#I’m sure it’ll be great too but I think it’ll just be part of 1999 for newer players or those who haven’t gotten there yet in the story

[frameconfessions]

I hope the Techrot Encore update isn’t just more of the faction system but also a new quest/some cinematics too (like the trailer). I’m sure the KIM routes are gonna be great & make me emotional, but the Angels of the Zariman quest felt very underwhelming to me personally as I expected more from it. They haven’t afaik necessarily advertised that this update would contain it’s own quest but they’ve also been very hush hush about Techrot Encore in general. I might be hoping for too much for an update that was (I’m theorizing) internally called batch C and was only gonna be released if batch A (Warframe 1999 in this case) performed good enough as an update. I’m hyped for all the characters and new developments, but I think myself and others should maybe keep our hype in check lest we have an Angels of Zariman 2 situation.

.

[hatterstan-shameblog]

Here is the first one

Second :D

And last..he's looking at you 👀💦

ALRIGHT you know WHAT—

There’s…a lot going on here. So much so, that I have decided to create

CONTEXT

for these three images that is

COMPLETELY FAKE

because I think it’ll be a fun writing exercise. kind of a cringe move on my part, but consider: i have fun making up ridiculous lies about characters who don’t exist in real life.

(which is how I’m treating these, by the way. yes, they are pictures of kaneko nobuaki, but for my purposes, they are NOT actually him. they are distinct fictional characters who are not real.)

so if you’re feeling adventurous skip below the cut and watch me break it down:

Image 1: Accidental “Date” Makes Cousin’s Wedding Less Terrible Than Originally Expected

The year is 1999. Your cousin (who you are not particularly close to) is getting married…on a cruise ship. Your mother insists you attend. You insist upon spending 90% of your time sipping margaritas on the deck and flipping through the latest issue of Marie Claire while trying desperately not to think about the fact that you are surrounded by nothing but open ocean.

One of the (very drunk) bridesmaids tries to toss you a beach ball because you have been, and I quote: like, a total bummer this whole time. She misses. It hits the person next to you in the face. Great. Awesome. You think: well now who’s being, like, a total bummer?

Luckily the person who got hit in the face laughs the entire thing off. He says your friends seem…’lively.’ You say that’s pretty rich coming from a guy who looks like a rejected member of ‘The Clash.’ He insists that he left them, not the other way around.

You slip into conversation. You tell him that you’re here for a wedding. He offers his condolences. You accept them. He says he actually likes weddings—something about two people making a life-changing commitment speaks to him on a soul-level. That and the open bar, of course.

You suggest he crash the wedding. He says he’s not sure if he can make it—there’s a shuffleboard tournament that evening that he would just hate to miss, plus the latest issue of Soap Opera Digest is waiting on his bedside table just begging to be opened. You say that’s perfectly understandable, but, if he suddenly finds himself caught up on the latest All My Children gossip, he can meet you back here at four.

Surprise, surprise: he shows up. He’s wearing the same shirt he was before, but buttoned up this time—and with one of the most hideous neckties you’ve ever seen, which he apparently borrowed from the kind old man next door. Instead of complimenting his attire (because it is truly un-compliment-able), you take the opportunity to mention that this is a Titanic-themed wedding. He says that having a Titanic-themed wedding on a cruise ship is “kind of fucked up” and you solemnly agree.

Everyone is very surprised and pleased to see that you’ve brought a date—even the bride, who tells you that you’re “just like Jack and Rose.” You agree, much to her delight…until you say that, if the ship goes down, you also won’t share the door and let him freeze to death in the icy water. He insists he’d be the guy who jumps off the ship and hits his leg on the propellor—that’s his favorite part of the whole movie, and it’d be an honor to re-enact the scene.

The wedding is…a wedding. Vows, toasts, pictures—and you’re sipping champagne through the entire thing. The two of you spend the evening getting completely wasted and telling everyone a different story about just who your ‘mystery date’ is. Highlights include: the captain’s unruly son whose been tasked with following in his father’s sea-faring footsteps; professional cave-diver who discovered a new species of slug and is spending his reward money on a nice vacation; head of marketing who gives all those clever names to the nail polishes at OPI; the guy who folds everyone’s towels into animal shapes.

You end up where you started: on neighboring lounge chairs, with a margarita, and talking to this stranger who has recently crossed into “acquaintance” territory. You chat about how “My Heart Will Go On” is actually a good song, and he promises not to tell anyone that you said that. He also says that this is the best Titanic-themed cruise ship wedding he’s ever been to, and he can’t wait until somebody decides to do Jaws.

Eventually, you both stagger back to your rooms with promises of seeing each other at breakfast. Unfortunately, you have the worst hangover of your life the next morning and even the thought of ‘breakfast’ makes you want to roll over and die, so you don’t manage to stumble out of bed until it’s time to disembark.

You see him at port, and you each offer each other a little wave before going your separate ways. Six weeks later, you get a Polaroid of the two of you together, sitting at the bar and laughing at something that must have been very, very hilarious.

You don’t remember most of what happened that night, but you remember it was not as terrible as it could have been.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Image 2: Extremely Weird Guy On The Street Has You Questioning Your Sanity

It’s 6:00 in the morning—a truly terrible time to be awake, but a necessary evil. Your flight leaves at 10, and since it’s an international thing, you want to make sure you get there in plenty of time to get to your gate (and maybe sample all the fancy perfumes you can’t afford at one of those high-end stores that are always in airports.)

The streets are mostly empty, save for a few random pedestrians and a handful of passed-out salarymen snoozing on the curb. The sky a rainy gray-blue as the sun tries to rise behind the springtime cloud cover—it’s no doubt going to be another dismal day, as is common during this time of year. Hopefully there’s not too much turbulence on your flight…

You stop at a crosswalk, waiting for the little walking man signal to show up on the light across the way. You’re soon joined by another person—a man in a soft-looking jacket who supplies you with a small “good morning” bob of his head. You respond in kind, throwing in a small smile for good measure. It’s nice that he too understands that it’s entirely too early to be having any kind of conversation, even if it is just a simple verbal greeting between strangers on a street corner.

The light changes, and you both begin your trek across the street. Your fellow walker is faster than you—or, more likely, has longer legs and, ergo, a longer stride than your own—and is nearly halfway across by the time you get your wheeled suitcase over the curb. He seems decent enough. You hope he’s going somewhere nice.

It’s then that you make the mistake of looking up. It would have been much better if you had just continued watching the white painted lines on the road and thinking about how it reminds you of piano keys—and how you hated the six months of piano lessons your parents forced you to take in the first grade.

But no. You noticed someone walking towards you, and you just had to look up.

The first thing you notice is a rainbow tie-dye shirt. The second thing you notice is that the rainbow tie-dye shirt is on a very cheerful looking gentleman, who seemed to be bobbing his head in time with a song only he could hear.

The third thing you notice—and this one’s the real kicker—is the large blue-and-green reptile sitting on his shoulder. It’s bulging eyes are hooded in pleasure as it’s red-pink tongue darts out to eat the green something—maybe a grape or a small piece of melon?—from the rainbow tie-dye man’s hand. It is nothing short of a spectacle, honestly, and you feel a piece of your sanity evaporate.

The rainbow tie-dye man continues on, uncaring of your confused stare at his strange pet. You even turn around to make sure that you weren’t somehow hallucinating, and sure enough, there is definitely some kind of creature draped over this stranger’s shoulder. It’s tail even sways in time with the man’s steps, which is both cute and confusing.

Because it would not do to stand in the middle of the street all day, considering the existence of rainbow tie-dye man and his exotic pet, you do the only thing you can do: turn back around and continue on your journey. You need a coffee. Maybe with an extra shot of espresso, after witnessing whatever the hell that was. Something to set you right again.

“Was that…?”

The other man—the soft-coat long-stride one—is speaking low enough as to not draw attention, but loud enough for you to hear as you make your way towards the sidewalk. His expression reads ‘concerned, but trying not to show it’ which you suppose is the polite and mature way of handling the situation.

“…an iguana? Yeah,” you answer him, “I saw it too.”

The man’s brow furrows. His mouth puckers into a small frown as he considers…well, something.

“…Okay, then,” he concludes, shrugging his shoulders, “Hell of a way to start the day.”

“Yeah.”

And you both continue on your way. He turns left at the next intersection, you turn right—but even though your paths may now be different, you will forever share an unbreakable bond over the fantastical sight you’ve witnessed today.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Image 3: Near Death Experience At Open Mic Night

You are not a poet.

Well, not professionally, anyways. You’ve been known to dabble in the written word, often scribbling little snippets of rhyme in a notebook over your lunch break or tapping a verse or two into the notes app on your phone. It a kind of outlet, you suppose—a way to keep the creative energy that bubbles inside of you from boiling over.

It’s also worth mentioning that you are not a confident public speaker. Not since that unfortunate incident in the third grade where you forgot the single line you had in the school play and ran off stage, tears streaming down your face and—actually, no, you’re not going to think about that right now. Or ever again, hopefully.

So when your (tipsy) coworkers decide that it’s a good idea to push you onto the stage at the local dive bar’s open mic night—while shouting at you to “read the one about the night-blooming jasmine”—you freeze up. There are at least seven strangers staring at you, expectation rising with every passing second of your inaction. It’s nerve-wracking in the way that the third-grade incident was not, and you gulp against the nervousness that rises in your throat.

Shaking hands scroll frantically through your phone, looking for the requested poem—and after a few agonizing moments, you manage to find it. Your voice cracks rather embarrassingly as you begin to read, trying your damndest to get the words out right so you can slink back to the bar and drown the rest of the night in Chardonnay.

Everything is going well—or, at least, as well as can be expected—until you notice that the room is suddenly feeling very hot. That’s the last coherent thought you have before the room goes dark and everything falls silent.

Next thing you know, you’re staring at the ceiling. A man who you do not know is leaning over you, and his mouth is moving—oh, he’s probably trying to say something to you, but it’s very difficult to tell what he’s saying over the throbbing pain in the back of your head.

You ask him if you’re dead. It’s a possibility after all, that you’ve somehow died and landed yourself in some kind of special public-speaking hell. That’s what this feels like, anyways.

The man says no, you are not dead. You say ‘dammit’ in response. He tries to hold back laughter, offering to help you up by extending his hand. You take it and—ouch, ugh, ew, going from laying to standing is not a fun experience.

You thank him (albeit awkwardly) for helping you up, and he insists that ‘it’s cool.’ Passing out in front of an audience is not even remotely cool, but you nod and thank him again, anyways.

Before you’re able to converse with the helpful stranger any further, your coworkers have come to collect you. You are whisked away by someone from accounting, who offers to escort you home—an offer you gladly accept, very excited to leave the site of your failure behind you.

Safe to say, you never go back to that particular bar again.

[adultswim2021]

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #82: “Baffler Meal” | January 1, 2003 - 12:00 AM | S08E01

An all-time classic, wonderful episode. Ending 2002 on a high note (technically this is the first episode of 2003 being that it aired at midnight, but I’m delaying my EPHEMERA CORNER post for as long as I can).

The origins of Aqua Teen Hunger Force are laid bare for all to see with Baffler Meal. Aqua Teen Hunger Force was famously based on a rejected Space Ghost script. Well, this is that script, re-imagining the Aqua Teens based on old designs and concepts from that unproduced episode. The desired effect is to approximate what that episode would have been like had it been produced in 1999 before the Aqua Teen Hunger Force series proper was developed. It’s supposed to be confusing; to the point where in the DVD commentary track they even question weather or not they should make it clear within the commentary that that’s what’s going on here (they do).

I will now take this opportunity to quote one of my favorite synopses of a TV show ever, originally taken from tvtome (remember tvtome? god, what a great site):

Space Ghost is forced into a raw deal with the deadly Colonial Man, forever altering the future of classic rock - again. Willie Nelson and a MOCKERY of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force star in this episode. This episode mocks a great comedy show. It doesn't feel funny in the least.

Here you can see the lack of understanding for what the episode really is. Despite the fact that the ostensible Space Ghost fan (tvtome was run by volunteer submissions for it’s episode data) should one-thousand percent understand the Space Ghost connection, clearly recognize Dave Willis’ voice (he still voices Meatwad in a very similar manner), etc. The degree of confusion this episode caused can not be understated.

Nuggets from the DVD commentary:

Frylock is a guy in a costume in this. Okay, that wasn’t specifically from the DVD commentary, but it’s the first time I caught that detail, ever, and I don’t want to start a separate bullet-point list for stray observations.

Shake’s read of “blahd” instead of “blade” was inspired by a real typo in the script, just like “Branford the Branford” before it.

Todd Hanson of The Onion helped write this episode and kept pitching a character named Napkin Lad. I believe Napkin Lad actually comes to be later in the Aqua Teen series.

And another thing I love: The cool song at the end. The part where Dave is like “OH BABY, YEAH BABY” etc. towards the very end of the episode? That part gets stuck in my head like, VERY FREQUENTLY, and for years I thought it was Bob Odenkirk singing in either a Mr. Show or Ben Stiller Show sketch and have been trying to place it forever. Turns out it wasn’t Bob, but David, and I ain’t talkin’ Cross, do I sound cross to you? Do you even appreciate wordplay??

NEXT is my end-of-the-year roundup of second-run premieres, shorts, commercials, bumpers, etc. That’s right, EPHEMERA CORNER is back! But it’s gonna be a long one so I might break it up over the course of a few days, maybe a week, even.

MAIL BAG

I think these were all anonymous, please forgive me if I have, as the French say, “fucked up” by failing to name the conspirator.

2002 is almost over! What do you think brak's position on the iraq war was? Carl's? Hesh's? Junior addleburg's?

Brak: against, but respects the office of the presidency and urges using civil methods to protest. Carl: pro, he is a white supremacist and is supportive of any and all mass destruction committed on non-white nations. Hesh: HESH WANTS SOME SEX! lol. Junior Addleburg: has not been told about the war.

Do you think you are being overtly charitable to Brak this time around? Surely the best Brak show episode isnt even half as good as the worst Home Movies episode. Right?

I do tend to react to “better” Brak episodes the same way you encourage a problem student when they squeak out a B minus. There absolutely was a time when I loved The Brak Show and was all-in on it. That time was SEPTEMBER 2nd-8th, 2001. Hippo was certainly a factor. 9/11 may have also contributed.

I don’t think I’ve said this yet, but I’ve been keeping a running episode ranking of Adult Swim shows as I’ve been doing this. It’ll probably get revised at some point, so I’m not exactly ready to share it. In my ranking I tended to group Home Movies episodes very close to each other, and I would sometimes talk myself into ranking things a little higher or lower than I normally would just to break up a long streak of Home Movies. So I can actually say with impunity, yes, there are strong episodes of Brak Show that I've ranked over weaker episodes of Home Movies. But I might have to have a little chat with the man in the mirror about that.

Are you only doing animated shows or are you going to do live animated shows to. I feel like most people agree Tim and Eric bringing live-action to the block ruined it permanently even if you think those guys are funny in a vacuum. I'm just wondering because I know you did animation only for your Simpsons Night B-sodes so I feel you are a "tooned-in" guy.

Live-action is getting reviewed too! I can’t WAIT to revisit Saul of the Molemen. Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not sure where to draw the line on the internet stuff, though. If it aired on Adult Swim I’m very likely to cover it, but I don’t see myself covering the FishCenter repeats that aired at 4AM. Anime is generally getting the shaft. Sorry. I think it’d be cool if somebody started a blog that covered Adult Swim Action. But yes, you are right, I’m a pretty tooned-in guy. Lots of people have said this about me.

If you had to dress like any of the Adult Swim First Era characters for Halloween who would you dress as and who would you LIKE to dress as if difficulty of pulling it off wasn't an issue.

There was a Space Ghost muscle suit at one of those Halloween Stores one year and I very nearly bought it even though I had no intention of wearing it for Halloween. I did a very low-effort season 4 Hank Venture because by happenstance my hair looked like his at the time, and I found what looked like Brock’s jacket at a thrift store.

Putting on a blue Sealab uniform and only traveling in a chair with wheels would be real fun. I could probably pull of an effective Carl. As far a difficult costume I’d be the poolside announcer during the O.G. bumpers, because I imagine that he’s very muscular and his dick is real long and it’s constantly flopping out of the pantleg of his swim trunks and that it’s getting sucked off all the time by them old ladies and most of the time he’s like “no no, we mustn’t do that, for I am a professional” but every now and again he’s like “well alright” and this would reflect my experiences at whatever Halloween party I’m at except it would be a 20 year old woman dressed like an old lady because it’s Halloween. Thanks for the question.

Do you have a girlfriend? What does she think of Adult Swim or does she hate cartoons like mine.

I’m not done with the last thing. I would also have a bullhorn and I’d be using it while getting sucked off, even though that’s a discreet affair. Like, we’d find a bedroom that was empty and lock the door and I’d be like “Oh yeah baby suck my peenie, yes you are doing so good at sucking that.” in hushed tones, but into the bullhorn. I’d also use it to yell at children for wearing racist or appropriative costumes, which, as we all know, leads to more getting-your-dick-sucked. Anyway, I got a wife and we literally met at an Adult Swim event during Comic-Con! It was Tim & Eric Awesome-con 2007! I’M NOT LYING

Would you rather take one big bite out of meatwad or drink the entirety of Master Shake.

I wonder if Master Shake is warm. Anyway, I’d go with that, biting Meatwad seems like CERTAIN DEATH.

[hopelikethemoon]

Pool (Javier x Reader) {MTMF} [smut]

Title: Pool Rating: Explicit  Length: 3100 Warnings: Fluff and shower sex.  Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set after “Anniversary” in 1999. FULL DISCLOSURE: This chapter is entirely unbeta’d and I’m not 100% sure what I’ve written makes sense. I’ve been in horrific pain since Sunday night. I’m talking on a scale of 1-10, I was at an 11 while writing this. I’m loopy, sore, and haven’t slept in two nights. I think, with my naps, I’ve had four hours of sleep over the past two days. So I have no idea what you’re walking into but, you know, I make great decisions. Enjoy???? Summary: Reader and Javier continue celebrating. 

@grapemama​​​​​ @seawhisperer​​​​​ @huliabitch​​​​​ @beccaplaying​​​​​ @thewallpapergoesorido​​​​​ @twomoonstwosuns​​​​​ @gooddaykate​​​​ @livasaurasrex​​​​​ @ham4arrow​​​​​ @plexflexico​​​​​ @readsalot73​​​​​ @hdlynn​​​​​ @lokiaddicted​​​​​ @randomness501​​​​​ @fioccodineveautunnale​​​​​  @roxypeanut​​​​​ @snivellusim​​​​​ @lukesrighthand​​​​​ @historynerd04 @mrsparknuts​​​​​ @awesomefandomsunited​​​​​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​​​​ @exrebelshocktrooper​​​​​ @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​​​​​ @ah-callie​​​​​ @swhiskeys​​​​​ @exrebelshocktrooper​​​​​ @u-wakatoshii​​ @space-floozy​​​​​ @cable-kenobi​​​​​ @cool-ultra-nerd​​ @himbopoes​​​​​ @findhimfives​​​​​ @pedrosdoll​​​​​ @frietiemeloen​​​​​ @arrowswithwifi​​​​​  @cinewhore​​​​​ @random066​​​​​ @uncomicalhumour​​​​​ @heather-lynn​​​​​ @domino-oh-damn​​​​​ @cyarikaaa​​​​​ @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​​​​ @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl​​​​​ @yabby-girl​​​​​ @xqueenofthecraziesx​​​​ @punkass-potato​​​​​ @coredrive​​​​​ @pascalesque​​​​​ @theduchessofkirkcaldy​​​​​ @queenquazar​​​​​ @sabinemorans​​​​​ @buckstaposition​​ @holkaskrosnou​​ @yespolkadotkitty​​​​​@seeking-a-great–perhaps @kochamcie​​​​​ @jaime1110​​​​​ @katlikeme​

You propped your chin up on your palm, tapping your fingers against your cheek as you looked across the table at Javier. 

He had his tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek as he calculated out the tip total. His brows furrowed momentarily as he double checked his math, before he jotted his signature down and sat the bill aside. 

Javier glanced up at you, “What is it?”

“Nothing.” You shook your head and smiled at him. “I was just appreciating the view.”

He chuckled, rubbing at the back of his neck as he looked away briefly, “You’re gonna make me blush, baby.”

“Maybe.” You stretched your leg out beneath the table and tapped your foot against his ankle. “It's only my first anniversary once.” You pointed out. “So I’m savoring it.”

“I think that champagne went to your head,” Javier retorted with a smirk, tapping his fingers against his temple. 

You rolled your eyes, “I’d flip you off if this weren’t a nice restaurant.” 

Javier snorted, shaking his head slowly as he nudged at your calf beneath the table. “Alright, so you were appreciating the view?”

“Mhm.” You bit down on the edge of your bottom lip as you held his gaze. “I was trying to remember what you looked like that first day.”

“About ten years younger.” Javier scratched at his jaw, leaning an arm against the table. “A little less grey.”

“A lot less grey.” You teased, reaching across the table to rest your hand over his. “Still just as handsome though.” 

“Yeah?”

You cocked your head to the side, “Have I ever told you how much I love your eyes?”

“I always figured they were part of the package.” He shrugged, scraping his fingers over his mustache to neaten it up as you studied him. “They’re not that special.”

“Well, I think they are.” You shrugged, “They're kind. Even on your worst days, even chewing someone out… They stay so gentle. I don’t know if you even know that.” 

“I hadn’t made a note of it, no.” Javier shifted again, leaning back and then forward in his seat. “You done?”

“I guess I am.” You laughed, giving his hand three squeezes, “I was planning to sit here and tell you all the things I love.”

He gave you a look. “This is the last time I’m buying you champagne.”

You lowered your voice, glancing around to make sure no one was within earshot. “I can promise you this. It has more to do with you fucking me into the hotel mattress than it does the champagne.” Your brows rose upwards as you leaned back in your chair, “So we can stop that if you want.”

Javier scoffed, “Now that’s just cruel, baby.” 

You shrugged, “It’s just the facts.” 

“Alright, what else is on your list?” He picked you the red and white mint the waiter had left with the bill, fiddling with the wrapper, before popping it into his mouth. 

You pursed your lips as you studied him. “Your lips are definitely on the top of the list.” You tapped your foot against his, mulling over your decision. “Your nose.”

“My nose?”

“It’s a good nose.”

His brows furrowed. “My nose?” He questioned again, rubbing his finger down the length of it. “So you like... my face?”

“Obviously.” You laughed, reaching for your champagne glass and downing the last of it. Maybe it was the champagne, but you felt happy, bubbly, and just a little bit more in love with Javier than you were yesterday. But that wasn’t something new. Every day you found yourself falling in love with him all over again. 

Even on the days where you wondered if Steve would help you hide the body. 

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” You questioned as you stood up and smoothed your hands over the skirt of your dress. 

Javier couldn’t help but laugh, “I can only imagine.” He held his hand out for you and you took ahold of it as the two of you walked towards the front of the restaurant. 

“I’ve always wanted to jump into a pool in a nice dress.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” You squeezed his hand. “Come on, it’ll be fun.” 

“You’re serious?”

You stopped, turning to face him. “You can watch if you don’t want to jump in.” 

Javier scoffed, pulling you towards him. “If you’re jumping in, I’m jumping in.”

A grin spread over your lips as you met his eyes, draping your free arm over his shoulder as you leaned in to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Now you’re seeing things my way.” 

“The question is… the inside or outside pool?” Javier questioned, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

“Indoor will likely be vacant since it’s nice out.” You suggested, rubbing your lips together as you considered the options. “Indoor.” 

You tightened your hold on Javier’s hand, guiding him past the elevators and down the hallway — following the scent of chlorine. 

“We could go back up to the room and get our swimsuits.”

“Or we could jump into the pool fully dressed.” You arched a brow at him. “You were on board a second ago.” 

“I’m still on board.” Javier shrugged a shoulder. “Just keeping our options open.” 

“You better not be keeping your options open.” You held up your left hand, wiggling your fingers. “You’re stuck with me.” 

“That is not what I meant.” Javier huffed, stepping ahead of you to open the door that led into the pool room. 

As you had expected — the pool was vacant. Beyond the wall of windows, you could see that there were still people enjoying the last rays of sunlight at the outside pool. 

“We chose right.” You pointed out as you stepped past him and slid your purse off your shoulders. You say it down on one of the pool chairs, tucking your earrings, necklace, and ring into the inner pocket for safekeeping. 

“It’s silk.” Javier stated as he tugged off his tie and passed it to you. 

“And a gift from Josie.” You reminded him as you folded the tie carefully and placed it into your purse. “Have you ever done this before?”

Javier looked between you and the pool, “I was always fond of jumping in buckass naked.” He gave you an unamused look. “Can’t say I’m interested in getting arrested for that.”

“No, that wouldn’t be ideal.” You laughed and kicked off your heels, walking towards the edge of the pool. 

“Is this a bucket list thing?” Javier questioned. You glanced back over your shoulder, watching as he peeled off his socks and tucked them into his shoes. “Did you get a look at all of my greys and decide it was time to start on one?” He tossed his wallet onto the chair beside your purse, before joining you at the edge of the pool. 

You shook your head, “This is what happens when you pair a bottle and a half of champagne with a really good mood.” 

Javier turned to grin at you, “So it was the champagne?” 

“Oh, fuck off Javier!” You laughed, getting your chance to flip him off, just before you leapt into the pool. 

You resurfaced just as Javier jumped in to join you in the pool. You wiped at your eyes, laughing as he came back up with his hair plastered to his forehead. 

“Well?” Javier questioned, coughing a little as he waded in the water, keeping himself afloat. “Was it everything you thought it would be, baby?”

“Oh yeah.” You grinned at him as you swam towards him, reaching out to ruffle the hair that was stuck to his forehead. “Thank you.”

“For jumping into the pool with you?” He arched a brow at you. “I’d do anything you asked, baby.” 

“Anything?” You wiggled your brows at him, leaning in to kiss him. “You taste like pool.” You laughed, brushing your nose against his. 

“I wonder why.” He wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you towards him. 

“Could it be that we’re in the pool?” You laughed, winding both of your arms around his shoulders. “We should do this every year.”

“This?”

“No! Just… something spontaneous.” You kicked your legs in the water to keep your dress from dragging you down. “I mean, last year we did decide to get married.”

Javier let his head tilt back as he laughed, “What are we going to do next year?”

You pressed your tongue to the inside of your cheek, “Matching tattoos?”

“I could do matching tattoos.” Javier grinned at you, running his hand up and down your back. “Did you have a good day?” He questioned, keeping you close to him, as he guided you both towards the shallow side of the pool.

“It was perfect.” You told him with a warm

Smile, “I’m looking forward to tomorrow. As much as I love the girls, this is really ice.”

“We never got to really enjoy just us without being parents too.” Javier agreed with you, rubbing at the small of your back. 

“I feel guilty about it sometimes,” You admitted, chewing on your bottom lip as you searched his eyes. “But I think that’s normal. Wanting a break from reality — just for a day or two.”

“I think that’s perfectly normal, baby.” Javier assured you, leaning in to press a kiss to your lips. “You ready to go back up to our room?”

You nodded, laughing a little, “Yeah. I think I’ve got my fill of chlorine.” 

 —

 “Cold?” Javier questioned as he stopped unbuttoning his shirt to reach into the shower and check the temperature of the water. 

Your teeth chattered a little as you wrapped your arms around your waist. “Just a bit. Know any way to fix that?” 

“I might.” He arched a brow at you, tracing his tongue over the edge of his teeth as his gaze raked over you. “I think the first step is getting you out of that dress. You’re dripping everywhere.”

“So are you.” You retorted, rubbing your hands over your bare arms as Javier crowded close to you. You turned to face the mirror behind you, meeting Javier’s gaze in the reflection. “I can’t reach the zipper.” 

Javier brushed your hair out of the way, kissing the back of your neck before working the zipper down your spine. “I’ve been waiting for this all night.” 

“Oh?” You questioned as he peeled the straps of your dress down your shoulders, letting the wet fabric drop and pool at your feet. “You already got me naked once today.”

He clicked his tongue against his teeth, “And yet I look forward to it every time.” 

You turned back around to face him, feeling much warmer now that his gaze was wandering over your naked body. “I guess I can’t judge. I’m just as bad.” You reached out to finish unbuttoning his shirt, tugging the tails out of his pants before shoving the sleeves down his arms. 

Javier cupped your left breast, dragging his thumb roughly over the pebbled peak of your nipple as he pressed you back against the counter. 

“I love you.” You reminded him as you pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. 

He trailed his hand down your side, grabbing at your hip as he pressed his knee between your thighs. “I love you too, baby.” He murmured, kissing the hollow of your throat. 

“We’re wasting water.” You said, tugging at his hair with one hand, while the other slid down to work at the zipper of his slacks. 

Javier kissed his way up your throat, before he was nose-to-nose with you, “Then I guess we better get in.” 

You grinned triumphantly as you tugged his slacks down his hips, “I can think of something I want to get in me.” You tossed back, scraping your nails lightly over his lower stomach, playing with the coarse hair that led downwards, before you slipped out of his grasp. 

“You’re a tease. You know that, baby?” Javier retorted as he shucked off his slacks and boxers. 

You narrowed your eyes at him, a smirk playing over your lips. “A tease would wind you up and offer no release.” You gave his cock a pointed look. “And I’m not interested in doing that.” 

You slid your pool-soaked underwear down your thighs, kicking them aside before stepping into shower. The warm water made you hiss softly, a sharp contrast from the icy pool water that chilled your skin. 

Javier followed you into the shower, curling an arm around your waist and pulling you back against his chest. “Even looking like this, you’re the goddamn most beautiful woman.” 

“Looking like this?” You pressed your ass back against him. “What? Is there a problem with runny mascara and pool hair?”

Javier snorted, pressing his lips to the crook of your neck. “It's a good look on you.” He mumbled as his hands wandered up your stomach to cup your breasts. 

You curled your fingers around his forearm, nails biting into his skin. “Javier.” 

“I’m not going to tease, baby.” He promised you releasing his hold on your right breast, his hand traveling downwards until he found his destination between your thighs. 

You let yourself get lost in the moment. The water falling against your skin, the steam rising from the warmth of the shower, his fingers grazing over your clit as he wound you up. 

You were still sensitive from before. Thighs aching from the strain, cunt tender from the way he’d slammed into you — but you wanted more. 

Sure, the two of you made time for each other at home, but this little respite gave you freedom from the daily demands of life. It didn’t matter if you slept til ten tomorrow because he’d kept you up all night. 

“Oh.” You breathed out as you sank back against his chest, spreading your thighs wider as he stroked his fingers over your slick center.

Javier rasped out your name as you reached behind you and curled your fingers around the back of his neck, “You’re so fucking responsive, baby. Have I ever told you how crazy that drives me?”

“Show me.” You hissed, grinding back against his cock. “Don’t make me wait, Javi.” 

His teeth scraped over the curve of your neck, as he pulled his fingers away from you. “Maybe I should make you wait.” Javier taunted. “Make you beg.”

You turned in his hold, water running down your back as you met his gaze. “You know, two can play that game.” You tilted your head backwards, letting the water soak into your hair. “Maybe,” You mimicked his voice. “We should just shower and go to sleep.”

Javier pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek as his eyes followed the path of the water as the rivulets ran down your breasts and stomach. “We could do that.” He retorted, “But I don’t think either of us want that.” 

You exhaled shakily as you watched his hand wrap around his cock, slowly pumping his fist along the length. “You’d be right. Tragically.” You rolled your eyes, a wry grin spreading over your lips. 

“Thought so.” Javier said lowly, working his hand over his length still. “C’mere, baby.”

You closed the short distance between the two of you, reaching out to brush your fingers over his cheek. “Tonight was fun.”

“Yeah?” Javier cocked his head to the side, curling his hand around your hip and pulling you towards him. 

“Yeah.” You nodded, brushing your thumb over his bottom lip. “There’s no one that I’d rather jump into a pool with.” 

He gave your hip a playful swat. “You’re ridiculous.” 

You grinned, sliding your arms over his shoulders as you leaned in to kiss him. “Gotta keep you on your toes.”

Javier guided you back under the shower’s fall, before pinning you against the wall. “Right now, I’m more concerned about keeping you off your toes.”

You snorted, running your hands over his shoulders. “Let me see what we’re working with.” You gave his arm a squeeze as you looked downwards. “Hang on.” 

He helped you balance on one foot as you pressed the heel of your other foot into the little built-in shelf near the faucet head. “You got it?”

“I think so.” You nodded, holding his gaze as he slid his hand down your hip, curling his fingers around your thigh and drawing your leg around his hips. “Oh.”

Javier groaned out your name as you reached down to curl your fingers around his cock, holding him steady as he slid into you. 

Your head fell back against the shower wall and you bit down on your bottom lip to keep from crying out as he pulled out and drove back into you. 

“That’s it.” You urged, grabbing at his arms and his shoulders for support as he started to move. 

Javier held fast to your hip, keeping your leg firmly wrapped around him. His lips ghosted down your throat, his tongue dipping out against your skin. “You feel so fucking good.” 

“So do you.” You scraped your nails over his back, just to hear him hiss. “Good?”

“Fuck, yes.” Javier’s teeth caught against your collarbone, causing you to clench around him in response. 

Through the opaque shower curtain, you could make out your reflections in the mirror. Two blurry bodies moving together.

Twelve years as partners, seven years as a couple, and a year of marriage. It felt like the years had slipped by in the blink of an eye. 

You curled your fingers in his hair, a quiet moan slipping past your lips as he felt that subtle shift in the way he moved. “Come on, Javi. Come on.” You urged, nails scraping down the back of his neck as you tilted your head to kiss him.

He was there before you, his pace turning uneven as he spilled into you. His hand hastily wedged between your bodies as he coaxed you over the edge with him. It wasn’t as earth shattering as earlier — but the pleasure still warmed every inch of you. 

“Shit.” Javier huffed out as he lost hold of your hip and you slid an inch down the wall. He stumbled back, slipping from you, and you managed to grab at his arms for support, getting your foot back on the ground without falling.

“Fuck!” 

“Sorry, baby.” He rubbed his thumb over your hip. 

You laughed, shoving him playfully in the chest “I mean, just drop me next time.” 

He rolled his eyes, “I’ll remember that.” He gave your ass a quick swat. “The water’s getting cold.”

“The hotel probably pulled the plug on us.” You winked at him, leaning up to kiss him. “I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He chuckled, winding his fingers through his hair. 

You brushed your nose against his, stealing another kiss. “Rude.” 

Javier curled his arms around you, pulling you towards his chest. “I love you too, baby.” He assured you, even though you didn’t need to hear it to know it. 

[voldiebuns]

Horror Movie a Day 2020

The past couple of years I’ve done a challenge of trying to watch a horror movie a day through the month of October. Last year didn’t go well since I was so busy travelling, so I’m hoping for better this time around!

Under the cut you'll find my list of watched movies, plus rating and some thoughts about them. I’ll also be posting every day at my film twitter. Lemme know if you have any suggestions for what I should watch this month!

Hereditary (2018) | ★★★☆☆ This movie was... not at all what I was expecting from trailers and such. The devil worshiping angle was definitely a surprise, which I didn't entirely mind, but the first and second halves of the movie felt very disjointed from one another because of it. There were some good moments, but all in all, not entirely sure I liked the movie.

Parasite (2019) | ★★★★☆ More a thriller than horror, but I make the rules! I enjoyed this one a lot for the sense of tension it achieves even when not a whole lot of “action” was going on until close to the end. And of course how well it depicts class differences and how deeply affecting poverty is. Very good.

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959) | ★★☆☆�� Granted, this is over 60 years old now, but it’s still very bad. And not even in a particularly fun way. It’s honestly pretty boring and not scary at all... But at least it was short!

Piranha (1972) | ★☆☆☆☆ So 70s it hurts lol And also so boring it hurts. I spent most of the movie wondering when something was actually going to happen. But the real thing I wonder now is why this was in my sharks, piranhas, and monsters movie pack because there’s approximately two seconds of actual piranhas in this and they’re not even really attacking anyone?? I think they may have included the wrong Piranha because the picture on the cover is... not this movie lol

Them! (1954) | ★★☆☆☆ I actually thought it seemed pretty well made for the time, but it was definitely very slow. Interesting as a reflection of US nuclear fears, which I don’t think gets seen as much in movies, though!

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009) | ★★☆☆☆ This is... so bad. I’m pretty sure their budget had to be like $5 and half a gig of stock footage, but even aside from the godawful CGI, the cinematography is almost unbelievably awful and the acting is often cringeworthy. It also wasn’t particularly fun? But the romance was actually kind of cute.

Mega Piranha (2010) | ★☆☆☆☆ I honestly can’t even count the ways this was a terrible movie lol And still, not even in a particularly fun way! More cringe than cheese, which was really just disappointing.

Beneath Loch Ness (2001) | ★★★☆☆ This was actually really not bad. The graphics were incredibly 2001, but it came off as very heartfelt and the characters and their relationships felt real in a way they tend not to in these kinds of movies. I enjoyed it!

30,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2007) | ★★☆☆☆ Not really a horror movie, but in a pack with my other sea creature horror movies so it'll do. Production value was terrible and the plot was sketchy, but it had some interesting bits. Overall a pretty hearty meh for this one.

Tremors (1990) | ★★★★☆ First rewatch of the year! It's been years, though, and I needed a refresher before watching the rest. This movie is basically the floor is lava with killer worms and I love it lol A really fun movie!

Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996) | ★★★☆☆ Earl without Val was not quite so much fun, but they did some cool things with the graboids. Plus many more explosions! Biggest complaint is the puppets and CGI didn't always mesh well.

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) | ★★★☆☆ Wish they'd stop ruining things with worse and worse CGI lol This one got a bit goofy even compared to the others, but it was overall still fun!

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004) | ★★★★☆ This one was really fun! I loved that they went back to the beginning of the town, especially since it was easy to see how it became Perfection in the end. I think it's the best one, tied with the original.

Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) | ★★★☆☆ The cinematography on this one was sometimes very weird. And the Jurassic Park homages went a bit past "homage" at point imo. But still a pretty fun watch.

Poltergeist (1982) | ★★★★☆ I think I'd seen this before, but I really couldn't remember. Either way, it holds up pretty well! Very engaging and creepy weird, with some good gross moments too.

Sleepy Hollow (1999) | ★★★★☆ Very enjoyable! Tim Burton's style meshed very well with the story, and of course the cast was full of wonderful actors. Unfortunate that Depp stars in it, but what can you do?

Underworld (2003) | ★★★★☆ Not horror exactly, but definitely adjacent enough. Great aesthetic and very enjoyable (re)watch! Also I super appreciated the soundtrack lol

Lake Placid (1999) | ★★★★☆ After I started watching, I realize I think I've seen this before. Still enjoyed it! The characters are definitely the draw more than the croc, though. Would have liked to see a bit more of it

Ghost Town (2009) | ★★☆☆☆ Holy bad acting and shaky cam Batman! Terrible movie with the barest hint of an interesting one beneath, but I think my biggest complaint is there was a Wiccan ritual being done... in the 1800s lol

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976) | ★★★☆☆ There were really no horror elements in this to speak of, which I found a bit disappointing, and I also didn't feel like it had a very satisfactory ending. But I did enjoy the movie for the most part. I guess I just wanted more.

The Witches (1990) | ★★★☆☆ Mostly just pretty goofy, but a fun watch and it felt very seasonal. Anjelica Huston was, of course, the best part! Though I'm always happy to see Jim Henson puppetry as well.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) | ★★★★☆ This was uh dated in several ways that make it a bit of an uncomfortable watch. But I really did enjoy it! The Clarice/Hannibal dynamic was even better than I'd been expecting.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) | ★★★☆☆ Wow, that was something else lol Something absolutely ridiculous and incredibly weird, but also very fun! I really enjoyed the main three characters and the music too.

Insidious (2010) | ★★★★☆ Such a good sense of tension in this! A lot of that was thanks to the music tbh, but I do think James Wan just has a really good feel for horror. Also, a very good ending, I'm definitely excited to see 2!

Malevolent (2018) | ★★★☆☆ A fairly enjoyable movie, but it just felt a little lacking and it seemed like the end came up really quickly. To be honest it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I wish there would have been a bit more with the ghosts.

The Conjuring (2013) | ★★★★☆ A rewatch since it's been a few years since I watched it. Very enjoyable movie with good music, great tension, and some actually good jump scares. The Annabelle stuff seems disconnected to the rest, though, I wish that had been more tied in.

Annabelle (2014) | ★★★☆☆ This movie dragged quite a bit and I feel like things could have been compressed quite a bit and it would have been better. The cult connection also could have been explored a lot more imo, because it felt a bit slapped

The Last House on the Left (2009) | ★★☆☆☆ Way too much sexualized violence for my tastes tbh, but I liked the concept and the cast was very good. I think I'll try the original sometime and see how it compares.

The Amityville Horror (2005) | ★★★☆☆ I feel like I may have seen this before? Not really worth the rewatch lol Like this movie is fine I guess, it just felt a bit empty and was overall unsatisfying to me.

The Crazies (2010) | ★★★★★ I was a little iffy going into this bc I thought it might be zombie-esque, and it was, but I really enjoyed it! I liked what they did with the government satellite especially.

Midsommar (2019) | ★★★★★ I was expecting this to be good since I’d heard good things about it, and it so was! The sense of strangeness and building tension was excellent. And it was just such a beautiful movie tbh.

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

If There’s a Place I Could Be - Chapter Fifty Two

If There’s a Place I Could Be Tag

June 22nd, 1999 Anthony leaned back, away from Emile, who was trying to hug him. “What if someone sees us?” he asked, glancing around.

“I don’t care,” Emile said with a shrug. “You’re hurting, Anthony, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“You’re always so concerned for others,” Anthony said, sniffing a laugh, but his eyes were sad. “Do you ever stop to care for yourself?”

“I haven’t really had a need to take a step back,” Emile said.

“Not what I asked,” Anthony pointed out.

Emile shrugged. “I don’t need to care for myself as much as you might think. And besides, other people rely on me, I can’t just rip their support system out from under them.”

Anthony sighed and let Emile hug him this time. “You’re going to have to take care of yourself at some point, you know,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” Emile said, pulling back. “But you’re hurting more, so you’re top priority right now.”

  December 24th, 2001

Almost as soon as dinner was done, and the adults were starting to disperse from the table either to help clean or to watch the kids, Remy’s hand brushed against Emile’s. Emile turned from where he was about to follow his cousins into whatever experiment they wanted to try. Remy looked like he was about to pass out. He was tense, and his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “Hey, I’ll be with you kids in a minute,” he told his cousins, before moving closer to Remy and murmuring, “Let’s go out back.”

“What if someone sees us?” Remy asked, even as he followed Emile through the house and out onto the back porch.

“No one will look for us out here, Rem. It’s okay,” Emile said.

The wind whipped around them as they left the porch and Emile shivered with only a sweater protecting him from the elements. Remy still had his leather jacket on, but for once Emile was jealous of him for it. “Talk to me, Rem. What’s eating at you?” Emile asked.

“I thought I was going to be okay, you know?” Remy asked, his tears starting to fall. He shoved shaking hands into his jacket pockets and looked up towards the sky, sniffling. “I thought that it might hurt a bit to be away from my family for Christmas, about as much as it did last year, you know? But...but when your cousin started asking those questions...and I’m not blaming her, she’s too young to really understand why it’s so upsetting to me...”

“But she’s old enough to know that it does upset you, and she should have stopped,” Emile said. “What she did wasn’t okay, and I’m really sorry you had to deal with that.”

“I just...it just brought Toby to the front of my mind,” Remy said, sniffling again. “He always, always looked out for me, no matter how much trouble he’d get in for it. I took that for granted, and now that he’s not here, I just...miss him, Emile, I miss him so much.”

“I know you do, Rem. But it’ll be okay. Maybe not right away, but I know that one day you’ll find Toby again and the two of you can catch up,” Emile reasoned.

Remy sniffed a laugh and shook his head. “The only way I would find him is through our parents, and that’s not an option. I realize that now. But it means I’m without a brother who truly cared about me.”

Emile took Remy’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I don’t think you’re doomed to never see each other again, Rem,” Emile said. “One day, you’ll get your reunion with him.”

Remy continued to cry and Emile tutted, hugging Remy tight, and Remy clung desperately to him. Emile pulled away just enough to look at Remy and smiled sadly, wiping Remy’s tears away. “It’s going to be okay,” Emile whispered.

“I love you,” Remy murmured back. “Thank you.”

“Remy, there’s nothing I’d rather do,” Emile said.

Remy turned with a sigh to the porch. “We should probably get back in, someone’s going to start missing us,” Remy said.

“If they haven’t already started looking,” Emile agreed. “Hey,” he said, causing Remy to turn back to him. “I mean it when I say there’s nothing I’d rather do than be here for you, Rem.”

Remy smiled. “I know, Emile. Thank you.”

They both walked inside, and Emile rubbed his hands together to try and get feeling back in them, before he spotted Bailey in the living room. “Hey, Bailey! The girls giving you trouble again?” Emile asked.

Bailey looked up in surprise, before his gaze darted away. “Just a little,” he said. “I was looking for you earlier.”

“Oh? Sorry, I was out back with Remy. We just needed to talk about something in private real quick.”

Bailey shifted a little, seeming to debate something in his head, before he turned red and blurted, “I know.”

Emile turned to Remy in surprise. Remy looked absolutely terrified, and Emile knew he was feeling much the same way. They needed to do damage control, and fast. He squeezed Remy’s hand and corralled Bailey into a hallway in the house where no one would overhear them. “How do you know that?” Emile asked quietly, sitting on his haunches.

“I saw you,” Bailey admitted. “I went out on the back porch and I saw the two of you.”

Remy muttered a quiet, “Shit.”

“Remy, don’t swear in front of the kid,” Emile said, turning to look at him briefly. “What did you see, Bailey?”

“Enough,” Bailey said. “I know the two of you are together, like the couples on mom’s soaps.” Emile winced and Remy turned paler. “Don’t worry, though! I also know it’s a secret. Why else would you guys sneak out back just to hug? And I won’t tell anyone, Cousin Emile, not even Aunt Jackie and Uncle Fred.”

“Aunt Jackie and Uncle Fred?” Remy asked softly.

“My parents,” Emile said. He felt relief flood through him as he realized that Bailey thought that no one knew about this. That meant he wouldn’t ask Emile’s parents any questions a little too loudly. “Thanks, Bailey. I know that it’s hard to keep these sorts of things secret, but it’s really important that no one knows. Not even Grandpa, okay?”

“Okay,” Bailey said with a nod. “I think Grandpa would be happy, though. He always liked it when you had girlfriends before.”

“Yeah, but I never told him I had boyfriends, too,” Emile explained. “Because he doesn’t think girls should have girlfriends or boys should have boyfriends. And since Remy is my boyfriend, not my girlfriend...”

“It has to stay a secret?” Bailey filled in.

“At least for now,” Emile agreed. “Listen, if you have any questions, you can ask your mom or dad, all right? But if they ask about why you’re so curious, say that I mentioned two boys I knew in college were dating. Not that it’s me and Remy, sound good?”

“Yeah,” Bailey said. “I know that there’s a lot of crying whenever couples break up on my mom’s soaps, for whatever reason. And I don’t want you or Remy to cry. You’re both super nice.”

And there was the kid that Emile knew and loved. “Thanks, Bailey,” Emile said with a smile. “Now, do you still need help with the girls, or will you be okay on your own?”

“I think I’ll be okay,” Bailey said. “I mean, if you and Remy need some more time alone...”

“We might,” Emile allowed. “Thank you for understanding.”

Bailey nodded and ran off, and Remy weakly joked, “Can I swear now?”

“I won’t stop you,” Emile said standing and wincing as his knees cracked.

“Fucking shit,” Remy breathed. “I have never been so terrified of a six year old.”

“He’s eight, actually, I think,” Emile said. “Kinda short for his age but not overly so.”

“My point still stands,” Remy said. “We almost got into huge trouble.”

“It wouldn’t be trouble, exactly, I don’t think,” Emile said. “It would more be...a rather colorful argument. No one would get physically hurt, although I can’t speak to psychological or emotional states.”

“I would argue that psychological and emotional states would be more likely to bring about trouble,” Remy said.

“Okay, that’s a good point,” Emile allowed. “But considering how bad it could be? I would argue that the worst thing to happen here isn’t that bad.”

“...You know that you would never allow me to make that argument, right?” Remy asked. “Any kind of trouble is still trouble, Emile. I get you don’t want me to be worried, but I know both of us were terrified when Bailey said that. Even if our trouble wasn’t as severe as getting kicked out, which, in all honesty? Considering the way your grandfather acts he could tell us to leave the party and not come back. But even if it wasn’t that severe he could still hurt us, could still hurt you, with his backwards views.”

Emile took a breath. “He’s a good guy, Rem. It’s this one thing that he’s not great with.”

“Yeah, hon, and this one thing is a huge part of your identity and your future,” Remy said, and Emile hated that he was right. “No physical danger doesn’t mean no danger at all.”

“I know,” Emile grumbled, running a hand down his face. “But it’s so much easier for me to compartmentalize that little issue and focus on the good, at least while I’m in the moment.”

“You sure you’re just compartmentalizing?” Remy asked. “Because a lot of the stuff you say? Whether or not we’re in his house, whether or not others can hear, is the same stuff you’re saying now. It’s just one thing, he never gets physical, he’s genuinely a good guy. You’re trying to repress your pain, Emile, and if I don’t get to do that, than neither do you.”

“Listen,” Emile said. “I can’t just cry whenever I enter a room and he mentions something homophobic. And you know what I tend to do when the pain gets too overwhelming? I cry. Yeah, what he says hurts me. It hurts me more when he says it than when anyone else does. Anyone else I can just shrug it off. The other people who would judge me for being bi aren’t that close to me. Even the other homophobes in my family don’t matter as much, because they didn’t try to get to know me from such a young age. But my grandfather and I bonded a lot over my twenty years of life. Same with my grandmother, except she’s not alive anymore to keep my grandfather in check if he says something hateful. What he says matters to me, because I care about him and what he thinks of me. Which means I might need only a single comment from him to make the waterworks start if I don’t repress it.”

“Then leave the room and let yourself cry, Emile!” Remy exclaimed in a harsh whisper. “Because you can’t just repress your feelings on this matter, and if you refuse to acknowledge them even when it’s safe to cry over it, then you’re not compartmentalizing. You’re repressing.”

“Remy, I promise you, it’s not as bad as it seems,” Emile reasoned.

Remy took a deep breath, putting his hands in a prayer position in front of his mouth, and Emile braced himself for the inevitable onslaught of whatever Remy was about to say. “I’ll let myself cry without beating myself up if you allow yourself to cry when your grandfather hurts you,” Remy said.

That...was unexpected. “Why?” Emile asked.

“Because you need to allow yourself to cry every once in a while. You can’t repress all the bad feelings, Emile, that’s how you end up trying to hurt yourself. You talk out the little things, but not the big ones. And if you let yourself feel the big ones, you’ll feel a lot better. Not to mention, that if you let yourself cry every once in a while it tells me that crying isn’t something I need to hide, or be ashamed of. Two birds, one stone.”

Emile considered. Remy had a point. And he had been trying to get Remy to beat himself up less over crying. Which is probably why Remy was using this as leverage now, the conniving man that he was. “Okay,” Emile said. “Tonight, when we’re in our guest room, you can force me to decompress and I can help you handle how much you miss Toby in the late hours of the night. Don’t pretend you don’t lie in bed awake at night sometimes wondering where he is, because you’ve told me you do as much.”

Remy stuck his hand out and quietly said, “Deal.”

Emile shook his hand and they held onto each other just for a moment, just to feel that connection, before Emile’s cousins spotted him and rushed over to wrap him into the experiment they had been trying earlier.

[yuzurk]

[12.10.20] LIVE NOW : CHOI YENA 1ST SOLO VLIVE 

Yuzu is a little nervous as soon as she goes live. She had done this several times but vlive was a whole different platform she had to familiarize herself with first before being able to make it work as naturally as she did with twitch. Making sure her connection was stable and the frame well captured, she continued to hold on for several seconds, double checking everything and watching people pour in. “I feel so naked without my load out-,” she muttered under her breath in English, spotting most of the chat consisting of fans that had found their way here through her announcement on twitter.

She didn’t know how many fans of heartz would actually join this stream and it was a shame she had to talk in Korean for the most part through it even though her fanbase consisted mainly of international fans but she would have to work with the limited options she’s been given.

When she was sure that there was a good amount of people in the audience she leaned back and clapped her hands together after inhaling a deep breath. “Sup everyone, this is Choi Yuzu and yer not watching Choi’s Choice,” the ex-streamer joked, a laugh escaping her lips. “Before we begin- my vlives will be mostly in Korean. With me being an idol in the korean industry now, I have to re-shift my focus. To those who don’t understand Korean- do not worry. Each of these streams will be equipped with English subtitles eventually and I can read and translate your comments if you want to be a part of the life audience. Sadly, this is the most I can do as of now, I apologize,” she announces, her hands still folded together as she bows her head. When she looks up again, there are already comments pouring in from sad emojis to people saying they understand and some confused Koreans asking what the heck was going on and why she was talking in English. So Yuzu went ahead and really kicked off her first vlive als Heartz’ Yena.

“Alright. Here I go- Let me introduce myself properly-,” she begins in korean, her head nodded once. “My name is Choi Yena, I’m the October girl and final member of Heartz 1/3! I used to be a streamer in the gaming and variety field and trained under Samsung for about a year prior to debut. I was born on the 29th September 1999, blood type A, going by the nickname Yuzu. So dun hesitate to call me that! Born in Daegu, been to primary in Japan and middle school in Canada. I came to seoul ‘bout two years ago, straight after High School. I love Games and all sorts of performing. I speak Japanese, Korean and English. It’s a pleasure to meet y’all. Please look after me well,” she introduces herself, tossing the most important facts back at her new audience right after.

“I believe I got... all important things done...,” she murmurs, looking down at her checklist before gazing back towards the chat to see the comments pouring in. People greeting her, calling her cute and funny made the girl smile a little and grin to herself. “Heh. Oh- the other members? I think they went back to the dorm already. I stayed behind to go live... eh?” Right as she says that the door slides open, revealing Luda ( @rkxluda ) who tiptoed her way into the room with a box of food. “Eonni? For me? I thought you’d gone back- ye I’m already live,” she informs the other with a grin in her voice, waving her in and tugging her over. “Before y’leave say hi, real quick!” The two girls wave at the cam together, Yuzu chuckling at how embarrassed Luda seems to be for interrupting her solo vlive. So she lets the elder female scurry away quickly and looks at what she had left the streaming girl. “Oh.... this... I love this- eonni brought me one of my fav foods ‘cause she knew I’d stay back to stream.” Opening the lid carefully Yuzu tilts her head back in bliss after inhaling the beautiful, yummy scent. “Woah... hold on I gotta do this properly-,” she declares, placing her chop sticks down before rolling the sleeves of her jacket up and then putting her cap the other way around to have her face free of any possible disturbance. 

Only then she picks her chopsticks back up and claps her hands together. “Temporary mukbang intermission. I’ll eat well~,” the girl sing sungs before digging in carefully, the hot noodles tasting amazing but still hot in her mouth. “Hmm so hot- but so good.” Struggling through the first bite, she takes a moment to swallow the bite before she pokes her chopsticks into her noodles again. “Luckily the eonnis can cook well- I’m a huge mess in the kitchen. The closest to a good cook I am is playing overcooked,” she admits, a smile widening across her lips before she munches down another mouthful. While chewing she goes back to check the comments, one of them making her smile.

FoxyIrishka ( @rkirina ) : when are you buying me a box of premium grade beef

“Soon. I ain’t forget, Irishka. Dunno when I’ll have time now but it’ll happen,” the ex-streamer promises to her gamer buddy, holding up her pinky to seal the promise. Irina isn’t the only of her friends she sees in the chat and it warms her heart. Especially Chaewon ( @chaewonrk ) makes her almost snort out her next mouthful again. Instead she smiles, hamster cheeks on full display as they remain puffed up with food. “I see ya Chaewonnie~ This girl’s an amazing guitarist. We played in a band together- right! I forgot to talk ‘bout 6tunes!” The female sits up with a start, grabbing her own phone and pulling up one of the few original songs they released. “I used t’play in a band as drummer n’ vocalist. We released a few original songs before we had to disband. Chaewonnie was there- n’ my big brother too- Sungmin Oppa ( @rksungmin ) ... he’s- ah there he is! I saw you in the chat earlier, hi oppa~,” she greets, waving at the camera with a chuckle. 

“Yeees I’m eatin’ well- see,” she holds up her half finished dinner before looking through her library for a 6tunes song. When she finally found one, she held the cover to the lens, making sure people could see it properly. “If y’wanna give it a listen, go and check it out!” Not certain if she was allowed to play music not made by samsung artists she decided to not play it for now and instead continued on. On the topic of music it’s then she spots her namesake.

( @rkyena ) "hi yena-ya it's yena unnie~ congrats on your debut!! will you sing a song you've enjoyed lately?"

“Ah- Yena eonni, thank you-,” she can’t help but chuckle. “This still is so weird- people ain’t ever gonna find me with how popular Yena eonni is,” she states with a chuckle before munching down another bite. “Luxe sunbaenim is too powerful... eonni is it ‘kay if I tell my fans t’ tag my posts with Yuzu instead- otherwise I ain’t ever find ‘em if I wanna go lookin’,” she asks the idol, an amused smile on her lips while she continues to eat. Receiving an okay in return she pretends to breathe a huge sigh of relief. “You heard her guys- Yuzu it is! T’get back to yer question doe eonni,” she continues, reaching for her phone again. “I’ve been listenin’ to convex new release a lot lately. I really like Jinwook ( @rkjinwook ) sunbaenim’s solo ‘Simple’! It’s a really nice song- I love it a lot.” 

Watching the reactions she kind of pursed her lips together when various people asked her to sing the song right now. Inhaling and exhaling a long breath, she couldn’t help but feel like it was a request she should fulfill. “Ah- I can sing a little... I’ll do the chorus-,” she gives in, pulling the lyrics up and deciding to do a simple accoustic version solely because her voice was too soft to keep up with the instrumental and jinwook’s voice in the background. Towards the end of the chorus she gets shy at people calling her voice lovely and beautiful. She spots Xiao among them and immediately feels soft again how she can seemingly transition from one field to another and still keep some of her faithful fans. Hiding her smile behind her phone she can’t help but chuckle shyly. “Ah lleexiao ( @xiaoxrk ) enough y’gonna make me blush,” she admits cheekily, waving the compliments off before hunching her shoulders up as she cringes a little. 

She’d have to learn to get used to these kind of compliments.

Leaving people to gush about her a little longer she decides to finish her food and just peeks at the comment section once in a while. It’s during one of those times she sees Kiwi in the chat as well, his request causing her to snort internally. Of course he would. “KingKiwi ( @rkxkikwang ) - please do a kda cover... okay. I’ll get to that. Got just the person in mind I could ask t’help me with that. Keep a look on insta,” the idol teases, wiggling her brows. Next she spots Wendy ( @rkwendy ) as well among those commenting on her voice, praising her for her progress and that she was proud of her debuting at last. “Ahw eonni- thank u so much. Still got long ways t’go compared to u doe,” she tags on immediately. “Wendy eonni is such a great vocalist- Androma is full of so many beautiful n’ talented girls- if you’re not a fan of them- go check ‘em out right after this stream, okay?!” Insisting on this she points her finger to the camera, narrowing in on it before backing away once more to finish her food. “Okay, cool.”

“I’m planning to actually do more vlives if I manage to find the time... one of the series I’d like to get kicking is actually related to gaming and I’ll have an androma girl with me for those,” the ex-streamer continues to tease as she wraps up the empty box and her used chopsticks. “So y’can look out for that too!” Drinking a sip of soda the female comes quiet while she reads more comments. Among her friends still being noisy and her old streaming fans yelling about more gaming content she can see some new names and comments being tossed her way. One of them catches her interest in particular.

zuzuruhanyu: say "maganda ako" 

The female furrows her brows, head tilting to the side. “What does that mean? Can I even say that on a live broadcast?” For a second she ponders over it, typing the words into a google translator to see what it would spit out at her.

“I’m beautiful- is that what it means? Won’t that be a little vain of me to say,” she inquires with a chuckle. “I’m tempted to call someone who I know knows Tagalog to confirm Google Translate isn’t failing me-,” she wonders out aloud. In the end she sends him a quick message beforehand, just to warn him and ask if she could call him really quick to ask something. If she was already boosting her connections, she may as well continue to go and do that. With the okay given Yuzu calls up Johnny’s ( @rkjohnny ) number and puts him on speaker. She grins when he picks up and some people seem to actually get a clue who she just called.

“Johnny Oppa? You know Tagalog, right? Does ‘maganda ako’ mean I’m beautiful?” A grin on her lips she listens to him chuckle and confirm the information she dug up via google translate. Replying with a simple hum as he inquires if the chat asked her to say it, she lets the smile widen across her lips as he reassures her that she can say it live without getting into trouble.

“Ahh okay oppa, thanks!” Before she can hang up the call though, Johnny requests of her to do the ‘dalagang pilipina’ pose which leaves the female confused all over. “What’s that?” A pic of Johnny doing it along with an explanation follows not too long after and Yuzu can’t help but laugh. “Can I pleaaaase show this pic to the viewers,” she asks with a chuckle in her voice. When Johnny gives a confirmed chuckle right back she turns her phone to show it to the camera, still chuckling away. “Doesn’t he look like the perfect maiden?” 

Cackling at her own wording she turns her phone back to herself. “Are y’watchin’ the vlive right now? I’mma do it,” she announces before going ahead and doing it, wiggling her brows for extra added effect. “this good? am I doin’ this right?” When Johnny chuckles out a confirmation, Yuzu feels herself grinning back proudly. “Alright cool. I’mma hang up then now, ye? Thanks again, Oppa. Bye!”

Looking back at the chat and having people wonder how she knew all these idols, Yuzu had to think twice how she wanted to go about this. She had wanted to avoid being compared to Jieun but not wanting to look like she was flexing and flaunting all her connections right upon reveal she had to explain somehow.

“I know most of them from before they were idols through my cousin, Song Jieun. She used to be a Samsung trainee and her connections are crazy. She told people to look after me when I first came to Seoul ‘cause she was worried ‘bout me. Everyone’s been really kind to me and looked after me well, so I feel very spoiled and grateful.” A smile on her lips she nods her head calmly. 

She comes quiet again as she reads more comments, smiling at the reactions and responses she gets even if some of them call her out for riding on her cousin’s connections. To avert the topic she jumps at a comment from whom she knows to be her boyfriend ( @rkohsehun ) lurking on an alias that she admittedly has to sigh at internally. she really did love her stupid noodle.

"seahoney says: congrats on your debut !!! any new / laid back games you'd recommend?"

“hmmm,” she tilts her head, leaning back to think for a second. “with debut preparations and promotions I haven’t had much time to game much. I really do like the fall and halloween update for animal crossing new horizons but genshin impact has also been my go to game when I’m in the car headin’ to schedules. ‘s got everythin’ put together from what you’d love ‘bout open world games. the gacha ‘s a little annoyin’ but that’s gacha games for ya. the breath of the wild feel makes it a whole lotta different to any gacha I played doe. the controls are also easy to manage so that’s a plus as well,” she reviews with a smile on her lips, grinning as some people say they wish they could see her play. 

“maybe I’ll see if any of my friends plays it n’ once we all reach high enough levels we can coop and I could stream.” at the mention of friends she also spots yoojung ( @yccjungrk ) in the chat and can’t help but grow soft immediately. “yoojungie~ maybe it’ll be a game for ya too? I haven’t given up on tryin’ to find one we can game together besides ddr,” the gamer laughs. She wishes she could express how much she misses her old roommate and best friend but not wanting it to seem like she was ungrateful, she comes quiet instead.

A gaze at the clock does tell her that it’s rather late already and the staff member supervising her also looks ready to pass out in their chair so Yuzu slides an extra soda over towards them before turning back to her comment section.

“You guys are gems... I wanna stay around longer n’ talk to everyone more but I’ll be back soon. For now I gotta head back to the dorm too and get more sleep. Please look out for us and allow me to meet you at music shows. I would love, love, loooove to see you all and show y’all my appreciation for supportin’ heartz and our first unit 1/3. We got lots of great things planed ahead for the future and are ready to gear up good, so please anticipate the future girls as well,” she concludes, hands folded together as she tilts her head to the lens, gaze soft and adoration in her eyes.

“That’s all from me for today- Yuzu aka Heartz’ Yena over n’ out!” With a salute she squints her eyes, striking a cool pose that breaks with her exhaling a chuckle before the screen does turn black at last.

[yanjuniverse]

How Should It Be - Xiao Gui/Wang Linkai One Shot

[a/n: ah yes back at it again with another cringey one shot. i meant to post this on 5/20 but i couldn’t get my brain juices to work and finish it until tonight. i hope you guys like it. big reminder that i love wang linkai ❤️. sorry if the fic is a mess btw lol.] / master list

He sags down in his seat, visibly defeated by whatever was on his mind. A pout is prominent on his lips as his best friend cracks a smile, clapping him on the back before wrapping his arm around him, their bodies crashing together.

“Why the long face, Gui? Don’t you know that frowning gives you wrinkles?” he asks. If Linkai wasn’t so down in the dumps, he would’ve smacked the exaggerated frown right off of Chengcheng’s face right then.

Fan Chengcheng has never been the kind to just let Linkai live in his misery. Oh, no. Fan Chengcheng has to twist the knife after he stabs you. Sure, the guy’s quiet when you first meet him. But once you get to know him the way Linkai knows him, it’s a done deal. Your soul is his and there’s no getting rid of him.

“You saw my butthole once, Kai. We’re practically blood brothers now.”

Don’t ask. Linkai is begging.

“Nothing,” he shifts back into the ratty couch. He thinks for a second about how Xingjie is always babbling on and on about how he should replace it (as if Linkai has the money to replace this old hand-me-down couch. He’s a soundcloud rapper. How much does Xingjie even thinks he makes off of his beats?). Something about how just because it’s old, doesn’t mean it’s vintage. Linkai thinks that maybe the spring that pops out of the second cushion of the faded blue sofa may have caught Xingjie by surprise one too many times. That’s why Linkai always sits on the arm rest or lays like a starfish on the floor during movie nights. You’ll never catch him squished in the middle of Yanchen and Xingjie on their Thursday night Grey’s Anatomy marathons (per Yanchen’s request because how could one look at the actual sun and say no?).

He’s picking at the frayed edge of the sofa when Chengcheng says, “It doesn’t look like nothing.” He suddenly snaps, reaching into his pocket before pulling out a pair of his (nonprescription) glasses. He pushes them up on his nose then opens his phone to his notes. Linkai sees him type “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH GUI TODAY” and watches him not only put it in bold print but italics as well. “I think we should start a diary of some sort. My sister has one of those and she says it’s all a part of a healthy life style. Wait, should we buy a Password Journal for you? Okay, wait Chengcheng. Too far off track. Let’s focus on the now.” He recomposes himself before saying, “First of all, do you know your rising sign? It could help explain a lot of things.”

Linkai thinks that there’s a reason for everything. He thinks that you never meet a person by mistake. But sometimes...he has to question his life mottos as Chengcheng waves his hand and tells him he’ll make his birth chart from scratch, all he needs is the time he was born (because Chengcheng’s already memorized that he was born on May 20, 1999 in the Fujian Province).

“Chengcheng, I promise on my mother that I won’t judge you. Just tell me if you were dropped on your head as a baby or not.“ He’s desperate at this point. There’s no way somebody just wakes up and makes the conscious decision to be Fan Chengcheng. Not any sane person, that is.

“Astrology is a very serious science, Gui and I will not stand for your bashing!” Chengcheng whines.

Likai gives him side eyes. “Didn’t you only get into astrology because Justin said you were a Gemini and he liked that?”

“No!” But the blush rising on his cheeks says otherwise. “Look. This isn’t about me! This is about you! What’s your deal?”

The older one shakes his head, throwing himself back against the couch and hoping that the weird stain to his left would manifest into a blackhole and swallow him hole. He crosses his arms and taps his shoe against the ground, eyes glued to the ceiling popcorn and wondering who the hell even thought that shit was cute. He starts to wonder how much he could pay Chengcheng to eat it when the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it,” Chengcheng says. “I’m expecting a package!” As he gets up, he throws a cushion at his roommate before hopping away.

Linkai shuts his eyes, too exhausted to even fight back. Maybe it is his package. Maybe it’s Justin. Maybe they have another “date” in Chengcheng’s room (it’s not a real date if Justin doesn’t know it’s a date).

He’s about to drift to sleep when another cushion hits his chin, causing him to bite his tongue.

He’s on his feet and ready to throw hands when his eyes land on (a very pissed looking) you.

Honestly. He’s not surprised. You have this sour face all day and all night and it’s to the point where he’s starting to consider having Chengcheng put together your birth chart so that he can understand just that much more about you.

He crosses his arms. “And what is the problem today, princess?” he raises his eyebrows. He leans down, teasingly close, and wrinkles his nose. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Don’t look so stressed,” you scoff. He pokes your forehead, causing you to stumble back a couple of steps. “Hey!” you whine, rubbing the spot. He can just hear you screaming in your head about how he has dirty finger nails or how his hands are always so cold and boney. You huff. “You’re gonna give me a headache.”

“You give me a headache every time you walk into the room,” he shrugs, pulling back. He throws himself onto the couch again and hears the floor rattle beneath him. Another complaint that you’ll throw at him is how he and Chengcheng should just move out of this ratty old place. (“And go where exactly?” “I don’t know! Go live with Zhengting! I heard he needs a roommate!” “You want us to live with Zhu Zhengting? He’ll be on China’s Most Wanted after he kills me and Chengcheng.”) You roll your eyes instead. “But go on. What did your best friend Wang Linkai do to piss you off today?”

“We had a lunch date!” you stomp your foot.

“A lunch date?!” Chengcheng repeats as he exists the kitchen, choking on the piece of bread he had shoved into his mouth. “You two go on dates?!”

Linkai snorts. Ever since Chengcheng found out the story of how you and Linkai met, he’s been begging for you two to fall in love. (“You met in college when she dropped her books and you helped her pick them up? Fingers lingering, eyes glazing over. Love blooming like spring cherry blossom-“ “Chengcheng, shut the actual hell up. I only helped her out because I’m not an asshole.” “Not an asshole? Have you met you?”). Chengcheng says that he’s read a lot of fan fictions. He knows how this will turn out. Apparently, he’s taking bets alongside Chen Linong and Lin Yanjun as to when you two will finally get together. But jokes on them because you are denser than a book.

According to Chengcheng, it’s not your fault because apparently Linkai has terrible game. His idea of flirting with you is to flake on you half the time, watch you get riled up then pat your head and walk away after you get done ranting to him. Linkai doesn’t call that game. He calls that tolerance because some of this shit you put him through makes his head spin in circles. Plus, he’s got an image to uphold. Xiao Gui AKA.IMP cannot go around braiding flower crowns and singing to the birds like this is some kind of Disney film. He’s still trying to live down that time Xukun posted a picture of him coloring in a coloring book on his instagram story (Ziyi still sends him children’s coloring books every holiday since. Whether Linkai fills them out or not is his business and his business only).

He thinks today is going to be a bad day. He thinks it’ll be one of those days where the two of you will fight to no ends and there’s literally nothing he can do to make you feel better. He hates to admit it but he likes those kind of days because they always end with the two of you laying in his bed. Those are the nights he’ll hold you and wipes your tears, whispering a mantra of “Yes, I’m an idiot” and “I’m sorry, it’s my fault for not cherishing you.” He likes those nights because even though you get on his last nerves, he’ll be willing to admit defeat if that means he’ll get to wake up with you beside him.

“Honestly, Linkai. I don’t even know why I try with you sometimes,” you groan, setting down the bag of food in your hands onto the coffee table with one too many water stains. “Chengcheng, come join us for lunch.”

“Oh, I don’t wanna intrude on your date,” he says.

You smile at him. “It’s not an actual date.“

There’s a weird look on your face as you say that. It’s a look you get that Xiao Gui has never been able to read. Your smile is big but your eyes never seem to match. Your shoulders visibly sag and your movements slow for a second before you seem to realize what you’re doing and get back to being normal. “Come!”

“No,” Linkai plops down on the floor next to you. “He has a lab with Justin due at midnight tonight. He needs to leave.”

“Hm? You keep tabs on me?” Chengcheng has a shit eating grin on his face which quickly disappears as Linkai scoffs.

“No. You’re wearing cologne for once and don’t look oily. From just that, I know you’re going to meet Justin,” he says. “You usually smell like terrible B.O. and your hair looks dry. As for your project, you have it written on your calendar inside of a big red heart. I saw it when I went to steal the five bucks from your dresser earlier.” Chengcheng sputters, face red with embarrassment.

You swat Linkai’s shoulder. “Leave him alone,” you frown. “Don’t worry about him, Cheng. You always look and smell great to me!” you grin encouragingly before turning back to Linkai again to whisper yell. “He has a crush. Don’t tell me you’ve never gotten dressed up for somebody you liked.”

“Hey!” he says louder than you expected considering this was supposed to be a hushed conversation. “I’m wearing the jeans you said make my ass look fat,” he retorts. You simply roll your eyes before returning to Chengcheng. Once again, you’ve reminded not only Linkai but the world that you are denser than a book. He makes a face. “You expect me to read your mind and yet you never seem to be able to read mine,” he mutters under his breath, forcefully stabbing into his rice.

“What was that?” you turn back to him. He shakes his head, shoveling a load of food into his mouth to keep you from pressing. You thankfully don’t and once again, turn to Chengcheng. “I think you look amazing. Really. Go get him! He’ll be in your arms in no time!”

“Thanks, jiejie!” the dopey boy grins. “I’ll be on my way then. Be back tomorrow morning. Don’t have too much fun while I’m gone!” he winks. He’s out the door before Linkai can kill him (as if Linkai even had the energy to do so).

He’s too busy dissecting his meat to notice your cold stare. You have to clear your throat for him to look up and see your face. He groans, “What the hell did I do now?”

“You should be more supportive of Chengcheng.”

“More supportive? Any more supportive and I might as well just text Justin and say ‘Hey dinghead! Chengcheng is in love with you!’” he scoffs. “Honestly, it doesn’t get any more supportive than me.” He’s actually offended that you don’t think he’s all for Chengstin. Linkai is the vice president of the Chengstin fanclub, only coming second to You Zhangjing. “Who do you think always makes sure there’s ice cream in the fridge when Justin comes over? Who do you think hops off our shitty ass wifi when Justin comes to watches movies? Who the fuck ran across town just to fight with sneaker heads to get Justin the newest pair of shoes because Chengcheng was stuck in class? Have you ever had to fight a sneak head, YN? Have you?” His eyes are wild as if he’s seen some things he’d rather not talk about.

You sigh. “I just think you need to be nicer to him,” you shrug.

“Last week you told me not to let Chengcheng step all over me,” Linkai points his chopstick accusingly at you.

“Because you were deadass tired and up doing his laundry while he slept!” you exclaim.

Linkai snorts. You’re honestly a walking contradiction when it comes to him. “Just eat and be quiet. I’ve already got a headache. Don’t make my stomach upset too with all of your nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense, Linkai!”

“If it’s coming from you, it is.” He shuts his foam to-go plate and stands to his feet before you could give him another earful. “I’m gonna go get a drink. Want anything? Water? A soda? A shot of vodka?”

“Ten more minutes with you makes the last option sound more appeasing than it should,” you pinch the bridge of your nose.

“Nobody is forcing you to be here,” he reminds you, patting your head as he walks away. When he returns, he’s made two pretty drinks and winks at you. Bottoms up, his eyes say.

“Really? Drinking on a Tuesday?” you scoff.

“Whether it’s a Tuesday afternoon or a Saturday night, you will always find a reason to complain,” he replies. You roll your eyes, taking a sip and feeling the alcohol burn down your throat. You grimace before setting it back down on the table. “So what do you wanna do now, hm? Watch a movie? Make me watch you online shop?”

“Maybe I could put make up on you and do your hair,” you suggest.

It’s his turn to roll his eyes. “You say that everyone elses’ boy friends do this for them and yet, I feel as though I’m the only one.”

“Boyfriend?” you repeat, completely disregarding anything else he had said.

“Boy. Space. Friends,” he says before leaning back onto his hands. “Why? Do you wanna remove the space in between us?” he wiggles his eyebrows before swooping in close to you, noses bumping. You freeze at this. “What?” he smirks when you don’t push him away like usual. “You actually thinking about kissing me this time?”

You scoff, shaking your head and moving away from him. “Wang Linkai,” you scoff again. “You really are something else. You know that? Kiss you? My best friend? I’d rather eat sand or-“ You stop, looking at him and seeing the way his eyes cast down for a second. “What?”

He looks back up. “Nothing,” he says before pulling himself to his feet again. He stretches his arms over his head and yawns. “Come. Let’s go shop. Or something. I don’t know.” He shakes his head and reaches for his drink. Maybe he shouldn’t have poured so much alcohol into his drink. One sip and he’s already a mess. “What?” He notices you still haven’t moved from your spot on the floor. “Hurry up and put on your jacket. Or do I have to so it for you?” He makes a swipe to grab your arm but you pull back, holding it against your chest. “YN, what?” he sighs, a bit annoyed. “Are you mad at what I just did? Look, I’m sorry. Let’s just-“

“Linkai,” you frown. “Why do you look so sad?”

“It’s nothing,” he replies, walking around and looking for his keys.

“It’s doesn’t seem like nothing to you.” Your words are careful, almost as if you’re trying to find the right wire to cut in order for the bomb not to explode. It’s always like that when the two of you argue this deeply. And sadly, it always ends with somebody crying.

“Because it’s never anything to you!” he throws a hand down dramatically. “So like. Let’s go because I’m not going to do this today!”

“Do what today?” you ask, standing to your feet. He shakes his head and makes it towards the door when you grab his arm. He instantly spins around and pins you against the wall, arms encasing you. You narrow your eyes at him. “What’s your deal?” you huff.

“It’s not even a bit obvious to you?” He’s smiling like a deviant. Like you’re just playing into one of his cold jokes. “Are you really that stupid?”

“What did I do to you?” you cross your arms.

“Everything,” he says, eyes casting downwards. You feel your heart starting to hammer as you realize he’s staring right at your lips. “You waltz into my life and make it absolute hell. You expect me to just know what’s on your mind. You expect me to just know what makes you happy and what makes you sad. You expect me to just know these things and I don’t and it makes me so tired and yet...” he laughs coldly. “And yet when I look at you, I want to be defeated. I want to fall at my knees at your mercy. It’s been like this since the day we met.” His hand slowly makes its way up to your cheek, cupping the glowy red flesh between his fingers. “C’mon, YN. How should it be? What do I have to do to make you like me as much as I like you?”

“Linkai, you idiot! If you liked me, you should’ve just told me!” you pout.

“And then you would’ve found something to complain about then as well,” he rolls his eyes. “Honestly, YN. Just lighten up with me sometimes. I’m trying.”

“You’re always trying,” you smile. “That’s what I like about you.”

“You wanna know a secret?” he asks, leaning in closely. “I only try his hard for you.”

And as his lips finally land on yours, you realize that this is exactly how it should have been all along.

[trulycertain]

Unpopular opinion: god, Batman v Superman had some really good ideas that it chucked down the U-bend, and there are parts of it I really enjoyed. I don’t regret seeing it (and yes, I watched the Extended Cut. All three hours). I was just discussing this with @masutrout​, and here’s a slightly abridged version of my thoughts.

Look, I know no-one sets out to make a bad film, and with so many moving parts, a film getting released at all is a miracle. I know it’s not down to one person and (I’m quite glad) it’s not up to me, because I have no idea how to make films. But if I had, say, a magic lamp and a wish for an ideal BvS and DCEU in general... Here’s what I liked; here’s what I’d magically tweak in a parallel universe; here’s a rant. A 2.2k rant. An Extended Cut rant.

I know it's all desaturated and so on, but I genuinely really love Snyder's style. Dude can set up a shot, and he knows how to use chiaroscuro. In theory, I totally get why they'd look at him and go, "his shit is like comics brought to life, pick him." I wish he'd just... allow a bit more colour into it and let people colour grade properly, because the Metropolis/Gotham Clark/Bruce contrast could've been played up beautifully with visual language and colour too. I mean, I know he can do overwrought iconography and imagery, look at how they went to the trouble of CGI'ing Clark's cape in every scene because it was such a banner, and the pop of red. 

I'll admit, I wasn't always all-in on Affleck's performance, though it was one of his best in his back catalogue (I am one of the few people I know who has zero problems with him as an actor and tends to find it more the material, but I grew up on Kevin Smith films and his shtick works for me, even if he has a manner. I'm not too discerning). But. A Bruce who's tired and broken-down and greying and has lost even more, and still in the aftermath of that, tries to find hope and "I can't let this happen to anyone else" again, in the wake of one more death? God yes give it to me. A Bruce who's taller than Clark and just plain tall in general, because maybe Kryptonian ideals are different and because it'd give Bruce one more thing to desperately play down? God yes. Just... in general, middle-aged Bruce but without a lot of the Batfam stuff (which I like, I have a love for several of the Bats, but my favourite stories are always solo) with a regimen of painkillers and who's turned Wayne from an "I'll just jump into the water feature" jackass to a schmoozer and flirt and maybe a drunk. Take out the branding. I wanted Bruce as a broken idealist, not a fascist. It's actually way more fascistic than the original Dark Knight Returns, even. But goodness, the whole idea of an established, tired Batman is good. There’s a reason the comics and animations keep coming back to it.

"Superman was just a story. Superman was just the dream of some farmer from Kansas." I forget the exact phrasing, but everything about that idea, and this idea that Superman is as much an ideal for Clark to live up to as everyone else, and he’s daunted by it? Yeah. There’s something in there.

I loved everything about Jeremy Irons' Alfred. Seriously, everything. Tech guru, little less RP, little rougher around the edges, clearly has some scars of his own. Absolutely biting, even more than most incarnations, and gets all the best lines. Yes, keep that, it'll do.

I liked the voice changer... halfway. To me it makes way more sense than putting on a voice, which is a bit daft and way more variable. I just wouldn't have gone that heavy on the processing, so that Bruce sounded less like a hacker from 1999. I also thought it was a good way of representing how Bruce desperately tries to emotionally distance himself when he’s the Bat, and how his anger has made him colder.

Batman as just a rumour or an urban legend is great, and a wonderful contrast to Superman, who’s this bright, transparent... common god. Bruce never did it for credit, he did it to get it done. It’s stretching the bounds of credulity, sure, but in this strange, semi-operatic storytelling with heavy myth feel, it makes a bunch of sense thematically.

Bruce meeting Martha Kent, and their first meeting being him saving her life. Even this broken-down Batman who thinks he’s a mess. Actually, just more Martha in the DCEU in general.  I mean, I get why they didn't lean into it so much because they maybe wanted Bruce and Clark to feel more like equal peers, rather than Bruce being too dadly, but... god, again, more Martha. In JL, in something, if nothing else. Martha who's lost a son (Jason); Martha who later has a son in another city trying to do good and is worried as hell about them (Dick's canonically in Bludhaven PD at this point); Martha who is one of about five people in the world who knows who Batman is and hasn't spilt that information; Martha who saw Bruce at the cemetery and might have some really interesting things to say to him, angry or forgiving; Martha who is one of the few people who's seen the good in the Bat (when Bruce himself couldn't)... Man, I was so, so glad that fic leaned into that. I would read a regular comic book of just Martha and Bruce Being Reluctant Friends and Worrying A Little About Their Kids, But Maybe In An Enemies-To-Friends Way Because Holy Shit You Had A Fucking Spear What the Fuck.

No, really, wait, I’m going to go on about Martha again.  The scenes in BvS where she was basically saying, "God, don't kill yourself for them, come home, if they're gonna hate you they don't deserve you..." On the one hand she could've been a contrasting voice to Jon, but this way also makes sense. "I know you want to help but please don't kill yourself..." It was always both parents in the comics who affected him equally, even if the Donner films had his father's death, iirc. It was Martha who pushed to keep him, Jon who taught him not to break people and show off, Martha who taught him how to cook and be gentle with things and in Superman: Birthright, which MoS is heavily, badly based upon (I love that miniseries, time to read it again) she researches alien sightings in the hope he won't be alone. I get why they went for a more "grounded" Kryptonian uniform thing, but Martha made his costume, in the original canon. In all canons, she was a huge help in creating the "Clark Kent" persona (yeah, sure, maybe a woman would have something to say about making yourself quiet and shrinking in a room and having to look helpful and nonthreatening all the time, but Snyder and Goyer were never gonna be the kind of people to explore that and even Waid, whom I love, barely touches on it). Every other film or comic book is crap, dead, or crap and dead dads. Clark's relationship with his mother and father is hugely important.

Getting to see Bruce doing the society beat, and just a little more philanthropy would've been great. You don't have time to build that character? Sure, OK. Take out the Flash dream sequence and the sleeping-with-random-women, maybe don't have a totally unnecessary but kinda hilarious shower scene, and replace it with some identity weirdness where Bruce and Clark are stuck interacting as civilians a little more. Or something about what the hell happened with Jason and the manor, though I don't mind most of it being unexplained. There, still building character, still serving a purpose, you can fit a brief scene into your three hour movie. Civil War had a ton of "Steve Rogers and Tony Stark brood or sit in rooms talking to each other."

If they were going to throw away all the secret-identity potential, they could at least have done it interestingly. That scene at the gala made it clear how hard they both had to act, and Jesus, the idea of Clark eventually, finally finding someone else who has to lie and cut off what they can do, who has to bumble almost the way he does... That could've been interesting and also maybe worried the shit out of him. Or made him want to talk to this crazy billionaire who goes round combat-booting people in the face and try and get what his deal was, which could've led to more interesting misunderstandings. 

And then there's Diana, who's not a bumbler but a "nothing to see here, rich eccentric" type too (no wonder she and Bruce had weird insane chemistry in that "sizing each other up/I know exactly what you are" way), and why the hell does Clark basically never see her? I actually don't mind the whole "she's only here for her photo and never meant to get involved, so she's only needing to chase Bruce," that makes sense, but after Doomsday?! In Justice League?! She understands what it is for the world to be frightened of you, resistant to you, the urge to go and hide where it's safe with your family, the loneliness. I mean, just imagine MoS!Clark meeting her and the goddamn relief of it. And the way it could've played off the whole Jonathan Kent is a creepy "kill em all" weirdo now thing, if they insisted on keeping it.

Similarly, please god please show Clark being a journalist more. Perry chewing him out more. A mild hint of office politics. That's the perfect place to leaven a rough film with a dose of humour. People wouldn't have been so bothered by "Is she with you?", which is actually not that terrible a line next to some Marvel "zingers", except for it being so tonally inconsistent. A gentle thread, a few moments of it. Maybe have Clark save someone and have to scrabble to keep his identity a secret, like in MoS - maybe a minute, you could go for some physical humour or a mild sight gag. Obviously, this'd be pre-bombing the courthouse. Relatedly... 

Take out Nairomi and the branding. They serve very little purpose, story-wise, basically never come back into the plot, and only serve to make Clark and Bruce look like dicks unnecessarily when if you want to inject flaws, you have a ton of opportunities to do it with how they deal with people and their loved ones, how they deal with perps, and their brooding moments. 

Seriously, Bruce kicking the shit out of people and investigating shipments from the Black Zero and World Engine crashes would be enough to worry and piss off Clark, as would the whole "I am the night"/lack of transparency shtick. I mean, for a start, John Byrne retconned their first meeting that way in the 80s and that issue is actually great (Clark is trying to arrest Bruce when they meet, because he's young and idealistic and maybe a little up himself and he's been Supes for about five and a half minutes). Look: Clark is being revered and hates it. He blames himself for Black Zero, at least a little. He has excellent reason to be desperately projecting brightly-coloured not-a-threat and also hate that someone else is terrorising a city and violence is being revered, especially when Metropolis and Gotham are still so raw. I mean... Snyder and Goyer did the fucking stupid offensive 9/11 comparisons. Look at how that affected people and still does to this day; emotions run bloody high, and the entire point of Clark is that he's still human and terrified and guilty. And with Wallace O’Keefe and all the threatening notes... look, there's already a good plot in there! 

Meanwhile, Luthor clearly knows Bruce has been sniffing around the K shipments and could've just tipped off Clark about that as well, saying, "He clearly is gonna use it for his own power, and with how sinister and opaque and violent he's already been, he's gonna hurt people." Having his heritage used against people is one of Clark's worst nightmares, it was implied pretty clearly in MoS, and you'd still have the righteous anger. No branding needed. Kryptonian artefacts and the entire masked violent vigilantism are already enough "this is someone who thinks he's above people and can decide their lives" to piss Clark off. He could even investigate that as himself rather than Supes. You need it to be an unanon tip-off and Keefe wouldn't have access to that information? Sure, OK, just filter it through Mercy Graves and make her a "worried confidential source." I mean, she's in the movie and completely wasted. Why not actually, you know, do something with her? Clark wants to believe the best in people, and he might dislike Luthor personally, but he doesn't know Luthor's out to get him yet - or wouldn't, if the writing was better. Again, Birthright, the text Goyer repeatedly ripped from, did this brilliantly. The brand... it's overkill. Grimdark overkill.

I actually... look, I had a really fun, if baffled, time with this movie, but goodness I’d like to see what it could’ve been. And now all the film sites are waving goodbye to Batfleck again while running DC retrospectives due to Birds of Prey, and Cavill’s blue tights are in doubt, it seemed like as good a time as any.

[orangeeu]

A GUIDE TO TOO’S CHAN

Heya! Here’s my essay about why you should stAN TOO’S CHAN!

SO! I recently stanned TOO because of their legendary Rising Sun cover in Road to Kingdom and because of the man, the myth, the legend… CHO CHANHYUK! Yeah, if you watched the performance already you may know who I’m talking about, but in case you don’t or you just didn’t bother to instigate in some intense kpop boy stalking (but why wouldn’t you?), I’ve made a guide for y’all!!

//Ahem A GUIDE TO TOO’S CHAN / CHANHYUK!

(Oh, and btw, no, I didn’t just copy and paste this from kprofiles.com - I added some extra facts and actual, CONCRETE reasons as to why you should stan him!!!) 

‘KAY, ONTO THE GUIDE!!

[BASIC INFO aka boring (but important) stuff lol]

Stage name: Chan 

Birth Name: Cho Chan Hyuk

Position: Main Dancer, Rapper, Producer

Birthday: December 8th, 1999

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Height: 180 cm (5’11”)

Blood Type: O

Nationality: Korean

Element: Fire

YAY! BORING STUFF OVER!! Now here’s some insight on some Chan only tingz~~ 

[FUN FACTS]

He ranked 2nd place on the survival show that TOO was formed from called, To Be World Klass (DESERVED)

He has an older sister

Introduces himself as being “all-rounded” WHICH IS TOTALLY TRUE! He can rap, dance AND produce!!! 

Motto: “Let’s move smartly”

He is a former SM Entertainment trainee

He dropped out of high school

HE HAS A TATTOO ON HIS LEFT FOREARM AND BACK!! It’s hard to see them but alas! I’ve found a Twitter thread exposing his rad tats!: https://twitter.com/CHANHYUCKlE/status/1264654817261125632 From what I can observe, the one on his forearm is of a whale and flowers, and the one on his back is of flowers?? (He even once said that he hopes to get another tattoo on his waist!! YES PLEASE SIR)

He is left-handed 

He and Chihoon are producers/rappers for the dance group CUROHAKO. They actually have a Youtube channel and Chan is in two of their videos!!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uhq2pJA6oQ  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgTT4bBGI78 

His favorite colour is black 

His favorite emoji is the fox emoji 

His favorite food is sushi

His favorite movie is called ‘About Time’

He can freaking guess pizza by its scent!! This was so cute tho, please watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZHi8aNDTuc 

He ripped his pants during a stage but said he was fine with it as long as it’ll get his group views LMAO 

His dancer name is K!ZAROO (but I don’t know if he still goes by it)

His Myers-Briggs personality type is ENTJ (extoverted, intuitive, thinking, judging); natural leaders brimming with confidence and charisma. They’re determined when faced with challenges and thinks strategically in order to achieve their goals. You can read more about his MBTI here!: https://www.16personalities.com/entj-personality 

Part of the self-proclaimed, “sexies” sub-unit consisting of him and Chihoon

He was chosen as the most fashionable member in the group 

He used to have a lip piercing (I don’t know if it’s closed up by now or not)

He hates fluorescent lighting

AYE-- I wish I had more, but that’s all the facts I’ve found about him so far! I’ll update this in the future once TOO ages like fine wine..!

Here are scientific reasons as to why you should stan him!!

[WHY YOU SHOULD STAN]

IDOL TRAITS (why you should stan him as an IDOL):

1. DANCE

His dancing! He’s not the main dancer for nothing! His movements are smooth and natural yet aggressive and passionate..! His strongest point is free styling!  Whenever he free styles, you can tell that he’s simply vibing and embracing his element. It’s obvious that he really loves dancing and that he practices a lot.

People say that he’s similar to NCT’s Taeyong or that he’s “the next Taeyong” but I couldn’t disagree more.. Chan is his own individual with a distinct and unique dancing style. He’s NOT “the next Taeyong”, he’s Cho Chanhyuk! 

Sorry, I just get a bit annoyed when people say things like that.. Anywho, here are some videos of Chan being a dancing legend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLBYBAT1gGg 

https://youtu.be/TWiyBUBL3A0 

https://twitter.com/chanhyuckie/status/1265174013032034306

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZdxA2kewsg 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Eg6AuiNxc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TIR0W0YPLc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QrJ3cCBuzA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GFU0f5xKPs 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CdHHqH51gg

https://twitter.com/i/status/1272322590854590465

WATCH THIS ONE ESPECIALLY!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnx8pmtUwWo                                     

2. RAP

Tough tone that’s got its own colour! Also really good at free styling his rap! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o72hX8R28fo 

Chan’s free verse and him bopping with Lil Pump and the bois.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-elXeK0qYf8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lEetiEqvDI

3. PRODUCE

HE.PRODUCES.HIS.OWN.DAMN.SONGS!! It’s actually very difficult to produce music as it takes a lot of patience, knowledge and creativity! Pretty sick beats with more rad raps! Here’s his soundcloud!

https://soundcloud.com/canigetyourchan

Hope he releases the rest of his works!

4. CHARISMA

A born performer! He never fails to give me goosebumps!! Chan is just mesmerizing when performing, he’s like a magnet.. It’s hard to lose sight of him on stage because he stands out so much! He’s an expert with facial expressions and consistently makes sure to fully immerse himself into the performance; it’s his expression of self which makes him shine so brightly on stage. 

PERSONAL TRAITS (why you should stan him as a PERSON:

1. PERFECTIONIST

A visionary and true tireless idealist. For most people, being a perfectionist isn’t an ideal trait, yet I still find myself respecting Chan for being one. He’s critical when it comes to creating the perfect performance and works really hard to achieve results which reaches his (high) standards. I think that’s pretty admirable - the fact that he puts his blood, sweat and tears to put on not only a good show, but one that exceeds standards for our sake, his own sake and the rest of TOO’s sake. 

2. PASSION

I think that the thing that I adore about him the most is his passion. As I mentioned before, he absolutely loves dancing. It’s refreshing to visibly see an idol enjoy themselves on stage. Chan doesn’t just perform, he lives. When he’s performing, he loses himself in the thing that he loves doing the most and relishes the moment like there’s no tomorrow.

3. DETERMINATION

Even if Chan isn’t the official leader of TOO, his leadership qualities are quite prominent. He’s determined to reach his goals and get through challenges no matter what. Taking initiative, he leads the group in dance and assists others when they are struggling. This can be seen by observing World Klass clips of the boys practicing All You Need Is Love - when Chan noticed that Chihoon was having difficulty with the choreography he called him over and helped him with it. Another example is when they ranked last place in Road to Kingdom and Chan, motivated to do better and prove TOO’s capability of rising up the ranks, thoughtfully assisted in planning their performance and concept and rigorously practiced while leading the others. 

4. CREATIVITY

Idea bank! As an artist myself, I marvel at Chan’s creativity. The concepts and choreographies that he comes up with are astounding and prove to have super effective results! He actually came up with the Rising Sun concept in TOO’s Road to King performance. Because they watched the sun set from the rooftop, Chan was inspired to make their concept about them being rookies and rising in the music industry like the sun!! Say it with me: Chan swollen brain, Chan inflamed brain, chAN GINORMOUS BRAIN!!! 

Overall, Chan, despite his appearance of being intimidating, is actually a real sweet guy that smiles and laughs easily. He’s a soft boi (especially for Chihoon) and likes to initiate skin ship. Members actually stated that Chan likes to act cute and even refers to himself as ‘Chanhyukie’!! So please don’t be fooled by his cool guy demeanor, he’s a squish if you take a closer look..! 

Wow, that was a LOT of writing! That aside, here are some random Chan stuff!

[ MISCELLANEOUS] 

Predebut Chan pics: https://twitter.com/c12c8h__177o/status/1265420652011417601

PREDEBUT CHAN IN BOY STORY ASDFGK (if you squint you can find him in the crowd starting from around 2:48. He’s the one with the yellow hair and sunglasses): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klg8niUUjRQ

Cute clip from World Klass of Chan being all cuddly and cute with Kyungho!: https://twitter.com/i/status/1265176511146934273

Absolutely no context: https://twitter.com/CHANPlCS/status/1264522391008481280

E-BOY CHAN: https://www.tiktok.com/@too_offcl/video/6824848435217304837 https://www.tiktok.com/@too_offcl/video/6819342086857313542  https://www.tiktok.com/@too_offcl/video/6817551314097016069  https://www.tiktok.com/@too_offcl/video/6788981280240454918  https://www.tiktok.com/@too_offcl/video/6784186996119145733          https://www.tiktok.com/@too_offcl/video/6769724996559310086              https://www.tiktok.com/@too_offcl/video/6767461954127744262              

Saranghae saranghae saranghae Chan dance tutorial uwu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F4kQoaMljI

Chan humoring some fans: https://twitter.com/i/status/1249025324689453056��(scroll down below the first Tweet)

Chan English king: https://twitter.com/i/status/1251600155578494976

A cutie: https://twitter.com/i/status/1248594397056217088

Chan recommended this song! It’s pretty good so give it a listen!: https://open.spotify.com/track/7iooxPmnLY6wZynSplHUah?si=fBa5ppR0Qd-klOLa9tvnbA 

O-kay! I think that’s all the Chan content I have for now! Once again, I’ll update  this occasionally while on my journey with TOO! Don’t forget to stan Chan and TOO! Hope this has convinced you!! If it did, then please reblog this to spread exposure for Chan and TOO!

Before you go, please go watch their debut song Magnolia, thank you! Have a great day! 

(P.S., IF YOU FEEL LIKE THERE’S SOMETHING I SHOULD ADD OR CHANGE THEN DON’T HESITATE TO NOTIFY ME, THANKS!) 💖💖💖

[davidmann95]

This week’s comics?

TOO

MANY

COMICS THIS WEEK

*Deep breath*

Batman/Superman #1: The surprise of the week for me! I was getting this almost grudgingly in the hope Williamson would transcend what I’ve seen as his limitations as a C+ writer inexplicably granted a position far beyond what his work’s merited, given how much I love the characters and because Marquez is AAA+. As it turns out, he did! Nothing spectacular, but this was a really solidly entertaining little start to an adventure, with a vibe as though Loeb’s own Superman/Batman was rocketed into the future and made to interact with Snyder’s current DCU superstructure. As that descriptor might imply your mileage may vary, but I quite dug it.

Justice League #30: Great stuff, the kick-off to I assume the final arc before an event book to close this epic out, but when do the Justice Legion show up that is all I care about in the entire world

Superman #14: I enjoyed it, but I’m definitely more than ready to see what’s next.

Action Comics #1014: An unprecedented Bendis super-two-for-one week! While Superman’s largely been my favorite of the two, today this came out on top.

Justice League Dark #14: This continues to just manage to hold my attention with some delightful flourishes, even though this sort of thing isn’t usually my cup of tea.

Martian Manhunter #8: Something of a return to form - I’d been getting somewhat disappointed with this book (though I’m sure it’ll read better in trade), but this grabbed me again.

Dial H For Hero #6: Good goddamn, just about any other week and this would have taken home the gold. Easily one of DC’s best, and leaving me considering going back through Humphries’ whole career given the possibility that while I’ve discounted him in the past I, in an extremely rare but I suppose not entirely unprecedented case, may have been wrong.

Ice Cream Man #14: I suppose you could call this something of a return to basics here, which is the opposite of a problem because the basics here are horrifying and spectacular.

Marvel Team-Up #5: Losing me quick, though I guess there’s only one issue left.

Captain America #13: This one’s tough to unpack. In terms of keeping my attention and keeping things moving this felt better than the last several issues, and I get what it’s going for, but its characterization of Cap...like I said, I get what it’s going for in reinforcing him as the stiff and trying to break him out of that. I’m the guy who considers MCU Cap one of the only times ever where I distinctly prefer the adaptation to the original, specifically because he feels so much looser and warmer. But there’s stiff in the way he’s traditionally been, and the way this issue portrays him, and I’m not sure I can bridge that gap with how he’s been portrayed over the years. In isolation though, still liked this one.

Absolute Carnage #2: Keeps up the pace! I remain shocked by how much I’m liking this one.

Venom #17: An extension of the above, and again, I like it.

Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales #1: Surprisingly disposable, tbh.

Spider-Man: Life Story #6: ...is one I’ll discuss when going into the series as a whole sometime soon. But yes, it really is that good, and the best of the week in a walk.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11: A perfectly enjoyable one-off - good to know that while Amazing’s passing me by, Pete’s in good hands even as Zdarsky moves on.

Avengers #23: Man, this book has gotten so much better since that wet thud of a first arc. Not up to snuff against its cousin in Snyder and company’s Justice League, but cut from a similar cloth and if you’re enjoying that absolutely give this run a whirl.

House of X #3: We’re definitely in the part where I think it’s gonna lose a lot of the new converts as the Earth-shaking reveals die down for now while remaining a resolutely Full Hickman take on the X-Men, and I for one am content to wave them goodbye as I ride this glorious train into the sunset.

Thor #16: A delightful ‘end’ - the true upcoming finale in King Thor notwithstanding - to one of the great runs of this decade. All-Father willing whoever follows up on this one plays with the toys Aaron and Del Mundo leave behind here.

Marvel Comics #1000: The big’un. And better, for that matter, than Action or Detective #1000. Not perfect by any means; there’s still a small handful of stinkers here (though the relative hit-to-miss ratio for this sort of project is unbelievably good here, hence the previous comparison), plus the much-publicized issues regarding the altered Captain America essay and the horribly skewed gender representation, PLUS that...THAT character of all characters gets a (second!) page for 2013 rather than Ms. Marvel. But for what this is, that it comes together as coherently as enjoyably as it does is honestly little short of a miracle. The advertised Ewing spine of the thing is of course great, and such a Ewing as HELL take on the concept on every level; that plenty of these don’t even nominally tie into it doesn’t bother me, since that throughline is exploring the background of a world the rest of this puts on display.

To set the record straight (going by years rather than characters/creative teams, since I feel like remaining spoiler-adverse here and it saves space): for me the actively bad ones are 1966,* 1995,** 1996, and 1999, and the notably good ones not by Ewing are 1943, 1944,*** 1949, 1952, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1965, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2014,**** 2015, 2016, and 2018.

So that’s about 5% bad, and counting Ewing’s contributions (aside from his oddly lackluster single page that isn’t part of his larger story), over half I’d call especially good! And pretty much all the rest of it ranges from decent to quite good, so again, by the standard of these sorts of anniversary anthologies this is basically a minor miracle. Very much looking forward to Ewing continuing his story next month and presumably the incoming 2020 event (a Ewing event comic! So rad!), and also hoping #1001 will correct the grievous Fantastic Four deficiency here.

(Minor SPOILERS for the final notes below)

* This, uh, felt like some real grouchy old man respectability politics business. Would have thought twice before, but given Priest’s recent Vampirella interview, I’m feeling a little more willing to jump straight to ‘this was bad.’

** Oh, Hickman. My boy. How could you? Even given you visibly didn’t give a shit, that was really all you had in the tank? And for the year I was born, no less! Johnny, you wound me.

*** Yeah, I know, believe me I know. But it’s still a good Cap speech - even at this late, largely lamentable stage of Waid’s career, he can crank those out in his sleep.

**** For what it is, i.e. a couple scenes from Apocrypha slapped together and redrawn with a couple DC names swapped out for Marvel names. Shamelessly, admirably lazy on Gaiman’s part.

[go-diane-winchester]

Misha Collins cant keep track of his own lies.

Misha ''I was a homeless kid' Collins was interviewed by an art magazine, because apparently he is very artsy fartsy.  Whilst given the opportunity to speak about his supposedly favoritist subject: himself, Misha couldn't  remember all the fallacies he had spouted over the years.  I guess Misha figured his mostly underage, deranged fanbase might be too busy, furiously fingering themselves to badly written fanfiction, to actually read something from an intellectual source.  Something tells me that, just like in the mugging case, this reporter wasn't quite buying his lies.  Here are some of the highlights, with Misha's self-indulgent rambling in italics, and with my running commentary in bold [the interviewer is in bold italics]:

''Like most kids, I liked making things with my hands, and my mother helped facilitate this when I was pretty young. But I followed that impulse to an apprentice-level devotion. I would seek out woodworkers when I was 10 or 11, going into shops and learning how to use a lathe or – just asking. I grew up in western Massachusetts, and by the time I got into high school I was fully into this – just talking to people and learning things from them in person.''

So his hippy, drug addict mom who stashed pot down her youngest child's underwear for fear of being arrested, and who, for a short time, raised poor Misha in a car, honed his artistic skills when he was pretty young?  When?  When they were living in the woods?  And using a bowl of ice as a refrigerator?  So either his story of his childhood is greatly exaggerated or....yeah, that's all I got.  How gullible does he think people are?

Then in high school, I needed a job, so I started doing some manual labor.

So whilst at his elite private school, where there are rich dads and moms dropping off their darlings every morning, Misha chooses manual labor.  He likes to talk to people but he didn't speak to Mr and Mrs Moneybags?  He could have been a petty gopher in one of their companies and fared better.  After all, he needed a job.  I wonder why he chose ''manual labor''?  And why he chose to word it like that, instead of saying ''I became a carpenter's apprentice''.  I guess it sounds honorable.  That's is nothing dramatic about  saying that you flip burgers at McDs.  Saying that you work in a menial, underpaid job for a multimillion dollar company, does have a more dramatic feel to it. 

I built that barn on my mother’s property. Our house had burned down, so with the insurance proceeds, we built that and...

Wait, wasn't Misha's mom a pothead who lived in a car for some time with her two children?  Now, not only does she have property but she has the money to pay for insurance.  When did you live in the car, Misha?  When the house burnt down?  Why didn't you live in that house you showed footage of, on twitter?  Its a nice house, complete with Christmas stockings.  It doesn't quite gel with your underprivileged childhood narrative, but nice nonetheless.   

I worked a lot when I was in college, probably 30 hours a week most of the time. I did some handyman stuff, some carpentry stuff. After sophomore year, I took a year off. I interned at the [Clinton] White House, worked at NPR, became an EMT, started a summer camp for kids. It was a great year.

What is he?  A career whore?  So he was artsy fartsy, but he worked everywhere doing jobs that were unrelated to each other, instead of staying in his field of carpentry, and making money from that.  He got EMT certification.  Was it free?  Did he pay for it with his tuition fees?  What was the purpose of it, if making money for fees was of paramount importance?  That doesn't make sense, because if he was working 30 hour weeks, when did he have time to study?  The average work day is a tad longer, about 40 hours a week.  And if he was studying and working, when was Superman sleeping?  Why was he working so hard?  To put himself to college, don'tcha know.  Even though colleges offer student loans and don't accept their fees in installments.  And yet, he took time off for one year after sophomore.  Was it to make a lot of money for his tuition fees?  Nope, it was to become an EMT and start a summer camp for kids.  I guess summer camps are big business and you can pay off great debts if you start one.  Good to know.  His internment at the Whitehouse only lasted four months, and yet he has acquired all the knowledge there is to acquire, to become a political knowitall on twitter.  Sidenote:  Is it normal for internships at the Whitehouse to last, such a short time.  I am genuinely curious, because it doesn't sound right. 

This is where I think the interviewer started to sound like she was side-eyeing the wood working maestro and his yarns of tall tales.

After graduation you got into acting, and in 1999, you moved with Victoria to Los Angeles for film and television work. There, in 2001, you bought your first house. Tell us about it. You were a starving actor?

Yeah. Right after we bought it, our realtor said, “There’s a TV show that would like to shoot your house.” They brought this [house-hunting] couple through, and when we saw the episode, they had surveyed the house and were like, “We don’t want to touch this piece of s---.” It was a real wreck, had been seriously neglected. It was built in the 1920s, and built by people who weren’t carpenters, didn’t know what they were doing. It was built so poorly, and everything was sagging – the window frames, the eaves.

Can you believe that?  The starving actor bought a house.  Let that sink in.  He recognized that the house was built by non-carpenters [how was this building standing.  Twas a miracle, I tell you.]  And despite being a starving actor with a small amount of money, and a knowledge of carpentry, he bought a house that was badly built by non-carpenters.  So he knew he was buying a liability.  Why?

The kitchen floor you put in is beautiful. Yes, that’s gunstock, from a gun manufacturer in Northern California.

Mr Gun Free supporting the Gun manufacturing industry.  Man, this guy is a hypocrite. 

You lived in that first house for 11 years. Do you still own it? We rent it out to some lovely people who love it, so it’s good.

Fun fact:  Mr Humble Pie has two pieces of property.  And he is making money off of one, but he chooses to attend cons with the same torn T-shirts from years ago, or has to fleece off of Jensen's wardrobe and generosity, otherwise he would be doing his panels naked, poor thing.  Why doesn't he stop his cruises for a year, and use that money to buy decent threads?  One shirt can last a few years.  The lies are  embarrassing, but miraculously his minions believe him. 

On the way to this house, you became very successful with this hugely popular TV series. Life changed. Do you still manage to make time for handwork? 

Yeah. I’ve discovered that I really like working. Work can be respite for me, and switching gears is really key. Going from working on scripts to working with my hands is therapeutic, for sure. I am still managing to work with my hands. I was just doing some woodworking yesterday. I do a lot of cooking. That’s a big part of my life, and also I think a barometer of emotional health. When I’m not cooking, it’s a sign that I’m too stressed out and I’ve got to dial things back a little bit. I do a lot of canning. I put up 120 jars of blackberry jam this fall.

What an irony!  One of the greatest instigators of stress for his co-workers and their fans, gets stressed out himself.  Yeah, guilt can do that.  Plus, he likes quantifying accomplishments.  That is why Gish exists.  Quantity over quality. 

Which artists inspire you? I love Christo and Jeanne Claude, because of the mind-bending scale on which they’ve created things, like they’re rethinking what’s possible. I’m somebody who kind of likes to break rules, to bend rules when appropriate.

I could write a whole big post, on Misha's rule breaking and bending.  From stealing Whitehouse property [and bragging about it] to telling fans about the scratched line in the Crypt which got Jensen a barrage of abuse on Twitter.  The one thing that he spoke about that doesn't make sense is his story about almost getting arrested for reading a book on a building rooftop.  It makes no sense.  There is a portion of the story that is missing, I'm sure.  Misha is a great exaggerator.

Have you turned any Supernatural castmates on to craft? On a set, there’s tons of downtime, a lot of sitting and knitting and crocheting. And I have occasionally been in the mix there. Last year Jensen [Ackles], my co-star, walked up and saw me knitting, and he just looked at me and said, “Really?” But I could tell there was jealousy behind it, more than criticism. So I’ll teach him to knit, and it’ll be fine. We’ll get through this.

Will you look at that?  There are around 70 people on set at any given time.  Many of them must have seen Misha knitting.  And look who Misha decided to mention.  Was that a ''just in case, a nutty heller is reading this'' insertion?  No mention is made of Jared, because who cares about him, right?  Got to give the crowd what they want.  I am side eyeing the knitting claim myself, because I do knit and having seen a photo of him knitting, I can safely say that, that is not how you grasp at the yarn.  You knit with loose fingers because yarn is abrasive. 

The first big project we did with Random Acts was we built an orphanage and community center in Haiti. I would not have thought that was a tackle-able enterprise if I didn’t have a background in building.  Our biggest fundraising driver for the projects that we do – like building a school or an orphanage – is we bring folks down in groups of 25 or so to Haiti or to Nicaragua, and they help in the building process. We roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.

Wow, he built the 500K orphanage with his own hands, but didn't think about lights for the children.  His response regarding the lights was ''it's Haiti and it takes three f*cking years to get an electrician''.  Wow, I am a third worlder too, but we have electricians.  How backwards is Haiti that he couldn't find a single electrician in the whole country, to light the place up for the poor orphans?  He couldn't squeeze in one electrician in the group of 25 or so.  Are there no philanthropic electricians in his circles?  My word, electricians are such selfish people, don't you think?  They don't want to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.  Why couldn't he just pay for one instead of waiting three years?  Fun fact:  According to their website, the orphanage, aka, the Jacmel children's center houses only 15 children, but another page says there are 27 children living in the house.  They don't know how many children they are looking after.  But that is still a small amount.  So where did all these kids go?

Misha either staged this picture with school kids on an excursion or all those kids got adopted by the staggeringly high quantity of rich couples living in Haiti, right Misha?  SMH

This question made me smirk.  The interviewer had to know Misha has never been to public school.  Look how Mr Bleeding Heart answers the question.

As we know, art programs in K-12 public schools these days are in decline, especially shop class, manual arts. How can we nurture creativity in kids, and why is that important? When I was 9 years old, I had a paper route. One day my younger brother and I were collecting money, and Mr. Haigis answered the door. He started talking to us, and he discovered that our parents were separated, and we didn’t live with our father. In the 1960s, he had run a woodshop for little kids. He had stopped doing it because he got busy with his career. Now he was retired. These two boys show up delivering papers on his front stoop, and it just comes to him: “I’ve got to do the same thing for those kids.”

So Mr Haigis left all the poor, underprivileged children and decided to help these two boys who were going to an elite school?  Sounds legit.  What about public school children, Mr Haigis?  Don't you care about them?   

I was a starving actor for at least a decade.

Misha was a starving actor who worked on 24 projects before getting SPN, but he still managed to buy a house.  Fun fact:  he was an  associate producer on a docu-movie, ''Loot'' which won best documentary at the LA film festival.  His movie didn't need sock puppets to win this one.  Misha should produce more.  That way he wont be on screen, festering up the frame.  The less we see of him, the better. 

http://www.jacmelchildren.org/about/team/

http://www.jacmelchildren.org/

https://craftcouncil.org/magazine/article/builder-baker-angel-maker

[leggigoesabroad]

free rent living in my mind

Lyrical title, and all future lyrical blog titles from now until forever, will be from Taylor Swift’s LOVER which was released August 23rd and has already drastically improved my already great life.  It’s 18 songs of perfection and we aren’t worthy.  Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair have called it a career-capping masterpiece.  God this bitch just continues to show us that she’s the only person who ever matters and good lord I’d kill a man for her if she asked me to.

In the meantime, weeeeeeeeeee’re back!  Well, I am back, because I’m in Alaska and honestly that’s practically abroad.  It’s so far from everything except Canada and Russia and other parts of Alaska and life here is wild and so different and thus, Leggi has gone abroad again.  Currently sitting on my bed in my plush robe in my Veranda Suite, looking out into the seafoam green water of Endicott Arm and its little bits of glacier floating by.  Which I learned today were called “bergy bits,” isn’t that the most made up “technical term” you’ve ever heard?!  Someone was definitely sipping wine on a boat a while ago and saw some ice float by and said “lol look at those little iceberg pieces… those little…. ‘bergy bits!!!!!!!”

This journey begins a full week ago but I’ve literally been either gone all day, not had internet, or been too sleepy to even fathom blogging.  And yet I have so much to say and so much that I want to remember that I just MUST document it all, especially considering I’ll be back in June 2021 on a member trip with my company and two years is a long time to remember minutia.  I’m here on a site visit on the Seabourn Sojourn to experience the cruise firsthand, try out all of the shore excursions and visit tons of different vendors and partners, and make note of all details so I can answer all questions when we ultimately plan, sell, and execute this trip.  Or as I like to say, “someone’s gotta make sure it’s good enough, right?!”  One takeaway from this site visit is that it’s equal parts incredible and I’m pinching myself, and also at times I want to die and I’ve been close to full fledged panic attacks.  Don’t worry, we’ll get into all of it!! Probably in several different entries to keep attention span up.

We started by flying to Vancouver early Monday morning, August 19th.  After dropping bags at the hotel we immediately set off to do detailed site inspections of three hotels in the area (when we come back for the member trip we need a block of ~250 rooms so it’s no small feat) and then visited three different possible event venues for a welcome event the night our members arrive.  The first was called Grouse Mountain Resorts which is about a 20-minute drive to a gondola that takes you up to Grouse Mountain, a beautiful resort area overlooking all of Vancouver.  The area has so much to do once you’re up there – a ropes course, lumberjack show, bear sanctuary, massive chalet with dining options, etc.  We look for things that I never would have thought of or noticed before, especially when paying attention to the demographic of our members and also the realistic logistics of moving a group of about 450 people around.  Things like, “will members really want to come up the gondola after a long travel day and eat at the chalet, only to have to walk down a quarter mile path to do the lumberjack show? Which place will include tables and chairs so we don’t have to rent? What will keep their attention while also feeling special and unique to the area? How long is the walk from the bus to the gondola for people with mobility issues? What if someone wants to go back to the hotel early, how long will they have to wait? Will there be enough for kids to do?” On and on.  It’s pretty interesting, especially because I’m traveling with three people who have done tons of member trips and know exactly what works and what doesn’t.  Since I’ll be referencing them a lot, the three coworkers are Brooke (mostly in charge of the entire Once in a Lifetime Journeys team, travels over a third of the year doing site visits and member trips, not overly pleasant but I’m starting to wear her down), Ryan (other Journeys team member who will be Brooke’s co-manager on this cruise, we get along super well and he’s the one who encouraged me to apply for this Alaska trip, also fucking hilarious), and Nick (member services account manager like me who recently got promoted to be 50/50 for member services/journeys team and is my co-trip lead and also really great to be around.)  Brooke and Nick have done a bunch of member cruises before but it’s a first for me and Ryan so it’s been a good balance.  There’s also Yolanda, our Seabourn shore excursions expert/partner, who Nick and Brooke know well from previous cruises.  She’s originally from South Africa but lives in Holland and is honestly a goddamn nut.  Sometimes we love her deeply and sometimes we’re like YOLANDA WE CANNOT WITH YOU RIGHT NOW OH MY GODDDDDDDDDD.  More on that later as well. 

We spent Monday night in Vancouver doing the site inspections and then had a lovely, long dinner on the water with our Seabourn partners.  Wine like, FLOWED.  On Tuesday morning we went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge to do a site inspection for that as a possibility as a daytime activity for members before boarding the ship. I remembered being there a loooong time ago on our Vancouver trip as a kid (I want to say… 1999?  Mom, keep me honest) and I thought ��wow, the bridge looked so much bigger when I was a kid!  This is nothing now!” Famous last words.  Got about halfway across and started panicking and couldn’t look down and told myself to just put one foot in front of another until I made it across.  That was all well and good, until you get across and realize the only way back IS ALSO THE BRIDGE.  As Hilary said upon reflecting on it when I told the family this, “I remember thinking, ‘there’s no way that’s the only possible way back.”  Sure is, sure is.  Ultimately after visiting the Capilano area, Grouse Mountain, the Vancouver Aquarium, and Science World (my personal favorite but got hardcore nixed…) we think we’re going to try to rent out Capilano for the evening and include food and drink and guided tours all around the park as our welcome event, and then just give members the morning at leisure.  We’ll see, all of that work comes AFTER the site visit, and I can’t think about After the Site Visit right now because I’ll cry because this ship is now my home and I refuse to leave.

On Tuesday morning, we went on the ship early while they were still turning it over from the departing guests and getting ready for all of us to board later.  We did a full tour and got to see all the different categories of suites available, because it’ll be important for us to know all the details when advertising and selling the trip.  Let me just tell you, this ship is fuggin dope.  To me, it’s a perfect size – about 225 cabins (not including crew) so it’s big enough that it doesn’t feel like a small little boutique liner, but small enough that you don’t get any of the creepy mass Carnival cruise line heebie jeebies and feel trapped on a skyscraper at sea.  It’s been a week and I already feel like I know everyone.  I keep joking that I’m the mayor of the ship and honestly it’s not ALL in my head, I’m very popular around here.  You’ll notice that theme running throughout these blogs, so consider yourselves warned.  It also helps that we are among the youngest people on the ship, as you could have guessed – I’d say about 60% of the population is in their 60s or above, and the remainder are spready through 50s/40s/30s.  There’s literally ONE child aboard, a little 3-year old boy that we are all obsessed with.  He wears bowties and suits to the formal dinners and little nautical themed clothing all other times, and carries his slinkie around everywhere wanting to play.  Nick said at lunch today “he’s 100% my favorite person on the ship.”

We finally officially boarded the ship around 4 pm on Tuesday and it was honestly so exciting.  I felt like a celebrity, especially because the entire staff knows that we are here for a site visit and I think has probably been told to pay us special attention.  The captain, his officers, the maitre’d, the sommelier, the hotel manager, the hospitality director, the executive chef, the Alaskan Ventures director, the cruise director (Jan who we despise, more on her later), all have specially introduced themselves to us and have greeted us by name since the first day.  I know the crew and staff all have manifests before we board with our names and pictures, but I’m honestly still floored at how impressive their memories are.  On the first night, I ordered a double vodka soda with extra lime and a splash of cranberry juice from the head bartender.  Three nights later, I hadn’t seen him since, I walked in and he made that exact same drink for me and just put it in front of me.  What the fuck?!?! The captain’s staff captain passes by me daily and says “Ms. Rice, hope you had a lovely evening!” I was like “sorry who are you?!”  I always fancied myself good at names and faces and now I’ve learned that perhaps a decade of marijuana usage has turned me into a trash brained human who has no special skills anymore.  TBD.

We spent the next day at sea, which I’ll pick up in the next bloggy bit (inspiration drawn from bergy bits.)

[maximelebled]

Growing Pains - Zelda, Tony Hawk, The Sims, games and related memories from my formative years

This blog post is about my personal history with video games, how they influenced me growing up, how they sometimes helped me, and more or less an excuse to write about associated memories with them.

This is a very straightforward intro, because I’ve had this post sitting as a draft for ages, trying to glue all of it cohesively, but I’m not a very good writer, so I never really succeeded. Some of these paragraphs date back at least one year. 

And I figured I should write about a lot of this as long as I still remember clearly, or not too inaccurately. Because I know that I don’t remember my earliest ever memory. I only remember how I remember it. So I might as well help my future self here, and give myself a good memento.

Anyway, the post is a kilometer long, so it’ll be under this cut.

My family got a Windows 95 computer when I was 3 years old. While I don’t remember this personally, I’m told that one of the first things I ever did with it was mess up with the BIOS settings so badly that dad’s computer-expert friend had to be invited to repair it. (He stayed for dinner as a thank you.)

It was that off-white plastic tower, it had a turbo button, and even a 4X CD reader! Wow! And the CRT monitor must have been... I don’t remember what it was, actually. But I do once remember launching a game at a stupidly high resolution: 1280x1024! And despite being a top-down 2D strategy, it ran VERY slowly. Its video card was an ATI Rage. I had no idea what that really meant that at the time, but I do recall that detail nonetheless.

Along with legitimately purchased games, the list of which I can remember:

Tubular Worlds

Descent II

Alone in the Dark I & III

Lost Eden

Formula One (not sure which game exactly)

Heart of Darkness

(and of course the famous Adibou/Adi series of educational games)

... we also had what I realize today were cracked/pirated games, from the work-friend that had set up the family computer. I remember the following:

Age of Empires I (not sure about that one, I think it might have been from a legitimate “Microsoft Plus!” disc)

Nightmare Creatures (yep, there was a PC port of that game)

Earthworm Jim (but without any music)

The Fifth Element

Moto Racer II

There are a few other memorable games, which were memorable in most aspects, except their name. I just cannot remember their name. And believe me, I have looked. Too bad! Anyway, in this list, I can point out a couple games that made a big mark on me.

First, the Alone in the Dark trilogy. It took me a long time to beat them. I still remember the morning I beat the third game. I think it was in 2001 or 2002.

There was a specific death in it which gave me nightmares for a week. You shrink yourself to fit through a crack in a wall, but it’s possible to let a timer run out—or fall down a hole—and this terrifying thing happens (16:03). I remember sometimes struggling to run the game for no reason; something about DOS Extended Memory being too small.

I really like the low-poly flat-shaded 3D + hand-drawn 2D style of the game, and it’d be really cool to see something like that pop up again. After the 8-bit/16-bit trend, there’s now more and more games paying tribute to rough PS1-style 3D, so maybe this will happen? Maybe I’ll have to do it myself? Who knows!

Second, Lost Eden gave me a taste for adventure and good music, and outlandish fantasy universes. Here’s the intro to the game:

A lot of the game is very evocative, especially its gorgeous soundtrack, and you spend a lot of time trekking through somewhat empty renders of landscapes. Despite being very rough early pre-rendered 3D, those places were an incredible journey in my young eyes. If you have some time, I suggest either playing the game (it’s available on Steam) or watching / skimmering through this “longplay” video. Here are some of my personal highlights: 25:35, 38:05, 52:15 (love that landscape), 1:17:20, 1:20:20 (another landscape burned in my neurons), 2:12:10, 2:55:30, 3:01:18. (spoiler warning)

But let’s go a couple years back. Ever since my youngest years, I was very intrigued by creation. I filled entire pocket-sized notebooks with writing—sometimes attempts at fiction, sometimes daily logs like the weather reports from the newspaper, sometimes really bad attempts at drawing. I also filled entire audio tapes over and over and OVER with “fake shows” that my sister and I would act out. The only thing that survived is this picture of 3-year-old me with the tape player/recorder.

It also turns out that the tape recorder AND the shelf have both survived.

(I don’t know if it still works.)

On Wednesday afternoons (school was off) and on the week-ends, I often got to play on the family computer, most of the time with my older brother, who’s the one who introduced me to... well... all of it, really. (Looking back on the games he bought, I can say he had very good tastes.)

Moto Racer II came with a track editor. It was simple but pretty cool to play around with. You just had to make the track path and elevation; all the scenery was generated by the game. You could draw impossible tracks that overlapped themselves, but the editor wouldn’t let you save them. However, I found out there was a way to play/save them no matter what you did, and I got to experiment with crazy glitches. 85 degree inclines that launched the bike so high you couldn’t see the ground anymore? No problem. Tracks that overlapped themselves several times, causing very strange behaviour at the meeting points? You bet. That stuff made me really curious about how video games worked. I think a lot of my initial interest in games can be traced back to that one moment I figured out how to exploit the track editor...

There was also another game—I think it was Tubular Worlds—that came on floppy disks. I don’t remember what exactly lead me to do it, but I managed to edit the text that was displayed by the installer... I think it was the license agreement bit of it. That got me even more curious as to how computers worked.

Up until some time around my 13th or 14th birthday, during summer break (the last days of June to the first days of September for French pupils), my sister and I would always go on vacation at my grandparents’ home.

The very first console game I ever played was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my cousin’s Super Nintendo, who also usually stayed with us. Unlike us, he had quite a few consoles available to him, and brought a couple along. My first time watching and playing this game was absolutely mind-blowing to me. An adventure with a huge game world to explore, so many mysterious things at every corner. “Why are you a pink rabbit now?” “I’m looking for the pearl that will help me not be that.”

Growing up and working in the games industry has taken the magic out of many things in video games... and my curiosity for the medium (and its inner workings) definitely hasn’t helped. I know more obscure technical trivia about older games than I care to admit. But I think this is what is shaping my tastes in video games nowadays... part of it is that I crave story-rich experiences that can bring me back to a, for lack of a better term, “child-like” wonderment. And I know how weird this is going to sound, but I don’t really enjoy “pure gameplay” games as much for that reason. Some of the high-concept ones are great, of course (e.g. Tetris), but I usually can’t enjoy others without a good interwoven narrative. I can’t imagine I would have completed The Talos Principle had it consisted purely of the puzzles without any narrative beats, story bits, and all that. What I’m getting at is, thinking about it, I guess I tend to value the “narrative” side of games pretty highly, because, to me, it’s one of the aspects of the medium that, even if distillable to some formulas, is inherently way more “vague” and “ungraspable”. You can do disassembly on game mechanics and figure out even the most obsure bits of weird technical trivia. You can’t do that to a plot, a universe, characters, etc. or at least nowhere near to the same extent.

You can take a good story and weave it into a number of games, but the opposite is not true. It’s easy to figure out the inner working of gameplay mechanics, and take the magic out of them, but it’s a lot harder to do that for a story, unless it’s fundamentally flawed in some way.

Video games back then seemed a lot bigger than they actually were.

I got Heart of Darkness as a gift in 1998 or 1999. We used to celebrate Christmas at my grandparents’, so I had to wait a few days to be back home, and to able to put the CD in the computer. But boy was it worth it! Those animated cutscenes! The amazing pixel art animations! The amazing and somewhat disturbing variety of ways in which you can die, most of which gruesome and mildly graphic! And of course, yet again... a strange and outlandish universe that just scratches my itch for it. Well, one of which that forged my taste for them.

I can’t remember exactly when it happened or what it was, but I do remember that at some point we visited some sort of... exposition? Exhibit? Something along those lines. And it had a board games & computer games section. The two that stick out in my mind were Abalone (of which I still have the box somewhere) and what I think was some sort of 2D isometric (MMO?) RPG. I wanna say it was Ultima Online but I recall it looking more primitive than that (it had small maps whose “void” outside them was a single blueish color). 

In my last two years of elementary school, there was one big field trip per year. They lasted two weeks, away from family. The first one was to the Alps. The second one was... not too far from where I live now, somewhere on the coast of Brittany! I have tried really hard to find out exactly where it was, as I remember the building and facilities really well, but I was never able to find it again. On a couple occasions, we went on a boat with some kind of... algae harvesters? The smell was extremely strong (burning itself into my memory) and made me sick. The reason I bring them up is because quite a few of my classmates had Game Boy consoles, most of them with, you know, all those accessories, especially the little lights. I remember being amazed at the transparent ones. Play was usually during the off-times, and I watched what my friends were up to, with, of course, a bit of jealousy mixed in. The class traveled by bus, and it took off in the middle of the night; something like 3 or 4 in the morning? It seemed like such a huge deal at the time! Now here I am, writing THESE WORDS at 03:00. Anyway, most of my classmates didn’t fall back asleep and those that had a Game Boy just started playing on them. One of my classmates, however, handed me his whole kit and I got to do pretty much what I wanted with it, with the express condition that I would not overwrite any of his save files. I remember getting reasonably far in Pokémon before I had to give it back to him and my progress was wiped.

During the trip to the Alps, I remember seeing older kids paying for computer time; there was a row of five computers in a small room... and they played Counter-Strike. I had absolutely no idea what it was, and I would forget about it until the moment I’m writing these words, but I was watching with much curiosity.

The first time I had my own access to console games was in 2001. The first Harry Potter film had just come out, and at Christmas, I was gifted a Game Boy Advance with the first official game. I just looked it up again and good god, it’s rougher than I remember. The three most memorable GBA games which I then got to play were both Golden Sun(s) and Sword of Mana... especially the latter, with its gorgeous art direction. My dad had a cellphone back then, and I remember sneakily going on there to look up a walkthrough for a tricky part of Golden Sun’s desert bit. Cellphones had access to something called “WAP” internet... very basic stuff, but of course still incredible to me back then.

I eventually got to play another Zelda game on my GBA: Link’s Awakening DX. I have very fond memories of that one because I was bed-ridden with a terrible flu. My fever ran so high that I started having some really funky dreams, delirious half-awake hallucinations/feelings, and one night, I got so hot that I stumbled out of bed and just laid down against the cold tile of the hallway. At 3 in the morning! A crazy time! (Crazy for 11-year-old me.)

(The fever hallucinations were crazy. My bedroom felt like it was three times at big, and I was convinced that a pack of elephants were charging at me from the opposite corner. The “night grain” of my vision felt sharper, amplified. Every touch, my sore body rubbing against the bed covers felt like it was happening twice as much. You know that “Heavy Rain with 300% facial animation” video? Imagine that, but as a feverish feeling. The dreams were on another level entirely. I could spend pages on them, but suffice to say that’s when I had my first dream where I dreamed of dying. There were at least two, actually. The first one was by walking down a strange, blueish metal corridor, then getting in an elevator, and then feeling that intimate convinction that it was leading me to passing over. The second one was in some Myst-like world, straight out of a Roger Dean cover, with some sort of mini-habitat pods floating on a completely undisturbed lake. We were just trapped in them. It just felt like some kind of weird afterlife.)

I also eventually got to play the GBA port of A Link To The Past. My uncle was pretty amused by seeing me play it, as he’d also played the original on SNES before I’d even been born. I asked him for help with a boss (the first Dark World one), but unfortunately, he admitted he didn’t remember much of the game.

We had a skiing holiday around this time. I don’t remember the resort’s or the town’s name, but its sights are burned in my memory. Maybe it’s because, shortly after we arrived, and we went to the ski rental place, I almost fainted and puked on myself, supposedly from the low oxygen. It also turned out that the bedroom my parents had rented unexpectedly came with a SNES in the drawer under the tiny TV. The game: Super Mario World. I got sick at one point and got to stay in and play it. This was also the holiday where I developed a fondness for iced tea, although back then the most common brand left an awful aftertaste in your mouth that just made you even more thirsty.

We got a new PC in December of 2004. Ditching the old Windows 98 SE (yep, the OS had been upgraded in... 2002, I think?). Look at how old-school this looks. The computer office room was in the basement. Even with the blur job that I applied to the monitor for privacy reasons, you can still tell that this is the XP file explorer:

A look at what the old DSLR managed to capture on the shelf reveals some more of the games that were available to me back then: a bunch of educational software, The Sims 2, and SpellForce Gold. 

I might be misremembering but I think they were our Christmas gifts for that year; we both got to pick one game. I had no idea what I wanted, really, but out of all the boxes at (what I think was) the local Fnac store, it was SpellForce that stood out to me the most. Having watched Lord of the Rings the year prior might have been a factor. I somewhat understood Age of Empires years before that, but SpellForce? Man, I loved the hell out of SpellForce. Imagine a top-down RPG that can also be played from a third-person perspective. And with the concept of... hero units... wait a second... now that reminds me of Dota.

Imagine playing a Dota hero with lots of micro-management and being able to build a whole base on new maps. And sometimes visiting very RPG-ish sections (my favorites!) with very little top-down strategy bits, towns, etc. like Siltbreaker. I guess this game was somewhat like an alternate, single-player Dota if you look at it from the right angle. (Not the third-person one.)

I do remember being very excited when I found out that it, too, came with a level editor. I never figured it out, though. I only ever got as far as making a nice landscape for my island, and that was it!

A couple weeks after, it was Christmas; my sister and I got our first modern PC game: The Sims 2. It didn’t run super well—most games didn’t, because the nVidia GeForce FX 5200 wasn’t very good. But that didn’t stop me or my sister from going absolutely nuts with the game. This video has the timestamp of 09 January 2005, and it is the first video I’ve ever made with a computer. Less than two weeks after we got the game, I was already neck-deep in creating stuff.

Not that it was particularly good, of course. This is a video that meets all of the “early YouTube Windows Movie Maker clichés”.

Speaking of YouTube, I did register an account there pretty early on, in August of 2006. I’ve been through all of it. I remember every single layout change. I also started using Sony Vegas around that time. It felt so complex and advanced back then! And I’m still using it today. Besides Windows, Vegas Pro is very likely to be the piece of software that I’ve been using for the longest time.

I don’t have a video on YouTube from before 2009, because I decided to delete all of them out of embarassment. They were mostly Super Mario 64 machinima. It’s as bad as it sounds. The reason I bring that up right now, though, is that it makes the “first” video of my account the last one I made with the Sims 2.

But before I get too far ahead with my early YouTube days, let me go backwards a bit. We got hooked up to the Internet some time in late 2005. It was RTC (dialup), 56 kbps. my first steps into the Internet led me to the Cube engine. Mostly because back then my dad would purchase computer magazines (which were genuinely helpful back then), and came with CDs of common downloadable software for those without Internet connections. One of them linked to Cube. I think it was using either this very same screenshot, or a very similar one, on the same map.

The amazing thing about Cube is not only that it was open-source and moddable, but had map editing built-in the game. The mode was toggled on with a single key press. You could even edit maps cooperatively with other people. Multiplayer mapping! How cool is that?! And the idea of a game that enabled so much creation was amazing to me, so I downloaded it right away. (Over the course of several hours, 30 MiB being large for dialup.)

I made lots of bad maps that never fulfilled the definition of “good level” or “good gameplay”, not having any idea how “game design” meant, or what it even was. But I made places. Places that I could call my own. “Virtual homes”. I still distinctively remember the first map I ever made, even though no trace of it survives to this day. In the second smallest map size possible, I’d made a tower surrounded by a moat and a few smaller cozy towers, with lots of nice colored lighting. This, along with the distinctive skyboxes and intriguing music, made me feel like I’d made my home in a strange new world.

At some point later down the line, I made a kinda-decent singleplayer level. It was very linear, but one of the two lead developers of the game played it and told me he liked it a lot! Of course, half of that statement was probably “to be nice”, but it was really validating and encouraging. And I’m glad they were like that. Because I remember being annoying to some other mappers in the Sauerbraten community (the follow-up to Cube, more advanced technically), who couldn’t wrap their heads around my absolutely god awful texturing work and complete lack of level “design”. Honestly, sometimes, I actually kinda feel like trying to track a couple of them down and being like, “yeah, remember that annoying kid? That was me. Sorry you had to deal with 14-year-old me.”

At some point, I stumbled upon a mod called Cube Legends. It was a heavily Zelda-inspired “total conversion”; a term reserved for mods that are the moddiest mods and try to take away as much of the original foundation as possible. It featured lots of evocative MIDI music by the Norwegian composer Bjørn Lynne. Fun fact: the .mid files are still available officially from his website!

This was at the crossroad of many of my interests. It was yet another piece of the puzzle. As a quick side note, this is why Zelda is the first series that I name in the title of this post, even though I... never really thought of myself as a Zelda fan. It’s not that it’s one of the game series that I like the most, it’s just that, before I started writing this, I’d never realized how far-reaching its influence had been in my life, both in overt and subtle ways, especially during my formative years.

And despite how clearly unfinished, how much of a “draft” Cube Legends was, I could see what it was trying to do. I could see the author’s intent. And I’m still listening to Bjørn Lynne’s music today.

The Cube Engine and its forums were a big part of why I started speaking English so well. Compared to most French people, I mean. We’re notoriously bad with the English language, and so was I up until then. But having this much hands-on practice proved to be immensely valuable. And so, I can say that the game and its community have therefore had long-lasting impacts in my life.

I also tried out a bunch of N64 games via emulation, bringing me right back in that bedroom at my grandparents’ house, with my cousin. Though he did not have either N64 Zelda game back then.

The first online forum I ever joined was a Zelda fan site’s. There are two noteworthy things to say here:

It was managed by a woman who, during my stay in the community, graduated from her animation degree. At this stage I had absolutely no idea that this was going to be the line of work I would eventually pursue!

I recently ran into the former head moderator of the forums. (I don’t know when the community died.) One of the Dota players on my friends list invited him because I was like “hmm, I wanna go as 3, not as 2 players today”. His nickname very vaguely reminded me of something, a weird hunch I couldn’t place. Half an hour into the game, he said “hey Max... this might be a long shot, but did you ever visit [forum]?” and then I immediately yelled “OH MY GOD—IT IS YOU.” The world is a small place.

Access to the computer was sometimes tricky. I didn’t always have good grades, and of course, “punishment” (not sure the word is appropriate, hence the quotes, but you get the idea) often involved locking me out of the computer room. Of course, most times, I ended up trying to find the key instead. I needed my escape from the real world.  (You better believe it’s Tangent Time.)

I was always told I was the “smart kid”, because I “understood things faster” than my classmates. So they made me skip two grades ahead. This made me enter high school at nine years old. The consequences were awful (I was even more of the typical nerdy kid that wouldn’t fit in), and I wish it had never happened. Over the years, I finally understood: I wasn’t more intelligent. I merely had the chance to have been able to grow up with an older brother who’d instilled a sense of curiosity, critical thinking, and taste in books that were ahead of my age and reading level. This situation—and its opposite—is what I believe accounts for the difference in how well kids get to learn. It’s not innate talent, it’s not genetics (as some racists would like you to believe). It’s parenting and privilege.

And that’s why I’ll always be an outspoken proponent for any piece of media that tries to instill critical thinking and curiosity in its viewer, reader, or player.

But I digress.

Well, I’ve been digressing a lot, really, but games aren’t everything and after all, this post is about the context in which I played those games. Otherwise I reckon I would’ve just made a simple list.

I eventually got a Nintendo DS for Christmas, along with Mario Kart DS. My sister had gotten her own just around the time when it released... she had the Nintendogs bundle. We had also upgraded to proper ADSL, what I think was about a ~5 megabits download speed. The Nintendo DS supported wi-fi, which was still relatively rare compared to today. In fact, Nintendo sold a USB wireless adapter to help with that issue—our ISP-supplied modem-router did not have any wireless capabilities. I couldn’t get it the adapter work and I remember I got help from a really kind stranger who knew a lot about networking—to a point that it seemed like wizardry to me.

I remember I got a “discman” as a gift some time around that point. In fact, I still have it. Check out the stickers I put on it! I think those came from the Sims 2 DVD box and/or one of its add-ons.

I burned a lot of discs. In fact, in the stack of burned CDs/DVDs that I found (with the really bad Sims movies somewhere in there), I found at least three discs that had the Zelda album Hyrule Symphony burned in, each with different additional tracks. Some were straight-up MIDI files from vgmusic.com...! And speaking (again) of Zelda, when the Wii came out, Twilight Princess utterly blew my mind. I never got the game or the console, but damn did I yearn badly for it. I listened to the main theme of the game a lot, which didn’t help. I eventually got to play the first few hours at a friend’s place.

At some point, we’d upgraded the family computer to something with a bit more horsepower. It had a GeForce 8500 GT inside, which was eventually upgraded to a 9600 GT after the card failed for some reason. It could also dual-boot between XP and Vista. I stuck with that computer until 2011.

We moved to where I currently live in 2007. I’ve been here over a decade! And before we’d even fully finished unpacking, I was on the floor of the room that is now my office, with the computer on the ground and the monitor on a cardboard box, playing a pirated copy of... Half-Life! It was given to me by my cousin. It took me that long to find out about the series. It’s the first Valve game I played. I also later heard about the Orange Box, but mostly about Portal. Which I also pirated and played. I distinctly remember being very puzzled by the options menu: I thought it was glitched or broken, as changing settings froze the game. Turns out the Source engine had to chug for a little while, like a city car in countryside mud, as it reloaded a bunch of stuff. Patience is a virtue...

But then, something serious happened.

In the afternoon of 25 December 2007, I started having a bit of a dull stomach pain. I didn’t think much of it. Figured maybe I’d eaten too many Christmas chocolates and it’d go away. It didn’t. It progressively deteriorated into a high fever where I had trouble walking and my tummy really hurt; especially if you pressed on it. My parents tried to gently get me to eat something nice on New Year’s Eve, but it didn’t stay in very long. I could only feed myself with lemonade and painkiller. Eventually, the doctor decided I should get blood tests done as soon as possible. And I remember that day very clearly.

I was already up at 6:30 in the morning. Back then, The Daily Show aired on the French TV channel Canal+, so I was watching that, lying in the couch while waiting for my mom to get up and drive me to my appointment, at 7:00. It was just two streets away, but there was no way I could walk there. At around noon, the doctor called and told my mom: “get your son to the emergency room now.”

Long story short, part of my intestines nuked themselves into oblivion, causing acute peritonitis. To give you an idea, that’s something with a double-digit fatality rate. Had we waited maybe a day or two more, I would not be here writing this. They kind of blew up. I had an enormous abcess attached to a bunch of my organs. I had to be operated on with only weak local anaesthetics as they tried to start draining the abscess. It is, to date, by far the most painful thing that has ever happened to me. It was bad enough that the hospital doctor that was on my case told me that I was pretty much a case worthy to be in textbooks. I even had medical students come into my hospital room about it! They were very nice.

This whole affair lasted over a month. I became intimately familiar with TV schedules. And thankfully, I had my DS to keep me company. At the time, I was pretty big into the Tony Hawk DS games. They were genuinely good. They had extensive customization, really great replayability, etc. you get the idea. I think I even got pretty high on the online leaderboards at some point. I didn’t have much to do on some days besides lying down in pain while perfecting my scoring and combo strategies. I think Downhill Jam might’ve been my favorite.

My case was bad enough that they were unable to do something due to the sad state of my insides during the last surgery of my stay. I was told that I could come back in a few months for a checkup, and potentially a “cleanup” operation that would fix me up for good. I came back in late June of 2008, got the operation, and... woke up in my hospital room surrounded by, like, nine doctors, and hooked up to a morphine machine that I could trigger on command. Apparently something had gone wrong during the operation, but they never told me what. I wasn’t legally an adult, so they didn’t have to tell me. I suspect it’s somewhere in some medical files, but I never bothered to dig up through my parents’ archives, or ask the hospital. And I think I would rather not know. But anyway, that was almost three more weeks in the hospital. And it sucked even more that time because, you see, hospital beds do not “breathe” like regular beds do. The air can’t go through. Let’s say I’m intimately familiar with the smell of back sweat forever.

When I got out, my mom stopped by a supermarket on the way home. And that is when I bought The Orange Box, completely on a whim, and made my Steam account. Why? Because it was orange and stood out on the shelf.

(As a side note, that was the whole bit I started writing first, and that made me initially title this post “growing pains”. First, because I’m bad at titles. Second, because not that I didn’t have them otherwise (ow oof ouch my knees), but that was literally the most painful episode of my entire life thus far and it ended in a comically-unrelated, high-impact, life-changing decision. Just me picking up The Orange Box after two awful hospital stays... led me to where I am today.)

While I was recovering, I also started playing EarthBound! Another bit of a life-changer, that one. To a lesser extent, but still. I was immediately enamored by its unique tone. Giygas really really really creeped me out for a while afterwards though. I still get unsettled if I hear its noises sometimes.

I later bought Garry’s Mod (after convincing my mom that it was a “great creative toolbox that only cost ten bucks!”), and, well, the rest is history. By which I mean, a lot of my work and gaming activity since 2009 is still up and browsable. But there are still a few things to talk about.

In 2009, I bought my first computer with YouTube ad money: the Asus eee PC 1005HA-H. By modern standards, it’s... not very powerful. The processor in my current desktop machine is nearly 50 times as fast as its Atom N280. It had only one gigabyte of RAM, Windows 7 Basic Edition, and an integrated GPU barely worthy of the name; Intel didn’t care much for 3D in their chips back then. The GMA 945 didn’t even have hardware support for Transform & Lighting.

But I made it work, damn it. I made that machine run so much stuff. I played countless Half-Life and Half-Life 2 mods on it—though, due to the CPU overhead on geometry, some of those were trickier. I think one of the most memorable ones I played was Mistake of Pythagoras; very surreal, very rough, but I still remember it so clearly. I later played The Longest Journey on it, in the middle of winter. It was a very cozy and memorable experience. (And another one that’s an adventure wonderful outlandish alien universe. LOVE THOSE.)

I did more than playing games on it, though...

This is me sitting, sunburned on the nose, in an apartment room, on 06 August 2010. This was in the Pyrénées, at the border between France and Spain. We had a vacation with daily hiking. Some of the landscapes we visited reminded me very strongly of those from Lost Eden, way up the page...

So, you see, I had 3ds Max running on that machine. The Source SDK as well. Sony Vegas. All of it was slow; you bet I had to use some workarounds to squeeze performance out of software, and that I had to keep a close, watchful eye on RAM usage. But I worked on this thing. I really did! I animated this video’s facial animation bits (warning: this is old & bad) on the eee PC, during the evenings of the trip, when we were back at our accomodation. The Faceposer tool in the Source SDK really worked well on that machine.

I also animated an entire video solely on the machine (warning: also old and bad). It had to be rendered on the desktop computer... but every single bit of the animation was crafted on the eee PC.

I made it work.

Speaking of software that did not run well: around that time, I also played the original Crysis. The “but can it run Crysis?” joke was very much justified back then. I had to edit configuration files by hand so that I could run the game in 640x480... because I wanted to keep most of the high-end settings enabled. The motion blur was delicious, and it blew my mind that the effect made the game feel this smooth, despite wobbling around in the 20 to 30 fps range.

Alright. It’s time to finish writing this damn post and publish it at last, so I’m going to close it out by listing some more memories and games that I couldn’t work in up there.

Advance Wars. Strategy game on GBA with a top-down level editor. You better believe I was all over the editor right away.

BioShock. When we got the 2007 desktop computer, it was one of the first games I tried. Well, its demo, to be precise. Its tech and graphics blew my mind, enough that I saved up to buy the full game. This was before I had a Steam account; I got a boxed copy! I think it might have been the last boxed game I ever bought? It had a really nice metal case. The themes and political messages of the game flew way over my head, though.

Mirror’s Edge. The art direction was completely fascinating to me, and it introduced me to Solar Fields’ music; my most listened artist this decade, by a long shot.

L.A. Noire. I lost myself in its stories and investigations, and then, I did it all again, with my sister at the helm. I very rarely play games twice (directly or indirectly), which I figure is worth mentioning.

Zeno Clash. It was weird and full of soul, had cool music, and cool cutscenes. It inspired me a lot in my early animation days.

Skyward Sword. Yep, going back to Zelda on that one. The whole game was pretty good, and I’m still thinking about how amazing its art direction was. Look up screenshots of it running in HD on an emulator... it’s outstanding. But there’s a portion of the game that stands tall above the rest: the Lanayru Sand Sea. It managed to create a really striking atmosphere in many aspects, through and through. I still think about it from time to time, especially when its music comes on in shuffle mode.

Wandersong. A very recent pick, but it was absolutely a life-changing one. That game is an anti-depressant, a vaccine against cynicism, a lone bright and optimist voice.

I realize now this is basically a “flawed but interesting and impactful games” list. With “can establish its atmosphere very well” as a big criteria. (A segment of video games that is absolutely worth exploring.)

I don’t know if I’ll ever make my own video game. I have a few ideas floating around and I tried prototyping some stuff, though my limited programming abilities stood in my way. But either way, if it happens one day, I hope I’ll manage to channel all those years of games into the CULMINATION OF WHAT I LIKE. Something along those lines, I reckon.

[hopelikethemoon]

Graduation (Javier x Reader) {MTMF}

Title: Graduation  Rating: PG-13 Length: 1700 Warnings: None Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set in May 1999. A shorty, but a goody,  Summary: Monica graduates. 

@grapemama @seawhisperer @huliabitch @pedropascalito @rogrsnbarnes@thewallpapergoesorido @twomoonstwosuns @gooddaykate @livasaurasrex @ham4arrow@plexflexico @readsalot73 @hdlynn @lokiaddicted @randomness501 @fioccodineveautunnale  @roxypeanut @snivellusim @lukesrighthand @historynerd04 @mrsparknuts@synystersilenceinblacknwhite @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @exrebelshocktrooper@awesomefandomsunited @ah-callie @swhiskeys @lady-tano @beskar-droids @space-floozy @cable-kenobi @cool-ultra-nerd @himbopoes @findhimfives @pedrosdoll @frietiemeloen@arrowswithwifi @random066 @uncomicalhumour @heather-lynn @domino-oh-damn​ @cyarikaaa @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl​  @yabby-girl @xqueenofthecraziesx @punkass-potato @coredrive @pascalesque​@theduchessofkirkcaldy​ @queenquazar​ @sabinemorans​ @buckstaposition​ @holkaskrosnou​@yespolkadotkitty​ @fleetwoodmactshirt​ @seeking-a-great–perhaps @kochamcie​ @jaime1110​

“Sofía, you have to sit still.” You urged as she squirmed in your lap. “Or you’re not going to get any ice cream cake.”

“Ice cream cake!” Josie leaned over and kissed Sofía’s cheek. “You’re gonna want ice cream cake.” She looked up at you. “Right mommy?”

“Yes, sweetheart. I think you’re both going to want ice cream cake after this.” You looked to Javier then. “Who thought outdoor graduations were a good idea? In Florida.”

Javier chuckled, loosening his tie as he dabbed at the back of his neck. “It’s almost time for the sociology department. And then we can bounce.”

Sofía bounced in your lap, bound and determined to escape your hold.

“Would you like me to hold her?” Nadia offered, holding out her hands.

“You sure?”

She shrugged, “I wrangle my nieces plenty.” Nadia took Sofía from you, “You look very stylish today, little miss. I wonder who got you this outfit.”

Sofía clapped her hands together as she leaned back in Nadia’s arms. 

Josie draped herself over your lap to her closer to Sofía, now that Nadia has her. “Did Monica buy it for her?”

“She did.” Nadia nodded. “But I picked it out.” She winked at her. “And if you hadn’t spilled grape juice this morning, you two would’ve been matching.”

You pushed your glasses up your nose, smirking. “Well, someone thought they didn’t have to buy white grape juice.”

“Javier.” Nadia grinned at you.

“Daddy!” Josie laughed, turning back around to look at him then. “Did you make me spill juice?”

“No princesa, you spilled the juice all by yourself.” He gave her a look. “I just bought the wrong juice.”

“Ohhhhh.”

An older parent turned in their seat and glared at you, “Your daughter is kicking my seat.”

“She’s definitely not.” You shot back, gesturing to Josie who was practically laying on her chair with her body stretched out between you and Javier in the most ungraceful fashion. “But thanks for your concern.”

The woman huffed, turning back to face the stage of graduates as the School of Architecture started reading out names. 

You and Javier exchanged looks. 

“JoJo, why don’t you sit in my lap?”

“I’m bored.” She complained, scrambling into Javier’s lap. 

“Once that group of people walk across the stage, it’ll be Monica’s turn.” You explained, glancing at your program. “There’s only… about forty students before her.”

Nadia leaned towards you, “Better than being a ‘W’.” She bounced Sofía on her lap. “Did Monica tell you about her bio-parents?”

You frowned, “That they’re garbage human beings?”

“They sent her a graduation card. Well, to her on-campus mailbox.” Nadia made a face. “It was an extremely passive-aggressive congratulations.”

“Are you kidding me?” Javier questioned, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “They’re not here, are they?”

“No.” Nadia shook her head. “As dramatic as that would be, they made it clear they’re daughter was no daughter of theirs.” 

“That’s bullshit.” You seethed.

“Mommy!” Josie giggled.

“I know.” You reached over and gave her leg a pat. “Sometimes there’s no better word.”

“I’m sure she’ll show you the card.” Nadia told you, playing with Sofía’s curls as she sank back against her chest and sucked at her thumb. 

“Look who decided she was ready to settle down.” You said with a soft voice as you reached over to stroke her cheek. “She’s getting so big.”

“I know.” Nadia grinned. “I remember when she was just a tiny thing.”

“We’re so glad you’re part of their lives.”

“Your family means a lot to Monica, for what it’s worth.”

“I know how important it is to have a family that loves you.” You told her. You’d waited a long time to accept that fact yourself. 

But if you had come to terms to your own unexpected family, you knew you wouldn’t have the ones sitting beside you now. 

 ———

 “Congratulations, George.” Javier offered as he shook the hand of his former student. You recalled what an absolute tool he had been the first time you’d sat in on Javier’s class — a bit too similar to Chris. 

George turned towards you then, “I’ve recommended your class to a couple of the guys who are taking the slow route through the degree. I think they could really benefit from it.” He held out his hand.

You shook it, before readjusting the squirmy almost two-year-old in your arms. “I’m glad to hear that. Luckily I’ll be teaching two units of the elective next semester. The Dean seemed quite pleased with my guinea pigs.” 

“I learned a lot,” He admitted, before his eyes flickered downwards to Josie who latched onto Javier’s leg. “Why’d you bring the whole family?” 

Before either of you had a chance to answer, Monica and Nadia appeared. 

“There’s our girl!” You grinned, keeping Sofía tightly secured in your arms as you went in for a hug. “I am so proud of you.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your support!” Monica beamed as she pulled back, laughing as Sofía grabbed at the tassel hanging from her cap. 

“Give your sister a hug,” Javier urged, nudging Josie forward. 

“Congra… congrabulation.” Josie pouted when that word didn’t seem right. “Happy birthday!”

Monica crouched down to her height, “Con.”

“Con.”

“Grad.”

“Grad.”

“Ulation.”

Josie made a face, “Congrabulation.”

“Close enough.” Monica laughed before she stood back up to hug Javier. “Thank you for taking a chance on me… dad.”

Javier looked over Monica’s shoulder at you, the way his lips were purses revealing that there were tears in his eyes behind his tinted shades. 

“Dad?” George questioned, arching a brow at you.

“It’s a long story.”

“Hey, Tasha!” He called out to another student that you recognized from Javier’s classes. “Did you know Monica was Peña’s daughter?”

“What the fuck?”

“Oh, Jesus.” You rolled your eyes, looking towards Nadia. “Should I bother explaining this?”

“Not worth it.” She laughed, shaking her head. 

“Is there still ice cream cake, mommy?” Josie questioner, tugging at your hand. 

“Yes, in just a bit.” You promised her, before you turned your attention back to the students that had heard George’s pronouncement.

“Monica, you never told me your dad was Professor Peña.” Tasha said, looking more than a little shamefaced at this turn of events. 

You had a feeling she was one of the ones that had a crush on Javier. And who could blame them? Even now, he was rocking a look that made you wish you were alone with him. 

“I’m not technically—“

You were quick to interrupt her, “She’s technically our daughter where it matters.”

“She’s my sister,” Josie stated loudly, grabbing at her legs as she grinned up at Monica. “And she lets me have cupcakes before dinner.”

“Girl! You can’t be revealing all my babysitting secrets!” Monica said dramatically as she reached down and took ahold of Josie’s hands.

“Don’t you all have parents to greet?” You questioned, shooing the curious students away. “Well, we know what everyone will be talking about next semester.”

Javier grumbled, “They’re so effing nosey.”

“You’re a Peña where it matters.” You assured her, pulling her into another hug. “I’m so proud of you, Monica. I knew from the start you were destined for greatness.”

“Easy!” She squeezed you back. “I haven’t even found a job yet.”

“You will.” You gestured between Javier and yourself. “We’ll make sure of it.”

“Sending the elevator back down,” Nadia pursed her lips and nodded approvingly. “With a touch of favoritism. I can jive with that.”

“Ice cream cake!” Josie whined, swinging on Javier’s arm. “I’m hot, daddy.”

“Alright, let’s load up.” Javier clapped his hands together. “No reason to bake in this heat any longer.”

“Josie, hold your father’s hand please.” You urged, switching arms as you carried Sofía. 

“Told we should’ve brought the stroller.” Javier said as an aside. 

You nudged him the ribs, “Behave, Mr. Hot Professor.”

He groaned as you followed Monica and Nadia towards the parking lot. “I bet right now they’re trying to figure out how Monica’s my kid.”

“That’s your fault for being old,” You taunted. 

“I don’t recall you calling me old last night.”

“Alright, alright.” You laughed, nudging him again. “Was that the first time Monica’s called you dad?”

He worked his jaw, “Yep.”

“I know she’s referred to you that way with me, but I didn’t know if she’d said it sincerely before.”

“I can’t imagine our life without her.”

He shook his head, “She was such a great student in that first class. I knew she was struggling outside of class and I wanted to help her.”

“I remember she was there when I came to tell you about Sofía.” You grinned. “And when we…” You cleared your throat.”

“Yes.” Javier chuckled. 

“I think I’m gonna stay an adjunct, just to keep loitering in your office.”

“For non-nefarious reasons, I assume?”

“I certainly don’t think they’re nefarious.” You slapped his arm playfully. “You seem to enjoy them.”

He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I’m looking forward to a summer with you at home. All the time.”

“About that…”

Javier’s head snapped towards you. “What?”

“You’ll have me about ninety percent of the time.”

“What did you agree to?”

“Steve needs an extra pair of hands working on some instruction manuals for a couple seminars he’s booked.”

“Baby.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” You assured him. “I’ll just be working on the copy for him. And… maybe I’ll be needed for a day or two — over the entire summer.”

“You just can’t relax can you?”

“It’s a flaw.”

“I’ve noticed.” Javier chuckled as he shook his head. “Well, I guess it’s not too bad.”

“Good, cause I definitely already agreed to it.” You shot a finger gun at him before walking ahead to unlock the car. 

You hadn’t had a full summer with just the four of you or even when it was just three of you. The prospect was both exciting and daunting. You’d been working every day since you turned sixteen and now you had down time. 

But the girls would only be little for a finite period of time. You knew that in a blink of an eye, you’d be at Josie’s college graduation. 

You really didn’t want to miss a thing.

[kimonobeat]

aiko bon: Official “Chiisana Marui Koujitsu” liner notes

aiko’s major label debut album, released April 21, 1999. The title of the album comes from a line in the first song, “Orange na Mangetsu”.

Orange na Mangetsu (オレンジな満月; Orange Full Moon)

Jet (ジェット)

Shiseikatsu (私生活; Private Life)

Utahime (歌姫; Diva)

Akai Kutsu (赤い靴; Red Shoes)

Ijiwaru na Tenshi yo Sekai wo Warae! (イジワルな天使よ 世界を笑え!; Mean Angel, Laugh at the World!)

Koi Ochiru Toki (恋墜ちる時; When You Fall in Love)

Natsu ni Muffler (夏にマフラー; Scarf in Summer)

Bob (ボブ)

Naki Mushi (ナキ・ムシ; Cry Baby)

Ashita (あした; Tomorrow)

(Thank you parasmichael for the commission!)

☑ The album as a whole

This was in 1999. When we were making this album I was sorta overwhelmed by just how awesome everything was: “Wow, a studio! Wow, a mic! Wow, oh my gosh, Tokyo!” We didn’t have just one set recording studio either; we recorded in a few different places. Plus, I didn’t have much time because I was still commuting from Osaka then. Because of that, my mental picture of recording it is that it was all pretty much over in the blink of an eye. There’s parts where my voice sounds nasally because we recorded when my vocals weren’t in great condition. (laughs) Oh, and it feels very ‘early’, doesn’t it? Back then I thought it was better to sing everything with force. Like, personally I don’t think you should sing very sharply or shrilly when the song itself is mild, but I used to think the stronger the better. I didn’t know a lot about laying off at certain points in the lyrics back then. What a trip down memory lane.

☑ Orange na Mangetsu

One thing I don’t really like is when people call this song “Oraman”. (laughs) I’m happy people even know this song exists enough to call it that, though. It was the opening theme song for the late-night Tokyo TV show “Gekkan Chikyuu TV (Monthly Earth TV)”. We shot a video for it thereーa sort of music video, if you will. It’s a rare video. I don’t even have it. Thanks to that, I had the chance to perform the song “Utahime” on the show. Back then I was up to my ears in work, so I appeared on the show covered in mud. I’m actually afraid of the moon. You know how sometimes you see it all big and amber-colored up in the sky? A long time ago, I often used to get so scared of seeing a big moon in the sky that I would cry. I’m still afraid of it to this day. I’m really scared that it’ll fall out of the sky or something. The song’s about how I want so badly for my feelings to be understood that I even go as far as to fearfully get a glimpse of it through the gap in my curtains and make a wish, even though I’m so scared of the moon. I used to be such a weakling back then. I used antiseptic for my throat so much that people would say my place smelled like a hospital when they came over. That’s why the word ‘antiseptic’ appears in the lyrics. The album title ‘chiisana marui koujitsu (a nice calm little day)’ appears in the lyrics too. I think that phrase represents what I personally consider to be a happy day well. I still find myself hoping that every single day continues to be full of happy things like these. Another thing I don’t really like was when this one comedian pronounced it as “Chiisana Marui Koupi”. It’s “Koujitsu”, not “Koupi!” Kind of feels like the album kicks off with drums, doesn’t it?

☑ Jet

Okay, first of all… Right around the time Shimayan had finished up the arrangement, I went over to his house and we recorded some vocals as a sort of demo. I was so happy when I listened that tape. I listened to it while running through Sangenjaya by myself. It just kinda made me feel like running. Like, “WE DID IIIIIIIT!” Anyway, I was running, and it felt so good that I knew then and there that this song would be a hit. It just felt so good when I was running that it felt done to me. It gets people really excited at my concerts, too. I guess the “d-dun!” part has a lot of impact. I also use the pronoun ‘boku (masculine ‘I’) in the song too, which is rare for me. The boy in “Jet” and the boy in “Boushi to Mizugi to Suiheisen” are one and the same. So the hair sticking out of the back of the girl’s hat is all messy and curled upーthat’s what the line “Because the messy hair on the back of your head are your wings” means. He’s looking at the hair sticking out of the back of the girl’s capーy’know, those messy hairs that are all over the placeーand looking at the way she lives her life, how incredibly free she is and how she really enjoys every single day of her life, and he sort of admires her for that. That’s why you also see the line “I know for sure you’ll fly” in the lyrics too. I guess I included it after it all just popped into my head once I came up with that visual because this song, “Jet” and “Boushi” are all especially candid. There are others like that too.

☑ Shiseikatsu

I’m really fond of the title and kept saying I wanted to make it the title of the album. Then when I was writing the title track, I was afraid of making the overall vibe of the album into just one thing and gave it up. When you write a title track, the radio stations definitely play the title track on the air. I didn’t really like the idea that the title track would set the image of the entire album even though there were all these other songs on it, you know what I mean? Now I get what everyone was saying to me then. Back then I didn’t understand why at all. Now I’m like, “Oh, so that’s why.” I definitely feel the things I wrote about in the lyrics. It’s an established part of me that I’m a bit afraid of, and because it kinda like, expresses that part of me to a T, I decided to call it “Private Life”. The one thing I really remember about this song was when the bridge over my molars came off when I had my very first solo concert at Nest in Shibuya. I stuck them back on with Poligrip. (laughs) Using Poligrip for the very first time at 23 years old. That was when I first learned that Poligrip was clear. You know how it’s always pink when you see it on TV? When I found out, I thought I’d made some kind of huge discovery and mentioned it during the MC portion of my concertーthat I was using Poligrip and it was clear! I showed everybody. They all went, “Whoa!!!” When I sang “Shiseikatsu” during that Poligrip concert, there was this one girl who was so stoked that she was dancing like she was at a club or something. I remember seeing her and singing while thinking to myself, “Oh wow… That makes me happy to see! I’m gonna keep working hard then!” I also really love the ad-libbing that doesn’t follow the melody at all, and also the ad-libbing in the second half of the song.

☑ Utahime

This is another one of those songs that stands out more than I ever thought it would. A lot of my fans tells me they like this song. Probably because I suddenly started sang this song during the opening of my first time on the national net show “All Night Nippon R” along with the line, “Nice to meet you. I’m aiko, who are you?” Because of that, some people found out about me for the first time through this song and not one of my singles. The people on the radio station really liked “Utahime”, so they asked me to sing it. Everyone gets super excited when I sing it at concerts, too. I still feel like this song’s gotten a lot more mileage than I ever thought it would. But, I’d like to be the kind of singer who’s able to surpass this song so I can continue singing in the future. This is one of those songs that I feel like I need to sing any time I sing at a concert. It was in the program at the concert when I developed those nodules [on my vocal chords]. When I sang the part that goes, “I might cry and cry~”, I couldn’t get the ‘and’ out. That was really painful for me. I figured everything’d be fine if I could just hit that note, but I definitely couldn’t. That was a huge shock for me. Singing this song used to make me feel super sad. I just couldn’t get over how shocked I was about it. Any time I thought about singing this song, the memory of it overpowered the song itself. The song makes me feel really sad, but also happy. I still hope I can be like the person in the song soon.

☑ Akai Kutsu See liner notes for ‘Naki Mushi’ single

☑ Ijiwaru na Tenshi yo Sekai wo Warae

Okay, so another thing I don’t really like (laughs) is when people call this song “Iji Ten”. Sounds like ikaten, doesn’t it? Like some kind of fried food, right? Sounds like a fried fish cake or something like that. I’ve always called it “Tenshi” which is the usual, but some people call it “Iji Ten”. There’s also a part in this song where I put my hands up in the air along with everyone in the audience. I never thought I’d get pretty much everyone to do it. I used to hope that writing this song would help me enjoy myself at concerts. I used to be really bad at writing cheerful songs in the beginning. I write my songs using my piano, and the more I try to sing in-tempo, the more I try to play the rhythm on my keyboard and the harder it gets hard for me to sing. It’s like my right hand’s flipping things with a spatula and my left hand’s doing shabu-shabu or something… But I really wanted to write an up-tempo song. That was my task, an up-tempo song. It still is. So yeah, that’s how this song came to be. I think I’ve been doing this song at concerts since my indie days, maybe. I remember doing the peace sign and thumbs-up since before I had my solo concert. After I debuted, I appeared at this event in Tokyo called “The Freedom Fool Fry”. I was there with about 4 supporting bands. It was my very first time performing in Tokyoーit was a great place to be a nobody, although I was there because they’d asked me to come. I was super happy to see everyone shuffle out there to see me. I was like, “Wow, people in Tokyo are so dang kind~” (laughs) Now a lot of people know the signs. Seeing that from the stage is one of the highlights of the show. It’s just super neat. It almost doesn’t feel over ‘til they do it. Anytime I leave this song off the setlist people always write, “Not doin’ it this time?” on the surveys. The melody moves around a lot in this song and key’s pretty high, so it’s a fight every time. Like, I wanna move around, but I also wanna sing. You know? It’s a fight to the finish every single time, one where everyone who came to the venue is grappling with that ‘seize the day!’ feeling.

☑ Koi Ochiru Toki

My voice was real nasally then. I almost think it might be a good thing when I listen to it now, but the song reminds me how frustrated I was with it at the time. I caught a cold while recording. This was back when I didn’t worry at all about what state my throat was in either, so I slept until about 5 minutes before I had to sing because I had both a cold and a fever. Then they woke me up, I got up, and sang. People told me that they didn’t understand the lyrics of this one song in particular. (laughs) “What’s square foam?” they asked. It’s hard having people ask what things are. I was like, “Don’t ask about every single lil’ thing!” (laughs) In my head, I imagine ‘when you fall in love’ as something impossible happening. That’s what I think falling in love is. You’ve got all these things swirling around in your head. Things are like a cartoon, or a comic stripーthat’s what ‘when you fall in love’ is like to me, so that’s what I wrote about. You feel it with your entire body, you inhale their scent. I was super shocked when I sang it at a concert for the first time in a while and everyone sang along. They had me worrying that I’d mess the lyrics up!

☑ Natsu ni Muffler

So hot it’s like wearing a scarf in the summerーthat’s what I was going for here! I’m expressing the way you feel when you like somebody. I feel like I don’t do anything that sounds even remotely like this now. It’s pretty refreshing, I like it a lot. The more I listened to this song, the more I fell in love with it. I mean, I’m the one who wrote it and all, but… When you listen to something, over time you gradually start seeing new sides to it. Like, I love how expressive the melody is, and I love how the feeling of being purely happy comes through well. I love the phrase “Lemme see the tan lines your watch left behind”ーit’s very realistic.

☑ Bob

I’m the one playing in this song, tee hee. (laughs) Hm, where’d I sing this again? Hitokuchizaka, maybe… ? It came together pretty much instantly so I said, “Hey, I wrote this song.” I remember recording it after showing it to them at Hitokuchizaka Studio and being told it sounded good. You can really tell it was fresh off the press when I recorded it too. Wow, that really takes me back! I sound like I’m saying “I sink” instead of “I think”, “mot” instead of “not”, and all the words are the kind you’d use in school. Thanks to this song, anytime I get letters people write “I sink” instead. I used to write it that way a lot myself, actually. My hair really was cut into a bob when I made this song. That’s why I wrote it! In this song I’m really trying hard to act tough. I’m just talking to myself but wish someone was listening… but I’m also acting tough. That’s because I feel that way 24/7. (laughs) Oh, and the Wurlitzer is just fantastic, isn’t it?

☑ Naki Mushi See liner notes for ‘Naki Mushi’ single

☑ Ashita See liner notes for ‘Ashita’ single