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humbledragon669 · 8 months ago

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S1E1 – In The Beginning Write Up P3

– Five Years Later (allegedly) and The Present Day

Alright so let’s address the elephant in the room here shall we? The signpost tells us, in no uncertain terms, that the story line has moved on by five years. I have a serious issue with that assertion, and it’s not just because this is in direct contradiction to the storyline in the book. It goes a little something like this:

I cannot believe that Aziraphale and Crowley have left the Antichrist alone for the first five years of his life.

Even if we’re generous here and say that Crowley steps in to replace a nanny that has been present for Warlock’s early years, it simply doesn’t make any sense that they would have sat back and let him develop on his merry way for the most influential years of his life (sorry Neil, but I will die on this hill). The book’s timeline here makes a lot more sense – that both Aziraphale and Crowley are inserted into Warlock’s life within a week of his birth, Aziraphale as the gardener and Crowley as the nanny. At the age of five, they both leave and return immediately as tutors for him, ensuring that they are both present for his entire childhood. With that in mind, I’m going to do something potentially controversial and adopt the book timeline as fact. It just makes more sense. Also that will make my fanfic ideas not only possible but genuinely really feasible. Honestly, I don’t know why the timeline deviates from the book here – this matter aside, the series is a truly excellent adaptation of the book (judged by the fact that I never said “that’s not how it happened in the book” for the whole of series 1. There are a lot of media writers that could learn a lot from Neil on this point – I’m looking at you Discovery of Witches series 2 creative team).

There are two things I find interesting about the short scene that follows (no, one of them is not how well David carries off a skirt, though I do really appreciate the Mary Poppins reference with that costume). Firstly, the positioning of Aziraphale as a gardener. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the idea of a garden is brought up again, but I can’t quite make the connection myself. Perhaps there isn’t meant to be one. That said, I would have thought, given his character, Aziraphale might have been more suitable as something like a butler (it would even give him the opportunity to steal food!), which would likely give him more opportunity to interact with Warlock throughout his childhood, so I do feel like there’s something here.

On a tangential (and impossible-to-be-related) note, I saw Nye a few days ago (a play about the founder of the NHS, starring Michael, for those who don’t know what this is) and there was a line in it about Nye and his wife believing their love to be like a garden – he planted the love and she tended to it. It was truly beautiful and touching. I felt like I had a sort of light bulb moment about gardens in GO and then realised that the two productions have nothing to do with one another!

The second thing I noted about this sequence is more something of note than something that has meaning. Having discussed the music/soundtrack for this series in a previous write up, it should come as no surprise that there is a cute little parallel here: the melody Crowley uses for the lullaby he sings to Warlock is the same as the melody for the second motif in the theme tune. It’s slowed down quite considerably, but still recognisable.

Original theme:

Lullaby:

I have to say, I’m a little disappointed we don’t get to hear the rendition of “Three Little Pigs” that we’re treated to in the book. I am not ashamed to say that I laughed very long and very hard when I read it – I have a pretty dark sense of humour. Perhaps this was a little too much for the good ol’ BBC?

Quick item of note from the next scene at Heaven/Hell HQ – this series has escalators instead of an elevator. I had originally assumed that this was the same building as we see being used in series 2 to gain access to Heaven but looking at the background when Crowley and Aziraphale enter the building, it’s clear that it’s a completely different building, which just makes me wonder where exactly the HQ entrance is. There’s a really clever piece of editing at use here too, one which I actually didn’t spot until I was doing this write up.

I hadn’t noticed previously that the duplicate image of the escalator on the floor of the lobby ISN’T a reflection of the physical escalators. On the left, we can see Crowley’s image on a set of escalators going down, whilst we see no reflection of Aziraphale. We even get to see Crowley approach the escalator in the “reflection” after he disappears through the floor, whilst Aziraphale’s reflection disappears from the floor as he approaches the stairs, and both of these things happen as they walk across an area that ripples like water under their feet. I don’t think there’s any hidden meaning in this, I just think it’s a really cool piece of film.

When we see the angel and demon giving their reports to their respective head offices, it’s made clear to us that neither authority has any awareness of their collaboration. In fact, Aziraphale is still held in high esteem by Gabriel and Michael (though perhaps not Uriel and Sandalphon – those two always look like someone just pissed on their nice suits) and is even given permission to continue on his apparently futile mission. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Crowley, but as Liggur said earlier in the episode, it would be a funny thing if demons could trust one another anyway.

It’s nice to see that Heaven isn’t so busy that it can’t produce a newspaper for its earthbound agents, complete with weak headlines, worthy of any local rag:

I do not think it a coincidence that the newspaper has been given the title of “Observer” – after all, it’s pretty much all they do up there isn’t it? Watch people? Other than planning Armageddon I mean…

The short scene on the bus also shows us a little more of the dynamic between Crowley and Aziraphale when it comes to planning. It’s clear that the angel is relying on the demon to lead the way and he looks really worried when it’s made apparent that Crowley doesn’t have a plan for a potential emergency situation.

Quick note about the Hell Hound – he’s being housed in a room with a number on it – 2549. Does this mean there have been 2548 Hell Hounds before him? Hastur certainly indicates that he isn’t the only Hell Hound they have (but he is the biggest). Where are the rest of them?

The conversation (which takes place in the grounds of Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park - the repeated reference to dinosaurs being a big joke in this scene is not lost on me) on the park bench is the first time we hear Crowley call Aziraphale by the name “Angel”. Neil has confirmed (here and here) that this isn’t anything other than a factual name to use but I can’t help but feel like it’s affectionate. It’s certainly very familiar and it’s interesting to see that Aziraphale doesn’t repay the favour; perhaps this is to do with the meaning of the words – after all, calling someone “demon” doesn’t feel very polite, does it? Or perhaps it’s just that “Aziraphale” is a bit of a mouthful to say. This is also the first time we are let in to the secret of them having their own side:

AZIRAPHALE: And if he does name it? CROWLEY: Then you and I have lost.

The conversation around the potential murder of an 11-year-old boy presents an interesting side of the relationship between the pair. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that the suggestion that Aziraphale is capable of killing an innocent child (even if he is the Antichrist) is nothing short of laughable, and Crowley would know this. This suggestion is shared with a rare occurrence of Crowley communicating “secretly” with Aziraphale where the angel doesn’t get the message, and the irony is that Crowley isn’t even being that subtle about it. There’s no doubt that Aziraphale really doesn’t get the drift though:

It’s painful to watch Aziraphale’s thought process here. He knows that Crowley’s logic actually makes sense but he can’t tally that with his own moral compass – it’s a struggle that I think the vast majority of us would go through if put in the same position. Sadly, it’s not like Crowley has much other choice than to suggest Aziraphale does the deed – if he were to do it himself, the repercussions for him would be unthinkable. It’s clear that this is the first time he has raised this idea in the eleven years they’ve been doing this job together and he can’t even say it without his voice breaking (see “one life against the universe”), and once it’s clear that Aziraphale isn’t open to the idea he doesn’t push him or lose his temper. He watches Aziraphale carefully for the whole exchange, without changing his expression, which I take to mean he’s watching for any signs that he’s pushing him too far. All of this tells me he’s only done it because they’re getting desperate.

Alright, it’s time to move on to the little “magic” routine. I find this whole sequence adorable - can we say 1941 vibes? I do find it interesting just how quickly Aziraphale’s mood changes with the idea of him being able to perform some magic again – he’s gone from the contemplation of the ethics of an actual trolley problem (see here if you don’t know what that is) to a smiling, bubbly angel complaining that his companion is “no fun” in mere seconds. For someone who lives their life in eons of centuries instead of years or decades, he’s a remarkably fickle being! It’s pretty blurry in this shot, but just look how happy this angel is:

The hidden communication thread is resumed at normal operation here as Crowley knows exactly what Aziraphale means when he says he could “entertain” – he knows exactly what he means by this and is not amused by the implications.

I also find Crowley’s use of the word “demeaning” an interesting choice here. Usually we might say embarrassing; in fact the dictionary definition of demeaning is to lower the character of somebody, or to make them feel less respected. Whilst I can fully understand why Crowley might be embarrassed by Aziraphale’s pathetic attempts at illusionary magic, I am less clear on why he would find it demeaning. UNLESS. Unless my suppositions about the state of their relationship are correct, in which case they would have already been together (romantically) for almost eleven years at this point. Then it makes a weird sort of sense.

The comic little squabble that follows also makes perfect sense in this context. This couple are in no mood to compromise on this matter; Aziraphale will not be told that he’s a shit magician because he has too much fun doing it (this despite the fact that we know he and Crowley agreed he shouldn’t do magic anymore, but unlike in 1941, there’s no risk of anybody getting hurt if he drops a coin on the floor) and Crowley will not concede that he’s being a killjoy (which goes quite against his character). The spat concludes with Crowley delivering a passive-aggressive threat to Aziraphale, which you can see he instantly reconsiders with a head tilt - probably wise considering how unimpressed the angel is with it.

Side note: the watch that Crowley is wearing (seen at Warlock’s birthday party) appears to be a Devon Tread 1 A, coming in at a cool 18.5K (dollars). The book does make mention of his watch being fucking fashionably expensive but it was custom made for him, with an extra time zone for “Another Place” where the time is always “Too Late”.

Another side note: how many dens did you make as a child? A fair few I’d bet if you were anything like me. Did they ever look as cool as the one that The Them has? Me neither. I mean, just look at all those guns and skeletons used for decoration:

Once we’re back at the book shop, I find it interesting that Aziraphale is intending to imbibe (we don’t actually see him drink any of it) whatever spirit he’s given to Crowley. I’ve no doubt it’s good quality, it’s just unusual to see him drinking hard liquor – perhaps this is simply due to the seriousness of the situation he finds himself in. Their conversation about lying in memos to head office also suggests that Crowley might not be the only one lying to his bosses:

CROWLEY: Everyone stretches the truth a bit in memos to head office, you know that.

Is it me, or is there a sense of “I told you so” to Aziraphale’s lack of sympathy towards Crowley’s despair? Some might say it’s reminiscent of the way a stereotypical nagging wife speaks to their long-suffering husband when he’s done something wrong…

In amongst the dark threat of impending Armageddon, we’re still treated to a little comedy (and perhaps another Clue as to the current status of the relationship between the angel and demon). Crowley’s snappy, and ill-considered, outburst in response to Aziraphale’s almost apologetic confession that he’s wearing a new cologne is well worth a word or two. Let’s say for a second that this pair are not romantically involved at this point in time – is it not a bit strange to think that the person you’re with knows you so well that they would detect that you’re wearing a different perfume than usual? I would think you’d have to be spending a LOT of time in VERY close proximity to that person for that piece of information to be anywhere near their radar. And what’s with the angel’s apologetic tone? Why would you feel the need to be sorry about trying out a new cologne? Aziraphale doesn’t look particularly shocked when Crowley announces that he knows what he smells like, and Crowley’s tone and facial expression suggests he thinks this piece of knowledge is a pretty obvious one.

Here’s my last observation for this episode. Check out just how earnest Crowley is in this delivery:

Despite Aziraphale’s response that he thinks he obviously would, I don’t really feel like he believes this stance, and he’d do anything not to believe that what Crowley is saying is true.

And so concludes the first episode! If you’ve made it this far through my write-up(s) so far, I commend and thank you. I’ll start work on the next episode over the next few days, but in the meantime I’ll also write a master post that I’ll add to as I go along. As always, comments, questions, discussions and any other engagements are welcome.

#good omens #episode analysis #aziracrow #good omens season 1 #ineffable idiots #ineffable husbands #good omens gabriel #hastur good omens #good omens ligur #good omens michael #good omens uriel #good omens sandalphon #hellhound #good omens adam #head canon #alternative timeline

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rachelbethhines · 3 months ago

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Random Disney Song Poll

Round Fifteenth

Songs under the cut

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#disney #disney music #disney songs #disney polls #Youtube

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moreteethplease · 1 year ago

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Devlog: The Museum of Found Things

> Play it here!

Your search for something you've lost leads you to a strange little museum. Stay a while and browse; who knows what you may find?

The Museum of Found Things is a short bitsy game where you explore a rather strange and unusual museum—a place where lost things just might go. It was made for the BITSY FEST jam.

Devlog under the cut.

Choosing A Concept

When I saw the theme of the game jam, "museum", my mind began spinning with ideas almost immediately.

My first idea was to make a game with the concept that everyone carries a museum inside of them, filled with their experiences and memories. If you're lucky, someone might let you visit their museum, and you have to take care of your own museum and curate it if you want to let people in. This was more in line with the stuff I tend to make: prose accompanied by visuals and a heavy-handed metaphor.

But my last few bitsy games have all been like this, and they've been fairly sad or serious, so I wanted to do something just a little different. I toyed with the idea of making the museum a very lighthearted, joke-filled experience. I considered forgoing the whole museum thing and making it more of a cabinet of curiosities linked to one strange and eccentric person. Ultimately, though, I felt that these were too similar to my previous games.

I was lying in bed on vacation with my partner when a song began to play in my head: "The Place Where Lost Things Go" from Mary Poppins Returns. I thought, what if it was a museum of lost things? I mulled it over, but I felt that this concept was somewhat overdone already, and I didn't want to just rip everything from a musical song.

I talked about this with my partner, and he said something about how if they're in a museum, they can't really be that lost anymore. This clicked everything into place for me. It would be a museum filled with things that are found, whether because they're always getting misplaced or because they've were lost long ago and finally rediscovered. And thus, The Museum of Found Things was born.

Making The Game: The Rooms

I made the game by first determining the rooms in the museum and what each one was meant to represent. I really can't help myself with metaphors, you see.

I decided that each museum room should look almost exactly the same except for its star display in the center of the room. This made it much faster to make each room, as I just needed to copy sprites and add dialog to them.

Most of the rooms are adequately explained via both text and subtext, but I wanted to highlight my favourite exhibit. In the fourth room, which is dedicated to things that are found renewed and reclaimed, is a glass display case featuring replicas of people's tattoos. This is meant to signify feeling like your body is yours again, and I tried to illustrate that clearly: one has a Medusa tattoo, one has a semicolon tattoo, and the final is one half of a pair of top surgery scars.

Outside of the museum, I added a small grave dedicated to a former partner who passed away. I thought it would be amusing to write the epitaph on the tombstone in the style of Lemony Snicket's Dismal Dedications. I think she'd find it funny.

Making The Game: Everything Else

Writing-wise, I tried to keep the tone light, even when heavier subjects were discussed. The heaviest and most serious exhibits I allowed to speak for themselves.

I always like using borksy hacks to do all sorts of fun stuff, and this time around, I used it to allow me to edit rooms from textboxes so the curator's sprite only becomes interactable after a player has examined everything in the room. I also used borksy to allow dialog choices. I remember the first time I used the dialog choice hack for my game Making Tea At The End Of The Universe. It wasn't too difficult, but it took a bit of trial and error. I'm so proud of the fact that this time I had no trouble with it at all!

I had trouble with the curator sprite. I wanted them to be memorable and strange without being too detailed and taking away from the relatively simple museum rooms. After a lot of unhappy reworking, I remembered I'd downloaded some 16x16 fantasy sprites by kcaze a while ago, and they're all free to use! I chose a djinn sprite and adapted it, adding animation as well so the curator appeared as lively as their personality.

Sadly, I couldn't find any music that I felt truly fit the vibe of the game better than silence did, so the game is silent for now. I doubt I'll change that, but hey, you never know.

Well, thank you for reading this! If you're interested in playing the game, check it out here!

#devlog #bitsy #indie dev #indiegamedev #indie game #interactive fiction #gif warning

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capsarcastica · 3 months ago

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Joker: Folie a Deux Review

A movie that seems more interesting trying to figure out why everything was done the way it was than anything the movie presents. There are many interesting ideas that would be excellent on their own. But all together makes this a confusing mishmash themes and styles.

The best parts of the movie are the returning elements from the first film. Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for the first film and, while not quite as impressive, still does an amazing job. He is once again utterly fascinating to watch. Zazie Beetz's brief appearance is an excellent counter-point to her portrayal in the first one, which was largely a fantasy. She recontextualizes moments from the first and reinforces how unreliable a narrator Arthur is. I wish the movie did more of this to make Arthur and the audience doubt what really has happened. Though it's Leigh Gill who steals the movie with a single scene. Gary Puddles' testimony is equal parts awkwardly funny and heartbreaking. It's that one scene that shows what the movie could have been to really equal the first.

The movie looks as good as the first. Gotham is shown as being dark and dirty, a shame that so little of the movie is set in the city at large. Arkham feels impressive, though it's pretty much the same feeling every other prison and asylum movie has. The musical sequences lovingly recreate the look and feel of classic musicals like Singin' in the Rain, Mary Poppins, Sony & Cher. It's a pretty sharp contrast between the real scenes and the fantasy musicals.

The story touches on several ideas that would be better developed on their own. I like the idea of seeing the trial and aftermath of the previous film's climax, something not really done since the finale of Star Trek IV. Given how sympathetic the first film made Arthur, it would have been interesting to see him turn the tables and make others actually see his side. Instead, the trial scenes largely rehash the first film and continually make clear that Arthur is entirely at fault. It ends up pretty dull.

Lady Gaga is pretty good as Harley Quinn, a contrast to the already crazed Margot Robbie version. It's not all that different from her role in A Star Is Born but it works within the world of this Joker. A movie actually featuring Harley's decent into Joker's madness would be great, there is a psychological term for women who fall in love with dangerous psychos like Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. But this story comes and goes, sometimes letting the audience forget she even exists.

The biggest problem with the movie is Joker himself. The first film embodied the phrase "A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." Arthur started out a pathetic nobody who just wanted people to be happy, and ended up inciting a mass riot as he embraced the Joker identity. This movie tries to do the same thing again. It's not Hangover 2 bad. But it starts off with Arthur once again being a pathetic nobody, just a famous one, and tries to build him back up to being Joker. A better movie would have explored how this disturbed individual would've reacted to suddenly being a beloved for his sins. The other problem with Arthur is that he has no agency. Only at one point does he actively try to do anything, instead mostly following around what others tell him to do. Harley, his lawyer, the judge, and his fans are all the ones who make the decisions that move the story. He also only truly becomes Joker in one scene, plus the fantasy musicals. Putting on the Foghorn Leghorn accent to question Puddles is, again, absolutely brilliant and should've been the basis for everything else.

There's also no release, no sense of satisfaction. The two dance scenes from the first symbolized great moments for Arthur. The bathroom when he broke away from society's restrictions, and the stairs when he finally took control of his life. There was meaning to them cause they were steps towards being Joker. This movie has guards beating Arthur, lawyers dissing him, and the media making lousy movies about him. But never is there any emotional payoff to these things. It works in an arthouse kind of way, but it's disappointing for the producers to seemingly hate their own character so much.

While the musical sequences look nice, they are the most annoying feature largely because there's so many of them. The music choices are fine, though nothing as memorable as the first film. Gaga is never given a chance to show off her talents. And there's just too many musical sequences. Towards the end I could hear the rest of the audience grown as another musical started. I get that they're supposed to represent meaningful moments between Arthur and Harley, but dial it back a bit.

Then there's the ending. An ending that will be talked about for years to come, and not for good reasons. A movie lives or dies on its ending, and this one seems to almost be an attack on fans who actually enjoyed the first by seeming to suggest both movies don't matter. There's rumors that Todd Phillips didn't want to make another. That's fine, but he didn't have to make what could be the worst possible ending in the superhero genre.

There are moments of brilliance, hinting at what a good sequel could have been. But ultimately it ends up as a needless epilogue to a movie they apparently did not understand themselves.

#Joker Folie a Deux #Joker 2 #Joker #Harley Quinn #Movie Review #Film Review

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twistedtummies2 · 6 months ago

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Have you ever thought about making a Twisted Wonderland oc based on some character from "Mary Poppins" or "Mary Poppins Returns"? Characters like Mary Poppins herself, Mr. Banks, the Wolf version of William Weatherall Wilkins or Topsy could be cool characters to TWSTify.

I can't say that I have. I'm not really sure I ever will, either. XD When it comes to turning characters from Disney into TW characters, I typically create them for one of a few reasons, sometimes more than one at once: either I want to tell a particular story and require a character for the purpose, or I want to take a character I'm not really into "that way" and rework them to fit my interests more, or I just feel there SHOULD be a character of them in the TW universe and if nobody else is gonna make them, I'm darn well gonna try. I also tend to try and figure out what I'd DO with the character before officially making them; there are lots of great Disney characters out there, but sometimes I sort of look at a source and go, "Okay...what would I do with this character I can't do with others already existing, either among my own cast or among the canon cast?" With the characters of Mary Poppins, I really don't know how I'd turn the story of a magical nanny into something that works for this universe. With the exception of the "Wilkins Wolf," there aren't any characters I can even see potential in for kinks, or would want to corrupt that way...and the Wilkins Wolf just doesn't have enough there for me to play with. There are already plenty of scheming con artists and a big not-so-bad wolf character in the cast, and we've also already had an Event themed around a trickster canid running a carnival/circus/theme park place. They aren't characters I feel really NEED to be "Twist-ified," either; if the actual game does a Mary Poppins themed Event or something, I'd naturally be extremely curious. And if one of my friends/acquaintances who occasionally commission me to write about their OCs decided to create some based on Mary Poppins, I'd be willing to listen to their ideas. But I'm probably not going to do anything with them on my own terms anytime soon.

#ask #answer #q&a #kink-related #disney #twisted wonderland #you all know the kinks #mary poppins #wilkins wolf #mary poppins returns

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jules-has-notes · 7 months ago

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Batman: Whatever It Takes (Unexpected Musical) — PattyCake Productions music video

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It's often been observed that the masked vigilantes in comic books and the supervillains they fight have some things in common. One of those qualities is the will to go above and beyond what the average person would do, for good or ill. So when the PattyCake guys decided to dip their toes in the superhero pool, there was no better place to start than Tim Burton's version of Batman and some of his most notorious rogues.

Details:

title: Unexpected Musicals — Batman: Whatever It Takes

performers: Jason Tibbs (Batman), T. Robert Pigott (The Joker / featured vocals), James Keaton (The Penguin / featured vocals), Leah Lowman (Catwoman), Navid Nowakhtar (Tom Andrews); Hannah Juliano, Tony Wakim, & Layne Stein (featured vocals)

original songs / performers: "Batman Theme" & "Batman Suite" from Batman (1989) & Batman Returns (1992); "Whatever It Takes" by Imagine Dragons

written by: "Batman Theme" and "Batman Suite" by Danny Elfman; "Whatever It Takes" by Dan Reynolds, Wayne Sermon, Ben McKee, Daniel Platzman, & Joel Little

arranged by: Layne Stein & Tony Wakim

release date: 11 May 2018

My favorite bits:

the series title logo becoming dark and tarnished like the WB logo in the original 1989 film

that poor reporter reading his news copy like it's just a normal day (which, yeah, Gotham)

turning the barely-sung verses into actual spoken rap

Catwoman entering on ♫ "whip whip" ♫ while brandishing one

using a slowed down version of Elfman's orchestral theme under the chorus

Robby's fantasticly wheezy Joker laugh

giving ♫ "I'm the prodigal son" ♫ to the orphaned Penguin

Jason conveying Batman's growing frustration with only small movements

that smooth riff in the final chorus

Trivia:

○ All of these actors have appeared in previous "Unexpected Musicals" videos.

Jason was the prince in "Snow Spears", and one of the Mary Poppins chimney sweeps in "The Disney Showman".

Robby played Captain Hook in "Look What You Made Me Brew".

James was the elder Walt in "The Disney Showman".

Leah has inhabited several roles across the series, from Cinderella to Maleficent.

Navid was part of the crowds in both "Hocus Heathens" and "Beauty and the Bieber".

○ Jason's costume was created by The Batsmith, an Australian sculptor and costume maker who specializes in replicas of pieces from live-action Batman movies.

○ The incredible Joker and Penguin prosthetics were created by Andy Wright & Dana Bracewell at Makeup & Creative Arts, and applied on the day by Rick Underwood. The pieces were then added to their Morphstore product line.

○ In order to build anticipation, PattyCake posted a series of countdown teaser images to their social media in the days leading up to the video's release.

○ Layne posted behind the scenes videos of James during both filming and editing on his Instagram.

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A post shared by Layne Stein (@laynestein)

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A post shared by Layne Stein (@laynestein)

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○ Robby enjoyed playing the Joker so much that he had some custom playing cards made using his photograph and gave them to the PattyCake crew.

○ This video is part of a loose pair celebrating DC and Marvel comic book movies with tracks from the latest Imagine Dragons album at the time. Its companion piece, "Avengers: Thunder", was released a few weeks later.

#PattyCake Productions #music video #music #video #series: Unexpected Musicals #Batman (1989)#Batman Returns #Batman villains

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greetings-inferiors · 1 year ago

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My top 5 most wanted worlds for kingdom hearts are, in order:

Moana. Literally the first thing I thought when watching moana was “this would be a sick kingdom hearts world”. The Caribbean in kingdom hearts 3 made me want it even more. I’d KILL for a tamatoa boss fight. I don’t even know if I’d like it as much as the rest of the potential worlds on this list but a moana world is the world that I’ve always wanted so it holds a special place in my heart. It was also first on regularpar’s kh4 Disney animated canon world watch sooooooooo

The incredibles. Big hero 6 world but actually good??? Jk I loved sanfran but this would fit perfectly. The only difficult part is deciding which of the parrs to make sora’s party members, because all 5 might be unfeasable, leading to an 8 member party. It’d be cool if you had to choose between the 5 (or maybe 4 without Jack Jack) parrs and Donald and goofy, maybe even frozone too, and assemble your squad based on the situation. Basically like choosing your party in kh1&2 but the world is designed around it. Anyway this world would be great. If these two are chosen it would be a bit strange having two water worlds and two super hero worlds in a row though. The other worlds I have are mighty different though!

Star Wars. PRACTICALLY CONFIRMED!!!! But seriously, the original trilogy plot is just light versus dark, pretty kingdom hearts. Sure, it might not be the focus of the series now after the dark seeker saga, but Star Wars also has themes of looking for masters and stuff it could work. And with how big a Star Wars fan Nomura is I doubt he’d let it be anything but great.

Muppets. Imagining Sora, Donald, and Goofy’s transformations for this world gives me so much life. It’d be really cool if they were actual puppets, but I don’t know how they’d do that, whether there’d be a hand sticking out beneath them or if there’d be strings from the sky or cords from below or whatever. Or if they don’t go that route at all. I just want to see the gang as puppets, and for Kermit to be a party member. I want Kermit to beat the shit out of the darkness, is that too much to ask?

Inside out. You thought monster’s inc was a great place for the unversed to show up? Wait until you’re literally in someone’s head. What would make it even cooler is if you could go to other’s heads psychonauts style, but I won’t get my hopes up.

Honourable mentions go to Mary Poppins (going between the live action world and animated world like in the movie would be so cool and have a wonderland/symphony of sorcery type world that I think every game in the franchise needs, just a bit of weird absurdism), the emperor’s new groove (it’d be funny), coco (I genuinely think this would work nearly the best out of all of them, just I like the other five more), and zootopia(or zootropolis for my fellow Brits <3) because it’d be really funny if sora transforms but Donald and Goofy stay the same LMAO

I actively do not want the mcu in kingdom hearts, I think it’s just a bad idea and incredibles would do superheroes better. Have Star Wars be the acquired IP rep and leave it at that.

For returning worlds (apart from Olympus which is all but confirmed) I’d love a Toy Story 3 world, and I’d like to see hundred acre wood BUT ONLY IF IT MAKES SENSE AND ISN’T JUST CANDY CRUSH. Numbered titles don’t NEED hundred acre wood, but I still think there’s room for it at the moment. The game is about Sora being apart from his friends, explore that through Sora and Pooh growing apart y’know?

#long post #text post #kingdom hearts #randyposting #kh4 #prediction #predictions #kh4 speculation #kh4 sora #kh #Disney #moana #the incredibles #Star Wars #the muppets #inside out #kingdom hearts 4

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nsfwmiamiart · 2 months ago

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Part 6 - Incoming Text for Chloë Sevigny (@chloessevigny) and Rosario Dawson (@rosariodawson) and Rihanna (@rihanna) and Kim Kardashian (@kimkardashian): “An Idea Worth a Billion Dollars”

Question:

Could you clearly explain to Chloë, Rosario, Rihanna, and Kim that they need to reach out to actresses Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, and Margot Robbie to be involved in the reimagined reboot of the “Top Secret” project?

This reboot aims to bring a fresh perspective to the original narrative while respecting its roots. Their participation would enhance the project’s profile and appeal. Engaging Emily, Anne, and Margot is crucial as their talent and charisma align with the vision for this modern retelling. Please encourage the team to communicate the project’s artistic direction, the importance of their roles, and the collaborative potential this venture holds.

Here are the Wikipedia links with their names included for Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Margot Robbie:

Anne Hathaway: Anne Hathaway Wikipedia - (click on the blue link)

Emily Blunt: Emily Blunt Wikipedia - (click on the blue link)

Margot Robbie: Margot Robbie Wikipedia - (click on the blue link)

These links will direct you to their detailed Wikipedia pages for more information.

ChatGPT Answer:

To clearly explain to Chloë, Rosario, Rihanna, and Kim why they need to reach out to Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, and Margot Robbie for the reimagined reboot of the “Top Secret” project, let's break this down step by step:

1. The Vision for the Reboot

Reimagining the Narrative: Explain how the reboot aims to modernize the original “Top Secret” while maintaining its core essence. This fresh approach will attract new audiences and honor the classic appeal of the original work.

Casting as the Key: Highlight how Emily, Anne, and Margot are pivotal to delivering the artistic vision, given their unique talents, star power, and compatibility with the themes of the reboot.

2. Why Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, and Margot Robbie?

Emily Blunt: Renowned for her versatility in roles ranging from action (Edge of Tomorrow) to musicals (Mary Poppins Returns), Emily would bring depth and a dynamic presence to the project.

Anne Hathaway: With her past success in ensemble projects like Ocean's 8 and her Academy Award-winning performance in Les Misérables, Anne has demonstrated a unique ability to shine in reboots and reimaginings.

Margot Robbie: As a global star with recent iconic roles (Barbie, Birds of Prey), Margot’s charisma and nuanced performances would add both prestige and a contemporary edge to the film.

3. The Role of Chloë, Rosario, Rihanna, and Kim

Networking: These four have significant influence and connections in the entertainment industry. Their outreach could effectively communicate the project’s vision and secure the interest of the actresses.

Collaborative Pitch: Encourage them to highlight the collaborative and groundbreaking nature of this reboot. Stress how Emily, Anne, and Margot’s involvement would be integral to its success.

4. Artistic and Strategic Alignment

Creative Alignment: Explain how this trio of actresses embodies the qualities needed to bring the project to life. Discuss specific character traits or themes in “Top Secret” that align with their acting strengths.

Market Appeal: Point out how casting well-known, talented actresses elevates the reboot’s credibility and ensures strong box office potential, making this a win-win for all involved.

5. Crafting the Approach

Personalized Outreach: Chloë, Rosario, Rihanna, and Kim should tailor their messages to each actress, referencing their past work and explaining how their skills align with the reboot’s vision.

Shared Enthusiasm: Emphasize their collective excitement and commitment to making this project a standout reboot in film history.

By clearly outlining the vision, importance of casting these actresses, and leveraging the influence of Chloë, Rosario, Rihanna, and Kim, you ensure a focused and effective effort to bring Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, and Margot Robbie into this exciting project.

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atplblog · 3 months ago

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Price: [price_with_discount] (as of [price_update_date] - Details) [ad_1] (Five Finger Piano Songbook). Eight hit songs from eight hit films in accessible 5-Finger Piano arrangements: The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy (from Toy Story 4 ) * Downton Abbey (Theme) * A Million Dreams (from The Greatest Showman ) * The Place Where Lost Things Go (from Mary Poppins Returns ) * Shallow (from A Star Is Born ) * Speechless (from Aladdin ) * Yesterday * Zero (from Ralph Breaks the Internet ). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hal Leonard Corporation; 3rd Revised ed. edition (1 May 2020) Language ‏ : ‎ English Paperback ‏ : ‎ 32 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1540089010 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1540089014 Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 159 g Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 22.86 x 0.3 x 30.48 cm [ad_2]

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 1 year ago

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The Many Mystery Tours of Winnie the Pooh

What do a Disney animated movie about a stuffed bear and a Beatles album have in common?

In some articles I wrote back in my WordPress days concerning the Disney "Animated Classics Canon", I talked about how The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh - released theatrically on March 11, 1977, was more of a clipshow than it was a fully-fledged Disney animated feature.

Now, the bonus features on various home media releases of this 1977 compilation film have often insisted the opposite. Disney seems to want your average consumer and us semi-historians to know that the story goes: Walt Disney was unsure about American audiences' familiarity with A. A. Milne's bedtime stories and the stuffed animal characters within. Instead of making a feature film as planned during the early 1960s, Walt planned to make three separate shorts to get audiences acquainted with those characters... and then string those three cartoon featurettes together into a 70-or-so-minute movie later down the line...

This seems to be a well-backed up history, too. After all, the autobiography of brothers Robert and Richard Sherman, known for their many contributions to the Disney songbook including the songs for these classic Winnie the Pooh adaptations, states pretty much the exact same thing. This strategy was not dissimilar to the studio's piecing-together of the Davy Crockett episodes of Disney's anthology series (then known as Disneyland, in promoting the upcoming theme park of the same name), which spawned the 1955 theatrical release Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier and its 1956 follow-up Davy Crockett and the River Pirates... But I feel this is untrue, and has been shown to be so...

Familiarity with British characters was never a problem for Walt and his crew before, or characters from European stories in general. Mary Poppins didn't need a couple of shorts, or some episodes of a TV show to familiarize audiences with the titular nanny beforehand. One Hundred and One Dalmatians was, from start to finish, a feature film project that never detoured into short films prior to release. Peter Pan? Same thing.

Now, the Sherman Brothers autobiography states that the poor reception of Alice in Wonderland - a similarly episodic feature based on beloved and relatively plot-free British books - was what drove Walt to make this bizarre decision with Winnie the Pooh. That seems to hold some weight.

If this all was indeed the case, how come the third short - 1974's Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too - took so long to come to fruition? The third short, and the subsequent final third of the film, is very much a post-Walt affair. More than anything, it was a training picture for many of Disney's then-new animators, including a returning Don Bluth. You can tell Bluth's animation from a mile away when Rabbit gets lost in the woods, for sure, as he can't keep his tongue in his mouth. The story appears to borrow from various Winnie the Pooh story LPs that Disneyland Records released throughout the end of the 1960s. (Blustery Day also first came out in record form in 1967, a year before the animated featurette's December 1968 theatrical debut with the flop live-action film The Horse in the Grey Flannel Suit.) It is unknown what the final third of Walt's unmade Winnie the Pooh film would've been.

Lastly, it is not as if Winnie the Pooh *wasn't* known by Americans pre-1966... So that seems to render the "Walt was unsure if American audiences would see a feature about that character because he wasn't well-known by Americans" claim moot. I firmly think the real story is, "Walt Disney's Winnie the Pooh", was a lot like the original Leica reel for The Wind in the Willows that was put together in 1941. The Wind in the Willows, based on yet another British literary classic (Kenneth Grahame's story of the same name), could've been the next feature-length film after Bambi's release in 1942. Animator Frank Thomas, of course one of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men", explained in an interview that the Leica reel ran roughly 48 minutes long and did contain story problems. That no doubt pushed it back, as did World War II's effects on the animation wing. Wind in the Willows eventually wound up as a roughly 35-minute segment of the 1949 package feature The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad.

Walt seemed to have found the Pooh stories to be too fluffy to sustain a roughly 70-minute movie, and figured releasing smaller films based on the stories was the better option. His Winnie the Pooh film was initially planned for a 1965 release, almost two years after The Sword in the Stone and two years before The Jungle Book eventually came out, which partially explains that four-year gap between those two pictures. Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree debuted in February 1966 ahead of The Ugly Dachshund, and was heavily marketed as a double bill, and to no one's surprise, the stuffed bear cartoon completely overshadowed the Dean Jones dog movie. I don't think a Pooh feature was in the cards after that, for the next film after The Jungle Book was The Aristocats, which Walt signed off on before his death in December 1966. Being short films, both Honey Tree and Blustery Day could be shown and shown again on television, which they were. They kept the character a household name, audiences didn't have to wait years for a re-issue like they had to do for longer Disney animated films.

For whatever reason the Walt Winnie the Pooh movie was cancelled, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is still a Frankenstein creation. The 1974 Tigger Too short is not from the Walt era and is its own entity. So in the Disney animated feature "canon", you have a film with 2/3s of it coming from an unmade Walt Disney feature released in two parts from 1966 to 1968, and another 1/3 of it from something conceived well after that. Then you have the "goodbye" ending, which reportedly was once meant for the Blustery Day short. John Walmsley, who voiced Christopher Robin in that portion, voices him here too, which seems to confirm that it was indeed meant for it. Plus, it reuses some animation from a scene in The Jungle Book, which - again - opened a little over a year before Blustery Day debuted. If Blustery Day had been the final cartoon with that ending, it would've been a fitting sendoff being Walt's final animated work that he was alive for most of.

Quite funny how this Winnie the Pooh film is a big honey clustercuss, with a strangely convoluted history... But it's always been thought that it all works together anyways, whether you know the history of the film or if you don't. Ex away the history and the Frankensteinian structure of it, it's a charming anthology of stories about these stuffed animals going on fun misadventures and a nice bittersweet ending to top it off. It works completely fine as a 74-minute animated feature film, and the stories' aimlessness make it work in its own fun way.

To make matters even weirder, in 1983, Walt Disney Productions let out another 25-minute Pooh featurette, Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore. You would think this one was meant to be a training vehicle for new animator hires, but weirdly enough, it was completely outsourced to a studio called Rick Reinert Productions. The new animators instead worked on the featurette Mickey's Christmas Carol, which debuted later that year.

It occurred to me that there's an album that I love whose assemblage is very, very similar to how the 1977 feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh came together...

The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour...

Magical Mystery Tour was a surrealist television film that was made in the wake of the death of The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. Six songs were newly conceived for this 50-or-so-minute film, which would air on the BBC on Boxing Day 1967. (That's December 26th for any Americans reading who may not be familiar with such a holiday.) Coinciding with the release was a six-song double-EP set a few weeks prior. An EP - "extended play", typically, was the same size of a single: A 7-inch record. Singles had one song on one side, and one song on the other. A-side, B-side. An EP could contain up to four songs on the record, and The Beatles were no strangers to the EP format. EPs seemed to be a much more popular kind of record in the UK, too. The Beatles' American distributor, Capitol Records, felt a two-EP record set was not viable for the US market...

Capitol Records is best known by Beatles historians for their Frankenstein-like assembling of albums. A single album in the UK like Rubber Soul could have its tracks spread across, say, THREE albums in the US. All of this mangling would eventually stop by 1967, with the seminal LP (long-player) album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band being the first Beatles album to have the same tracklisting in both the UK and the US. (With only a minor little difference between the two.) In Beatles tradition, some songs were never meant to be anything but just singles. For example, in 1966, there was The Beatles album Revolver, and a single: 'Paperback Writer' b/w 'Rain'. Two songs meant specifically for that single 7-inch 45rpm record.

In 1967, The Beatles released three singles. The first of which was 'Strawberry Fields Forever' b/w 'Penny Lane', released in February 1967. Both songs had been conceived for Sgt. Pepper, but because of a relative lull in releasing anything (Revolver had come out in August 1966, and there was - unusually - no Christmas market single release that year), it was decided to have those two songs be a single instead of tracks on the upcoming album. Next was 'All You Need Is Love' b/w 'Baby You're a Rich Man', released in July 1967, nearly two months after Sgt. Pepper. Last came 'Hello, Goodbye', on the B-side they attached the Magical Mystery Tour song 'I Am the Walrus', which later appeared on the two-EP set.

In the US, Capitol Records had all six songs from the movie put on side one of their Magical Mystery Tour LP. Side two would be the five other songs that The Beatles released in 1967, in order: 'Hello, Goodbye', 'Strawberry Fields Forever', 'Penny Lane', 'Baby You're a Rich Man', and 'All You Need Is Love'. Altogether, this is a very strong 11-track sequence. No surprise, that album shot to #1 on the charts, and it even got imported to the UK in early 1968 and charted as high as #31 - despite the EP and the separate singles existing over there. It works so well as an album, and as an equally psychedelic sequel to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band... even if it was never conceived as such in the first place.

And the weirdest thing is, the Magical Mystery Tour MOVIE was never aired in America, even though the LP came with a picture story of the movie. The movie itself had gotten such bad critical and equally poor audience reception (I'd imagine a lot of the viewership was families tuning in on Boxing Day to watch something together, and they got a weird aimless psychedelic home movie that confused the hell out of them), that ABC opted out of broadcasting it in January 1968-ish. So, Americans wouldn't really get to see that film until midnight showings occurred in the mid-1970s, followed by belated TV airings...

Oh, and the Magical Mystery Tour movie, much like Many Adventures, is just a silly delightful parade of whimsical misadventures...

#winnie the pooh #the many adventures of winnie the pooh #the beatles #magical mystery tour #disney #disney animation #1960s #1970s #random history

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denimbex1986 · 2 years ago

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'Whether it's stealing scenes or commanding the frame, actress Emily Blunt proves time and time again that she can do it all. Drama, comedy, singing, dancing, or even narrating the heck out of a documentary, she makes it look easy. By all accounts, Blunt positively shines alongside a ridiculously talented ensemble of actors in Christopher Nolan's upcoming historical biography, Oppenheimer, playing biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, wife of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), aka the "father of the atomic bomb."

In Blunt's 20 years of making films, large swaths of her resume include some very choice sci-fi, fantasy, and genre films. Obviously, SYFY WIRE lives in that genre lane, so we've long admired her taste and commitment to participating in some truly memorable genre projects. And we love that Blunt consistently returns to genre projects amongst her meaty dramatic roles and more light-hearted comedies. As such, with Oppenheimer opening wide this weekend, SYFY WIRE presents our favorite Blunt genre films.

Emily Blunt's Best Roles in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Other Genre Films

The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016)

The sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) pits Blunt's Princess Freya against Charlize Theron's Queen Ravenna, and that match-up is gold in our eyes. Essentially, the sisters aren't great at coping when dire things go down, so these messed up sisters wreak a lot of havoc in the kingdom. Per usual, Theron and Blunt pull out all the stops playing broken queens of magic, and the movie works best when they're in the frame, together or apart.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Blunt and her Oppenheimer castmate Matt Damon worked together before in this under-the-radar, sci-fi gem. Blunt plays the mysterious Elise Sellas, who keeps popping up in the life of Brooklyn Congressman David Norris. The story has a lot of fun twists, turns, and themes explored regarding destiny. But their flirty chemistry is another big reason to watch.

Jungle Cruise (2021)

On the other hand, the chemistry between Blunt's Dr. Lily Houghton and The Rock's Frank Wolff in Jungle Cruise is barely tepid at best. However, Blunt returning to action-heroine mode is always a good time. Houghton's extremely competent character (and Blunt, the actress) look like their having the most fun throughout the movie.

Into the Woods (2014)

Not a lot of folks were aware that Blunt has a top-notch voice until she got to show it off beautifully playing the Baker's Wife in this adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's stage musical. She's paired with James Corden's Baker, and together they play out one of the best arcs in this cautionary tale about dreams coming true in a haunting way.

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Who could imagine anyone filling the spit-spot shoes of Julia Andrews as Mary Poppins? Most audiences couldn't contemplate someone being a worthy recast of Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins Returns, but then Blunt's name was announced, and everyone shut up because she just nailed it. Equal parts austere and loving, Blunt is maybe the only actress today who could so ably run with the baton given by the legendary Andrews.

A Quiet Place Part II (2020)

Blunt returns to play ultra protective, post-apocalyptic mom, Evelyn Abbott, in A Quiet Place Part II. She's just as great in this sequel, but there's less for her to play outside of the major action beats. However, if you want to get a taste of her on-screen chemistry with her Oppenheimer hubby, Cillian Murphy, there's plenty to appreciate here as Evelyn and Emmett thrown down.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Much like Linda Hamilton became a bad-ass, sci-fi legend after playing Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, so too did Blunt after playing Rita Vrataski in Edge of Tomorrow. The sci-fi, time travel twister features Blunt stealing scene after scene from blockbuster poster boy, Tom Cruise. She's intense, mercurial, frightening, and heroic, and she kicks the action star's butt for half of the movie. You have to have some chops to sell that, and she does.

Looper (2012)

Poker Face creator Rian Johnson's complex time travel film, Looper, stars a trio of fantastic performances from Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Blunt. It's a high-concept story that remains incredibly grounded because of those performances. And Blunt still manages to standout, especially for her shattering performance as the very protective mother, Sara.

A Quiet Place (2018)

In the fantastic sci-fi, horror thriller, A Quiet Place, Blunt plays matriarch and feral mom, Evelyn Abbott. Married to Lee (John Krasinski), the couple have two kids, with another one on the way. A lovely life, except they now exist in the nightmare reality of trying to survive aliens who have landed and wiped out huge swaths of the population. Sonically-tuned to even the most subtle of noises, the aliens force the Abbotts to exist in silence. Blunt is amazing as the terrified mom, and executes the harrowing scenario of giving birth in utter silence with chilling perfection.

Check out another amazing performance by Blunt when Oppenheimer arrives exclusively in theaters everywhere this Friday, July 21. Get tickets now!'

#Oppenheimer #Emily Blunt #A Quiet Place #Looper #Kitty #Cillian Murphy #Edge of Tomorrow #A Quiet Place Part II #The Huntsman: Winter's War #Jungle Cruise #The Adjustment Bureau #Into The Woods #Mary Poppins Returns #Christopher Nolan

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kiri-ah · 4 years ago

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Shot Through The Heart l.yy || Fic

for the when you love someone collab hosted by @jaxminskale

Themes: hanahaki AU, fluff, angst, you’re really rude, and also rich as heck, yangyang is not, maid/servant AU, your mum is awesome, money problems, this rich guy forces himself onto you but nothing happens because your parents are there, third person POV

Pairing: Yangyang x fem!reader

Wc: 7.5k

Warnings: blood, vomiting, crying, choking, not the bdsm kind, driving in the rain, possible major character death, mentions of alcohol and drunk people, mentions of sex but not between yangyang and you

Taglist: @stayctday @heephoria @lovleelixie @treasuretaeil @allegxdly @kunrengui

Fic:

For some reason they decided that hosting a picnic would be the best thing to celebrate the senior class’s accomplishments. The school bought checkered gingham blankets and baskets and everything with the overflow of money from the fundraiser, and the seniors are dining on the most fancy of foods - finger sandwiches and sunflower seeds. They have huge bowls filled to the brim with the hulls and various people’s saliva because for some reason half of the school can’t spit properly.

Yangyang sits on a blanket with his friends, legs crossed and eyes closed as he enjoys his own tiny sandwiches and seeds. Hendery says something he doesn’t catch and the rest of the group laughs, making Yangyang open his eyes. Bad choice.

There, outlined by the sunlight, stands his crush, Y/N. She’s gorgeous, more like a painting than a human, seemingly carved by an old master. He promptly chokes on the sunflower seeds he has in his mouth and his friends crowd around him trying to decide what to do.

“Give him CPR!”

“You idiot, that’s only if he’s unconscious!”

“Heimlich?”

“Is that the one where you press under the ribcage?”

“You’re all so dumb.”

This goes on for a few seconds while Yangyang panics and tries desperately to breathe until suddenly the pressure is gone. His airway is cleared and he laughs in relief, drawing their attention. Kun comes to make sure that he’s okay and Yangyang eats another sandwich to prove that he’s fine. Everything goes back to normal.

It’s just that he’s not fine. He discovers this a week and a half later when he has to run to the bathroom and gag on small yellow flower petals. His chemistry teacher looks at him strangely when he comes back and tells him to wipe up the blood on his cheek, please. He looks in his selfie camera and sure enough, there’s a smear of red up from the corner of his mouth to his cheekbone - Heaven knows how it got there. He wipes it away quietly and tries to ignore the stares of other students for the rest of class. It’s a long lecture, and one that he barely participates in. He knows he can just use Sicheng’s notes later - in fact, his might be more legible than Yangyang’s own. Sicheng is, as Mary Poppins would say, practically perfect in every way.

After class Sicheng walks up from where he sits on the other side of the room. “Are you feeling okay? Why was there blood on your face?”

Yangyang takes him to the bathroom quietly and shows him the bloody flower petals in the trash can, and then for good measure coughs up another one. Sicheng goes paler than usual and he takes a deep breath before he speaks again. “Is it… Hanahaki?”

Yangyang nods. He doesn’t have words. He knew, of course, that his crush was a little stronger than the average. But this, this he never expected. Hanahaki is a nearly extinct disease now, rare but still notorious. He’s heard the stories of people mysteriously growing flowers - often roses - in their lungs. They often start coughing up petals first, then suffocate and die once the flowers have fully grown and expanded into the person’s airway. It’s a horrific way to die. The only cure is your crush falling in love with you in return (how much like Beauty and the Beast this is, Yangyang thinks bitterly) or an extremely difficult and expensive surgery. Either way, Yangyang knows that his timer is counting down - he can neither afford a surgery nor think of any way to make her fall in love with him. The seconds lengthen and suddenly he’s crying against Sicheng’s shoulder, unable to keep it in.

He’s going to die.

☾:۞:☽

In the end, Yangyang thinks that the only way he has even a fighting chance is to get a job. He knows that a basic job at minimum wage won’t get him even close to enough for the surgery in time, so he goes to the only person he can think of that would have enough money to help him - Y/N. He’s standing in front of her front door, having obtained the address from Ten, who once did a project with her. He’s afraid to ring the doorbell, rehearsing his pleading speech in his head. If she turns him away, he can’t think of anywhere else to go. This is quite literally his last chance at life.

He rings the doorbell before he loses his nerve and stands there anxiously, hands behind his back. He wore his good clothes in an effort to impress her, but he’s not sure if it’ll work. After all, his ‘good clothes’ are a too-small dress shirt and a pair of pants made to look like slacks even though they’re not. He knows that just her back patio has furniture worth more money than his entire house.

Eventually, as he’s about to walk away in defeat, the door opens. A man in a suit stands there, looking dignified and put together in a way Yangyang thinks would be impossible for him to pull off. The man beckons him in and walks briskly down the hall.

“Would you like some tea while you wait in the parlor, sir?”

Yangyang, distracted by a painting of a field on the wall, answers late. “Yes, that would be great! Thank you. May I, uh, speak to Y/N?”

“The mistress is in her quarters. I shall let her know she has a visitor. Would you tell me your name?”

“Oh, it’s Yangyang. I went to the same school as her.”

The man nods and walks out of the room through a different door than he came in through and Yangyang lowers himself slowly onto the couch. It’s so soft, and the whole room is such an expression of money… If only she’ll agree to sponsor his surgery, he knows Y/N can afford it.

When the man returns, it’s with a pot of tea and a mug. Yangyang is in the middle of admiring the chandelier when he comes in, and he hurriedly sits down, but the man appears unfazed. “The mistress will be down as soon as she is done with her work.”

Yangyang can’t think of what work she would be doing, but he resigns himself to sitting and waiting more. The tea is actually quite good, and he enjoys a cup of it in the silent room until his phone dings.

Ten-ge

did u do it

Yangx2

i dont know yet

she didnt come down yet

Ten-ge

dude

it’s been like half an hour since you texted me

that was when you got there

Yangx2

i know

the butler said she was coming tho

Ten-ge

just lemme know how it goes

Yangx2

He puts his phone away and takes another sip of the tea. It’s cooled a bit so that it’s not as pleasant, but it still tastes good. He probably can’t afford whatever it is, though. That’s what he’s thinking about when the door opens and Y/N walks in, towering over him because of how squashy the couch is. It looks like she’s stressing over something. She’s not even dressed up or makeup-ed like usual. He idly wonders how it is that she manages to look breathtaking anyway. His chest aches.

“What are you doing in my house?” she demands.

Wow. Great start. “I- I have hanahaki,” he stutters out.

“So?”

“I need a job, a well-paying job. I’m willing to work hard for it, but I need money quickly.”

“So you’re a gold digger?”

“What? No! I want to work for you. Please. You’re my only hope. I need to get the surgery.”

She rolls her eyes. “Listen, whatever your name is-”

She’s cut off by her mother, walking past the open door. “Y/N. Be polite,” she snaps. “What’s going on?” She’s a stately woman, not tall but not short, and dressed as though she’s on her way out or just coming back from an event.

“Mother, this guy from school just came here to beg for a job,” Y/N complains. Yangyang winces at her tone. It truly seems like she hates him in particular. His chest twitches again and he resists the urge to cough. Uh oh.

Her mum turns to Yangyang. “What exactly were you thinking of doing here? We already have servants aplenty.”

He racks his brains for something he’s capable of doing. “I can help with anything school related, and really, I’m willing to do anything. I really need the money for my surgery.”

“Surgery?” She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“For Hanahaki disease, ma’am. I have sunflowers growing in my lungs.”

“Then I’m sure we’ll be able to find something for you. My aunt died from Belladonna in her lungs, you know. Dreadful way to die. Belladonna is poisonous on top of the usual Hanahaki symptoms.”

Y/N sputters in the parlor behind the two of them as her mother takes Yangyang for a brief tour of the main section of the house. Their family really is just swimming in money, he can see it in the carpet, in the paintings on the walls, in the sheer size of the family mansion. Money is everywhere. When the tour is concluded, her mum shows Yangyang back to the front door and gets his number so that she can text him (or, more likely, the butler or some other servant will text him) about job times.

“You might not be able to do much, but I’ll do what I can to get you work. Of course I can’t just give you money, it doesn’t grow on trees, but I’m sure you can make enough quickly enough. Sunflowers are edible, at least. Might let you live that much longer. It was nice meeting you, Yangyang.”

“You too, ma’am. Thank you for this opportunity.”

“Oh it was nothing, really.”

Then he is pushed out the front door and onto the front walkway, and breathes out a sigh of relief. He knows that without her mum’s help, he never would’ve gotten the job. Mostly he just hopes that she treats him okay while he works for her. He knows that he’s not on the same social level as her, but hopefully she won’t flaunt it.

Frankly, he doesn’t have high hopes. When he leaves, he throws up more petals, bigger ones than last week, into a spare grocery bag in his car and groans. This is going to be hard. He drives away once he’s stored the bag in the footwell of the passenger seat. His throat aches subtly, and his heart throbs sadly.

☾:۞:☽

The first time he comes to the mansion for work, he’s outfitted with the same outfit as the rest of the staff and shown by what appears to be the head housekeeper what he’ll be doing. She mutters something about being too busy to help, and if he needs assistance to find somebody else. It’s pretty simple, he’s just cleaning a spare bathroom this afternoon. Still, he’s getting paid twenty dollars an hour, so he’ll drag this out as long as he can and make sure he does a good job.

Making the job last a while isn’t an issue, he discovers. There are at least a dozen different bottles, scrubbies, cloths, and wipes in the cleaning bucket he’s given, and finding what they all do takes him at least twenty minutes. Nobody comes to check on him, so he just keeps chugging along. He looks up how to clean a jacuzzi tub on Google and follows the instructions there, using things conveniently placed in the cleaning bucket. At least he knows he’s doing something right.

That takes up the rest of the first hour, and he moves on to the shower tiles. There’s a checklist of everything that needs to be cleaned with his supplies, which is fantastic because he knows that otherwise he’d never have thought of cleaning the shower head (another thing he uses Google to learn to do).

Y/N walks in while he’s cleaning the toilet and leans against the doorframe. He pauses in his work, wondering what could have possibly brought her here. He doesn’t expect her to help him, at any rate. She looks stunning as always, even dressed in nothing more than sleepwear, a t-shirt and shorts. It’s not much, but his lungs throbs and he can’t help the slight wheeze on his out breaths.

“Seriously?” is the first word out of her mouth. How nice. “How long does it take you to clean a bathroom?”

“I had never cleaned a jacuzzi before, I had to use Google! Plus, cleaning a bathroom this big isn’t easy. Have you ever tried?”

Her eyes seem to flash in the lighting. “I have servants for that, people like you whose families can’t get it together.”

“What? My family is perfectly together. It’s just that we aren’t filthy rich.”

“Sure. My family is perfectly together as well, and we are filthy rich. So your family must have done something wrong.”

All Yangyang can do is gape at her. Her logic is so off, and so… entitled. Why did he have to fall for her of all people? His breaths still wheeze, and he wonders if it’ll be like that the entire time he’s working for her.

“Anyway,” Y/N continues, “I just came up here to make sure you were working and not ripping my parents off. It looks like you’re trying, at the very least.” She wrinkles her nose. “Even if you are underqualified for the job. I don’t know why Mother even hired you in the first place. She’s going soft, I guess.”

She pushes herself off of the doorframe and turns around. “Get back to work, Mister Liu.” His name is said in a sneer that he can hear in her voice, but it still makes his heart skip a beat. She knows what his name is. His whole name. He returns to the toilet with renewed vigor.

☾:۞:☽

Another week passes and he comes in to do small tasks, each day dragging by and yet reminding him that his clock is counting down the days. He is invited back that Saturday to work. Apparently the family is having some sort of social gathering, and he’s expected to serve food there. It’s really not a difficult job, he discovers, he just has to carry the tray with both hands and not make eye contact unless someone speaks to him.

He wanders aimlessly through the crowd of overdressed people with the teeny appetizers on his tray. He doesn’t even know what they’re called, the appetizers, just that they’re good. He snuck one just to see what they were at one point and thoroughly enjoyed it. He still doesn’t get what’s up with rich people and tiny food, though. He would have to eat more than ten of whatever these are to feel as though he had eaten anything in the first place.

At some point something important must be happening (Yangyang zoned out after a while and has no idea what’s going on) because the crowd parts to the sides of the room and lights that he didn’t notice appear in the ceiling, pointing to the main staircase going up from the front room to the rest of the house. He follows the rest of the staff to the back of the room and watches as Y/N descends. His breath catches in his throat, and he truly can’t tell if it’s because of the sunflowers or the fact that she looks radiant. Her dress looks fantastic against her skin, and her makeup looks like that of an idol, absolutely stunning. He can’t stop staring and gets lightly scolded when the rest of the staff move through a pair of doors to prepare the dining room for the crowds of people and he doesn’t notice. He peeks at her one last time, the picture of elegance, before he gets swept away by the other waiters.

He helps make sure that everything is in place before the guests come in and then steps obediently to the side when the people stream in, finding their place cards and sitting down, starting new conversations with their neighbors. It seems that everyone is happily seated, and the staff jumps into action. Roast birds are brought out, side dishes are ladled, drinks are poured, and the room instantly transforms from a place to sit into a place to enjoy good food and drink with friends. Or at least, Yangyang assumes they’re all friends. Nobody looks unhappy, at least.

The lady of the hour, Y/N’s mum, sits at the head of the table, with Y/N at her left side. Her father sits across from her, and she’s surrounded by people who clamour for her attention. Yangyang watches as she takes a carefully cut piece of green bean and chews it thoughtfully. It sort of looks as though she’s trying to buy herself time. He bristles as the man sitting next to her presses into her space. She looks awfully uncomfortable, and Yangyang wishes he could protect her, but there’s not a lot that he can do from this position.

Unbidden, the sunflower petals come up again, and he coughs as quietly as he can manage. One of the other waiters looks at him strangely, but he otherwise goes unnoticed and breathes out a sigh of relief. Or at least, he tries. The sigh causes his throat to itch again, and he can tell the exact moment that his gag reflex is activated. He holds his thumbs tightly, a trick he learned to help with nausea. It doesn’t help though, he can’t get it to go away. He doubles over and loses track of what’s happening around him, trying to focus on keeping the flowers and bile down.

The next thing he registers is hands on his arms, leading him somewhere. There’s a voice muttering next to him and he struggles to understand what it’s saying on top of the pressure in his throat.

“-don’t know where to take you, I guess a bathroom? You look like you’re about to throw your guts up.” It’s Y/N’s voice, he realizes with a start, and that just confuses him even more. Since when has she cared about him enough to leave a gathering for him? Actually, since when has she cared for him at all? “I bet nobody will come looking for us in the back guest suite, we haven’t done anything with those rooms for a while. I hope it’s clean.”

She leads him through hallways and there’s distant yelling but all he can focus on is keeping his mouth closed and the feeling of her grip on his bicep, strong and in charge. Eventually she drags him into a tiled room and puts him in front of the toilet. Then she bends down (how, in all of those layers of fabric, he has no idea) to his level and waves her hand in front of his face to get him to focus on her.

“Hey, dude, are you all right?”

He nods as best as he can and then turns to the toilet and hurls up petal after petal. After a while blood comes up too with the force of it all, and with everything being coughed up, his gag reflex activates as well. That one tiny appetizer that he had comes up, and then he just dry heaves for a while. Y/N rubs his back during it and he’s grateful for her presence, because he’s sure he would’ve lost his mind by now if he were alone. He didn’t know she could be such a comforting presence, and he can hardly draw parallels between this version of her and the one who yelled at him for entering the house a few weeks ago.

Once the urge to heave is gone and he can breathe at least somewhat normally, he sits back and flushes the toilet. Y/N grabs a paper cup from somewhere in the room and gives him some water, which he gratefully takes and sips from.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” comes a soft murmur from his left. “I really thought that you were just trying to get easy money, I didn’t realize how bad it can get. I didn’t realize how horrific it is. I know that’s stupid of me. I get why you’re so desperate now. And I’m sorry for insulting your family, too. That was wrong of me, for many reasons.”

“It’s-” his voice breaks and he takes another sip of the water. “Well, it’s not exactly okay, but I appreciate the apology. And, y’know, all of this.” He waves a hand around, indicating the room in general.

“Oh it’s no problem. You helped me get away from Mister What’s-his-name anyway. He can come on so strongly. I’m glad I could spend time with you instead.”

Yangyang feels his heart twist in a new way. Not in the way hanahaki warps his insides, and certainly not the way that his crush made him feel. More like… comfort. He feels safe in this bathroom with her, even if his tailbone is going numb and there’s no way that she’s comfortable either.

“Who is Mister What’s-his-name anyway? Why was he all up in your business?”

“Oh, he’s a partner of my dad’s, I think. I’m pretty sure they made some sort of deal that includes permission to try and court me? But he’s a bit old and a bit… well. He’s the sort of man who has never heard the word ‘no’ in his life.” She winces and Yangyang wishes he could just reach over and hug her, but he’s not sure if that’s allowed in this sort of situation. He’s still not sure if she actually cares for him at all, or if she used him as an excuse to get away from this man that she clearly doesn't like. Either way, he’s just glad she’s comfortable.

“I’m sorry,” he offers. She smiles, a weak thing that doesn’t come even close to her happy smile. Yangyang would know, he’s watched her smile at school for at least a year, and the glow of that is one hundred times more powerful than this imitation.

“It’s fine. The life of a woman, no?” The laugh that follows is full of pain and has an undercurrent of anger.

“It shouldn’t be. You of all people should be free to love a person who cares about you, man or no.”

“Thank you, Yangyang.”

He’s about to respond when there’s a knock on the bathroom door, and Y/N stands up to get it with a small groan, rearranging her dress around her legs. She opens the door to another one of the servants. “Miss, you’re needed in the dining room for a toast and celebration of your graduation. Mister Liu, are you feeling well enough to come back?”

She groans and nods, reaching back to help Yangyang stand up. He takes her hand and relishes in the warmth of it. It makes him feel good that she’ll willingly touch him now. “We’re both feeling lovely, unfortunately.”

Y/N leads him back until he sees the doorway he’s meant to use and he thanks her again. She brushes it off, but he tries to make her understand just how much it meant that she would come for him. That she cared. He can’t find the words that he wants to use, but she just smiles and walks into the dining room, already apologizing to the guests profusely for leaving so suddenly. Her voice fades as Yangyang walks into the kitchen and is immediately given the rest of the night off once he’s explained what happened. He tries to say that he’s fine now, but the head cook pushes him out and a different staff member walks him to the front door.

“Take care, Mister Liu.”

“Thank you.”

☾:۞:☽

The next time he’s texted is from an unknown number.

Unknown ID

Hey yangyang :)

It’s Y/N, my mum gave me your number

Can you come over on Saturday morning? My parents are coming home on Sunday and I need your help cleaning up the house since they gave the rest of the staff the weekend off

Yangx2

yeah totally

what time

Y/N <3

I think 8

Yangx2

cool see u then

He spends the next few minutes freaking out because she has his number and she texted him and he just can’t believe how things are progressing. A few weeks ago she never would have even talked to him, and now he’s being invited, not by her mother, but by her, over to her house.

On Saturday morning he wakes up bright and early and eats a full breakfast to make sure that he can work all morning if she needs him to. Then he drives himself over to her house and takes a deep breath before ringing the doorbell. He checks his watch, congratulating himself on being right on time. Nobody answers, so he tries the front door hesitantly. It’s open, which seems suspicious, but he walks in anyway.

The room is an absolute mess. It hardly seems like the same house as the one he served tiny appetizers at. There are drink glasses and red solo cups all over the place, and he’s starting to get an inkling of what happened here last night. People are passed out in every room he enters, and the front parlor’s couch is piled with at least four bodies. They all look like they’re still alive, which he counts as a plus. Upstairs, clothes are strewn about, and he only cracks open doors to closed bedrooms to see what’s inside. At the first sight of a dropped shirt (or other article of clothing) he closes each door again, unwilling to see the people inside and how much or how little they might be wearing.

He progresses through the house, only the private family wing appearing untouched. The paintings are still straight on the walls here, and nobody is laying on the carpet. It’s still and silent, like a house should be at eight AM on a Saturday morning. He peeks into some of the rooms just to make sure that there’s nobody there. There isn’t, at least until he comes to a room in the far back. It’s the last one, and he barely takes a cursory glance before blinking and coming fully into the room.

The blinds are drawn, but he can see a walk-in closet, a dresser, a vanity, a couch, a desk with a monitor on it, and a TV in the dim lighting. There’s also a queen-size bed, one with a little sleeping lump on it that he really really hopes is Y/N. He walks slowly and gazes happily down at her sleeping features. She looks so peaceful, face lax and breathing even. He figures that it would be a shame to wake her up, so he leaves the room quietly and walks back to the main floor, where most of the people are sleeping.

He starts rousing them from their slumber, some simply refusing to and rolling over before falling back asleep. That’s fine, he knows they’ll leave eventually. For the most part, he gets everyone up and leaving, all of them complaining about their hangovers. A few run into the nearest bathroom to empty their stomachs, but it’s a blessedly small percentage. He doesn’t recognize any of them.

Once the people on this floor are gone, he gets to work. He absolutely refuses to go looking for the people in the guest rooms, so he just has to hope that they get up on their own before he has to clean that wing of the house.

He starts in the kitchen, putting bottles of liquors he’s only heard of in passing and ones he can’t pronounce in a black trash bag he finds under the sink. Then he goes through the rooms, collecting spare red solo cups and the occasional confetti spray. He moves methodically through the rooms, cleaning up what he can and avoiding the heavy sleepers that he couldn’t get to leave. There are three of them, and he just leaves them be. Better not to rouse a sleeping bear. In one of the back parlors (a less prominent one, it has less expensive things in it, he thinks) he finds a broken window and winces. That’s not going to be easy to fix before tomorrow.

He’s just finishing rearranging the furniture when Y/N comes down the stairs, still rubbing sleep from her eyes. She doesn't look nearly as hungover as the other people he chased out, which he’s thankful for. She’ll be a better cleaning buddy if she’s not in pain or needing to vomit.

She grabs a bowl of cereal and looks around at the clean kitchen.

“Did you clean the entire room?” Her voice is rough with sleep and he loves that he’s the first person to hear her speak today. It’s sort of intimate. He knows that’s just because he wants it to be intimate, but it makes him smile nonetheless.

“I’m almost done with this floor, actually. I got here at eight like you said, and it’s almost nine thirty now.”

“Oh wow, okay. Thank you so much. I can’t believe you did all of that by yourself.”

“Well, you are paying me for this. I’m still willing to do just about anything.”

Her grin almost hurts his eyes, it’s so bright. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Hey!”

She laughs and he relaxes. Yangyang can never resist her, and he knows it. As she finishes her cereal and puts the bowl in the sink, he follows her, and then she turns to face him. “I’ll work on getting people out of the guest rooms, you start on the hallways. Okay?”

He nods. “Before we go up, though, you should see this.” He leads her through the rooms until he finds the back parlor again, and gestures to the window.

“I thought that was a dream,” she groans. “It’s going to be a pain to get it fixed.”

“I figured you should know about it sooner rather than later.”

She nods, eyes still fixed on the splintered glass panes. “Yeah. Thanks. I’ll call someone to come fix it, I guess.”

Yangyang walks out of the room behind her, heading to the guest room to start cleaning up. He starts with the paintings knocked askew, putting the shards of broken wall decorations and such in another black trash bag. She comes up after a while.

“I called a guy to fix the window, he said he can be here later.”

“Do you want me to stay? Just in case?”

She gives him a long hard look and he’s afraid that she’ll tell him off, but then a lovely small smile comes out. “Sure, Yangyang. Thanks.”

She starts opening doors to guest rooms, yelling into each one. “Get up! C’mon guys, time to go! Ew, Jeremy, don’t do that. Okay, Caroline, time to go, yep. Sun is up, so are we! Let’s go you guys!” Yangyang, meanwhile, moves on to the carpet, finding a vacuum in one of the numerous linen closets. He finds some loose clothing and makes a lost and found pile. He’s surprised, frankly, that there aren’t any lost phones or other more important items. There is a condom on the floor though, thankfully unused.

Finally, when everyone is roused and gone, he moves on to the bathrooms. Y/N joins him after a while, helping to scrub stains and generally put everything back in place. It’s nice, the two of them working in tandem. She isn't talking much, so he doesn’t either, and it’s a comfortable sort of silence.

Once they’re done, she invites him to have lunch with her and the two of them eat, getting to know each other. He knew this whole time, of course, that he was in love with her, but spending time with her like this makes his whole body warm in a way that he’s unfamiliar with. It reminds him of how he felt on the floor of the bathroom with her: safe.

After lunch they clean the back patio, which is surprisingly untouched. The window guy comes and goes, and Yangyang sits with her in her room, now with the curtains opened to let light stream in onto the floor.

“You know what’s weird?” he asks.

“What’s that?”

“I haven’t had a hanahaki episode all day. I haven’t even had trouble breathing like I have been recently. It’s strange.”

“That is weird. Maybe you fell out of love with whoever it is? I read up on hanahaki and I think that’s possible. Maybe the sunflowers died or something.”

He nods, but only because what she’s saying makes sense. He knows he didn’t fall out of love though. “Well, maybe I don’t need to work for you anymore, then? I mean the money is nice but my other job pays less… sporadically.”

“If that makes you happy, sure. More money for us, I guess. Until next time, then?” She gives him a loose hug and his heart flutters.

“Until next time. Thank you for everything, Y/N.”

She beams at him, although he thinks there’s an undercurrent to her smile that isn’t as happy as it was a few minutes ago.

“No problem Yangyang. I’ll walk you to the front door.”

He thinks he could probably walk around her house blindfolded at this point - he’s been everywhere cleaning things - but he allows her to lead him to the front door anyway. It’s just a few more moments in her presence, but he relishes in it. Y/N waves to him as he walks down the front walkway, and then she closes the door. He can’t help feeling as though he’s made a big mistake, but surely it’s fine. He’ll be fine. The flowers are (possibly) dead, and he’s free to only work one job. Nevermind that he misses her already, knowing that there might not ever be another text sent from her to him or vice versa.

☾:۞:☽

The next evening it’s raining - no, pouring - when Yangyang gets into his car and prepares to drive back to her house. After dinner he had a worse episode. It appears that the sunflowers have grown more, because he now has the ability to spit out sunflower seeds on top of the scratchy flower petals and stems. He almost envies people who get softer plants like roses, until he realizes that roses have thorns. He can’t imagine that thorns are any more pleasant; they’re probably worse. They also probably take longer to flower, though. Sunflowers grow so big, so fast, in comparison. Daisies, maybe? That pretty purple one that his neighbor is growing? Those are small.

He coughs up more petals while he drives, the lines on the road blurring under the water outside the car and the tears in his eyes. The whole time he wonders if he’ll even make it, if he won’t just suffocate on the way over. He doesn’t even know if Y/N’s home, for goodness sake. He hopes so, because he’s definitely done for if he can’t see her. He can feel it.

The next batch of petals comes up with blood on them, dripping from his bottom lip onto the pile of coughed-up items in his lap. He had the foresight to put another plastic grocery bag in his car after he threw out the last one, and he’s thankful for that now as he coughs more. There are tears streaming down over his cheeks and he can’t even wipe them away. All of his attention is on driving and coughing up as much as he can so that he doesn’t start asphyxiating.

When he finally arrives at her house, he dashes up the front walkway and rings the doorbell like a madman, hoping against hope that she’ll answer the door.

He’s almost surprised when she does open it, jumping backwards before turning away and coughing more petals into a bush out front.

“Yangyang?” her voice is panicked, filled with more emotion than he’s ever heard from her. “What’s going on?” He has blood on his shirt, and probably some on his face too, but he can’t find it in himself to care. When he speaks, his voice is rough and his throat aches. There’s a sort of pressure at the bottom of his trachea, and it doesn’t like how it feels at all.

“Relapse,” he grunts. “Help.”

He’s thankful that she has the presence of mind to lead him into a bathroom, ignoring the servants swarming the two of them. They’re just trying to help, but Yangyang knows they won’t be able to do anything. The only one who could possibly help him is her, his love. Once she’s locked the door behind her, she rubs his back as he coughs up more into the trash can. For reasons unknown, it’s mostly seeds now, falling from his throat like some sort of black mold. He supposes that the flowers have had the same approximate results as a mold, just with more breathing issues.

After a while the flow of them slows enough for him to sit back against the wall. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t know where to go.”

She shakes her head. “It’s okay. I… I think I get it now. It was me all along, wasn’t it? That’s why it stopped hurting you so much while we were together. I started… I started to fall for you, and somehow… somehow the flower knew it. It stopped growing for a while, that’s the only explanation for how much better you were feeling. And then yesterday, we said we’d stop seeing each other, and I guess the Hanahaki didn't like that much. So you started throwing up again. And, uh, now we’re here. And I… Well, I sort of fell in love with you too, somewhere along the line.”

Yangyang takes in her earnest expression, the spot of blood on her shirt that he doesn’t remember getting there. He doesn’t know what to say. All of this time pining after her, and suddenly she’s fallen for him too? It’s too much to ask, too much to hope for; her face says that it’s true anyway. His voice is scratchy and shredded when he speaks, a byproduct of the seeds that ravaged his throat. “Really? You actually mean it?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” she says resolutely.

It surprises both of them when Yangyang crumbles forward into her lap, head landing between her arms. “I can��t kiss you ‘cause I have blood in my mouth,” he mutters, voice muffled where it’s squished into her thigh, “but I really want to.”

“The feeling is mutual. Let’s get you cleaned up first though, yeah? I can find you some clean clothes and let you use this shower.”

“Sure. Thank you, Y/N.”

“No problem.”

She leaves the room after helping him stand up and he finds some spare shower materials in the closet, so he pulls them out. A generic shampoo, bodywash, and an incredibly soft and fluffy towel that he almost feels bad for touching. It’s decadent. He puts everything in the shower and she comes back with some spare clothes.

“Will these fit you?”

Yangyang holds the shirt up to his body and nods happily, even though it’s several sizes too big, and then holds up the sweatpants. He looks down, trying to gauge their size, and all of a sudden his throat constricts. He can’t process what’s happening; his love confessed! The flower should be dead! He should be fine!

“Yangyang?” Her voice cuts through the panicked fuzz in his head.

“Can't breathe,” he wheezes.

“What?” She drops the shirt in her arms and rushes forward, nearly dragging him out of the bathroom and down the hallway. “Help! He’s- he’s choking! Mum, call the ambulance! He’s got to get the surgery, right now!”

All Yangyang can do as he is manhandled out front and frantically encouraged to keep breathing is stare at Y/N. Maybe it’s the lack of oxygen going to his brain, but he thinks that she looks even more amazing like this, worried about him. It’s sort of what he wanted all along, isn’t it? Maybe not for her to be in a panic over him, but for her to care about him. He thinks, even as he runs out of air, that he’s happy to die right now if it means that he gets to be cared for by her.

The last thing that he registers is the distant scream of a siren and her desperate, incoherent mumbling.

☾:۞:☽

Later on, Yangyang can never figure out how they kept him alive long enough to do the surgery. The sunflower was already dead since Y/N had confessed, but it had still shifted and blocked his air passage, which was why he had passed out. She had rushed him to the emergency room by ambulance and the nurses had somehow gotten the head of the flower out of his trachea before he died from lack of air. Afterwards she was sitting in strained silence in the waiting room, waiting for him to come out, or for one of the doctors or nurses to proclaim that the worst had happened.

She couldn’t stomach the thought, she told him later. It hurt her to even consider having him suddenly ripped from her by something that was, in a way, her fault.

“It’s not your fault. At all. In any way.”

“Well, I don’t know. If I had just realized my feelings earlier, you might not have started suffocating, and you wouldn’t have had to go through that.”

“Falling in love takes time. I don’t blame you at all.”

“You should.”

“I won’t.”

“But-”

“Nope. I love you, and you love me, and everyone’s okay now. You need to stop feeling guilty about something that was out of your control. You know you would say the same to me.”

A huff. “True.”

She walks him slowly out of the hospital, and he feels weak because the stance she’s taken indicates an inability for him to take care of himself. He’s fine! It was his lungs that had the surgery, not his legs! Still, he lets her hold him next to her, and he smiles because she cares for him. He still can’t get over that. He wasn’t sure that she even had it in her to love someone outside of herr close (rich) friends, but here they both were, him alive and her worrying over his health.

It's almost more than he ever hoped for. Almost. He still wants a son, if only because he made a bet with Ten years ago that he would be the first to have a son, but he’s aware that both of them are too young to give a baby the love he wants to give it. They just graduated high school a few weeks ago, after all. And he obviously has to ask her what she plans to do in the future before anything else happens.

But he would very much like to have a son someday.

He’s drawn out of his thoughts by Y/N opening her car door and helping him into it, even going so far as to carefully strap him in. He lets her, aware that she’s just worried that he’ll relapse. He doesn’t think he will, though. After an excruciatingly boring two weeks in the hospital, he’s doing a lot better. His mum came to see him whenever she got off of work, and his older sister came in to bring him food and things to entertain him in the painfully white blankness of his recovery room.

Y/N had offered to pay for the entire surgery and hospital stay, but Yangyang insisted upon at least using what he had stored up from working for her family. She had let him, but he suspected that it was only so that he would feel better about it. He knows that she could easily support him for the rest of his life. If all goes well, that’s exactly what he was hoping for. Obviously he’ll get his own job, but he wanted to live with her for as long as he could, regardless of whether it’s in her mansion or his small family apartment, or somewhere to call his own.

Before she draws away, she gives him a hug, holding him loosely enough to make sure she doesn't hurt him but tightly enough that he knows she’s wanted to do this for a while. He lifts his own arms and holds her close. It feels like her soul is bared to him, and vice versa. There’s pain in the hug, an unwillingness to let go, and an unspoken sentence: I love you.

End.

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