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mariacallous · 11 months ago

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In September 2022, I was working as a fixer in Taipei for a U.S. news segment about cross-strait tensions, handling local logistics for a visiting producer and cameraman. Fixers are freelance staff whose role is somewhere between journalist and tour guide—they can end up doing everything from arranging interviews to translation to booking hotels. One night, we arrived at an amateur radio meetup in a park, ready to shoot, and found an eccentric crew of local radio fans. One man hunched over a tangled web of equipment at the back of his truck, tapping away in Morse code; another fidgeted with an antenna as he walked around, trying to get a signal. The producer told me that the group was learning how to operate radios in case of war with China.

“Why do you do this?” I asked one of the guys, expecting him to launch into a monologue about the importance of civil defense.

“Because with radio, we can communicate with anyone in the world,” he replied.

“What about communicating with people in China?”

“If they pick up, sure,” he shrugged.

I realized quickly that most of them weren’t there because of cross-strait tensions. Although a few were interested in civil defense, the regulars were just radio nerds who liked to hang out. We left the park disappointed, and only a couple frames from that night made it to the final video.

In recent years, as tensions between China and Taiwan have reached historic highs, foreign journalists have flocked to Taiwan to capture life inside a geopolitical flash point. In January, more than 200 journalists from 28 countries arrived to cover the 2024 presidential election. Yet many of these short-term, visiting journalists distort the reality on the ground. They depict the island as the centerpiece of a drama that they’ve already made up their minds about, often inflating tensions and asking leading questions for heightened effect. And the fixers are brought on as the stagehands, charged with providing the backdrop for pre-written narratives.

Because Taiwan is commonly framed as the flash point of potential world war, most television producers want access to a shooting range, a bomb shelter, or a military base. Many fly to the outlying islands of Kinmen or Matsu in hopes of hopping on a boat to catch a glimpse of the Chinese shore.

“It’s like ordering from a menu—they see something that someone has covered before and want the same thing,” said Jesse, a veteran Taiwanese fixer. (Jesse’s name has been changed due to his concerns about possible impacts on his professional relationships.)

“You watch the news and see footage of war planes, and it seems like it’s tense on the ground here in Taiwan,” said Tina Liu, a Taiwanese journalist who took on her first fixing gig with an Italian outlet this year. “But it really isn’t. And even though it isn’t, people are still pursing that tense atmosphere.”

I’ve worked as a fixer for outlets in the United States, Australia, and Europe, and many of my clients are surprised when they realize the settings are not as bombastic as they hoped: The guns are airsoft guns, air raid shelters are just parking lots, and the view of Chinese shore is almost always blurry. Also, the average Taiwanese voter does not think about China on a day-to-day basis, which makes for very lackluster vox pops. Although there is plenty of intergovernmental strife in the form occasional trade bans, airspace incursions, and disinformation campaigns, daily life in Taiwan is shockingly normal.

Yet normalcy just doesn’t make for good television. So I’ve been charged with conjuring up action-packed scenes for video, and I often have to push back. Eight other Taiwan-based fixers I spoke with also said they have, on occasion, been coerced to help produce scenes that were inappropriate, not reflective of the truth, or even flat-out sensationalist.

“I’ve encountered a lot of situations where people just don’t respect the fixer’s expertise,” said Adrien Simorre, a Taipei-based stringer.

Simorre was one of a dozen local fixers and stringers who released a statement about the toxic dynamics between fixers and visiting journalists after the election in January. They cited low pay, lack of credit, and general disrespect. The fixers’ grievances are not endemic to Taiwan, but the issue of parachute journalists “imposing their own perspective and preconceived narratives” is particularly pronounced on the island.

Fixers have told me stories about foreign producers swimming in the spike-infested waters of Kinmen, an outlying island near the Chinese shore, for dramatic effect; requests to film Chinese missile launches from Taiwan (which is logistically impossible); and clients being disappointed when man-on-the-street interviews don’t elicit strong reactions on China. (None of the fixers I talked to wanted their clients to be named due to the fear of losing out on work.)

“I’ve heard of journalists pushing interviewees to answer certain questions about China-Taiwan relations,” said Alicia Chen, a Taiwanese freelance journalist, who spoke out on X (formerly Twitter) about disrespect, lack of credit, and poor communication with a visiting correspondent in January. “And if the interviewee didn’t want to comment, they would keep repeating or rephrasing the question until the interviewee said the words they wanted to hear.”

Boan Wang, a documentary filmmaker, said that in the spring of 2023, a European client of his asked to take the ferry from Kinmen to the Chinese city of Xiamen. Wang told them tickets were only available for Taiwanese citizens and their Chinese spouses. “They asked if I could talk to a captain to let them on—basically asking me to smuggle them across international borders,” he said. “How is that appropriate? Would you do that in your own country?”

One of the most frequent requests I get is whether I can secure access to a gun range where civilians are learning how to shoot for self-defense. The problem is that gun enthusiasts are a small fringe group. Guns are illegal in Taiwan, so in the event of an actual war, the average Taiwanese person would not have access to one. The scenes that end up on television are either just airsoft hobby ranges or kids running around an abandoned building with BB guns.

The most popular civil defense programs on the island are instead based in the classroom, hosted by a nonprofit called Kuma Academy. These courses largely focus on identifying disinformation, learning first aid, and practicing evacuation drills—all practical ways for the average citizen to prepare for war. But footage from these lectures is often sidelined in favor of the guns.

The pursuit of a good sound bite often trumps a balanced story. Taipei-based stringer and photographer Annabelle Chih said that many visiting producers falsely assume that Taiwanese people are divided into two camps: pro-unification and pro-independence. Yet neither of the island’s two major political parties—the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT)—endorse a declaration of independence, nor are they advocates for unification. Even though the parties differ wildly in their views on China, they’re both strategically ambiguous. The DPP assumes that Taiwan is already independent; the KMT has a more conciliatory approach and insists on peaceful dialogue with the Chinese mainland.

“Producers will ask me if they can interview the White Wolf,” Chih said. The White Wolf, whose real name is Chang An-lo, is a convicted criminal and gang leader who is famously outspoken about his desire to unify Taiwan with China. Although he is a newsworthy figure, Chih said it is misleading to use him as a counterbalance to the DPP’s views. “I explained to them he’s not the right person to interview,” she said. “He’s the minority, and he’s quite controversial.”

Not all experiences with international media are negative. Many of my clients, for instance, have listened to my feedback and adjusted their angles accordingly. Chih said that one of her clients also eventually came around and killed the story about the White Wolf.

Still, the appetite for dramatic scenes out of Taiwan has increased as media outlets compete for the most attention-grabbing narratives. Jesse said that before then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s historic visit to Taiwan in August 2022, most of the journalists who hired him took a more nuanced approach to stories and would default to his expertise on the island. Then Pelosi’s visit created a media frenzy because of how much it irritated Beijing and sparked a growing interest in stories related to Taiwan—but only if they fit into the story of an angry Beijing and an island under threat.

This year, a lot of Jesse’s clients have been war correspondents—fresh out of Ukraine or Israel and looking for action. “Some were visibly disappointed when they realized life was normal,” he said.

By speaking up, the fixers hope for a more accurate and even-keeled portrayal of Taiwan.

“I know a lot of people come here because of our relationship with China,” Liu added. “Everyone says Taiwan is the next Hong Kong, or the next Ukraine. But our history is different from these places.”

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talenlee · 2 years ago

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Game Pile: I Was A Teenage Exocolonist

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Script and Thumbnail below the fold!

I was a Teenage Exocolonist is a game from Northway Games that came out in 2022, a year when I am more and more feeling like media production did something weird to affect me, personally, deliberately. It launched on Basically Everything, including macOS and Linux, which speaks to a desire to include people in this big sprawling game that Wikipedia calls an RPG, that the Steam copy calls a Narrative RPG and which I keep thinking of as a dating sim.

[pops, neutral expression]

In this game, you’re going to play a character that starts out as a ten year old on a colony ship, which then lands and explores the story of a human colony on an alien world, for the first time in history. You follow the character across a sequence of years, confronting challenges, learning about who you are and who you want to be, developing experiences with other people, which you will save and slot into a deck of cards you then use to overcome challenges later. This is a game I find incredibly exciting and I like playing and I like enjoying is experiences it offers me and that’s great. Especially if you know me and my personal challenges grappling with playing and enjoying visual novels.

[scrolls]

When I say it’s a ‘visual novel’ or ‘dating sim’ I want to do that in a way that properly puts respect on the term. Because I think it’s very reasonable to describe I Was A Teenage Exocolonist as being in the same genre as Roommates, in the same way that Wolfenstein 3D and Battlefield 1941 are games in the same genre. There’s a lot of fundamental ideas that are lined up, but one of them has access to a lot more different ways to express their ideas.

There’s a pre-emptive sneer in the critical space around visual novels and dating sims. When Dokidoki Literature Club was The Topic, there were a lot of people like me, who don’t play many games in the genre, talking about one game that was doing something remarkable that they hadn’t seen before, and used that to suggest this game elevated the form. I found this discourse tiresome, because the game didn’t really do anything that surprised me, which was I think a byproduct of my being aware that it wasn’t doing anything new in the genre. That whole period made me cautious about talking too decisively, too seriously, about what the game genre does or has in it, because what I’m mostly aware of is the things I don’t know about. Ahah, people muse, what about these interesting ideas of a game that tells you it doesn’t want to play with you? Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that something new? All while ignoring that the game is very much not doing that, and also, that this is something games have been doing for decades in that genre.

I’m not saying I’m a better critic than people who were impressed by Dokidoki Literature Club mind you.

(Maybe a little)

Point is, that it’s very possible to describe IWATE as a visual novel and dating sim and have that feel like I’m presenting it in the wrong way. I could just as much try and call it a deck builder, or a life simulator, or yes, a roleplaying game and those wouldn’t be wrong ways to describe it otherwise. Thing is, why NOT describe it as a dating sim? It’s a game where the mechanics of romances and relationships are front-and-centre, with room for players to explore them, and it seems to me that they’re as important as any amount of shooting Geth is to Mass Effect. If you want to define ‘dating sim’ and ‘visual novel’ down to the point where this game can’t be included you’re kind of paring down what those genres can even be in a way that’s deliberately designed to exclude almost every form of those games that doesn’t fit a very narrow band. Basically, it’s saying ‘these things are boring because anything that isn’t boring isn’t one of them, definitionally.’

And if you know me, you know how much I don’t tend to buy definitional arguments when it comes to game experiences.

So.

IWATE is a dating sim.

It’s a really, really good one.

It’s a visual novel.

It’s a really, really long one.

I am not a big reader, as may surprise those of you who see the amount of words I put out or the books I have to engage with for my study. I do not, typically speaking, like reading a lot, and it’s partly because I need to do A LOT of reading. My reading is compulsory and it’s slow and it’s difficult. When I don’t have to read – not BOOKS at least – I do kinda try and do that instead for my leisure time.

There’s a lot of reading in IWATE. It is honestly so vast a reading task that I do not feel confident – a mere twenty four hours of playing through the game – being confident about what is or is not in the text. I can’t say that there’s not some plot spur or some specific idea that I personally wouldn’t like, because there’s just so much of it. And what’s more, as a game, any given play through is going to show you just one particular version of it.

A text where there are multiple versions that you’re expected to experience in multiple different iterations is a hypertext. Some pre-digital hypertexts include things like ambigrams, sentences that change meaning when read backwards, or mystery novels. It’s not a new thing, it’s just a thing we needed terms for when we started talking about videogames, and then realised that, once again, videogames were connecting to a longer, greater culture of engagement with art.

Point is, that IWATE is an extremely hypertextual game; it’s full of different choices and ways to engage with its problems, and I think it shaped my experience of the game trying to imagine what it might be doing or might be about to do. I thought it was really interesting, and I didn’t want to just list to you, hey, here’s stuff I cared about in this game, in a way that meant when you played the game (because I think odds are good you will like this game). Part of what I liked about IWATE’s experience was the way that the game I engaged with in the beginning wound up presenting totally reasonable changes to my expectations. Basically, stuff I thought I’d care about in ten years when I was ten, I did not care about the same way – my relationships were shaped by randomness and circumstances and I wound up feeling entangled in a story in a way I wouldn’t have chosen to be.

This enmeshing is really interesting and I know when I loop back through this story, I’m going to do it without these changes being unexpected. It’s going to change how I relate to things in this game, and for that reason… I kind of don’t want to show you too much about what’s in the game. Hence this video being full of slow pans across promotional art and uh, me.

But I don’t want this to just come across as a sort of token effort of a video, I don’t want you to look at this and come away with ‘wow, IWATE is a big game and Talen hasn’t played all of it yet, because that would take ages.’ What I want to talk about instead, and what I keep thinking about as I play IWATE is the work of one Roger Caillois.

Roger Caillois or ROGER KY-LOIS for those of you who’ve only ever read his name rather than heard it said aloud, was a French intellectual whose career started out before World War 2 and kept on publishing until he died in 1978 and then, because he was influential and wrote a lot of stuff that’s still being translated and published, kept publishing until 2006, which is pretty good running for a dead guy. If you want to frame him as positively as possible, Caillois was part of an academic tradition that sought to involve as many people as possible from as many different places, and founded the academic journal Southern Cross, which helped introduce authors like Jorge Luis Borges and Victoria Ocampo to French-speaking audiences. If you want to be a little less charitable, he was an advocate for western oppressive and exploitative colonialism as a necessary good to correct the failings of all other cultures that existed at a level of civilisational quality below the level of white western Europeans.

What can one say, of course, but yikes.

I could spend a lot of time talking about different criticisms of Caillois from the funny (he hated clowns) to the vague (he was very good at intellectualising what was ultimately only his personal experience and generalising that out) to the deeply damaging (he didn’t respect women or nonwhite people at all). But instead I want to talk about one of his most well-known contributions to academic culture, with the proper framing up front so you know full well that these ideas did come from someone who needs to be considered with a degree of scrutiny. He’s responsible for the book Man Play and Games, which is probably? his most influential book.

In Man Play and Games, Caillois describes a lot of ideas. He talks about the idea of cultures’ destiny, reflected in their games, and about the distinction between types of play as expressive or rules structured – a paradigm of ludic play, versus paidic play. Then he describes a model of game classification, for considering different games not based on the components that are in them, or their length or size or form or outcomes, but instead about what experience motivates people to play them. And I want to talk about this model, because I think it can be a great way to look at IWATE, a game that can offer you everything.

First up, the summary: Caillois considers games to be broken into four basic motivating factors, reasons people play them, things they play them for. They are agon, alea, ilinx and mimicry.

Agon refers to competitive overcoming of obstacles. Agonic games are games where difficulty are important, games where you’re meant to be able to test your skill. You might recognise good examples of agonic games such as the Indian game chaturanga or the Japanese game go, games with a lot of open information and correct forms of play building around strategic windows. You might recognise it, but Caillois didn’t – he didn’t think Asian games produced meaningful examples of Agonic play.

Alea refers to games of chance, where your best choices are going to be consigned to the whims of fate. Caillois liked to connect this to his existing ideas of the sacred and divine, like there’s some part of people that just wants to give up offerings, but we don’t need that here, not really. I just think Aleatic games are games where players need a random, chance-based element, because they are looking for that feeling of getting lucky.

Ilinx refers to games of vertigo, of the voluptuous panic of a loss of control of the senses. This is your games where you’re losing the ability to perceive and experience things correctly. If you’re having a hard time thinking of games of ilinx, then think about things you see little kids doing: Spinning on the spot, rolling down hills, swinging on ropes. Or maybe that’s monkeys. Caillois argued that adult games of ilinx didn’t exist until the invention of the roller coaster. I argue that this means nobody invited Caillois to any really good parties. Drinking games, playing videogames while stoned, these are ilinx experiences, and you play in part to enjoy that experience of not being in control of your experiences and perception.

Then there’s Mimicry, which refers to games about being or pretending to be another person. These are games of simulation, of recreated experiences, which you may recognise from almost every videogame you’ve ever played in the past twenty years, since these days it’s very common for videogames to include some kind of character for you to inhabit as an agent. But most keenly you’ll see this stuff in play experiences like roleplaying games or life simulators.

And then there’s a secret, fifth thing.

Now, Caillois believed that games were fundamentally games of these traits. Chess is an agonic game, because it’s played for a winner and a loser with open information and people are trying to get better at it. If you’re not doing that you’re not playing chess. Which betrays one of the ways Caillois�� thinking was kinda bent at odd angles to mine. I don’t think games are agonic, I think you play games in agonic ways. There are absolutely people who play Chess in ways that aren’t agonic, they’re thinking about some other way to play, they’re looking at rules systems and aiming for a particular vibe, a joke to pull, or whatever. Chess is not agonic, it’s just we culturally, assert that chess should be treated as if it is only agonic.

And it’s that distinction – that you can use these tools to experience games in different ways – that brings me to IWATE.

IWATE is a game of Agon. There’s a lot of reading to do but at its beating heart is a resolution system that operates as a good-faith puzzle game where you spend time getting yourself the best puzzle pieces that are meant to function together in as optimal a way as you can. Your cards are known to you – you can refine them with currency and you can amplify them with stats you build up through carefully chosen processes. The game pieces are not random and do not ask of you to guess what they do in any given interaction. If you want to, you can math out layers upon layers of game strategy, and optimal play involves correct routing and correct execution. It can even be unlocked into a harder mode so that you need to do this to push through the game’s challenges. While losing isn’t the end of the story, you can always, always approach problems with a mindset that this is somehow winnable. It competes with you, it defies you, and it keeps escalating and demands you escalate with it. And then when you feel like you’ve failed, you can loop back through and do it all again, harder, and armed with more knowledge.

IWATE is an game of Alea. There is a constant presence of gambling in the game, where sometimes all you can do is consign your fate to the cards presented to you. You are going to accumulate cards (if you don’t try and stop it) and that means you’re going to wind up over the course of the story naturally building up a collection of memories that are at the very least, unreliable or weird or don’t fit together well, and the ways to approach and experience as much of the game as is possible mean you’re going to wind up believing in the heart of the cards and stacking a lot of Ls when they don’t come through for you. This is setting aside the social elements of the game too – there are a lot of things that have a chance to just go wrong because the game is unpredictable in a lot of deliberate ways. Keeps you on your toes. You need to capitalise on random respawns and lucky encounters because you won’t always get the best versions of things you want. You need to be at least a little bit lucky.

IWATE is a game of ilinx. Oh sure the game doesn’t reach in through your USB port and get you high, and there’s no playing with proprioception that you might get from a VR game or, try to scramble your brains through nonsexual sissy hypno like 1995’s Zoop — [annoyed]what do you mean I’m the only person who remembers Zoop? — but the character you play is constantly being thrown through a series of experiences that are about a sudden and panicking loss of control. The helplessness of being a child in a truly alien space aside, there are numerous encounters in the story that are about an immediate and wholehearted loss of control over your own body regardless of what the rules say. And your character does kinda get high a few times, as their consciousness is expanded by other’s actions. This is a really interesting thing to consider, because the game’s only recourse to make you experience this ilinx is not to deprive you of agency or information, but to instead instil in you what it feels like to feel this way, with metaphor and simile.

IWATE is a game of mimicry. It’s a life simulator game, where you get to settle into the identity of this kiddo in space who is going to go through the weirdest thing in their life (so far). You’re going to choose what they prioritise, who they prioritise, what they do with their limited time as a child and what those priorities mean for you. Are you a planner? Do you have set goals? Or do you just handle what comes your way? How well do you stick to the plan if you have one? Do you think you can stick to it even when confronted with an ugly, unpleasant choice? What, and who, and how do you care about things? Not just the character but you, as that character?

…

What’s that?

Why, that’s Astrid Ensslin’s music!

Yeah, so the history of games studies is a lot of white dudes in privileged positions deciding hey, you know, games are pretty much like this and not connected to anything else, and then women, queers, and people of colour (and queer women of colour) showing up afterwards to say hey, no, actually, people’s material conditions do matter here. In Caillois’ model, he conceived of those four reasons people might engage with a game, but that is missing a category that Ensslin describes in Literary Gaming: Rhythmos.

Rhythmos is engaging with a game because of the pure intersection of its rules as systems. It’s the kind of people who find the way that game behaviour all slots together neatly satisfying, the people who like finishing their turns with no leftover points, or pare a speedrun down to its minimum frames. Rhythmos is the play experience of liking the interaction of rules in interlocking systems for their own beneficial form. Rhythmos is using all eight letters on your first turn in Scrabble and it is ghost-running a Dishonored level without using any stun darts. Rhythmos cares about the things that can be done in the rules and the ways those executions can be done perfectly…

And IWATE is a game of Rhythmos, because of just how everything in its vast sprawling spread of interactions beckons to you with the idea of a perfect run. You can tell there are choices to be made, you can see there are places you waste investment and overflow and if you can just talk to everyone in the right order, if you can approach this system in the right way, map out the right direction next time, you should be able to unlock all these things and hit this goal and successfully make the whole thing fit together like a puzzle box of numbers.

Thing is, IWATE has a lot of different reasons to want to engage with it. You can approach it in a lot of different ways. Some of those ways are going to be incredibly engaging. I know I found it got its hooks in me hard and I had to literally assign myself homework with a post-it note on my desk to make sure I didn’t just open it up and vaporise a second day on it.

And there’s something else that’s covertly missing from IWATE.

See, growing up, you are going to have decisions about yourself, about your priorities, that you’re going to make and things that are going to change. You might find, like I did, at some point, that one of the people you assume is just as good as everyone else needs to get hit with a brick. Something that IWATE has space for and doesn’t do is a grapple with your own sexuality or gender, too. At any point in IWATE you can decide you want to try out some new pronouns, a new appearance, just pivot your slider over to the side and things are different now.

It’s interesting because it’s a reminder that for all there are things about your character that are a little bit defined, bumpers you bounce against on the way to your end of the story, they are also details that the game leaves entirely up to you to express. You get to choose if that’s a thing you want your exocolonist to do during the story. There is a room for where you play, where there are rules, but also there is a space for individual expression

It’s this space that Caillois – who died shortly after the first videogames were being made – describes:

This latitutde of the player, this margin accorded to his action is essential to the game and partly explains the pleasure which it excites. It is equally accountable for the remarkable and meaningful uses of the word ‘play,’ such as are reflected in such expressions as the playing of a performer or the play of a gear, to designate in one case the personal style of an interpreter, in the other the range of movement of the parts of a machine.

Roger Caillois, Man Play and Games, page 8

IWATE is an amazing game.

And it wants you to play with it.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#GamePile #Games

#Game Pile #Games

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witzmaennchen · 2 years ago

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"Grandpa, grandpa, please, tell us the story of the surrender again, pleeeeaaaaase?"

"Well alright, be a dear and bring me a glass of water Yannik, and then I will tell you."

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

It all started on july the 11th 2023, or cycle 5M 359 721,97 when I was not much older, than you are right now. We were all completely consumed by the live video, of the first sighting of aliens on our little phones and computers we used back then. It was the first view, we ever got of the Thrakxians...well, in fact the first view of aliens in general. We were all alone on our little earth until then.

They came in their big white spiky ships and landed directly in front of the UN. Oh, yes, I see your confusion. The UN was a bit like the Galactic Union. A place for all the little nations of earth to discuss their business, before the time of the EJZ. They landed and the largest and strangest beeing I had seen until then exited from the ship. To our bewilderment, they spoke in my own language. I would later lear, this was the translator, outputting frequencies directly responding to the language center of the brain of the targeted species, without the need for the archaic differing words and...I am getting off track. The Thrakxian, who was the Great Speaker, told us

"People of earth. We are the Great Thrakxian League, our great supercomputer CT-42A3 has calculated 17,543 possible strategies for our war. None of them lead to a Thrakxian victory. We are here to surrender and offer gifts in form of 15 FTL engines and several blueprints for your improvement. We are at your mercy."

Well. That was quite a sight, wasn't it? A great Thrankxian, the greatest Thrakxian surrendering to our little pre-FTL planet. But oh well, our leaders banded together for the first time since...actually, for the first time ever to accept the surrender and then a golden age began. The strategies were actually published in a book, I should have a copy laying around somewhere but that can wait for later, I can still think of some of their tactics.

They wanted to shoot a missile at our planet, wiping us out, before we could ever meet, but the next possible launch window would have it us in 5M 359 745 and by then we would have had the technology to prevent that.

They wanted to invade us with direct force, but our atmosphere would obviously have made that quite hard. And with the additional logistical restraints, we would have won a guerilla war and then beat them in space using their own ships.

They also wanted to build up and research their new weapons, but as it turns out, we humans are quite clever at that and after a war of 300 cycles, we would have bested them in 5M 360 016.

So they surrendered. We worked together, improved our technologies and life was good. We made new discoveries and the inventions of the next 20 cycles shape the world until today.

But they had lied. There were 17,544 strategies, the last one starting with their surrender and using our own technology against us. That is a story for tomorrow tho. You need to rest now, I heard they will reopen the ore processing tomorrow, you will need your strength...

The mighty alien race comes to the human leaders, pledging their unconditional surrender, and even offering peace gifts of immense monetary and technological value. The only problem is that we had no idea we were at war, or that aliens even existed.

#writing prompt #writing prompt s #writeblr

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captaingoldenpants · 3 months ago

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In defense of the Great Khans

TW: Death, guns, average fallout stuff, and a fictional military massacre.

2274, Bitter Springs. In response to the killing of 4 soldiers with connections by the Great Khans, the NCR launches an attack on them. A frontal assault with First Recon snipers at Red pass, the only retreat for the gang’s hideout…except it wasn’t some hideout. Bitter Springs was the home of the Great Khans, not only holding their warriors but also their young, elderly, and infirm. As soon as the attack was launched, all these non combatants were evacuated via red pass. Where they were massacred. Although the game, NCR, Great Khans, and most other things call this an absolutely disgusting massacre…the internet disagrees. A common online sentiment is that not only did the Great Khans deserve it, but that they were asking for it.

In this essay, I seek to dispute this claim and instead offer an alternative view to the Great Khans.

First, their history. The Great Khans were derivatives of the New Khans, who themselves were derivatives of the original Khans. Raider gangs, but I digress. The Great Khans were the “masters” of Vegas. This is pre Mr House, and once he awoke and demanded all Vegas tribes bow to him? The Khans were one of the only ones who fought back. For this, they were kicked out of outer Vegas and into Bitter Springs. Where they killed time and made money through the manufacture and selling of Drugs. When the NCR began their colonization of the Mojave, the Khans began raiding their caravans and towns. This led to the aforementioned 4 soldiers being killed, and the Bitter Springs massacre.

Now, a preface. Although I am trying to argue against people who say the Khans deserved this…does it really matter? This is a video game. So, yeah, have your opinions. It really doesn’t matter.

“The Khans killed NCR women and children!” Is a claim I see a lot. …But what? This claim is baseless. I have seen zero sources for it in game. All we have for the Khan-NCR war is that they “Raided” and “Pillaged”. Is it possible that the Khans killed NCR women and children? Maybe. But is there any proof? No.

“So the Khans can give it, but they can’t take it?” What? Again, yes the Khans were raiders. Yes they assaulted and pillaged NCR towns and Caravans. But killing NCR children, women, elderly, and infirm? No proof. The closest we get for these claims is Sgt Bitter-Root’s childhood. Where he talked about how his dad made him shoot at NCR troopers when he was a child. But, again. The claim that Khans killed NCR children and elders? While I wouldn’t put it past the original or New Khans and the Powder Gangers and Fiends definitely have, the Khans are more than just a raider gang. They are a tribe, with children, infirm and elderly.

“The Khans practically invited the NCR to kill them!” Not an argument I see often, but yeah. It's honestly a good one. But, the children definitely weren't willing raiders. So why did they have to die? Also, isn't the NCR doing the same? Aren't they inviting the Fiends, Omertas, Vipers, Jackals, Kings, Freeside, the Khan's themselves, and any other settlements or groups they find to attack them back? The NCR are colonizers. They extracted the Tribes from Bullhorn City, (in specific endings) force Goodsprings and Primm to join them and pay taxes, and plan to annex the strip. Of course 2 wrongs don't make a right, but if the Khans invited the NCR to kill them then didn't the NCR do the same?

I think people just take raiders to mean killing children and elders but there's actually a big thing here. In the canon “Fallout All Roads” comic, we hear killing the courier referred to as “Raider Work”. I feel like it’s implied here that Raider work is uncommon. In fact, Khans have a code of honor. To not kill those who haven’t done you wrong even if you get paid. While it’s probable that this doesn’t mean much, it’s integral to note. Even if they plan to get back to Raiding, as Papa Khan claims the Legion will let them do, I imagine it's going to be primarily against the NCR as he later says “The NCR will pay for their crimes.”.

Did the Khans raid and pillage NCR towns and caravans? Yes.

Were the NCR pushing into, colonizing, and extorting settlements that were existing? Also yes.

Now, am I saying that the Khans raiding the NCR was good? Heck no! They were still punishing citizens for the crimes of their government, and that’s wrong. But, I believe that they aren’t just some generic raider gang like the Jackels.

For example, the chem dealing. The way I see it, although it’s wrong and causing huge problems, like the Fiends and Westside addicts, it might just be the only option they have. Yes, the Followers of the apocalypse taught them how to cultivate crops. But we must note:

The failure of Vegas soil (as noted by the Sharecropper farm)

The Mountainous terrain of Bitter Springs

And the Sand and Rocks of Red Rock canyon

All help show, in my opinion, that cultivating enough crops for the large number of Khans we see in All roads is extremely hard and it only gets harder as they get pushed to even more barren lands.

I believe that Khans are Morally gray. While the raiding, chem dealing, and murder are all evil and wrong I don’t believe that simple extermination is the key. They have culture. Some parts of this culture, like the NCR raids being tradition and the naming ceremony are a tad barbaric and should be changed. But the art? The music? The fashion? The history? Why must all these suffer because of both sins past, and misunderstanding?

I believe that because the Followers help them in Wyoming, that this shows that if the Khans are moved out of the Mojave…that they build an actual empire. Not just some cartel or gang. If they are taught to move on, to thrive? They become more than just husks of history. They create an empire of splendor, one that even Garl would have to be proud of.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #great khans #essay #tw gore

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bllsbailey · 6 months ago

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Freedom Feels Different in a Red State: Alabama Launches Ammo Vending Machines

In the world of retail modernization, this story is number one with a bullet.

Is there anything more 20th-century American than vending machines? They revolutionized life in the 1900s. By 1890, New York City had placed automated chewing gum dispensers on its railway platforms; soft drinks were delivered by mechanical means in 1937; and back in the social Stone Age, Americans used machines to secure their cigarettes.

Person-free peddling appliances have also gotten political. In California, machines have meted out marijuana; in heavily Democratic Connecticut, they've dealt abortion drugs. But red states have their own ways of revolutionizing life for the masses. And in the southeast, the self-service industry has gotten a 2nd-Amendment-themed update.

From Al.com Wednesday:

Two grocery stores in Alabama...have an automated vending machine that dispenses ammunition.

The boxy, high-tech bullet brokers -- constructed by a company called American Rounds -- use facial recognition to confirm each buyer's identification. Once a photo ID is received, a 360-degree scan is performed.

Such news calls to a defining difference between regions of the country. For years, Californians have had to undergo background checks to acquire ammo. The political machine there seems stacked against those who relish the right to bear arms. Meanwhile, AL is the opposite of LA.

And where might firearm owners in the Yellowhammer State acquire their vended cartridges? The grocery store, of course.

More from Al.com:

The machines can currently be found at Fresh Value locations in Tuscaloosa...and Pell City... The company plans to expand to other locations in Alabama as well, according to CEO Grant Magers. Magers said the Pell City store approached the company about installing one of the machines, thinking it was a “good opportunity for their customer base.”

Sometimes you just need some milk, eggs, and 9mm 115-grain jacketed hollow points.

In a promotional video, Fresh Value COO Terry Stanley claimed a win with store patrons:

“Anything that we can do to help them make their shopping trips easier. Based on the feedback that we’ve gotten from customers...they are so excited about us having this ammo kiosk."

Innovation in the realm of munitions sales makes sense; thanks in part to 2020's riots, the gun market hasn't exactly waned:To be clear, Alabama isn't the first state to see a machine that bestows bullets. Eight years ago, Fort Worth's Shoot Smart chain introduced the first such convenience to be offered at a Texas shooting range:But Alabama appears a pioneer in adjoining guns and groceries.

And stop the presses -- there's been some very recent recoil. On Friday, WVTM competitor ABC 33/40 reported the Tuscaloosa machine is being benched:

[T]he legality of the machine was questioned during a pre-council meeting on July 2nd. ... During the meeting, Councilman Kip Tyner said; "I got some calls about ammunition being sold in grocery stores, vending machines, the vending machines. Is that? I mean, I thought it was a lie. I thought it was a joke -- but it's not."

Nope.

As to Councilman...Tyner's question about whether these machines are legal? The city of Tuscaloosa's legal department says they are, provided they are installed in retail businesses with appropriate zoning.

Per ABC, the manager of a different Fresh Value location claims Tuscaloosa's kiosk has suffered lackluster sales.

Regardless, Oklahoma has followed Alabama with American Rounds installments in supermarkets.

Is AI-vended ammo the way of the future? In red states, maybe. In woker regions, such installations would see grocery stores requiring trigger warnings.

Whatever the fate of robotic bullet sales, surely we can all agree that the future looks stunningly strange.

-ALEX

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sceneloc8 · 7 months ago

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Top photoshoot and video shooting location in Lower Parel

People who take pictures, make videos, and make content of all kinds get inspired in Lower Parel. This changing area has a unique mix of settings that can help you make your ideas come to life, whether you want to capture timeless pre-wedding moments, make exciting music videos, or make interesting vlogs.

A center for making different kinds of content:

Lower Parel is charming because it has a lot of different sides to it. You could put old mills next to new skyscrapers or use colorful street art as a background for a fun fashion shoot. This variety lets people make their own content, like a classic pre-wedding photoshoot or a cool documentary about city life.

How to Do a Lower Parel Shoot:

Plan Your Shoot: Plan your shoot by thinking about things like the time of day, the amount of natural light that will be available, and any crowds that might be there. The sky is clear in the early morning, which is great for launching new products. At night, landscapes can add drama to music videos.

Take in the Energy: Lower Parel is a busy place. Take natural shots that show off the energy of the neighborhood, or plan scenes that fit in with the vibe.

Okays and Permissions: Do some research and make sure you have the right permits to film or take pictures in certain places, especially on private property.

Why Should I Pick Lower Parel?

A Mix of Old and New: Lower Parel has a unique mix of old mills, new skyscrapers, and colorful street art that can be used as backgrounds for your project.

Accessibility: Lower Parel is easy to get to for your shoot because it is well-connected by public transportation.

Hidden Gems: Get off the beaten path and find unique places that will give your content a unique touch.

#LowerParelShoots #MumbaiContentCreators #SceneLoc8 #PreWeddingShootLocations #FilmingLocations

Follow Our Whatsapp Channel:

@SceneLoc8 India

@SceneLoc8 Mumbai

#Content Creation #Mumbai #Mumbai Tourism #Prabhadevi #Prabhadevi photoshoot locations #Prabhadevi video shooting locations pen_spark #Scene Locate #SceneLoc8 #vloggers

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ultramaga · 10 months ago

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"Show me one." No, you lazy git, go look yerself. "These things don't exist" Uh huh. (*yawns*)

"The game you are so devoted to is a projection made up in your mind" I put in 12 000 hours into fallout 4 - once it was heavily modded. In that time, the bugs I reported were never solved. I did notice the unofficial patch did solve quite a lot, which screwed Bethesda over when FO76 launched, because suddenly all the bugs that had been there since almost day one were exposed as STILL BEING THERE. You don't have to believe me mate, but I don't really see the difference between that and not believing that the Vietnam War ever happened. We were there, we saw it, then you come along and say we were hallucinating. Nah, get fucked mate, if you couldn't be bothered in all those years seeing ONE video that countered your point of view, or taking the time to have a look at the forums, that's one you. It's ancient history. You can rave about it all you like. "Obsidian did not use a computerized bug-tracking system" Whereas Beth flatly ignored theirs. You are talking to one of the people who gave up reporting bugs. "You want to hate Bethesda games" Twelve. Thousand. Hours. Gosh, I must just be a hater! "The entire New Vegas fandom is like this!" Nah, mate, the entire Fallout fandom is like this. Polls went by pretty regularly. NV was the favourite, year after year. I don't know if the current wave of gamers ever played it, but quite a few checked it out. It takes tweaking to get it to work on modern systems, but there's still a lot of love for it.

Is it that you just don't read what I type, or you do read, then erase it from your memory when it is inconvenient?

"NV and NWN2 refused to fucking launch on 1/3rd of people's computers" I had no problem. I didn't like Mask of the Betrayer, and I think that was the only expansion I bought, but it wasn't the technical side of things that stopped me.

Reception of Neverwinter Nights 2 was generally favorable.[75][74] It placed number 6 on Amazon's video game pre-order list the week before its release,[77] and was a best-seller for several weeks afterwards.[78][79] It received GameSpot's "Best Story" award for 2006, beating out the reader's choice, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.[76] It was also nominated for a Golden Joystick Award for Best PC Game of 2006.[80] The editors of Computer Games Magazine presented Neverwinter Nights 2 with their 2006 "Best Writing" award, and it was a runner-up for their list of the year's top 10 computer games.[81] Oh yeah, it's just a hallucination, everybody hated it ....

88 new mods just this week for a game that was released 14 years ago.

Fallout 3?

7. New mods. Wow. Now Fallout 4 blows both out the water, the fact is I think when modded, it's better than both, because YOU IGNORE THE BETHESDA STORY AND CREATE YOUR OWN GAME. Which is why mods like Sim Settlements 2 and The Fens Sheriff's and the Depravity series are so popular. They overwrite the main quest so you ignore it. Nobody cares about finding Shaun. Not even the devs cared. As they said in the recording, they couldn't be bothered because they figured the players would just build shacks and shoot things.

When the truth was, we came here to rock.

impossible challenge: show me some way in which New Vegas is actually (as in actually) about politics and has something to say about or some means of engaging with politics...

...and this message or theme has to be stronger and more prevalent than the "the US could have won Vietnam if they had tried harder" theme

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout 3 #fallout 4

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buckleyblueyes · 4 years ago

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ahh that's amazing! thank you in advance. I got this idea into my head: what if there is this one time they're all on a call, and maybe it's something that hits a little too close to home for Buck, maybe it's playing on his fears and insecurities, but the moment Buck sees what they're dealing with he gets SCARED, and freezes, and subconsciously grabs Eddie's hand, because Eddie makes him feel safe. He is his best friend (who he's in love with, ofc) after all. Eddie is well. Surprised. Very much.

Anon! Thank you so much for your patience with this one! I know it's been ages since you sent it in. I hope it's worth the wait and that I did justice to your prompt! (CW: drowning)

Eddie feels Buck tense up beside him as soon as Bobby tells them where they're going: Splash Zone Water Park. They have calls to pools fairly often, and Buck always gets a little bit tense going into it, no matter how long it’s been since the tsunami. Eddie presses his knee against Buck’s in the truck, offering a silent comfort to his friend. Buck seems to push down his fears by the time they pull up to the scene, forcing himself to shift into Firefighter Buckley mode as they make their way through the park. Eddie lets himself be relieved, until they arrive in front of the wave pool.

Of course it’s the goddamn wave pool. Even worse, there’s a nine year old boy laid out on the stone patio next to the pool, dripping wet, brown hair plastered to his forehead. He’s unconscious, bleeding from the side of his head, and his chest isn't rising and falling like it should be. Buck freezes immediately at the sight, reaching out for Eddie with his right hand, and wrapping his fingers around Eddie’s left wrist. It takes Eddie a moment to realize that Buck is feeling for his pulse, grounding himself.

Eddie does his best to steady his breathing and heart rate once he realizes what Buck is doing. The sight in front of them is upsetting to him, of course it is, but he knows it’s worse for Buck. He’s not the one who walked around for hours not knowing if Christopher was dead or alive. He’s not the one who almost died himself (at least, not that day.) “It’s okay,” he murmurs quietly, so only Buck can hear. “I’m here, I’m alive. That’s not Christopher.” It’s purely a medical call at this point, so he makes no attempt to move away from Buck as Hen and Chimney begin administering CPR to the boy. His mother is crying, wailing, begging them to save him. His lips are turning blue. Buck’s grip on Eddie’s wrist is like a vice.

“We got a pulse!” Hen finally calls out.

Buck’s grip doesn’t loosen, but Eddie does hear him let out of a heavy breath. He twists his hand out of Buck’s grip just enough that he can slide his arm up, so Buck is no longer holding his wrist, but is holding his hand. He gives Buck’s hand a firm squeeze and finally hazards a glance up at the man in question. Buck is staring at their intertwined hands now, confused. At least, Eddie decides, he’s distracted from the drowning boy. He runs his thumb along the back of Buck’s hand, in what he hopes is a comforting gesture.

He knows they’re crossing some kind of line here, that hand holding in the middle of an emergency scene (even one where their presence turned out not to be strictly necessary) is not something that he’ll be able to brush off as strictly platonic. It doesn’t scare him like it used to, though. Maybe it’s because he watched Buck date Taylor, so he knows how much worse it would be to not have Buck, or maybe it’s all the therapy he’s been in since the shooting. Either way, Eddie’s not afraid anymore. He and Buck have been on the edge of something--or maybe everything--for months, so if holding Buck’s hand will help ground him, keep his mind from thrusting him back in time, then it’s a risk Eddie is willing to take.

Hen and Chimney are loading the boy into the ambulance--he is breathing again, still unconscious and probably severely concussed, but alive--when Bobby finally makes his way over to them. He takes in the haunted look in Buck’s eyes, and the fact that their hands are still tightly clasped together, and frowns.

“You boys alright?” He asks, but he’s looking at Buck.

Buck nods slowly. “I--Yeah. Just...Brought up some bad memories.”

“This was a rough one,” Bobby agrees. “I’m gonna take us off rotation for a while when we get back to the station.”

“Thanks, Cap,” Eddie says. Buck doesn’t say anything.

Bobby smiles in that warm, fatherly way of his, looking between them. “Take care of each other.”

As if there’s any universe where they wouldn’t.

Eddie doesn’t let go of Buck’s hand until they get back to the station, and only because he needs two hands to cook.

“I’m not hungry,” Buck says, still hovering in Eddie’s space.

“You were about to eat before the call came in,” Eddie insists gently. “You need to eat.”

“And you’re gonna cook for me?” Buck shakes his head. “I think I’ll take my chances with starvation.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, pulling out a griddle and a clean spatula. “I think I can handle grilled cheese, Buck.”

Buck’s mouth opens and closes in surprise. “Grilled cheese?”

“Maddie may have mentioned making it for you a lot growing up.” Eddie flushes slightly at having to admit he’s talked to Maddie about Buck. “I thought it would be comforting.”

Buck stares at him, eyes wide and mouth turning up into a tentative smile. “Yeah, it is.”

“Good,” Eddie smiles back. “Now, go sit down.”

Eddie bustles about the kitchen, pulling out the good buttermilk bread that Chimney always buys instead of the whole wheat bread that Bobby puts on the list, the pre-sliced cheddar cheese, and the butter. “After we eat, how about we video call Christopher?” It’s late in the afternoon, he’ll be home from school by now.

Buck lets out a long exhale. “Yes, please.”

Eddie flips the bread slices on the griddle and places the cheese slices on the toasted side. “Great.”

“I--” Buck starts. “I didn’t know how to ask.”

Eddie looks up from the sandwiches. “How to ask for what?”

“To talk to Christopher,” Buck draws patterns on the tabletop with his index finger. “I know I’m not--He’s not mine.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything at first, just plates up the sandwiches, brings them over to the table, and sits down next to Buck, who takes a small, tentative bite.

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“What?”

“You said Christopher isn’t yours,” Eddie picks up his sandwich, but doesn’t bite into it. “I don’t think that’s true.”

Buck is staring at him again, confused.

“Look, I don’t know what we are anymore, Buck,” Eddie admits. “Things are different between us now, and I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know that you love Christopher, and that he loves you just as much. If that doesn’t give you a right to call him, to reassure yourself that he’s okay, then I don’t know what does.”

“I…” Buck’s eyes fill with tears.

"It's okay, Buck." Eddie reaches over to wipe Buck's tears with his thumb. “Just eat your grilled cheese."

Buck does as he’s told, making it halfway through the sandwich in three bites. “You know, there’s no law that says we have to wait until we finish eating to call Christopher.”

Eddie raises a skeptical eyebrow, looking up from his own half-eaten lunch. “Will you actually finish eating if we call now?”

“Absolutely.” Buck takes a big bite to prove his point. “See?” He says, through a mouthful of food. Something so childish shouldn’t be so endearing, and yet, somehow it is.

Helpless, Eddie pulls out his phone. Carla answers on the second ring. “You better have a good reason for interrupting math homework.”

“I do.” Eddie assures her. “Can you put Chris on?”

Carla gives him a look, but does as he asks. Christopher is grinning--probably excited to have his math homework interrupted “Hi, Dad!”

“Hey, kid.” Eddie can’t help but return his son’s smile. “How’s the math homework going?”

Christopher’s smile falters slightly. “Oh, it’s good.”

Somehow Eddie doesn’t totally believe that, but it’s not important now. “Listen, I’ve got somebody here who wants to say ‘hi’, is that okay?”

The boy’s smile comes back even wider than before. “Is it Buck?”

“Yeah,” Buck says, loud enough that the phone can catch it. “It’s me.”

“Hand the phone to Buck, Dad!” Christopher is bouncing with excitement. “Hand the phone to Buck!”

He does, scooching his chair closer so he can still see the screen himself, and before Buck can even greet Christopher, the kid is launching into a monologue.

“Buck! Dr. Lassiter assigned us a big, semester-long project for science class, can you pleeeaaase help me with it? I want to build a model of the solar system, but it has to be totally accurate.”

The tension Buck's body has been holding onto since the phrase “water park” fell from Bobby’s lips is finally starting to fade.

“Absolutely. Do we want it to move?”

Christopher’s eyes widen on screen. “Yes!”

Buck laughs. “Well then, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

Eddie smiles softly, as Buck and Christopher begin planning their project. He knows he must look like a lovesick fool, but to be fair, that’s what he is. He rests one hand over the crook of Buck’s elbow, and doesn’t miss the pink that appears across his cheeks.

“Alright, you three,” that’s Carla’s voice, “Somebody still has math homework to finish, and I’m sure you boys will have to get back to work soon.”

Eddie sighs. Carla is right, unfortunately. But Buck looks lighter than he has all day. “We better do what Carla says.”

“Will you come over after work?” Christopher asks. They won't get off until after Christopher will already be at school, so Buck will probably go to his loft after work. But Eddie doesn’t doubt now that Christopher has asked, Buck will manage to make it over to their house by the time Christopher is home from school. He wonders if it's too soon to ask Buck to sleep in his bed, instead of going to his loft at all. It's yet another line to cross, but at this point Eddie's lost track of all the lines they've crossed.

“You bet,” is Buck’s answer. “Now get back to your math!”

“Okay, dad,” Christopher says, rolling his eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm. It’s meant to be a joke at Buck’s expense, but Eddie can see the breath catching in Buck’s throat all the same, so he pulls the phone from his hand and takes over.

“Good-bye, Christopher! We love you!”

“Bye Dad! Bye Buck! I love you guys, too.”

Buck finds his voice again. “Bye Superman!”

“So,” Eddie says, putting the phone down. “Do you feel better now?”

“Eddie…” Buck hesitates, dropping his hand down so it rests over Eddie’s. His skin is warm and rough and unlike earlier Eddie can actually enjoy the feeling. “Thank you.” He’s thanking Eddie for more than just the grilled cheese and the phone call, and Eddie knows it.

His answer is simple. He turns his hand over, and interlocks their fingers. “Always, Buck.”

#buddie #buddie fanfic #buddie drabble #my fan fiction #prompt fill #anonymous

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starryyyjoon · 3 years ago

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I, you | Kim Namjoon One Shot

word count: 8.2k

pairing: idol!namjoon x fem reader

summary: namjoon meets you again and he can't help but want you to look at him the same way he has all these years.

disclaimer: it's sort of written from y/n pov. kind of smut included, not too much but still. other then that, i don't think there's anything. it was written a long time ago so i don't clearly remember, sorry!

Namjoon walked in, followed by a few staff members and they occupied the empty chairs on the conference table and I smiled at him and the others. He looked great like always, he was in a navy blue hoodie and a khaki colored trouser, with his hair pushed backwards exposing his forehead.

There was something and nothing between me and him and it was too tiring to play pretend. "You look good", he remarked and I smiled at him. He's always being too kind, I looked like absolute shit, I hadn't slept in three days and my clothes were whatever was in my reach that I'd put on after showering and I rushed here.

I had met him before this level of success but I was merely an assistant director myself and we'd talked about Monet and his work together, he'd similar interests to mine but both of us didn't really get anywhere because of our timing and I believed it was for the good. He'd always expressed how he liked my vision and wants to work with me on something and I didn't believe my vision because what even was my vision that he could see and not me and after being this big I didn't really thought he'll even remember me until he hit my phone one day and here I was, at the label's office to discuss the details of his mixtape's music video.

"So, do you've something in mind?", I asked him and he pressed his back on the chair letting out a yawn, he seemed tired.

"Not really! I want it simplistic and not too hard to understand. I haven't thought about it or anything so I don't know, I would await what you propose", he softly said.

"I haven't heard the track because of--", he intervened, "--ah you haven't? You should hear it first", he said and I nodded.

"I would need to hear it", I told him, thinking about the lengthy talks with the illustrator already.

The staff then pin pointed about the budget, the do nots and other details and two of my team members who were seated beside me talked thoroughly in detail about the technicalities. Namjoon looked bored with all the talk that didn't interest him. He wasn't much different from before slightly bigger.

All of us stood up coming to an agreement when Namjoon asked me to walk up to his studio to hear the track and I asked my team members to go ahead first. I walked through the dark corridor behind him while he talked to someone on the phone, all the way to his studio. I didn't really hear what he was talking because I was invested in staring around the place like I hadn't seen a building before.

The walls were all dark and a comforting shade since I didn't like the sun anyway. It seemed like a night mode in real life.

His studio was the corner most, he typed the passcode in and stood aside gesturing for me to walk in, followed by him. He hung up the phone call and put his phone aside, switching the AC on. He sat behind the monitor while he switched it on and I went through my inbox.

"So, how have you been?", his deep tone, made me look up and I fidgeted to put my eyes on something other then him while he turned his chair around to face me.

"I have been okay-ish, like the projects I'm doing I'm satisfied with them so I guess it's kinda okay", I said and regretted it immediately, I don't even talk like this and he knows it.

"Not the work c'mon, you, your boyfriend, family, other things?", a lose smile hung on his lips and I looked at him. How can someone look like that?

"No boyfriend because you know no one can put up with this profession. I haven't slept in three days so I'm fucking annoyed and the work is too much that I don't have time for other things", I shrugged and he chuckled. I didn't want to think about guys, I barely had time for myself. Filmmaking was a time bound profession.

"I relate, trust me I do", he turned his chair back around, his eyes on the computer screen and I looked at him. I could see why he could relate, I mean of course he didn't had time either. I knew idol schedules enough to know how these things go. "Why didn't you come that day?", he asked me and my insides twisted.

"I was hoping you don't bring it up", I said in a small voice.

"Why not? I waited for you", he said without looking at me and I threw my head back on the couch thinking of the time when he'd asked me out officially and I didn't make it. "At least I deserve to know what was more important that you didn't make it", he looked at me and I closed my eyes shut.

"I had a flight, I got an exclusive food show travel experience with discovery and it was too good for an opportunity to miss", I let it out and took a breath in. I knew I could never leave work for a guy, any guy, or anyone as a matter of fact and as much as I'd thought about it on the plane...it all seemed for the better. He wasn't the kind of guy I could've had my regular thing with and I was too young to be serious.

"It was a good show", he told me. I could feel his eyes on me and I didn't flinch. I didn't regret it but his words made me feel guilty. My head was on the headrest of the sofa I sat on and my eyes were closed. My subconscious could feel his curious gaze on me.

"Look away Namjoon", I said and I could feel his gaze was still on me.

"Why didn't you call me when you got back?", he asked me and I looked at him.

"I didn't because our cultures differ, everything is poles apart--what's the point of discussing it now?", I asked him, slightly annoyed. He and I separately needed to focus on our careers and he knew it too damn well.

"Okay", he turned around again as his monitor showed a circle indicating that the programme he'd launched was loading. "It does makes me feel better that my better position in life doesn't changes your opinion on me. Quiet comforting", he said, with a hint of sarcasm in his voice but I chose to ignore it. The last thing I'd be doing is fueling this feeling in him by discussing this useless thing which wouldn't make any difference whatsoever.

"Is this the reason you wanted me to do this project with you?", I asked him and he swiftly turned his chair around.

"No, I don't take all this for granted. I love the stuff you do. I'm pretty updated thanks to how active you're on your social media", he smiled and I couldn't shook the thought of seeing my psychotic episodes on my Instagram, Twitter...everywhere. I'm pretty weird out there.

"I love it, the stories", he flased his dimple smile before turning his chair around again and I felt his warmth, like he meant what he said.

For a second I was taken aback with how tall he was from me and how good he looked, he'd always looked good but he was more mature now and much more reserved. "I'll be calling you often because I won't send it for pre-production without your say on the concept", I told him.

"I'll look forward to a lot of calls", he said. "I'm sorry this is taking a while", he added quickly and for some reason I couldn't look away from him, whose back was visible to me.

"No, take your time", I said, crossing my arms against my chest. I really wished he was a regular guy just making music but then I didn't. I wouldn't want someone to wish that for me. He'd earned all of it and I knew it.

"Look away ___", he said slowly. I could feel his grin through his words and I looked away shaking my head right and left softly. "It's, yeah it's playing", he turned around as the music filled in the empty atmosphere.

It was a slow song with a really fast rap. It was how Namjoon was, he contradicted himself too much. I instantly knew it was his writing from the way the words went and the wordplay came into role. I couldn't help but analyze the song because I was supposed to shoot and sketch a music video for it and at times like this I didn't really get to enjoy the art for the art and I hated it.

"How was it?", he asked me, his eyes fixated on me as the music faded. I wanted it to last.

"The only problem with it is that it ends", I flashed a smlie at him and he shook his head throwing it back.

"That's too corny even for you", Namjoon rolled his eyes but I was being serious. "You know I appreciate heavy critics", he said.

"I didn't find anything to criticize, the writing is great, the composition fits and it has a catchy vibe to it. I think I would listen a song like that on a drive or something? In your case a bicycle but yeah! It's a good song", I summarized my opinion. "Do you like want a trendy video?", I asked him.

"Anything that you want to do with it", he said and I gently nodded. Since it was given to me, I couldn't stop thinking about what to do with it.

"Can you stop thinking about it while you're with me ___?", he chuckled and I looked at him taken aback for a second and then nodded with a soft smile pasted on my lips.

"Your fashion sense has improved", I remarked.

"You look casual", he teased me.

"I, I've no fashion sense. I just wear whatever is there", I told him.

"I don't think so, your Instagram says different", he said.

"It's for the show Namjoon", I said.

"You're really not the type to do that, please don't deceive me", he beamed before he turned his chair around again to minimize the current tabs on the computer.

"You're the last person I'd be deceiving--", my words were cut from an incoming call from one of the producers of one of the shows I was working on. "I need to take this", I told him and answered the call while he just gave me a gentle nod in response.

The producer had informed me about the issues related to casting and the final draft of the script and I knew I had to go.

"Guess I'll see you later, bye", Namjoon said warmly as he smiled at me. The thing was he just knew and that always stuck somewhere.

"Bye", I left.

________________

"I, for one, disagree. C'mon how do you even call it an end?", I threw my hands in the air as we discussed it for the millionth time. I liked Su-ho but his thoughts on GOT made me want to kill him. He is the only person I knew who was satisfied with how it ended.

"I think it was okay, c'mon, you have to consider that the novels didn't end and as compared to that I think it was pretty good", Su-ho claimed while he sat on the bean bag in front of me, pushing it comfortably.

"Don't even start with the novels--", my words were interrupted with the sound of the doorbell, "--they didn't even do a good job interpreting it and I am offended by that. Look there novels", I pointed at my bookshelf, showing him my GOT collection which he knew as I opened the door and my head bumped against Namjoon's chest as he took a step in.

He chuckled as he held the back of my head with one hand and pressed my forehead with the other and rubbed it gently to ease the pain.

"What's uh, what's that? Is it iron", I mocked, pointing at his chest while he let me go from his grip and took his shoes off.

"It can be", he said. "But why were you jumping around so enthusiastically?", he asked me as he seated on the couch in front of Su-ho, as he greeted him and Su-ho greeted him back.

"Game of Thrones heavy discussions", I sighed. "This is Su-ho who's illustrating the storyboard", I told Namjoon.

Su-ho was starstruck and it seemed like it'd take him a good minute to recover and Namjoon was obviously used to it. I didn't call him at the office because a lot of people would want to see him then and it could be exhausting plus he'd a time limit on his hands.

"You know him, ___?", Su-ho widened his eyes at me and I nodded, suppressing my laughter seeing his chaotic ass behave like this.

"A little", I said and I could feel Namjoon's gaze on me. "Maybe a lot", I rephrased. I could see by the way Su-ho looked at me that he needed answers. "Coffee?", I asked Namjoon.

"Oh yeah", he replied and I stood up. "I've thought of two concepts, Su-ho please brief him on it and if you want anything differently Namjoon, you can tell him", I told him as I marched towards the kitchen.

Should I use the regular coffee mugs or should I use the better ones? I mean it doesn't matter anyway but still, it kind of does? I don't know. It just comes to me, the over thinking.

Ah.

I could hear him and Su-ho talking about the concepts faintly and I was low-key proud because I did work hard on them. I opened the cabinet to take out the better coffee mugs.

This is what happens when you stop drinking milk and stop growing up. I rested my hands on the kitchen pavement thinking about how many shoes with heels I'd because of my height.

I wasn't very short but I wasn't my desired height too. It was sad. I was the right person to sell the tonics concerning height because my insecurity would make me buy it. I exhaled heavily and turned around to find Namjoon behind me.

"Let me", my hips pressed against the marble pavement while his body gently pressed against my front, I could spot the mole on his neck while he calmly took the box of mugs out. "Okay?", he whispered softly and I looked on without responding.

"Thanks", I told him, hoping he'd get away from me because this had me feeling some type of way. I won't admit what type of way. That makes it worse.

"Anytime", he clicked his lips, taking a few steps back as I stirred the coffee and poured it in three cups. Should've used regular ones.

"I like the quotes on that wall", he said as I handed him his cup, taking the other two. A wall of my house was covered in post-it notes and other stuff. Some print outs of Van Gogh and Frida's works alongside other things.

"Yeah that? Thanks", I said, as I gave the cup to Su-ho. "Did you decide on something?", I asked, as I sat down and Namjoon just beside me.

"Yeah, the first one. It was kind of okay, he made some alterations so I would send it to you by...maximum tomorrow", Su-ho told me. "But why did you call him here for just this?", he asked me.

"You seem so concerned about his whereabouts", I glared Su-ho . "I told him I could just email him but he insisted on doing it in person", I looked at Namjoon who took a long sip from his coffee.

"Yeah I did, don't worry I was absolutely free", Namjoon smiled at Su-ho and I could see Su-ho fanboy-ing.

"You're so in line today", I pressed my words.

"Shut up", Su-ho eyed me. I wrapped my hands around the coffee mug feeling its warmth.

After I talked to Namjoon for a while about the shoot and he explained to me about their company procedure and how they usually did things. I didn't like doing music videos or commercials, there's a lot of time you're bound by what the music video demands and you've to stick with that so that was that. I usually preferred either cinema like movies or dramas, I hadn't done much but I had done a few and travel shows were my preference.

"I'll see you next time then", Su-ho politely remarked looking at Namjoon and he smiled and gently bowed his head. I walked with him up-to the door. "I didn't, what the hell, you could've given me a heads up?", Su-ho whispered slowly to me as I leaned against the door.

"I didn't knew you were a fan", I said and he playfully hit me on my arm.

"I still can't believe it, you've to answer my hot questions next time", he said and I nodded.

"Okay okay", I closed the door shut behind me, taking a seat on the far side of the sofa me and Namjoon were seated on. He was scanning my bookshelf and I was looking at him.

"Literally 70% of it is fiction", he said. I read a lot of fiction and he read a lot of nonfiction.

"You should read fiction", I said and he looked at me slightly pissed.

"I do read fiction just not thar much", he pointed at my bookshelf. "If you've to recommend one, shoot", he said.

"Recommend, uh, the secrets of happiness", I said randomly and his face sunk in annoyance. "It's not a book talking about literal secrets of happiness, it has a story", I told him.

"Ah okay...I will try reading that. Let me take your copy", he said.

"No", I said back in a split second.

"I won't lose it, c'mon, ___", he said. I couldn't believe his testimony on not losing it.

"Fine, but it's annotated. You'll owe me big time if you lose it", I said and he nodded vigorously.

"Your place is great", he said looking around the house and I couldn't see why, I mean yeah maybe but not that I find it great if I think from his point of view.

"I'm barely here anyway. I pay rent for no reason", I kept the empty mug in my hand on the glass table in front of us.

"That was your friend though, Su-ho?", Namjoon asked as he kept his cup, followed by me.

"Oh yeah! I met him for work but then it's been a while since I know him, it's been years actually and he's a friend now", I said thinking about Su-ho. I don't know why I bothered explaining. It's been a good five years since Namjoon and I hadn't been in touch and there was a little catching up to do.

"You've always had a lot of friends, don't you", he sighed as he sat cross legged on the sofa facing me. I do have plenty friends honestly.

"Kind of", I shrugged. His gaze on me made me sit back in a more cautious way as I fixed my posture. "Namjoon...", I called out his name when the doorbell rung and I was irritated. "Give me a second", I stood up and walked up-to the main door.

It was my neighbor who's mother had left their house keys with me and he was here to take it back. He thanked me for keeping it and walked up to his own flat which was in front of mine.

I closed the door shut and Namjoon was standing by the balcony seeing a cactus I had grown since I couldn't grow any other plant because I was never home to take care of them in case.

"It's cute", he said as he picked the potted plant and stared at it for a little while and I stood behind him and watched him see it.

"You know your pupils dilate when you see plants", I said and he smiled to himself. He kept the cactus back in its resting place and stared at me. "What?", I asked him.

"You were going to say something", he said, his voice sounded deeper then usual for a second and I licked my bottom lip in haste.

"Oh that, you know the alterations you made? I will directly mail it to the staff and maybe cc you because it won't need a second check anyway. I've to get this done a little early since I've--", he turned towards me and I took a step back but there was barely any space and my back was pressed against the wall, "--what is it?", I asked but it came out as a whisper.

"Here", he dragged his index finger across my bottom lip and there was something on my lip. I didn't really see what was on there because of his presence so close to me. My heartbeat had fastened and I could feel it. Something I didn't want to feel.

"Thanks, I guess", I said slowly and he flashed his dimple smile at me and in that moment he seemed the opposite of the dominant he was a few seconds ago.

"Do you know you look really good?", he said, as his fingers ran across my ear touching the piercings one by one. I regretted having three all of a sudden. "And I didn't intended to do this but ___ I uh", he bent over a little, his lips a few inches away from my ear and his breath was falling on my neck.

"Namjoon", I said, trying to not look at him. I knew damn well I couldn't be able to control myself.

"Hmm", his voice was so small and I could feel goosebumps all over my neck. His gaze on me was strong and I had jitters in my stomach.

"I, uh--let's not okay", I put my hands on his shoulder as he pulled me more closer with a jolt and I gasped.

"Do you really not want to?", he asked me. It was a while since I was in this close proximity of someone like this but my subconscious kept telling me not to. "I don't understand what you find so undesirable about me", he took a few steps back and looked away.

What?

"Do you think I find you undesirable?", I asked him, pressing my lips suppressing my smile. I couldn't get how could he change roles in a span of few seconds.

"Yeah, it's pretty evident really", he sighed, looking at the the far side of the sky at the horizon and I saw him sulking.

"It's not that, are you fucking dumb? It's just you know you shouldn't start things you can't take care of", I said. For some reason I've always felt a little hesitant with him. "But you're desirable enough", I added.

"Sudden validation from you, ah", he clicked his lips in mockery and I felt bad. The last thing I wanted was to look like I was playing hard to get. I didn't feel competent enough in my heart. "Let me kiss you", he said, taking a few steps closer breaking the chain of my thoughts and I hated being so much in control and feeling a little out of place.

I was back to where I was a few seconds ago, me cornered and he put his lips on mine and my body automatically responded. He took over me in a second. My hands rested on his back and clutched the fabric. His hands travelled below my hips as he pulled me upwards and my legs wrapped around his waist. He didn't stop kissing me for one second and I didn't want him to, as he pressed his mouth harder on mine and I bit back a moan. I could feel the heat in my body and every vein seemed to electrify. He walked me up-to my bedroom like he knew which suddenly felt foreign to me as he laid me on the bed, breaking the kiss and I was breathless, panting for air.

I didn't had any resort in me to stop. I didn't want him to stop. I couldn't care more about whatever that had me concerned for a while. He watched me look at him and his lips curved in a smirk. "Should I stop?", he teased me taking a seat on the edge of the bed and I looked away from him to the right side, scoffing.

I pushed myself up, my hands at the hem of the lose white t-shirt I'd on and for a second I hesitated at the fact that he must've seen better flesh than mine but I pulled it upwards exposing myself in front of him as his eyes went everywhere. "Do you want to stop?", I asked him, as I crawled over to him. He didn't object as I sat on his lap and took his face in my hands. I looked in his eyes. He looked beautiful. I traced the outline of his skull, his jaw as I pushed his hair locks that were on his forehead behind. "Do you want to stop Namjoon?", I asked him again as he held me tight, giving me my answer.

He tugged at my neck with his mouth leaving a trail of gentle kisses down and I could feel my nipples startlingly prominent beneath the black lightweight bra I had on. I clutched his hair as he bit my neck suddenly and I gasped.

He pushed me on to him, nearer but there was barely any space for me to come close and I could feel him all over. He messily kissed me before groping my bottom and I-I cut a breath in. He would take turns and be gentler a second and rough the another. "Namjoon", I called out gasping which fueled him even more. He looked at me and smiled proudly at how he had me without doing much.

He flicked the straps of my bra shoving it down exposing my breasts and I could feel my nipples harden to the point it was painful. I wanted him. I wanted him to touch me, more. The way my body responded to his touch was almost funny, how quick, how wet.

I patiently unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it off of him while he looked at me with a gaze I couldn't quite make anything of, he just looked at me while he let me work on him. My hands touched his chest and my eyes examined his torso, his skin was warm and his gaze on me gave me confidence like he wanted me back as much I wanted him.

I was forgetting my own desperation for his touch as my hand traveled behind his back, trailing down to his spine and he looked at me as he cut a sharp breath in and I felt good seeing him giving in to me. His arms surrounded mine unclasping my bra in a second and he threw it off on the floor.

I half expected him to grab me and grope my breast but he swept me in his arms as his vaguely pink mouth pressed against mine and instead of hastily grabbing me, his mouth simply rested against mine and it was worse, much more intoxicating. I, on instinct coiled my arms against his neck.

As my tongue demanded entrance and he smiled before letting me, and in a second, roles were reversed, the romantic was gone. He took control and pressed his mouth harder on me with his thumb and finger pressing my nipple and my nails dug deeper in his neck. "Joon...", I on instinct called out, as I gasped for breath but he didn't let me.

He was hard against me and I grinded next to him which seemed to please him while he left my mouth, burning with a wanting for more while my sex clenched as he took control of my body putting his arms around my back and they were free to go anywhere. I wouldn't dare stop him.

A second later, he laid me on the bed and hovered over me before taking my shorts off in a whirl and pushed my underwear off me that it didn't seem reusable. I anticipated his actions but he pushed a thumb into my bottom without no warning and I clutched the sheets, a yell escaping my mouth. My fingers curled meanwhile his other arm grabbed my breast cupping it and a second later his forefinger and middle finger slipped inside of me and my grip on the sheets tightened.

"Shh", he hissed in my ear and I hadn't realized a moan had escaped my mouth. My whole body rocked in less then a minute and I couldn't control my voice, I gasped for breath and I moaned even louder then before. "I didn't take you for a screamer ___", Namjoon seemed amused while embarrassment washed over me as I laid exposed in front of him.

"Let me go down on you", I told him and he looked taken aback as I pushed myself up.

"Do you really want to?", he asked and I shifted closer to him, placing a gentle kiss on his lips.

"I would love to", I told him. "Do you want me to?", I asked him.

"Yeah, I mean yeah", he said when his phone rang echoing in the room and his face flushed into irritation as he looked at me and I nodded gesturing him to take it. He took it out of his pocket and answered it. With every word he spoke, his irritation grew. He hung up the phone call. "Where's the wardrobe?", he asked me and my eyes pointed behind him.

Namjoon opened my wardrobe and took out a very lose t-shirt of his choice from my stack of comfortable clothes. He held my arms and slipped the t-shirt on me, pulling me close. He stroked my face and he smiled in my face which forced me to smile as well.

"Am I suppose to expect something from you or should I forget this?", I asked him as his fingers tucked the few strands of my hair behind my ear.

"You're supposed to expect everything, don't dare forget it", he whispered in my ear, nibbling on it and I couldn't help but giggle. "I want to talk to you but I've to go now and I hate it", he smiled at me.

"Okay, go", I told him and he chuckled before letting me off him and he wore his shirt back on.

After seeing him off and taking a shower, I laid back on the couch in the living room thinking about everything that had happened. I didn't regret it, I wasn't thinking much about it anyway.

The guys I'd sex with or made out with, I disliked them because of their narcissism. I appreciated my ability to find guys that were a-grade assholes. I've always had this feeling that I am lacking in some sense with other people. I look normal, like I should but I get this insecurity when taking my clothes off.

I didn't knew what Namjoon thought about it and asking him would be weird. No one who knows me like him would think I am this insecure or anxious about this stuff but then a major part of it has to do with my aura, I guess?

________________

I took a bite of the sandwich that I held in my hand as I walked around the second set just nearby to the first one. I stood afar, taking a good look, even though the storyboard fits the sights I still need to frame out a rough sketch work in my head.

I took another bite staring at the beach and the path to it and then back to the set that we'd build up by man power. It was pretty accurate in my eyes but I wanted to hear from my assistant director.

I took the walkie talkie out from the pocket of my denim and pressed the centre button, "Jae-chan, where are you?"

In a second he reverted, "Ah sunbae I am near the gripper".

"Come to the road that leads to the beach", I said, before shoving the walkie talkie down in my pocket.

The sea met the sky at the far point of the horizon and how the world is full of these illusions which are not real we know but we still believe. After all there's beauty in things that you don't get. Vastness maybe?

Sea and sky — the two melancholic blues.

"Sunbae?", Jae Chan broke the chain of my thoughts and I glanced at him before looking at the sea. His breath was heavy, I could tell he ran here.

"You could have walked, Chan-ah", I said, smiling. He was really young and passionate about filmmaking but also a little silly. He's cute.

"Ah it's okay. Did you need something?", he asked politely and I shook my head. I liked the input of many people on the same thing, it showed the number of opinions that could centre around one thing that you make in a different context which is then perceived in another.

"Do you think this is accurate in terms of the story board?", I asked him and he seemed lost in thought.

"I would say slightly better because the storyboard is still animation and this is real so I would say better. I'm pretty sure it'll be good sunbae", he told me and I could feel a smile flush on my lips. "You are nervous, aren't you?", he asked me.

"Yeah", I wrinkled my nose, turning around to walk off. I patted Jae Chan's back and he started walking with me.

"You don't have to be, and oh, he's here", he said assuring me and I knew who he meant by he.

My mind automatically went to the day in my apartment. Namjoon had messaged me after but he got busier with his work and I am not a text-er plus I'd a lot of things to do before I left Korea. It was, I didn't knew anything and I didn't want to think about it. I hoped he'd pretend nothing happened, please. But I knew he won't.

I sighed and as I entered the main set, around the vanity and food truck, the manager and Namjoon's staff members greeted me. After that, I mean impractically I wanted earth to open and swallow me. Living is hard anyway.

I'd a flight on the weekend, I'd to pack and I'd to get new boots but I'm just dumb because I'm trying to think of other things. I need a new nail paint, do I? I looked at my nails which were painted black. Maybe grey?

"Sunbae?", Jae Chan shook me and I looked at him. He gestured me to look up front and Namjoon was right there looking like Namjoon.

"Hi", I awkwardly waved at him.

"Hi", he flashed his dimple smile at me. His dimple smile hits me.

"You can get the makeup and hair done, I've a few things to recheck", I excused myself. This is awkward. This is so awkward. I hate it.

Even though I had that awkwardness lingering around but we were nearing to the end of the shoot which went really good because everyone worked so hard. It was mostly one-takes and the lighting supported the whole setting making it so easier for us to finish.

Moreover, it was a while since I had done a music video so it felt good being back on a set like this. Namjoon looked really good with the styling and although I knew the outfits pre-shoot, he still looked better then I'd imagined him to look which enhanced the whole vibe of the music video. He owned earthly tones.

That's why casting and styling is so important. Very much. Makes a gigantic difference.

"What's wrong with you?", I didn't notice he was standing next to me with a small fan in his hands while we prepped for the last shot.

"What's wrong with me?", I asked him, as I adjusted the frame in the main camera. I didn't want this conversation especially right now, especially here.

"I mean...you knowww?", I could feel his stare while I shifted the camera, something is wrong with this.

"I don't know", I said, without looking at him. I was unintentionally making him mad and nothing else.

"I was really scared that you'd say this and see, I mean, why can't you behave normal when I mention anything about us?", he hissed near me and I looked around. Luckily there was no one in our proximity to hear this conversation.

"I-I, Namjoon", I exclaimed, vaguely pointing at the setting hoping we could do this later and I could explain that I would love us but he needs to understand that I won't even be in Korea as much as he thinks I would be and that's why it won't work out.

"I don't care", he eyed me.

"I do. I care, okay? There's no us to begin with and I know I was stupid enough to ask you what I should expect out of, what would you call it, we made out. That's that", I tried being really slow and I could feel annoyance in his sight.

"Made out! Okay, okay fine. I can't believe I deal with you. You're the one who doesn't text or call or even respond to it and that's bare minimum ___", he pondered and I internally rolled my eyes.

I was leaving on the weekend. I was always leaving. That's it. "I don't have to and I have a life Namjoon. I've been working non stop all this time. I don't expect you to understand", I said, standing up from my seat while I called for the head DOP from the walkie talkie.

"You don't want to be understood ___", Namjoon said, grabbing me from my arm and stopping me. He wasn't wrong. A few eyes snapped and I forced a smile immediately. "I like you, I like you a lot. Deal with it", he walked past me.

Deal with it.

As if.

Very abruptly, the last shot rolled in and it was over. The music video was done in a day. It was originally a two day sketch but we had to narrow it down to one day because of Namjoon's schedule and it was worrisome because it did seem impossible but things went smoothly and it was successfully over.

I told Jae Chan to wrap the filming site, though most of it was done while I was present. I picked my bag from a table to leave, kept right ahead from the vanity. Namjoon had left, I guess. I wasn't sure because after the last shot he was angry. He had his jaw clenched all that time, he barely managed to keep it out on the music video.

He was like this, his anger was pretty evident and that hadn't changed.

I like you. I like you a lot.

I couldn't wrap my head around that thought. Did he like me all this time? It sounded pretty crazy to me. I had never thought about anything with Namjoon. He was a friend I could like but I didn't, I had never expected anything out of my acquaintance with him anyway.

"You ate?", his deep voice made me look at him who stood at the steps of the vanity. He hadn't left yet.

"No", I said. He had changed into his normal clothes, the makeup was gone but he still looked great. His natural complexion was shining as the set lights fell onto his face. It made me surer how Namjoon needed someone who could be there rather then somebody who's never there.

"Come eat something", he said calmly. He looked much composed then before.

"I am not hungry", I stated just when he darted towards me. He held me by my forearm, dragging me into the vanity which was empty except for us. A few dishes were laid out on the table in front of the small couch.

"Eat and leave", he said, taking a seat on one of the chairs in front of the mirrors fidgeting with his phone while I quietly sat on the couch. I just wanted it to be over but I'd no appetite so I kept staring at the couple of Italian dishes which were pasta, carbonara I guess, rissoto and also jjangmyeong. "Just eat anything ___", he said, without bothering to look at me.

"I don't really have an appetite", I said, throwing my head back and looking at the ceiling of the vanity.

"What you've is a habit of skipping meals", he eyed me.

I looked at him. "Do you remember everything? Like literally everything?", I asked him as curiosity brimmed in my eyes.

"You don't?", he asked me back. "Well, for me, yeah I do. I did remember every thing but I should probably forget now. I didn't really asked to work with you because I wanted something but I can't say I didn't hope", he locked his phone and kept it on the space in front him. "I mean, we did had something. We did have something a few days ago. You can't exactly call me a friend and I've never seen you as one. The moment you walked in trying to fix the mess on the set since then till now I can't say I didn't hope you'd look at me the same way", he said, bringing all the memories back alive, but it was true, I never looked at him the way he'd wanted me to, hell, I couldn't believe it one bit. "It's true", he said, as if he just read my mind.

It was, it didn't made sense to me. How could he? Why would he? I uh, I think shit's wrong with me because even now I can't seem to focus on someone who confessed their feelings and that someone being Namjoon from all people.

I remember when I was one of the assistant directors under the director for one of the most low-key and low budget project. They didn't had many resources and our firm wasn't doing well either. We always had to come up with hacks, unknown locations for shooting...it was always so hard. We didn't had any respect in the industry.

It was two companies in one boat at the end of bankruptcy and we were so young and such good friends. I knew the rest of the members too but I kind of had a certain vibe with Namjoon. He could get me without having to speak.

I locked at him, his face was fixated on me and I could like him, in fact I did love him not romantically, I just did. I had a lot of love for him. He was caring for the people around him and I loved talking to him. He never once made anyone feel like he was a celebrity back then and a global celebrity now well yeah. He did deserve someone who could be here for him.

He stood up and walked towards me and my eyes followed him. He took a seat next to me and I could see he picked a bowl up but I didn't see which one because I couldn't stop looking at him. Namjoon took a significant amount and extended it to me and I looked at the noodles for a second and then at him. He just nodded and I ate it.

It was good.

"Thanks", I said, wiping the corners of my mouth with my fingers.

"Do you want me to feed you all the way or can you eat your own?", he asked me.

"I will eat", I told him and he gave me the bowl so I could eat on my own. "You ate?", I asked him and he instantly nodded.

"You're going somewhere, aren't you?", he asked me and I felt as if I've just been struck with something.

"Hmm", I said, my mouth almost filled. "And, I...I want to tell you something like adults and clear it. Namjoon you know my work and I am always not here, never. It's useless. Trust me on this, it's not like that but you know you'll need someone beside you and I can't be the one", I told him, calmly, before gulping water down.

"I know that but I'm okay with it. In fact, we would go hand in hand better because I can't take you out on exotic dates as well. This is what you get", he vaguely gestured at the vanity and I chuckled and he warmly smiled at me.

After a second, I spoke much seriously then before, "It will be hard and you know that. It'll be frustrating. You could hate me".

"If you've tired it with someone before, I am not exactly happy knowing this, but you shouldn't compare me with some random dude with a peculiar taste in leather clothing", he rolled his eyes, shifting his back comfortably.

"Hey! Don't be mean just because you see stuff on my Instagram", I scoffed and he maintained his long face.

"No really, what do you take me for? You think you won't have time for me? I won't have time for you", he went on.

"Namjoon", I dragged his name. His tendency to be sarcastic at odd moments is unmatched.

"Don't call my name like that", he stared at my eyes.

"Like what?", I asked him.

"Like you can love me", he said.

"I...you don't have to be like this", I said, keeping the empty bowl on the table.

"Give me a chance then, try it out. I would wait for you I promise", Namjoon took my hand in his and covered it with his warmth.

"Will I be able to...wait?", I looked away from him, thinking about it so hard.

"___ don't think too much. I promise, we'll be fine", he said, his hands travelling to my waist and before he could grab it. I screeched closer to him. I cupped his face and attached my lips to his, while his hands held on my body.

________________

My relationship with Namjoon was better then I imagined it. I tried my best to be there for him and he was surprisingly almost there for me but it wasn't exactly easy.

It was months and months of hardships and Namjoon was more needy then I thought him to be, he needed a lot of assurance. I don't understand the notion that he holds of everyone wanting me so he needs to be extra careful. I still don't get that his insecure ass doesn't trusts his own members, he won't let me meet them at all.

He was really different. He shifted from dominant to romantic in one second. I loved that. I kind of missed it so much.

He held my hand I could feel it by the way his skin felt against mine, he whirled me around and in a second his hand rested on my waist as he urged me to walk next to him. He was in a perfect disguise and I looked at him. I could tell he was smiling beneath his black mask.

"See, this is why I don't trust other guys! How could you let someone do this to you in the midst of the road in a foreign country?", he asked me.

"No stranger would confidently do this to anyone in a foreign country", I playfully hit him on his leg and he stopped, pretending to be gravely hurt. "I can't believe you", I looked at him as I went with his act. I supported him in standing completely. In a second, he intertwined his fingers with mine.

"I missed you", he softly whispered in my ear.

"I missed you too", I whispered back, softly. I pulled him in an empty alley and pulled his mask down. "I need you to do something", I told him, nibbling on his ear and I could feel my skin feel the heat that it yearned for since a couple of months before him going on tour.

"Right now?", he asked surprised.

"Yeah, right now", I said and I could feel him harden against my pelvis.

"You are...so, not right now. Let's go to your hotel room. I'm still famous", he pulled me closer and I chuckled. He turned me around, pulling his mask down, he kissed me hard. His mouth pressed against mine. I held him tightly and he gasped. "I love you", he softly said before pulling his mask up.

"I, you", I held his hand again.

#bts #bts fanfic #kim namjoon #namjoon #namjoon fic #namjoon smut #namjoon fanfic

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killjoyhistoryarchive · 4 years ago

Photo

Photograph by Claire Vogel.

EXCLUSIVE interview with Nate Weaver–director of photography on the “Art Is the Weapon” video

I recently reached out to Nate Weaver (director of photography on the “Art Is The Weapon” video), and he graciously agreed to answer some questions about the filming process. Read on to learn more about the creative process behind the launch of the Danger Days era!

—

1. Are there any props, characters, or concepts that didn’t make it to the video? I watching a behind-the-scenes video for “Na Na Na” and was surprised to see at least a few things that didn’t make it into the actual video. Was there anything that you guys filmed or discussed that weren’t included in the final cut?

You know, I’m a bad person to ask. I was there, but the place was literally blanketed in all these props and dressing that Jason and Gerard had come up with. All the art was carted out to the set days beforehand, and by the time I got there it looked like the Killjoys had been there for a week. I couldn’t keep track. You have to understand that Gerard was the source of all this stuff…Jason was adding and fleshing out plenty of ideas, but Gerard’s creativity was the source of everything and it was very off-the-cuff and free flowing.

2. One of my favorite scenes from the “Art Is The Weapon” video is Kobra Kid flinching and covering his ears at the sound of a gunshot. How much insight did the cast have into their characters’ personalities? Did they ever suggest certain scenes or details for their characters?

It’s really difficult for me to say, on music videos traditionally directors do not get too involved in “directing” the finer points of an artist (or their character). In a lot of music videos, what band members decide to bring to the screen is very much their decision because that character likely is on display in other ways.

That said, I’m pretty sure I remember the idea of Mikey flinching was Gerard’s idea. All the scenes we shot were pre-determined well in advance, so as far as did Ray, or Frank, or Mike come up with any of the scenes, I can’t say.

3. How and why was the Four Aces set chosen? What made the crew decide that a diner/gas station was the perfect place to introduce the Killjoys? Did you consider any other locations before you started filming?

This was a decision made by Gerard (to my knowledge) relatively early on. If I had to guess, the reasoning was practical. It’s tough to find a small geographic area that can give you a lot of different looks and places to play around in. But it was a fun playground!

4. What kind of steps did the cast and crew take to really “transform” the set, making it look like something from the Danger Days universe and not just a generic diner?

Well, I think one of the keys is knowing that we all knew that it was never supposed to look like a diner necessarily. Or a motel. Jason Fijal had a lot of ground to cover. I would guess that he was busy building gizmos like Dr. Death’s radio console and collecting props for a good week beforehand, if not more. And then at that point, it’s just him looking at a list of scenes we have on the shotlist, and dressing those sets the day before. I remember we had to have a couple discussions about how to turn the motel’s front office into Dr. Death’s radio station. But luckily for us, it was all supposed to be post-apocalyptic, makeshift anyway!

5. What was the creative process like? How did you and Gerard work together to make a video that matched his vision?

It was like holding onto a firehose? But I would mean that in the best way. I mean, I’m glad you asked, because I’ve been lucky enough in my music video career to work with some very incredible, creative people. Gerard though is one of the most freely creative people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet and work with. From the very first meeting, I quickly realized that Gerard had this world very fully realized in his head, and I’d need to hang on and just try to fill the few gaps in his plan with photography and filming approach that fit his vision. Gerard was really the director. And I couldn’t have been more happy than to just help him get all that stuff out of his head and onto the screen. It was fast, it was chaotic, and it was one of the most freely creative shoots I’ve ever been a part of. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

6. What was a typical day at the shoot like? What duties and responsibilities did you have?

(Since mine was only a one day shoot, I have to kind of breeze over the ‘typical’ part.)

I have to comment that there was nothing typical about this shoot…it wasn’t typical because we had so much to shoot in one day, because Gerard was so involved in almost everything, I could go on and on. It was the best kind of not-typical.

A lot of people might think a director is responsible for everything, but really a director is (hopefully), overseeing a lot of talented people and just letting them do their thing and making sure it all meshes to the director’s vision. So if you say Gerard was a director because it was his idea, and he was very interested in certain details of how it was all brought to life, then my job as co-director was doing all the director jobs that he was too busy to do because he was in front of the camera so much. That means breaking rough ideas for scenes into a shotlist, deciding how it was going to be lit, and “gap filling” other creative decisions that needed to be made. Where the camera goes, where the cuts will be, etc.

7. From what you’ve said, it sounds like the schedule was pretty rapid-fire. Do you think it would have turned out differently if the crew had more time, or was the tight schedule the perfect way to squeeze out creative energy?

Well, unfortunately, it’s almost always the case that if you had more time or money there would be improvements. I would have loved for it to be a two-day shoot. But I have to realize that most of those improvements would be to things like lighting, and maybe more coverage on some of the more peripheral concepts Gerard had. But the core of why people seemed to like it as much as they did…all that would have been the same. I doubt it would have been a “better” piece in the fans eyes if we had more time.

And yes, I do think the circumstances of all of it made it a little bit to the screen. It was to be a rapid fire trailer. So if by the end of the day the feeling of “getting things done” came across as urgency on the screen, it all fit together.

8. Finally, are there any fun/interesting stories from the shoot that you could share?

This may already be common knowledge, I don’t know, but when the guys are sitting in the diner eating scavenged food, all the cans were supposed to be vegetarian chili I think. Mikey wasn’t into real chili. But I think what the art department got by accident was either real chili or refried beans? Mikey was genuinely really grossed out by having to eat this stuff, but he barely said a word and at the end of the take was trying to spit it out I think. It was hilarious, but I felt bad he wound up doing something he was so grossed out by! After I called cut he’s like sputtering and trying to get this stuff out and everybody’s laughing.

Before I we finish, I just want to say again how awesome this project was to work on. In making music video, it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes people are difficult, sometimes the conditions are a pain. I was a late MCR fan, I didn’t get “it” until Three Cheers. But going into it, I wasn’t counting on it feeling like a bunch of people getting together and making a short movie for fun, with the added benefit of having some resources to get those fun ideas on screen. It’s so rare to have a great time on a shoot, and then the final product turns out amazing as well. Everybody involved was awesome, and I can’t stress enough how awesomely easy and low-key it was to work with Gerard, Ray, Mike & Frank. It will always be a really fond memory in my life; gratifying beyond words!

[Originally published 08.08.2018]

#reuploads #not killjoyhistory #my chemical romance #nate weaver #gerard way #mikey way #frank iero #ray toro #claire vogel #interviews #behind the scenes #na na na video #jason fijal #exclusive

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prettywordsyouleft · 4 years ago

Text

To Be Continued - Part 10

Summary: As an author, you had created Brian Kang for your current trilogy series to represent the ultimate man that everyone would love, along with Charli Evers - your female protagonist. What you hadn’t expected was for him to find a way out of the story and begin shaping up your world instead

Pairing: Brian Kang x female writer (ft. Park Sungjin)

Genre: writer au / romance / fantasy

Warnings: fictional characters coming to life / a bit of angst here and there / Sungjin as a cop (or does that only affect me?) >_>

Word count: 2487

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Epilogue

The broken laptop was taken by Sungjin that night, and he returned it to you a fortnight later with a new screen on it. Despite being grateful, you were still hopeless. “Brian’s gone for good, isn’t he?”

“Maybe it’s time for you to move on from him, Y/N. I hate seeing you this stuck. Don’t you want to write other stories and start living again?”

Staring up at the man, you nodded numbly. “I hoped I’d be living with him. I guess dreaming up the perfect guy isn’t a healthy thing to do.”

“It did happen, and your grief is validated,” he told you, giving your upper arm a gentle squeeze. “Everyone faces a loss of someone in their life at one point or another. And we have to learn how to continue on after they’re gone.”

“You’re right,” you murmured, smiling gently at Sungjin. “Thank you for being a good friend to me.”

“Officially friend-zoned,” Sungjin teased, dramatically grappling at his heart. You giggled, and this made him stop and smile. “And officially hearing a good sound come from you. I hope you can feel comfortable to laugh more often, Y/N.”

“Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

“Now that you have your device back, how about you go and write something? I’m sure it’s been a long two weeks.”

You grinned at his statement, nodding along. “My desktop is so ancient. I was close to spending a lot of money on a new one.”

“Well, now you don’t have to. Off you go and write, Miss Writer.”

Your smile fell as soon as you shut the door, the friendly term Sungjin just called you only bringing up the moments where Brian had called you that time and time again. Counting to ten, you avoided crying for the first time over your loss and smiled.

“All I have to do is keep counting and writing,” you instructed, marching down to your office and plugged in the laptop. It fired up immediately, and the new screen was pristine. Thankfully, all of your work was backed up to an external so you didn’t have to worry about losing your work. It surprised you, however, that the computer remembered where it last was in your session, the end of the Eternity document appearing in front of you.

Reading over the paragraph you had sent Brian, you wrapped your arms around yourself for comfort. “You did well, Y/N. You waited for love, and you loved him like no other. This story’s over now, though. Let’s move on.”

Slowly, you deleted your message, making sure the document said The End and closed out of it, moving it to another storage space on your external hard-drive before opening a new document.

It was time to step out of the limbo you had endured for too long.

“Lily, did you get my first submission?” you asked as you continued to tap furiously at your keyboard, not bothering to check the expression of your editor on the small window in the corner of your screen.

“I did, and it’s fabulous.”

“Just fabulous?” you asked, scrunching your up face in annoyance. “I don’t think fabulous is enough.”

“Ooh, someone is feeling good about her work lately,” Lily crooned, and you grinned. “It’s good to see you working this happily again, Y/N.

“Well, the Encounter series is done now, and I need to have a follow-up story.”

“Does your favourite constable know about this?” she wondered dreamily, and you stopped typing to shoot Lily a look. “What? I distinctively remember you swooning over your protector. There’s no hope for you two to have a romance behind the scenes too?”

“Lily, I might be a writer who enjoys a good love story, but that’s all it remains as for me, a story. Sungjin is my friend, and I’ll surprise him with the final manuscript when this is done.”

“Yes boss!” she cheered and then gasped. “Oh, by the way! I heard that pre-order sales for Eternity have surpassed Captivated! When it launches in two week’s time, I’m certain you’re going to rank well!”

“And then that world will finally be at a close,” you murmured to yourself, Lily straining to hear what your lips had expressed. When you noticed her confusion, you smiled brightly. “Thanks for all your hard work over the past three years on this project, Lil.”

“You wrote them, Y/N. That world, especially Eternity, is a masterpiece.”

“Well, I hope the next story will be even better. More than fabulous, even.”

“You never let a single thing slide. I’ll sing your praises further when you send me the chapter you’re working on right now!”

“Onto it!” you said with a wave of goodbye, and the video call ended.

Slumping in your chair, your eyes shifted towards the wall calendar where the date had been circled for Eternity’s release.

You had taken Sungjin’s advice and picked yourself up out of the dumps. Of course, it hadn’t been easy, and still to this day you had moments where you yearned for Brian. However, you had remained strong since your initial resolve and left Eternity where it belonged – in your completed archive. You hadn’t sent messages, you didn’t open the document, and aside from when obligated to, you didn’t speak of that world to anyone. It still hurt too much, and you were looking forward to a time where this was all just a fond memory in your writing career.

Right now, with the impending sales and then signing tour that was booked, however, you were doing your best to distract yourself from anything that might make you cave.

Writing your police officer au was definitely helping with that, and you launched into typing again about Sungjin and Ella, you two protagonists.

You knew you probably should change his name, but the story made the most sense to you when you imagined your friend. Although you did wonder how you could separate the two when it came to the more romantic parts in the novel, you were having a lot of fun, remembering those juvenile feelings you once had for Sungjin before Brian stepped out of the laptop and changed your life entirely.

Sigh. You had thought of Brian again.

“When will I stop doing that?” you wondered in a sing-song voice, trying to keep upbeat. It was then that a new document popped up on the screen, and you groaned loudly. “And when will you stop glitching?”

It wasn’t the first time the new document tab would appear, now and then when you were in the midst of typing. You assumed you kept hitting the keyboard shortcut for opening it somehow and mentally wrote yourself a note to check if it could be disabled when you were done with this chapter.

Paying it no mind, you continued writing your story, not thinking once about all the mysterious happenings that preluded Brian’s appearance in the first place.

“Wow, I can’t believe I’m meeting you today!” a young voice announced, and you smiled brightly at the teen before you. “I’m a big fan of Brian and Charli!”

“Aren’t we all?” you mentioned happily back, reaching for the copy of Eternity she had placed down to sign. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Jennie! With an i-e.”

“Well, Jennie, with an i-e, I’m so glad you came today. I hope to see you at my next book signing in a couple of year’s time.”

“You can count on it, Y/N!”

The day continued much in the same, and whilst you were overwhelmed by the support of your fans, when you entered your hotel for the evening, you were more than emotionally exhausted.

“Stupid Charli. She’s living the dream,” you muttered and then caught yourself, sighing heavily with your unexpected negativity.

It was foolish to be jealous, and yet after listening to everyone say how perfect Brian and Charli were for each other all day long, you understood your reaction. Even if you were moving on, you wanted to be the one who was perfect for Brian Kang.

“Let’s count to ten, shall we?” you told yourself, breathing deeply and following through with your mantra. After ordering room service for dinner, you settled into the plush bed with your laptop, ready to stream a crime show you had been watching for research.

When the screen appeared though, it was opened on Microsoft Word with a new document waiting for you. You groaned and looked into the settings to make sure you had in fact disabled the keyboard shortcut. It was as you had left it and you let out a small huff at the program before hovering your cursor over the exit button.

Something in you made you pause, however, and you peered at the empty document with some interest. “Why are you following me around?”

Thinking of how Brian would always open a new document to converse with you, a glimmer of hope surged through, and you hit the keys with a rapid pace.

Are you there, Brian Kang?

Nothing came, and your words didn’t dissolve either. Rolling your eyes at your rash reaction, you closed the document and opened Netflix.

You were well into the throes of the show when your room service knocked on the door, casting you out of bed and over to the door. Once you returned with the tray of food you had been given, you noticed the document was back on the screen again.

“What is going on?” you wondered, staring at it for some time. Placing a hand on the screen, you closed your eyes and willed Brian to come out. It had been so long since you had done this, and yet your fervour was stronger than ever. You prayed so hard that when you opened your eyes and saw nothing there, your tears were immediately at the surface, cascading down your cheeks.

“I’m so over pining for you. Either come back or leave me alone!” you wailed, pushing the laptop aside and curling up into a ball.

You didn’t see it then, but the cursor started to move as if someone was holding down the space button, creating ten pages before it stopped.

The tour ended, and you were all too grateful to wake up back home with Binks curled up beside you. Kissing your furbaby until he made it apparent that your affection was unwanted, you climbed out of bed to brew yourself some coffee.

Today, you felt free. The saga of Eternity was over and whilst you knew you would still have to do a couple more interviews here and there in the future where you would be asked about the series, and your Discord would still be hit up regularly about reviews over the final story in the trilogy, today you were at least free from the contractual sides of the story. You wouldn’t have to actively talk about Charli Evers and Brian Kang ever again.

You also hoped that one day, once your pain resolved enough, that you could reread the series and remember why you had loved it all along, instead of the jealousy and burden you felt towards it right now.

With coffee and toast held in either hand, you bounced off to your office and sat down at your desk, blinking when you found your laptop on your desk already.

Had you pulled it out of its bag last night when you got home?

Shrugging, you hit the power button and were surprised when it immediately loaded up your home screen. “I did turn you off, you finicky device.”

Lots of little things had happened since getting the screen fixed, and you had left it down to that incident messing with it. You didn’t have it in you to believe otherwise.

Opening your emails, you went through the important correspondence, threw out the spam, and moved the replied ones to their relevant folders. Once your inbox was empty, you moved onto your other admin tasks for the day, ensuring you were all caught up before you stepped back into your police officer au.

When ready, you clicked on the file, and instead of it appearing, it was a blank document. “Oh no, you don’t! There were words in this file!”

Looking at the title of the word document, you were relieved to see it untitled and not that of your current story. Clicking again on the file from your writing folder, another blank document appeared instead.

“Open it! I have to write about Sungjin and Ella!” you exclaimed, hitting the file repeatedly. Tens of blank documents appeared with your efforts until you were panting with the annoyance. Sitting back, you shook your head. “That’s it! I’m buying a new laptop! I’m done with you!”

Before you could close the screen down, however, you noticed that one document appeared and had words in it. But it wasn’t your current one. Instead, Encounter appeared on the screen, scrolling at a rapid rate to the bottom. Then it changed tabs, moving through Captivated just as fast. Finally, Eternity finished it off, the words The End simply staring back at you.

“…Brian?”

Leaning forward towards the screen, you waited to see what would happen next. Annoyed that your hopes were raised yet again, you started to close the empty tabs, leaving the three stories up. A final tab appeared, and you burst into tears as words started to appear on the screen.

It’s time to start writing our story now.

Standing up shakily, you pointed at the screen. “Hurry up then, I’ve waited far too long to write this story with you.”

The screen went blank as your heart began to thud erratically in your chest, your eyes widened whilst waiting for what would happen next. Reaching for the power button, you watched as the screen lit up.

And then you felt arms embrace you immediately. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”

“I don’t care right now,” you managed to say despite your emotions running down your face. Pulling back just enough so you could see Brian’s handsome face, you shook your head in disbelief. “As long as you’re here.”

“For good,” he assured, leaning in for a passionate kiss. “That world is closed and done with. Whilst ours is only beginning.”

You knew with time, you would want to know why it took so long for Brian to return and to scold him for hurting you so much. You also knew Brian would placate you in every way, and you would hear all about his equal longing and struggle without you at his side.

But for now, this was all you needed. Dream men were hard to find existing in real life. You had found yours again, and this time you wouldn’t write him in one way or another. You’d let your life together pen the journey you had at each other’s side.

Your story was about to be continued.

_________________

Epilogue

[DAY6 Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

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hlupdate · 4 years ago

Link

Variety’s Grammy-nominated Hitmaker of the Year goes deep on the music industry, the great pause and finding his own muses.

“We’ll dance again,” Harry Styles coos, the Los Angeles sunshine peeking through his pandemic-shaggy hair just so. The singer, songwriter and actor — beloved and critically acclaimed thanks to his life-affirming year-old album, “Fine Line” — is lamenting that his Variety Hitmaker of the Year cover conversation has to be conducted over Zoom rather than in person. Even via videoconference, the Brit is effortlessly charming, as anyone who’s come within earshot of him would attest, but it quickly becomes clear that beneath that genial smile is a well-honed media strategy.

To wit: In an interview that appears a few days later announcing his investment in a new arena in his native Manchester (more on that in a bit), he repeats the refrain — “There will be a time we dance again”— referencing a much-needed return to live music and the promise of some 4,000 jobs for residents.

None of which is to suggest that Styles, 26, phones it in for interviews. Quite the opposite: He does very few, conceivably to give more of himself and not cheapen what is out there and also to use the publicity opportunity to indulge his other interests, like fashion. (Last month Styles became the first male to grace the cover of Vogue solo.) Still, it stings a little that a waltz with the former One Direction member may not come to pass on this album cycle — curse you, coronavirus.

Styles’ isolation has coincided with his maturation as an artist, a thespian and a person. With “Fine Line,” he’s proved himself a skilled lyricist with a tremendous ear for harmony and melody. In preparing for his role in Olivia Wilde’s period thriller “Don’t Worry Darling,” which is shooting outside Palm Springs, he found an outlet for expression in interpreting words on a page. And for the first time, he’s using his megaphone to speak out about social justice — inspired by the outpouring of support for Black people around the world following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May.

Styles has spent much of the past nine months at home in London, where life has slowed considerably. The time has allowed him to ponder such heady issues as his purpose on the earth. “It’s been a pause that I don’t know if I would have otherwise taken,” says Styles. “I think it’s been pretty good for me to have a kind of stop, to look and think about what it actually means to be an artist, what it means to do what we do and why we do it. I lean into moments like this — moments of uncertainty.”

In truth, while Styles has largely been keeping a low profile — his Love On Tour, due to kick off on April 15, was postponed in late March and is now scheduled to launch in February 2021 (whether it actually will remains to be seen) — his music has not. This is especially true in the U.S., where he’s notched two hit singles, “Adore You,” the second-most-played song at radio in 2020, and “Watermelon Sugar” (No. 22 on Variety’s year-end Hitmakers chart), with a third, “Golden,” already cresting the top 20 on the pop format. The massive cross-platform success of these songs means Styles has finally and decisively broken into the American market, maneuvering its web of gatekeepers to accumulate 6.2 million consumption units and rising.

Why do these particular songs resonate in 2020? Styles doesn’t have the faintest idea. While he acknowledges a “nursery rhyme” feel to “Watermelon Sugar” with its earwormy loop of a chorus, that’s about as much insight as he can offer. His longtime collaborator and friend Tom Hull, also known as the producer Kid Harpoon, offers this take: “There’s a lot of amazing things about that song, but what really stands out is the lyric. It’s not trying to hide or be clever. The simplicity of watermelon … there’s such a joy in it, [which] is a massive part of that song’s success.” Also, his kids love it. “I’ve never had a song connect with children in this way,” says Hull, whose credits include tunes by Shawn Mendes, Florence and the Machine and Calvin Harris. “I get sent videos all the time from friends of their kids singing. I have a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old, and they listen to it.”

Styles is quick to note that he doesn’t chase pop appeal when crafting songs. In fact, the times when he pondered or approved a purposeful tweak, like on his self-titled 2017 debut, still gnaw at him. “I love that album so much because it represents such a time in my life, but when I listen to it — sonically and lyrically, especially — I can hear places where I was playing it safe,” he says. “I was scared to get it wrong.”

Contemporary effects and on-trend beats hardly factor into Styles’ decision-making. He likes to focus on feelings — his own and his followers’ — and see himself on the other side of the velvet rope, an important distinction in his view. “People within [the industry] feel like they operate on a higher level of listening, and I like to make music from the point of being a fan of music,” Styles says. “Fans are the best A&R.”

This from someone who’s had free rein to pursue every musical whim, and hand in the album of his dreams in the form of “Fine Line.” Chart success makes it all the sweeter, but Styles insists that writing “for the right reasons” supersedes any commercial considerations. “There’s no part that feels, eh, icky — like it was made in the lab,” he says.

Styles has experience in this realm. As a graduate of the U.K. competition series “The X Factor,” where he and four other auditionees — Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson — were singled out by show creator and star judge Simon Cowell to conjoin as One Direction, he’s seen how the prefab pop machine works up close. The One Direction oeuvre, which counts some 42 million albums sold worldwide, includes songs written with such established hitmakers as Ryan Tedder, Savan Kotecha and Teddy Geiger. Being a studious, insatiable observer, Styles took it all in.

“I learned so much,” he says of the experience. “When we were in the band, I used to try and write with as many different people as I could. I wanted to practice — and I wrote a lot of bad shit.”

His bandmates also benefited from the pop star boot camp. The proof is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members — Payne, Malik and Horan in addition to Styles — each of whom has landed hit singles on charts in the U.K., the U.S. and beyond.

This departs from the typical trajectories of boy bands including New Kids on the Block and ’N Sync, which have all pro ered a star frontman. The thinking for decades was that a record company would be lucky to have one breakout solo career among the bunch.

Styles has plainly thought about this.

“When you look at the history of people coming out of bands and starting solo careers, they feel this need to apologize for being in the band. ‘Don’t worry, everyone, that wasn’t me! Now I get to do what I really want to do.’ But we loved being in the band,” he says. “I think there’s a wont to pit people against each other. And I think it’s never been about that for us. It’s about a next step in evolution. The fact that we’ve all achieved different things outside of the band says a lot about how hard we worked in it.”

Indeed, during the five-ish years that One Direction existed, Styles’ schedule involved the sort of nonstop international jet-setting that few get to see in a lifetime, never mind their teenage years. Between 2011 and 2015, One Direction’s tours pulled in north of $631 million in gross ticket sales, according to concert trade Pollstar, and the band was selling out stadiums worldwide by the time it entered its extended hiatus. Styles, too, had built up to playing arenas as a solo artist, engaging audiences with his colorful stage wear and banter and left-of-center choices for opening acts (a pre-Grammy-haul Kacey Musgraves in 2018; indie darlings King Princess and Jenny Lewis for his rescheduled 2021 run).

Stages of all sizes feel like home to Styles. He grew up in a suburb of Manchester, ground zero for some of the biggest British acts of the 1980s and ’90s, including Joy Division, New Order, the Smiths and Oasis, the latter of which broke the same year Styles was born. His parents were also music lovers. Styles’ father fed him a balanced diet of the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen, while Mum was a fan of Shania Twain, Norah Jones and Savage Garden. “They’re all great melody writers,” says Styles of the acts’ musical throughline.

Stevie Nicks, who in the past has described “Fine Line” as Styles’ “Rumours,” referencing the Fleetwood Mac 1977 classic, sees him as a kindred spirit. “Harry writes and sings his songs about real experiences that seemingly happened yesterday,” she tells Variety. “He taps into real life. He doesn’t make up stories. He tells the truth, and that is what I do. ‘Fine Line’ has been my favorite record since it came out. It is his ‘Rumours.’ I told him that in a note on December 13, 2019 before he went on stage to play the ‘Fine Line’ album at the Forum. We cried. He sang those songs like he had sung them a thousand times. That’s a great songwriter and a great performer.”

“Harry’s playing and writing is instinctual,” adds Jonathan Wilson, a friend and peer who’s advised Styles on backing and session musicians. “He understands history and where to take the torch. You can see the thread of great British performers — from Bolan to Bowie — in his music.”

Also shaping his musical DNA was Manchester itself, the site of a 23,500-seat arena, dubbed Co-op Live, for which Styles is an investor and adviser. Oak View Group, a company specializing in live entertainment and global sports that was founded by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff in 2015 (Jeffrey Azoff, Irving’s son, represents Styles at Full Stop Management), is leading the effort to construct the venue. The project gained planning approval in September and is set to open in 2023, with its arrival representing a £350 million ($455 million) investment in the city. (Worth noting: Manchester is already home to an arena — the site of a 2017 bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert — and a football stadium, where One Love Manchester, an all-star benefit show to raise money for victims of the terrorist attack, took place.)

“I went to my first shows in Manchester,” Styles says of concerts paid for with money earned delivering newspapers for a supermarket called the Co-op. “My friends and I would go in on weekends. There’s so many amazing small venues, and music is such a massive part of the city. I think Manchester deserves it. It feels like a full-circle, coming-home thing to be doing this and to be able to give any kind of input. I’m incredibly proud. Hopefully they’ll let me play there at some point.”

Though Styles has owned properties in Los Angeles, his base for the foreseeable future is London. “I feel like my relationship with L.A. has changed a lot,” he explains. “I’ve kind of accepted that I don’t have to live here anymore; for a while I felt like I was supposed to. Like it meant things were going well. This happened, then you move to L.A.! But I don’t really want to.”

Is it any wonder? Between COVID and the turmoil in the U.S. spurred by the presidential election, Styles, like some 79 million American voters, is recovering from sticker shock over the bill of goods sold to them by the concept of democracy. “In general, as people, there’s a lack of empathy,” he observes. “We found this place that’s so divisive. We just don’t listen to each other anymore. And that’s quite scary.”

That belief prompted Styles to speak out publicly in the wake of George Floyd’s death. As protests in support of Black Lives Matter took to streets all over the world, for Styles, it triggered a period of introspection, as marked by an Instagram message (liked by 2.7 million users and counting) in which he declared: “I do things every day without fear, because I am privileged, and I am privileged every day because I am white. … Being not racist is not enough, we must be anti racist. Social change is enacted when a society mobilizes. I stand in solidarity with all of those protesting. I’m donating to help post bail for arrested organizers. Look inwards, educate yourself and others. LISTEN, READ, SHARE, DONATE and VOTE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

“Talking about race can be really uncomfortable for everyone,” Styles elaborates. “I had a realization that my own comfort in the conversation has nothing to do with the problem — like that’s not enough of a reason to not have a conversation. Looking back, I don’t think I’ve been outspoken enough in the past. Using that feeling has pushed me forward to being open and ready to learn. … How can I ensure from my side that in 20 years, the right things are still being done and the right people are getting the right opportunities? That it’s not a passing thing?”

His own record company — and corporate parent Sony Music Group, whose chairman, Rob Stringer, signed Styles in 2016 — has been grappling with these same questions as the industry has faced its own reckoning with race. At issue: inequality among the upper ranks (an oft-cited statistic: popular music is 80% Black, but the music business is 80% white); contracts rooted in a decades-old system that many say is set up to take advantage of artists, Black artists more unfairly than white; and the call for a return of master rights, an ownership model that is at the core of the business.

Styles acknowledges the fundamental imbalance in how a major label deal is structured — the record company takes on the financial risk while the artist is made to recoup money spent on the project before the act is considered profitable and earning royalties (typically at a 15% to 18% rate for the artist, while the label keeps and disburses the rest). “Historically, I can’t think of any industry that’s benefited more off of Black culture than music,” he says. “There are discussions that need to happen about this long history of not being paid fairly. It’s a time for listening, and hopefully, people will come out humbled, educated and willing to learn and change.”

By all accounts, Styles is a voracious reader, a movie lover and an aesthete. He stays in shape by adhering to a strict daily exercise routine. “I tried to keep up but didn’t last more than two weeks,” says Hull, Styles’ producer, with a laugh. “The discipline is terrifying.”

Of course, with the fashion world beckoning — Styles recently appeared in a film series for Gucci’s new collection that was co-directed by the fashion house’s creative director, Alessandro Michele, and Oscar winner Gus Van Sant — and a movie that’s set in the 1950s, maintaining that physique is part of the job. And he’s no stranger to visual continuity after appearing in Christopher Nolan’s epic “Dunkirk” and having to return to set for reshoots; his hair, which needed to be cut back to its circa 1940 form, is a constant topic of conversation among fans. This time, it’s the ink that poses a challenge. By Styles’ tally, he’s up to 60 tattoos, which require an hour in the makeup chair to cover up. “It’s the only time I really regret getting tattooed,” he says.

He shows no regret, however, when it comes to stylistic choices overall, and takes pride in his gender-agnostic portfolio, which includes wearing a Gucci dress on that Vogue cover— an image that incited conservative pundit Candace Owens to plead publicly to “bring back manly men.” In Styles’ view: “To not wear [something] because it’s females’ clothing, you shut out a whole world of great clothes. And I think what’s exciting about right now is you can wear what you like. It doesn’t have to be X or Y. Those lines are becoming more and more blurred.”

But acclaim, if you can believe it, is not top of mind for Styles. As far as the Grammys are concerned, Styles shrugs, “It’s never why I do anything.” His team and longtime label, however, had their hearts set on a showing at the Jan. 31 ceremony. Their investment in Styles has been substantial — not just monetarily but in carefully crafting his career in the wake of such icons as David Bowie, who released his final albums with the label. Hope at the company and in many fans’ hearts that Styles would receive an album of the year nomination did not come to pass. However, he was recognized in three categories, including best pop vocal album.

“It’s always nice to know that people like what you’re doing, but ultimately — and especially working in a subjective field — I don’t put too much weight on that stuff,” Styles says. “I think it’s important when making any kind of art to remove the ego from it.” Citing the painter Matisse, he adds: “It’s about the work that you do when you’re not expecting any applause.”

#harry styles #variety #021220

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hldailyupdate · 4 years ago

Text

This Charming Man: Why We’re Wild About Harry Styles

Variety’s Grammy-nominated Hitmaker of the Year goes deep on the music industry, the great pause and finding his own muses.

Styles has plainly thought about this.

Harry for Variety. (2 December 2020)

#harry styles #harry update #article #variety #hldaily #December 2020

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