#THAT OST HAD NO BUSINESS GOING SO HARD

[slushy-sash]

bro cooked so hard he split the sea in half

[extracurious]

Reminiscence

Still Drunken on the memories of the summer of 2023.I watched the movie almost 50 times till now but truly fatigue didn't grip me. The theatre experience was outstanding. I went there with very little expectation, of course a sequel rarely matches it's predecessor.The intro of ATSV made me think that it was not the case of waste of money or time . I got what I wished for since the trailer release.Terrific voice acting done by Shameik Moore , Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Issac, Issa Rae, Daniel kaluuya, Karan Soni and others.

Peter B Parker and Miles carried the first movie with their most relatable energy.In second movie it was good to see Peter as a happy dad. Still he needed to be more cautious while handling Mayday amidst the multiverse madness even though she had spider powers .

Miles transformation was absolutely stunning one. He had grown, became emotionally intelligent yet he was not a pro. Still working for upgrading himself and continued learning. And we all had agreed that he always listened to his heart.

And coming to Gwen she was definitely "not okay" in ATSV ,especially not in a great position to handle her feelings. She doubted whether she had any importance or simply her existence was fragile.While Miles was always there to praise her innocence,wisdom,grace,skills and her self esteem.

I already had a notion of how their friendship was going to evolve into a much more beautiful bonding they could crave for. And yes Sony finally did it ,which was doomed for years. Congratulations to Hailee Steinfeld for brilliantly portraying Gwen Stacy and winning the Astra Awards and other accolades for her role.

Their interactions in ITSV had always a flirty tone in it which was subtly noticeable until Miles comeback in final battle. At that time there was a sudden realisation that the moments Gwen had longed for specially sharing with Miles, was going to end soon as the portal for her travelling back home had finally opened.

I was hoping to get atleast the full convo of the bus ride that had been pending since ITSV and how they managed to get the selfie. Well BTSV must provide that to us. Their moments together need to cherished everytime.

Hobie and Pavitr's friendship had been an exception. They were always jolly and supportive .

Expecting more screentime for all the members of the band in next movie. We all missed them a lot.

And this trio would be having a long talk before reconciliation. They would need to fix and thereby heal each other from the wounds suffered due to the betrayal.

Miguel had a hard time after loss of his daughter.His established theories could not be entirely wrong but his ideologies regarding cannon events should be studied and explained with more precision. He had been unaware of the actual policies of multiversal working. Cause he only depended on what "the model says- Lyla".Hoping the writers would be able to properly add the details and justify the incidents in BTSV along with the reason why Gwen glitched so less than other spideys in ITSV.

The creation of a joke villain,who being later considered as a multiversal threat,Spot's arc was indeed incredibly done by the writers. Eagerly looking forward as to how Spot can manipulate space and time and find the answers about his holes.

On other hand Miles 42- He gave a feeling of hardened, unshakeablly confident but sad at same time. Kind of aggressively caring person.

Lastly the music played a crucial role in uplifting the cinematic experience. Uniquely blending with all the characters. The ost and music tracks had been top notch, where "The falling apart " and "calling" became my favourite.A big thanks to Daniel Pemberton and Metro Boomin for making this a masterpiece.

This movie had no business going that hard.And I knew this obsession would have no end. 🥺

-extracurious

[satureja13]

Why Vlad and Ji Ho wear the same sleeping shirts Extended Version - Part 2 Part 1 is -> here

Jack: "My last hope for the washer dilemma was Saiwa. He was running the Strawberry Cake Fashion online store together with Noxee and he had to know how to - cheaply - replace Vlad's clothes (and some of his too...). So I told him the whole story..."

Jack: "Sai stilled in his movements for a few seconds. Stunned - staring into nowhere. Trying to process. Then he said: 'RUN!' and I ran. Sai chased me around a bit, as always. We got a bit of fresh air, cleared our heads and eventually he got tired, calmed down and we went back."

Jack: "He sat again, hissed and vented on a bit about how exhausting it was not being able to let me do the easiest stuff without worrying I would burn the house down. I just let him because that's just how he deals with stuff."

Sai got sad when he thought of the old days: "I know I shouldn't have been mad and yelled at you, it's not your fault you're like this." Jack hugged Sai: "Don't worry, hm? Those were hard times we went through, and you were busy with all your jobs and stuff. I know you don't mean it."

Jack went on with the story: "And since he'd missed so much work that had to be done while chasing me around and having to deal with my chaos, Sai just sent me the link to the site where he usually ordered the clothes for their store so I could look for some cheap replacements for the clothes I'd destroyed. Vlad's trousers and dress shirts weren't that cheap and I'd almost used up our budget. Luckily for me, Sai refused to get his destroyed clothes replaced and I found a whole pack of black sleeping shirts at a stunning discount. I asked Sai if he'd be ok with us wearing all the same shirts, and even though he was picky about his clothes, he said no one's going to see us anyway at night and plain black shirts are just fine and I should go for it. And then I clicked the button..."

Jack: "The clothes I'd ordered took a while to get delivered and the next days had been busy with Ji Ho moving in and hiding Vlad and him from each other (because we'd had a tiny little misunderstanding ö.Ö'). But finally the parcels were there! Vlad's pants and dress shirts were fine, just like ordered. But the sleeping shirts... Sai took one look at them and was sure Vlad would freak out and never wear them. And we couldn't send them back since it was a remaining stock - excluded from exchange. Poor Sai cursed himself because he didn't check back my order even though he knew he shouldn't let me do stuff all by myself..."

Jack: "Sai was at the end of his wits: Sai: 'We have no money left to order other ones. What are we supposed to do? Vlad is going to kill us!' "

Vlad didn't like where this was going but he didn't interrupt. This whole rambling was already going on for much too long - and he finally wanted to hear the end of it.

to be continued...

'My baby may not be rich He's watchin' every dime But he loves me, loves me, loves me We always have a real good time And maybe he sings off key But that's alright by me, yeah

'Cause what he does, he does so well Makes me wanna yell

Let's hear it for the boy Ah, let's give the boy a hand Let's hear it for my baby You know you gotta understand Oh, maybe he's no Romeo But he's my lovin' one-man show Oh, whoa-oa-oa Let's hear it for the boy'

Let's hear it for the Boy - Deniece Williams (I imagine Noxee and Jack in the MV ^^') OST from Footloose

From the Beginning 🔱 Underwater Love 🔱 Latest

Current Chapter: starts ▶️ here Last Chapter: 'Here comes the Sun' from the beginning ▶️ here

📚 Previous Chapters: Chapters: 1-6 ~ 7-12 ~ 13-16 ~ 23-29

[dykehayleywilliams]

One Parasong to Rule Them All: Category Crowns and Clowns

All We Know Is Falling 👑: Conspiracy 🤡: Whoa

AWKIF struggled, with all but two songs being eliminated in the first round. Whoa suffered the worst defeat of any song the whole competition, while Conspiracy and Here We Go Again both put up brave fights in round two before ultimately being killed off.

Riot! 👑: For A Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic 🤡: Misery Business

For A Pessimist defied all odds as the only song on Riot to make it into the semifinals, proving itself to be the album opener of All Time. Misery Business, on the other hand, was kicked down the stairs on sight, failing to make it out of round one.

Brand New Eyes 👑: Ignorance 🤡: The Only Exception

Ignorance steamrolled everything in its path and now joins fellow BNE track Playing God in the final. Time and again, it managed to take down other heavy hitters, proving itself really to be our collective new best friend. On the other hand, TOE was the only BNE single eliminated in round one. Pour one out for my beautiful misunderstood wife.

Paramore 👑: Part II 🤡: Fast in My Car

Part II was narrowly eliminated in round three, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids (All I Wanted) it could have made it all the way. Meanwhile, Fast in My Car was one of the 11 self-titled tracks brutally eliminated at the beginning, proving no one has any taste.

After Laughter 👑: Pool 🤡: Told You So

The AL stans showed UP to the polls every day and made their votes count. I get that Told You So was up against Hard Times in the first round, but it didn't even put up a fight. Pool proved its status as a fan favorite; even if it didn't make it to the final round, the real winners are all of us for recognizing the peak of songwriting.

This Is Why 👑: Thick Skull 🤡: The News

As the newest album, This Is Why both gained a boost from the recency bias while also struggling to hold its own against tracks that have had years to cement their statuses. The News couldn't make weight, while Thick Skull made it all the way to round four.

Singles Club, Bonus Tracks, Rares, Twilight OST 👑: Decode 🤡: Decode

[heeseung-min]

i love your works, tysm for putting so much enough into them <3 ! just asking, but could you write about enha's newest ost, criminal love? again, dont feel pressured to write about this, stay hydrated and have a good day!

hiii sorry for replying this so late but i hope u can enjoy this

[16:15]

Oh, you say "Good night, meet me next life" But where are you now?

Day by day continue with week by week and month by month and now years by years but he still couldn't find you. It's his seventh life now but he still didn't get to meet you after the first life. He is frustrated and it only made him become more greedy of you.

Sunoo was enjoying his day at the park near the river. It was at evening and the temperature is perfect to go out. He was looking at the beautiful scenery in front him when suddenly someone bumped into him.

He was about to curse until he saw your face. He went speechless for seconds while you were panicking for bumping to him at the first place. You were busy apologizing and him was busy staring at you cause he still couldn't believe he finally get to meet you.

"I'm really sorry. It's my fault for looking at my phone while I'm walking."

"Uhh ah yeah it's okay. It happens sometimes so that's okay."

"Alright then, I'll go first. Have a nice day."

He felt weird at the interaction. Why did you spoke so formal with him? Do your memory about your past life got erased? He tried to look for you again but he lost you. He sighed and said to himself that he will find you again.

Sunoo felt dejected after he failed to see you after the other day. He thought since you both met at the park, you probably live nearby and he can look for you but he failed to do so. He was walking in the night around his neighbourhood until he stopped outside of one of the convenience store when he saw you. He smiled at the sight of you preparing your ramen but frowned when there was another man beside you. The interaction between you and the man seems so intimate to be friends. Sunoo clenched his jaw when the man kissed you on the lips. He spent so many years waiting for you but the man easily get to touch and kiss you? Well, it will not happen again.

Criminal love, love Hours like minutes 깨어난 madness (yeah) Ain't no way to stop (ain't no way to stop) Criminal love (criminal love) God, this night taste just like, ooh

"Fuck you for taking y/n from me."

"Fuck you for touching my precious."

"Fuck you for kissing her and hug her with your crusty ass."

"You should not take what is not yours."

Sunoo landed the last kick on the man's face before the man finally died. He was still not satisfied after what he had done to him. He was still furious even though your boyfriend already dead.

"God, I hope you will not reborn again cause if I see you again I will end you before you get to feel anything."

That was the last words he said towards the man before he pushed him off to the hole that he dug to put the man. After done doing it, he cleaned himself and dressed comfortably to go to see you. Now, he will take you and make sure there will be no one else can take you from him.

He spent those seven life not to see you with someone else.

And that's not going to happen anymore.

Got me like 만일 우리 다시 만나게되면 나를 끌어 안아줘 Got my hands cuffed (got my hands cuffed) Criminal love (criminal love) God, this night taste just like, ooh

BAHAHAHAH what do u guys feel after reading this? I'm kinda suck doing these types of drabbles especially when it includes lyrics cus sometimes its hard for me to relate it with the story,,,to the one who requested this im sorry if i disappoint u Taglist: @stacey-stonem @duolingofanaccount @huggyuvita @obsessed1with1straykids

[koter-irl]

My Xenoblade OST Trinity Box Set arrived! It contains 5 OST discs for Xenoblade 1, 6 for Xenoblade 2, and 9 for Xenoblade 3, as well as a booklet containing tracklists, lyrics, credits, and messages from the composers (as well as Tetsuya Takahashi), I am uploading these messages and transcriptions of them for any Xeno fans on here that may be interested in seeing the contents. Let's begin!

Message 01 - ACE (Tomori Kudo)

I first participated in the production of the series with Xenoblade Chronicles, in March of 2009, which is exactly 14 years ago from the time of writing this comment. Thanks to being given the chance to join the project, I was regarded as a "Xenoblade Chronicles Composer" and gradually started gaining recognition. It became a precious project for me as a composer. The first time I really felt this is when I performed music from Xenoblade Chronicles at the video game music orchestral concert "PRESS START." The fans cheered a lot for us.

My creative spirit was kindled every time I read the series' scripts, and I found myself thinking, "wow, this is interesting!" I was always inspired to create new video game music that hadn't been made before (well, "new" within my own range of experience.) As the series piled up with new entries, the music also powered up. We even recorded with an orchestra. Although there was hardship each time, I think I was able to grow alongside the Xenoblade Chronicles series.

I would like to express my gratitude again for being given the opportunity to take part in such a wonderful series. I would be thrilled if everyone enjoyed these musical pieces, while remembering the various scenes in which they were used, for many years to come.

(More messages below the cut)

Message 02 - ACE (CHiCO)

I was deeply moved by the first game's script and vision which went far beyond my imagination, and with the words of the person in charge of the music at the time, "This project will go down in gaming history," I wanted to create music that would overturn the existing "video game sound." It seems like yesterday that I started composing with enthusiasm, and I have constantly taken on many different challenges through my music. I worked so hard that the phrase, "as if my life depended on it," most likely isn't an exaggeration. Before realizing it, it had become a life's work.

In my personal life, I became a mother between Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. One month after giving birth, I had the chance to perform the Xenoblade Chronicles portion at the concert called "PRESS START." There are so many things I'd like to say about that busy time; it truly left a deep impression on me.

I would be more than happy if the music I made became someone's enjoyment, thanks to the wonderful Xenoblade Chronicles series.

My childhood dream was to be like Mother Teresa. Though, even if I lived for a thousand years, I'd still be nowhere near her.

I am full of gratitude for the director, the staff at MONOLITHSOFT, Nintendo, Dog Ear Records who reached out to me, everyone at PROCYON STUDIO who produced this CD album and everyone else involved for allowing me to take part until the end of these three entries to the Xenoblade Chronicles series.

Message 03 - Kenji Hiramatsu

Each time I worked on the music of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, I steadily looked for and drew out new sources of creativity within me. To ensure that my music did not get overshadowed by the world of the game, I wanted it to have unprecedented brilliance. Although there were many struggles, I took on the challenge with all my might and somehow reached the end. Like an RPG, the Xenoblade Chronicles series helped me grow immensely.

Looking back at the past three games, I feel that time has really flown by. However, taking part in a series loved even now by many throughout the world and overcoming many hurdles have become a precious treasure to me as a composer! I also treasure the many thoughts and feelings I receive from the fans about my music. These treasures are an important driving force in helping me take on the next challenge.

To be honest, after completely using up all my energy working on Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I feel a little weak. But I think sharing this soundtrack with everyone will become another source of strength for me!

Now that this series has reached one point of closure, it's time for a fresh start! I wonder what kind of sources of creativity I'll find in the future. I hope everyone's looking forward to it!

Message 04 - Manami Kiyota

Ever since I was a child, I wanted to become a composer. Although I somehow found myself debuting as a singer, I was given the opportunity to write music for the Xenoblade Chronicles series.

At first, I think I caused everyone a lot of trouble with all the retakes. When I managed to successfully submit my work and played the game for the first time, I remember how excited I was to hear my music in the game. That said, whenever I play the game, I get so immersed that I forget I created music for it... (laughs)

By the time I started working on the third entry, I feel I had come to understand what my role is in the Xenoblade Chronicles series. I always aim to create music that exists as a sort of atmosphere within the world created by the director and among the visuals, the voice acting, and the sound effects. After playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, Future Connected, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Torna ~ The Golden Country. There are new discoveries and excitements when playing through the series.

I am truly happy to have been able to work on a world I love, the world of the Xenoblade Chronicles series. I'd like to give my heartfelt gratitude to the director, Mr. Takahashi, everyone at MONOLITHSOFT, all the composers, all the staff, and the players who enjoyed the games. Thank you very much.

Message 05 - Yasunori Mitsuda

Having worked with Mr. Takahashi, the director of the series, on numerous projects over the years, starting with Xenogears released in 1998, then Xenosaga Episode I, and then the Xenoblade Chronicles series, he is what I would call a brother in arms and a good friend who fully understands my music. That said, when he contacted me saying, "I want you to work with us on Xenoblade Chronicles," I declined. I felt that the project didn't need me because its fascinating atmosphere and world were already complete. As my own rule, I never decide whether to participate based solely on how much honor or profit I can get. Instead, I always try to consider what kind of "music" and "sound" the game wants and whether it really needs my "color." After he contacted me, I concluded that the game's already-established world didn't need anything new. For that reason, I declined his offer many times.

However, after Mr. Takahashi spoke to me in person and said, "Mitchan (note while writing - this is Mitsuda's nickname,) the series only makes sense if we close Xenoblade Chronicles with your music." I decided to accept his offer, though only the ending theme (I'm weak to heartfelt requests.) After that, I participated in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and found myself working with him for a very long time. Although the Xenoblade Chronicles series has successfully reached one point of closure this year in 2023, to be honest, I'm still asking myself if there was a meaning in my participation. The answer shouldn't come from me; if fans have been happy throughout the series, I think participating was the right decision. I'd like to express my gratitude to all those who have enjoyed the Xenoblade Chronicles series up until now. Thank you.

Message 06 - Tetsuya Takahashi

I have had few experiences where the word "harmony" has fit so well. I've known Mr. Mitsuda for around 30 years and it has almost been 15 years since I first met each of the other Xenoblade Chronicles composers. I suspect it's due to the accumulation of a decade and a half, but it was easy to imagine the kind of music I would receive in return to any request I made. And the music that I received far exceeded my expectations.

Looking back, when working on Xenoblade Chronicles it's true that I was fumbling to find each composer's expertise as I sent out orders for the music. However, that was only until halfway through. In the latter half of development, I personally remember there being considerably less trial and error. Most importantly, the composers were so passionate that I thought preserving that passion, without tampering with this or that, would be the best way to reach the players.

After going through that process, I felt I had a lot of leeway when working on Xenoblade Chronicles 2. This was largely thanks to Mr. Mitsuda, who doubled as music producer. From small matters to more important ones, he listened to my various thoughts and also gave me a lot of advice. I was able to use that leeway to spend more time thinking about the overall direction and mechanism of the music.

Speaking of mechanisms, the incorporation of a jazz-style atmosphere in Torna ~ The Golden Country is fresh in my mind. While the main reason for it was simply because I liked an American film I watched in 2015 titled Whiplash, there wasn't enough time to implement it in the main game, and considering the flow from the music in Xenoblade Chronicles, I decided it would be too abrupt so I incorporated it in the additional story rather than the main game. Considering each composer's style, I was confident that it would go well and was very happy with the result.

And then, Xenoblade Chronicles 3. There waiting, cultivated over time, was peace of mind and a sense of trust. This is what I mean by "harmony."

While also feeling apologetic, I'd like to express my gratitude to the composers for sticking with me without getting discouraged by my selfishness over the past a5 years (twice as long for Mr. Mitsuda.)

To all the composers, thank you!

And that's it, these are the six messages included in the booklet contained with the Trinity Box Set, hopefully this has been insightful and entertaining for anyone reading, and I hope you enjoyed reading it, I'm glad to have been able to post these online for all to see. Thanks!

[gabriel-xander]

Don't Forget

[Sans x Female!Reader]

16: Alright Campers, Today’s Activity is to Find a Will to Keep Going

♪⁠────✿⁠(⁠✧◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕✧⁠)✿⁠────♪

Man, you wish Sans would pick a better time to be considerate. You know yourself well enough that if you took a shower, you wouldn’t want to go out anywhere afterward. Because of this, you left for Grillby’s feeling a little icky and dirty.

“Remember when I had this cool plan to take a shower?” You bring up, walking by Sans’ side, “I don’t look like total shit, do I?”

Sans gives you an obvious once over, “nah. just as spoiled when i first saw you.”

“What?! Spoiled?!”

“your dress reminds me of this ice queen in one of pap’s bedtime stories.” Sans explains as if that’ll fix anything, “she sings about letting go of her past, and has this magical girl transformation with her dress using her ice powers.”

“…Motherfucker, you mean ELSA?!”

“oh, so you know that story, too.”

GIRL 😭!!!!

“But Elsa isn’t spoiled at all!”

“right, but it’s that royal vibe she has. your fancy dress gives off the same vibe.”

“Ohhh,” You lean close to him with a smug little grin, “So you think I’m a Queen, huh? Someone worth all the attention and gifts and praise?”

He rolls his eye-lights and shoves you away playfully, “yeah right, in your dreams.”

“Hey, can’t blame a girl for wanting to live the luxury,” You shake your head with a sigh, “Like the time when I barely turned twenty-one, I signed up on so many Sugar Daddy sites.”

“…” Sans narrows his eye sockets at you, “what’s—a sugar daddy?”

“…”

“…”

“Uh, anyway,” You look at the brown building you two stopped in front of, “This is Grillby’s, huh? Any hot tips I should know about before we go in?”

“eh, there ain’t any rules if that’s what you’re worried about. just don’t do anything you wouldn’t normally do at a bar and burger joint. grillby can be a little hot-headed.”

…

That was weak as fuck.

“Why do I have a feeling you’re setting me up with some kind of pun?” You narrow your eyes, already knowing.

His grin is so smug and full of mischief.

Bro is up to some dubious deeds.

Bro is up to no good.

The short(?) monster opens the door for you, gesturing for you to go in first. You bow slightly and say thank you, stepping into the building that will soon become one of your favorites.

The music is a fucking banger, nothing like the OST that plays in the game. It’s something like nasty jazz that makes you feel like a secret mafia boss. One that wears a skimpy, blood-red silk dress, and black silk gloves. Oh, and you're “mourning” the loss of your husband that you definitely didn’t kill.

God, what a fucking banger.

“…[y/n]?”

“Huh?” You shake your head, “Sorry, I was daydreaming. The music got my fantasies going.”

“pfft-about what?”

Sans starts walking further in, so you keep up by his side. It seems like he’s taking you to the bar. It looks like Grillby’s regulars are still here: the ugly fish, Ugly Fish, at the bar next to the birdy, Red Bird. The drunk rabbit monster, Drunk Bun, absolutely plastered at the booth closest to the entrance. And the mouthy monster with huge teeth, Big Mouth, is minding his own business. Lesser Dog and Doggo were here too playing Poker with each other. Greater Dog, Dogamy, and Doggaressa weren’t here; it was getting late now, so maybe they’d gone home.

Huh, Grillby isn’t behind the bar right now. Maybe he’s in the back making food?

“Oh, man. Do you really want to know about my dirty secrets?”

“my, are they really that scandalous?”

You hum before speaking, “You ever think about killing your rich husband and walking around in an expensive robe while drinking some wine thinking how you’re gonna hide the body?”

“…??? no???”

You purse your lips. You reach the bar and eye the stool you’re in front of. You press down on the seat hard, but you don’t hear a whoopee cushion. You deem it safe to sit on.

“This is what I’m talking about, bone boy. You can’t handle my sexy little fantasies.”

Sans sits next to you on your right (no whoopee cushion there either), his cheekbones gaining a very faint pink hue at your choice of words.

“is that a popular fantasy with the human ladies?”

“Only with the mentally ill ones, just like me.”

“ha-ha!” Sans props his right arm up on the bar, leaning his cheek against his fist while giving you a cheeky look, “all that just from the jukebox?”

You mirror his pose, “You see, bone boy. This is the power of the mentally ill. I’m sure with a little practice, you too, can daydream about killing your husband.”

“wait. what do you mean with “a little practice?” don’t you mean… maybe with a lot of practice?”

You shrug with a smirk, “Hey, man. I just thought you might be able to relate a little. But maybe I was wrong.”

“well, it’s no skin off my nose if you wanna make assumptions,” Sans winks playfully, “but i will neither confirm nor deny a thing.”

“Fine, fine,” You straighten up, “Let me give-”

“You-You’re… Hey, you’re here…!”

You and Sans redirect your attention to a familiar voice on your left. Your good buddy, Doggo, had bound up close to you, his fluffy tail wagging more when you gave him a friendly smile.

Wait, there’s something… different about him…

”Hey…” You narrow your eyes and point vaguely at him, “Did you… Did you buy a spiked collar?”

“I DID!!!”

You and Sans flinch at Doggo’s sudden shouting. Sure enough, Doggo is sporting a stylish black collar lined with silver-colored spikes. However on closer inspection, the spikes look rounded. Perhaps so it wouldn’t seriously hurt him, or anyone, if he touched it or bumped into it.

“You-You said that it’d look good,” Doggo shifts nervously from foot to foot, “Truthfully, I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. And you gave me the confidence to finally go through with it! What do you-What do you think?”

The stool you’re on is just short enough that your toes can comfortably touch the ground. You start bouncing your leg up and down and hope that’s enough movement for Doggo to see you. Considering his eyes aren’t shifting so much, you assume that it’s good enough.

“Hey, that’s great! And I meant it, you know,” You glance back at the skeleton, “What do you think, Sans? Don’t you think he looks snazzy?”

Sans raises a brow-bone, “i think it fits ya. but uh, i didn’t think you were the type to care about what people think.”

You nudge him, “It’s nice to get validation sometimes, Sans.” You gesture vaguely at the furry monster, “You said you’re Doggo, right? It was great seeing you again, but bone boy and I gotta talk about something private.”

Doggo straightens up, flustered that he had interrupted so rudely and suddenly. His tail wags shallowly, slowly being tucked between his legs. Awe, a sad puppy is one of the most heart-wrenching sights even if Doggo is technically a grown man.

“Oh, yeah. Sor-I’m Do—S-Sorry.”

He feels even more embarrassed at Sans’ smug grin behind you. Ugh, Doggo didn’t think Sans was the type to be a tease like that. Could it be because the skeleton can tell he likes the praise? No one is really that nice to call him stylish or greet him with as much kindness and excitement as you have been doing.

Maybe it’s in his soul to want to be called a good dog.

Either way, it seems like Sans has caught on.

That's just embarrassing.

“It’s fine, you don’t gotta apologize,” You wave it off, “Maybe after, we can—Hey, I think that guy is eating your cards.”

“WHAT?!”

Lesser Dog tenses up and turns around, Doggo’s cards (and possibly his own???) shoved in his mouth and got slobber everywhere. Doggo shouts something incomprehensible while pouncing on him. Lesser Dog yelps that pained puppy yell when they hit the ground, but you assume he’s fine.

“wow, you sure get a lot of attention.”

You look at Sans with a raised eyebrow, “I’d be getting more hostile attention if anyone found out I was a flesh-bag. I’ll gladly get this kind of attention over being shanked in the shin.”

The monster crosses his arms on the table and rests his head. He’s looking at you but where else is he supposed to look?

“so, we got something private to talk about?”

You widen your eyes in remembrance, “Right. I didn’t want to bring it up until I could actually get a job, but we might as well get it over with. Uhm, when I start getting a steady income, steady enough anyway, I was thinking I could pay you rent.”

Sans widens his eye sockets, “wait, what? rent?”

“Oh, come on. These customs aren’t that different from how it is on the surface, right? Usually, if you’re living with someone for a while or even a few months, it’s usually polite to pitch in for the rent.”

“n-no, i get that. i just…”

You think back to that popular theory that the reason Sans’ mail is filled with junk is because of all their bills. Papyrus doesn’t actually have a job, and Sans is the only one who works. You think one of the not-so-hidden secret dialogues Papyrus has is that Sans handles the rent, but he doesn’t actually know where the money comes from.

Sans might feel too guilty about accepting your help in that regard, or he might jump on the opportunity to take your money. You don’t really care; you already decided one way or another that you’ll help out with that. If you can’t do anything else, then it’s the least you can do.

“maybe we should wait until you get a job,” Sans finally says, his eye-lights shifting to the empty bar. “can’t really plan much around it if you don’t even got a cent to your name.”

You purse your lips, “That’s not true. Toriel gave me an allowance for cleaning her house all the damn time.”

“ooh, ‘scuse me, then.”

You take a deep breath, looking around, “You know, I didn’t wanna say anything because I didn’t wanna sound like that bitch. But where’s that Grillby guy? I’m still hungry…”

Sans winces and straightens up, “yeah, now that you mention it, grillby’s been gone from the bar for a while.”

“Oh, Grillby?” Red Bird on your left at the bar speaks up finally, “He’s in the back cleaning up. Give the guy some time, he’s the only one working here, so he has to do everything.”

“Ahhh, everything, you say…” You lean towards the skeleton with a smile, “Sayyyy. Sanssyyyy boyyyy…!”

“i don’t have any money.”

You ignore that. “You don’t think Grillby would be open to hiringggg, do youuuu?”

“…no way you’re thinking of working here.”

“Why not? I used to be a waitress at Hooters for a year before reconsidering my life choices.”

“do i even want to know what a hooters is?”

“Oh, no. Absolutely not. But!” You straighten your back and put a hand on your chest, smirking triumphantly, “All you need to know is that I have experience in this field! Once this Grillby dude comes out, I’ll talk to him about it.”

Sans only shakes his head, opting to keep his thoughts to himself. He’s more… his thoughts are more on the fact that if you work here, there’s a risk that someone might finally put two and two together about your identity. Not only that, but he practically lives at Grillby’s!

In the nicest way possible, there would be no escaping you.

You two sit together in silence for a few minutes. It’s not awkward at all, and in fact, he rather enjoys this silence with you. Your eyes are closed with a smile on your face, tilting your head side to side to the looping music. Hah, maybe Grillby can hire you to fix the jukebox.

This is… nice.

Grillby finally comes out from the kitchen, phasing through the door as he cleans his hands with a rag. How is it not catching on fire? Who knows. It’s also a mystery that his clothes and glasses can phase through the door, too.

The fireman tenses up at seeing you (and Sans) and the bar.

You also sit up straight, “I… Hey, hottie.”

“heh-” Sans ducks his head down, “that was so lame.”

“Hey, I panicked! Also, you were totally setting me up with a pun earlier!”

“…”

“…”

“…”

His “talking” just sounds like fire and wood crackling.

“Grillbz wants to know how long you’ve been waiting out here.” Red Bird says, you know, like a liar.

You give her the side eye. You remember at the end of the Pacifist Route, she admitted she was just guessing what Grillby was saying. If Grillby REALLY had a problem with it, hopefully he would be assertive enough to stop her. But still, it bugs you when people speak for others.

“I’m sure Grillby can ask me that himself, then,” You put your elbow on the bar table and prop your chin on your fist, “I’ll be nice this time, though. We weren’t waiting for long, so you don’t gotta worry.”

Grillby has white “dot” eyes behind his glasses, and his “eyebrows” are just darker parts of the flames on his face. Even when he steps closer, you don’t feel the heat from his body in a way fire should emanate it. There is a warmth coming from him, but it’s really pleasant.

The man is literally fire, and no pun intended, but he is hot. Especially his body.

‘I am no better than a man, I fear.’ You think sadly.

Sans raises a bone brow at you, “you don’t let anything slide, huh?”

“I wasn’t always a hard-ass, you know,” You smile at the fireman, “Unless you’re mute, then I apologize.”

Grillby shakes his head.

“Selectively mute, then?”

He hesitantly shakes his head again.

“You don’t like to talk much?”

He makes a “so-so” motion with his hand.

“Huh, you can’t talk much even if you wanted to?”

Grillby snaps his fingers and points to you, nodding at your correct guess.

“Ahh, gotcha. Would it be fine if you could just give me a yes,” You nod your head up and down in demonstration, “or no,” You shake your head side to side, “then?”

He nods. You don’t know how, but you just feel Grillby is smiling at you despite him not actually emoting at all. Maybe it is a soul/magic/monster thing?

You grin at Sans, “See? Communication can be simple if you just put in the effort.”

Sans has to say, he’s mildly impressed. From what he remembers from previous timelines, Grillby can talk, and he’s rather cheeky too which compliments his cool and collected personality. But monsters like Sans (and Papyrus) and Grillby have a harder time talking since it takes up more magic and concentration. That's why he doesn't bother moving his mouth to talk; it takes too much effort. And just like Sans, Grillby doesn’t have a voice box so he relies on his magic.

The skeleton must figure that Grillby appreciates that you want to talk to him instead of just taking Red Bird’s word for it. The fire elemental always gets heated whenever Sans and Red Bird try to guess what he’s saying and get it so wrong.

“we’ll get a double order of the burg combo, grillbz,” Sans orders for you.

Normally, you’d have a problem with that, but you don’t really care right now. You just want to eat.

“…”

“…”

“…”

Red Bird nods, “Grillbz wants to know-”

“-Grillbz can tell me himself,” You laugh. “Here, how ‘bout this, Grillby.”

You make a “C” with your hand as if you were a Lego man holding a cup. Then, you bring it up to your mouth.

“This means “drink” in ASL—erm, in sign language.”

Grillby furrows his brows (as in, the darker flames above his eyes furrow together) as he mimics your movements, though a bit clumsy. You perk up and nod excitedly.

“Yeah, you’re a natural!”

“You know sign language?” Ugly Fish asks, his words slurring a bit.

Oh, you feel so bad you’re only calling it sign language because there are so many others other than just ASL, but you don’t really want to expose yourself to knowing the different sign languages humans use.

“I’m not fluent by any means, but I made myself learn for my j—for-for fun,” You smile, “Anyway, sorry for being annoying about it, Grillby. But I can go for some liquor, anything you think would taste best with the food.”

The red man nods, reaches under the counter, and pulls out a ketchup bottle. He slides it to Sans without even looking, and the other catches it as if it’s just routine.

“you know just what i like, grillby.” Sans winks.

Grillby nods, turning to go back into the kitchen. You notice with a snort that he’s repeating the “drink” sign while he walks. How cute, maybe if you’re feeling nice, you can show him more.

You mainly learned ASL because you thought it’d be useful in your field as a doctor. You were encouraged by Kōrenki to learn it for that reason, so of course you immediately got on that. You know you were humble about it earlier, but you are very well-versed in ASL.

Sans screws open the tip of the bottle, “you’re fitting in here perfectly. a little too perfectly. any more and you’ll replace me as the favorite.”

“Aw, don’t be like that, bone boy. You’re selling yourself too short, I can never replace you,” You lean close to him to whisper, “I’m just trying to get brownie points so I can get hired. Bear with me, yeah?”

Ohhh, right.

“i completely forgot about that,” Sans brings the ketchup bottle to his teeth, “my bad, i’m being a bonehead.”

“You are not drinking plain ketchup.”

His eye sockets squint from his growing smile. He tilts the bottle back and-

“Ew! Ha-ha-ha!!” You shove him by the shoulders, though not enough to push him off the stool, “You are so rotten to the core!”

“hey, take it easy. don’t get stewed over small problems.”

“I know, I know! It’s fruitless to get hung up about it.”

“oh, so you’re a “tomato is a fruit” type of gal, huh?”

You give Sans a blank look, “You are not telling me you think it’s a vegetable.”

Red Bird decided your A-B conversation with Sans was too interesting and sought to C her way into it.

“Sans is usually wrong about anything he says. I wouldn’t listen to a word he says.”

“Gasp!” You put your hand on your chest, “Is this true, bone boy? Are you regularly full of shit?”

He snickers, “strictly speaking, i’m not full of anything.”

“This might be a deal breaker for me. It’s time we see other people.”

“you’ll be fine, i’m sure we can work it out or something.”

You roll your eyes. Whatever, you want a divorce. You turn in your seat to speak to Red Bird some more, giving Sans the cold shoulder but you guys knew it was just to tease.

Red Bird was snarky with you, but you guess it’s to be expected since you didn’t let her talk for Grillby. She might’ve taken it personally and you certainly didn’t help constantly interrupting her. You kept your tone and expressions peaceful though, and it seemed to help since she slowly but surely cooled down with her sarcasm.

You were sharing where you're from (which, according to the cover story Sans made up, you're from downtown Snowdin). Why you're a funny looking monster (“Kind of human like!” “Ha-ha, that's so silly! Ah-ha ha! Imagine that…”). How you even met Sans (“We both know a guy.”). And how you two became good friends.

You smile and raise a brow, “What makes you think we're good friends?”

Ugly Fish scoffs a laugh, “He ain't ever brought his friends here the whole time we've known ‘im.”

“Ahhh, is that soooo?” You smirk smugly, smirking the smugliest, smirkiest smirk that has ever been smirked smugly, “You could've just gotten the food and brought it back to me, but I'm special enough that you wanted to bring me here?”

“ugh. well, if i knew you were gonna get a big ego out of it, i would've reconsidered.” Sans rolls his eye-lights, feeling his magic heat up in his face.

“What a lie,” You snicker, “But enough about that. What about you guys? Tell me about yourselves.”

Red Bird slams her drink down eagerly, “Oh! Where do I even begin?”

Saved from further embarrassment, the conversation easily shifts back into the original topic. You were getting along great now with the others, occasionally trying to include Sans in the conversation. He purposely stayed out of it because he was simply too lazy to converse, but he appreciated you wanting to include him. While waiting for Grillby, you were also showing them some more sign language.

“And for no particular reason,” You grin, “This is how you say “bald-headed bitch.”

“ppfftt—ack!”

“Woah, Sans! Are you okay??”

You swiftly turn around and start patting him on the back—the spine?? You don’t know, but you were patting something. He nods frantically, his eyes are squeezed shut and his smile is nearly off his face. Oh God, are those tears?! How is he even choking on ketchup?!

“i-i’m fine…” Sans is clearing his throat… somehow. “you just caught me off guard with that.”

Ugly Fish and Red Bird laughing their asses off at Sans’ misery while you were still worried about his health. You bet it’s not often they see him off his game. The monster waves you off to stop patting him, not that you didn’t know it wasn’t doing anything other than giving him a nice massage.

“So, you were saying…?” Red Bird trails off.

“Oh, right!”

You raise your hand over your head, circling your index finger around the top of your head. “Bald-headed.”

You make a “B” sign with the same hand, bumping the side of your hand (the side with your index finger) on your chin. “Bitch.”

Ugly Fish and Red Bird try mimicking you, though a problem quickly arises with the two. They don’t exactly have the hands or fingers to do the movements precisely as you do. You guess it doesn’t really matter that much if they’re trying at all.

As they’re fumbling with that, Grillby emerges from the fire exit with two plates of food lined up on his left arm. Somehow, the food phases through the door, too. Probably because it’s magic.

The fire elemental serves you first, setting down your burger and fries before giving the other to Sans. It smells amazing and if you were just a little more openly cringe, you would’ve started drooling. You sit upright and clasp your hands together.

“Thank you for the food, Grillby!” You beam with a smile, “Ah, it smells amazing!”

“you won’t find any other burgers like this anywhere in the underground,” Sans’ eye-lights get bigger at the sight of good food in front of him.

You wanted to ask about the meat used for these, but that would be too suspicious. Grillby is watching you with crossed arms, watching you and seemingly waiting for you to take the first bite. The burger looks… something like a Bourbon Burger: slightly melted white cheddar cheese, bacon, sautéed mushrooms, roasted bell peppers, red onion, some kind of sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles–all on brioche buns.

You’re about to bust a fat fucking nut you just know it.

You carefully pick up the burger and look around for the best angle to take a bite. Finding it, you take a generous-sized bite and let it savor.

It seemed like the whole bar had gone silent in anticipation. They’re waiting at the edge of their seats, holding their breath to see if Sans' special friend likes the food.

(Un)Lucky for them, you fucking moaned like a dramatic whore at the amazing taste.

“Oh, my fucking God! Grillby, this is amazing!” You cover your mouth as you speak, trying not to be rude by talking with your mouth full.

Grillby’s shoulders drop slightly and he nods. Seems like he was really nervous you wouldn’t like it, but he had nothing to worry about. Not that he had to worry about much anyway, you’re sure anything would taste amazing compared to the spaghetti you had earlier.

The atmosphere returns to normal, and the minimal amount of patrons go back to their usual routine. Grillby begins to work behind the bar, presumably preparing your drink. The glasses look really thick, perhaps a way to withstand the heat of Grillby’s touch.

“wow, that was a reaction and a half,” Sans teases you, “was it that good?”

You nod eagerly, “I mean, can you blame me? I’ve only had the–other kind of burgers in the past. This is the first time I’m trying one like this.”

“right, right. how different is the flavor, anyway?”

“Not that different if I’m honest. The only major difference is that this shit here is fucking GOD tier,” You take another bite, resisting the urge to cry because that’s how good it is.

Sans decides to drop it there and enjoy his own food, too. You made him realize that, yeah it IS delicious and a meal he takes for granted. Love and Magic are just so ingrained in his everyday life, that he forgot how (pun totally intended) magical is it to be exposed to it so often. The littlest things to him, like this burger, are one of the wonders of the world to you.

Ah, he is glad that you’re fitting in here at Grillby’s at the very least. You were getting a little pushy about Red Bird allowing Grillby to “speak” for himself, but you did it out of good faith. Grillby looked like he appreciated you stepping in like that though, so he shouldn’t complain all things considered. He doesn’t know how well it’ll work for you to work here if you can’t use magic, but maybe…

“hey, grillbz,” Sans starts casually, eating a fry, “[y/n] was talking about–her name’s [y/n], by the way. she was thinkin’ about getting a job and was wondering if you were hirin’. i mean, considering today, seems like you might need the help.”

While the bartender was doing a fancy trick making your drink, he redirected his attention to you. You smile nervously and nod in agreement.

“You can take time to think about it, but I thought if anything, I could be a waitress or even mix drinks. I don’t mind helping with the cleanup either. Just… I think I might be the most useless in the kitchen.”

You can cook, but you can’t use magic. If everything is made with magic, what’s to say you won’t need magic to make the monster food? You can’t exactly expose yourself that way, it would be so lame! You don’t think the kitchen is where he needs help though. Even now, the place looks like it can benefit from a wipe-down.

Grillby sets your glass in front of you, the liquid inside is a bright red and blue mix with specks of silver. You go to grab it, but just hover your hand near the glass and you can feel the heat coming from it. You wince and pull away: it was uncomfortably hot, like touching a plastic water bottle that's been out in the sun all day.

“And another thing, if I help out with some drinks, then you don’t gotta worry about making only hot drinks.” You wink at the hot man, “Just think about it, okay?”

He nods, pointing at his head then taps his wrist twice.

“Give you some time to think about it?” You guess.

He nods again.

“Sure thing, boss,” You give Sans a smug little smirk, “See? I’m a fucking master at charades.”

Sans rolls his eyes, “that was the bear minimum.”

“Don’t be jealous of me, bone boy.”

“in your dreams.”

Taglist:

@lemonboy011

@adriixboo

@fluffyart5000

[momobani]

Fire Brigade

THE WAY I hate YOU - chapter 4 - 11.4k

&team Nicholas x fem!reader - arranged marriage AU

SERIES MASTERLIST

Sum: as you settle into married life, you learn a lot about what it’s like to share your life with someone else. 

Warnings: swearing, sarcasm, mention of food and alcohol, they’re both cranky goofs in the morning idk, allusion to questionable parenting?, depiction of drunkenness  

Soundtrack rec: You’re So True - Joseph Arthur (Shrek OST) [there’s just something about this song, i can’t pin point it, just listen. i can just see a montage of their moments together as this plays haha] 

Taglist: @nichoswag @seokka0o @sseastar-main @hyuckslvr @ssshasssh

A/N: i know it’s been 84 years, i’m sorry but life was hectic - for some reason my note keeps getting eaten by tumblr (fu!) but basically - life = hard, nicho -> nico (as per his own request on weverse lol), enjoy <3

Being back in your new apartment was strange.

It felt like you’d never moved in in the first place before your honeymoon. You cleaned up a little after you returned, going grocery shopping together for the first time instead of singularly getting your own food and sticking it in the fridge. 

At the cashier, you almost asked to pay separately but then you realised how weird that would sound because you were so obviously involved and like who does that really? Nicholas whipped out his card before you could unzip your purse so you let him pay this time.

At least you drove there and back, happily abandoning the firetruck (Ferrari) in the underground parking, much to Nicholas’ pouty dismay.   

You still had several days off, mostly because there was a weekend when you returned and you’d strategically planned your time off to encompass that without burning your vacation days unnecessarily.

You had to admit, sleeping in in the morning was nice. 

In the morning you took time to watch some TV, sipping your coffee in front of the screen. You decided that you really needed to catch up on some work related stuff because you were going back to the office on Tuesday and you’d better be prepared. 

So you spread your papers out on the kitchen table, opened your laptop and got stuck in. It was fairly quiet in the apartment and you thought Nicholas was probably still sleeping. 

It’s a surprise when he walks through the front door some time later, a little sweaty and wearing basketball shorts and a sleeveless tank top. There’s a water bottle in one hand and you immediately know exactly where he’s been and what he’s been up to. 

“Hey,” he greets you, depositing the bottle on the counter. “what are you doing?” 

“Working,” you say, only glancing up at him. “what’s it look like I’m doing? Writing a novel?”

“Well, it could be but I doubt a novel-” he wanders past you and peeks over your shoulder. He gets kind of close and you can feel the heat radiating off his body. “-requires a contract for the sale of pharmaceutical supplies.”

“Y’know, you’d be surprised.” you reply. 

“You still have days off, why do work?” he asks, genuinely confused. You again imagined what kind of utopia Nicholas’ office must be if he really doesn’t get it. 

“It’s not a big deal, it needs doing ASAP anyway. Mind your business, dude.”

“Fine,” he raises his hands in surrender. “but I invited company, I didn’t know you were working.”

“It’s fine, I’ll move.” you say, marking where you’d left off and starting to sort things.

“Okay, but we might be quite loud. The guys are coming over.” he explains. “Are you sure that’s not going to disturb you? We can hang out in my room instead.”

“It’s alright, I’ve lived with pack animals back when I decided to have an authentic college experience.” you shudder, remembering the shit you’d been through. You wanted an experience, and oh boy, did you get one. Between the constant revolving door of strangers invading your apartment to the loud roommates you had, you’d really gotten used to noise.  

“Sometimes I really wonder what kind of life you’ve lived.” Nicholas muses, looking at you curiously, as if you were an animal at a zoo exhibit.

You shrug just as your buzzer goes off. Nicholas presses the button that unlocks the downstairs door. You take the first pile of papers and crap to your room, realising you’re going to need two trips to get everything. 

You put the first pile in your room but accidentally knock the first stack of maybe twenty pages down.

“Shit,” you mutter, crouching to pick it all up. You shouldn’t have taken the big clip off it. 

By the time you come back for the second pile of stuff and your laptop, your doorbell goes off and Nicholas opens the door. 

You watch as a group of dudes roll into your apartment, all in their uniform of shorts and t-shirts or tank tops. You recognise their faces from meeting them at your wedding, but you couldn’t match all the names you knew to the faces, except maybe for Jo, who had got the first-come-first-remembered privilege. 

“Oh, hey!” one of them notices you and greets you too as they come in. He has a big smile and several ear piercings. You try to place him to a name, he was either Yuma or Fuma but you can’t be sure. The rest of them notice you too and all offer you various greetings. 

“Maybe this a good time for proper introductions.” Nicholas suggests. “Guys, this is my wife, YN. YN, these are the guys.” he says unhelpfully. You raise your hand in a wave. 

“Hi,” you say. “you must be the fire brigade.” you smile. The room full of confused faces almost makes you laugh. Nicholas does ask them to introduce themselves individually though, probably his attempt to dispel your sarcastic take. 

So the guy who greeted you was Yuma, not Fuma, who’s ironically standing next to him in a cute Pokemon t-shirt. There’s also Euijoo, who you recognise as Nicholas’ best man, Jo, who shyly gives you a tiny wave, and Kei beside Jo, which makes the two look like twin towers. Make that triplet towers, since Euijoo was next to them too. You wondered if their clique had a height requirement or something because most of them were giants.  

“It’s nice to meet you all,” you say, finally gathering your things and taking your exit. 

“We’ll save you some meat!” Nicholas calls after you.

“Thanks.” you say over your shoulder. 

You’re halfway through the corridor when you hear the exclamations fill the room. It reminded you slightly of teenage girl behaviour and you thought it was funny. 

“Wow, you guys are getting on better than we thought!” you hear possibly Euijoo say.

“Dude, you didn’t say your wife was so hot!” you think that’s Kei’s voice. 

“Kei, you were at the wedding?” Yuma chimes in.

“Yeah, but he was too busy flirting with everyone else to notice.” a deeper voice comes in, probably Fuma. 

“Well, I had to entertain myself somehow, the whole thing went on for hours.” Kei replies. 

“Yeah! It’s not Kei’s fault he was born a pathological flirt.” Euijoo says in solidarity. 

“Bro, never talk about another man’s wife if you want to live.” Nicholas warns, only half joking. You can’t help but crack a smile as you close your door to their ridiculousness.   

You kept working, the noise level mostly okay since you were a fair distance and closed door away, but occasionally you could hear their excitement, loud laughter and yells travelling through the apartment. 

You wondered when it got incredibly loud, what they were doing, howling at the moon or something? Who knows, it was a group of grown men; who really understands the mysteries of dude-bros hanging out together?  

*

Some weeks passed without incident, your lives finding routine sleeping, eating and working, as you manoeuvred around each other every day. Despite you being worried about living with a roommate again, for the most part you led your lives separately but not completely severed from each other.

You went to work at your respective companies then came home and occasionally had dinner together, sometimes you even watched TV together or did your recycling. There were days when one of you went grocery shopping and asked the other if you needed anything, days where you cleaned the whole apartment, splitting off chores so you could be done quicker. 

You were lured into a false sense of security, you had to admit. 

And being relaxed didn’t hurt, but accidents did happen. 

Like the day of the most important meeting of the calendar quarter. 

You were meticulous, setting your alarm, preparing your materials and picking out your attire. Going to bed the previous night was smooth sailing and you conked out with no anxiety in your chest for once. 

The morning you had your monster shot coffee and a crispy yet perfectly soft inside bagel while you reviewed the notes you left in the margin of the document drafts. You cleaned up, purposefully leaving the small of stack of papers on the counter where you would see it before leaving the house and take it with you, while you got dressed. 

While you did your hair, you did happen to think of something more to add, so you wandered to the kitchen, your hair half-pinned up with clips while you styled it. 

Except the pile was gone.

Your jaw dropped open. How could it be gone? It was right there not even fifteen minutes ago. It can’t have just disappeared, could it? 

Panic started to rise in your chest as you looked around the kitchen; maybe Nicholas moved it so it wouldn’t get dirty on the counter. You deduce he’s been in the kitchen since you’d left because there’s a washed bowl on the rack beside the sink that you didn’t put there. 

You don’t find the pile after a minute of looking, opening drawers, cabinets, scanning the tables and whatever else there was in your kitchen. 

There was simply one conclusion - your papers were gone. 

You could hear Nicholas was in the bathroom and you decide to just ask him instead. 

“Wang Yixiang!” you yell, trying to get his attention. Not a moment later, the door of the bathroom is thrown open and hasty footsteps echo down the hallway, the perpetrator probably horrified of your tone. 

Nicholas bursts into the kitchen, still in his pyjama bottoms and a hoodie with nothing underneath; he did that a lot as a random habit of his that you’d noticed. There’s a spattering of shaving cream on one side of his face and the razor is still in his hand. You had no idea what he was shaving off though; he never seemed to have anything on that stupidly handsome face of his.

“I’m sorry! Whatever I did, I’m sorry!” he says hurriedly before he’s even entered the room. He was clearly on the verge of freaking out at you calling his government name.  

“Did you happen to see a pile of papers that was on the counter?” you ask, cutting straight to it. 

“Papers?” he seems confused at the idea. 

“Yeah, I left a contract here, it was a small stack and had notes in the margin and tabs, but now it’s gone.” you say, starting to feel yourself grow desperate. 

Nicholas thinks for a moment, clearly unsure of what exact you’re talking about. How could that be though? He’s the only other person who could know what happened to it. 

“Hmm, let me see, I came to get cereal, got the milk out the fridge, then I hit my elbow, ate the cereal and after that I took out the trash since it’s trash day- oh no.” you look at each other in horror, then to the empty trash can beside the counter, brains putting in the missing pieces.

“Oh my god.” you breathe out. Then it hits you for real. “It’s trash day!” you exclaim, feet already moving of their own accord. You had to find that contract before it got taken away. 

“Don’t you have a copy?” Nicholas calls out, razor discarded while he stayed on your heels. 

“No! I told you, there was notes in the margin, and they’re super important and I have to have it with me today.” you were practically running down the corridor after you’d exited your apartment.

The two of you reached the elevator and you pressed the button, anxiety starting to make you sweat. 

“No time, stairs!” You announce, head spinning already, and turn when the elevator doesn’t come. You take two steps but Nicholas grabs your wrist to stop you.

“Are you crazy? We live on the tenth floor!” he snaps, holding you hostage. Before you can rebut, the elevator dings and the door opens. “See? C’mon!” you let him drag you in there, almost jumping out of your skin when you see your reflections in the mirror pane opposite the door.

Your hair was flying in all different directions, half of it styled, the other forgotten, while Nicholas paled as he swiped at the remaining cream on his face with a hoodie sleeve. 

“Just so we know what we’re dealing with here, hypothetically, if you didn’t have this contract…?” he says, trailing off. 

“The world won’t end but I may as well walk in there wearing a rainbow wig and a big, red clown nose and kiss this deal goodbye.” you describe. “Then I’ll have to answer to my parents, board of directors, and the entire department will be on my ass by the end of lunch because ‘nepo baby’ managed to fuck up the one job she had.” 

“They call you that?” Nicholas asks. You look away, counting down with the numbers of the floors that go by.

“Yeah, they do. Even though I have to work hard like them, it is my parents’ company. They’re right though, I’m not even sure what I’m capable of if it wasn’t for my parents making me work there.” you hated that you’d gotten to this subject, especially right now. 

“You still worked hard though, getting to where you are tod-”

“C’mon!” you ignore what he’s saying when the elevator finally dings as it got to the first floor and you drag Nicholas out as soon as the door opens.

You race toward the garbage storage space, heart thumping loudly; if Nicholas could just remember where he left the bag, in which container -

You open the door and find the garbage collectors already on the scene, rolling the large metal containers toward the street, where their truck was waiting. 

“Where did you throw it?” you ask desperately, looking around and seeing that some of the containers hadn’t left the premises yet. Nicholas looks like he’s about to faint. 

He doesn’t say anything but points in the general direction of the containers that are already sitting near the truck. You gulp thickly, realising what that meant. Somehow, it doesn’t disgust you and you act without thinking. 

“Excuse me!” you call out, trying to get one of the men’s attention. “Hi, sorry to bother you, but is it okay if we have a look at the trash? We threw away something important and it might still be around.”

The man hears you, turning around, giving you a once over, most definitely confused at your request. He considers it for a moment, then shrugs. 

“Knock yourself out.” he says. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Nicholas asks you as you drag him toward the containers. “Tell me we are not dumpster diving.” 

“Oh, but we are, roomie, we are.” you hum. He stands still in shock. You throw open the first container and flinch at the explosion of smell coming from the numerous black trash bags. 

“Are you deranged or something?” Nicholas shrieks when the smell hits his nose. 

“Listen, here:” you whip around to glare at him. “I am getting to that meeting with my contract, if it’s the last thing I’ll ever do. Now, dig, gremlin, dig!” you say through gritted teeth, turning back to the container. 

“You know what, don’t answer that. You must be.” he corrects when he sees you grab hold of the side, step up with your leg, and pull yourself up so you can reach inside the container. 

Now, normally you’d be so grossed out that you might have thrown up by now, but seeing as you could envision the embarrassment, tirade of disappointed faces of your parents, and sneering jeers of your colleagues, you started feeling up the trash bags without a second thought. You were going to worry about everything else later. 

Desperation makes even the most cowardly of dogs brave.

“What are you waiting for?” you bark back at Nicholas, who was just standing behind you, blinking dumbly. “Get in there and start looking!” you instruct. That seems to do it and Nicholas rushes over to the side of the adjacent container and flings it open, gagging at the smell but obediently rummaging around the bags.

There’s a tense minute while you try and feel your way through the container, looking for anything that might indicate paper on the inside, but you’re struggling to find anything. 

“Y’know,” you vaguely hear Nicholas grunt as he feels up a garbage bag. “I was just starting to like you but nevermind, I think I hate you.” he says as he squeamishly pushes away yet another bag. 

His comment doesn’t make you stop but it strikes a nerve. You knew he was probably talking shit because the two of you were practically knee and elbow deep in trash - in a reversed situation, you would too - but you were a little mad at him for not being more careful in the kitchen, and worse at yourself for ever leaving anything in there in the first place.  

“Trust me, the feeling is mutual.” you reply, just as huffy as him. 

You keep digging but find nothing, your world suddenly becoming bleaker and bleaker. You had already decided to call in late for work and try to remedy the situation before the big meeting later in the day. You could think of some of the stuff that was written, but you’d lost some of the most important details. Not to mention your concentration and preparation had all been flushed down the drain.  

“Hey, we’re going to have to get going now.” you hear the garbage man say behind you. You glance over your shoulder and he seems like he couldn’t care less about your situation.

“Yes, right, sorry. Just a second.” you plead, desperately reaching into the container in vain.

“We’re already behind schedule, ma’am, I’m going to need you to step away from the trash.” he replies. You realise you’re being a nuisance but you can’t help it.

“YN, c’mon, just give up, we can’t find it.” Nicholas materialises next to your container. He sounds tired and hopeless, just as you feel. 

“But…I,” you attempt, heart sinking. You know they’re right, you need to go. 

“C’mon,” Nicholas steps up to the container and holds out a hand to help you get down. Your shoulders slump but you let him pull you to the edge and practically lift you out of the dumpster, his strong arms wrapped around your waist as he guides your feet to the ground again. “Sorry for the trouble.” he mumbles to the garbage man. 

You’re too numb to say anything so you just sort of nod politely at him as Nicholas steers you away and back into the building.  

“Ugh, I stink so bad.” he groans, voice cracking. You wait for the elevator and when it comes, your neighbours file out, doing a disturbed double take at the sight and smell of the two of you. You don’t care about keeping up appearances right now, your dejection running too deep. 

What were you supposed to do now?

After a moment of silence when you get into the elevator, you feel Nicholas look at you, hesitating at probably how hostile you must look right now. You were fuming, mostly at yourself. 

“I’m sorry.” he says gently. “I really am.” 

You soften ever so slightly but can’t help the tenseness in your voice. 

“‘Sorry’ doesn’t bring back the notes, but thanks for trying to find them.” you say curtly, coldly even. You know it was an accident but it still made a mess. “I’ll make do with what I have.” 

You get back to your apartment, Nicholas heading straight to the bathroom but you stop him. 

“The smell won’t come out with water.” you warn.

“Then what do you propose?” he asks, genuinely curious. 

“Vinegar.” you state. “We’ll dilute some with water since it might be too strong and clean the smell off before showering.” It was an old home trick for getting rid of smells; vinegar was practically a miracle worker. 

And you do.

Armed with a cloth each, you stand in your bathroom trying to scrub yourselves clean from the essence of trash that crawled on your skin. It had permeated your clothes so those had gone straight into the washer, leaving you in your underwear. 

“Can you get my back?” you ask Nicholas, when your arms fall short of reaching behind you with the cloth. 

“Sure.” then his hands are in your hair, moving it to sit over your shoulder, while one rests there to stop it from moving back into the line of vinegar. He swipes the cloth over your skin, quickly reaching from the waistband of your underwear to your shoulder where he lingers. “You’re so tense, jeez.”

“Whatever, just keep go-” he doesn’t give you warning before starting to massage your shoulders.

You groan out loud as he teases out a knot in the muscle immediately. There’s a flush of embarrassment in your cheeks at the noise that just escaped your lips but Nicholas doesn’t seem to care as he keeps kneading your shoulders with his large hands. You contain most of your noises but a few quiet sighs leave your mouth as he works your shoulders.

“Can I move these?” he asks, tapping on your bra straps. Your brain has already shut down so you just nod.  

It was unexpected and even though your first instinct was to stop him and tell him to quit it, your body had its own opinion on the matter, shutting your mouth and relaxing under his touch as he slipped the straps off your shoulders. 

Your eyes flutter closed at one point, your body swaying in the direction that your husband applied some pressure to your back. You could feel the heat of his body next to yours, the warmth of his hands on your skin as he massaged your shoulders. 

“Feel better?” he muttered, mouth but a few inches from your ear, as he finished up.

“Much, thanks.” you sigh, coming back to reality. You do feel a little more warm in your cheeks than you should but you show no reaction. You reach for your straps but Nicholas beats you to it, sliding them back up your arms softly, his fingers grazing your skin and leaving a trail of goosebumps. 

“Okay, now shower before you kill someone with that hair.” he chuckles, lightening up the mood. 

“What about you?” you turn to look at him. He shrugs, the bulk of his bare shoulders rising and falling.

“I have nowhere to be, don’t worry about me. Just get that smell out of your hair.” he instructs before vacating the bathroom. You’re left staring after him. 

You’d been mad at him just a smidge about the contract but he’d managed to ease his way back into your good graces with an apology and a massage. You guess it made sense; Nicholas was your friend now, and if any of your other friends did the same thing, sure you’d be a little mad but you’d forgive just as easily.

But there was something about the way none of your other friends would have done what he did, touch you like he did, stand close like he did. 

You banish the thought and scramble into the shower, aware of the ticking of the clock before your meeting. 

*  

You wondered why you’d agreed to come to family dinner at your house alone on Friday night. You should have really dragged Nicholas there so he could suffer with you, although of course, the hope was that with his presence, your parents would lay off you and focus on him, their precious, angelic son-in-law. 

He had let you know he’d made plans with the guys and offered you an alternate to family dinning, which you’d regretfully declined because you knew that your mother would never just let it go and would instead invite you to several consecutive family dinners and/or events to make up for the loss. 

You really were better sacrificing yourself for one evening than signing yourself up for a plethora of others.  

Regardless, you should have known better than to hope this would be a marginally pleasant evening. Without Nicholas there, your parents, mainly your mother, had taken to grilling you over entrées. And the main course. And you predicted dessert.  

“Are you being good to Nicholas?” your mother asks. “Have you been cooking and cleaning enough around the apartment?” she continues without pause. 

“Yes, mother.” you say. You weren’t lying, it’s just that you had an agreement to share everything fair and square with Nicholas, including all the chores, bills (mortgage too, naturally) and other expenses. 

“Are you sure?” she continues. “He’s got no reason to be mad at you, has he?” she inquires, her eyes unnaturally wide.

“No, mom, he doesn’t.” you say, regretting your decision to drive because now you couldn’t at least drown out some of the nagging with alcohol. 

“Then why didn’t he come along for dinner? You invited him, didn’t you?” 

You almost roll your eyes but hold back because she’s watching you. If she looked away more often, you’d probably get a headache from rolling your eyes. (Growing up under her roof, it had been the most common cause of your headaches. That and tension headaches.) 

“Yes, of course I did, but he made plans way before so he couldn’t cancel.” you explain for the tenth time. 

“Well alright then, I suppose.” your mother concludes. 

Finally, you think. 

The whole scene was eerily starting to resemble an episode of Gilmore Girls and you were in the role of Lorelai, fending off your mother.

She was practically treating you like devil spawn and Nicholas as if he was their own son and you had stolen him away and trapped him into a heinous marriage. You half wondered if you had dinner alone with the Wangs, was that how they’d treat you too? You could only guess they weren’t incredibly fond of you either from the way you’d initially refused to marry their perfect son. Clearly, parents, your own or other people’s, didn’t seem to like you very much.  

Your father and Maki were also at the dinner table, minding their food, and possibly fearing for their lives. You knew what they were like; if they were chewing, their ears seemed to close off. 

By the time you got to the main dishes, you’d fielded questions about Nicholas from your mother, and the apartment, but also work questions from your father, which you skilfully managed to not go into any detail on, lest he pick up on something being wrong at work. 

Maki helpfully tried to steer the conversation away too, asking random questions about the company, which your father was more than happy to answer because his youngest was taking an interest in the family business. You were grateful to Maki but you worried this might give your parents the green light into throwing him in there with you. 

Your father was plenty capable.  

He’d probably also hear about how your meeting had gone in the office - there’d been a lot of back and forth (which you’d instigated) to avoid getting to anything too serious while you still hadn’t recovered details of the contract you’d lost.

It had resulted in scheduling another meeting some time later, giving both parties time to reconvene and finalise their sides of the deal. 

By the time you finished the main course, your mouth was dry from all the bullshitting you had to do. As soon as you finish your portion of dessert, you figure it’s time to jet. 

“So, I should get going and go home, y’know, to the husband you picked out for me.” you start only half-sarcastically. “Thanks for the dinner,” and the shakedown, you think. “could I take some dessert for your beloved son-in-law? He likes this kind of thing.”

“Well, YN, I’m glad you’ve learned what he likes.” your mother says. You wait for her to finish her sentence before having any hope of even a tiny compliment. “You may take some home, but next time just bring him here for dinner, instead of taking home scraps and left overs, it’s embarrassing. As if you can’t afford a full meal.”

“Mom, I told you, he really had plans and I did beg him to come.” you fib, hoping it sells. 

“Alright, alright, I believe you.” she concedes. “But you shouldn’t beg your husband for things either, it sets for an awkward relationship and it’s embarrassing.” she continues. 

You should have known something mildly positive would be followed up in this manner. You sigh and wait for the house keeper to bring you a box for the dessert. 

You get up and get your things by the door, then hug Maki goodbye and ruffle his hair, whispering a quick “Hang in there, kiddo.” to which he just looks at you blankly, dimples popping. You felt bad leaving him there with the hyenas (your mother). “You poor thing.” you lament, patting his arm, as you put on your shoes.      

“Drive carefully,” your mother says after you say your goodbyes. “and don’t forget you have that charity event in a couple of weeks. You have to go with Nicholas.”

“Yes, I know. You told me several times already. It’s in my calendar.” you take the box of dessert and open the door. “Goodnight.” you call and leave before anyone can say anything more. 

As soon as you get inside your car, you let out a frustrated grunt, hitting your steering wheel with the palms of your hands, releasing a sound that would compete with wild animals. You just needed to get that out of your system because there was only so much pent up frustration you could take.

Once you calm down, you start the engine and go on your way. The dessert sits in the passenger seat as you precious cargo as you drive through the night, windows down, playing some songs you’d curated specifically for after family dinners. 

You sing along because the roads are empty and no one’s around to hear you sing like a strangled cat. It’s the exact catharsis you needed, expelling all that energy while the moon hangs full in the sky, so you’re in an improved mood by the time you walk through your front door. 

After you kick off your shoes, you go to the kitchen, slippers smacking loudly against the floor as you walk. The sound of your arrival must have alerted Nicholas because he appears while you’re getting a glass of water after depositing the dessert in the fridge. 

“You’re back earlier than I thought.” you observe, putting the glass down with a ‘click’ on the counter.   

“Yeah, the thing with he guys didn’t last as long as we thought so I came back early.” he explains, plopping down to sit at the counter. “How was dinner? You seem disgruntled.”

“Excellent observation.” you frown, thinking of the best word to describe the ordeal. “It was rather disagreeable.” you attempt. 

“Oh? That is most unfortunate, Mrs Wang. Something happen in particular?” he listens attentively. 

“Your mother-in-law says hello and sends her regards. Need I say more?” you raise your eyebrows at him. He’s wearing a loose grey t-shirt and looks sleepy already, which you note is odd because if you had learned anything about your husband, is that he was, by personal preference, nocturnal. 

“Ah, lovely.” he nods in understanding. “Sorry, I let you fly solo.”

“I wasn’t totally alone, Maki was there, but he can only say so much.” you say. “Anyways, I got you something.” you remember to bring out the dessert from the fridge again.

“Ooh, what’s that?” Nicholas perks up at the sight of the box. You almost laugh at his sudden rejuvenation.

“Dessert. The one with the strawberry sorbet.” you hum smugly when his eyes light up. 

“Wah, that’s great. Is it my birthday?” he smiles as you open the box and offer him a spoon. He seems to change his mind in a split second and his face falls, suddenly becoming serious. “Are you trying to poison me?” he interrogates, face full of suspicion.

You tilt your head sarcastically. “Totally. Tis part of my elaborate scheme to become a young widow.” you deadpan and start to take away the spoon but Nicholas stops you and accepts it. “Trust me - if I was going to poison you, you wouldn’t know about it.” you add, gulping down the rest of your water. 

“Well, that’s reassuring.” he hums while looking at the contents of the box.

“Bon appetit!” you give him a toothy smile and breeze past him. 

*

To say that mornings with Nicholas were a pain, would be a gross understatement. 

From what you’re seen on your honeymoon, your husband was most certainly not a morning person, but you had yet to see in detail just how grizzly the situation could get.

It was kind of ironic because Nicholas was a well put together guy; he knew what he was doing, worked hard at it and did it without a fuss. He seemed like the ultimate catch - young, rich, tall, handsome (others would say sexy too and you would agree, objectively only of course), funny, smart, polite, respectful, well mannered - but of course, nobody’s perfect and it didn’t take a genius to work out that mornings were Nicholas’ weakness.  

For the most part so far, the two of you had differing schedules and you barely ran into each other in the mornings, mostly taking turns in the bathroom if anything and giving each other a heads up if you were particularly in a hurry that day or the next day or whenever. 

Today however, you had a meeting of the boards of directors for your two companies. It was mostly oversight for the progression of the merger and a chance to hear from the heads of the companies to brief you on the vision for how the merger should go. Your and Nicholas’ presence was without a doubt mandatory and possibly even the highlight since everyone would be talking about you two. 

You woke up like clock work, a couple minutes before your alarm and stretched out like a cat before getting up to hunt for coffee (your cavemen ancestors would be shocked). You walked past Nicholas’ room and heard his alarm going off, relieved that supposedly he’s awake. 

Supposedly. 

The coffee machine whirs quietly as you prepare two cups since you figured Nicholas would want coffee too, but you don’t hear his door opening or in fact, any noise from his room. You pad over to the corridor to listen out and pick up the sound of a second alarm. It sounds promising so you don’t think too much of it and go back to drink your coffee.

It’s been ten minutes when you decide that something is wrong with Nicholas. 

You leave your half drunk coffee and his untouched one on the counter and go knock on his door.

“Yo, Nico, you awake?” you call out. You strain your ears to hear a response, leaning onto the door itself. You hear an unmistakeable groan. “I know you’re alive and in there, now get up!” you shout, hoping the louder the message, the more likely it is to get through to him. 

You leave to finish your coffee but when he still doesn’t get up, you roll your eyes and stack your cup on the pile of dirty dishes waiting to be put into the dish washer. 

“That’s it.” you mutter, determined to make him shift. You fill a glass with cold water, stopping by the freezer for ice and then make your way back to Nicholas’ room. 

You were starting to worry that you were going to be late for that stupid meeting since it was already a quarter to eight.   

You bang on his door almost violently. “Wang Yixiang, get your dumb ass up or else!” you call to another groan of what sounds like ‘go away’. Your blood pressure spikes and you snap. “I warned you, I’m coming in.” 

And you yank the door handle and enter the room. 

You find Nicholas in just pyjama pants, sprawled face first in his bed, blankets and sheets tangled up like a war zone while he hugs an extra pillow and a wolf plushie sits on the opposite side of the bed against the headboard. His hair is a mess and splays all over his face and pillow as he still dozes despite your loud attempts at intervening. 

You hesitate for a second because he looks so peaceful, then you remember that you have somewhere to be.  

“This is a warning shot.” you say and dip your fingers into the water to grab hold of an ice cube.

You launch the ice cube unceremoniously and it plops onto Nicholas’ bare back. He jolts at the contact and a low moan sounds from the back of his throat. Your eyes widen as you feel a wave of queasiness wash over your lower abdomen. 

What the fuck did you just do? Did you press the wrong button? Is he malfunctioning? Does he need to go for an MOT check like a car? 

The noise sent you reeling and you wanted to run away but the ice cube did nothing. It just sort of slid off of his back and he shuffled a little, getting comfortable again. You sigh and nod to yourself. You hoped it wouldn’t need to come to this.

“Right.” you say. Without another moment to lose, you hold out the glass over Nicholas’ bare torso and tip your wrist so the water comes spilling out.

The water splashes all over his back and it sends Nicholas flying up with a piercing screech. 

“What was that for!” he yelps, shaking off the water off his back and reaching for a blanket to wipe it off. You would stay to have a full conversation about this, but you’re already on your way out. 

“You’re late.” you chastise. “And if you’re late, then I’m late. Now get up or I’ll come back with a bucket.” you warn as you sweep out of the premises.

“You know you’re meaner in the mornings!” he calls out after you. 

“Thanks!” you reply over your shoulder. 

Needless to say, you usher Nicholas into your car ten minutes later, him almost dressed as he finishes buttoning up his shirt and does his tie in the car, then styles his hair in the passenger seat using your overhead mirror. You try your best to avoid a pothole but manage to run straight over it by accident. Your car jolts and Nicholas groans in frustration when his hair swishes in a different direction. 

“You couldn’t let us be fashionably late.” he mutters. 

“I’m never late. Fashionably or otherwise.” you inform him. “Get used to it, hubby; you roll with me now.” you say as you manoeuvre the steering wheel. 

“Alright, got it, Sergeant.” Nicholas holds up a hand as if swearing an oath.

“Next meeting, we might even make it on time.” you sass back as you pull up to work and exhale. 

This was going to be a long day. 

*

Before you could blink, it was the last day of the calendar quarter and you were dreading it because it’s the day that you and your uncle gather to have coffee and talk about work, less in a boss and employee way and more of an uncle-niece thing. It was the first time you’d ever felt apprehensive to talk to your uncle since he’d had a part to play in your arranged marriage and you were still disappointed in him.  

You’d always been closer to your uncle than your parents as far as you could remember. Probably because he didn’t keep you on a leash and command you around but respected your independence. He’d even tried to stop you from going to law school unless it was definitely what you wanted. You had no idea why he’d done that at the time (you were still in high school), but after a few years, you now appreciated the gesture.

Now, you weren’t so sure what he was going to be like after letting your parents push you to Nicholas. You still remembered his face that day; impassive as if he didn’t care about you at all. There was a still a lingering feeling of betrayal when you thought about what your uncle had done.

You took your normal route to company rooftop, your coffee mug hot in your hand as you made your way outside. 

Your uncle was waiting at your usual table, the tiny one at the end of the row closest to the edge of the rooftop balcony. From there, you could see out to the city and watch the sun set. It was just after work hours officially ended so the cafe at your company had closed already but you each bought a mug from your offices and sat down.

You walk up to the table as briskly as your coffee would allow you and sit down in the empty chair. 

“Hi, uncle.” you attempt. He half-smiles, his fond demeanour unchanged as always. 

“Hello, YN.” he replies. “Are you ready for a chat?” 

The question hangs in the air, for some reason, you feel it entails more than your usual this and that about work. 

“Sure.” you say, cautious. 

You end up telling him about some of the finalised negotiations you made this quarter and catching him up on some of the cases you’d been assigned. After a while, it feels natural and you confess that you’d messed up a little with that contract but you don’t tell him it involved Nicholas.

In fact, you don’t mention Nicholas at all and try to move on as if there was no massive elephant in the room. It’s definitely starting to annoy you, skirting around the subject but you try to stay steadfast despite how it irks you.  

Your uncle figures it out anyway. 

“Something bothering you, dear?” he asks, voice totally unintrusive.

“Not really,” you lie, but your eyes shift to your half-drunk coffee. Your uncle sighs and puts his mug down.

“Listen, YN, I’m not a fool, we should talk about it.” he says. “I know you’re probably displeased with me for pairing you up with Nicholas, but you’ll just have to find it in your heart to accept it.” he continues. “I am not expecting your forgiveness, although I would be relieved to hear it. What was done was for your own good. I hope one day you’ll be able to see that.”

It hurts to hear the same rhetoric from your uncle as it came from your parents; the whole ‘for-your-own-good’ thing made you want to pull your hair out, yet you realise that coming from him, it feels all the more painful. 

“I understand that you’ll keep giving me a cold shoulder and I’m okay with it, I suppose, but I need you to remember that everything is temporary.” he meets your eyes. You sense something odd for a moment when he says that, but you don’t react. “Besides, you might even end up liking Nicholas, he’s a good boy.” 

That seems to spur you into action.

“Uncle, it’s not about that.” you reply adamantly. “Nicholas is great, he’s really not the problem. The problem is that you still let my parents dictate such a huge decision in my life - I trusted you to not do such a thing. You’re better than that.” 

Your uncle pauses for a moment. “You agreed eventually, didn’t you?” he asks simply. 

“Well yes, but it was because I was scared they’d do something to Maki. You know they would pick on him if it wasn’t for me.” you argue. 

“YN, your parents are complicated people, but they’re not quite as evil as you believe them to be.” your uncle says gently, the way you try to talk to little kids and rationalise a situation which they find stupid (and usually have a right to find as such).  

“Well, you’re related to one of them, you kind of have to say that.” you remind him, rejecting his philosophy.  

“I’m saying it because it’s true. Try to understand them a little more. Alright?” he pleads. 

You look at your uncle and see that he’s trying - he’s trying to be the bridge in this family and you have to give him something to work with. 

You nod reluctantly, not because you agree with him or want to understand your parents, but because you wanted to go easy on him for the sake of not creating issues in your family as a whole. Sometimes you couldn’t have compromises and you needed to be more patient and the bigger person. 

You knew where he was coming from; of course people are complicated and do things for complicated reasons, including hurting their loved ones. You believed that it was possible that it could be true they weren’t so bad but also true that some people just weren’t nice, weren’t kind, weren’t understanding by nature. 

In that line of thought, it wasn’t even about the specificity of your situation. It was that you knew there’s truly nothing completely black and white in the world - your relationship with your parents had always been full of greys, differing shades of blurriness contorting your feelings towards them for your whole life. 

You put the topic down quietly and resumed chatting about this and that, the whole thing weighing you down just a bit before you concluded and bid your uncle goodbye, going home immediately after that, although you’d planned to stay longer. 

“Fuck overtime.” you hum as you get into your car. 

The rest of your evening is fairly quiet, you cook dinner for yourself after Nicholas sends you a text about a haphazard night out with his friends and to not wait up for him. It’s completely fine by you since you really needed some time alone to stew about everything; your conversation with your uncle had sent you spiralling.

Were you being unreasonable? Should you be less angry at your parents for setting you up with Nicholas? You’d meant it when you said he was great, not that you’d say that to his face ever and watch it become smug and delighted. 

The thought passes as quickly and fleetingly as it had come. You were dead set in your bones to resent your parents because what they did was wrong - it was about your autonomy as a person and they’d violated that on some level. You acknowledged your agreement only to the point of technicality - yes, you’d gone through with it willingly despite hating the situation. 

That was then. Now it was a couple of months later and the extremity of the feelings had died down and you were occasionally forgetting their misdeeds, so your meeting with your uncle had served as a reminder that you shouldn’t forget or really forgive it just because nothing awful had happened. Or at least yet (you knew nobody was insured about anything).  

It gets late around midnight before you hear your front door unlocking.

You were just sitting on the couch, watching TV, a rarity in your busy life, when you hear several sets of footsteps stumbling into the house. There’s hushed voices shushing after a particularly loud noise. 

“Nicholas?” you call out, switching off the screen and getting up to check out the situation. 

“Honey, I’m home!” Nicholas yells loudly before even seeing you. The tone is shrill and very alarming and makes you freak out immediately.

In the hallway you find a quartet of men, your husband amongst his friends, the fire brigade. Nicholas is standing- no- leaning on Kei, clearly out of his mind, as well as a complementary identical Euijoo and Fuma, the latter supporting the former in his arms. Their clothes all seem to have the marks of some drizzle and you deduce that it must be raining outside.

You make a face, taking in the scene. “What the fuck is wrong with him?” you ask generally to the presumably slightly sober parties, already knowing the answer. There are a couple of guilty looks exchanged between Kei and Fuma.

“He’s drunk.” Kei admits sheepishly. 

“I figured, how bad is it?” you ask. 

“Baby, what are you talking about?” Nicholas interjects, eyes glazed over as he leans his head on Kei’s shoulder. “I feel great!” he grins. There’s a wildness in his eyes that makes you worry. You don’t even spare a thought on the name calling.  

“He had a bit.” Fuma offers but he seems uneasy to elaborate. 

“How much is ‘a bit’?” you push for details, sceptical.

“A glass.” Kei says. 

“Of what?” 

“Tea.”

“What kind of tea?” you interrogate, already knowing the answer.

“Long island ice tea.” Kei mumbles, lowering his eyes to the floor. 

“You let him drink what!” you exclaim, outraged. “Of all the things you could have had, how on Earth did Nicholas end up having a cocktail with four types of alcohol in it?” you shriek.  

You look at Nicholas, who has been clinging to Kei, hanging off him like a little koala. Euijoo cringes at the volume of your voice as he seems to doze off on Fuma’s shoulder.

“We’re sorry. It was kind of an accident.” Fuma says, clearly ashamed. 

You had never drunk with Nicholas before, save for the tiny bit of wine at his parents’ and the sip of champagne at your wedding, so this was a serious shock. Was your husband a serious lightweight? Did you even know him? Clearly you had only scratched the surface of Nicholas trivia if this had never come up till now. 

“Yeah, he’s not really built for alcohol.” Kei says apologetically. 

“But it’s okay, we’ll take care of him, and Euijoo.” Fuma adds quickly.

You look at the way Euijoo is basically sleeping in Fuma’s arms, surprised that Fuma can hold him up so well when Euijoo is a few inches taller. Kei on the other hand seems to be struggling with Nicholas’ affection - while you were talking, there was an attempted piggy back that Kei had to gently fend off. On closer surveillance, Nicholas seemed to be a clingy drunk with a bad case of grabby hands.  

“No, it’s fine.” you find yourself saying. “I’ll take care of him, I did marry this mess. He’s my responsibility now.” you tell the elder two. You couldn’t imagine the ruckus they would collectively make so you decided it was better that you just take over. 

Kei’s eyes light up in gratitude while Fuma seems even more guilty while cradling Euijoo’s head to his shoulder. 

“Are you sure?” Fuma asks, his voice full of concern. You nod reassuringly.

“You guys can go, I’ll make sure he’s okay.” you insist. Despite meeting them for the third time today, you most certainly were strangers and you didn’t really want them hanging around your house, even if they were Nicholas’ friends. 

“You’re a badass, YN, thanks.” Kei gushes while guiding, more like carrying, Nicholas to the couch. You give him a nod of acknowledgement while standing between the hallway and living room. 

Euijoo seems to stir, clearly having some kind of sonar or telepathy or something because as soon as Nicholas is a few feet away, his eyes open and he looks around as if he lost something.

“Noooo,” Euijoo whines, trying to follow. “don’t take my bestie away…” his attempt is curtailed by Fuma, who pats his back gently. 

“Nico’s home, Joojoo, don’t worry about it. You’ll see him tomorrow.” Fuma explains. “Sorry about this, YN.” he says to you when Kei comes back. Euijoo seems dissatisfied with the current chain of events but pouts about it quietly. 

“Right, he’s all yours.” Kei says before going to stand on Euijoo’s other side and take some of his weight off Fuma. “Let’s get you home, buddy.” he puts one of his arms around his shoulder and the three of them start to make for the door. 

You open it helpfully and stand aside, letting the two older men half-carry, half-drag Euijoo away. 

“Thanks for bringing Nico home in one piece.” you say as you bid them goodbye. 

“Good luck.” Fuma gives you a ‘fighting’ gesture with his closed fist in solidarity.

“Thanks, I think I’m going to need it.” you bid them goodbye and close the door, bracing yourself for what lay ahead. 

In the living room, Nicholas has managed to stay where Kei left him, splayed all over the couch like a pancake, staring upwards. You round the couch and assess the situation; he’s very much out of it, eyes unfocused and mouth ever so slightly opened as if he was fascinated with the colour of your ceiling.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” you begin. You decide to get some water and painkillers for the inevitable hangover he’s going to get in a few hours. 

There’s a moment of silence while Nicholas shuffles, sitting up but still leaning into the shape of the back of the couch. He seems to register you talking to him, which by the time you stand in front of him with the glass of water, makes him animate suddenly, his body switching gear. 

“YN!” he says, as if shocked. 

“Yes?” you offer him the glass but he doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Let’s go dance outside!” he exclaims, his face bright with excitement. He starts to get up but seemingly feels dizzy since he flops back down on the couch, clutching his head. You blink at him, unable to understand the thought process. The request was neither here nor there, really. 

“We can’t.” you say simply. “It’s raining. See?” you point toward the window where the drizzle seems to have escalated and the drops are sliding down the glass. 

“Yeah, well it rains inside too.” he mumbles when you put his suggestion down.

“Y’know, I’m not sure it does.” you hum, amused at the comment while you place the glass on the coffee table. 

“But the shower,” he insists. “it’s inside rain.” he says. You purse your lips, biting back a laugh at how convinced Nicholas seems that the shower is really rain. 

“Okay, alright.” you say, nodding to yourself. “Let’s get you to bed, you need to sleep this off.” you start to lean down to take hold of his arm.

“I don’t want to sleep.” he whines immediately. Instead, he takes hold of your arm and looks up at you with big eyes. “I’m hungry.” he pouts. 

“Okay, what do you want to eat? I’ll make it for you.”

“You will?” his eyes light up with delight. “I’ll eat anything you make.” 

The way that alcohol seems to keep its chokehold on Nicholas suggests to you that you should probably opt for something that will ease the problems that would follow.

“Hangover soup it is.” you state, trying to shake Nicholas off so you can get to the kitchen. 

When he doesn’t let go, you sigh and tug him up by the hands so he stands up. You help him stumble across the room to the kitchen part and sit him down at the counter where he slumps immediately and rests on his crossed arms, looking up at you, the dopey look resting on his face. 

You start to gather the ingredients, which thankfully your fridge contained because you’d been shopping yesterday, but that’s when the babbling starts. 

Nicholas seems to have found some new energy because once his mouth opens, it doesn’t seem to close. 

“Is that beef? Oh my god, it is, I love beef. Are you going to cook the beef? ‘Cause I know this killer recipe for a beef stew and you just have to try it. I used to have it as a kid but my parents never made it for me, it was always this nanny I had and she was awesome. I really miss auntie, YN, I really miss her. She was the best. Are you going to make the beef like she did? Maybe you can get the recipe from her, oh! You should meet her, she’d love you!” and as much as you wanted to listen to everything, your brain sort of switched off when he got on another tirade as you started slicing the cabbage and other veggies for the soup. 

He starts to run out of steam by the time you get to putting the sauce you prepared on the beef and the cabbage and he just sort of leans on the counter, face in the palm of his hands and watches you. 

Then comes more absurdity. 

Nicholas giggles distinctly and smiles to himself. 

You only react out of concern, putting the lid on the pot. “What is it?” you ask. 

He shakes his head bashfully and doesn’t say anything but continues smiling. 

“Fine, don’t tell me.” you mutter, putting the broth to the beef and adding the cabbage. You’re starting to feel a little paranoid; was he laughing about your cooking? You knew you weren’t a Michelin chef, or even as good as he was in the kitchen, but you weren’t that bad, right? 

“Hmm, I’m happy.” he says, fingers squishing his own cheeks. 

The statement takes you by surprise. 

“You’re drunk.” you correct, unsure what to make of it. 

“Don’t you wanna know why I’m happy?” he leans forward, as if trying to get your attention. 

You shrug on reflex. “Happiness is fleeting and overrated.” (as is alcohol within your system). 

“Boooo! Why are you like this, huh? You’re so cute, you should be happy too!” he insists. You side eye him but let him continue. “My cute wifey should be happy, like me. Let’s be happy together!” he laughs, as if he just solved the world’s problems. 

You stare at him, slightly horrified because a) who the hell was he calling his ‘cute wifey’ ‘cause that sure as hell wasn’t you, and b) how would you be happy together when you were living in a loveless marriage?  

“Nicholas, I don’t-”

“No! Stop it! I won’t hear it, I want everyone to be happy. End of discussion.” he babbles, clapping his hands together once, as if he’s hitting a slate. 

You’re baffled - you’d forgotten what it was like to talk to drunk people.  

You hate the way his words pierce through your thick skin and land somewhere soft where it hurts. You knew he was drunk, but he must be drunker than you thought.

If anything, his declarations made you sad because who knew what the future holds? You didn’t dare fantasise these days, for fear that if you did daydream, everything in your life would fall apart and you really would spend a life time with Nicholas instead of finding the love of your life. Would that bring you the happiness you’ve been brainwashed to expect in life? 

Despite yourself, you held on to the belief that whoever it was, this figurative love of your life person, they were out there and you might still have a chance to find them even if you were or had been married to Nicholas. The thought was a sick and twisted hope as you prepared the soup, quietly hating yourself for thinking it while you were just hanging out with the man that was for the present circumstances, your husband. 

You couldn’t reason with the guilt; its grip was too strong but you were a romantic at heart and nothing that had happened between the two of you had been romantic, at least in your view. Being forced to marry each other wasn’t exactly romantic, was it? 

Your soup is finally ready and you turn off the heat, bringing out a bowl. Nicholas has been lying on the counter, his cheek against the cold surface while he sits in one of the tall chairs surrounding your island. The clang of the lid seems to shake him and he straightens up then stares at you suddenly with a newfound focus. You start to think there’s some dirt on your face. 

“You’re so pretty with your hair like that.” he notes, as if it just occurred to him. You almost spill the soup in your hands as you process the random compliment. You don’t think much of it though, because this is how you wore your hair almost every day so it was definitely some unconscious thought fuelled by that wretched cocktail. 

“Eat up.” you instruct, putting the steaming bowl in front of him. He grins at it, as if it was his first born child. You make a mental note to never bring alcohol in the house. 

“Thanks!” he says happily but instead of digging in, he starts to pat his pockets. 

“What are you looking for?” you ask, sure you were going to have to solve this one. 

“My phone,” he says, searching his pockets to no avail. “but I can’t find it.” 

You sigh heavily and reach to your right, picking up the device and holding it out to Nicholas. It had been sitting on the counter the whole time, but how could you expect his drunk ass to see it?

“Ah! Great.” he says and takes it, holding it up to the bowl. “I have to take a picture, my cute wifey made me a meal.” he giggles. You want to scowl at the new nickname but the goofy way he says it makes it hard for you to fight a smile trying to break through. 

“Watch it or it might be the last meal I make for you.” you warn, no force behind your words. 

You let him eat, just relieved that he’s not saying any more weird things. His battery had run out a while ago so he hadn’t been so bad when he was just resting on the counter. You were already thinking ahead about how you were going to get him to sleep. Drunk people tended to get sleepy after a while so why hadn’t he yet? 

The conundrum bothers you while Nicholas finishes eating. 

“Are you ready to go to bed?” you test the waters tentatively. 

“Nah, I’m not sleepy,” he says while a yawn follows.  

“Oh thank god.” you sigh in relief at the yawn. His brain might be saying he’s not sleepy but his body sure was; you just had to wait for his brain to catch up. 

“What?” he asks. 

“Nothing.” you say quickly. “Well, let’s get you to your room, I won’t make you sleep.” you lie. 

It’s barely a trek to his room but you definitely struggle through the hallway because Nicholas for some reason thinks that he’s the size of a tiny lap dog and you practically carry him to bed. You almost manhandle him to lie down, his body falling limp onto the mattress and you pull the blanket over him before he gets any ideas of getting up. 

“Hang on a sec,” you tell him, going to get the water, painkillers and a bowl in case any of the iced tea or stew makes a reappearance. “Alright, do you need anything before I go?” you ask. 

“There is one thing,” he says after a moment. “come closer.” he says quietly. You worry he might try to snuggle you to death but you indulge him, perching on the edge of his bed. You lean closer, listening. Nicholas looks up at you. “I have to play Mario Kart right now, YN. It’s life or death.” he pleads. 

You straighten up immediately, your blood pressure wavering. 

“Oh, it’s life or death, alright.” you mutter. “Might kill your dumb ass if I ever catch you drinking again.”

That seems to change his mind pretty quickly and you can almost see his non-existent tail curl between his legs.

“Alright, if you need anything, just shout, I’ll leave the doors open.” you tell him. “Goodnight.” you start to get up but he catches your hand before you can step away. 

You’re surprised and think he must have thought of something so you turn, watching him expectantly. 

“Don’t go.” he says in a small voice. It was possibly one of the lowest decibels you had ever heard him talk at. 

“Why? Don’t you want to sleep?” 

“I don’t want to be alone.” he admits quietly. His voice makes something lurch in your chest. You gulp, considering his request.

“Okay, I’ll stay until you fall asleep.” you promise, sitting back down. 

Nicholas nods and cozies up in his blanket, still not letting go of your hand. 

You watch him for a moment; his eyes are closed and his chest is falling and rising steadily as if he’s already asleep but you know better from the python grip of his hand around yours. There’s something peaceful though in his expression despite that, the same tranquillity that had made you hesitate before waking him up some time ago. 

His words echo in your mind and for a second you let your heart break a little because you knew that you were luckier - you had Maki, but Nicholas was the only heir in his family. You were older but you didn’t exactly remember a time that you didn’t have Maki in your life. You wondered what it was like to grow up alone, missing the presence of a sibling.

After a few minutes, Nicholas seems to drift off, his hand loosening but still wrapped around yours. You want to untangle yourself and go but you worry about waking him, so you slide to the floor and sit against the side of the bed instead, predicting that he’d move around in his sleep and you best avoid that or he could wake up from that too. 

What you don’t expect is that you drift off too. 

You wake up in the middle of the night for a second but it’s only to shift around, your brain not registering that you’re sleeping on the floor in someone else’s room. 

The next time you wake up is in the morning, you can tell by the light in the room, but you’re no longer on the floor. You’re lying in a bed, a blanket thrown over you that you’d been snuggling into. You inhale the smell of the pillow and blanket you’re cocooned in and your eyes snap open. 

You forgot this wasn’t your bed.

You flail about with desperation as you sit up and notice that beside you and the cute wolf plushie positioned next to your pillow like a guard dog, Nicholas’ bed is missing its Nicholas. You glance at the clock on the bedside table and do a double take; it’s around eight, on a weekend, and Nicholas was already out of bed? 

“Did the sun rise in the west?” you wonder out loud, flicking off the blanket and getting up. 

When you open the door of his room and pad into the hallway, you can already hear the distant clattering around in the kitchen. You smooth a hand through your hair and make your way there. 

If it wasn’t for the time of day, the image you were seeing wouldn’t be out of the ordinary; Nicholas did spend time in the kitchen cooking too, knowing his way around confidently. Yet, what you were seeing makes you suspicious. 

Nicholas notices you coming and gives you a sheepish greeting. 

“Morning, you hungry?” he asks. 

“Uh,” you let your brain buffer. It felt like a trick question. “I guess.”

“Good, I made breakfast.” he turns back to put the finishing touches on the meal while you sit down at the counter, hesitatingly. 

On closer inspection, he does seem hungover - his movements are a little slow and his slouch is visible unlike his usually good posture, but otherwise, there’s no sign of last night’s drunken Nico. 

You’re presented with a cup of coffee from your machine, just the way you like it, then a plate of fruit cut up and arranged neatly and finally a pretty large stack of pancakes with a little chocolate sauce that spells out ‘sorry :(’. 

“I really am sorry.” Nicholas adds for good measure, twiddling his thumbs opposite you at the counter. 

You can’t help but smile at the pancakes a little because they really were cute.   

“You’re forgiven.” you say. “Just please never consume alcohol ever again, thanks.”

“You got it.” he promises.  

~

more memes!!! chapter 4 edition <3

A/N: thanks for reading, feedback is always appreciated <3 yn finally met the fire brigade! yes i know i didn’t write in taki and harua, that was deliberate, it’s not that i don’t love the babies, it just doesn’t make sense for them to be in this chapter haha, they will appear, i promise. also the vinegar thing is true - it’s good for getting rid of smells, just fyi.

*copyright 2021- © momobani 

[heymeowmao]

2024.05.28 - https://weibo.com/l/wblive/p/show/1022:2321325039099747893642

[WB has AI highlights now?]

bgm: 未完待续 (To Be Continued) (Honor of Kings - Story of Hai Nuo and Doria) by Liu Yuning x Shan Yichun

LYN: Hallo everybody, good evening! Welcome!

C: If I had known you were going to stream I would have prepared some snacks. LYN: I think you’re just a foodie. You still have time to order takeout now. Order something. C: Will you reimburse? LYN: I started streaming, to keep you company, and I still have to treat you to snacks (duck: neck, tongue, intestines)?? What about some soybean skin and fish tofu, while we’re at it? I can’t believe snacks were part of my job, too. This customer service… you really know how to chase stars. LYN: I think you should ask for these funds from wb, not from me. Because you’re currently using wb’s software, so see if you can contact them and if they’ll reimburse you for your snacks.

C: I was halfway through a game of HoK and then came here. LYN: You play your game. Finish the round, before you get reported by the other players for going AFK. It’s not worth it.

LYN: I know it’s Tuesday and pretty sudden- I’m sure none of you thought I would stream today, because I didn’t even know myself. Isn’t that mysterious? I didn’t even think I would stream today. I was filming and then the director told us that we would not be filming the night scenes that were scheduled for later in the day. What does that mean? It means the crew made itself a villain and dumped the night scenes. We’re pushing them back to a later time. It rained in Hengdian last night and we weren’t able to complete yesterday’s scenes, either. Since I’ve been filming nonstop lately and spent a lot of sleepless nights, they wanted me to be able to get a good rest tonight. They were thinking if they let me go early I could eat a nice meal and have a good night’s sleep. Little did they know… I am not resting, and have even come to stream. If they find out that I’m streaming right now, they’re going to think I’m unprofessional. LYN: They gave me a break so that I could get a good sleep and maintain my condition so that tomorrow I could pick up with the grueling- I mean- continue working hard. But I picked up a different job instead. C: Chatting with us IS resting. LYN: Of course. It’s not “resting” but it definitely is “relaxing”. To me, streaming is relaxing. Because I always used to just banter with with my fans. We would mutually roast each other. But now as time has passed and we’ve spent more time in this industry, and- how should I put this…?- experienced the worst of this industry, I’ve finally learned how to control myself just a bit. When we used to roast each other- I say that, but we’re all just joking- I thought it was a fun way to communicate. But now, I don’t dare to be as relaxed as I used to.

bgm: 唯一的回答 (No Matter) - Men in Love OST

LYN: I didn’t think I would be streaming today, but I was released from work early and I don’t know the next time that will ever happen again. The month is almost over- it’s about time for me to stream. C: I was thinking you weren’t going to stream this month. LYN: Me too. I didn’t know this would happen, either. But now that I have the chance, I just want to be able to keep myself busy. Cheers~

C: Chat about KSTLB. LYN: I will. I’ll defnitely talk about the things you want to know. You know that I don’t make any preparations or have any sort of agenda for my streams. Sometimes my colleagues will ask me, “Ning-ge, usually when you stream do you make any preparations or anything?” and I tell them I don’t. A lot of the times what I say is based on whatever you’re typing into the chat. I told them that the joy of streaming is the mutual communication and participation. We can discuss things in real time. If you prepare things in advance and just come here planning to perform, then your stream would not necessarily even be as entertaining as watching a variety show instead. Variety shows have editing; MVs and stage performances require a lot of preparations. Of course a livestream wouldn’t be as entertaining as that. LYN: That’s why, when I stream it’s more loosely flowing. I see what you’re saying in the chat, so that’s what I talk to you about. Of course, that also means I suffer some losses. But it’s okay. I am constantly learning about how to stream, even though I’ve been doing it for about 10 years now. I started in 2014 and now it’s 2024. I’ve been streaming for ten years now and I’m still learning. Truly embodying that saying, “Live until you’re old and learn until you’re old.” You still have to learn. So, I am always learning how to stream. 

LYN: Someone said LYX-laoshi is watching my stream? He’s probably busy and doesn’t have much time to actually WATCH my streams like you do. I’m guessing he scrolled across a clip and thought I was pretty insane- since I’m just spewing nonsense most of the time- and thought I was interesting. It’s nice to be able to have some colleagues in this industry also watch my stream, and I’m happy and honored to be to their liking.

C: I want to see your eyes. LYN: Friends, it’s like this- yesterday I went to get my double eyelids done. My eyes haven’t recovered enough, so I’m wearing these shades to stream. Please don’t mind it, okay? I’ll show you when they’re done healing. People always say that my eyes are small, so I went to get eyelid surgery yesterday.

[t/n: he has the li shiliu eye makeup onnn] C: I don’t mind. I want to see them today. LYN: Oh, how high and mighty! “I don’t mind”?? I don’t care if you do. What can you even do if you DO mind?? “I don’t mind. I want to see them today.” There are a lot of things that you want to see (but never will). First of all, you’re being a little demanding, forcing people to do your bidding. Secondly, if I take off my shades, all you’re going to see id blood and scarring! The blade yesrerday went a little rough, so my eyes are bloody. I’ll scare you to death! C: Which shop’s skills are so lacking? LYN: LOL. Are you going to go report them for me?? Why would you even ask? It’s like this- since I sort of count as a public figure, I can’t just go to the big names and get surgery, because what if someone sees me there and exposes me? They’ll say “LYN went to get cosmetic surgery. He realized his visuals are lacking so he went to get work done.” If that gets exposed it’d be really shameful. So I found a small shop and had the work done. I should still have found a more reputable place…

C: Ning-ge! Have a drink. After you do, your streaming condition will be even better! LYN: … LYN: You think too much. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking. All the little thoughts in your head- do you think I don’t understand them? You saw me have a glass of champagne at the Pomellato event and flush all the way down to my neck. You want to make me drunk, then make me cry. Let go of all my sins. (song lyrics) You want to make me drunk, so that I’m more open and a little bit more deranged? LYN: ! It could be this, too: last time I went to the event, as I was walking I undid a button. Maybe you thought I would lose my caution. “So, it turns out that after Ning-ge drinks, he starts undoing buttons!” That’s why you wanted me to drink a glass, so that I would start undoing buttons. But whether I drink or not, I still can’t undo my buttons!! LYN: What the heck?! /took off the shades/ Drinking- I- LYN: I undid the button because of the clothes- it was a little tight. It’s summer and even though there was air conditioning, after making myself busy and a glass of wine, I got hot. After the event ended I undid a button to save myself from being uncomfortable. I know what you’re thinking! You think I don’t understand??

C: Where’s the blood (about his eyes)? LYN: It’s bleeding isn’t it. Look at all the blood. /touches the makeup/ C: They didn’t do a good job with it. I can’t see a difference. LYN: /laughs/ First, I already told you, it was a small shop with average skills. Secondly, as an artist- maybe I didn’t know before, but now that I’m in this industry I can share some secrets- if you want to get any work done as an artist, it has to be subtle. If you go too big, you’re just asking to be ridiculed online. Even IF I were to get double eyelid surgery, I wouldn’t do the whole thing in one sitting. I’d do it 4-5 times, just a few mm each time. That way there’s a slow change and you can’t really tell. That’s an industry rule. Subtle change.  - C: Didn’t you get double eyelid surgery? I can’t really tell. Did you really do it? LYN: I was talking about my bellybutton*, not my eyelids. [肚脐眼 - “eye’ of the belly] LYN: Just listen for entertainment!! I can’t believe you’re actually considering it. I can’t stand you.

C: Ning-ge, your accent’s a little heavy. LYN: My accent is heavy…? You must not have seen me in too long. It’s my fault, for not streaming. I CAN speak Standard Mandarin, though. LYN: It’s been a long time since I’ve streamed, and usually when I do I use my hometown dialect to make it a more relaxed setting. Maybe the most you’ve seen of me these days is clips from my dramas, and that’s why you think my accent is heavier?

----- Drama - SJYM

C: How did your cameo in SJYM go? LYN: My cameo went fine. Remember- I went to cameo for them. And I also discussed with the producers- “I’ll come to cameo for you, and I don’t particularly care about the name ranking. Just put me at the end, and credit me as, “Supporting actor who shows his face a lot.”” I’m only here to cameo. Friends- in SJYM, I’m really only there to help (in the bg). As long as they credit me as “cameo actor who shows his face a lot: liu yuning” it’s enough for me.

C: Your hoodie is so big! LYN: This isn’t a hoodie, it’s a hat. (song lyrics) Hello, I have a hoodie. (你好, 我有一个帽衫)

C: Was the SJYM armor heavy? LYN: No? It was okay. It was armor, yes, but it wasn’t very heavy. It was hot, though. The weather actually wasn’t that hot yet, but every time they put it on me I would start sweating buckets. It was okay, though. I was thinking, and even asked my staff, “What dramas was I shooting summer of last year??” But thinking back in past years I was shooting the modern dramas in the summer. So in the past two years this is the most recent guzhuang that I’ve shot in the summer at Hengdian. Last year I was shooting um… /can’t remember/. In any case I was never shooting a guzhuang at the hottest time of the year. Cicada Girls and BYOL. This year the heat’s getting to me.

C: Speak English. LYN: How do I know how to speak English?? My English is really bad. 

C: Ning-ge, the sound of the music is too loud. LYN: Oh. Excuse me. I’ll turn it down. // I’ll turn the sound of the mic up and come to a nice equilibrium. 

C: You won’t die in SJYM, will you? LYN: Undetermined. We’ll see how well I get along with the crew as time goes on. If we don’t get along, they’ll make me die. If we do get along, they’ll spare my measly life. C: You can never act as a living person. LYN: Yeah, I’m about ready to start acting in ghost movies. I’ll start acting in horror movies. Out of all the guzhuang dramas I’ve done, for the most part I’ve died in all of them. But of course, it’s because I was acting in supporting roles a lot more before. Who cares if a side character dies? I didn’t feel down about it, because I figured that since I was a support character it didn’t matter too much if I died or not as long as it didn’t delay the main storyline. But then one day I came to act as the main lead- and I still died. Maybe that’s just my fate. 😬

C: Will Li Shiliu take off his mask? LYN: Don’t ask. I haven’t dared to eat much lately. I can’t even eat. I don’t dare to eat any sweets. I’m afraid that I’d get fat. My meal control for this drama has been crazy. In a day, at most I eat two meals and at the least one. What happens if I get hungry? I’ll eat a spring onion with sauce. Maybe some tofu skin or sliced peppers. I don’t dare to gain weight. Why? When I first accepted this drama, I knew that this character would be wearing a mask and I was terrified. Because for anyone who wears a mask, there will definitely be a close-up shot of that mask coming off. LYN: Friends- /sigh/ You get it, right? As long as you wear a mask- it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman, old or young, there will be a shot of that mask coming off. We were shooting and one day I came to the realization, “Are we finally shooting the unmasking scene?” The crew confirmed that yes, the mask would be coming off in the next few scenes. Oh no. Here comes the pressure. I immediately went to my car and grabbed the guasha to scrape my face. I needed to get this blood point in the back, to reduce swelling. I gulped half a cup of coffee. Then I called the makeup artist over and asked them to please touch-up the eye makeup, cover my wrinkles, and draw a slightly longer eyeline so my eyes look bigger. I was flustered. LYN: But to my understanding of this drama, this will not be the only scene where I take off the mask. /sigh/ It’s coming for my life. 

LYN: I only went to “cameo” and I’m already being cursed to death. I don’t think it’s worth it. I’m only cameoing in SJYM, and people are so up in arms about it, but I don’t think it’s worth it to be.

C: Will SJYM be real-time sound? LYN: It should be, but we’ll probably also do a little voiceover after editing. A lot of dramas nowadays cannot accomplish a 100% real-time sound, because the filming conditions are limited. It’s not a closed set, available to just your own people. Sometimes you’ll be recording in one room and there’ll be construction in the next room over. Not actual construction, but because lots of different dramas use the same set, so each crew needs to move and set things how they’re going to use it. It can never be 100% real sound- we use what we can then make up for what we can’t in post. That’s the first thing. Real-time sound has strict requirements for set conditions. Having about 80-90% is already very amazing. For the rest of it, we’ll go into the studio in post to make up for it. Even after all the scenes are shot, there’s still editing, and then there’s going through the censors. After the censors, we receive the drama back with what should be changed. Eventually there are going to be parts that need to be done over in the studio. 

C: Has Daimi acted? LYN: I haven’t and I won’t let her. Not to say that as her acting manager, I am limiting her development. For this artist, I help out as much as I can. For example when I was on KSTLB, I put her pictures up on my wall as a chance for exposure. But I won’t let her act. Because it’s actually really hard for a small dog on a drama set. I won’t let her suffer through that. I’m being serious. It’s really tough for a small dog on set. 

----- KSTLB

C: Ning-ge, why do you have a secret identity in every episode of KSTLB? LYN: You’re right. How many eps have aired, now? Four? I was detective/x for 3 and murderer for 1. “X” for three times in a row- I was truly dumbfounded. You know the feeling- knowing who the murderer is, right from the start? In any case, my game experience the first three episodes sucked. But I was happy! As I said, it’s a sweet burden. A TMD burden. Sweet (tian mi de - 甜蜜的). [t/n: you sure you don’t mean Damned (ta ma de - 他妈的)??? XD]

LYN: I think the show arranged for me to be detective in the first three eps because- I functioned as a way to set an example of how to play the game. They arranged for me and the old players to be detectives, because since there are new players, they wanted us to show the process. It shows the trust they had in me. At least that’s what I think. They wanted me to be able to show the process, because we (LYN/ ZKY/BY) had been in the first season, so we had more experience. Later the new players are the detectives. It’s their problem. Maybe I’m a bit more reliable? That’s what /I/ think. It’s what I tell myself when I’m lying on my bed thinking complicated thoughts- to comfort myself. 

LYN: There were a couple episodes where I wasn’t in the best condition, too. You can tell which they are by how little I talk in them. If I went to record when I was tired, my brain didn’t have enough time to process. Sometimes I had off days.

LYN: A lot of people like to take the scene where I am scared out of my wits to make fun of me. Some of you might be thinking, “Ning-ge, you’re so tall. Why are you so afraid when the lights go out? Is it worth it?? What’s wrong with you, a 30+ year old man??!” “You’re almost 40, how can you be so afraid of the dark??” It’s like this, friends- there’s a problem with my eyes. First of all, they’re small. That means that my ability to absorb light is a bit weaker than the average person. I also have astigmatism. My eyes are bad- I have astigmatism. Secondly, I can’t see very well at night. It makes me dizzy. When the lights go out I really can’t see anything at all. Some people have the ability to absorb light better, and at least they can make out the barest outlines of things. But I can’t see ANYTHING when the lights go out. It’s KNOWING that your eyes are open but not being able to see- the uncertainty of it that terrifies me. Also, I need to be grabbing something before I feel safe. I’m terrified of someone suddenly popping up and touching me. I’d lose my soul. My soul would just leave my body and disperse. That’s what terrifies me the most. LYN: I’m not afraid of ghosts- I know that there isn’t anything scare in this program. I’m just afraid of the jump-scare. For example, if we’re all quiet… and then someone suddenly yells. That scares me. The sudden fright of it. 

C: Ning-ge, if you’re afraid of the dark, don’t tell me you leave a light on when you sleep at night? LYN: /laughs/ I’m not that afraid, because it’s MY HOUSE. I have a sense of security there. It’s not like I’m sleeping on the streets! If I were sleeping on the street, I’d definitely be afraid. At home, with the doors locked, I’m safe and I know that no one is going to suddenly pat me on the shoulder. LYN: What are you talking about??? In your case I wouldn’t even be able to sleep because once I close my eyes it’s dark and I’d be afraid. You must be crazy.

----- Concert

C: My piggybanks are already full. When are you holding your concert? LYN: Soon. Don’t shatter* your piggybank just yet. Keep it for now. When my concert opens, you can smash it open then and start buying your tickets. [t/n: they way he said “shatter/break to pieces” (摔碎), reminded me of when he said it as Xiazi and LYH laughed at the heavy accent.] - C: Hello. I’m a new fan. LYN: Mn. Welcome.  - C: I won’t be able to get any tickets! LYN: I’m not as popular as you think I am! Don’t worry, you will definitely be able to get one. It may not be the seat that you want- those who are better off might want something in the front row and they might face some competition- but if you buy something in the very back row, you should be able to get it. You’ll be able to get something, don’t worry. C: Ning-ge, you’re super popular! You just don’t know it. LYN: 去你的! I’m not-

LYN: This season of KSTLB is a totally new gameplay. I had a lot of fun recording and I hope you’re having fun watching it. I’ll also skim through the show and check out the comments. Everyone is pretty interesting and we made a good group. I think Thursday is the ep where Jin Jing comes (E5).

LYN: The previous concert tour was in 2019, or 2018 right? I forgot. 2019, right? And the last stop was Wuhan- all the tickets were sold. I’ve been thinking about this. Because I was supposed to hold my last stop there, but then because of the pandemic it was postponed. I didn’t hold the concert, but the tickets were already sold. I had told you at the time that you could ask for a refund and we would give it to you, but up until this day I don’t think anyone has. Of course, it made me happy to know that you didn’t want to refund it. But- because it’s been 4-5 years since then, is there anyone out there who forgot to get their refund, or have since stopped being my fan? Is there anyone out there like that? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone posting about having a ticket and wanting to sell it. LYN: I just want to ask- how many of you watching right now have tickets for the Wuhan stop that never happened, that you didn’t get a refund for? Are any of you here? If you are, press “1”.  I want to see how many of you there are. I’m just worried about people who have a ticket but stopped being my fan, and don’t care about the money they had spent. If they wanted to, they could have.

LYN: If I’m going to hold another concert tour, I will definitely make up for that stop. I owe you one. I was thinking I would do one day for makeup, plus an additional day. Two stops in Wuhan. IF I hold it, that’s how I want it to go. LYN: I was just thinking about it, is all. Honestly, there aren’t any plans set because my filming schedule is a bit much and I don’t want to think much about what comes after. I was just thinking about whether I should accept another drama for after SJYM or not. If I don’t, then I would hold my concert. If I do, then I’d probably… not hold it this year. I don’t know becauseI haven’t set anything yet, so that’s why I don’t want to make any promises. LYN: If I accept another drama for the latter half of the year, then I will definitely hold my concert next year. This year is already half gone, so I’d hold the concert next year. If I don’t accept another drama… I don’t know what my condition will be like. But since I haven’t taken a break from filming, I could probably use some rest and get ready for the tour. 

C: Lao-da, your dramas waiting to be aired is a little advanced. LYN: See? Other than the 90% of you who are visual-fans /laughs/, I still have some career-fans. They hope that my career continues it’s upwards growth. “Ning-ge, your waitlisted dramas are in trouble, because you’re running out of stock.” /sigh/ It’s true there aren’t many left. Including the one I’m currently filming, I only have four. LYN: You don’t need to worry, because I have my own plans. I’ll see when the time comes, as nothing is set. C: I used to be a career-fan. LYN: Don’t worry about it. My career- I’m well aware of it. I don’t know about other people, but I don’t need you to push me on it. Maybe some people need it, and you were here planning to supervise my work like, “Ning-ge, instead of doing nothing at home, wouldn’t it be better for you to find a job or event to do?? You’re not accepting dramas. You’re not releasing albums.” etc. They’re worried for me, but I really don’t need it. LYN: If I go three days without work- whether that’s recording, or filming, or meetings/anything related to work- I get anxious. I’m guessing I would probably stream for three days straight instead. “I won’t have any work for three days, I should stream!” I’m that type of person. So, you don’t have to worry for me and be concerned that I’m not accepting jobs. You don’t need to do that. I’m a little intense. 

LYN: As long as it doesn’t kill me, I will work until I die. LYN: But I’m not trying to brag about how hard I work by saying that! I just… I’m afraid of not having work. It’s that simple. I’m not working hard, and it doesn’t have to do with how much hard work I’m doing. I’m just afraid of not having work, afraid that this industry won’t need me anymore. Even though it doesn’t need me very much right now, either.

----- Misc

C: Please wish me success on my gaokao. LYN: Okay, I saw your message. I want to tell everyone who will soon take the gaokao to work hard, don’t be nervous, and I hope you get good scores. Jiayou!

C: Ning-ge, I’m celebrating my birthday today. LYN: I’d also like to wish you a Happy Birthday, and hope that everything goes smoothly in the next year of your life. I hope your work is smooth, your learning is smooth, and everything goes by without a hitch. I hope that you are successful at whatever you are striving towards.

C: Lao-da, why are your eyes a little red? LYN: I just cried. I- No, forget it. Let me change a reason. I opened up the corners of my eyes a little (with surgery).

LYN: Of course, I wish all of you happiness.

C: I want to hear 奉上. LYN: I don’t know what my condition is like today. I’m not sure I can sing it well. But I can try. - /making noises/ LYN: I’m testing the sound. I don’t mean anything by it. LYN: I feel like I haven’t sung in a long time. - /turns on a effect that immediately zooms in on his face/ LYN: You don’t need to do that. It’s so big. (his face) -- 奉上 (Offer) - A Journey to Love OST LYN: I haven’t adjusted my mic in a long time, so I’m not sure how that sounded. / What’s wrong with the track? C: The bg music was super loud. LYN: Oh, sorry!

LYN: Every time I finish singing a song, there’s someone in the chat who says, “Old but still vigorous.” /sigh/ Because I’ve been acting lately, the fact that I’m even able to still sing means that I’m “old but vigorous”, is that it? I’ll pretend you mean that in a good way.

C: Sun Lang is here. LYN: Li Huan is here? Welcome! If I were streaming from my phone, I would have asked to connect but I’m streaming from my computer today. I can’t do it on my computer. The next time I stream using my phone, Huan, if you come we should connect and chat. 

bgm: 莫问前程 (Don’t Ask About the Future) - White Cat Legend OST

C: Ning-ge, it’s about time to cut your hair. LYN: What do you care?! I’m shooting a drama and I don’t really have time or occasion to go out and get my hair cut. And I… don’t really dare to go out around Hengdian to get it cut. XD No- I have someone I go to, to get my hair cut. When I go to Beijing or Shanghai- I have hairdressers that I know. If I say it that way, it’s okay right? There are stylists I’m more familiar with, and when I have time I’ll get them to cut it. But for now, I’ll just leave it.C: The sound of the mic is very small. LYN: Is it really that bad?? /troubleshooting/ Is there no change? /sigh/ Sorry. - /continues trying to adjust the settings/ C: When the background music is on, the speaking sound is too little. // There’s no change. LYN: Oh, the background music is too loud? It should be fine now, right? Is the sound loud enough?? It should be good now, right? / Ok, I got it. The bgm was too loud. LYN: Maybe that’s the atmosphere I wanted to create- like you’re in a bar. I just want the music to flood your ears. Here, even though you’re watching a stream, I want you to feel like you’re clubbing. Let me find some music, so you can feel it properly. - /picks a song he calls “off-putting” to start/ - /the next song he looks like he’s in pain??/ LYN: OMG. I haven’t been out in a long time, does it all sound like this? I don’t feel like this is clubbing music. This is like those scooters with speakers on the back of it. There are all sorts of lights and leds on it, and a speaker on the back. This is the type of music that would play on those things. I’m not trying to say that I’m high maintenance or anything, but I don’t think I can accept this type of music. - /plays a new one - Mike Candys - Aliens/ LYN: This one is starting off okay, with the English from the start. // This one’s okay! - /clubbing/ C: I can’t hear you talking. LYN: I’m not talking, though?!

C: What about the lights? LYN: My normal streaming isn’t enough anymore, and now I have to arrange a flashing disco ball too? So that you can get hyped up? Sorry- I can’t do it. I can’t help you with that. - C: Ning-ge, you’re trending at #33. LYN: It’s for something good, right? Is it something positive or is someone making fun of me? Which is it? … What’s the topic? “LYN Livestream”? Oh, then that’s okay. - LYN: I just hope to make a stream with the right mood. I think that no matter what you’re doing, that atmosphere is the most important. Think about it- why is it that when you’re watching dramas and the two leads are about to kiss that there’s the mood for it in the scene? It’s because of all the lights and the filters that work together to make the scene, right? If you see two people kissing on the street, will you feel like you’re watching two leads in a drama? No. That’s why- everything needs that atmosphere/mood. 

LYN: What happened, the sound is small again? /adjusting/ I know. It should be fine now. I just forgot to adjust one of the settings. If it’s still small… I’ll take off my head and give it to you. I’m that confident.

bgm: 잘자요 아가씨 (晚安大小姐) - ASMRZ

C: The sound of the music is loud. LYN: It’s still loud? I saw someone type earlier that if you’re listening with headphones, there’s no problem. If that’s the case, why don’t you grab a pair? I’ve already adjusted things to their limit. Can you grab pair of headphones? So we don’t… keep wronging ourselves. // Is the sound still low? I really don’t believe you. I’m going to go into my own stream to check it out. I don’t know what’s wrong. How can it be like this? There’s no way. LYN: Is it okay? I think it should be. You can blame me for earlier. I rather think it’s too loud, so I’ll adjust it lower. It’s okay now. There’s no problem. Let me save these settings, as long as you think it’s comfortable to listen to. That way next time I won’t have to mess with it again. [t/n: the L-R balance is off… >.>] - /more complaints from the chat, driving him crazy/ LYN: Is it okay now? Is there no end to this?? I’ve totally lost my streaming condition. I’ll stop streaming. Goodnight, everyone. Goodnight, ladies. Lao-mei, it’s time to go to sleep. C: Our ears are the problem. LYN: No, it has nothing to do with you; you don’t need to make it your problem. It IS my problem. I had reset the system, because my streams would lag before.

C: 光束一夜黑. LYN: 黑夜一束光, lao-mei!! A lot of people know this song from the variety show, but they don’t know what the original sounds like. I’ll sing it for you- 光束一夜黑. -- 黑夜一束光 (Praying) LYN: Forget it. Because I can’t be sure of how you’re hearing it, so I don’t really dare to sing. C: The sound is low. LYN: See? It’s low again. Whatever. Listen for entertainment. I won’t keep messing with it, since this equipment sensitive.

----- break #1 bgm: 落了白 (Falling White) - Jiang Xue’er

C: The speaking volume is too low. LYN: Are you going to keep on with this?? Is it low? It shouldn’t be. I’m sure it’s not. If it’s still low, it’s your problem. C: Whenever you sing, it goes low. LYN: I can hear the white noise so loudly, and you think the volume’s low?? That’s a little strange…I don’t know… /clicking/  which settings…/clicking/ It shouldn’t be low now. It’s just right. C: I’m not using the headphones because the sound’s too loud. LYN: /laughing/ What should we do with this?? LYN: /deep sigh/ Whatever, it is what it is. As long as you can hear me speaking, it’s fine. For singing, I’ll have to come here earlier on another day and fix the settings properly. As long as you can hear me fine when chatting, it doesn’t matter. Once all this equipment is out of sync, then my whole streaming mood is gone. It’s okay as long as you can hear clearly. I need to fix the settings; for now I just won’t sing.

C: Talk about TXJ. LYN: The climax is over. The time to talk about it has passed. In any case, I died again. It’s quite good.

C: Ning-ge, can you wish me luck on the gaokao? LYN: About hald an hour ago, I already did. When the stream is over you can watch the playback. That part where I wished everyone success on their gaokao- that part was for you. Okay?

C: Watching Zhuo Bufan made me cry. LYN: Yes, he does have a sad ending. I also felt emotional, watching it myself. That drama, including this year, was filmed about three years ago. At the time my biggest challenge was doing fight scenes. He fights too much and for no reason! As soon as two people meet, they start fighting. They want to spar for no reason. Every time I go into a new crew, I come out learning something. With that drama my biggest improvement was in how to do fight scenes. 

C: You’re trending at # 8. LYN: ?? /checking/ LYN: /sigh/ LYN: I think you must be mistaken. The #8 I’m seeing is “Elder Princess and Second Prince _ The Crazies Meet” [Joy of Life topic] The Second Prince… Liu Duanduan, right? I’m Liu Yuning. You were mistaken. Yes, we are both named “Liu”. - /explaining the sub-categories in the “Trending” tab/ LYN: I’m trending at #40. You can’t even figure out how to work weibo?? In your “my trending” tab, I’m at #8? That means that I must be ranked #8 in your heart, too. “My trending” filters it down to only people or things that you follow. C: Ning-ge, in my trending topics you’re at #1. LYN: For that person earlier, I was #8. Who are the first seven artists? I want their names! LYN: You must have climbed the wall in (came from another fandom).

C: Ning-ge, when will the KSTLB all-cast air? LYN: Who released that news? I don’t think there will be a livestream, I haven’t heard anything of it. What stream? There isn’t one, right? I don’t know- no one has told me.

C: Ning-ge, you’re #18 on my list. LYN: … Get out. I know there aren’t many people here to begin with, but we will not miss you. When I open the doors to do business, I hope all those who come are kind, and not here to wreck shop. For example, if I had a restaurant and I just delivered your dish to you, and you say, “Chef, your dish isn’t that great.” I would be thinking, “Then don’t eat. Leave.”

C: Can you wish me luck on my finals? LYN: Sure. I wish you luck on your finals. I hope everything goes well for you and for those taking the college entrance exam. I hope you get into your ideal school and location. I’m sure you will succeed. Jiayou. You can do it. 

C: Ning-ge, I’ve been chasing you for four years, now. Could you look back at me? LYN: /literally looks behind him/ LYN: Where are you? LYN: /looks over his other shoulder/ LYN: You’re not there… C: Lift your head and look at me. LYN: /laughs/ 

LYN: Wang Youshuo is here? Welcome, welcome! Let me introduce him- WYS. He’s an actor I am working with on this drama and he’s great. I’m happy to have him. Welcome! LYN: Next time, I really should use my phone to stream. When I do, some of my friends will come. Even if they don’t want to be on stream, I can force them to come and exchange a few words and chat. Force them a little bit. But I can’t do it on my computer. :(

C: Ning-ge, I’m a student-fan. I’m doing my homework. LYN: Focus on your homework. A lot of people use my stream as background noise; you can just leave me to the side. Work on whatever you need to, and just leave your phone playing. Do your homework. Work comes first. If you want to chat about anything, you can type it into the comments and we’ll chat. I’ve got nothing else going on today, so I’ll stay and chat. 

C: Gossip, gossip, gossip! LYN: I asked about what you wanted to talk about, and you say, “gossip”?? They’re going crazy. Can you see them in the chat, spamming “gossip”? You must think that since I’m an insider, I know a lot of things, right? You want to ask me about other artist’s secrets? Even my own secrets? Is that what you mean? You want me to publicly (on stream) engage in gossip. You must be crazy. Have you gone crazy or have I? LYN: But, in this industry it’s true that you will come to know about a lot of things. Including which dramas will be airing, and who they’ve fixed as cast and for what. You’ll hear the news about this type of drama stuff.

C: I’ve watched 50+ of your streams and have not engaged once. LYN: Find some sense of self. The reason I’m here right now- instead of sleeping, playing games, or doing other things like watching a movie or drama- the reason I’m streaming is to keep you company. I’ve done all of this to pay attention to you, so the least you could do is reciprocate. Let’s interact. Exist in the moment. LYN: There are a countless number of you out there, and you collectively make up the mood of my stream. You are included in that collective. All the words I am saying to you now, are also being said to everyone watching. Did you want to add me on WeChat and talk one on one?? And then when you’re ready to sleep, should I say to you, “Yare, yare~ Miss, go to sleep.” Should I wait on you??

------- Advice

C: Xiao Ning, ah- LYN: You must be a jiejie, to call me that. I suddenly felt like I’ve gotten a lot younger. C: Xiao Ning, if you encounter some inconvenient/troublesome/annoying things, how do you relieve yourself? LYN: Wow, this question. This is the type of question with sustenance that adults should be asking. Not like you others who only wanted gossip. You only like the useless things, but look at this jiejie’s question: When you feel like you’re under pressure, how do you release it? This is a really good question.

LYN: How do I mediate? My choice is not to mediate. In my opinion, I feel like a person’s life is just one problem, one pressure, one after another. I don’t have any way of dispelling that pressure. The most I do is get a good sleep. After I wake up, I face the problem. Whether it can be solved or not is a different story. I have to bravely face it first.

C: Xiao Ning, are you trying to become a mood streamer? LYN: /laughs/ A mood streamer?? I sure do have a lot of personal moods. 

C: How do I persevere at work? LYN: This friend is probably working now, and wants to know how they can persevere, right? I mean… what else can you do? You should work. People should be working. Unless you come from a good family, and your parents have money enough to indulge you while you laze around at home, playing games and enjoying life. If that’s the case, then you can play. That’s a blessing the heavens gave to you. But if you are in a situation where your family can’t help you, then you should be working hard and going to work so you can earn money to live. What else can you do? We’re all the same.

LYN: There was someone earlier who asked if I wanted to be a “qing xu” (mood) streamer, but they probably typed wrong and meant “qing gan” (emotion) streamer. I think people took it seriously, and really are coming to ask me questions. Friends, I can’t explain anything to you. Please don’t take it seriously. The stream is for joking around. LYN: Someone just asked me, “Ning-ge, what should I do if I don’t score well on my college entrance exam?” I can’t give you the correct answer. I can only tell you that university it not necessarily the most important thing. It’s also a turning point in your life, but it’s not the most important choice you will ever need to make in life. You might not score well. Look at me- I’m just a cook. I don’t dare to say that I’m doing well in life right now, but I may be a cook only have a high school education, but as of this moment I can also be an emotional streamer. Right? If I can’t do anything else, at the very least I can be an emotional streamer right now. But I (officially) learned how to be a cook. This might only be a small point in your life, and there are countless opportunities on your future path. As long as you keep looking forward to the work you’ll do and the people you’ll meet, you will come to face a new turning point. 

LYN: Someone asked me a question that truly touched me: C: How do I give rockets to the streamer?  LYN: /laughs/ I’m so touched. Earlier I got “I don’t want to work”, and now I have “How do I send rockets?” YOU are the true emotional streamer. You have comforted me. It’s like this- I don’t care to make a profit off of weibo. So, 1. I don’t advertise or try to market influence you, and the gift-giving function is closed on my stream. My stream is just a space for me to chat with my fans or people who know me. I don’t accept gifts. But, I do have some brand collaborations. I am spokesperson for a number of brands. Jewelry and accessories comes from Pomellato. If you want to buy something, you can check them out. Skin and haircare comes from L’Oreal. If you want to drink some yogurt, I am also Chunzhen’s spokesperson. I’m pretty good with them, so you can buy some Chunzhen yogurt and the like. Eat, drink. Okay? LYN: But when you’re checking out- you know how you asked about rockets? When you’re checking out of the store, you can tell the clerk or make note that your purchase was a “rocket meant for LYN.” Later I’ll go and check. Okay? That’s enough for me.

C: Ning-ge, when you look into the camera, it’s like we’re meeting eyes. LYN: /laughs/ I need to prepare some bgm for this… - /~~ You Are My Destiny ~~ … but missed the right timing./ LYN: It’s not this one! Oh, no. It’s flopped. Why didn’t she sing…? [t/n: he’s got the instrumental track…] LYN: AWKWARD. LYN: Let me search again. // Ok, here we go. - /~~ ₊˚✧ ﾟ You Are My Destiny ₊˚✧ ﾟ~~/ C: Sweet pretty boy suddenly became greasy old boy. LYN: Apologies, I am the performance-type. 

C: Recommend a drama to me! LYN: You want me to recommend you a drama? Um… there are a lot of hot airing dramas right now, you should go onto your preferred platform and do a search. I have an airing drama right now called TXJ, you can check it out. Check out TXJ; it’s airing on Tencent and iQIYI. Go have a look. C: Ge, do you have a long contract with Tencent? LYN: Yeah? I have a long contract with Tencent, iQIYI, Youku, Mango… At least that’s my wish. I hope they can continue to use me for a long time. That’s the wish I made for my birthday- that these platforms will continue to use me. So in my heart, I think of our relationship as a long collaboration. LYN: Even though up to this point I haven’t had a drama on Mango TV, I’m sure that in the future we will have a very long collaboration. That’s what I hope for, at least. I hope someone wants me to act in their drama.

C: Why is your sense of crisis so strong? LYN: That’s just the way this industry is. Actually, it applies to any industry. I will always remember a saying, even though I’ve said it many times before, I think every industry is the same. “逆水行舟，不进则退” (Like rowing a boat upstream, if you stop moving forward you fall back.) If you really like your current conditions or become satisfied with the way things are, it’s possible that you will be replaced or eliminated over time. Even when you’re trying your hardest, you’re not necessarily going to be able to keep up with the flow. So that’s why you should always strive to be more active (and move forward).  

-----

C: What’s on your face? LYN: I didn’t remove this when I was wiping my makeup earlier. This is a tattoo I have in my current drama. 

C: The volume is low again. LYN: It’s okay, I’ll adjust the settings later.

C: What did the champagne taste like when you attended that event earlier in the month? LYN: How can I describe the flavor of champagne to you? You really have to taste carefully, with champagne. You have to open up your whole palate to taste it in detail. Let me tell you how it tastes- like champagne. Do you understand? If you want to know how champagne tastes when it hits your mouth, I’ll tell you it tastes purely like champagne. What did you expect to hear?

C: What does beer taste like? LYN: It tastes like beer! C: What does a cucumber taste like? LYN: Tastes like a cucumber! LYN: What nonsense is this?? How could you ask me what champagne tastes like??? I’m at a loss!

C: Didn’t you down it in one go? LYN: What you mean to say is I was like Zhu Bajie eating the renshen fruit, who swallowed it in one go and didn’t have a chance to taste it, is that what you mean??? I drank it too quickly, and couldn’t even tell you what it tasted like? I mean… when it goes down the aftertaste is also the same taste- of champagne. I give up. C: Was it sweet? LYN: A little bit.

C: Lao-da, did you get drunk? LYN: It wasn’t enough to get me drunk, but dizzy. A glass of champagne isn’t enough to get me drunk, but I was super dizzy. 

bgm: 撞地球 (Earth Collision) by Yu Er Qi

C: I’m sleepy. Goodnight. LYN: If any of you are sleepy, you should go to sleep. I’m sure that you are- um… em… forget it. I would have made a snarky comment before, but now I don’t dare to. LYN: WHAT TIME IS IT, AND YOU WANT TO SLEEP? IT’S 10PM, AND YOU WANT TO SLEEP??? Do you spend your life away in dreams? 10pm to a young person is the time we are only just starting to wake up. Have you heard the song, “If I were a DJ, would you love me?” LYN: If I were a DJ, would you love me? I really want to ask you. bgm: 午夜DJ LYN: It went to my head for no reason. I haven’t even had any champagne. - C: Sleeping so early? LYN: It’s okay to go to sleep now, because early to sleep and early to rise is good for your health, right? Have a good sleep. Goodnight. LYN: Friends- that person went to sleep, right? Now I’m going to tell you something that will become today’s BIG gossip story. Friends- that person went to sleep, right? Ok. When that person has gone to sleep for five minutes, I’ll tell you the hottest gossip in the entertainment circle today. This is the biggest thing I’ve heard since I’ve entered this circle; I’ll share with you. But that person has gone to sleep, right? It’s okay- we’re not in a rush. Let’s let them get to bed, and I’ll tell you after they fall asleep. C: I knew you would say that!  LYN: You’ve seen me through. This is already a recurring program. Whenever anyone wants to leave my stream early, I’ll reveal some exposing gossip.

C: The yxh is saying that you’ll start your tour in Sep. LYN: ?? I haven’t even heard of that. They’re saying LYN will start his tour in Sep? As LYN himself, I didn’t even know about it. Because this drama is going to take me until at least October. Why don’t I just take a tour around set and sing to the props, lighting, wardrobe, and makeup laoshi? If I go around to the different departments, that counts as a tour, right?  C: A different yxh is saying summer vacation of next year. LYN: Summer vacation of next year?? I mean, they’re bound to blindly guess correctly. They’re predicting. If you find 12 yxh accounts, and each one of them claims a month, starting from September-Oct-Nov-Dec-Jan-etc.- all the way up until Sep 2025, one of them is going to be right. Then, when I actually start my tour, you’ll think, “Oh! They got it right! This account is so accurate.” This is just like fortune-telling. It’s all about probability.

C: Is the second album finished yet? LYN: No, it hasn’t. But I have a new plan for my EP. /laughs/ Inexplicably. I’ve been too busy with this crew. I found that once I enter a crew, pretty much all work on my album comes to a pause. I don’t have enough time for it all.

C: It’s been five minutes. Where’s the gossip? LYN: The gossip is- this is the biggest thing going around the entertainment industry right now- friends, let me tell you. Liu Yuning might hold his concert tour next year. /struggles to keep a straight face/ LYN: Isn’t that exciting? Of course, it’s like this- if you care about it, you’ll think it’s big news. If you don’t care about it, then it has nothing to do with you. Just like most things on the internet- it has nothing to do with me. I don’t worry about it, because it’s none of my business. 

LYN: Someone said Wang Jialuo (Pang Hanchen) is here? Here to apologize?? LYN: Welcome, Pang Hanchen~! LYN: Wang Jialuo! My senior brother is dead. The Rongtian Sword Sect has perished. Can’t you just let me go?? C: You scared him to death. LYN: Nah, that’s unwarranted. It’s all cool. Actors are actors, and characters are characters. For a character to be known or hated by everyone, that just means that the role was worth remembering. It means that an actor performed well. 

C: We’re too into the story. LYN: No, you can’t be like that. Separate actors from the characters they play. It’s because I’ve lived through this already. When I first started acting, it was as the villain. I would be the one harming the main character. I was always the villain, the bad guy. But I don’t think Wang Jialuo can be considered either a bad or a good guy. You can’t use good/bad to judge the man. But at the start, I was this type of “bad guy.” I remember my very first drama- it was a pretty big project- and I was just happy to be an actor. All of the comments I received were those yelling/cursing at me. “Why is this character such a abad person? I’m sure LYN himself is as well.” “He LOOKS like he would play a villain.” /sigh/ 

LYN: Dunming is here, too? My da-shixiong, Yu Huanjie? LYN: No- I just want to tell them that I’m streaming from my computer today, so I can’t connect. Next time, we should get the actors together for a stream and to chat. We can do a livestream. I was thinking of calling them over the last time I did a group livestream, for the drama promotion. But I want to call them over so you all can yell at them. Put them under public scrutiny. But there’s no helping it, you can only ridicule them in your hearts.

LYN: The two of them (PHC & ZDM) are both very excellent actors. You can tell by watching the drama- the only reason these two characters strike a nerve with people and are hated to the core is because the actors themselves are great. C: They acted too well; I really hate them. LYN: /sigh/ In any case, the two of you (PHC & ZDM) should take care when you go out these days. If you are plotted against on the streets, it’s understandable.

C: Ning-ge, I just went to Taobao to get rockets for you. LYN: You didn’t need to!! I was just joking. But if you truly NEED those products, you can go ahead and purchase some. Because they are products I am a spokesperson for. If you need it, you can buy it. I am not forcing you, by telling you in my stream that you SHOULD go to Taobao and buy these things for me. It’s not necessary. LYN: Thank you for your support, though. LYN: At the Pomellato event, I saw many of you taking bags home. I can tell that you have money~ I saw you with such small bags and thought, “Mn. Nice.” It makes me look good. XD - LYN: The event was in Shanghai, right? Every time I go to Shanghai I’ll shop around, and encounter my fans. I personally like shopping. I like to buy clothes, because I’ll wear what I buy when I go to any event or function, and even my daily clothes. I don’t often ask brands if I could borrow or rent their clothing. For the most part- 90% of the clothes I own I bought myself. So, I really like shopping and especially for clothes. I’ll always go to the Pomelleto shop- becasuse there’s one there- and secretly take a selfie and leave. But I guess I do it kind of suspiciously, because the clerks always squint at me like this: /imitates/ “What’s that guy doing at the entrance??” C: Release the pic! LYN: I will! Do you want to see them? Let me look.  // There’s really not much to look at. I won’t be posting it, because I wasn’t wearing any makeup.

C: Send it to the weibo group chat. LYN: Ok. How about this- I’m streaming today, but tomorrow I won’t be able to keep you company, so I will post it then. Perfunctorily. Oops- I said my inside thoughts out loud. C: Is this also a “pie”? LYN: It’s just a picture, why would it become a “pie”?? I can’t with you. C: I really like this type of half-heartedness. LYN: ?!? C: Ning-ge, if you don’t post it tomorrow I will tear down the shed. LYN: I’ll post it to the group tomorrow.

C: Ning-ge, are you still alive at the end of TXJ? LYN: Go watch it for yourself. I can’t give you any spoilers. If I tell you I live, you might not think it’s very exciting. If I tell you I die, you might be sad. So you should go watch for yourself. I won’t be telling you any spoilers. Some people are alive but dead to others. Some people die but live on in our hearts.

bgm: 莫问前程 (Don’t Ask About the Future) - White Cat Legend OST

C: Ning-ge, have you been to Chengdu? LYN: I’ve been there. I also shot a drama there. BYOL with Tao-jie was shot in Chengdu. I was there for a long time. C: Have you been to London. LYN: I think I’ve been there… have I? I think I went to Paris. I’ve forgotten what cities I’ve been to. It should have been London- I shot a commercial there before. I haven’t really been out of the country, so I don’t have a good concept of it. I collaborate with a number of brands, and sometimes they will ask me to attend their events, but I never go. I don’t really like going in that direction. So I… haven’t much been out of the country. C: Do you want to go traveling? LYN: Not really? I haven’t really thought about what specific country I’d like to visit, rather I think about amusement parks. I just want to go to an amusement park and it doesn’t matter where. // I’ve been to a lot, because every time I go to a city I’ll ask about them. Then I’ll look up whether they’re fun or not. If they’re not then I won’t go. 

C: Chengdu Disney is waiting for you to come play. LYN: Chengdu…? You’re talking about… Chengdu Disney??? I didn’t mishear you, right? This joke is already long over, and you’re only cueing me now?? - [t/n: some meme reference?] LYN: It’s been about a month since that joke has passed. C: You know of it? LYN: I’m a singer, still. For things related to song/rap, that’s still within my circle. I still follow music related things. 

bgm: 拂晓 (Dawn) - Harbin 1944 OST

C: When will you go record the music variety? LYN: I don’t know. I’m waiting for the other part to update me with the itinerary. But I might not have the time to record it. It depends on my time in the crew. If I could take the time away I’ll do to record it. If I can’t take time I’ll just have to work with them the next time. It’s all still being planned.

bgm: 别梦寒 (Don’t Dream of the Cold) - A Journey to Love OST

C: I want to hear the previous song. LYN: I was afraid to play this song because I didn’t want you to be sleepy. It’s too sad (of a song). Plus, it’s almost 11p.

----- break #2 LYN: ?! It lagged for a bit there and gave me a fright. I was afraid my computer was frozen.

C: Who won and who lost? LYN: The neighbors? … The volume on their tv was up too high. The neighbors are watching TXJ, and it was right at the part where ZBF and MSD were exchanging blows. They were loath to part, making all sorts of noise. So I just decided to come back. 

C: Trending topic #4. LYN: Who are you trying to trick with that? Is it “My Trending Topics” again? C: You dropped of the Trending list. LYN: … That’s hurtful, isn’t it? Look at other people- those more amazing people- who can get a trending topic as they wish. It’s so easy for them to get a trending topic. But then there’s me. I’ve been chatting with you for (close to) three hours now and I’m only at #40. /corrects himself/ I’m not even on the list. C: Ge. You were at #39 and then dropped off after a while. LYN: That’s why I have to continue to work hard. C: Trending at #4. You’re on it. LYN: What is it? /goes to check/ LYN: In MY “My Trending Topics” I actually am at #4. If I’m at #4 in my own list… What is “LYN unmasking PTSD”? What does “PTSD” mean?? P-T-S-D? 胖头 (Pàng Tóu = fat head)... /laughs/ “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”, is it? - /trying to read all the responses to “what does “ptsd” mean?”/ LYN: Okay now, all you “doctors”. Thank you, Doctor.

C: TXJ is really good! Ning-ge, shoot more dramas like this one. LYN: I actually do like this type of drama. But next time I just hope that I can have more scenes. I haven’t had enough. - /trying to remember his opening narration/character intro/

C: Ning-ge, I’m on vacation in Sanya. Will you come? LYN: What?? You’re on vacation in Sanya, and you’re asking if I’ll go? What type of job do you think I have? Huh? Do you think I’m like… a companion you can bring along like in HoK? Even if I do go, you can’t just ask me like this so openly. How could I promise you, then? Even though I am in a type of customer service industry right now, I don’t think I can do that type of service. I hope you have a fun time in Sanya. I hope you enjoy it. I won’t be going, as I have a drama to shoot. C: Should we contact your studio instead? LYN: No, no. I’m not going! LYN: Do you all know what the “contact my studio” thing is? I used to joke- someone had asked me before, “If I gave you 100k RMB, would you give me a bath/scrub?” I told them to contact my studio. XD It was a joke. I could make jokes like that three years ago, but now I don’t dare to make any such jokes. Everything goes online. People KNOW it’s fake, but they will still post it and make you a target for a round of ridicule. 

C: People have no sense of humor. LYN: It’s not that they don’t have a sense of humor, they do. They just don’t like me. They don’t like me, yet they continue to look out for news on me. There’s a group of people out there who do nothing but watch me like hawks. For example, they might be more eager to watch my stream than my actual fans are. They’re just looking for a loophole or a slip, some topic that they can turn into a point of discussion. With that, they’re happy. They’re so happy to curse people, even for one or two sentences. They’re just looking for people who resonate with them. LYN: But I can understand these types of people, too. I have a feeling that 20-30 years later, sometime within the next 30 years, these people will have a moment where they realize they actually like me. In 30 years they will have grown, matures, seen all the world has to offer, and their hearts will become good. When they look back, they’ll realize that I was the one who kept them company for the past 30 years. I’m waiting for that day to come, when they have matured and their hearts have calmed. The day they don’t think of harming others first, they will look back and realize that I have spent the past 30 years with them. It doesn’t matter if they cursed or ridiculed me for those 30 years, I was still there. Without me, how else would they have expressed their dissatisfaction with the world, or unhappiness and pressure from work?

LYN: Seriously. Friends, let’s wait and see. I’m sure there are some people watching my stream right now, who don’t like me and are ready to ridicule me. Maybe they hate me. Maybe they think I’m ugly. Maybe, somehow I am not good enough for them. Let’s make a 30-year agreement. Trust me. I guarantee you. In 30 years, or one day within the next 30 years, there will come a day where you love me. LYN: Let’s swear on it. [t/n: I am now noticing I really like the shape of this sweater. (wide sleeves)] - C: Can you go at 2x speed? LYN: Are you crazy?!? I’m LIVEstreaming. You have to cherish every word- Are you really that bored?? You have to put it at 2x speed in order to watch? - LYN: Just like how the Bodhi and Dharma successors (TXJ) had a 30-year agreement, antis and I are the same. Antis, let’s make a 30-year agreement, okay? I’m sure that in thirty years we will become people who sincerely know and love each other. 

C: You’re an old actor already, and yet you (break character to) laugh?? LYN: It had nothing to do with old or not old- I’m just impressed by how I could even think of such a thing (as the 30-year agreement). LYN: I look insane.

C: Ning-ge, in 30 years I’ll be eighty. LYN: What about it? It’s okay. LYN: Have you turned yourself in, though? Did that count as turning yourself in? “Ning-ge, I’m an anti and I can’t wait for you another 30 years. I’ll be eighty by then. I can’t hold on much longer.” You’ve confessed? Or do you mean that in 30 years you’ll be eighty, but you want to live to see that day that antis and I finally come to peace? C: Ning-ge, in 30 years I’ll be forty-five. LYN: :| … It’s a good thing that the presents are closed, otherwise I’d be afraid of being accused of soliciting money from minors. What time is it? 11pm. You should be sleeping. Fifteen years old and you’re watching my stream?? You should know better. Quickly go and rest. Go to sleep. Study well. C: Ning-ge, in 30 years, I’ll be eight. LYN: /laughs/ You- did I misread that? What does that mean? In 30 years you’ll be eight??? How does that math work??

------ Bathhouses (how did we get here??)

C: Ning-ge, how do you bathe/scrub in the South? LYN: In the South… I do it to myself. I’m originally from Northeast, and we have bathhouses there. Friends, if you go to the Northeast to play, you definitely should visit one and experience it. But you’d have to find a better rated one. You can soak in the big pool and experience the scrub. A lot of the better places are not only about the scrub. Let me tell you, because many of you have not been to one. Let me tell you what you can do in a bathhouse. People from the South might not know, so I’ll walk you through the process. [t/n: flashbacks to his 2022.08.12 stream, where he explained this whole thing]

- You walk in and see two paths. Someone welcomes you, asks you how many people in your party, and directs you to the front desk for a number - You get your number (for a locker) and are directed to an area- only shoes- where you will take off yours. “You can go in to wash but you can’t bring your shoes. Because they’re afraid of people washing then immediately leaving. Shoes are collateral.” Change into slippers. - You are asked if you’d like your shoes cleaned. It’s about 10-20rmb. - Men are on the first floor, and Women are on the second. There are no solo rooms. - Next you enter a hall full of lockers. Find yours according to the number originally assigned to you. Take off your clothes and put them in the locker. 

LYN: There are a lot of people, and some are shy. Like me. But you’re there to wash up, so normally people just tie a towel around their waist and go in. C: Really get naked?? LYN: What else are you going to do, watch?? You’re there to wash up, why wouldn’t you take off your clothes? C: Southern people are shy. LYN: It has nothing to do with whether you’re shy or not. It’s all men in there, what’s there to be shy about?? But if you are, you can just wrap a towel and go in.

- Around the perimeter of the area are shower heads. You can adjust temperature however you want and the pressure is high. In the middle there are 2-3 large pools. The largest one is usually around 30-35C. Towards the edges are the hotter pools, around 40C or a little higher. There’s another row with seated bathing- for the old people to sit and wash. - You only need to bring your body. Soaps, shampoos, and cleaning supplies are all offered. - You finish up with the baths, rinse, and are ready for the scrub. There’s a designated area to go, find and find a shifu. It normally costs around 38rmb, but can be more. It was 38rmb when he was still going. C: Is that expensive? LYN: I guess it depends on what you’re there for. If you’re there to have a bath and scrub, 100rmb should do it.

- The shifu will ask if you want a salt scrub: 68 or 88rmb. To disinfect. “If you’re stingy like me, you’ll say no thanks.” Or they’ll ask if you want lemon. Lemon is 68, the slightly cheaper option. The salt was 88. You can ask for vinegar instead. “Because it is better at getting off the dust.”

C: Do they have purple salt? LYN: 去你的!

C: Is there medicinal oil? LYN: That counts as a spa thing. You’d have to go up. I’m telling you floor by floor. We’re only on the first floor now. LYN: Putting salt has a disinfecting function. But men rarely have a milk scrub; you’d see that more in the women’s baths. It’s supposed to make your skin better, but let me tell you- it really doesn’t do anything. Even if you sit in a tub of milk, it’s not as if your body can absorb anything. Let alone using it to scrub your body with. I’m telling you- it’s all a lie. The most realistic thing is to use some lemon. Salt is okay, too. Vinegar helps to remove oil. Maybe without it, it would be easier to scrub. 

- When you’re done you can rinse off or go take a sit in the sauna. - The better accommodations are upstairs. By floor: 1. Men’s Bath 2. Women’s Bath 3. Dining 4. Rest area - one section has dim lights and you can sit on a sofa and rest a little; there’s a Chinese chess area; likens it to an amusement park. 5. Private Rooms - for massage, ear cleaning, etc. 6. Hotel Rooms -  /starts explaining what you can do by floor/

- got to 4F, when: C: Are you naked all through this?? LYN: No, when you finish washing they’ll give you a robe before you head upstairs.

LYN: When you’re all done you can come back to the first floor and rinse off before you head home. That’s the basic bathhouse walkthrough.

C: Have you worked there? LYN: I have worked in a bathhouse before. I was a waiter there for… a little more than a year, I think. I was working in the dining area, but I’m familiar with the whole process of it.  - LYN: If you get the chance to head North, visit a bathhouse. It’s pretty interesting. - C: Do you get commission? LYN: No, it’s just your regular wage. A very “dead” wage.

----- SJYM

LYN: LYT-laoshi is here? Oh, welcome! LYN: I’m sorry. I’m ashamed. Because originally I was supposed to be filming for a scene tonight- a scene where the hero rescues the maiden. The FL gets surrounded by 200 small vagrants. She was shopping on the street when she was surround by 200 small vagrants. In fear and at a loss, she looks around for help. Suddenly, I appear. Together, myself and 100 other small vagrants (?) bombard her. But this scene was scrapped and I didn’t get to film today. She’s hanging out with those 100 small vagrants now. I came back home to stream. [t/n: what??] I didn’t save her, but came to stream instead. C: What about the other 100? LYN: … - C: I thought you had cameo’d? LYN: Yeah, I’m the background actor that shows his face a lot. - C: The other 100 came to watch the stream. LYN: Meaning that you’ve already discovered that there are 100 little vagrants with us in the stream? /laughs/ You got me.

C: You’re going to scare her away. LYN: No. Actually, when I work with other actors- it doesn’t matter who- I’m still a rookie. Though I may look older (and AM older) than the actors, colleagues, and friends I’ve worked with, the truth is that I AM a rookie. You can pick anyone, and they all would have debuted earlier than me.

C: Ning-ge, I want to go act as a vagrant. LYN: /lol/ You want to bombard the FL??

LYN: The director is here??

LYN: On, in that case- speaking from the heart, if I had to use a single word to describemy current state it woul be: humiliated. Because when I’m with the drama crew I never act like how I do in my stream. In the crew I need to act a little more proper/sane. I don’t want them to think that I am unreliable or unstable. I don’t want them to think I’m a vagrant. So usually when I get on to set in the morning and see the director, for example I’ll say, ‘Good morning, Director.” And if I see the Fl, I’ll say, “Good morning.” [short and simple] Do you hear- the sound of my voice is even more dignified. “Good morning.” “Did you sleep well?” “Not bad?” “Okay, good.” And to other actors: “Hello.” “Do you have a lot of scenes today?” “You don’t?” “Thanks for your hard work.” Putting on airs. But in reality, I’m just a small vagrant. XD

C: Director Guo, please film Nan Heng well! LYN: Is that not disgraceful?? Do you think he, the Director, needs you to tell him that? LYN: The Director has already done his best when filming me. Think about how many times I have to wear the mask. Every time I have to take it off, I’m terrified. But the Director has already done the best he could. I can’t say I look cool but at least you can’t say that I’m… /trails off/ We don’t want what happened before to happen again.

C: You scared Song Yimeng (LYT) away. LYN: It’s okay.

C: Ning-ge, I’m a vagrant to begin with, can I go act? LYN: Its not necessary.

C: Are there any scenes in this drama where you bombard the ML? LYN: Female vagrants?? You want to come bombard the ML???

-----

C: Ning-ge, your eyes are so pretty. LYN: You’re not kidding, are you? My eyes are the biggest “bug” (flaw) on my face. When I’m acting opposite people it’s always big eyes against small eyes. I am the small eyes. You didn’t learn this from foreign movies, did you? I always see that when they are complimenting someone they’ll say, “Wow, your eyes are so beautiful.” “Your eyes look just like a blue lake.” I feel like in a lot of foreign movies the ML will compliment the FL by saying her eyes are pretty. LYN: Oh, my goodness. ~ You have a pair of eyes that can speak ~

C: Ning-ge, we don’t self deprecate. LYN: Let me tell you. If you want to survive in this industry, you’ll have to learn how to self deprecate. If you don’t do it yourself, others will do it for you. I’m walking on others’ path, so they have no room to walk it. - [t/n: he’ll make fun of himself so other people’s words can’t hurt him.]

C: KSTLB is a really good watch! LYN: It is! I had fun shooting this season as well, and the episodes have all finished recording. If you have some time you can go check it out. Over time we came to know one another, and we were able to relax and play better together. 

C: How many times were you the killer? LYN: I don’t remember, and I can’t spoil anything. But it’s already been 4 episodes and I’ve had a special identity in all of them. For four consecutive episodes, I already knew who the killer was. It really took away from the overall experience. LYN: And then- /laughs/- this is human nature. In E1 I was Detective and chosen as the X. When we finished recording that ep, I told my PD: “It was fun, but I didn’t have any sense of experiencing it for myself. I didn’t have that motivation to solve the case. I didn’t get to experience thesearch and putting the clues together to find the killer.” But let me tell you something about how it was recorded- As the X, I do know who the killer is. But! You still don’t know what the whole story is. The story, modus operandi, timeline, and how the characters are connected- the X does not know any of that. You only know who the killer is, that’s it. You don’t know the motive or how the deed was done. So on that part, there is some sense of participation, as you’re solving the case along with everyone else. We find the clues, connect them together, and finally see the whole picture before voting for we think the killer is.

LYN: The Director is calling me for overtime. I won’t be going, Director. Thanks for your hard work. 

LYN: Then, in E2 I was Detective AND X AGAIN. So I told my PD, /smug/humble/ “Why did they pick me again? It’s like I can’t even play to my fullest. It’s a little boring.” By E3, I was Detective & X again, and I knew who the killer was, so I felt a little discouraged. /sigh/ I was originally planning on to take it by storm, but I felt that I was limited by the knowledge. I wanted to show off my strong reasoning skills and the limits of my intelligence but as the X I had to protect the killer. Therefore, I could not properly come to the right conclusions. In E4- you’ve already seen it, as it’s finished airing. Later- I finally become just a “commoner”. I was so happy. LYN: They will tell you your identity beforehand: if you are the detective, commoner- actually there is no “commoner” but rather the rest of us are “suspects”- or killer. Finally one day I became the commoner/suspect. I was so excited. It was like I got a pump of chicken blood (expression to express insanity or excitement). When I got to the set and for example:

- Saw ZLH- I said, “小杀手~” (xiǎo shāshǒu - means “little killer”, it became a sort of term of endearment on the show) “Today I’ll be- /makes the watching you gesture/- keeping my eyes on you~” “You’re a little strange today, ZLH.” “I called you out and you didn’t refute.” - Later Reba walks in. “Ba-jie… you’re not normal today.” :) “Oh, you are normal?” “I’m not crazy, no. I’m just… testing you.” “It seems you’re not very suspicious today.” - Later, BY comes in. “Lao Bai, are you the killer today?” “You are? Stop joking! The show wouldn’t dare to give you such an important position. We also have a new friend today. There’s no way you can be the killer. You’re not worthy. ” - Later, ZKY comes in. “Keyu.” “I called you, how could you not hear me?? Were you too busy memorizing the killer’s script?” “There’s something wrong with you today. Something very wrong with you today!” “Watch out, Ning-ge will be keeping his eye on you.” “You’d better be careful!” - Later, Jin Jing. “Hello, hello~ You’re shooting with us today?” “Are you the murderer, JJ?” JJ: “Why would you think I’m the killer.” “I’ll tell you why: because you are someone who records variety shows often. But since you’re here, on your first episode, the program would definitely give you some sort of special identity so you can experience being the killer. They will assume that we would never think that they’d give a new player an identity. I’m sure that’s what they’re thinking.” “Watch out. Ning-ge is watching you~”

LYN: I was super excited that day. LYN: And in the end, I guessed wrong. I thought I was so smart! But at the end of the day I voted for the wrong person. How outrageous!! LYN: After recording that day, I felt even worse. I was SO confident. “Little Killer. Let me tell you- I’m set on you as my killer. Don’t try to explain. Okay, fine. I’ll give you a chance. Let me hear what you have to say.” They say a bunch. I refute. “Keep talking.” They say, “Ning-ge, why do you think it’s me?” I say, “You don’t need to try to make excuses. Don’t try to make me pity you. It’s definitely you.” I voted wrong. LYN: I thought I was invincible, but at the end I was even more dispirited. Seems like it really isn’t easy to pick correctly… 

C: Spoilers! LYN: No- when you watch it, then you’ll realize whether I really gave spoilers or not. LYN: That experience made me realize it was better off being the X. /pause/ Not really. It’s fine being a “commoner” too. I’m better at stories that take place within reality. I’m not as good this season because I have a strong sense of logic, but a lot of the stories this season are… how do you call it?? Alternate reality. The first season didn’t have things like infinite loops, time travel, aliens, etc. I’m not well-versed in these types of scripts. I CAN understand, but I am better at the logistical side of things. 

C: Infinite loop. LYN: I did think of it, but it’s not something you can be certain of. It adds too many variables. If you think it’s a time loop, it might not be. But if it were to take place within reality, that’s not even a direction you have to think about. You’d only have to think about motive, and how the act was conducted.

C: Are the snacks tasty? LYN: Yes, they were all quite tasty.

C: What does the suannai geda (nai lao) taste like? LYN: First, you need to open up all your tastebuds. Before you eat it, it would be best to have a drink of clear water. To clear other flavors from your mouth. The moment you put the sour milk on your tongue, you will be able to taste the flavor of the sour milk. Suannai geda tastes like suannai geda. What did you expect? Would it taste like daikon?

C: Did you like it? LYN: Um… it’s an acquired taste? Some people like douzhi, but others can’t drink it/aren’t accustomed to the taste. If you like it, you will like it. If you don’t, then you don’t. So, does it taste good? If you think it’s good, it’s good. If you don’t think it’s good, then it’s not. LYN: /laughs at himself/ I can’t even believe how much nonsense I am spewing tonight!!  - likens it to stinky tofu- not that that’s what it tastes like- but people who like it, like it. People who don’t want to throw up at the smell of it. Depends on personal preference.

C: Ning-ge, everything you’re saying today is nonsense. LYN: That’s right! It’s not that I’m making a lot of noise. 1 minute on stage is 60 seconds off stage. [t/n: ??] Right? It’s not as simple as you think.

C: Ning-ge, I knew you would say that. LYN: I can’t believe you guessed right. Let me do something now that you will definitely never guess.  LYN: I hope you had a relaxing, happy, and wonderful night. It was great to have you and I hope you had fun. Let’s meet again in the next stream~ Goodnight, everyone! LYN: If you still haven’t subscribed to my weibo, please do so. It’s about time (to go). I’ll go wash up, do some homework for tomorrow’s scenes, then I’ll go to sleep. Okay? Goodnight, everyone. LYN: You didn’t see that coming did you? 🙂 LYN: Goodnight. Bye, bye.

[stormyoceans]

MONICA!!!!!! The concert was so good!!!! 😭😭😭 I’m assuming you’re ok with spoilers so here goes 😬

The first half of the show was them playing and recreating the key scenes and singing in them which I thought would trigger me tbh but instead I think it did me good to see the scenes I loved again 🥹 and Jimmy, Mark and Sea were so freaking good they cried in some scenes and I cried seeing them cry and it was so emotional again!!! I really wanna go back and rewatch all the good parts now, it’s still 80% a really good series!!

And they did Blame the Stars together!!! And you saw they did the “can I have my shirt back” scene!!! 😵🫠

(They played the breakup scene but not the reconciliation, it kinda just skipped to “happy ending” and I’m actually glad that we don’t have to rehash all of that)

They did full group songs and unit songs and what got to me was that MarkNamtan and OhmFilm did songs but so did NamtanFilm and MarkOhm!!! The NamtanFilm song was 😙👌

They did a whole Vice Versa medley!!! They did it for me!!! 😄 I was so happy and excited to see it!!! I hope that gets more of the newer fans to go watch it!!!

Jimmy, Mark and Sea had solo moments too, love that for them!!

They were surprised with a fan made video in support of them!! 🥰

Their speeches at the end were emotional and everyone cried, including me 🥹 Sea went second to last and Jimmy went last and he spoke the most 😁

It was just under 4 hours long, it started a little late (as all GMM concerts do tbh) but it was so good and worth only getting 4 hours of sleep 😅 I really hope you get to see it and enjoy it too!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING YOUR LIVE STREAMING EXPERIENCE OF THE LAST TWILIGHT CONCERT WITH ME KAREN!!!!!!!!

ngl reading this and seeing all the clips on twitter is making me want to buy the ticket for the rerun so badly like i always knew it was gonna be great and that everyone was gonna give their all but damn. the concert actually felt so well organized and thought out, i love that they basically turned the show into a musical and gave space for all kind of performances and pairings!!!!!! i've always wanted a duet version of blame the stars and im so happy they finally gave it to us!!!!!! and seeing namtanfilm and markohm slow dance alongside jimmysea was such a blessing THEY TRULY SAID THERE AIN'T NO STRAIGHT PEOPLE LEFT IN THIS SHOW

i really wasn't expecting it, but tbh i feel the same way as you. i think this did me good. maybe im just saying this because i haven't seen any videos of the break up scene so i can just keep pretending it never happened, but the parts i did see are kind of healing the hurt i've been feeling over the last three episodes of the show and bringing back all the love and excitement i used to have for morkday

ALSO NOT TO BE DRAMATIC BUT JIMMYSEA SINGING THE ENTIRETY OF THE VICE VERSA OST WITH A BRIGHT PINK STAGE SURROUNDING THEM MADE ME CRY LIKE A BABY like i truly did not expect them to bring vice versa up because last twilight is what brought them the popularity they always deserved so i was afraid they would kinda forget about vice versa, but im honestly just so ridiculously happy and emotional to know that it's still in their heart. or at least that they know it's still in ours, even if we may be a minority in the fandom now

i already had a meltdown over jimmysea this morning and i really can't afford another one and i don't think i would even have the words to express everything i feel but. im just so proud of them. it's honestly insane to me that they were able to pull off a performance like this in such a short period of time and with such a busy schedule. their dedication, their hard work, their kindness..... I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS THESE TWO BOYS DESERVES ALL THE LOVE AND RECOGNITION IN THE WORLD

[i-logophile]

So I made that playlist for Game of Shards (and just generally, the turtles), and I've decided to explain the TGP-specific songs in excessive detail bc y'all don't understand the depths of my hyper-fixations.

For the most part, the playlist is in chronological order; however, some of the songs are grouped by general vibes (e.g., songs for Leo's various timeouts in the darkness are all grouped together as opposed to being chronological with the story), and whenever it switches perspective, it may go back to previous chapters (e.g., the first 40-ish songs follow Leo through Ch. 1-7, and then it jumps back to Ch 2 for his brothers' POVs). Instrumentals/OSTs are scattered throughout as interludes between scenes and/or perspectives.

Tbh I don't even mind if people actually read this; I just wanted to write this down lmao

If y'all have any suggestions or song recs, feel free to put them out there! (I reserve the right not to add them to the playlist tho—no hard feelings 🙃) I will probably continue adding to this list because I keep finding more and more songs lol

TGP spoiler alert (duh...). Also TW for mental health issues in some songs.

ROTTMNT Movie

1. "Everybody Loves Me" - Okay, but this song is just like LEO all the way. 2. "give a little." - Leo, stop that angsty middle-child nonsense (saxophone slaps tho). 3. "Expectations" - I ain't got much to say about this one tbh. I feel like it fits the vibe though. 4. "Doomsday" - Leo's getting frustrated with all this leader/hero business. He wants to go back to the simpler times when all he had to do was look pretty and smooth talk. 5. "Not OK" - Leo's tired of being told what to do. the lyrics "Sorry can you please repeat the question? / I'm broke, and I never pay attention" really give that Leo+Raph scene in Leo's room in the movie. 6. "ight bet" - Leo gets cocky and impulsive. 7. "One Wrong Turn" - It's not so much the lyrics as the theme of the song. In other words, Leo, you done fxcked up. "Something funny that I've learned / Is just how quickly fate can turn / How one simple mistake can take you out (out, out, out) / Something funny that I've found / Is just how quickly worlds burn down / Make one wrong turn and you can't turn around ('round, 'round, 'round) / One wrong turn can burn things to the ground." 8. "The Tornado" - LISTEN TO THESE LYRICS. They fit the movie perfectly, especially "Every fiber in me screamed out, but I couldn't make a sound / The whirling of a vortex, a violent carousel / It sounded like a freight train was draggin' me to hell / And this was my prayer / "Save me from this terrible nightmare!" / That was when I saw my family with my eyes shut real tight / Would they know how much I loved them if this was how I died? / No, I vowed I'd not be murdered by a monster in the sky that night." 9. "Otherside" - Leo's existential crisis following the Invasion Pt. 1 10. "When I Die" - Leo's existential crisis following the Invasion Pt. 2.

TGP Ch. 1: Leo Reminiscing

11. "Hold It Down" - More existential crisis, but now with that ever-familiar side of guilt and regret. 12. "Humpty Dumpty" - Something's wrong (*cough* PTSD *cough* chronic injuries *cough*). Leo's trying to push through it. 13. "Home" - The lyrics "When I fall, will you show me who I'm meant to be? / Because I'm getting tired of who I've become", "I'm not a hero or a child, I'm just something in between", and "Days passed as I would start to scream / I'd hear the words around my head like they were circling / You'll never be who they all want you to become / Oh will I make them proud enough / Or am I even worth the love / Don't let my self-doubt take my pride away, yeah / Because my spirit felt the cuts / And my ego lost its luster just as fast as I could say" hits my soul. Poor Leo. 14. "Growing Sideways" - Leo's brothers all seem to be healing, why isn't he? 15. "Superkid" - Leo's a ninja, a hero, yet something is still wrong—he realizes it's him. He surveys the damage to the city and thinks of the struggles his family has faced. He blames himself. ("So, hide your face / Smile at the people even if it's fake / 'Cause they can't know your kryptonite / Fly around the city, make 'em think you're fine / But you can't save them.") 16. "Tread On Me" - Leo's trying to take responsibility, but he's drained. "Lotta miles, lotta folds, I'm still tryin' to just get back up / Don't you tread on me / I could hardly sleep / So I don't / And I can hardly speak / So I won't." "I'm tryna live in the moment like you told me / I'm tryna control it without givin' it up / I'm a soldier and I'm on my feet for now." 17. "Porcelain" - It's the glass theme, guys. 18. "One Winged Airplane" - Self-deprecation with just a touch of despair. ("Even though I keep on fallin', I just pick myself back up / I just keep puttin' my all in, even though it's not enough / I've lost so much already, so what? I'm not afraid to show up.") (I'm biased toward the ADHD songs ngl.) 19. "Corner of the World" - Depression(TM): Leo Style. ("It was tough when he was younger, but he finally got it down / Convincing everybody he's a comic, he's a clown / 'Cause he hides it so well that it can't possibly be found / He's constantly let down, but he says that he heals / He laughs and jokes about it, but it isn't real / He just mirrors the emotions that he wish he could feel / But if no one ever noticed, it's a victory still.")

Ch. 1: Leo's Run

20. "Run Away to Mars" - The song's a vibe, and it fits the scene, what can I say? 21. "Run" - Leo was getting stir-crazy in the lair. Luckily, he can go for a nice run while he waits for the pizzas. ("Something isn't right, I can't hear the inner me / But my shell is doing well, so nobody intervenes / Convos feel like interviews, I get through by any means / Mirror on my face, I'm just displaying what you give to me / Every day I fantasize of burning it all / Go somewhere where I would never be a burden at all / Take every penny that I ever earned and give it away / Disconnect the telephone and disappear in a day.") 22. "run little hero" - "Run, run, run, run from your friends, from your family / Like they're the next calamity / Cut them out like profanity, – into insanity / Running from your commitments / You're running up on the price / You better run little hero / 'Cause you're running out of time." Also, the last lyric of this song killed me. 23. "Run Boy Run" - Just a run, a nice, chill, definitely-not-gonna-have-consequences run.

Ch. 1: Leo and the EPF Van (plus ~panic attacks~)

24. "Paranoia" - Leo notices a black van. Again. And again. 25. "Overwhelmed" - Pretty self-explanatory if you know the song—though this is a different cover than the OG, so a bunch of the lyrics are different. (Personally, I like this version better.)

Ch. 1: Leo v. Mark and Clark

26. "OH WELL" - Everything's gone to shit. 😃 27. "life is good" - Leo cannot, in fact, dodge tranquilizers. "Face down, but I can feel my body moving / Is this real or am I in an illusion / Get up get up I’m only human / Pupils dilated like I’m bout to lose it / so crazy so I turn off the news / Living in a lie and we can’t see the truth / Every one fighting tell me which side are you" 28. "Redecorate" - "I don't want to go like this / At least let me clean my room. / I don't want to leave like this / 'Cause the last thing I want to do is / Make my people make decisions / Wondering what to do." 29. "alive (it's a lie) - demo" - As Leo succumbs to the tranqs, he can't help but think of his brothers, all seemingly on the road to full recovery. Meanwhile, he's stuck. Some ninja he is.

1. Interlude

30. "Sinister Intentions" - Get it? Bc the EPF has sinister intentions? Somebody stop me

Ch. 3: Leo Wakes up and Meets Bishop

31. "Lucky Charms" - Leo wakes up in his cell and thinks lots of lovely self-loathing thoughts. ("Wish I could say, wish I could say / That this won't last forever / But every day, but every day / It never seems to get better / I hate myself but I don't want to / I'd ask for help but I'm too strong to / I got some feelings I've been fighting / Always hiding the truth.") 32. "Now That We're Alone" - Bishop and Leo vibes all the way.

Ch. 3-7: The Darkness (AKA Leo's timeouts) & Bishop's Interrogations

33. "Black Water" - Just listen, you'll get it. 34. "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" - Leo goin' crazy, y'all 😜 35. "Timebomb" - Leo's thoughts toward B-Man during literally every interrogation. 36. "Panic Room" - All bets are off when the lights turn off. 37. "Talking To Myself - demo" - He misses his family, your honor. 38. "Pretty Little Smile" - Leo's trying his best to hold it together. 39. "Ship in a Bottle" - Leo spiraling about Bishop and the EPF and his brothers and... 40. "SAD (Clap Your Hands)" - Thinking specifically of Leo doing the Cup Song here.

2. Interlude

41. "Solas" - Felt like this one was properly somber, but still a good transition into the frantic energy of Leo's brothers in Ch. 2.

Ch. 2-6: Donnie, Raph, & Mikey Want Their Brother Back

42. "Enough" - Donnie is angry at everything. He just wants Leo back. 43. "Me Myself & I" - Donnie regrets fighting with his family. 44. "Happy Song (Low Key)" - Mikey's gonna keep smiling if it kills him. 45. "Brightside" - Mikey tries to hold the family together while dealing with his own issues regarding Leo's capture. 46. "I'm Doing Fine" - Raph struggles under the leader's mantle.

3. Interlude

47. "Glacial Basin" - An appropriately unnerving prelude to Bishop's plan(s).

Ch. 8: Bishop Tries To Manipulate Leo

48. "Twisted" - Leo is (high on pain and painkillers but also) so confused. Come on, Bishop, you're hurting his concussed, drugged-up turtle brain.

Ch. 9: Bioagent-X

49. "Control" - Leo gets angry at Bishop, escapes, and finds his brothers, but he doesn't know what's going on with himself. (I know this song's kinda overused in a lot of fandoms, but I couldn't not include it. I mean, it makes sense here, doesn't it??)

Ch. 10: Turtles v. EPF

50. "Clouds" - Bioagent-X takes its toll. The EPF attacks. 51. "CHOKE" - The plan falls apart. Leo is taken once again. Angst, spice, and nothing is nice.

4. Interlude

52. "Fade (Interlude)" - It's a sad moment, dammit.

Ch. 11-12: They Are All Struggling

53. "everything is falling apart again" - I felt like this song fits Raph very well, especially here. One of his themes in TGP was that he felt like things were falling apart, and since the first half of this chapter is from his perspective following the disaster that was Ch. 10, this was the perfect place for this song. 54. "Gravedigger" - Leo is throwing reason and caution to the wind. If he's his own gravedigger, why not dig his grave as deep as possible and make it even more difficult for the EPF? 55. "Dark Room" - Back home again to his cell and the darkness and Bishop's manipulations. "Way down we go / To the dark room / Where your pain's the only one to greet you / Down we go / To the mind that / Will deceive you. / Only out to get you." 56. "Numb" - Leo struggles with despair. 57. "Headlights" - Leo's had enough. "Is it only me or do you / Ever feel like you've had enough? / Screaming at the top of your lungs / These days it's so dark and I can't get my head right / Mind is spinning out of control / Running, but there's nowhere to go / These days it's so dark that I can't see with headlights."

5. Interlude (and Ch. 12)

58. "Rain, in Your Black Eyes" - I know it's long, but this is my favorite instrumental piece. It's solemn but gradually hopeful. This song follows Leo regaining his Ninpō in Ch. 12.

Ch. 12: A Small Spark, A Blue Flame

59. "Power" - Leo uses his Ninpō and faces down the EPF with his escape in sight.

Ch. 13: Mind Meld

60. "Brother" - They've found him (granted, in the Mind Meld). (And, yes, I know the song's overused yada yada, but it fits.) 61. "can you hear me?" - Leo's gotten this far, but he can't get out alone. 62. "No Chances" - "We want you home in one piece now / We come for you, no chances"

6. Interlude

63. "The Last Survivors" - Cinematic and dramatic.

Ch. 14: Leo Holds On

64. "Come Home" - Leo's trying to come home. 65. "Bones" - Leo plays a desperate, painful game of hide-and-seek while his Ninpō fades in and out of his control. 66. "Bleeding Out" - This song makes me specifically think of when the EPF overtakes Leo after Bishops turns off the lights. 67. "My Tears Are Becoming A Sea" - Leo sees his brothers' light in the impenetrable darkness.

Ch. 14: Hamatos to the Rescue

68. "Flares" - Leo's family is here for him. 69. "Edge of Rain" - Hamatos v. EPF (Take 2)

Ch. 15: They Got Him Back

70. "Call Your Mom" - Yes, I know the song's about Noah Kahan's girlfriend, BUT "Stayed on the line with you the entire night / 'Til you let it out and let it in / Don't let this darkness fool you / All lights turned off can be turned on", "Waiting room, no place to stand / His greatest fears and wringing hands and the loudest silence / If you could see yourself like this", and "Don't wanna drive another mile wonderin' if you're breathin' / So, won't you stay, won't you stay, won't you stay with me?" IT FITS DAMMIT.

Ch. 16: Bishop's Boutta Get It, Guys

71. "Start a War" - Okay, but why does this song describe Game of Shards (not just TGP) so well? I think specifically of the lines: "Bang, shots fired. / Pain is what you desire. / The pen is mightier than the sword." ;)

7. Interlude

72. "Nuvole Bianche" - The send-off. For now.

Once again, feel free to suggest other songs. You may have noticed that some chapters/scenes didn't have any songs, so if you think you know a song that would fit somewhere, lmk! (I'm particularly salty that I haven't found songs for any scenes with the Krang Sister :P)

[satureja13]

Underwater Love

 ~ Chapter 1 ~  

It was (not so) great when it all began

Where Ji Ho has his first day at the new school, get’s hissed on by that jerk (= Vlad), meets Hector, the crocodile, cries a lot (because of that jerk)

and

where Vlad and Jack hunt the intruder who sleeps in the storage room of the school!

and

where Jack freaks out because Giga/Saiwa gets attacked! (or maybe not?)

From the Beginning   ~  Underwater Love   ~  Latest

It was great when it all began/Rose tint my world - Rocky Horror Picture Show OST

Finally I managed to get me one of those photo collage apps. Ever since @cantseemtohide​ mentioned this in an ask a few months ago, I wanted to try it ^^’ (sometimes I’m anxious/hesistant/slow trying new stuff ö.ö’) Plan was to make a ‘best of’. So I scrolled through the archive. But then I thought, why not make a better chapter list for an easier acess? So I did and I had so much fun (still have).

I never had a plan for this story. Just wanted to test the new pack (I wasn’t very fond of the new pack when it was announced - I was so wrong haha) and then go back to my ‘Family Business’ story... that was almost 9 months ago...

This story brings me a lot of joy and I learn a lot (about editing and human behavior and english). Since I’m with autism, it’s hard for me to imagine what others could possibly think. And tell without talking (I don’t even know why they even do it when they could just say it ö.Ö). So while working on this story, I learned to look closer. How do they feel? What do they think? Why do they act like they do? I’m still not any good at this but it got better.

And since I’m also with ADHD, I also was/am so amazed how focussed I am when it comes to this story. I barely ever managed to stay with anything (even if I was hyperfocussed) over such a long time every single day. wow

This story really amazes me and sometimes/often it’s even scary for me. It scares me/makes me helpless when unexpected/unplanned things happen. But by telling this story I learned to deal with it and make the best out of it (to a certain degree). A lot of remarkable twists in this story wouldn’t have happened if Ji Ho hadn’t been bitten by Genji. So I also learned how to deal with death, which was really hard since I had to get over a lot of deaths in my life. Even though I knew Vlad would come back. This story is like a therapy for me. I barely make things up, they happen or I ‘learn’ about them or I go with their flow. Not sure how to explain this. There were things happening in the lifes of my sims before that just were as it was. I didn’t question the nor could I explain them. Vlad’s and Jack’s insult light saber sword fighting for example. It’s just something they do from time to time. But then, suddenly I ‘learn’ why they do it (it will be revealed soon in the story). This is amazing and scary haha.

Or Jack in general. I know him as an adult for over 10 years. But as a teenager he was totally different and I wondered why. And as the story evolved, I learned about his past (and still do) and then he had this dream and I knew, it was Kiysohi who helped him become the responsible father of 3-5 kids (they’ll have to do something about this lol! Maybe adult Jack and Kiyoshi will have a fifth child together since it’s now possible) and one of the leaders of the Resistance.

What also never really happened in my sims 4 game was love. They had romances and i had a few couples but it never was as deep as the connection between Saiwa and Jeb for example. Or Vlad, Luci and Ji Ho ^^’ Or even Kiyoshi and Jack. It is not quite tangible in the story now, but when I learned they had been together all the time in the other story universe, that really hit me.

There are still so many things I can’t wait to learn about them and this keeps me going.

So the boys are more than precious to me <3 And I’m sure this will be an episode in my life that will always be remembered. (”Oh my, do you remember when Lenny was obsessed with his sims?” “Yes! Ji Ho and Vlad! And the beautiful elf! And that dorky werewolf!” hahaha)

That’s enough for now. Thank you for being with us!

[clairedaring]

[Series Review] Trillion Game (2023) - an exhilaring fun ride from start to finish

I watched like four Japanese series in 2023 so I'm not sure I'm qualified to rank anything but for me personally, Trillion Game is the BEST Japanese series of 2023. The story and solutions felt cheesy at times but pacing, acting/cast, music, rewatch value. 10/10. I am so happy I decided on a whim to watch this after being in a slump of not being able to truly enjoy any series after I finished another drama which I considered my favorite series of 2023.

STORY

We follow Haru (Meguro Ren), an extremely charming communicator and Gaku (Sano Hayato), a brilliant IT engineer as they encounter obstacles on their start-up journey together. It is VERY fast paced drama with each episode following a certain formula that you'll figure out by the second episode. For the majority of the series, each episode starts with present Gaku, CEO of Trillion Game, reminiscing his and Haru's past adventures in the early days of their start-up business. While each episodes may seem formulaic, the stories are never boring and I found myself binging everything from start to finish, not being able to stop for a second. We've seen the unhinged genius x sane down-to-earth duo a bazillion times before but I think what makes this particular story so charming is the characterization of Haru who is self-proclaimed "the most selfish man in the world" but all his actions are completely contradictory, always self-less and putting everyone's needs above his. I love Haru so much. I don't know what they laced in the series but I am down bad for Tennoji Haru and I get why Princess Kiri wants Haru so bad as well, like same here sis.

ACTING/CAST

Meguro Ren and Imada Mio are just the most enigmatic actors, truly powerhouses. From edits on Youtube on Tiktok, you'd think these two have a lot of screen time together but they DON'T. Regardless, even when acting separately, they are bringing everything to the table and when they get scenes together, the chemistry is CHEMISTRYING. The sizzling tension between Haru and Princess Kiri are just top-notch. Sano Hayato and Fukumoto Riko are also just the most adorable nerds as Gaku and Rinrin. I love our four main leads so damn much. There's this one scene from Episode 2 where the first thing Haru does after receiving their initial 30 million yen investment is to bath in money and I remember thinking this is so nonsensical but at the same time found myself with the stupidest grin on my face watching Haru pushing Gaku out of his comfort zone to do all these insane things with him. I LOVE THEM. Meguro Ren is truly an enigmatic powerhouse in this one. I have only seen Meme in like three other dramas but Haru is definitely my top favorite Meguro Ren role ever.

MUSIC

The score is so energetic and fun. I love the main theme song of the series which is Dangerholic by Snow Man. The song is SAUR good I haven't skipped single outtro of any episode just to listen to this song. I watched a lot of series this year but Dangerholic is probably taking the crown as my favorite OST of 2023 in this very last minute race. As previously mentioned , Trillon Game has very exciting and energizing score and I'd argue that many business/office scenes are hard-carried by the score and excellent editing.

REWATCH VALUE

This series get a 100000000 for rewatch value because I just finished it and I'm already considering for another rewatch just because of how much fun I had watching it. But also because each episodes are so self-contained, Trillion Game will be fairly easy to rewatch any random episode in this series because you don't really need to the past episode to enjoy one, a recap at the beginning of each episode will do just fine. The tension between Haru and Princess Kiri is so insane even though there's no explicit romance going on. I think I need to rewatch it just for THEM.

PRODUCTION

This was definitely a low budget drama but TBS definitely made do with what they got. I understand if Princess Kiri's wardrobe alone was where most budget was allocated to. Like deserved! Trillion Game's strength lies more in the acting and story department so I wouldn't say this was a high value production but I will say I love all the rooftop scenes between Haru and Gaku. Those rooftop conversation scenes between them are just beautiful and heart-warming.

OVERALL

I love Haru with my entire heart. WATCH TRILLION GAME FOR HARU PLEASE.

[dumpsterfirepropaganda]

Okay actually y’know what? I’ve been waiting for an excuse to do this and I have some time to kill, permit me to vomit some unedited blathering all over the screen about my ROCK/METAL/ADJACENT GENRES music journey because I love to gab about it. There’s gonna be some chat about religious music but I promise this ain’t a religious post - I just think it’s fun to look at the bands that shaped my interests and led me to what I listen to today (and it’s very funny to me to see my amateur sloppy journey through bands I think most people already knew about wayyy before my oblivious little self stumbled across them). Walk with me boss let’s talk

So some crucial context right off the bat: up until my late teens I was not aware that music was something I could Discover and Buy on my own. But my parents had a pretty big (~50-100) CD collection, so that was my main source of new music for almost all of my childhood.

What is unique about this CD collection is that I think almost 100% of it was late 90’s / early 2000’s Christian music. So my introduction to most genres was through that specific “genre” (there is an argument to be made that “Christian” is a theme not a genre. Which I will make. But not in this post.). Pop? Rock? Rap? Heck, ska? I heard it Jesus-style first. Classic Newsboys and Jars of Clay and David Crowder were on pretty much 24/7. But in terms of rock, we didn’t have any of the big bands I think most people, religious or no, are familiar with—like Flyleaf, Skillet, Red, Disciple, etc. Instead, my teeth were cut on one specific band called D.C. Talk.

If you grew up in a Christian household during the early 2000’s you’re probably hearing the song I’m about to reference in your head right now. If you didn’t, you most likely have never heard of D.C. Talk. But these guys were responsible for what my little child brain thought was the HARDEST song I had ever heard: a lil’ jam called Jesus Freak.

I’m going to be providing links to example songs throughout this post so that you can sample my journey with me, so this brings us to the first:

If you’re not religious (and even if you are), this song is probably pretty cringe. Compared to what I know now, the fact that baby me thought this song was hard at all is pretty laughable. But it was the anthem of my childhood. I’m honestly so curious how other people who didn’t grow up with the song perceive it because it’s SO entrenched in my mind as The Song growing up, to the point that I don’t think I could be fully objective about it no matter how hard I tried.

Anyway, I thought that was cool, took in the rest of the album, and then ditched rock as a genre completely to listen to EDM and Vocaloid and anime thumbnail nightcore covers for the rest of my teenage years like any good DeviantART kid. And I didn’t come back to the genre in any meaningful way until January the Year Of Our Lord 2023. (Yes I know that was just last year. Up until 2022 I did not have time to explore new interests because I was busy getting a Bachelor’s of Science, I was listening almost exclusively to video game OSTs and doing chemistry homework and Stressing™️).

The reason I remember the month and year of the turning point so specifically is because, over the New Year holiday, my family and I sat down to watch a documentary called Jesus Music that traced the history of Contemporary Christian Music. It was pretty interesting—D.C. Talk was a pretty big part of the story, as well as a bunch of other bands and artists I’d grown up with—but one band in particular jumped to my attention: Stryper.

Now I didn’t bother to do any research for this post but as best as I remember it, Stryper is a Christian metal band that was a bit controversial in its heyday for hanging on to the classic 80’s metal aesthetic and sound during a period where the prevailing Christian attitude was “Rock Is The Devil’s Music,” satanic panic etc etc. I remembered my mom saying she really enjoyed them during her 20’s, so I decided to check them out—and, while they weren’t really my thing, I fucked with their yellow-and-black outfits pretty heavy and thought they were at the very least a lot of fun:

I’d just caved and signed up for a Spotify Premium subscription around this time, so I started a Stryper radio, juuuust to see if I would maybe warm up to them. And that was where the turning point was. Because it was on the Stryper radio that I discovered the first metal band I REALLY liked: Theocracy. (Yes, we’re still in Christian music lmao, bear with me, we’re about to take a HARD left turn.)

Theocracy was specifically my introduction to power metal, and damn I fell for them hook, line, and sinker. It’s hard to explain what their music did to me because I’m so aware now how basic the experiences I had with them are, but I had never had my brains totally blown by a guitar run before, or felt myself totally swept up by the music before, even to the point of tears—like DAMN, they know how to write a chorus that will CARRY you. Or maybe that’s bias talking again lol, but Theocracy was a discovery that felt very uniquely mine, and it will always hold a very special place in my heart. It was so hard to pick just one song to use as an example but I had to go with one of the first ones I ever heard:

Getting into Theocracy put me in the way of a few other religious metal bands I really liked: Narnia, Saviour Machine, Within Silence, Harmony, etc.

So where did this lead me next?

Now, Mindless Self Indulgence has its issues, and I don’t generally like to tout them because of it, but I can genuinely say that nobody does it like they did it. And somehow, the guitar shredding Theocracy did and the manic electropunk wildness of MSI somehow struck the same chord in my brain, despite the two bands probably being the absolute furthest thing from one another in terms of subject matter (from I Am to Fuck Machine, anyone?). And again, this was something I had discovered all on my own—I think I heard a snippet of Never Wanted To Dance on a flipnote compilation back in 2013, but aside from that they were wayyy off my radar until I stumbled across them again in my quest for more jams. But this was CERTAINLY a step up from my previous interests in terms of energy, which led almost directly into the next “discovery” on my list:

Yeah, I found out about this because of the TikTok trend (indirectly, because that’s how a close friend of mind discovered it, and she shared it with me). But BOY OH BOY did it take me by the throat and shove me bodily through the next month and a half. Slipknot songs are very hit or miss for me, but as I poked into their discography I found quite a few songs that would become a permanent part of my rotation (Duality, Wait and Bleed, Before I Forget, Psychosocial, to name the favs).

By now you’re probably getting the impression that I was very sheltered, and I want to make it clear that I wasn’t really (although relatively speaking maybe I was)—but seriously, I was also just REALLY unadventurous growing up. And to an extent I still am: I’m quick to settle in an interest and not look around for more. I like listening to the same songs over again and playing the same video games over and over and watching the same movies and reading the same books a billion times. So every step of this journey has been very slow, but also very exciting, because everything feels like such a big discovery.

Anyway, Slipknot radio inevitably led me to Disturbed and Drowning Pool and System of a Down and then adjacently to Three Day’s Grace (HERE’S where I actually started listening to Skillet as well, full circle lmao), and that led me to the subject of my last post, that being Linkin Park.

Now we’ve fully pivoted from angry raucous screamo rock to angsty sad alt, but this was just as captivating to me in a different way. I’d heard plenty of clips of Linkin Park songs before because our generation has meme’d their hits half to death, but I’d never really listened to them seriously, and I was surprised by how much I really, really liked them. It’s not often I’ll listen to an album start to finish multiple times, but I’ve done so for both Meteora and Hybrid Theory multiple times this past month alone, and I can see the same being true for much of the near future.

I’ve left out a lot of stray bands and artists I’ve picked up along the way (Blue Stahli [thanks friend 😈], Upchuck, Rabbit Junk, and like one or two Falling In Reverse and Green Day songs), and I haven’t talked at ALL about my adjacent hip-hop/rap journey but these have been the main touchstones of my journey thus far. Maybe it’s nothing to write home about but I’ve always wanted to document it because I never could’ve predicted where I would’ve ended up, or what will come next. There’s just something fun about putting down my personal history in terms of an interest like this (even if it will inevitably expose me as a massive music noob. I don’t care. I’m having fun lmao.)

If you’ve made it to the end of this, I don’t really have much of a conclusion except thank you for journeying with me through these ramblings. I’d really love to hear other people’s music journeys. I think it would be really fun to share reflections like this. I’m thinking I might vomit out another stream of consciousness like this in the future, probably about how I got into Mega Man ZX - because DAMN is that quite the circuitous journey and another story I’ve been dying to tell.

anyway tl;dr Jesus music got me into Custer!!! I love you D.C. Talk!

goodnight tristate area

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 14/04/2024

Thwâmpröck Desert

Season 8 No Album Release (Read More) Thwomp Desert (OST Version) - Mario Kart Wii

Ripped by Madinstance

So you know how yesterday's post was about a ripper with a very clearly defined niche of work, with Jamangar and Locked In The Underground? And earlier in the week I was covering the sheer prowess of ripper Madinstance, the raw power he exudes with I will Never be a Redneck? And just a few more days before that, where I talked about how much Mario Kart Wii's music means to me with Sweatpants Select? Well amidst my lineup of possible future posts, I slowly realized how perfectly Thwâmpröck Desert fit all three categories - a great way to end the week, and another Season 8 rip to boot.

Madinstance is an exceptionally skilled ripper, that much I hope I've made clear over my past posts on him. But with a few exceptions from time to time aside, he's also a ripper with a rather particular focus - a lot of his greatest rips, such as Every Mob Wants to Rule My World, Fell From a High Place (Reprise) and M​-​O​-​O​-​G City, are all focused on paying respects to Minecraft and its legendary original composer C418, wheras recently Initial Deluxe (I've Just Raced on this Course Before) appears to reveal a newfound love for the Mario Kart series. You may think at first thumbnail glance that Thwâmpröck Desert is an extension of that, a rip of a Mario Kart game, but there's one more field of his expertise that I'm yet to cover on here. C418 is beloved by many, yes, but within those privy to video game music history, particularly in the chiptune community, few composers are as revered and celebrated as the Follin brothers, Tim Follin and Geoff Follin.

To VGM aficionados, they need no introduction - but then, its those same aficionados who would know such things as that Robocop on Game Boy of all games has amazing music, as I discussed in Viva La Robocop. Most others, those who are primarily video game fans, will simply choose their favorite composer based on their own favorite games. That's completely valid too, of course, many long-running franchises like Kingdom Hearts, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dark Souls and so forth have key people composing for them that are incredibly distinct, to where you KNOW what a Kingdom Hearts game will sound like, what a Dark Souls game will sound like, and so on. Yet what makes the Follin brothers so fascinating in contrast, is that their soundtracks were attached to all kinds of games from all sorts of places: Ecco the Dolphin on Dreamcast, Silver Surfer on NES, Pictionary on NES, Plok! on Super Nintendo - practically the entire spectrum of games of the 80s and 90s, from shovelware to all-time classics, the Follins contributed to. Yet to them, the individual game quality hardly mattered! Be it Pictionary or Plok, Tim and Geoff Follin composed every soundtrack like it was their life's greatest achievement, creating full-on chiptune prog-rock in games that had NO business going that hard (I know that's a bit of an overdone and reductive turn of phrase, but really - PICTIONARY???) The brothers knew how to make any platform they were working on positively sing, and their obscure weirdo games have become titans amidst VGM enthusiasts as a result. An underdiscussed side of video game history, still cherished by a specific subset of nerds yet today.

Which, then, brings us back to Thwâmpröck Desert - an arrangement of one of Tim Follin's most insane pieces, the title screen music for NES game Solstice. It deserves a listen all of its own - the way it fakes you out with the most barebones little ditty of all time before switching into a rock masterpiece is an absolute work of art, and the piece just keeps growing from there, at once impossibly layered yet incredibly cohesive. Madinstance LOVES ripping the Follins' work, he's made a name for himself in part for ripping the SNES game Plok! in particular during Season 6 and Season 7, yet even still I was unsure how well Thwâmpröck Desert could really work. Its not a rip of a Follin composed game like the aforementioned Plok! rips - its arranging this impossibly dense piece of music into a song that already sounds like the violin version of pure, yet elegant, panic. Yet I suppose that also makes it the perfect fit for the Solstice title theme's sheer density - and when actually listening to Thwâmpröck Desert, its hard to imagine that Thwomp Desert ever sounded any different.

It's just - GAAHH!!! Its fucking mind-boggling how good it sounds, how this odd song I'd barely thought about from Mario Kart Wii wound up being the perfect template to arrange Follin's music into. The melody's string instruments are perfect for the Solstice title theme's pure distilled chaos whilst still capturing that sense of elegance and flow, and the most quirky instruments still present in Thwomp Desert add a delightful texture to the arrangement. I have to pause it every 10 or so seconds I listen to just process all that I've heard - the percussion, lead, backing, the progression of the song, its all handled absolutely masterfully, I cannot BELIEVE this was just dropped on us on a normal tuesday! I will Never be a Redneck was at least a season premiere!!

Whew...well, alright, I hope you get the picture - The Follin brothers' music fucking rocks, and I am SO glad that a ripper as amazing as Madinstance has taken it upon himself to pay regular tribute to their work. Games like Mario Kart Wii are leagues more mainstream than the games that the Follins typically worked on, and the idea of SiIvaGunner getting less VGM-savvy viewers to find out about these legendary composers - it just makes me really happy! Madinstance's rips are bangers to be sure, but much like Beautiful! ~ Curveball of Sean Kingston, like Beyond the Floating Isles, like Gate Happy: they're bangers that can also open up a whole new world of musical interests to viewers like you and I. And isn't that just the coolest way for SiIvaGunner's art of subversion to live on in?

(oh, also, its called Thwâmpröck Desert because the Solstice NES game takes place in "Kâstleröck" and I just found that very funny)

[silvertsundere]

Silver Talks AniManga (07/07/24)

didn't post yesterday cause was busy all day (against my will) new season starting tho so that's fun, even if I'm not watching a ton this time around, also the end of this new serialization round I'm on vacation for the next couple weeks so hopefully I find the time to catch up/finish some stuff but I also got the ff14 expansion I want to play through so we'll see

green - new series/new to me

Anime

Plus-Sized Elf Ep1

I completely missed the announcement that this was gonna be a short anime so I was surprised when I saw the lenght was only 11 minutes, it's fine tho, it fits the manga and makes it more easily digestible. Anyway, that was alright, nothing too impressive and a lot of still panning shots as you'd expect from an adaptation like this. I was surprised by the full on uncensored tiddies tho. What really carries shows like this is the voice cast and Itou Ayasa did a solid job I think. Not expecting a lot out of this, but since it's short it should be a nice little appetizer before I watch Samurai on fridays

The Elusive Samurai Ep1

wow wow wow WOW Like what else can I say but that? I wasn't too hopeful for the anime from the pvs we saw before, they looked good, yes, but it felt like something was missing, to me. All those doubts are completely dispelled now however. Ep 1 was nothing short of incredible, like it's hard to even find the words to explain just how good it was, you gotta see it to understand. Everything was great. Both OP and ED had good visuals and songs. The OST and voices were great, and the animation was really solid too. There was a chance to have some sakuga during a certain scene, and they didn't do it, but it still looked good, if they keep that throughout the whole show then it should be fine. My favourite part was the colours tho, it looked beautiful and there were a lot of great shots like the ones below, among many others. It's just refreshing to see such creative use of colours, like some shots looked good enough to be in a movie adaptation instead of a TV anime

But anyway, I've been reading the manga since day 1 so it's crazy to see it get such a great adaptation. Matsui truly is built different. Me and my buddy mega were discussing were the anime is gonna end, since it's confirmed 12 episodes, and I'm fairly sure it's gonna be on chap 58 for various reasons. We'll see how the pacing for the new few eps goes tho, it may not get quite that farhard

Manga

Hima-Ten! Ch1

That was... ok. As I mentioned before I read the author's previous work as it came out years ago, and it was a ping pong series. I figured this was going to be sports based too, so I was surprised when they released the synopsis and I found out it was going to be a rom com. I'll start out by saying I'm not too big on romance stuff. Like I love Blue Box but it took a while for me to warm up to it and even then it lacks a lot of the issues I usually have with that kinda stuff.

Back to this series tho, my biggest complaint about chapter 1 was setting up this secondary girl (the black haired one in the pic below) and making it clear that the MC even has a crush on her, just for the main girl to show up and, obviously, win him over eventually. I mean the damn summary for the series on M+ ends with "Say hello to some company president girl x house-cleaner boy romantic comedy hijinks!", so there's not much room to wonder about what'll happen.

Other than that it was a nice chap 1. The art has improved so much that it's like a completely different artist (tho there's still some recognizable bits from his old stuff) and this new style is super cute, I actually really like it. The interactions between the mains were fun and the expressions were good too, it really is just that nagging point I have with it. We'll see how the next few chaps go I guess but not expecting much tbh

Dandadan Ch159

while this was inevitable and I knew it was a matter of time til it happened it really took me by surprise to see it happen now. Ofc I could see the build up in the few pages before it but still I don't remember if I've talked about this arc so far but it's been pretty cool, basically jumanji but instead of the game coming out they go inside the game. It's had a buncha cool ideas and the new chara with powers is a nice guy too