#fusion vogue au

[nell0-0]

All right! Vogue is a type of guy, that's for sure. Would love to see/hear some more lore, glad that you are happy to talk about him! (and the immortality ask got me 👀)

I took so long to answer this ask, I have no excuse. Better late than never?

The reason Vogue says he doesn't feel like a whole person has a lot to do with how they came to be (they weren't a stable fusion at first) and Ingo's amnesia.

In the fusion, Ingo softens Volo's hard edges and Volo gives Ingo a stronger drive. They're still a mess most of the time, and their negatives build up as well (not just the positives) but they make it work. There's a reason why their fusion has worked for that long, after all.

Ingo and Volo are two very different people, but with time and change, they can strive to be better and something more... healthy.

Cynthia is aware her uncle Vogue is a fusion even if she doesn't understand what that means at first. Then again, she has never seen them as any other than Vogue, so she doesn't dwell on who are part of her weird uncle. They're just like that.

The version of Vogue that Cynthia knows has already gone through a lot, almost always stable.

[cheralith]

vogue — 「 boss/fashion designer!geto suguru x reader 」

synopsis ; even without much knowledge in the world of fashion, you decide that it's in your best interest to work for the country's fashion magazine powerhouse. however, you begin to second-guess your decision when you're faced with the grueling labor of its one and only editor-in-chief who expects nothing less of perfection. can your efficiency meet his standards or will you be out the door before you can even blink?

content tags/warnings ; gn!reader, use of they/them pronouns, mild language, traditional japanese basis of (l/n) (f/n) used, reader wears glasses, makeup, and heeled boots, some mild manga and jjk 0 spoilers (three minor characters from each are introduced), uhhh suguru being a dick lawl, some parts not edited/not beta read

contains ; editor-in-chief!geto, fashion designer!geto, assistant!reader, assistant turned ****!reader, platonic roommate!ino, modern au, mild angst, some crack if you squint

word count ; 10.2k

notes ; heavily inspired by "the devil wears prada" and "paradise kiss", so there'll be some references i've dropped within this—see if you can spot them! also the censored is spoilers so until then, hehe.

now playing ; seven days in sunny june - jamiroquai

It’d be foolish not to know the household name of Geto Suguru, the ultimate male muse of Jun Takahashi whose title has yet to be reigned by another. He was the ultimate breathing mannequin of the iconic Yohji Yamamoto piece he had worn on the Milan runway back when he was just a teenager. It was one of the most staple pieces of the new century that helped open the gates of the mixing of world culture and avant garde fashion—an England-Japanese punk fusion of an ashen and tattered kasaya layered under the contrasting statement piece: the earth-toned gojōu-gesa splattered with weaves of gold—and it was that very piece that rose him to the top of the fashion world as one of the most powerful names in global fashion.

And how could he not? At seventeen, he was scouted as a model for Gaulthier and became his muse at the ripe age of twenty before several other worldwide designers began to fight for his eyes. It was only a few shrewd years later that he’d open up his own successful fashion line, RIIKO, named in honor of his late sister, resulting in it becoming one of the fashion line pillars in the modern century. 

It didn’t take long after that, due to his fame and distinct education from Jujutsu University, rising to the top for Kaizen fashion magazine and ruling it with an iron fist and several cups of coffee with almost all his designs on display for all to see in the office. It was due to his work that Kaizen became the powerhouse of powerhouses of fashion editorials and magazines and it was solely his work that made fashion what it was in present times. 

Whether it was direct or indirect, Geto had impacted the industry in all sorts of ways. Be it blossoming an upcoming supermodel’s name or setting new fashion trends, everything could essentially be traced to Geto Suguru. 

So it’s understandable that many had called you a fool—a dimwit, even—for not understanding how big of a deal it was to become his junior assistant after lazily submitting your resume. Originally, you had just wanted to become a simple lifestyle journalist for papers like Sankei Shimbun or The Japan Times, but seeing how it was between a seemingly mysterious fashion magazine that mentioned, received gasps, or the measly and homely newspaper of The Hokkaido Tribune, a magazine you knew would only give new journalists the scraps of what they earned, the choice was obvious. 

Whatever gave you more money, you’d take. Survival of the fittest, was this world not?

“Do not tell me you’re going to your interview at Kaizen wearing that?” Ino barks out a laugh as he finishes his morning cereal for breakfast, scanning your outfit. “You’re going to work in a fashion magazine, not some dingy corporate office.”

You sneer at him as you shove on your loafers (don’t mind that the leather is peeling slightly on the side). You think that there’s nothing remotely wrong with your overused gauntlet gray matching set of trousers and blazer with a slightly wrinkled button-up underneath it. 

“Oh, please,” you roll your eyes at your roommate and parttime brother figure. “What on earth do you know about fashion?”

“Enough of it to know that outfit is atrocious for that type of environment,” he states simply as he shoves a donut in his mouth. He kicks his feet up on the table, making you cringe at their nakedness. “Trust me, change if you can. Make a statement for ‘em.”

Ino Takuma sighs and glances at your thick spectacles that you’ve worn since early college. “And at least change your glasses for your contacts. Heard they don’t like those sorta things over there. At least not the prescription kind.”

“Can’t find them,” you grunt when you feel the weight of your shoulder bag heave down your body. “I’m already late, anyway,” you sigh, “Listen, if I don’t come back alive, which I will by the way, then you can dance on my grave all you want.”

“I’m holding you to that,” he chants before he lets out a haughty snicker that gets muffled instantly when you slam the door on him. 

You throw insults at Ino in your mind, grumbling about how a mere job hopper like him wouldn’t even know the speck of fashion, how you refuse to take advice from someone who wears the same thing every day. There’s nothing wrong with the gray, you think. It’s safe and presentable, ordinary and professional, and you’d much rather blend in than stand out as you believe standing out and making yourself known is just a recipe for trouble. 

Stretching out a hand on the street, you call for a taxi and humbly enter as you smooth out your trousers. The taxi driver eyes you in the rearview mirror with a questioning glint in your eye. “Job interview?” he asks.

“Oh, um,” you nod your head. “Yep! I'm a little nervous, haha.”

“Really?” he says as he gratefully steps on the accelerator a little faster. “Better get you there quick, then. Would hate to have you late. Where are you planning on working?”

“Kaizen Magazine,” you declare confidently, an affirmative look on your face.

“Kaizen?” questions the driver slowly as his eyes go to scan your outfit in the mirror again, his brows raised. “As in the… the fashion magazine?” 

You nod with visible apprehensiveness. You think that maybe you truly were the only person in the world that didn’t know the impact of Kaizen, seeing as how a mere taxi driver even knew about the name and you didn’t up until a few weeks ago. 

“I see…” he mutters. The drive there is a mix of silence and everyday morning conversations, before he pulls up to the building that held the key to your dreams. “Well then, here’s your stop.” 

You let out a little gasp of excitement. “Thank you so much,” you reply as you shove some cash into the slot. 

“Hm, well,” the taxi driver counts the money carefully, barely looking just before you close the door as he mutters, “Good luck, Plain Jane.”

You turn back to the taxi, your hearing a little awry. “Sorry, what was that?”

But when you turn back to the yellow cab, all that’s left is a billow of smoke and cinders. Dazed and confused, you quickly shake those feelings off before you head inside to the building that was now your shining beacon of hope with a determined smile still plastered on your lips. White is the first thing that greets you when you enter the building as it was essentially aired out onto every corner. White marble counters, white tile flooring with white grout, white frames of fashion icons—the white screams pristine and perfection to you and its message went very much noticed. You haven’t even met Geto Suguru yet, but you understood already that he expected nothing but excellence.

You ride up the elevator quietly and alone, trying not to focus on how your anxiety increased with each ding of the passing floors. The elevator screen seems to almost taunt you as it closes in on your doom, the numbers getting closer to the designated floor until it slowly pauses and shone brightly the number 21 in stippled red.

The doors slowly open and the light seeps itself back to your vision, white flooding your senses again. You carry yourself carefully down the hallway whilst taking your time to admire the many framed pictures of past magazines, multiple runway models, and scraps of newspaper articles. One specific piece catches your attention, however; it was large, almost half your body size and framed in a gilded black frame. It was a picture of a mannequin wearing a tawdry gray-black robe with the kanji characters of “summer” painted with purple messily atop. Layered was a loose, but well-fitted piece of thick green and gold cloth that looked much more refined to the messiness of the other materials. 

You stare at it for what seemed to be forever whilst admiring the contrast and beauty of the work before your name is called out.

“(Y/N) (L/N)?”

Your trance breaks from the voice approaching you. You turn to see a short and young woman with dark blue eyes staring at you with a raised brow. “That’s you I presume?” she asks.

“Oh! Uh,” you nod furiously and smooth out your trousers again. “Yes… yes, that’s me. I assume you’re Manami Suda? The one I spoke with on the phone?”

She nods slowly, her eyes going to study your outfit which was a rather stark contrast to her own attire that highlighted an emphasis on shades of opal and navy. Her eyes have a similar glint in the way that Ino’s and the taxi driver’s had, further enunciating the message that your attire was rather… something.

“I see you’ve dressed up for the occasion,” she murmurs. Sarcasm going undetected by you, you grin as a response and think that a compliment from her was a sign you did something right. Her eyes go to rise back and meet yours again before she turns and redirects you to the end of the hallway where some rooms belonging to subordinal editors sat in, clacking away at the computers. There was one singular room that held the only door on the floor and it doesn’t take you long to assume who it belongs to considering the large letters of GS frosted onto the glass.

Two desks stood on each side of the door, one completely devoid of life and decorations. Manami guides you to the empty one and patted the top of it. “This will be yours if you manage to miraculously pass.” 

Manami taps on her clipboard a couple of times, listing off a couple of requirements that you were most likely going to need in the future: efficient time management, ability to fight for what Geto wants, sharp memory, quick feet…

“And uh…” Manami flickers her eyes to you and the details (or lack of, in this case). She mutters under her breath quietly, “... a good wardrobe.”

You turn to her, internally wondering if you were going deaf today. “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

“A good, warm…” she squints, obviously finding the right word to keep that ignorant smile on your face. “... welcome to start off his day.”

She succeeds in her task as you merely nod with the same blatant grin attached. “Got it!”

Manami tours you around the floor of the office, letting you say hello to your future coworkers that work in the cubicles that send you worried looks behind your back. They obviously seem too pitying of you, knowing that your fate would be sealed as Geto’s potential right hand man the moment you signed that employee contract.  

“This is Human Resources,” Manami gestures over to a room filled with chattering employees who seemed to be getting their gossip out before their day started. “You’ll contact them if you have any—” her phone dings suddenly. Casually, she pulls it out, only for all of her resolve to disappear in an instant. Manami then abruptly blows a whistle with her teeth, alerting everybody in the radius.

“Everybody! His morning facial was canceled!” Manami hollers. “Geto is coming in…” her phone pings again with another notification, and you can tell Manami’s heart instantly drops. “Oh God… he’s in the lobby! Everybody, places! You,” she snags the sleeve of your blazer and drags you along with her, your clunky loafers nearly tripping you. “Come with me.”

Manami takes back to where you first started and orders you to stand in the front of the blank desk with a look that screams both fright and anxiousness all in one. She lists off too many tasks that you need to do before he comes, but you’re so frazzled with trying to remember how to act in front of your future boss that you can’t even remember the first thing she told you. 

“Help me arrange the drafts of the magazines from most recent to least recent before he—”

The elevator dings and all goes quiet; Manami tosses the magazines over her shoulders and positions herself firmly in her place, gesturing for you to do the same. The doors open and unveiled from two bodyguards is a man—a tall man, around six feet or perhaps even taller—dressed in noir fitted pants and a matching button-up closed only halfway to reveal a silk navy turtleneck. Caped behind him is a black velvet trenchcoat that you’re sure is worth half your rent and a watch plated on his wrist that is well over your life savings. He’s slightly sunkissed, with blue-black tresses of hair with a soft bang sneaking through and large plated earrings to match. His eyes, however, show a tint of color—a sharp dark amethyst that you think could cut through you like crystals.

But he’s almost hauntingly attracting—like a spirit. Something about him was an enigma and his aura was nothing less than powerful. 

“Good morning, Geto,” Manami chants with an artificial happiness to her tone.

Geto doesn’t reply, just merely giving a silent blink before he sheds his coat off and tosses it aimlessly towards Manami. It proves to be heavier than anticipated, giving how she fights to groan from the weight of it. He’s handed his briefcase from one of the bodyguards and begins to open the door to his office until he pauses and turns and glances at you, the stranger.

“Hello,” you state with a slight bow. “I-I’m one of the interviewees for your junior assistant. My name is—”

“(Y/N),” Geto murmurs; his voice is soft and low. It’s all knowing, with indigo eyes boring into your own. “(L/N) (Y/N), I know. The one that graduated from Jujutsu University recently, yes?” 

 Adjusting your glasses to wave away the blurriness, you nod with anticipation. “Yes, that’s me.”

Geto turns back and opens the door, to which he only replies back, “In my office.”

You glance at Manami for confirmation, only given back with a jut of her head towards the door. All the unease you felt in the elevator comes hurdling back to you in an instinct and you feel as if you were no more than a peasant to someone that was essentially royalty in the fashion world. 

Geto turns his chair to face away from you, shuffling a few papers over each other that appears to be your resume, before he spins it slowly towards you. He kicks his feet up lazily on his desk. 

“It’s nice to have another Jujutsu alum to join us,” he says. His voice is still the same—a little baritone with a wisping edge of a whisper to it, but it almost sounds… bored. Unamused even. “A bachelors in print journalism… same as mine, hm. Tell me, is Professor Tengen still as loose as ever with their practices?”

You fight to fiddle with your glasses as you watch as Geto tangibly toys with his own, with his focus angled on the papers in front of him rather than you. “Um, I assume so. Though I believe they’re actually retiring this year.”

“Good,” he sighs in what seems to be relief. “Shame that the university had wasted time and money by hiring them. Truly, I hope they can find someone much better suited for their position.”

“Really?” you quietly question. You had only taken their class a few semesters ago and thought despite their rather… all too lenient disposition… you did learn quite a lot in their class. “I thought they were a rather alright teacher…”

Regret pools in your mouth from the moment you have finished your sentence. Geto finally goes to look at you from the edge of his glasses with a sharp look, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. 

“Tengen was merely a sorry excuse for a professor. They were rather nothing but a nanny who gave their students too much leeway,” Geto declares. “Though, I’ll admit, I am pleasantly surprised that you managed to take something out of that class.”

A laugh that’s just dripping with nothing but nervousness leaks out of your lips. “I suppose I had learned just a few things…”

“Mmh,” Geto nod nonchalantly, eyes drawing back to the papers. “Well. Let’s start with the basics. Why exactly do you want to work here?” 

Geto already feels the cliche comments erupting. Had the person in front of him say at least one of them, he was ready to insert the papers he was holding into the nearby shredder. Or maybe out the window this time, he wonders—something nice for a change.

“I was inspired by your work.” 

“It’s been my dream to work at Kaizen.”

“Fashion is my absolute passion.”

“I want to—”

“I’m just in need of a job, really,” you say lifelessly. 

He goes to raise his head slowly from the packet and turns to you slowly. Geto doesn’t say anything, but his facial expressions indicate a blend of confusion and intrigue. A slithering tongue darts out to slick his lips, indicating you’ve piqued his interest. “Well, obviously. But why this job specifically? What about it stood out to you?”

You clear your throat. “I had learned recently that Kaizen is a rather prestigious mag—”

“‘Recently’?” Geto repeats quietly. “You hadn’t heard of us before?” 

Lips thinning, you shake your head slightly. His eyes go narrow again to your dread, serpent-like. “My specialty is more in newspapers rather than magazines, I-I’m not too knowledgeable in that area.”

Geto goes quiet and the silence makes the air go thick. It’s then that familiar glint sparkles in his sullen eyes when they go to examine your choice of clothing—it confirms Ino was truly right in the end, as he lets out a smile-less chuckle that doesn’t do much to ease your brain. 

“Continue,” Geto gestures and takes off his glasses to look at you, or you suppose your outfit, more properly. He folds his hands and places his chin on top of them. “You said you only learned about us not too long ago?”

“Yes, and I realized that perhaps working here for a while would, at least I hope, grant me access to other media houses,” you explain. It’s only then you realize that your declaration sounds absolutely ludicrous and almost disrespectful to the editor-in-chief of the most iconic fashion magazine in the nation. “Connections are quite powerful in this day and age, haha…”

“I suppose,” Geto mumbles with not much interest in your poor humor. “What about me? I do hate bragging but surely, you know about my name or at least my fashion line?”

Your hesitant countenance and silence tells Geto all he needs to know. He thinks that it’s almost some sort of marvel that no one has heard of him or his works before.

He sighs. “Do you have any experience working in any fashion-related activities at least?”

“Well, I once worked in a department store for a few months back in high school,” you say thoughtfully (and ignorantly).

Geto gives you a blank look. His blinks are apathetically slow.

“Um,” you clear your throat again and shake your head, timid. “N-no…”

“Then tell me,” he continues smoothly. “Why exactly should I hire you? You obviously have no taste in fashion and you hadn’t even heard of my name, let alone my magazine, until recently. What is there within that makes you want to work here other than you just… what was it that you said?” He air-quotes mockingly, “‘needing a job?’”

Your throat runs dry and limbs go stiff. A heat rockets to your face when you seemingly can’t get any words out to excuse yourself, much too caught up in the same of your ignorance towards Geto’s profession. And that’s all the response he needs to make his decision. 

His hand takes the packet again and to your horror that you fight to keep in, inserts it into the paper shredder. The groan of it rumbles through the room agonizingly and you realize that Ino is going to have the time of your life planning your doomsday. 

Geto gives you the mercy of breaking the thick silence first. “You may go.” 

With a swift flick of his wrist, Geto dismisses you with a slight edge to his murmuring as he puts back on his glasses to examine the morning newspaper to not waste any more incessant time in the day. 

You don’t even attempt to fight back with any poor excuses. Tears prick the corner of your eyes, the sting of them frustrating you to your wits end. Instead, you gather the last of your resolve and bid him through a strained throat good day and make your leave, humiliation and disappointment trailing not too far behind. 

You hope that Ino will give a nice eulogy, at least.

Out of all the miracles that await you in life, you do not expect the one that comes in the form of an early morning phone call that wakes you at the ass-crack of dawn. When you pick it up with sleep still very much embedded in your eyes, it dissipates in the instant you hear Manami’s voice. It’s only then that it hits you why on earth she was calling so early and why she was demanding to know your whereabouts, claiming you were going to be late on your first day of work. 

You think it’s some sort of cruel joke maneuvered by Ino, especially with how his comforts from last night were mixed with taunts. But when Manami’s voice finally registers in your brain, by some sort of miracle or stroke of luck, you have gotten the job as Geto Suguru’s junior assistant. 

You don’t know how, but you don’t waste any time questioning how on earth you landed in such a position because you leap out of bed at 7:23 a.m. and manage to do your morning routine in the matter of what you think is a record-breaking fifteen minutes. Your ruckus manages to wake up deep-sleeping Ino, who, when you excitedly tell him to postpone your funeral, gives a groggy thumbs up before drooling back into his pillow. It’s 7:38 a.m. when you shove on your shabby coat and you realize you only have a mere twenty-two minutes left until you have to officially clock in for work. 

At 7:40, you’re out the door and sprinting to the located coffee shop that thankfully wasn’t too far from where you lived.

At 7:47, you’re at the designated cafe whilst attempting to swim through the crowds of morning bustlers to pick up Geto’s coffee.

7:50, you’re sticking your hand out waving desperately for a taxi and tip extra to make the driver speed through as you attempt to make sure the coffees don’t spill out of their containers.

7:58, you arrive at the building and just barely make it into the narrow gap of a tight-fitting elevator, earning stares from the others from your rather… frazzled appearance.

At 8:02 a.m., you dash out the elevator and officially clock in for your first day at work at Kaizen Magazine amidst a birdnest of hair, clothes that were plucked out of your hamper, and what you pray to the heavens above are hefty layers of deodorant and perfume since you were given no time to shower.

When Geto comes in that day, all suave and composed, he takes one good look at you before sighing and focusing his attention to the more refined Manami and lets her take the gears for the day. The only attention he gives you that morning is the rough toss of his heavy coat—a cashmere pearl peacoat today—flung at your arms that nearly makes you tumble from its weight.

You quickly learn that working for Geto requires high demand and maintenance, as he is not one to skip over any details in his day. Not even three hours in your first day, you already have to plan out his future meetings, reschedule one with a rather feisty and insistent client, edit a forest of emails, finishing by dashing out five blocks on foot to the two michelin star restaurant to retrieve Geto’s weekly steak for lunch. Had this been your old corporate job, you only would’ve gotten half the tasks you had completed by the end of the usual eight hours, but you realized early on that you had barely scratched the surface of your future in Kaizen.

You think that after plating his steak with the shakiest of hands, you finally have time to relax during lunch time when you see the small hand of the clock finally hit 12:00 p.m. , especially since you and him were left alone in his part of the office together. But the moment that Geto saunters into the office again, he tends to you once again with a final task by himself.

“(Y/N),” he calls from the office, the scrape of his fork against ceramic cluttering your ears agonizingly. 

You fight the urge to cringe from the sound as you scurry to the doorframe, hands stiffly intertwined together. “Yes, Mr. Geto?”

“No need for such formalities,” he remarks with the dab of a napkin to his lips. “They make me feel old, and I’m surely not much older than you are…” you think that’s the longest he’s spoken to you since the day had started. “Did Leibovitz confirm?”

Blinking, you tilt your head ignorantly. “D-did who confirm?”

He pauses and does that taunting slow rise of his eyes from his steak to you. “Leibovitz. Did she confirm?”

Silence fills the office, much like the silence that drowned you back at the interview. He clicks his tongue and dismisses you with a disappointed shake of his head. “Just go on your lunch,” he mutters, sighing.

Manami, the savior that she is, is called into the office after her break and is asked the same task and you watch with humiliation whilst packing your things to go on your lunch as she picks up the telephone and speaks to someone over the line before confirming to Geto that, “I’ve got Annie!”

“He hates me, Taku!” you cry out whilst flopping onto the dinner table. It’s ten in the evening and you’ve just come home after what was supposed to be an 8-5 shift. You suppose you should be used to this already after two months of working for the Lucifer donned ritually in white in the building, but you don’t know how much your sanity (and body) can take. 

Normally, Geto is usually cold to those who he wasn’t familiar with, but you think that his distaste for you sours everyday. You notice that he’s beginning to pile you with the more urgent and busier duties and that he often stares you down more menacingly in the morning with those piercing purple eyes of his, like you were gum stuck on the bottom of his shoe. You thought it was just him being normal Geto Suguru, the man with the expectations higher than the clouds, and that you just were still adjusting to such a high-intensity environment, but it was today that your world came crumbling down when you overheard him muttering to his associates about you, tone icier than ever.

You were on the other side of the door, a fist going to rap on the glass with the other holding his afternoon coffee pick-me-up when you heard it.

“... can’t even do the most miniscule things right,” Geto had groaned. “I ask if Lanvin’s models are all good to go for next Thursday’s shoot and somehow, they have the nerve to ask ‘How do you spell Lanvin’? For fuck’s sake, I can feel my goddamn conscious just wither away by the second.”

You hadn’t heard Geto swear since you had started working there, but something about his venomous tone enunciating such words had made your blood run cold from the other side of the door. Not having the courage to face him after that, you left his coffee on Manami’s desk for her to tend to with a post-it note saying a sorry excuse for yourself before letting your eyes sob frustratingly in the bathroom, isolated from others.

The last time you had cried that hard was way back in childhood, where you had broken your arm from falling down a tree branch. But you think that Geto’s words had twisted through your skin and bone much harsher than that pain ever will. 

“It’s a miracle how I haven’t been fired yet… I don’t even know why he hired me!” you wail.

Ino sighs from across the dinner table and you can’t tell if it’s a sigh of pity or a sigh of criticism. You learn that it’s both when he rolls his eyes at you whilst simultaneously pushing a plate of much needed food towards you. 

“First off, you need to eat,” he presses, staring at your gaunt features. “The way your face is swallowing is making me feel like I’m living’ with a ghost. You’ve lost some weight, I’ve noticed.”

Awareingly, you touch your cheekbones and realize he’s right, for you feel the small disc of sharpness from them prick your fingertips. They’ve never been so cavern before. You suppose it’s because of the lack of proper meal time between your days and how you often eat small and very late dinners back at home, truly not enough needed fuel for you.

“Secondly,” Ino chews his tongue, wondering if he should really say what he’s about to say because of your current disposition but goes through with it anyway. He might as well rip the bandaid off now to let more time for the wound to heal. “You won’t like what I’m ‘bout to say, but you need to up your game. Severely.”

An aching body rises up from the table. You go to stare at Ino through glazed eyes and a pouty lip, asking him what he meant.

“Ah nope! Don’t give me that face and don’t play coy with me,” he hisses, looking away to not give in to your helpless puppy eyes. He can’t—he shouldn’t give you the easy way out and just say to quit—not when you’ve been earning so much bank that rent isn’t a problem for either of you anymore. He wonders, though, for a moment if so much money is worth your rationality.

He drags a hand down his face before placing his chin on it, examining your haggard appearance. “What I mean is that you need to see through Geto’s eyes. See what he sees when he looks at you. Tell me, if you had an assistant that showed up wearing things that looked like they were plucked from the clearance bin at a thrift store and didn’t show any respect for your brand, which just so happens to be a fashion magazine out of all things…” Ino eyes you with a raised brow. “You startin’ to follow me?”

Your fingers fiddle with each other. “... sorta.”

“Now listen,” he raises his hands up lazily in surrender. “I already know what you’re ‘bout to say about me not knowing’ how to dress in shit other than black and more black, but even I know that you should put in more effort into your appearance. That’s the first step.”

“But I have—!” you exclaim helplessly, “I-I swear, I’ve been trying to… but it’s not my fault that it isn’t up to his standards.”

Your roommate groans and rubs his forehead, not really knowing what else to do for your situation until an idea pops in his head. “Free up your weekend,” he demands with a sly grin that makes you a little uneasy. “I’m no fashion connoisseur, but you know who is?”

“And remember, we never touch anything with chevron on it, especially in today’s fashion world,” Yuki chimes as she slaps on a navy blue pageboy cap on your head and she prances about your bedroom that’s been littered with spare clothes from her very own closet she graciously gifted to you for the past weekend. “I’m so utterly relieved that the trend has dug its own grave.”

The past weekend had been filled with endless shopping trips and you shuffling in and out of clothes every minute, practicing how to pair items and colors together by Yuki’s teachings. Of course you should’ve known that Ino was going to contact the one person that he was within reach that was essentially a walking encyclopedia when it came to fashion. You’ve met Tsukumo Yuki before, found her to be quite delightful even, but you never anticipated she would be this giddy, especially about clothes of all things.

And she used her brain to good use for not only clothes, but the entirety of yourself. You never knew how much just a simple haircut could do your face along with small hints of makeup to emphasize the best parts of it. Dared not your hands go to a lash curler, but here you are now, making sure your powder compact and lipstick for the day was in your bag before you went out. 

“Uh, I don’t think I ever mentioned this before yet, but thank you for helping my wardrobe out, it really means a lot,” you say just before she slides on a pair of gold bangles on your wrist. “Are you sure you wanna give these clothes to me? I’m okay with just borrowing them.” 

“Nonsense, babe,” she wavers off before shuffling through your now-hearty closet, a closet that’s now bursting with many clothes given by her. “I needed space in my closet anyway, so take as much as you need.”

So (Y/N)’s closet is basically her trash can, a particular shaggy brunette thinks with a roll of his eyes. Ino fiddles with the piece of toast in his mouth as he leans on the doorway, watching as Yuki essentially treats you like her very own Barbie doll at such an odd morning hour. 

“(Y/N)’s not a doll, Yuki,” Ino lazily calls aloud through a tired yawn. “You better get ‘em out the door soon or else they’ll get late for work. Especially need that money since the landlord’s been on our ass about increasing our rent…” he mutters, sniffing. “Damn bastard.”

She snaps at Ino to be quiet and let her work before she shuffles on a regal blue overcoat over your shoulders that completes your look. When you look at yourself finally in the mirror, you almost think there’s a stranger in your house from the way you look so dignified compared to the you just three days ago. It’s a simple outfit with not much layering, but it’s still enough to ooze charisma and elegance to wandering eyes. You’re adorned in a white weaved sweater with flared, light-wash jeans and white boots to match. Over the outfit lies the coat that drapes almost like a king’s mantle behind you and the pageboy cap as your crown.

Yuki creeps up behind you, her manicured hands on your shoulders affirmingly. “How’re you feeling, hun?” she asks quietly as she shares the same sight with you in the mirror. “Don’t you look wonderful?”

You know that it was all her work, it was all her creativity that made you into the artwork that you are now, so breathlessly laugh with a smile on your painted lips and thank her quietly once more before whispering, “Yeah… yeah, I do.”

Her eyes study you for another minute, going to stare at the glasses still atop your face. Yes, they were new and much more modern considering she quite literally called your old pair atrocious, snapped them in half, and tossed them over her shoulder, but she was still quite dissatisfied when you told her about your hesitance about using contacts. “Are you sure you don’t want to give contacts another chance?” she sighs. 

You shake your head with a small smile, “I’ll feel completely naked without them,” you murmur, “Besides, I think they actually compliment this look, if I’m being honest.”

Her lips stretch out into a grin, too absorbed in her fashion education finally being used. 

“Well then!” she begins to drag you by the sleeve out your room. “We wouldn’t want you to be late then for your first day as the new you, right? Let’s get you a cab!”

Somehow, you think you really are at your first day at work again from the way you feel that same fluttering in your stomach and from how the people you’ve once grown accustomed to seeing in the early mornings are not merely passing you with mundane nods of their heads but instead, greeting you with wide-eyed gawks and open-mouthed smiles. Some of them, a few who you knew but never spoke a word to, even do a double take and compliment you aloud on the new look. Even the cute barista in the lobby that never bothered to spell your name right at last did after finally taking a good look at the holder of the card.

When you exit out of the elevator, Manami nearly drops the pile of magazines she’s holding when she spots a refined and refreshed you. You offer a bright smile to her and you watch as her gasp slowly forms into an affirmative grin when you round your desk.

She laughs softly. “And who might you be?” she asks with a tease in her voice. “‘Cause last time I checked, that’s my coworker (Y/N)’s desk.”

“I murdered them,” you shrug nonchalantly, earning another chuckle from her. You take it as a good sign, great even, considering up until now, Manami had been rather stoic and a little indifferent towards you because of your amateurism; but now, you suppose that ditching that Plain Jane from just two days ago is finally beginning to do you good by finally grounding a proper relationship with her. “Shame, isn’t it? Poor thing.”

“Truly,” she nods. Her eyes trail further down until they spot something that makes her gasp. “Don’t tell me those are—”

“—the new calfskin gold studded Louboutin boots?” you finish for her. You flex your ankle and show off the ravishing red bottoms of your shoes. “Oh yeah.”

Manami squeals in excitement and rushes over to your desk, begging to take a look at them. “How on earth did you manage to get your hands on these?! I’ve been looking for them fo—”

The elevator dings again but with a tone that makes you and Manami flinch. Both of you stiffen and straighten out your posture, falling into a thick silence when out comes Geto traipsing out like he usually did—his aura being nothing less than dominating. You and Manami chime out in sync a good morning to him as he saunters towards his office as he begins to shuffle off his coat as usual to toss to you until he looks up and catches you in his field of vision.

He stops all of a sudden with his eyes dancing about your figure, a stark contrast to the rest of his paralyzed body. Geto’s lips thin all of a sudden, and so do his eyes when they scan your outfit. He takes in a sharp breath and opens his mouth to say something to you, yet nothing comes out, even as your eyes glisten with anticipation.

It merely instead zips itself close and he finally whisks himself into his office, coat still on and briefcase still in hand, and slams the door shut. 

But not without glancing at you one last time.

Much has changed in the past month for the better.

Yuki was a godsend—she had been your guardian angel, your fairy godmother of sorts—because you swore your career life had taken a complete 180° the moment your closet was revamped. Ever since that makeover, you had felt so much more confident in your actions, so much lighter on your feet. The price of your efforts was beginning to pay off as well, as Geto began to slowly thaw his icier sense of self when you began to actually put effort into your appearance. His thrusts of his coat towards you began to become less aggressive, was significantly more lenient when it came to more of the impossible tasks, and had at one time actually muttered a ‘good morning’ to you and Manami after months of greeting with silence and judgemental glances.

She’d occasionally check up on you every once in a while, usually to offer new clothes that she didn’t want anymore. And by offer, it actually just meant packing them in a box from her place to yours with a post-it that’d usually read “With love, YT ❤” in neat cursive. Along with forming a close bond with Yuki, your relationship with Manami improved significantly, especially when you gave her those white Louboutins she was eyeing. She often invited you to lunch with her other friends, Larue and Remi. 

The iconic John Galliano once said that, “The joy of dressing is an art.” A month ago, you would’ve never believed what you would think is a rather tacky statement, but now, you can truly see it to believe it. It never occurred to you to actually look at your surroundings closely, but you often would sometimes take a few seconds out of your day to admire the many colors and materials that would adorn your coworkers. Whether it be admiration for their sense of style or mild jealousy over luxurious pieces, you were finally understanding what makes fashion, fashion.

And your epiphany was awarded today with the task that you thought would never come into the light of your days working for Geto—being tasked with dropping off The Book.

The Book was a collection of pieces that were needed for the upcoming edition of the magazine, regarding it as being the most important item in the entire company. It was a duty that usually Manami tended to, but she hypothesized that you managed to finally get on Geto’s good side after a while and congratulated you. Manami spoke to you briefly about how trivial The Book was to both Geto and Kaizen. She told you about how you must guard it and Geto’s key to his penthouse with your life, and that you were to remain absolutely invisible to him if he was in the apartment. Manami told you because it was usually the hour he needed most concentration—it was during the later hours of the day that he usually mended last minute edits to the edition or he was working on his latest fashion collection since he was only able to work on it during the weekends as Kaizen took too much of his time.

Manami told you he would most likely be found on the second floor of his penthouse, and you were to remain on the first floor at all costs. 

“The editors will finish The Book around 10:30 or 11:00 at night, wait in the office until then. Then, drop the book off at his penthouse at no later than 11:30 with his dry cleaning, too.”

Her words echo in your mind as you tiptoe out of the cab and look up to see a gleaming, glamorous building sitting in the heart of the city. It’s one you’ve passed a plenty of times—hell, you pass it on your way to work—but it never occurred to you that it’d be this antique white, Parisian-styled building that would be the abode of your boss. 

“Take the elevator to the top floor and enter his apartment. Do not call out his name, don’t wander around, don’t even make a single sound. You are nothing more than a ghost when you step foot into his house.”

The only doors that are on the very top floor of the apartment complex are two large metal doors that sit before you. You enter the key into the keyhole and push them open with controlled force, closing them as quietly as possible with Manami’s whispers still floating about your head. You knew that Geto was certainly a man of luxury, but to see that wealth exempt in a form other than fashion was a sight that you weren’t sure if your eyes deserved to feast on. Sculptures and paintings decorated the foyer and hallway, adding occasional splashes of color to the ivory-adorned apartment. After hanging the dry cleaning in the designated coat closet, the first room you enter - and perhaps the only one you’ll ever be in - is the said living room with the glass coffee table sitting in the center of it.

“Place The Book on the coffee table in the living room. That’s it. Do not toddle any longer in his house and get out immediately. Don’t let curiosity get the better of you and just simply go afterwards. It’s for your own good.”

But oh, how curiosity is just a little devil of temptation that sits far too easily on your shoulder. A house holds the most of a person, and Geto is just an all too mysterious enigma for you not to at least dip your toe in. The doors at the end of the hallway are waiting for you, but so are the picture frames that sit atop the TV stand. You suppose… maybe another minute wouldn’t hurt.

Your feet carry you slowly to the stand and you crouch, adjusting your glasses to get a better look at the pictures. There’s only two of them—six by fours, both in oak brown frames. The first one is a picture of a smiling young girl with short chestnut hair sporting a smile with a cigarette between her teeth. Beside her are two boys taller than her, both making similar faces at the camera. One of them, the one that’s a little taller with silvery snow hair and opaque black sunglasses, throwing a forced, all-too wide grin that almost looks maniacal. It doesn’t require much brain power to know the other figure in the photo is a younger Geto Suguru, his hair shorter in a tight bun with a rare, but soft grin on his face, his gaze affectionate to the others.

The other picture is of the same two boys arm in arm with each other. Both of them are grinning now, with the white haired boy still smiling a little more largely than the other. It doesn’t take long for you to assume who the other boy was considering that the shade of purple sheathing his twinkling eyes is unique to only one individual in your life. 

Best friends, you suggest in your mind as you study the pictures a little longer than needed. A minute, you thought, wouldn’t do much harm, but how utterly wrong your thoughts prove when you suddenly hear the slam of a door from the floor above. The crash of it makes you yelp and breaks you out of your trance from the pictures and your gaze suddenly snaps to the open stairs above you, as well as two voices echoing aloud. 

“Y-you can’t—” an unknown voice wheezes. “I’ve been your muse for years. You possibly can’t just abandon me out of nowhere…”

“You say that as if I’m not doing that right now,” a familiar one replies back boredly. It’s Geto, and his voice makes your nerves electrify in fear because it’s in that moment that you remember that you can’t get caught inside of his house. “This is the last time I’m telling you, Shigemo. Get out.”

The man that you assume is Shigemo heaves heavy breaths. “You need me,” he declares.

“Needed. Past tense,” Geto corrects as he almost forces Shigemo down the stairs with an invisible force surrounding him. You can see their figures above you, Shigemo slowly stepping backwards with each step Geto takes forward. “You’ve done me well these few years, I admit, and I do thank you for that. But I suppose your expiration date has finally come.”

“I’m not a food,” Shigemo snivels. “I’m a person. Most importantly. I’m the reason your fashion line flourished, I was the inspiration for almost all your works. We’re essentially a team.”

They’re towards the end of the staircase, towards where you are still present in plain sight. Your eyes scatter about a place to hide in the meantime, but there are seemingly no places to hide that would hide you well without the notice of Geto’s eyes.

“A team?” Geto barks out a sarcastic laugh, one that makes shivers run down your spine from both the rarity of the sound and how utterly intimidating it is. “I work alone and I always have. There is no point on relying on anyone of any kind when my independence obviously pays off.”

“Who will you have then?” Shigemo retaliates with a whimper in his voice. “You know that I’m the only one that will tolerate you. It’s not like you can go crawling to Goj—“

“Finish that sentence and see what happens,” Geto hisses, causing the other man to fall into a forced silence.

Your eyes finally land on the small space between the fireplace and a pillar. It’s a space large enough for you to fill and efficient enough to hide you from sight. Unsticking your feet from the ground, you make a run for the small space, only for you to forget about the obstacle that was the ottoman sitting spitefully on the floor.

The thud that comes from your body almost rivals the volume of the door slamming open moments earlier and just like the door, it attracts unneeded attention. Geto and Shigemo stop their bickering for a moment to search for the cause of the sound, only to see you humiliatingly face first on the floor. Geto narrows his eyes at the sight of you, an unwanted visitor in his home. 

A pained groan slips from your lips accidentally. You silently curse yourself for not taking the time to properly break into the tantalizing loafers Yuki bought you the day prior and wince at the pain blooming from your knees and chest. When you finally get up, you can’t help but notice that everything around you seems rather… hazy.

“Who is that…” Shigemo mutters.

Geto bites back a sigh and instead, pinches the bridge of his nose. He supposes that despite your improved mannerisms, your clumsiness still has yet to dissipate. Annoyed, he grunts out, “One of my new assistants.”

Shaking his head, Geto decides to deal with you later. His home is already suffocated with one individual, he doesn’t need another clogging the atmosphere up. He returns his attention back to Shigemo. “I thought I told you to leave,” he states, shoving his bag towards him.

Shigemo’s face paints a horrified expression once again. “Geto, please rethink this,” Shigemo pleads. 

He lets out a chain of pleads and excuses for himself as Geto essentially escorts him out with just walking towards him, his face still icy. Shigemo ends up on the other side of the door to his penthouse and it’s there where his patheticness exudes the most—he falls on his hands and knees like a beggar, claiming he’d do anything and everything just to be by his side. 

But his voice is suddenly cut short when Geto finally slams the door in his face, the thickness of them guarding him from Shigemo’s whines. He lets out another sigh and locks up the door securely before dealing with the other parasite in his house.

“I don’t think dropping off a book should take longer than thirty seconds,” Geto drawls as he saunters towards the living room, where you’re still on all fours on the floor, your hands tapping around. “So tell me, why are you still here?”

At the sound of his sharp tone, you freeze. You’re sure you looked utterly stupid and a mess right now, considering that you had just lost a fight to an ottoman out of all things, but you couldn’t let Geto see you in such a state. It didn’t take you long to realize that the reason why everything around you looked so blurry was because of your now-missing glasses that you attempted to look around for. But you pulled a Velma, and just like her, you can’t see without your glasses.

Everyone thinks it’s an exaggeration when you state that you felt utterly naked without them, but you truly did. You’ve been wearing glasses ever since childhood and you really didn’t appreciate the looks you had gotten when you were younger when at times you’d take them off. Some complained that your eyes were too small, too big—others mentioned you looked “off” and “weird” without them. Either way, comments from the other children stuck with you like scars, and ever since then, you refused to be seen without them. 

“I a-apologize,” you stutter, shuffling your body to hide behind the recliner so Geto wouldn’t see how much of a clutter you are. You’ve humiliated yourself too much already in the office and the last thing you truly need is for you to get fired merely because your curiosity got the better of you. “I was about to head out and th-then I heard your voice from upstairs and—”

Your words fall deaf on Geto’s ears. He lets out another groan while stretching the aching muscles in his neck as he closes in on your disorderedness. A hand goes to shield your face—you don’t want him to see the bareness of your face, especially since you didn’t bother wearing makeup today. You can’t even bear the thought of him looking at it. In a rushed state, you wander around for your glasses with your head tucked in, using the remnants of your hair to curtain your face.

A jumble of excuses tumble out of your quivering lip, but Geto is too preoccupied with the gleam of something catching his eye. Laying flat on the floor are a pair of glasses that doesn’t take Geto long to presume who they belong to. He plucks them from the ground and examines them for a brief moment before holding them above you. 

“I assume these are yours,” he asserts with a cocked brow.

Your head snaps up at the sound of his voice directly right above you and through your foggy field of vision is the seraphic figure of Geto holding what seems to be your glasses. Lips escaping a relieved gasp, you hurriedly scramble to your feet. Your eyes are too poor to see it properly, but Geto also shares surprise, but for an entirely different reason.

He doesn’t give you the sanity that is your glasses right away, because he’s much too preoccupied studying your face. It’s so… fresh. Your glasses were hiding such a view, like curtains to a window that unveiled the utmost rare and breathtaking sights. The way your eyes are wide open, pupils blown with a touch of singularity makes him even more intrigued because of how they’re uniquely placed onto your face along with the rest of your features. Your lips, plump with a natural sheen to them—your cheekbones, perfectly rounded. The slope of your nose fell just right. Geto studies it like an artist to a blank canvas, devoid of anything yet holding just the perfect amount of space—wanting, waiting to be filled with anything and everything.

When his eyes stare at you in what seems to be bewilderment, you swallow thickly and look away. But you can only glance at your surroundings for less than a second before Geto takes your chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning your face toward him again. It’s then that you realize that Geto isn’t staring at you, but your face as a whole. His eyes flick with small movements, dancing about as they go from eyebrow to lips, freckle to lash, examining each and every single particle that your face has to offer.

You feel a heat creep onto your cheeks. You’re not sure whether it’s because of the closeness you and him share or the fact that you can’t detect his opinions on the one thing you’ve been disclosed about for years, but either way, you feel weak in the knees; it only worsens when Geto’s thumb brushes over the entirety of your bottom lip, feeling the plushness of it on his the pad of his finger.

“Has your face always been this open…?” he murmurs softly as he studies the various angles of your face. 

You aren’t sure whether it’s a compliment or insult, either or neither. Geto’s tone always had a sort of bleakness to it, but in this very moment, you truly can’t tell what he’s thinking. 

“My glasses…” is all you manage to squeak out, fighting the urge to squirm in his grasp. Another gulp goes down your dry throat when Geto’s face contorts to an irritated confusion before he realizes his other hand holds the one thing dear to your heart. 

“Oh,” he mutters and hands them back to you. His opposing hand finally goes to release your face. “Right.”

Shaking hands go to put them back onto your face again. Sighing internally of relief of your now crystal-clear surroundings, you dust yourself off with your head once more, tucked into your chest. 

“I’m so sorry for this,” you whisper. The heat on your face has now spread to the entirety of your body, your nerves alight with the rush of adrenaline. “I-I’ll make sure this never happens again… good night.”

With that, you scurry yourself out before Geto has the chance to falter. All words to urge you to stay to either scold you or excuse you evaporate on his tongue. He can only watch in a strange silence as your figure rushes down the hall and out the doors, the click of them ringing out in his penthouse.

After moments of self-paralysis, an unknown feeling boils inside the pit of Geto’s stomach. He thinks he’s seen your face before with the familiarity of it unsettling him. The ghost of your face prances about in his mind as he slowly climbs the stairs to his sewing room, ignoring the shattered wine glass on the floor thrown by Shigemo. He instead, refills his own glass again with the nearby bottle of merlot wine and savoring the thickness of it running down his dry throat, embellishing in its warmth.

A single, large window faces the busy nighttime street and Geto walks and stills near it, watching carefully as the speck of your figure on the street below calls for a cab. He eyes how you turn towards the building one more time, doing your usual adjustment of your glasses (it’s a habit you often do in times of nervousness, he’s picked up) before you shuffle yourself into a cab that speeds off into the night.

Geto lets out an annoyed click of his tongue. Something about your face seems haunting and he doesn’t enjoy it. The last thing that he needed for today was even more plaguing thoughts in his head after the loss of his muse not even just ten minutes ago, but now with your face staining the back of his head, his jaw grits in irritation. In a poor attempt to take his mind off the excursion of today and the future, he shuffles about his many sketchbooks to look for any designs he could pluck out for his latest collection. 

It’s an hour in, two glasses of wine later, and somehow, he still hasn’t found a single piece to begin working on that fits into his theme. Miraculously, through the vast array of what is thought to be thousands of sketches, Geto hasn’t found one that stood out to him until he gets to the last sketchbook. It’s an early one—he thinks it dates back to his early college days, when he was just beginning to peek into the world of fashion. A pang of nostalgia hits him all of a sudden when he flips to a specific page that was the start of his history.

It’s the very design that had the attention of many designers. The sketch featured a gold and red embellished outfit, a sheen of glittering flickers adorning it. The shirt features a mosaic of gold and small flecks of color here and there, imitating the many church mosaics he’d often admired as a child. The skirt and collar of the shirt were the same shade of blood red, crimson gems bespeckling them. 

It’s not the outfit, however, that makes his eyes harden. Why would it? He’s seen it many times before. It’s been brought up over and over again—in interviews, in magazines. It’s one of the staples that made Geto the pillar that he is. He knows every detail of it, much like his other designs, so it isn’t the design of the outfit that made him appalled. It’s instead, the person that’s wearing it. 

Because somehow, the eerie sketch of the model’s face that he had drawn years ago…

… somehow replicates your own face perfectly.

a/n: first jjk fic in forever! wowie it's been much too long... also if u need a refresher on who shigemo is, he's the guy with the ponytail that nanami pulled kekeke

10.2k is hefty i know but i couldn't help myself my bad lolol T_T currently just a test run of what i hope to be is a series that some may be interested in because clearly this barely scratches the surface of what i want to embed haha so please let me know how you like it so far :))

continuing, i hope you enjoyed and thank you for taking time out of your day to enjoy my craft, whether it be your first time or your hundredth! once more, likes/comments/reblogs are always noticed and are always appreciated (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ !!!

[rustyvanburace]

Anonymous asked: What kinda stuff do you imagine Issachar and Navarre getting up to? Is there any particular thing you think they'd enjoy doing together?

Something I had really liked about the IV Prayers manga was how Navarre was actually really interested in literature in that. Granted, more because literature "in vogue" and "fashionable". But nonetheless, this does give me a bit of commonality to work with in an AU lmao!

Literature without moderation is a dangerous thing for Issachar, as we all know. But I do still fancy the idea of these two finding a couple books to read together and bond over. Navarre would just initially see them as another fad, but books are windows to another perspective and -- with a friend to share them with -- could open his eyes to new realizations. I think also just having someone with different experiences to discuss literature with would be a lot more enrichening to Issachar too. Maybe even the act of bonding over books would be enough to save him from spiraling down too far.

It really depends on the AU for what sorts of shenanigans they'd get into. I've thought of them fishing together (as Navarre struggles to learn but determined to keep up), dancing or singing together (as a fusion of Casualry and Luxuror styles), Navarre taking Issachar to skip work together so he'll lighten up some. Or even just...the two of them growing humble together in their expectations and choosing to stay in Mikado as common Samurai while the others go off questing. There's a lot of possibility.

 (https://retrospring.net/@RustyVanBurace/a/111440511559726329)

[airchics-robe]

Tendances vestimentaires d'été 2024

Comprenez les dernières tendances de la mode des robes d'été en 2024, de la couleur, de la matière au style, une analyse complète des points chauds de la mode de cette saison, vous permettant d'être à la pointe de la tendance.

Avec l’arrivée de l’été, les grandes marques de mode ont lancé leurs dernières collections de ROBES. Alors, quelles sont les tendances mode des robes d’été en 2024 ? Voici quelques-unes des tendances les plus marquantes de cette saison pour vous maintenir à la pointe de la mode.

1. Le retour des couleurs vives

L'été est la saison des couleurs épanouies, et les robes d'été de 2024 sont d'une couleur audacieuse et vibrante sans précédent. L'orange vif, le jaune citron et le bleu lac sont devenus les favoris des créateurs. Ces couleurs améliorent non seulement la vitalité de l’apparence générale, mais montrent également un éclat charmant sous le soleil d’été.

2. Éléments d'impression frais

Les motifs floraux sont toujours la tendance dominante des robes d'été, mais en 2024, l'accent sera davantage mis sur une sensation fraîche et naturelle. Les grands imprimés floraux tropicaux et les fleurs rétro sont très populaires, ajoutant plus de vivacité et d'intérêt aux robes. Que ce soit pour les sorties quotidiennes ou les vacances, vous pourrez facilement créer un look frais et vivant.

3. Matériau léger et respirant

Le choix du matériau des robes d'été est particulièrement important. En 2024, les tissus légers et respirants comme le coton, la soie et le tulle deviendront les protagonistes. Non seulement ces tissus sont confortables, mais ils offrent un excellent drapé et une grande respirabilité, ce qui les rend parfaits pour les chaudes journées d'été.

4. Conception irrégulière

Les modèles asymétriques et les ourlets irréguliers ont trouvé leur place parmi les robes d'été 2024. Cette conception brise non seulement les restrictions traditionnelles en matière de forme de jupe, mais crée également un sens unique de la mode grâce à des lignes changeantes, donnant aux gens un look accrocheur.

5. La poursuite de la tendance rétro

Le style rétro a joué un rôle important dans la mode ces dernières saisons, et les robes d'été 2024 ne font pas exception. La taille haute, les manches bouffantes et le col carré rappellent tous les looks classiques du siècle dernier. Cette fusion d’éléments rétro et de design moderne crée une robe d’été à la fois tendance et élégante.

6. Tenue multifonctionnelle

Les femmes modernes accordent de plus en plus d'attention à l'aspect pratique, c'est pourquoi les robes multifonctionnelles sont très populaires. Facilement transformable de jour en tenue de nuit, ou adaptée à différentes occasions avec de simples ajustements d'accessoires, cette flexibilité rend la robe encore plus attrayante.

Parcourez notre vaste gamme de robes, quel que soit le style ou l'occasion pour laquelle vous avez besoin de vêtements pour femmes, Airchics a les options qu'il vous faut.

En résumé, les tendances de la mode des robes d'été en 2024 sont diverses et dynamiques, avec une richesse de choix en termes de couleurs, de matières et de design. En suivant ces tendances, vous pourrez facilement porter les robes les plus en vogue cet été.

[izumisays]

dear yuletide author

Thank you so much for reading this and taking part in this wonderful annual conspiracy!


First of all, I hope you have a lovely time! If any of the fandoms below pique your interest, I’m delighted already, and ready to hear all the stories you want to tell.

Fandoms: Hunting (猎狐), Thunderbolt Fantasy (東離劍遊紀), Link Click (时光代理人), Extraordinary Attorney Woo (이상한 변호사 우영우)

As for reading preferences, I’m happy with a wide variety of tones and genres, of any rating, ranging anywhere from lighthearted antics to dramatic casefics. But the core of all the stories I love has always been character interaction and interplay of their competences.

How the characters play off each other and bring out their best/worst, how they’d react to a divergence of events, how true they’d stay to themselves in a different setting – I love fanfiction for allowing us to reconnect with our favourite stories time and again by asking these questions. And there are so many ways to do it! To name a few favourites, I’m always game for POV hijinks, a missing scene, a casefic, canon expansion, backstories and what-ifs.

You may notice that some of my requests lean towards shipfic – those, too, are welcome in a variety of tones – but I also tried to include openings for gen ideas if that’s your jam. Additionally, while it is not usually my top interest, I don’t have anything against AUs if there is something that you are itching to explore: I tend to enjoy them for a new aesthetic that fleshes out the favoured character dynamics in a new light, or a fusion that redefines the playing ground to allow the characters to exhibit their core competences in new and exciting ways.

I would be very grateful if you could avoid a/b/o and associated kinktropes, played-straight soulmate fic, and character interpretation that runs contrary to their core values. If in doubt, please reach out to me on anon - the askbox is open!

猎狐 | Hunting - Xia Yuan, Wu Jiaqi

Don’t get me wrong, I love me a good white collar crime, especially one that busts a few capitalist myths. But let’s be real, the best parts of this TV show were Xia Yuan and Wu Jiaqi’s overseas 💕dates💕 I mean business trips, which mysteriously required they be outfitted like a well-matched pair of ridiculously long-legged models that strutted right out of the Vogue pages and into the metaphorical fire. The kind of fire that, in turn, required them to fake date, or dress up even more glamorously to impersonate filthy rich celebrities and their butlers, or deployed other similarly logical methods of tracking down runaway fraudsters.

I would eat up more of such adventures with a spoon, nay, a SHOVEL. Just like the epilogue showed, I’d like to imagine their adventures post-canon be a series of bright postcards (bang bang from Russia with love) capturing their antics in various capitals of the world.

Some ideas for inspiration could be:

Competitive not-dating. Xia Yuan and Wu Jiaqi just happen to contrive the circumstances in a way that makes the next operation seem conspicuously like a date, and the other one simply cannot let this slide and ups the ante.

I’m totally on board with some commentary or scheming from the peanut gallery of the Economics Crimes Division (I love you, Xiaolei!) to set them up faster. I don’t know if I love more the idea of the two of them giving in to the gang’s attempts to set them up, or the gang continuing to set them up completely unaware that the two of them are already dating, thus amplifying the comedy. 

As mentioned above, every city needs a pair of scarily competent and scarily beautiful law enforcement agents (who are also derps) descend on it to charm the pants off the local police forces and then solve some crime while they are at it. It’s also incredibly cute that Wu Jiaqi is the worldlier (or nerdier?) of the two, and can dispense funfacts and trivia at Xia Yuan’s incredibly soft face. I’m a simple girl and I like simple things.

ALL THE TROPES ever, as essential and completely logical ways to solve economic crimes. All the dress-ups. All the role-playing on the job with bae.

The show is available on viki.com.

THUNDERBOLT FANTASY (東離劍遊紀): any characters

I LOVE THIS SELF INDULGENT WUXIA NONSENSE AND I CANNOT LIE!

Sanfan is a mixture UTTER GLEE and deep fondness for the genre staples, self-aware and masterful playthrough of all the wuxia tropes in the book, and one goddamn well-constructed story. It plays the tropes straight, calls them out with a knowing wink, walks the tightrope between the two with panache, and just as you are relaxed and enjoying this trapeze show, it grins cheekily at you, sets the hat on fire and pulls a bunny out of a discoball.  It’s DELIGHTFUL and fun and lovingly crafted, just like a good passion project should be.

I want anything that capitalizes on the absolutely hilarious dynamics between Rin Setsua and Sho Fukan (and while personally I end up using the Japanese versions of their names more often, please feel free to go with the Chinese names if you prefer). Sho Fukan does not want any of those heroic quests, he’s the human equivalent of been there, done that mood, and he just wants to REST and hopefully dump a bunch of magical murderswords someplace safe. Rin Setsua is a Totally Respectable and Non-Villainous Member of Society, of which he will inform you firsthand in the most high spoken and verbose way possible, and maybe even produce paperwork that has definitely not been tampered with. He harbours no ulterior motives, ever, and does not trail behind Sho Fukan for any reason beyond the pleasure of his company, and his mission to personally victimize and cockblock every morally derelict villain in two countries, by no-one’s request.

Whether you go shipfic (yiss!) or canon levels teamup circus (also yiss!), don’t hold back your horses. Everything about this is Extra, and should continue to be so <3

I am okay with both expanding the canon and playing with AUs/crossovers/fusions for this one, provided they retain the character dynamics. I love the extended cast as well: any characters including the Seiyou gang (and on that note, if you want to write the Seiyou backstory for Shou’s gang that has no Rin in it, you’re welcome as well), reappearance of the familiar faces from Touri (read: Rin’s victim list, past, future and present), original characters lined up and waiting to be screwed over (guaranteed) and rescued (the administration does not bear any responsibility etc etc).

Season three, god bless Urobutcher, just went and upped the ante by 9000 -- time and space travel! Magical walkie-talkie pocket-sized boyfriend dolls! Dramatic daddies and villains literally yeeted into literal space, jjba-style! The sandbox has expanded exponentially, and if you think this is a good excuse to open the door wide for any perceivable AUs and still remain canon-compatible, well, then you have the right audience in me.

This year I’m not limiting my request to just the two main characters (though as you can see my fondness for them is great) because I think season three especially kicks the doors wide open for various kinds of hilarious team-ups, confrontations, family dramas and peanut gallery commentaries about one another’s delusions of grandeur. If you would rather write about characters in the demonic realm, or have been wanting a good match-up for characters that never met on screen, or bring back some dead faves — well, then s3 labyrinth invites you to play with it, and I’ll happily read it.

Thunderbolt Fantasy is available on Crunchyroll.

이상한 변호사 우영우 | Extraordinary Attorney Woo (TV)

I was ABSOLUTELY charmed by this show, with its kindness and compassion in choosing an autistic woman as a protagonist and letting her have a whole spectrum of experiences and relationships, not limiting it to any one thing. I love the tone, not flinching away from the difficulties but glowing with Ghibli-levels of wholesomeness and inspiration. I love Woo Young Woo and all the people who support and challenge her, and who get changed in turn. I really love the ridiculous, over-the-top cases they have to solve. They just bring me so much joy!

There are a many things I’d love to see explored in a story — all focused on these relationships with and around WYW. I think the one would care least about is straight-up romance she has with Lee Jun Ho, though I find him absolutely adorable — but I definitely welcome that as a background for any other story. I just am interested in things other than that for example:

my wonderful, honest Choi Su Yeon, with her stubborn integrity and willingness to call people — including herself — out on things that grate it. Her friendship with WYW moves my heart so much, the fact that she will grumble and complain to WYW’s face but never fail to offer a small kindness that will make it easier for WYW, and how she would whine about her misspent youth but put in as crazy hours into work as anyone else, and her willingness to claw anyone’s eyes out if they are being an asshole. And her own bewilderment at her growing interest in Kwon Min Woo! I want so much more of everything with her: backstory, a day in the office, a glimpse of the future, what have you.

The PARENTS generation. Oooh boy. What kind of relationship did Woo Gwang Ho have with both Tae Su Mi and Han Seon Young? In fact, what is the relationship between the two CEOs now and what was it back then? They have barely met on screen but the absolute tension that’s crackling in the air when they pit against one another… Fantastic. I’d ship it, for the rivalry or friendship gone bad or the legacy of being locked in an inter generational business competition.

WYW and the budding relationship with her brother. I liked him so very much! He had a very different upbringing to hers, and yet his heart seems to be in exactly the same place. I would deeply want for them to have a chance to know each other better — something that would be deeply unsettling for both their parents but so important for the siblings.

I’m sure there are other angles you could take to look at the network of people around/supporting WYW that would delight me, these are just a few things that came to mind first.

Link Click (时光代理人)

Now if there was a sandbox that was just begging to play with it!

There is so much of the set up that is left unexplained — it gives us the world building in bold brushstrokes but leaves the whole thing up to us to explain. There are some rules, but how did they come about, and how did they learn about them? How did they find one another, and what new adventures await? What happens to the bonds between the two main leads once the tensions of the fallout wind them tight? Backstory, a new case, “a day in the life of” — I’d be happy to read any of it. I’m happy with both shippy and gen fic for Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang— because the tension, trust and intimacy is there either way — but I do not see Qiao Ling in a romantic context with either: she is their friend/manager/sibling figure, and I prefer to keep it that way.

I’m also open for treats for any of the above — it was a surprise to me that the settings changed this year, but to me, dropping stories into other’s stockings and finding some surprises in your own is definitely a highlight of the true Yule experience :)

Thank you for taking the time to read the letter, and I’m greatly looking forward to reading your story — and hopefully, getting to chat about these ridiculous and wonderful characters post-reveals :)

[imetyouonljpodcast]

I MET YOU ON LJ: A Fandom Podcast

Episode #014: It’s Like Watching A Fanfiction

This week, Maggie and V chat about their first impressions of The Old Guard, Pacific Rim, Venom, and Jupiter Ascending, and the ways in which fandom uses those worlds to create character growth. These movies have everything--immortal fighters, immortal aliens, loser aliens that eat people, monster aliens getting killed by robots, wolf-splice alien men with barking guns, and best of all, emotions. Also, V leaves a review on Enola Holmes, and Maggie waxes poetic about The Matrix.    

This Episode Covers…

fandom • the old guard • pacific rim • venom • jupiter ascending • luca marinelli • marwan kenzari • kiki layne • matthias schoenaerts • charlize theron • tom hardy • veddie • joe x nicky • book of nile • v’s first villainfuckery • the mako mori test • mako x raleigh • charlie hunnam • channing tatum • yellow-haired werewolves • mila kunis • spider-man iii • dance sequences • enola holmes • the matrix • keanu reeves • sense8 • trans characters by trans creators • age-appropriate love interests • AUs • crossover and fusion fic • emotional vulnerability in scifi and action movies • captain america • queer content forever!

LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE wherever you get your podcasts!

Make sure to follow I Met You On LJ on your favorite social media:

PATREON: patreon (dot) com/imetyouonljpodcast FACEBOOK: facebook (dot) com/imetyouonljpodcast TUMBLR: @imetyouonljpodcast​ INSTAGRAM: @imetyouonljpodcast TWITTER: @imetyouonljpod

NEW PATREON PERK as of TODAY, December 1, 2020! For all donors at $5/month for three months OR one-time PayPal donors at $15, you can pick an episode topic or theme! Check our SUPPORT page here on Tumblr to learn more.

Show Resources Under the Cut.

Lilly Wachowski talking about the transness of The Matrix.

Kiki Layne runway-walking on The Old Guard set.

Vogue Netherlands photos of Marwan Kenzari (“Maggie, that’s Marwan!” “WHAT?!”)

Top!Venom confirmed by comic artists.

Spider-Man III’s BAFFLING dance sequence.

Veronica Ngo (Ngô Thanh Vân) requested that Quynh be Vietnamese in The Old Guard.

"I read the script and I told Charlize about wanting to really relate to the character by acknowledging me as a Vietnamese actress," Ngo said. "China cinema is so dominant over all the Asian countries. For Western audiences, we all have black hair and brown eyes and we're all Chinese and I don't like that. I'm proud of my country, my nation, my people. We have a long history in cinema so it should be embraced. Every character I play in Hollywood I would love to show that pride of my nation."

Ngo said Theron was taken by that and suggested that the Noriko character be changed to a Vietnamese name. Though Ngo gave a list of names to consider, she said it was Prince-Bythewood who came up with Quynh.

-- insider (dot) com/van-veronica-ngo-the-old-guard-profile-2020-7

Marwan Kenzari talks about meeting Luca Marinelli.

It’s pretty unprecedented to see such an emotionally deep gay love story in the middle of a comic-book movie. What did it take to get the chemistry right with Luca? We were in London to do a chemistry read together, and the chemistry went from there quite quickly. Luca is a very sensitive, honest, sweet, passionate actor, and I really enjoyed the way he became a friend of mine. It was quite easy to play that connection. As life goes on, we stayed in touch, during good times and harder times. It has been so much fun to work with a group of people that can have good chemistry together, on and off set.

What scene did you do for that chemistry read? We did that bit where we’re attached to two beds [while being held by The Old Guard’s evil CEO], and we share a sort of cryptic memory, and there was another moment we did that I’m not sure made the end cut. But that was a moment where Luca touched me, and because we play this symbiotic couple, it was really important to feel something that had nothing to do with acting but just with the connection of two human beings. I’m not saying it has to be like that all the time, but it does help. In this case, when he touched me, I thought it was natural and it was safe and it was kind of special.

-- vulture (dot) com/2020/07/marwan-kenzari-on-the-old-guards-big-gay-romantic-speech (dot) html

[merzbow-derek]

POST-POST-SCRIPTUM 1105

BAROQUE JAZZ TRIO, BJT, Souffle Continu Records

Mélangeant baroque, jazz libertaire et musiques du monde, l'unique opus du Baroque Jazz Trio (en fait les 3/5 du Bach Modern Quintet) est un objet sonore difficilement étiquetable et pas franchement typique du psychédélisme associé à la première moitié des années 1970. Car si la fusion des musiques indiennes (entre autres) et du jazz (mais aussi de la pop) était alors en vogue, rarement ces univers ont été tous ensemble associés à la musique baroque. On aura beau citer Jacques Loussier reprenant Bach, on sera très loin du compte, tant ici tous les décloisonnements sont tentés et en tous sens, avec une audace dont témoigne au premier chef une utilisation singulière et sidérante du clavecin, instrument inattendu en pareil contexte bien que justifié par le concept "baroque" sous-jacent. Certes les spécialistes du jazz ne manqueront pas de citer Johnny Guarnieri dans le Gramercy Five d'Artie Shaw, Martial Solal reprenant "Four Brothers" en 1965, voire Lalo Schifrin dans son hommage au Marquis de Sade… Sauf que non, aucune de ces références ne fait l'affaire, fades qu'elles paraissent en comparaison des folies auxquelles se livre Georges Rabol, probablement plus proche d'un Call Cobbs chez Albert Ayler, ou, mieux, d'une Odile Bailleux dans cet autre remarquable ensemble français qu'est Armonicord, que de qui que ce soit d'autre.

À ses côtés, la rythmique n'est d'ailleurs pas en reste non plus : Jean-Charles Capon, deux ans plus tard auteur du magnifique L'Univers-solitude pour le même label, virevolte en virtuose du violoncelle, tandis que Philippe Combelle, très bon batteur peu entendu en contrées aussi novatrices, se lance aux percussions dans des métissages osés. À noter aussi, la présence du flûtiste Michel Roques sur un morceau, lui aussi signataire d'un album pour Saravah, le splendide Chorus.

En France et sur un terrain voisin aussi dépaysant, que l'on songe ou pas à Moravagine, Confluence ou Synchro Rhythmic Eclectic Language, rares ont été ceux qui, comme le Baroque Jazz Trio, ont su brouiller les repères à ce point, surtout en ajoutant une exotique bouffée d'air frais héritée du Troisième Courant.

Ce disque, comme celui de Brigitte Fontaine avec l'Art Ensemble of Chicago, intronise Pierre Barouh producteur pionnier de l'atomisation des frontières stylistiques.

---

Mixing Baroque, free-jazz and world music, the unique album of the Baroque Jazz Trio (which is in fact 3/5 of the Bach Modern Quintet) is a difficult-to-label sound object which is far from being typical of the psychedelic sounds associated with the early 1970s. Because, although fusion with Indian music (amongst others) and jazz (but also pop) was popular at the time, rarely had all this been mixed together with Baroque music. Even mentioning Jacques Loussier adapting Bach does not come close, as here, all barriers are broken down, with an audacity which begins with the highly original and extraordinary use of the harpsichord, an instrument which it is unusual to hear in such a context, even though indicated by the ‘baroque’ in the title. Of course jazz specialists will mention Johnny Guarnieri in the Gramercy Five with Artie Shaw, Martial Solal playing "Four Brothers" in 1965, or Lalo Schifrin in his homage to the Marquis de Sade… But no, none of these references really makes sense, as they pale in comparison to the wild adventures of Georges Rabol, probably closer to Call Cobbs with Albert Ayler, or, better still, Odile Bailleux in another remarkable French group, Armonicord, than anyone else.

With Georges, the rhythm section is no less outstanding,: Jean-Charles Capon, who, two years later would record the magnificent L'Univers-solitude on the same label, is a flying cello virtuoso, while Philippe Combelle, a great drummer rarely heard in such experimental circumstances, plays daringly mixed percussion. Also noteworthy is the presence of flutist, Michel Roques on one track, who was also behind a Saravah album, the splendid Chorus.

In France, whether or not groups like Moravagine, Confluence or Synchro Rhythmic Eclectic Language, working in similarly unusual areas, are taken into account, it is rare to find a group which, like the Baroque Jazz Trio, have been able to so blur the boundaries, especially by adding an exotic breath of fresh air inherited from the Third Stream.

This record, alongside the album by Brigitte Fontaine with the Art Ensemble of Chicago made Pierre Barouh stand out as a pioneering producer and destroyer of stylistic frontiers.

[affairesasuivre]

SQUID – ‘BRIGHT GREEN FIELD’

Si, pour une raison ou une autre, vous ne preniez pas encore les britanniques de Squid au sérieux, nous sommes prêts à parier que ce premier album devrait largement vous convaincre de commencer à le faire.

Attendu comme l’un des groupes les plus excitants du moment, ce quintet de musiciens multi-instrumentistes rencontrés sur les bancs de la fac de Brighton, est là à son tour pour bousculer le monde et remettre à zéro les compteurs du post punk, comme pour mieux lui tracer un nouvel avenir. Alors que le label Ninja Tune publiait il y a quelques semaines le premier disque de Black Country New Road, et qu’à la fin du mois sortira le deuxième de black midi chez Rough Trade, Squid se glisse enfin dans la partie et propulse lui aussi l’écurie Warp dans de nouvelles sphères. Loin d’être réellement en compétition, il semblerait qu’il y ait plutôt une véritable et sincère synergie entre ces trois formations, toutes issues d’une nouvelle génération de musiciens bourrés d’inventivité, et pour qui la monotonie serait tout à fait prohibée. On pourrait d’ailleurs élargir ce constat outre Atlantique, et y inclure les canadiens de Crack Cloud, eux aussi plus ou moins dans la même mouvance.

C’est donc à Streatham, au sud de Londres, que les anglais se sont enfermés durant l’été 2020 pour accoucher de ce Bright Green Field ô combien déroutant mais passionnant. Pas tombé de la dernière pluie, mais très en vogue outre Manche depuis quelques années, le prolifique Dan Carey est à nouveau aux commandes en tant que producteur attitré. On lui doit notamment le premier EP de Squid sorti il y a deux ans, mais aussi le premier album de Fontaines DC, celui de black midi, ainsi que le dernier Kate Tempest. Rien que ça.

Très loin d’être un simple bordel organisé, Bright Green Field est au contraire incroyablement méticuleux, précis et savamment orchestré. Un album captivant et tortueux, qui ne peut laisser de marbre, et qui ravira les adeptes de chemins esquintés plutôt que de promenades de santé. Malgré leur dégaine nonchalante à la Mac DeMarco, les membres de Squid accouchent ici d’un résultat plutôt intello mais pas pompeux, oscillant entre calme et chaos, énergie brute et tension palpable. Au travers de textes impressionnistes et de mantras scandés de manière instinctive, et qui laisseront à l’auditeur différentes perceptions possibles, s’ajoutent des touches de cuivres flirtant avec des guitares dissonantes, des rythmes saccadés et des expérimentations électroniques, donnant une fusion parfaite entre la modernité d’un jazz urbain et la cacophonie d’un punk rageur. Du rythme lent et maladif de G.S.K. à la beauté envoutante de 2010, en passant par l’ingéniosité de Paddling ou la fougue de Narrator, tout les ingrédients sont là pour nous transporter dans un univers futuriste et ensorcelant à souhaits.

Bien que complexe et déroutant à la première écoute, ce premier album de Squid saura s’avérer obsédant sur le long terme, et se placera à coup sûr en bonne position dans nos tops de fin d’année. Bright Green Field est une véritable œuvre à part entière qui propose son propre langage et sa propre vision de la musique. Un disque imprévisible pour un groupe qui semble déterminé à rester en constante évolution et à ne jamais se reposer sur ses lauriers. Majestueux.

[voyagelivresque]

Un très bon cru, sorti au mois d’Avril et trop peu vu sur le net. Camille et François de Gérard Pussey va faire battre votre cœur ❤️ Très belle fresque romanesque , très grande saga familiale avec en toile de fond un contexte historique s’étendant sur plusieurs décennies. Un récit écrit avec une fort belle écriture digne des naturalistes, le tout saupoudré d’un parfum capiteux qui donne un charme irrésistible à ce roman Un jeu scénique cinématographique. Un ton réaliste avec des pointes d’humour. Un rythme enlevé.  Un livre qui vit, dont les poumons sont le « couple » Camille et François. Elle, légère, brillante, intelligente, le cœur au vent. Lui, matérialiste, laborieux, homme du terroir, les pieds sur terre. Ils sont frères et sœurs sans l’être, ils s’aiment sans pouvoir s’aimer, sans se donner le droit de s’aimer. Un amour profond et malheureux, une fusion, une osmose, un interdit....Ils sont inséparables, ils se séparent , se retrouvent, se perdent tout en se cherchant, se retrouvant tout en s’éloignant. L’amour toujours présent. Ils s’aiment même si ils ne se le disent pas, même si leur corps le dit. Comment tout commence... Pendant l’occupation , avec deux jeunes femmes qui se lient d’amitié et ne vont plus se quitter , une est enceinte d’un résistant qui ne verra jamais son fils François, l’autre est la nurse de Camille fille, d’un notable, homme politique en vogue. Les circonstances vont faire que les deux enfants vont être élevés ensembles, vont grandir ensembles, côte à côte. Puis ils vont connaitre tous les bouleversements économiques, politiques qui vont traverser la France. 2 jeunes enfants, 2 beaux adolescents, 2 adultes qui font carrières, un homme et une femme qui aiment, s’aiment. Mais comment s’aimer quand vous vous en empêchez, comment braver les tabous et les interdits familiaux. Une quête de soi, de la vie, de l’amour. Des personnages secondaires travaillés, aux états d’âme divers qui prennent tout leur sens dans le sillage de Camille et François Comment tout cela finit, je vous laisse le découvrir , final bouleversant , renversant , on ne peut échapper au destin , un livre à découvrir absolument . (à Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxLO-rbHcGt/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1srtgkz7zg1si

[nell0-0]

The name Vogue won the poll! 

Extra doodles of them below the cut ^^

[gozel]

Feedback Loops

by Jace Clayton

(Originally published in the NYFA Quarterly

It’s party time in the Persian Gulf. I’m in the DJ booth, mixing Middle Eastern melodies and Western street beats to an Arab jetset on the roofdeck of the Dubai Hilton. Shopping Festival fireworks light the sky. I was invited to the United Arab Emirates by Shehab Hamad, one of the region’s more risk-taking event curators. He knew my work as DJ/rupture, and my label Soot , dedicated to rough diasporic breakbeats. Previously he’d invited Mutamassik, a Brooklyn-based DJ/producer whose style combines Egyptian roots with militant hip hop offshoots. Tradition literally gets scratched into the present during her performances. One of the things that make DJs so thrilling and so boring is the slim distinction between easy charlatanism and mind-melting talent. A bad DJ is little more than a jukebox. A good DJ is a jukebox with a nice musical selection. And a great DJ reinvents the familiar and/or the obscure, imprinting her or his own personality via realtime improvisation using only fragments of other people’s music. A successful DJ can be a desegregationist, coaxing hidden harmonies out of unlikely voices. When hip hop started in the Bronx, DJs such as Afrika Bambaataa would mix in any record so long as it contained a funky beat: James Brown to Kraftwerk to the Monkees. The type of mixing that Mutamassik and I do gains particular resonance with audiences who understand the Arab and African music we work with. Club spaces may be far from sacred, but they still operate along carefully codified rules, and when a DJ starts inserting sounds usually quarantined outside, people react. A potent DJ blend is both allegorical and prophetic: these sounds gel as if they were meant to be shared and reworked. So too, perhaps, the cultures that give rise to them. With DJing, you can achieve what Russian composer Ivan Tcherepnin called “interpenetration without interference”—the ability for different sounds to occupy the same space and yet maintain their individuality in full detail. I love to exploit this polyglot nature: in Dubai this meant layering classic Moroccan milhun vocals (semi-classical sung poetry refreshed by contemporary contextual twists) with high-energy Indian bhangra rhythms and the latest slinky black American R&B instrumentals (with their current vogue for Middle East exoticism). Taking advantage of vinyl’s plasticity, I adjust the playback speed of all these disparate songs onto a common tempo, enabling two or three records to play simultaneously without chaos. Thus, songs made years or decades apart can become synchronized and multiple, with various audience members reacting to and recognizing different elements in the deep but danceable mix. I’m fascinated by the frame-breaking possibilities of turntablism and sampling; but at the same time, I’m starting to view sampling as a very lazy gesture—innocent at best, creepily segregationist at worst. For example, if you’re sampling a sitar CD, it generally means that you can’t find—or can’t be bothered to look for—someone who actually plays the instrument. Sampling maintains cultural distance; collaborations require closeness. The difference is huge. It’s the difference between one-way cultural flow and the kind of dialogue that could lead to real community. Proper collaborations offer much more than sampling, but even they aren’t untroubled. World music festivals love “fusion” groups whose members draw on diverse backgrounds to produce an anodyne sound seemingly intended to reassure the predominantly Western, middle-class festival audience: world music as foreign music with its distinctive features rubbed off, now suitable for mass consumption anywhere on the globe; difference with a jazzy backbeat you can groove to; the exotic but never the extreme. Mainstream pop, reggae, and R&B offer an interesting solution: go synthetic. Star producers like Timbaland and The Neptunes have been inventing wildly creative pop songs for artists like Missy Elliott and Justin Timberlake with a decidedly eastward lean. Yet there is, refreshingly, zero reliance on a veneer of authenticity. These are the few producers who can afford to legally clear all their samples, yet more often than not they choose to fabricate a prosthetic North African beat, or to replay a quarter-tone violin harmony line on a cheap synthesizer. Brilliant or lazy or both? Does pop’s self-replicating, amoebic logic wipe out all others? Suffice to say that The Neptunes song I played in Dubai received the best crowd response. A glance in the other direction reveals an incredible culture of bootlegging, versioning, and westward exoticism in Arabic pop. At any Moroccan music store you’ll find endless cassettes such as HipHop Ray 2002! : a bootleg compilation that alternates rai hits with misattributed mainstream American rap. Or, a recent favorite of mine, the bootleg rai CD Compil Santana : the cover and CD artwork sports images of seven Moroccan vocalists . . . and Victoria’s Secret supermodel Laetitia Casta. Glamour becomes a universal glue. Musical influence spreads like wildfire, wafting across borders of nation, language, and religion. Yet, controlling notions of authenticity police virtually all genres. Leatherbound anarchists are quick to classify what is and isn’t punk rock; “keeping it real” is a constant refrain in hip hop; talk of “pure” flamenco abounds in Spain although Arabic influences are clearly audible in the vocal ululations and sinewy guitar style of Spain’s cherished “national” music. So how do we keep it real if our mission is to adapt multiple traditions into an idiosyncratic unity? All music springs from multiple roots, yet the history of the hybrid is no history at all, just an X on the map where the border-crosser left both lands.

People who are actively situating themselves within multiple traditions tend towards iconoclasm. For example, Turkish artist Serhat Köksal performs with samplers, saz, electronics, darbouka, and spoken word. His output swerves exuberantly between Anatolian folk, experimental electronic textures, and improvisation heavily inspired by Turkish cinema. The pastiche may seem wild, but Köksal has worked to refine his approach for nearly two decades. Critically, Köksal is operating with polydirectional influences—new avant-garde trends inform his saz and darbouka playing, and vice versa. Film reaches across media to impact his sound as well. The title of his last performance cycle suggests a lot: No Turistik - No Egzotik Improvise/Electro Folk Cut . Neither the “ancient wisdom” of Turkish folk nor the “contemporary currents” of electronic music take precedent. Instead they frolic and tussle, each available to be infected by, or infatuated with, the other. Vulnerability is a precondition to cross-pollination. Open ears, opens minds, open wounds.

In addition to my activities as DJ/rupture, I make music as Nettle. Nettle originated in my fascination with the concept of an album heavily influenced by Middle Eastern ideas, but not necessarily at the audible level. I was unsatisfied with the narrative poles of electronic music—loop-based dance pieces or abstract/ambient pieces without storytelling force. A suite of rigorous modal improvisation in Arabic music called taqasims offered the solution: I knew and loved their internal play between free-flowing improv and strict technical guidelines. I spent a year or two translating these ideas into pieces for samplers and laptop. Two albums later I still wasn’t satisfied: one-way cultural flows aren’t good enough. I wanted community, two-way translations, the squeal of a feedback loop. Earlier this year I was commissioned by a British arts council to transform Nettle into a proper live ensemble. Violin, oud, percussion, electronics, realtime sampling. I’d been involved in Barcelona’s Moroccan music community for awhile, but the Nettle project has upped the intensity of collaboration. A few days ago, Nettle’s violin and oud player, Abdelaziz Hak, brought up taqasims to explain his response to a beat I’d prepared for him. I broke into a silly grin. This is working. We’re starting to get under each other’s skin. Jace Clayton is a writer and musician based in Spain. He has performed around the world as DJ/rupture and Nettle and his essays have appeared in the Washington Post ,The Wire , and other publications

-

2/5 BZ   - -  Karabesk

https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/26186

.

2/5 BZ Etnik Market Etnik Paranoia

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/34182

.

Mudd Up! with DJ/Rupture

---

http://autonomicforthepeople.blogspot.com.tr/2004_10_01_archive.html

.

https://www.nyfa.org/

*****

     arabesk : dj/rupture            (us-tigerbeat 6), chronomad live, serhat köksal aka 2/5bz live, dj            mormos & dj coconuts

                 23-avril-2005

22.00 - 7€

La gare            métamorphosée en riad underrail ? On fera tout pour :            scénographie orientalo-décalée, projections cali-graphiques, danse            du ventre piercée et épices…

Dj/rupture est le            maître incontesté du mix non-géographique ultra-dansant. Un son au            delà des genres aux rythmiques post-culturelles. Un mash-up de            rythmes arabes, techno, reggae, spoken word, folk, hip hop,            breakbeats, avant-noise et jazz effectués avec prouesse et            réussissant des connections musicales improbables, le regard tourné            vers un futur sans frontières.

Serhat Köksal est un            artiste performer d'Istanbul. Il mélange de l'electronica rugueuse            avec des sons des rues d'Istanbul et de la pop orientale saturée. Il            travaille aussi l'image en live, en déconstruisant des films turcs            des années ‘70.

Chronomad est le            projet de Saam Schlamminger, d'origine perse et résidant en            Allemagne. Il collabore régulièrement avec des membres de The            Notwist et Lali Puna et a sorti un album sublime sur Alien            Transistor, « Sokut ». Il manipule percussions            traditionnelles iraniennes avec de l'électronique et se situe ainsi            au-delà de toute forme de world music. La particularité du son de            ces percussions en contraste avec les manipulations électroniques            font appel à notre imaginaire universel. Pas de frontières non plus            pour Chronomad, mais plutôt un dialogue entre traditions ancestrales            et traditions à venir.

http://www.recyclart.be/fr/archives-2003-2011/arabesk-dj-rupture-us-tigerbeat-6-chronomad-live-serhat-koksal-aka-2-5bz-live-dj-mormos-dj-coconuts

[highwayoflife]

Kompong Chhnang. Et les seigneurs de la route. La mémorable échappée de Phnom Pehn à scooter 4 vitesses.

Voici l'une de ces journées qui, rapportée à nos “anciennes vies”, donne la démesure de ce voyage. C'est un dimanche, ce genre de dimanche calme plein de sérénité où l'on aimait se reposer et ralentir le rythme, Avant.

Nous partons pour louer un scooter afin de rejoindre la ville de Kompong Chhnang depuis Phnom Pehn. Une folie ! Mais on le savait un peu…

Nous étions d'abord passés en bus en route vers Phnom Pehn, pour nous apercevoir que cet endroit avait quelque chose de particulier. D'ailleurs on voulait initialement y faire étape tout en hésitant un peu après l'épisode mitigé de Battambang. Des bras du gigantesque lac Tonlé Sap - le plus grand lac d'eau douce d'Asie du sud est - irrigue la région et donne à voir des paysages insolites pour nous, les ploucs… Du coup nous avons imaginé y retourner par nos propres moyens, sauf que c'était un peu loin…

Impossible d'accéder à la voiture pour nous “barang” backpacker. Seul le chinois peut y prétendre à coup de liasses de dollars-néo-corrupto-capitaliste. Nous resterons donc au Level 1 (level 1 = scooter ; level 0 = piéton ; level -1 = transport en commun, votre vie dépend d'autres paramètres et des astres).

La négociation du scooter fut âpre. Nous avons été obligé de troquer notre passeport contre une monture, cette fois. La petite échoppe de mécaniciens avait bien saisi notre folie de vouloir nous rendre à Kompong Chhnang à bord de leur scooter 25ème main. Le jour précédent, cette petite équipe un peu vicelarde n'avait pas hésité à nous refourguer un scooter hors d'usage - sans batterie / qui s'éteignait à chaque coup de frein, et que nous avons rendu après l'avoir poussé, à la fin… (par chance il avait rendu l'âme à moins d'un kilomètre ; anecdote : même le fait d'avoir deux casques à la main et de pousser un scooter n'entame en rien le harponnage surpuissant des tuk-tuk, tous les 10 mètres… mais comment voulaient-ils donc nous emmener ?!$%).

Bref, on apprendra en rendant le scooter qu'ils nous avaient donné une épave parce qu'on avait refusé de leur laisser un passeport - qui au passage dormait à l'ambassade vietnamienne en attente d'un tampon. Un peu filou.

Sachant qu'on avait besoin de faire de la route, le mécanicien nous propose un scooter manuel d'un autre temps (“vous ne pouvez pas aller loin avec nos automatiques” - ok…), 4 vitesses, un changement des rapports au talon, et des freins à tambours très fatigués. En démarrant le scooter, pas de lumière. “Alors prenez celui-là. Ah les pneus sont sous-gonflés. Ok on va y remettre un peu d'air. Ne sortez pas de la ville. On ne pourra pas vous assister s'il y a un problème avec le scooter. Pas plus que 50 km au nord. Arrêtez vous au moins 10 minutes toutes les heures”. Fin de la discussion.

On part avec deux simulacres de casques, juste pour nous dire qu'on porte un casque (no comment et honte à nous). Démarrage du scooter, une sonorité de dragster qui pourrait nous donner du galon face aux seigneurs de la route ? (Seigneur de la route = tout ce qui est plus gros que vous est prioritaire et a toute légitimité pour vous refuser la priorité / vous barrer la route / voire vous écraser ou vous éjecter sur le côté. Et c'est vraiment comme ça que ça se passe).

On part à bord de notre super dragster et on mettra une bonne heure et demie à sortir du capharnaum indescriptible de Phnom Pehn, où l'on enchaîne entre autoroute, piste rocailleuse, sentier qu'il faut aborder à contre-sens, le tout dans un bordel de la route inimaginable. Dérégulé. Inoubliable. On croise inlassablement toutes sortes d'embarcations qui exorbitent nos yeux :

- beaucoup de jeunes conducteurs de 2 roues conduisent avec le nez sur le téléphone, pareil pour les passagers. - le passager qui tient le téléphone sur la joue du conducteur pour lui permettre de téléphoner et conduire en toute sécurité - un scooter transportant un cochon mort d'au moins 200-300 kilos (!) 2 mètres de largeur en travers sur le cadre, avec les pieds et la tête qui pendouillent et dépassent - un scooter vaisseau amiral qui transporte toute la famille - et bien d'autres choses encore - avec papa, maman et les 3 enfants dont un bébé positionnés dans une configuration digne d'un numéro de cirque - une maman qui allaite son bébé sur le scooter - un type qui transporte un tableau / peinture gigantesque avec le bras en extension et la tranche du pied - mais comment diable peut-il encore conduire ? - des bus et des sortes de camions qui datent de 1930 ? et qui crachent des fumées noires dignes d'une usine à charbon (et que l'on respire gaiement à plein poumon, naturellement) - et puis tous les seigneurs de la route à contre-sens qui n'hésitent pas à foncer droit sur vous en jouant du klaxon et des appels de phare pour vous faire comprendre que vous devez quitter la piste - ou mourir ? Ce ne sont clairement pas des intimidations. On ne sait plus s'il faut s'amuser ou s’effarer des autres seigneurs de la route à bord de 4x4 rutilants qui vous barrent la route et le passage en continuant à avancer sur vous coûte que coûte, peu importe si vous devez passer par dessus - ou par dessous. Une grande mascarade. Une pure folie.

Nous voici triomphant arrivés à Kompong Chhnang. Vivant. Et content d'avoir pu nous extirper des tentacules chaotiques de Phnom Pehn, surpris que notre scooter ait tenu la distance, jusque-là. Près de l'embarcadère qui mène au Tonlé Sap. Il est 15h15. Le soleil se couche à 18h15. Nous allons donc devoir rentrer de nuit ! Inconscient. Comment pourrons nous éviter les nids de poules ? Peu importe, on verra ça plus tard. Au moins le moteur qui devait être proche de la fusion au vu de nos brûlures aux chevilles, va pouvoir se rafraîchir. Il fait vraiment une chaleur de fournaise, mais parce qu'on est raisonnable et très sérieux, on a quand même mis des vêtements longs et des chaussures en guise d'équipements, au cas où on devait se traîner sur le sol. Une sorte de protection psychologique. Mais ça rassure. Alors on fait comme ça. Sinon on peut rester à l'hôtel et évaluer l'âge des vieux retraités américains au bras des pauvres cambodgiennes - un demi siècle de différence est quelque chose de commun.

A peine arrivés à l'embarcadère, aucun “barang à l'horizon”, le bruit de notre discret dragster attire l'attention. On enlève nos casques et nous voilà démasqués –> des riches. Un unijambiste, un malheureux, victime d'une mine lui aussi ? nous accueille pour surveiller notre monture en échange d'un billet. Dans la région, voire dans le pays, c'est la pratique et l'usage le plus efficace pour éviter que le scooter disparaisse. On peut même laisser son casque. Mais interdit de verrouiller le scooter, il faut faire confiance et autoriser les manœuvres de déplacement. 3 minutes plus tard (on sait vraiment qu'on veut embarquer illico et ce quel que soit l'état du navire), nous voilà sur une petite embarcation motorisée sur le Tonlé Sap, avec une maman navigatrice et sa fille de 9 ans. Le diesel dans les poumons et les cheveux au vent, les mains à deux doigt de se faire happer par les courroies plein air du moteur, on vogue vers un village flottant où vivent dans la promiscuité des minorités de vietnamiens, laotiens & Cie. relégués à l'eau faute de pouvoir accéder à la propriété, dans des maisons bateaux et des embarcations flottantes, parfois sur pilotis pour stabiliser les structures.  Des conditions de vie qui interloquent. La navigatrice est du village. Donc tolérée. L'embarcation est petite et discrète. Les gros bateaux et les cars n'accèdent pas à cet endroit. Evidemment nous aussi sommes des touristes qui faisons tâche, on le sait, on souhaite découvrir et voir, est-ce du voyeurisme ? Toutes les scènes de vie se déroulent sans ombrage. Les enfants rigolent, crient et sautent : des barangs :) ! En fait, ils viennent vers nous, ils nous saluent plein de gaieté à grands coups de “HELLO”, ils rient, ils dansent, ils nous font la fête, et ça se reproduit, et ça se reproduit… Les échanges durent et sont puissants, gratuits et magnétiques. Sincèrement. On reste impressionnés par la vie de ces gens. C'est beau. Et spartiate. Ça attaque au corps. Et ça transporte. On paye notre navigatrice sans négocier, un moment magique sur le Tonlé Sap. On repart sans dire un mot et vraiment ça interroge, parce que c'est inconcevable rapporté à la façon dont on vit. Pas de soirée raclette au vin rouge ici. On ne s'attendait pas du tout à se confronter à une telle pauvreté. Sans verser dans le pathos, impossible de rester indifférent, c'est un pays qui attaque profondément l'âme.

Le retour sera digne de Mad max - celui de Goerge Miller. On mettra 3h30 à faire environ 100 kilomètres. La nuit.

Ce récit est à peine exagéré. Traumatisant. Inoubliable.

On ne joue pas à se faire peur, et il n'y a rien d'aventureux, peut-être qu'on aurait pu faire plus simple, moins compliqué, on organise au jour le jour comme on peut, et parfois on ne maîtrise pas tous les paramètres, donc on s'adapte. Une journée comme ça atomise tous les repères de nos vies pépères à Haguenau. Et ça se renouvelle sans cesse. On a l'impression d'être plus vivant qu'avant.

[osrasaskblog]

Ask Masterpost 1

A list of information from asks on this blog.

GENERAL

·         Amethyst and Pearl are not in a romantic relationship and are permafused for different reasons.

·         Amethyst was still made in the Kindergarten in this AU. Pearl is still a Pearl. Sapphire and Ruby’s backstories are going to greatly diverge from canon.

·         Ruby, Sapphire, and Steven are roughly the same height and all come up to a little above Opal’s knees.

·         Greg, as in canon, provides the money for Steven and the Gems.

·         Ruby and Sapphire got along more often when Rose was around.

·         Ruby and Sapphire are sometimes confused as children.

·         Opal Juice is apricot juice, peach juice, and edible glitter mixed together.

·         Pearl was still in love with Rose.

OPAL

·         Opal would like to make shapeshift into a smaller form, but can’t do so for an extended amount of time.

·         Opal isn’t good at remembering names.

·         Opal only eats occasionally, but has yet to find a food she really hates. (Except for “Health Dough”—chapter 23)

·         The food that Opal just likes the least is glazed donuts because she finds them boring.

·         Opal likes to watch wrestling matches with Steven. She breaks the television if she’s angry. (Three out of seven times)

·         Opal has forgotten Steven at the movies, once went missing for three weeks, and once mistook costumers for an actual monster.

·         Opal’s favorite food and drink is cinnamon pizza and Opal Juice.

·         Opal is a dual-wielding swordfighter, but prefers her bow and arrow for long-distance attacks.

·         Opal would be a decent cook if she didn’t forget the food when it was baking/grilling/etc.

·         Macaroni and cheese is the easiest thing for Opal to make.

·         In turn for her forgetfulness, Opal is patient with Ruby and Sapphire’s bickering.

·         Opal is forgetful, but does not have memory loss. She can be easily reminded of things.

·         Opal likes shapeshifting, but prefers more relaxing hobbies.

·         Opal likes to sing, dance, meditate, practice yoga, nap after long days, tinker with recipes, go on long walks, and collecting things.

·         Opal’s favorite board game is Slides N’ Steps.

·         Opal likes tabasco in her coffee.

·         Opal’s bow and arrow can reach as far as the clouds.

·         Opal’s dance style is contemporary ballet, speeding up and slowing down as she feels.

·         Opal was not the first inter-Gem fusion.

SAPPHIRE

·         Sapphire finds Opal more cooperative than Ruby, but doesn’t appreciate Opal’s tendency to pick her up.

·         Sapphire can go as far into the future as she pleases, but since the future changes the further it goes, going too far would be pointless.

·         Sapphire is more patient with Opal’s forgetfulness.

·         Sapphire’s favorite food and drink is coffee and donuts.

·         Sapphire can play the piano and plays the Crying Breakfast Friends theme song for Steven.

·         Sapphire likes to knit.

·         Sapphire discovered her weapon when she first emerged.

·         Sapphire’s favorite board game is Kitchen Calamity.

·         Sapphire is good at making ice cream, but not gelato.

·         Sapphire has a device underneath her Room that can transport a planet, but the Earth and its life would never be able to survive a move.

·         Sapphire’s dance style is based on belly dancing.

·         Sapphire does not like having her coffee messed with.

RUBY

·         Ruby likes to watch wrestling matches with Steven, and also breaks the television if she gets angry. (Four out of seven times)

·         Ruby finds Opal’s forgetfulness grating, but doesn’t hold it against her as long as it doesn’t put them in danger.

·         Ruby’s favorite food and drink is hot chocolate, popcorn, and sweet potato fries.

·         Ruby is good at cooking/grilling/etc. but is not good with decorations or varnishes, like icing.

·         Ruby likes to train herself, watch wrestling matches, sort out Bubbled Gems, anything that requires purposeful breaking, and jigsaw puzzles.

·         Ruby’s favorite board game is Chance.

·         Ruby usually overheats her coffee to the point of bubbling.

·         Ruby’s dance style is based on vogue, fast and striking a lot of poses.

STEVEN

·         Steven has been living with the Gems since he was seven.

·         Steven likes to watch Crying Breakfast Friends, play the ukulele, and draw.

MOONSTONE

·         Moonstone would have the voice of Mariah Carey.

·         Moonstone’s favorite music genre is jazz.

GARNET

·         Ruby and Sapphire do not fuse into Garnet often, but do not terribly mind being her.

·         Garnet was around more often when Rose was.

·         Garnet is “one Steven” taller than in canon, and a bit shorter than Opal.

·         Garnet does not look different from her canon self.

·         The last time Moonstone fused, she went missing for fourteen days and came back as Opal and Sapphire.

RANDOM FACT-Os

·         Although she doesn’t interact with humans often, Opal has won medals for ice-skating.

·         Sapphire can fluently speak 150 languages.

·         Ruby is a fantastic tennis player.

·         Moonstone can walk across water without freezing it.

·         Something interesting about one of the Gems is going to be revealed in the next chapter.

[izumisays]

dear yuletide author

Thank you so much for reading this and taking part in this wonderful annual conspiracy!

First of all, I hope you have a lovely time! If any of the fandoms below pique your interest, I’m delighted already, and ready to hear all the stories you want to tell.

Fandoms: Hunting (猎狐 ), Mo Du (默读), Thunderbolt Fantasy (東離劍遊紀) , Chihayafuru (ちはやふる)

As for reading preferences, I’m happy with a wide variety of tones and genres, of any rating, ranging anywhere from lighthearted antics to dramatic casefics. But the core of all the stories I love has always been character interaction and interplay of their competences.

How the characters play off each other and bring out their best/worst, how they’d react to a divergence of events, how true they’d stay to themselves in a different setting – I love fanfiction for allowing us to reconnect with our favourite stories time and again by asking these questions. And there are so many ways to do it! To name a few favourites, I’m always game for POV hijinks, a missing scene, a casefic, canon expansion, backstories and what-ifs.

You may notice that some of my requests lean towards shipfic – those, too, are welcome in a variety of tones – but I also tried to include openings for gen ideas if that’s your jam. Additionally, while it is not usually my top interest, I don’t have anything against AUs if there is something that you are itching to explore: I tend to enjoy them for a new aesthetic that fleshes out the favoured character dynamics in a new light, or a fusion that redefines the playing ground to allow the characters to exhibit their core competences in new and exciting ways.

I would be very grateful if you could avoid a/b/o and associated kinktropes, played-straight soulmate fic, and character interpretation that runs contrary to their core values. If in doubt, please reach out to me on anon - the askbox is open!

猎狐 | Hunting: Xia Yuan, Wu Jiaqi

Don’t get me wrong, I love me a good white collar crime, especially one that busts a few capitalist myths. But let’s be real, the best parts of this TV show were Xia Yuan and Wu Jiaqi’s overseas 💕dates💕 I mean business trips, which mysteriously required they be outfitted like a well-matched pair of ridiculously long-legged models that strutted right out of the Vogue pages and into the metaphorical fire. The kind of fire that, in turn, required them to fake date, or dress up even more glamorously to impersonate filthy rich celebrities and their butlers, or deployed other similarly logical methods of tracking down runaway fraudsters.

I would eat up more of such adventures with a spoon, nay, a SHOVEL. Just like the epilogue showed, I’d like to imagine their adventures post-canon be a series of bright postcards (bang bang from Russia with love) capturing their antics in various capitals of the world.

Some ideas for inspiration could be:

Competitive not-dating. Xia Yuan and Wu Jiaqi just happen to contrive the circumstances in a way that makes the next operation seem conspicuously like a date, and the other one simply cannot let this slide and ups the ante.

I’m totally on board with some commentary or scheming from the peanut gallery of the Economics Crimes Division (I love you, Xiaolei!) to set them up faster. I don’t know if I love more the idea of the two of them giving in to the gang’s attempts to set them up, or the gang continuing to set them up completely unaware that the two of them are already dating, thus amplifying the comedy.

As mentioned above, every city needs a pair of scarily competent and scarily beautiful law enforcement agents (who are also derps) descend on it to charm the pants off the local police forces and then solve some crime while they are at it. It’s also incredibly cute that Wu Jiaqi is the worldlier (or nerdier?) of the two, and can dispense funfacts and trivia at Xia Yuan’s incredibly soft face. I’m a simple girl and I like simple things.

ALL THE TROPES ever, as essential and completely logical ways to solve economic crimes. All the dress-ups. All the role-playing on the job with bae.

The show is available on viki.com.

默读 (Mo Du) | The Light in the Night by priest: Luo Wenzhou

“These brazen heterosexuals!”

I absolutely love one fussy household dictator, a benevolent imperial father with takeaway food bags for his squad of nerds, a good son of his loving parents, and a hopeless domesticator of high-maintenance cats in both feline and human form. I am nominating him solo because I’d love to read a story that embraces a range of his bonds with people in the story - not just Fei Du, but his colleagues and friends, and family, and all the people with whom he connects on the job.

I don’t want to limit your imagination, but here are some ideas I would find interesting, should they pique your attention:

A casefic that allows the Imperial Father to see in action just how much his team has grown (proud papa noises!)

At this point, no one is even surprised that Fei Du meddles with their investigations, but perhaps an outsider POV could showcase beautifully what an absolute circus it is

Luo Wenzhou dispensing romantic advice that is utterly, horribly off the mark

TAOTAO the only straight man with rights! Let the crew arrange him a wedding. Let his biggest reward be the minute when they leave him alone with his ladywife.

Reversed sandboxes: some investigation moves the playing field into the space of high flying corporate business. (Oh god can you just imagine Xiao Xaio vs a high-end coffee-machine?)

Bonus points for Eldest Daughter’s random trashy yaoi RPF fantasies sprinkling the narrative. I love her shameless black little heart.

I should also mention that my kink is when Fei Du really wants to be edgy as fuck, but the narrative* simply cockblocks him. What a god-tier move.(*sure, in 9 cases of out ten it is Luo Wenzhou, but I’m sure his squad is on board with the idea as well)

Domesticity! All sorts of domesticity, for everyone. That inherent sexiness of seeing your crush competently handle a basic household chore.

Mo Du is available to read here.

THUNDERBOLT FANTASY (東離劍遊紀): Rin Setsua; Sho Fukan

I LOVE THIS SELF INDULGENT WUXIA NONSENSE AND I CANNOT LIE!

Sanfan is a mixture UTTER GLEE and deep fondness for the genre staples, self-aware and masterful playthrough of all the wuxia tropes in the book, and one goddamn well-constructed story. It plays the tropes straight, calls them out with a knowing wink, walks the tightrope between the two with panache, and just as you are relaxed and enjoying this trapeze show, it grins cheekily at you, sets the hat on fire and pulls a bunny out of a discoball. It’s DELIGHTFUL and fun and lovingly crafted, just like a good passion project should be.

I want anything that capitalizes on the absolutely hilarious dynamics between Rin Setsua and Sho Fukan (and while personally I end up using the Japanese versions of their names more often, please feel free to go with the Chinese names if you prefer). Sho Fukan does not want any of those heroic quests, he’s the human equivalent of been there, done that mood, and he just wants to REST and hopefully dump a bunch of magical murderswords someplace safe. Rin Setsua is a Totally Respectable and Non-Villainous Member of Society, of which he will inform you firsthand in the most high spoken and verbose way possible, and maybe even produce paperwork that has definitely not been tampered with. He harbours no ulterior motives, ever, and does not trail behind Sho Fukan for any reason beyond the pleasure of his company, and his mission to personally victimize and cockblock every morally derelict villain in two countries, by no-one’s request.

Whether you go shipfic (yiss!) or canon levels teamup circus (also yiss!), don’t hold back your horses. Everything about this is Extra, and should continue to be so <3

I am okay with both expanding the canon and playing with AUs/crossovers/fusions for this one, provided they retain the character dynamics. I love the extended cast as well: any characters including the Seiyou gang (and on that note, if you want to write the Seiyou backstory for Shou’s gang that has no Rin in it, you’re welcome as well), reappearance of the familiar faces from Touri (read: Rin’s victim list, past, future and present), original characters lined up and waiting to be screwed over (guaranteed) and rescued (the administration does not bear any responsibility etc etc).

Season 3, god bless Urobutcher, just went and upped the ante by 9000 -- time and space travel! Magical walkie-talkie pocket-sized boyfriend dolls! Dramatic daddies and villains literally yeeted into literal space, jjba-style! The sandbox has expanded exponentially, and if you think this is a good excuse to open the door wide for any perceivable AUs and still remain canon-compatible, well, then you have the right audience in me.

Thunderbolt Fantasy is available on Crunchyroll.

CHIHAYAFURU: Mashima Taichi, Wataya Arata, Suou Hisashi

You don’t have to include all three characters, but I’d love to see a fic that explores the connections between them better. I’m up to date with all manga scanlations.

Wataya Arata/ Mashima Taichi

In the immortal words of Henjin Meijin, Arata is that person for Taichi whose opinion makes or breaks him. (His wording may have been different, but if I go rummaging into the chapter archive to find the exact quote, I’ll end up binge-rereading year three into the night again, and then where would my Yule sign-up be?) (On that note, what kind of a MASSIVE LOSER waxes poetics about Taichi’s boyfriend problems to Taichi’s MOTHER, whom he JUST met? Suou Hisashi, that’s who.) Needless to say, that paramount opinion was not always great, and neither was Taichi’s general wellbeing.

Good news is, Arata is confident in his manliness, and he has no problem acknowledging Taichi’s ridiculously pretty and not too bad at karuta these days, and he’s also moving to Tokyo. Taichi’s definitely pretty and has an apartment in Tokyo, where a country bumpkin of paramount importance may possibly stay over until things are sorted out… eventually. Hint hint.

Jokes aside, I pine for the dynamics between the two of them. I nearly lost it, reading the Meijin semifinals — and if you can show me a person who saw them bawl as they crawled into each other’s laps on Japanese national television and didn’t bawl in response, well, that person is sure not me.

I’d like to see a story that lets them build and explore that connection. I do not object to eventual OT3, but I think Chihaya is on a quest to find her own footing and pursue other goals at the moment, and I’d really like it if she was allowed to do this (join forces with Shinobu to drag karuta into a professional league, girl!). I’d like to think that in that space, different bonds and relationships can develop and strengthen, starting with Arata and Taichi.

Taichi the overanalyzer, the hardworker and the looker, the golden boy who at some point surely hit that red button, meme-style: you will be perfect at everything, you will have everything, except the one thing that you want above all. Arata appears to be his perfect foil: steady and serene where Taichi’s scrambling and flawed, adorably awkward and disarmingly sincere where Taichi’s groomed, smooth and miserable about his own deceptions. But they don’t see it like that! And they keep tripping each other up so beautifully!

I’d love to read your take on them growing closer and hopefully smooshing their faces together. Roommates in Tokyo? Long-distance friends? Figuring out how to tell your flatmate you’ve been in love with him since you were 12? Established relationship while hijinks happen? AWKWARD THIRDWHEELING WITH SUOU?!

On that note:

Suou Hisashi & (or / - wejustdon’tknow.gif) Mashima Taichi

I cannot believe that ridiculous man. Did you see a grown ass adult swoon because his unrequited disciple I mean not-friend I mean Taichi just up and went to meet his relatives??? To help reconnect them?? One can do things like this?? What next, being able to make phonecalls like an adult??

Does not compute.

I was there, Gandalf. I was there when the story first indicated that we might be getting an unlikely team-up of the world’s weirdest Meijin and Tokyo’s most miserable overachiever. But even in my wildest dreams I did not dare hope to see them sprawled on the carpet on a humid summer afternoon, Taichi comfortable in his own skin and Suou, erm, probably not very comfortable with his fascination :D He did not sign up for this. He, a grown ass man in what must be his early twenties, is too old for this youthful seishun sakura bullshit. And yet it is he who mournfully accosts Taichi’s mom to talk about how this other boy is paramount in Taichi’s universe. He who gets offended because Taichi knowing how to adult and work the social ropes is too sexy and competent. He who finds something compelling in the painful struggle of genius and skill.

Arata - Taichi - Suou

For maximum indulgence of yours truly, bring those into one place. Arata coming to Tokyo and finding Suou a fixture in Taichi’s life how?! Suou being infinitely pissy at the Fukuyi upstart and yet dragging himself to socialize with the boys regardless like a totally-not-pathetic adult with a social life of his own? Arata being mildly puzzled about the antagonism, but in there for the sweet snacks?

You tell me! I delight in my anticipation.

I’m up to date with manga fan scanlations, and Chihayafuru anime is available on Crunchyroll.

Thank you for taking the time to read the letter, and I’m greatly looking forward to reading your story — and hopefully, getting to chat about these ridiculous and wonderful characters post-reveals :)

[jbgravereaux]

DE LA MATCHITCHE A LA LAMBADA. PRESENCE DE LA MUSIQUE POPULAIRE BRESILIENNE EN FRANCE* ARIANE WITKOWSKI  (début)

LE SYNDROME LAMBADA                                                                                                                                                                                                                  L’été 1989 aura été marqué en France par l’avènement d’une mode dont les retombées sont encore sensibles aujourd’hui. On s’attendait à la voir disparaître à l’automne, on lui donnait quelques mois d’existence mais la lambada renaît sans cesse de ses cendres sous des formes de plus en plus inattendues : la «danse lascive» a prêté son nom à un tube de l’été, à deux films américains, à un modèle de jupe et à plusieurs petites françaises nées en août 1989, pour finalement passer à la moulinette des Garçons Bouchers («La lambada, on n’aime pas ça, nous on préfère la java»). Nous ne reviendrons pas sur les ingrédients pour le moins diversifiés qui entrent dans la composition de ce produit entièrement fabriqué à Paris : une danse dont on prend soin de ralentir le rythme pour le rendre plus accessible au public français, une chanson bolivienne transcrite en portugais et découverte au Brésil par deux producteurs français, des musiciens africains, caraïbes et brésiliens installés en France de longue date, un clip tourné à Ibiza, l’appui financier d’une chaîne de télévision et d’une marque de boisson gazeuse. Le cocktail a fait son effet ; peu de maisons de disques ont su résister aux sirènes de la lambada, les compilations ont proliféré, et la mode a gagné l’Europe, les Etats-Unis et le Japon, avant de déferler sur le Brésil. En hiver 90, la chanson de Kaoma, en tête du hit-parade brésilien, entraînait dans tout le pays un engouement immodéré pour un rythme et une danse dont le succès était au départ circonscrit à certaines régions du littoral nordestin. Pour le bonheur des producteurs, et au grand dam des amateurs de bonne musique... et de la Sainte Eglise Catholique, qui a fait entendre sa protestation par la voix de trois archevêques sud-américains.                                                                                                                                          * Cet article est le premier d’une série de trois ; les deux autres porteront respectivement sur la chanson française au Brésil (d’Yvette Guilbert à Vanessa Paradis) et sur les images réciproques des deux pays, véhiculées par la musique. Il est dédié à Paul et Yvon, de Radio Aligre, et à Armelle Enders, qui ont beaucoup oeuvré pour son élaboration.                                                                                                                                                                                    Cahiers du Brésil Contemporain, 1990, n°12                                                                                                                                                                                          Si l’opération commerciale était sans précédent en France, la recette du succès n’était pas tout à fait inédite. Amalgames culturels, distorsions, effetsboomerang, depuis la vogue du maxixe à Paris, l’histoire de la musique populaire brésilienne en France est faite de ces quiproquos que l’épisode lambada a portés à leur comble.                                                                                                                                                                                                      «ÇA S’APPELLE LA MATCHITCHE»                                                                                                                                                                                                        Au début du siècle, une vieille ancêtre de la lambada, tout aussi licencieuse mais beaucoup moins vénale, fait un malheur à Paris. Née dans les bas-quartiers de Rio d’une fusion entre le tango, la habanera, la polka et les rythmes syncopés luso-africains, la danse que l’on baptisa mystérieusement maxixe, gagne les salons et franchit les mers, précédée d’une solide réputation. Dés 1905, Borel-Clerc récupérait le nom de la danse pour en faire le titre d’une chanson, non sans l’avoir copieusement déformé, en le féminisant, et en l’affublant de sonorités hispaniques : le maxixe (prononcer machiche) devient la matchitche. Mayol, le créateur de la chanson, annonce la couleur : «Et voici La matchitche, sur les airs de la célèbre marche espagnole» : C’est la danse nouvelle, Mademoiselle, Prenez un air canaille, Cambrez la taille. Ça s’appelle la matchiche Remuez vos miches (Ça vous aguiche) Ainsi qu’une Espagnole Joyeuse et folle (Des Batignolles).                                                                                                                                                                                                Visiblement amusés par le succès de ce paso-doble qui n’avait de brésilien que le nom et l’air canaille, les cariocas s’emparent de la mélodie de Borel-Clerc et en font un pastiche pour le carnaval de 1907, sur un thème d’actualité, l’arrestation de Carleto et Roca, deux bandits qui avaient défrayé la chronique l’année précédente en assassinant sauvagement les propriétaires d’une bijouterie happée du centre de Rio...             DE LA MATCHITCHE A LA LAMBADA. PRESENCE DE LA    

[plumedepoete]

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