to my lips, then back to my neck.

“There’s plenty this mouth can do” he whispered in my ear, finishing with a gentle bite to my earlobe. He placed little kisses back down to my chest, continuing his work on my other nipple.

“Baby” i sighed, running my fingers through his hair again and rolling my hips up. my sloppy, wet pussy met his stomach and he unlatched from my nipple, holding my hips down to plant smoochy, wet kisses across my lower stomach and hips, teasing me. He continued to kiss lower, his tongue briefly making contact with my clit and prompting me to spread my legs wider. He held me open with his fingers and licked in long, broad strokes from my hole to my clit, pausing between each one and building up faster. I laid as still as i could, trying not to buck up towards his mouth but it was hard. I gave in, rolling my hips along with his tongue and moaning like a slut.

“Mmm that’s so good baby” i praised, rubbing his head with both hands. I angled my hips, trying to get his tongue to fuck me. Just when i started to become frustrated, he flicked his tongue over my clit before sucking it into his mouth and shoving two fingers inside me. I let go of his head, hands flying to the pillow above my head and back arching as he curled his fingers roughly against my swollen g-spot. I was so close to cumming and he was well aware of it by the way my thighs were tensing up under his hands. He kept his fingers curled and thrust them in and out, building pressure on my g-spot while his tongue flicked rapidly over my clit. After a few minutes of this i came hard for him, gushing my arousal all over the lower half of his face. He lapped up my wetness, gently cleaning me and even licking over my asshole in the process. His mouth and tongue were everywhere and i was so overly sensitive and desperate to have his dick inside me. The only thing that’d make this more perfect is if he would cum inside me.

“You sound so hot moaning my name like that. got me so fucking hard” he said, crawling back on top of me. I basked in his compliment and the afterglow of the intense orgasm he just gave me, eyes half closed. he hovered above me, licking his lips and staring into my eyes with a mischievous expression. He pressed his fingers to my lips, still soaked with my wetness and i parted them to suck. As i tasted myself on his fingers he leaned down, sliding his tongue into my mouth alongside them and exploring. He took his fingers back out, using my saliva to coat the head of his cock. “I’m gonna fuck you so good, doll” He murmured as he continued to kiss me more aggressively. he guided his dick to my sloppy entrance, slowly sinking into me. i reflexively lifted my knees and my pussy clenched around him as he bottomed out. I focused on how perfect and deep he felt inside me.

Unable to stand it any longer, he pulled back and plunged into me roughly, taking me by surprise. I cried out, wrapping my arms around his back to brace myself as he thrusted his hips against mine, bouncing me on the bed. My ankles rested at his sides as i submitted to him, willing to take everything he had. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, panting and murmuring about how tight and wet i felt. Every word, grunt, and hot breath as he fucked me brought me closer and he didn’t let up.

“Are you gonna cum for me again, baby? I can feel your pussy tightening around my dick” tyler whispered in my ear. I moaned at his words, turning my head to make out with him. He shoved his tongue deep in my mouth, owning it as he brutally pounded into me. I helplessly came for the second time around his dick which seemed to set him off.

“Oh fuck, oh yes baby” he growled, burying his face into my neck and biting. He sucked hard and definitely made a mark as he pounded into me one last time, emptying his seed. I watched his blissed out expression as i grinded on him and milked his cock for every last drop.

He collapsed onto me with all his weight and didn’t bother pulling out, his cum seeped out around it. I rubbed his back, feeling his toned muscles. I reached down and squeezed his ass because it was all mine now.