#guys ik it's not the best translation but it gets the idea across >_<< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[idk-i-want-mcl-content]

devon's text after ep 4 (if you didn't go w him at the end)

Devon: Did you got back home okay? Relax, because next week is going to be really busy! Candy: Can you tell me a little bit more? :0 Devon: I'm not going to ruin the surprise... Candy: At least a clue! Devon: Fine. Let's say we have a lot of new projects to work on... And it's posible that there's one reserved just for you. I won't say anything else. You got this!* *ngl it's not a exact translation of the sentence but in general, he's just encouraging Candy.

[ashdumpsterpile]

I know you talk abou st*cky in the interracial ships stuff, but can we talk about st*ny? Iron husbands is literally right there, but I also always sees Rhodey as Tonys moral support only. And ik Tony is very shippable with most characters, but the fact his ship is Rhodey is one of the lowest ships in ao3 (ironstrange, winteriron and god forbid stark*r all had more fics in ao3).. It's pretty telling this side also has racism problems...

I'll go ahead and answer this here, but letting y'all know that I do have a marvel sideblog if you want to hit me up there (@themarvelarchives).

Hey, I'm going to ramble for a good minute.

So after I posted my very incoherent, controversial take on St*cky vs SamBucky, there were a ton of ppl who came onto anon saying that St*cky shippers were racist. I think I only answered a few, but y'all were pretty insistent on it. I personally have not observed that St*cky shippers are so I'm not calling anyone out on that side of the fandom for that.

I also did not call out anyone on this side of the fandom bc that's not what my meta was about. I think I mentioned maybe once or twice in the whole post that there was underlying racist in the fandom, but since you asked, we can talk about it here.

Covert Bigotry In Fandom Spaces.

To understand what's going on in the MCU, we have to first look at what I call "woke-queer" fandom.

So "Woke-Queer" Spaces is the phenomenon where certain fandom members like to call ppl out on their bigotry, while covertly harboring their own queerphobia/racism/etc. An example of this that we're all familiar with is TERFS and how they like to claim that they are progressive and woke, while also claiming that trans women are fake and trans men are sexist.

How this translates to fandom, however, is the hypocrisy that is cancellation and callout culture.

For example, Supernatural in particular is a fandom that likes to call out the writers on their homophobia and racism, and yet, somehow, the fandom is chalk full of homophobia and racism. If you want to read more about this, here is a truly excellent article from the perspective of a queer woman of color.

Moving on, I've also talked in a previous meta post, on the internalized acephobia that exploded in 2019 after Good Omens was released. Rather than reiterate everything I said in that post, I'll just leave it at this: the controversy in the Good Omens fandom can be summed up by the fact that queer audiences are claiming that Ineffable Husbands is the wrong kind of queer. The hypocrisy oozes off the screen, doesn't it?

A final way this viably translates to fandom, is in how the Doctor Who fandom evolved over time.

So Steven Moffat takes over as head writer and showrunner in 2010. It's a new series, a new Doctor, a new Tardis, and new branding. He steps up the action, changes the color grating, and raises the stakes. Women are sexier, the Doctor is smarter (and more of an asshole, but that's another meta post), and every companion comes with their own impossible mystery that makes them Special™.

Series 5-10 got tons of woke points for having lesbian characters, an episode where the Doctor is homoerotic with James Corden, and an underlying trans narrative with the Master's reincarnation. What a lot of people forget, however, is that his series was incredibly sexiest, incredibly lesbian/biphobic, and basically turned the Doctor into everyone's fantasy sex-object.

This, unfortunately, brought out the worst of the fandom. There was RTD Era vs Moffat Era wars exploding in certain corners, TenxRose shippers vs ElevenxRiver shippers.

What does this have to do with covert racism in fandom cultures though?

Hnnngng ok, so back in RTD era's we get Martha Jones, the Actual Best Companion On The Entire Show. Except for the fact, of course, that she is written to be in love with the doctor. She's a brilliant character--smart, sassy, flawed, funny, flirtatious--and her entire plotline is reduced down to a school-girl crush on a white man.

She doesn't do well with fans, they scrap her after one season.

We move on to Donna Noble (The Other Actual Best Companion On The Entire Show) and RTD's era ends with them scraping her too and regenerating David Tennant's Doctor.

It will be five more series (not seasons, SERIES) until Doctor Who will have another black companion--who gets extra points for being gay--only to fall victim to "bury your gays" at the end of the season (but not really bc no one stays dead on Doctor Who).

The fandom's reception of Martha Jones was historically bad. The comparisons to her predecessor, Rose Tyler, were rampant and everyone was finding a reason to hate her.

The fandom's reception to Bill Potts was also historically bad, as everyone was screaming that she was being written for more "woke points" and that they wanted Clara back.

Fandom has a historically bad reputation of being problematic and, I would argue, the majority of it has to do with these toxic undertones of bigotry that slip under the radar. "Woke-queer" spaces, as I call them, are these instances above where spaces that claim to be inclusive of gender/orientation/race are covertly bigoted.

Marvel and Cancelling

Now is an excellent time to talk about the MCU.

Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson) has recently come under a lot of criticism from fandom members for shutting down shipper speculation.

"The idea of two guys being friends and loving each other in 2021 is a problem because of the exploitation of homosexuality. [...] something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves."

I can't find the rest of the quote, but Mackie goes on further to say that it was important to him to portray "a sensitive, masculine figure" without insinuating that there was romance involved.

Woke culture lost it's shit. Everyone was suddenly claiming that Mackie was calling them exploitative for shipping a gay ship as a queer audience, which could not have been further from the case.

Mackie actually makes some very excellent points in that sensitivity is not gay/queer. Woke culture loves to rag on Toxic Masculinity, but the minute someone plays a character who is loving and sensitive with no queer narrative in mind, they are immediately canceled.

What Am I On About

Okay, let's actually address what your ask was about, Nonnie. You pointed out--rather truthfully--that it is unfair to call-out racism on one side of the fandom, while ignoring it on the other side.

Well, I've gone back through my St*cky vs. SamBucky analysis (which is incoherent at best, I apologize for that) and I see maybe once instance where I called out fandom members for being racist. Here's what I had to say about racism:

"[...] Iron Husbands is a rarepair, probably because it’s an interracial ship."

"[there is] nothing wrong with shipping two white men, but it does become a problem when you ignore/bash POC/interracial ships to the determinant of your own white ship."

And then there was the post you brought up where I addressed interracial ships in the fandom. That one is probably more relevant to this topic, to be honest, as I actually addressed fandom racism there. I assume that your reason for bringing up Stony is because it's a ship that is more relevant to my side of the fandom, HOWEVER, the reason I highlighted Stucky instead was because I was comparing the fact that they've both been around the same amount of time and are relationships that feature the protagonist and their best friend.

You brought up St*ny in the ask, however, so I'm going to talk about St*ny for a minute.

As someone who never has nor will ship St*ny, it never even occurred to me that some of the problem behind the Iron Husbands tag being so small is because everyone ships the white, boring ship. You brought up a very valid point, but because I was never in that part of the fandom, I can't really speak to any possible underlying racism there, besides what I've already said above.

I would be interested in hearing a St*ony shipper or ex-St*ony shippers thought on this, but sadly I don't know any. If you have any more thoughts regarding this, Nonnie, pls drop back into my inbox.

You do make some excellent points in this ask though, and I would like to talk about racism on my side of the fandom.

So back to Mackie and his Twitter cancellation. Notice that Disney made him address the rumors and not his co-star, Sebastian Stan. Anthony Mackie is put on blast and made to answer fan demands and receives backlash, while Sebastian Stan gets to fly under the rader. This is not, by the way, a criticism of Stan, but instead of the blatant racism Disney has been displaying over the past few years.

How this ties in with the rest of my post has to do with my "woke-queer" spaces bit. The outcry across the MCU fandom over Mackie was swift and unforgiving. He was cancelled on charges of homophobia and bigotry--all the while these same fans turn a blind eye to any queer interpretation of other interracial ships and discourse in their own fandom.

The racism that I'm speaking about, of course, is an almost passive racism. Of course if you don't ship a specific ship for reasons other than their race, it's perfectly fine. It's okay not to ship Iron Husbands or SamBucky or any other interracial fandom ships. However, the distinct lack of shippers in the fandom IS telling because there are people who would ship that exact ship if not for the fact that one of men is black.

I don't have much more to say about this except to thank you for bringing it up and for listening to my long rambling post.

(Feel free to bug me about Tony Stark, MCU ships, MCU Meta and anything you want to talk me about on this blog and @themarvelarchives.)

[troutpopulation]

It Becomes A Chain (Sigma x reader) pt.4

A/N: feat. more google translate dutch I'll probably have future conversations written in english i will sacrifice authenticity to save myself the embarrassment of crappy dutch

Were you seriously doing this? Sure, Dr. de Kuiper was handsome. He was your type, literally. But you spent the last week thinking he was annoying as all hell, and then he watched you have a breakdown. Where did he honestly expect this to go? Say you guys hit it off. Then what? You go back to America and he stays in The Hague. There is literally no way for this to work. The dude is fucking delusional. But, despite that, you checked yourself out in the mirror for anything to fix. You looked great, and even if this turns out to be disastrous, at least you had an excuse to dress nicely. That always felt good, right?

You stared at yourself.

You were halfway across the world about to get tested on by scientists and then go out to a cafe at night with a man who worked there. This was a fantastic idea and you were amazing at making decisions. Sighing, you looked at your phone. Your ride was here.

  ----------------

  Siebren held his head in his hands. He had made a terrible mistake.

He asked (y/n) a forward question during a moment of weakness. He couldn't believe himself! Why had he said that!? How could he have taken advantage of his state like that!? He felt disgusted with himself. He had to talk to him. Apologize and tell him he'd thought it over and wanted to reconsider, or at the very least, ask him if he was sure or still up for it or... The knock at his door wrenched him from his thoughts.

"Yes?" He called. His coffee was here. The intern, Mag, stepped in. They frowned as they saw the distraught professor muttering to himself.

"Gaat het, professor?" They approached him, setting down his beverage. Are you alright, professor? "Ik denk dat ik een fout heb gemaakt." He mused, shaking his head. I feel I've made a mistake. "Hoezo?" Mag tilted their head. Dr. de Kuiper wasn't one to feel bad about making mistakes. He usually saw them as a normal part of the learning process. Whatever he did, it must have been a grievous error. How so? The scientist wrung his hands together, looking askance as he hesistated. This rose more red flags in the young intern. They repeated their question and it all came flooding out in one of his more characteristic rant. Dr. de Kuiper had asked Mr. (l/n) on a date, but he felt bad, because he didn't think Mr. (l/n) was in the right state of mind to answer. Mag asked if he was drunk, and quickly Dr. de Kuiper denied it.

Not drunk, he said, just upset. The facility was stressing him out. Mag reasoned with him that Mr. (l/n) probably appreciated it. After all, offering to be a friend when someone is stressed can be very helpful. As long as he emphasized he wasn't coming onto him, he should be fine. Mag didn't understand what the big deal was. Suddenly Siebren realized there was another big deal. Oh dammit, he hadn't even thought about it! He didn't know if you even liked men! Or men his age! He had no idea how old you were, but you must have been at the very least over a decade younger than him, hell, even two! Now it was his turn to have a breakdown. Bewildered, Mag backed out of the room and quietly shut the door.

  -----------------

  You discarded the hospital robe and stepped into your slacks. You scratched your chest, yawning. You could really use that coffee right about now. The tests today were demanding. After your outburst last night, though, you got the best sleep you had all week. Better yet, they were sparse in the questions they asked you. They simply took you to a large room and tested how big of a tomato you could produce. It was about a half meter in circumference, and immediately you were exhausted. This time, however, you voiced it. You told them that they tests they were running were a deep honor, but were taxing on your mental health. They apologized and you negotiated a break. You could leave early today, and have Tuesday off. You thanked them, and paused.

"How long exactly was my stay scheduled for?" You frowned. "Three weeks." Dr. Visser concluded. That was odd, you could have sworn the last time you asked it was only two. You shrugged it off as your poor memory and accepted it, thanking them again for their flexibility. You were not designed for this type of environment.

You stepped out of the small changing room and were greeted by an intern. Mag, you remembered was their name. They were flanked by two young colleagues. You figured they were probably students at the university run by the facility. "Hello, Mr. (l/n)." Mag chirped. You waved back to them as the gaggle looked you up and down. "You look very nice today, is there an occasion?" You shrugged. "Oh, uh- Thank you! Someone asked me out for coffee." You rubbed the back of your neck. The compliment took you by surprise, though not unwelcome. "Is it a date?" "Lara don't ask him that-"

"I'm not sure, actually." You shrugged. "Probably not, but if it is, I wouldn't mind." The girls were delighted, but Mag looked a little taken aback. "A date already! You must be very popular, who's the lucky lady?" Lara asked. You chuckled. Okay. You saw what was happening here. They probably had a hunch someone had asked you in a date, and were wondering if you'd let it slip who it was. Hell, they probably had made bets on who it was if the glances at the scientists walking briskly around the lab were anything to go off of.

"I believe his name is Dr. de Kuiper," You raised your eyebrows, checking the time on your phone. "Actually, I should be on my way to see him now. Ciao, friends." There was no response, but you didn't glance back to read their faces or their silence. They all began to talk over each other as you left the room. You walked out of the lobby to see Dr. de Kuiper standing there. He lit up as he saw you. Your face stayed quite the same. "Mr. (l/n)! I'm glad you're here. I was... well," He cleared his throat. "I realized that when I asked if you'd like to go to the cafe you um... You were preoccupied." He looked away, gripping his forearm and drumming his fingers along it. You raised an eyebrow. "I just want you to know if you've changed your mind, you're in no obligation to-" He went on for an obnoxiously long time. He went on some more and then he- What's this? Kept going on. You were tempted to check the time.

"Would you feel better if I asked you out?" You interjected. He paused, blinking rapidly. "Huh...?" "Dr. de Kuiper, would you like to go out to the cafe with me?" You folded your hands. His face went red and he smiled. "Why yes, I'd love to." You felt a tug at the corner of your mouth. You knew you were being a little too hard on him. He was astoundingly cute, even if he did go on rants at every given chance.

Honestly, admit it (y/n), if you weren't stressed out, exhausted and hungry as all fuck, you'd be all doe eyes and sappy over this man.

You talked as you walked to his car. It was much lighter in humor than it was the last time you had. In fact, by the time you two had sat down in the cafe, you'd officially began to give him a chance.

  ------------------------------

  This was hopeless. He tried to initiate so many intelligent conversations with him, but (y/n) was about dense as a rock. Basic physics were lost on him. When he said he "thought you couldn't see anything in space because there wasn't any oxygen", Siebren died a little inside. This man was not nearly as intelligent as he'd thought. It was incredibly disappointing. Perhaps that was on him though, for making such a quick judgement, but could he really blame himself? It wasn't unreasonable for him to speculate that (y/n) had been a man of science; that he somehow made the discovery of the ability of botanical replication through years of research and dedication. But no, he was just a gardener who got into a bit of an accident. Siebren couldn't help but let his mind wander as the man babbled on about the mundane uses of his power. Now he's talking about his hometown. Still talking about his hometown. Oh, this was tedious.

(y/n) then asked him about his hometown. Christ, wasn't he at ALL curious about his work? "I grew up in Dokkum, Friesland." He gave a tight smile. He watched (y/n) perk up. "I've never heard athat name before." Of course not. "What was it like?" "Oh, rural, full of waterways," He picked at the tart he'd ordered. "I prefer Den Haag. I had my sights set on it for as long as I can remember. I worked towards a VWO specifically to be at the facility here."

"Wow," (Y/n) perked up. "That's impressive." He gave an amused smile. Honestly he could tell this guy anything and he'd be impressed. It was kind of disappointing. Siebren was really looking forward to finding an equal to his intelligence, to his repute. (Y/n) was far from either. This was beginning to be incredibly disappointing.

 "That's something I respect about you, Dr. de Kuiper," (Y/n) nodded as he took a sip of his latte. "You worked towards where you are. You found what you liked and you stuck with it." Siebren raised an eyebrow. What would he know about hard work? He got to where he was by sheer happenstance. He won some sort of universal lottery to get to where he is. "What have you worked towards, Mr. (l/n)?" He sat back in his seat. "Oh, well," (Y/n) hesitated. Of course. "A lot of things, really. My job, mostly. I always wanted to do something in the arts, but I never wanted to fall into the 'starving artist' stereotype. I wanted to have a foundation. I grew up seeing people fail, and I don't know if that made me more determined to succeed or just more scared to fail. But, I made it. I teach classes and I now have another skill set to use." "And is that your struggle, Mr. (l/n)?" Siebren sipped his coffee. So he was some artist. Every city has some starry eyed artist who thinks he can make it big, and ends up working in a restaurant for the rest of his life.

(Y/n) drummed his fingers on the table. "A lot of my struggles have been, well, really personal. But I know what it's like to want to get out of somewhere, so I really respect your hustle." "Really? I thought you said you loved your hometown." "I do, I do. Not all places you want to outgrow are physical." "I see."

There was a silence that followed, that grew more and more uncomfortable. What made it worse is that it didn't seem to bother (y/n) as much as it did Siebren. The professor wasn't used to this kind of stillness. Conferences were debates with him. His seminars were long winded and interspersed with questions. They were fire and lightning and the power of the universe. They were not this. He watched (y/n). He was admiring the coffee shop, the gentle plays of a smile on his lips. He was... comfortable. "This is a really nice place." (Y/n) murmured. "The people here are so polite, and this coffee is delicious."

The damn silence continued until it forced Siebren to accept it. His racing mind calmed, even if just for a moment.

 It was out of the ordinary for him, alarmingly so, to have nothing to talk about. His go-to subject would be his work, but he feared it was lost on (y/n). He'd spent his life denying his rural upbringing, so anything personal was out of the question and... And he didn't have a life. The though dawned on him, dreadfully so. He did not have a life outside of work. He took an interest in music, he attended symphonies, went to soirees, but the reason was always work related. He frequented social gatherings, but the focal point was always meet and greets with other minds in his field. He thought that's what this was going to be.

"You're an interesting person, Mr. (l/n)." Siebren broke the insufferable quiet. The man blinked his curious doe eyes and tilted his head. "Really?" He said. "Thank you." "You are far more... down to earth than I initially thought. Not that I expected you to be arrogant, of course." There was a thinly veiled insult, but it seemed to fly right over (y/n)'s head. "Thank you Dr. de Kuiper. I appreciate that." He grinned. "Same to you. I'm sorry I misjudged you earlier." Siebren thanked him with a dry chuckle. He suddenly felt hyper aware of (y/n)'s eyes on him. "Y'know, Dr. de Kuiper? You and me, we're the same." Siebren's eyes widened. What could be possibly have in common with him but a lobby door? "I can tell you're the type of guy who wants to help people. When you gave me a ride home-" He was trying to charm a fellow scientist... "That was kindness. Now, I might not be educated into astrophysics or... or anything that needs math really, but I do know when people could use a hand. And I really respect people like you who give that hand." Siebren's face heated up.

"Oh... Thank you." "I don't mean to embarrass you-" "No, no, it's quite alright." He cleared his throat, aware his cheeks and ears were probably red. "I'm just surprised, is all. That's very insightful, thank you." "No problem, Dr. de Kuiper." (Y/n) nursed his latte. "I was really rude before. You should know that I really think highly of you. You're humble." He'd never been called that before. "What makes you think that?" "I can tell you see there's more to people than a degree."

Siebren was silent for many moments. He thought about that for many hours after parting ways.

[iohourtime]

Love Goddess: An Ariyama Exchange Fic (Translation)

Myojo 2013.12 to 2014.05

T/N: I want to make it very clear that I didn't write this! 😅’ Please let me know if there were any errors.

I came across this recently after Yamada mentioned how he tends to write tragic love stories in the recent Urujump and someone commented that we should revisit “Love Goddess”.

I thought about making 6 posts but at the end of the day, each chapter is pretty short, so I grouped all 6 of them. The “author’s comment” are actually messages between Yamada and Dai-chan and they described their... um... thought process.  They were clearly half-assing this, so don’t take it too seriously.  Also, I think when they came up with their unit song, My Girl, they were probably thinking about this story.

Original source: @Momomo415  https://mobile.twitter.com/momomo415/status/772828405490331648

Also here, here, and here

Myojo Staff

Starting this month, you can read the exchange fiction written by Yamada and Arioka!  Taking the “top batter” position, Yamada started the story with a bang!!

----------

Chapter 1: My Best Friend is My Rival in Love?!

By Yamada Ryosuke

Arioka and I were in the same year in the same high school.  We knew each other since we were kids; in fact, we were best friends.  However, we had completely opposite personalities.  Arioka was serious and a bit timid and weak, and in comparison, I was a bit of a player*… if I may say so myself.  I didn’t have a steady girlfriend; I dated a lot of girls from school.  

[* Charai refers to flashy, shallow, frivolous, goof, thoughtless and also super flirty behaviour.  When used to describe a person, it’s probably closest to “player” in English.  I will stick with “charai” when they are talking about behaviour since I haven’t thought of a single word that describes all of the above.]

Recently, Arioka had fallen for Yuko, a girl from the class next to his.  Every day, he would nag me with questions like “How do I get her to go out with me?” Once in a while, I gave him some advice on matters of love.

This story started one day after school.  As usual, I was in the gym making out with a girl whose name I didn’t know.  I heard familiar footsteps approaching, and even though my eyes were closed, I knew it was Arioka who was coming over to get me.

“Yamada!! Let’s go home!! Hey you, you are doing that with [random] girls again?!”

My eyes opened and the girl slowly looked back at Arioka.  At that moment, Arioka froze; the bag he was holding fell on the ground.

“Yu...Yuko-chan…!!”

[T/N: Yes, “Yu” as in Chinen Yuri.]

Author’s Comment:

While this is totally fictional, I wanted to write a love triangle where Dai-chan and I were fighting over a girl.  Dai-chan, I leave this to you to make the story more messed up (lol)!!

----------

Chapter 2: Hitting Rock Bottom, My Revenge Begins!

By Arioka Daiki

I definitely saw something I didn't want to see.

My best friend Yamada and my crush Yuko kissing!!

Unable to take the shock, I ran out of that place.

“That girl is Yuko-chan, my crush? That can't be!! I don't know what to think~!”

I heard Yamada's urgent appeal from behind me, but I wasn’t listening, I ran and ran aimlessly… and without noticing, I ended up at the park.

“Why is this happening…”

For me who lost my best friend and the girl I liked in one shot, I didn’t know what to do.  I wondered why I am so useless...

“Yamada is so popular, why can't I be like that... What does he have that I don't?”

I was thinking about that as I walked into a convenience store. And then it appeared before my eyes: a handbook for love called “From Today Onwards, You Can Be Popular Too”. Grasping at straws, I poured over the contents of the book, studying [the methods] over and over again…

A few days later, I, who used to wear my uniform super properly, left three buttons of my shirt open and wore a sparkly earring in my pierced ear.  My hair was waxed and big and I had a party girl* under each of my arms.  This was the new me that bumped into Yamada.

[* Ike ike girl (イケイケガール) is literally translated as a “go go girl”. Similar to “charai”, there seems to be certain traits associated with the term.  I am just going to use “party girl” here.]

“You are Ar...Arioka?”

Facing this shocked Yamada, I openly declared.

“I will make you feel the pain I felt!”

Author's Comment:

Since Yamada requested that I make “the story messy!”, I turned this into a revenge drama.  It was an experience imagining ourselves being bad (laughs).  Let’s see what you can cook up next [Yamada]!

----------

Chapter 3: The Playboy met His True Love?

By Yamada Ryosuke

Unbuttoned uniform, sparkly earring, and waxed hair.

The Arioka in front me had certainly turned into an “unmissable character”. However, his eyes were wide opened from shock.

That’s right. I had dyed my hair blonde and was wearing colour con, so I had become more charai than ever!

“Take a good look, Arioka! This is called “the comeback of a player”!!!”

Faced with that [embarrassing] situation, Arioka was crestfallen. Yet the party girls with him became turned on by this defeated Arioka.

I casually met the eyes of one of the girls…

Eh?! Is that…. Is that Yuko?!

In other words, Yuko, who made out with me just a few days ago, was attracted to Arioka at this moment….

What?  When have I cared about Yuko?  She was just one of the many girls I made out with!  

Well then, why is my heart so confused…

I slowly left that place.

Author’s Comment:

This month’s theme is the comeback of a player (laughs)! Yuko, who was uninterested at first, had finally turned around and looked at Arioka.  Dai-chan, how will you continue this battle of the players?

----------

Chapter 4: The Curtains are Drawn on the Battle of the Players!

By Arioka Daiki

With a sad look on his face, Yamada turned back and started to walk away slowly.  

And then... “Wait a minute!”, Yuko-chan suddenly shouted at Yamada.  I looked up when I heard her voice. Yuko-chan slowly looked back and forth between me and Yamada, and with determination, she said this.

“I love players. The more they play the field, the more I love them. So with that, the first ever “Battle of the Players” begins!”

Not quite knowing what she meant, both Yamada and I asked, “Battle of the Players?”

“Yama-chan and Dai-chan are part of it of course, but all the guys at school who feel like they are players are welcome to join too.  The winner of the “Battle of the Players” can go out with me!”

Hearing Yuko-chan’s words, I was fired up. “I’ll do it!”  

Yamada, cracking his knuckles and brushing his hair upwards, said, “I am not going to lose!”

And then Yuko-chan explained the details of the battle; both Yamada and I were dumbfounded.

Author’s Comment:

No way. I didn’t expect Yamada to become even more charai than me, I wasn’t sure how to continue… So, I decided to add the popular battle element from shounen manga.  Let’s heat this up!

----------

Chapter 5: Arioka’s Secret is Revealed…?!

By Yamada Ryosuke

[T/N: To be honest, some of the characters’ actions are making me a bit uncomfortable.  I guess they are stereotypical “charai” behaviour?  Which kinda made them creeps, but whatever...  😅’ ]

“Simply speaking, I am going to observe the two of you round the clock to see which of you have a more charai lifestyle.”

And just as she said, Yuko started observing us the next day.  Even though we were being watched, I was very charai to begin with, so I was pretty confident in my chances of winning.  After all, I was someone who greeted every girl a “good morning” with kisses.

While I was confident I had the edge, two days, three days later, the winner was still not decided.  Yuko said Arioka was showing his “player” quality by repeatedly flipping girls’ skirts and she was feeling turned on by that.

This went on until one day, I was in the nurse’s station getting hot and heavy with this girl from my class.  Yuko and Arioka happened to walk by.  To appeal to Yuko, Arioka cut in and started getting involved with the same girl I was with.

“WTH is this?! I am not going to lose!”, I said as I ripped open my uniform to show my beautiful, muscular body*.  Seeing me and not wanting to lose, Arioka also started taking off his shirt.  However, when Arioka saw his own topless self, he immediately regretted doing that.  That is because Arioka’s tummy was on full display!  In that moment, the battle was over…  I snickered, knowing that I had won.

[* Yamada just really wanted to remind people he got a nice muscular body, huh?]

Author’s Comment:

Since we didn’t really thought through the plot of the story, it was a bit hard to keep going but I trust Dai-chan’s powerful ideas! Who will get Yuko’s heart? I am very curious to know too!

----------

Chapter 6: The Battle of the Players is Over! Who Got True Love in the End?

By Arioka Daiki

Facing Yamada’s well toned abs, I started taking off my shirt too and immediately realized it was the wrong move.  That was because my abs were not in top condition.  I was eating a lot of good food during winter and didn’t train my body, so it was no wonder I looked like that.

Yuko was staring at Yamada’s body and she was definitely into it.  Yamada pulled Yuko into his embrace and they kissed passionately.

Yup, total defeat-----.

To stop my tears from coming out, I held my head up, but then I felt someone’s warm gaze on me.  Suddenly, I remembered there was someone else in the room other than Yamada, Yuko, and I.  In the room, there was also Keiko* who was making out with Yamada earlier!  Keiko slowly opened her mouth, her eyes turned heart shaped, and shouted.

[* Yes, Kei as in Inoo Kei]

“Arioka-kun’s tummy reminds me of my papa’s!  I loooove it!”

From that point on, Keiko pursued me relentlessly!  No matter where I was, she was always beside me. No matter what I said, she would laugh [like it was the funniest joke].  My heart slowly turned towards the single-minded Keiko.

3 days later, I saw Yamada and Yuko taking a walk and holding hands.  Now I was able to wholeheartedly support this couple.

That was because beside me…

My new love goddess, Keiko, was smiling at me.

Author’s Comment:

Since Inoo-chan was there, the story has a happy ending (laughs).  Honestly, at first I was worried as the story kinda went off the rails!  But I was enjoying the writing process.  Will this story be published? Until the day we meet again, to be continued~

[Aside: I don’t know what to say.  I guess Keiko likes the dad bod… in any case, she can help Dai-chan draw on some abs if need be. All things considered, the fight in My Girl makes more sense - at least the 3 of them had grown up together and frankly, I think the girl in the song probably think they are ridiculous and dump them anyway. ]

Cast

[humorlessproductions]

[movie] Fire, Ice & Dynamite (1990 Willy Bogner)

Here's a ridiculous project I recently completed. I did this project strictly for myself, so I wasn't even going to post it to YouTube, but I thought there might be one or two people out there who might be entertained by this movie, so here it is.

I have a confession to make- I'm a sucker for ski movies. Which makes sense, because I'm an avid skier as well as a pro audio/video engineer. The old ones are cool; the new ones are cool. I tend to prefer the big mountain / ski porn type flicks, so I usually head straight to the films from Teton Gravity Research. Matchstick Productions or even the old Greg Stump videos are cool. Sure, there are the old Warren Miller standbys, and I'll watch those as long as I can mute the audio.

This one, Fire, Ice & Dynamite, isn't a ski film in the same style as those ones I mentioned. This one is an action/sports flick with a super ridiculous plot, but a plot nonetheless, which includes a bunch of skiing, but also some other, so-called 'extreme' sports like downhill mountain biking, whitewater kayaking, wall climbing, and bungie jumping. That all sounds pretty tame by today's standards, but back in 1990, this was the gnarly stuff. And even by today's standards, some of scenes in this movie are pretty nuts- the wall climbing on the face of a dam, the fast mountain biking on a narrow cliff ledge, the skiing down a mountain with no snow on it, just a bunch of rocks and gravel.

In fact, I just saw a FB post the other day (in Feb 2018) from the Teton Gravity Research people who were hyping somebody who had combined mountain biking with paragliding, using the bike to build up some speed and launching with a paraglider 'chute on. Definitely a cool idea, which Willy Bogner employs in this movie (48:20-50:00), released almost 3 decades prior to that post. Willy Bogner was waayy ahead of the curve.

Any way, I first saw this movie when I picked it up on VHS for a buck at the old Tower Records (RIP) outlet which was just a couple doors down from the old Knitting Factory (also RIP) in Hollywood. For no other reason than it had this amazing cover-

And if you haven't seen this movie, you can trust me when I say nothing in that image is false advertising. All of that is actually in the movie.

But, of course, those were the old VHS days, and the movie not only was in 4:3 pan-and-scan, but also the audio was in mono. Total bummer. I'd heard that it had come out in the 90s on DVD, in widescreen, in Germany, but I was never able to track down a copy.

Now, I see that somebody has finally uploaded a widescreen version to YT (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXWxYR45tIY&t=2910s), although it has some problems. First, it's tiny- 640x262. Although that's a standard dvd rip, yes? 640 across the top? I have no idea what software they used to rip the dvd, but their version on YT looks pretty rough.

Second, there's some guy translating the entire movie in Russian (Turkish?, not sure). He's literally speaking every character's parts through the entire movie, even during that super cheesy song that the woman performs in the club. That's actually all reasonable and understandable, because for their purposes, they were just uploading the movie for all the well-informed Russians who are into this sort of thing. But it's a total bummer for my purposes, because you can hear in the underlying English audio track to their version, that audio is in stereo. If they could have just posted a second, clean version without the translator, I wouldn't have had to do any of this work.

But, here's what I did- I took their video, and applied the audio from my English version to it. Sucks that it's in mono, but this is my best and only option.

And of course, there was more work to it than it sounds.

The first thing I did was remaster the English audio version. Sometimes I'll have to go through a whole bunch of plug-ins to really dial in how I want it to sound. I forget how much trial and error went in to this, but I ended up throwing on a T-RacksS CS by IK Multimedia, and pulled up the FM Broadcast preset. I always throw on a FabFilter limiter at the end, to avoid any redlining at all. That was pretty much all it needed.

The only audio I could use from the Russian version was the outro song. I could have used the English version, but the Russian version not only is in stereo, but the translator guy doesn't talk over it. So obviously, I'm gonna use that one, right?

Well, not so fast. In listening to it, I heard some really weird phasing going on. I didn't necessarily fix that, but I minimized it by pulling in the stereo separation of the two channels, from 100% to 55%, using Stereo Tools by Sonalksis.

That, actually, was the easy part. The difficult part was syncing. Here's a shot of my final edit in Presonus Studio One-

You see all those vertical blue lines on the English track? Presonus calls those Audio Bend Markers. Those are really easy to use, but it's time consuming to have to match up the soundwaves on the English track to those on the Russian track (which I call Turkish, because I wasn't listening to the foreign language too closely). Word by word, second by second, for the entire length of the film. All those markers designate a place where I had to stretch the audio one way or another to get the English audio to match up with the timing of the Russian audio. You'll also notice at the end where I crossfaded the English audio out and the Russian video in for that outro song.

Once that was exported, it was time to import the Russian video and the remastered and retimed English audio into Final Cut Pro X.

The work in FCPX would have been very straight forward and easy, except I wanted to make a couple edits.

First, there's a weird bit at 48:55 where a short clip is in fast motion. You can see it in the Russian version if you want to. That little clip, even though it's only 2 seconds long, always bugged me. So I fixed it- I slowed it down to something that looks closer to real time, and then shortened it to fit in the same 2 seconds and 11 frames as the original sped-up clip, just so that the timing of it works out and I don't have to re-sync all the audio that follows that scene.

The second edit was just a mistake on the part of the original editors / filmmakers. There's a scene at 54:07 that shows the inimitable Marjoe Gortner (as sports announcer voice guy Dan Selby) in the helicopter clearly moving his mouth, saying some words, but yet there are no words in the soundtrack. You can also see that one in the Russian version. Curiously, in my English VHS version, that scene isn't there. There's just another b-roll shot of the dam.

Luckily for me, after I edited that shot out, the two adjoining scenes weren't too much of a jump cut, so I didn't have to do any fancy footwork to make that work, either with the video or the audio.

Here's a screenshot of my FCPX edit-

I know I didn't have to type out all of this. I could have just posted the video and said, 'hey, here's a cool thing I did. I matched up the English audio with the widescreen video. Enjoy!' But I figured some people might like to know some of the technical stuff that goes into projects like this. And honestly, they're usually much more complicated than this one. This one was relatively simple.

But in any event, enjoy!

Brian / Humorless Productions.