#i just think older games with that really crunched style

[somberine]

theres a certain charm and appeal really old NES games have, and people will often moan and complain about "Oh too many indie games use the old style graphics these days" but listen...sometimes its nicer to see a little love for the older game graphics than constant HD stuff you know?

[kalechipslives]

sorekara setting design

Here are some notes on the development of SOREKARA's style and presentation. If you couldn't already tell, SK takes a lot of inspiration from 70's/80's anime, Nobody's Boy Remi being the reference point for much of it. I've always respected Dezaki for his monumental work so I've always wanted to pay tribute to it (especially the early stuff). I don't think I was as successful as I'd like to have been, but alas! There is still more to come! So without further ado!

I was just talking about Dezaki , but now I shall talk about something completely different. To set the tone, I created the cat and the trolley setting first. The Girl's design should be plenty obvious (lol). But the background here I paid special attention to... I find the paints of Night on the Galactic Railroad to be very unique. They have a line less, airbrushed quality to them that blends in surprisingly well with the characters. I did some research and studied 児玉喬夫 Takao Kodama's work, as they were credited with setting design for this film as well as Genji Monogatari. Actually, if you look at Genji Monogatari's backgrounds, they have the exact same airbrushed quality! I had never done a background like this before (I am certainly not an environmental artist) but I think I did a fairly good job of it.

...I immediately switched gears and without thinking, went back to Dezaki works. I can't say I was very faithful at all. The night sky is easy to paint, with it's notable color spray and paint blots, but I diverged quite a bit with the watercolor textures. Shichiro Kobayashi is the artist I looked to the most, and this project made me appreciate him more than ever before. Just looking at his paints gets me emotional... The vibrant colors, the dramatic angles, you can just feel his reverence for life overflowing from the work. There really isn't anyone better. I need to study more if I'm to capture even a fraction of his skill. That being said, I did make sure to animate the backgrounds slightly with the sparkles on the water-- The reflection of light on water is my favorite to draw! Also, flowers are a very important motif (for various reasons, ohohoho). Kobayashi seemed to love drawing flowers, the paint around the edges give is a delicate look. Actually, if you look at the textbox...

Instead of full-color CGs, I opted to use "postcard memories". This was a technique Dezaki used where he would show a detailed, scratchy-lined illustration to highlight important moments instead of fully animating them. It creates a really memorable image that draws out all of your emotions! I tried to emulate them (the more single-toned ones, that is) for the game. It was 1/3 Dezaki worship, 1/3 time-saving technique, and 1/3 excuse to draw lots of scratchy lines. I love scratchy lines. This way, I could make a lot of memorable shots that were visually interesting without overworking myself.

As another note, I looked to Akio Sugino's character art when drawing. The characters don't really look like Sugino characters, but I was emulating his shading technique with (once-again) the scratchy lines. Ah, I was in heaven. Looking at his older work, the linework is hardly ever clean-- but the rough, hand-drawn edge gives everything a tactile quality and the strong anatomy makes everyone so gorgeous. It's like an engraving come to life.

Finally, the anime effects! On the left you can see soothat before his values are adjusted (very dark, isn't he?) and on the right you can see he is in-game, values adjusted with a more appropriate "anime" look. This is because anime cells are put onto a CRT screen, so they end up looking very different. I created an auto action in CSP to adjust the color grating and line quality of every asset before popping them into the game for the chromatic aberration to take effect. The lines are slightly crunched a blurrier compared to the original. It gives it a more "physical" look. The colors are fixed up-- you'll see there is no pure black. If you look at a physical anime cell, you'll see they more often than not do not include pure black. There is usually a tint of green or red in there.

The chromatic aberration filter... I don't know how noticeable it is to the average player, but the game actually has a built-in filter that creates a slight "chroma" effect to emulate the look of frames through a crt/light. This means the red + blue + green values of the entire screen are split up and adjusted to layer slightly off from each other, giving it a little visual interest. It was AN EXTREME doozy to put in, with my poor programmer coding it and re-coding it until the end. It seemed simple at first, but there are parts where the game zooms in which totally broke the filter! It made out eyes bleed! But it was repaired in the end, so blessing upon you, Sandy. You saved my life.

The reason why I looked to Ie Naki Ko/Nobody's Boy Remi specifically is because that's where I feel the most "pure" energy from. It is a show that leans incredibly hard on it's techniques to get by but because of that it really embodies what I love about old anime-- It has a selfless reverence for its subject that drives you to watch and surrender your heart. Dezaki's powerful directing, Sugino's gorgeous drawings and Kobayashi's majestic paintings come together to make a work that shines. The setting is truly at the forefront with the characters getting lost in the grandeur. That's the attitude I had with SOREKARA: "There are things much greater than us, so isn't it wonderful that we are able to see them side-by-side?" There are many animation techniques that are cost-effective while still being utterly beautiful, I would love to copy them someday but I wasn't able to go that far yet. At least not in the demo. There's still time, I suppose... Studying limited animation from old anime is actually extremely useful when creating visual novels. Understanding the placement of cells and their layering/movement has given me even more ideas for stories!

I ended up going on a rant about anime again ^^" But it's so beautiful, you must now understand my heart going into the work. I always think of my characters and their journey, of course, but before that I think of the setting. I want the player to experience beautiful and mysterious things alongside their traveling companions. There is still so much more to make. I hope to incorporate more Dezaki-style techniques in this and future works. Please remember the true message of my works.... Not that love finds a way, or that your connections can transform your world...it's that....anime is very, very cool.

Thank you for reading 🙇🏽‍♂️

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Pixar's ELIO, directed by COCO co-director Adrian Molina, would've opened today... Albeit a much different version of the movie.

The delay from this date to June 2025 meant that the fast food promo deals put in place a while ago couldn't be changed, thus - HOODWINKED TOO style - some of the toys are out now, as seen in the pic above...

Yep, I've heard by now what ELIO has supposedly been going through.

It's a unique Pixar production in that it was delayed by about a year and a half...

... AFTER a teaser trailer and poster for the film were released, following a big info drop on the movie at the fall 2022 D23 Expo...

Not even THE GOOD DINOSAUR, an infamously troubled Pixar production, went through that. That film was delayed before anyone outside of D23 attendees saw any footage from the scrapped version of the film, though renders of the older bigger Arlo and the bipedal version of Spot did leak.

All of this agita for ELIO...

... and I feel fine! Yeah, I'm not really worried about this movie.

It's easy to equate "troubled production" with "oncoming disaster", something that's absolutely gonna fail, an abomination from the get-go.

Yet, TOY STORY 2 and RATATOUILLE exist. Other Pixar films, and plenty of other animated movies, go through some form of hell before the ship is steered away from the cyclone. Sometimes within a year or so from release. The end results are always subjective anyways.

So, I have no idea how ELIO will turn out. If it's a movie *I* myself like, if it's a movie that resonates with the public, yadda yadda yadda.

ELIO, however, does not seem like a GOOD DINOSAUR situation to me. GOOD DINOSAUR not only lost its director (Bob Peterson), but the whole movie was thrown out and the replacement director (Peter Sohn) started over from scratch with a few core elements retained. ELIO seems like it's going to be half the movie we saw in the teaser this past summer, and a lot of new stuff. Sections being reworked, rather than the whole movie being thrown out and Molina & co. starting over. Voice work to be done, especially post-strikes, and they'll need time to animate all the new stuff. Pete Docter isn't the leader John Lasseter was, Lasseter likely would've canned Molina and had another director reimagine the concept/story to his liking.

I think it's cool, if this is all true, that Docter is giving Molina and the filmmakers more time to rework the film. Especially after the marketing campaign has kicked in. With that, it probably should stay in June 2025. I had thought for a bit that it could move up a bit and take MOANA 2's place, because that Thanksgiving release sounds like it's going to be a crunch production, what with Auli'i Cravalho and The Rock signing on *just recently* to reprise their roles nine months before release. I'd delay that to spring 2025, honestly. Disney can afford to miss the Thanksgiving slot this year, they'll be fine. INSIDE OUT 2 and CG LION KING prequel can be their sole animation releases this year, even if the latter won't be billed as such.

As for its box office prospects? Big budget sci-fi animated features, even in a not-COVID world, struggle. Especially space-setting sci-fi animation. TITAN A.E. and TREASURE PLANET, anyone? Only something very low-budget would cut it, but we're talking $200m Pixar movies, not that microbudget CLONE WARS movie. (STAR WARS isn't sci-fi to me, but you get my drift, right?)

Pixar, however, *did* score a box office hit with WALL-E all the way back in 2008. Despite the spacebound adventure and the future Earth setting, the marketing wisely focused on the cute robots in love. That got folks to see it back then, methinks. ELIO will need a similar hook, and it's a summer release as well, so it could be primed for a blockbuster run.

However, most non-sequel animated features play a different game now, in a post-COVID outbreak world: Open tiny, have ludicrous legs. That's fine if your feature cost $90m and you made around $250m at the worldwide box office, but like ELEMENTAL before it, ELIO's probably going to need to make around $500m worldwide to break even in the eyes of the money people - who seem to keep forgetting that animated movies have fantastic longevity beyond their theatrical release. ELEMENTAL had the fun premise and the love story working in its favor after its blah opening weekend (though it was pretty high for a post-outbreak animated opening), ELIO... I don't know what it has at the moment. Will the "kid becomes Earth's ambassador within a massive council of aliens" really get audiences to come flockin' in summer 2025? I do not know, but I hope it does good, for Molina's sake, and so we can be spared the five gazillion "is Pixar circling the drain???" articles...

All I know is, I'm looking forward to it. Space adventure and colorful aliens and stuff, by way of Pixar and their resources.

[mayordea]

huzzah! 2023 art review!

it’s almost the end of the year, wowzers! i always do one of these art review thingies since i always like looking back at the art ive made :> last year i posted the review on my other account and left it at there, but this year i want to actually review each month and notable pieces i made… just for fun!

this post is very much just for me lol, but i hope someone out there enjoys it. month-by-month review + previous year in reviews will be under the cut! 🩷

(also, shoutout to tumblr for going rouge and posting this way way earlier than i had scheduled 😍 luckily tumblr post editor is weirdly based and kept all my embedded links when i pasted it from the old one? hell yeah)

Jan: started off the year with a painting of my beloved ocs after ending last year with one! (and i will be talking about my older year in reviews, rest assured). this was my obligatory cute shared scarf art, and i wanted to try attempting to render something more involved like two characters and draping cloth. i don't think the result was too shabby, though this was before i discovered my favorite rendering brush for procreate, so in hindsight, it looks kinda flat and boring now. where's all the crunch? ah but anyway, starting a whole year with your art in a mid place compared to what you made later on is par for the course.

Feb: probably the month where i had the least art to put here, i remember scraping a little to find one. this was a chrobin piece i made in my sketchbook! nothing too noteworthy... i think i tried doing a slightly different approach to coloring with markers (applying the color before the lineart) and incorporating paint, but i remember this one giving me trouble. first of all, the size i drew this in was really small (it was in a small sketchbook and i decided to mask the margins with comparatively wide masking tape), and second of all the paper was absolutely NOT built for gouache, so it ended up a kind of wrinkly and muddy mess. i mean i'm still not the best with gouache now but still, not my best.

March: a redraw of a robin piece i made back when i was still on amino. i probably won't share the old versions because they're crap, so just trust me on the redraw part. anyway, the last iteration of the concept was in 2019 i think? and while i was proud of it for a while, its luster finally faded and i decided to try doing it again in procreate. this was when i discovered my love for the soft chalk brush in the jingsketch basics brush pack. for a while i've been using the hard render brush in that pack to render, but this one's texture and chalkiness totally changed the game. i was in love!! also tried to be a little more crazy and vibrant with how i applied the base colors, using saturated colors across the board. this process didn't consistently stick, but i think it yielded some neat results here. another hit from this month was my piece of grandmaster robin, since i'm really proud of the detail here!.

Apr: guys, april was MY MONTH! i remember making so much art in just a few weeks, something just clicked in my brain i guess. i chose my drawings of hagane rin and len since this was when i truly began to get comfy in my lineart era (after the grandmaster drawing). this month was full of detailed line drawings at that, but this one was what made me both enjoy the process a lot and do more of it. hell yeah. other hits: vocaloids at mcdonald's (i drew a background omg!!!), alice in ny fanart (just the euphoria of finally nailing a composition for this piece after struggling with it in november was great), and the end-world normopathy fanart (it's a line drawing, and a traditional one at that. i was happy with incorporating gold accents into my typically monochromatic style when it comes to my line-focused drawings as well as getting tamari's mechanical details nailed).

May: hell yeah. evil power couple time. this one was another line-art heavy one since i thought it fit the vibe. the softer colors in the background i feel like could have been executed a little better, but i do like how this came out, especially the armor (good god fe armor is a pain to render, but i think i've gotten better at it this year! middle school me would be so jealous). not much else to say here. Other hit this month would be my alice of human sacrifice fanart, another line-heavy traditional drawing. i think it turned out nice, especially for a crammed composition lol.

Jun: another end-world normopathy-centered fanart. i mentioned it in my og post but i was trying out a slightly different painting style where i did a black-and-white base first and then added colors as an overlay (also in the initial upload of the post i was so fucking meek about posting fanart of mariyam's alternate design teased at the end of the mv?? 😭 sorry about that, i've edited it out but it's still in early reblogs. kind of cringe on my part). i didn't end up committing to this consistently cuz the beginning process was kind of tedious (plus i'm too inept to pay close attention to values anyway), but laying down all the colors after the long rendering process was rewarding! it's a nice alternative with i get bored with my other method to yield basically the same-looking result lol. this month featured some more pieces that tried using this process, like the one with my oc alice, lucina and dark pit hanging out, and f!robin's resplendent design from feh.

Jul: ah yes my typical flavor of "improvised oc art that i invent new symbolism for on the fly that i apply meaning to after i'm finished". kinda just wanted to paint something again because i've been doing a lot of line drawings lately and to go back to my old painting process again. honestly, i mainly picked this one because i wanted more oc art and non-lineart drawings to be in this chart lol. art i made this month that i'm real proud of is this family pic of some young cryptonloids (i really like how the colors came out on this one!) and my birthday drawing for miku's sweet 16, which was originally completed this month. i opted out of considering it for my july art to avoid confusion. also also, this very whack pathological facade fanart (plus some doodles i didn't post) opened my eyes to the beautiful world of NOISE and HALFTONES and just slapping crazy textures onto my art like nobody's business. hell yeah.

Aug: ok this one is kind of another piece i picked to represent this month that isn't quite my favorite but i chose anyway for the sake of variety (in this case, i wanted more traditional pieces and non-vocaloid stuff). for once, i used my bigger sketchbook to make a big n detailed piece for my boy's new brave alt in feh (that game has zero significance to me outside of cool alt costumes for my faves). my actual fave from this month was young miku/meiko/kaito chillin in their house; i'm real proud of the background and lighting! but i still like this robin too ofc, big fan of how the colors came out ;3

Sep: another traditional drawing! felt compelled to draw kandy again, specifically her evil miitopia great sage incarnation :> this one was pretty standard in terms of process, and not much was really done to experiment. just wanted to draw something cool of my girl for my sketchbook. other fave from this month is this sketchy miku i did, i like how loose it came out and how the colors pop.

Oct: pretty palutena!~ i think i went into this trying to do something a little different with my painting process (i think it was to try incorporating more colors in the shading like the blue in the dress or more saturated colors near the focal point, but i can't remember LOL) or try rendering a more detailed character w/ a background (even if the background was pretty vague). i like this one! especially the color cohesion, it's pretty swag imo. other faves from this month was fanart i made for the song "orbit" since i also like how the color cohesion came out for this one, and the maid dress/crossover drawing i made for cringetober. no other words needed to explain why.

Nov: another digital painting! it's yet another ghost song, this time "uncanny". i really loved the aesthetic of this song, especially its bold colors and simplistic shapes, so i wanted to try capturing it in my style. i really love how the colors turned out on this, though i've yet to truly recreate what i like about this particular painting again? regardless, it's one of my faves, deserving of one of my favorite ghost songs. few other highlights from this month would be my obligatory purple robin drawing for the month, my sketchbook drawing of my luka design, and my fanart of utsu-p's song "ga". i like how i was able to do a couple of my different "styles"/processes this month rather than just sticking to just one. they all have their own feel to them that i like to play around with depending on the idea.

Dec: and finally, we're at the end. like july, we have another heavily improvised oc drawing with symbolism i came up with on the spot. that's just how i do things. anyway, this turned out really good in my opinion! i tried to stick to a color palette i saved in procreate a long time ago, and damn is it a fine palette. it helped me get a little loose with the colors and solely focus on creating a strong composition with colors and contrast rather than get hung up on sticking to typical color palettes. i also really like how i did the background by essentially using the liquify tool to swish all the colors around and then polished it a little on top. made for a really cool effect. other notable work would be the companion piece i made with my other oc that had a similar style since i liked the process of this one. there will probably be more as of when i'm drafting this (at the beginning of december) but i just wanna be finished w this post already bro

all around, very satisfied with this year. there was kind of a lot of song fanarts (something that i am somewhat guilty about because it feels like i'm unoriginal or something, but i swear it's cuz i'm really passionate about vocaloid music and need to act on what my braincells do when i listen to certain tracks), but overall i'm happy i was able to maintain some slight variety in the art i made this year through my chosen mediums and "styles" or processes i use.

this was the first year where i really wanted to have a fully rendered piece i'm proud of to represent every month. now, i wouldn't recommend this since forcing yourself to make art is not a good mindset to be in (sometimes, with how early i pushed some pieces out in certain months to get the monthly quota over with makes it seem like i'm getting paid to have a pretty year-in-review LOL). i was pretty lucky to not really have much burnout i guess?

~~~

ok now that all that boring stuff is out of the way, here’s my previous years! this is the sixth year i have made an art review chart.

lightning round review time! (probably just gonna be more boring stuff)

2018: ok, so this was the year where my prime art hosting platform was… amino… specifically smash amino. as much as i could rant about how much i hate that place now, i cant deny that it got me creating a lot of stuff. also it was an actual date archive for my traditional art because i never got in the habit of dating my physical art 🙃 uh don’t mind the absolute horrid graphic design on this one. i grabbed a template which was probably saved from a bunch of other places from amino and… didn’t really know how the formatting was supposed to work. first of all, i edited this in picsart on my phone and the chart wasn’t transparent, and second of all i didn’t know you were supposed to crop only the main focus so it could fit and be a little more clear. hence why its such a visual eyesore. i've been meaning to remake it to make it a little less bad (once i get my hands on the traditional pieces again), but i guess its shoddiness adds to its charm, much like amino. but anyway, 2018 was a bit of a turning point year for me in the smash amino art biz. on amino, i mostly made copies of official artwork from smash (character renders and so forth), and this year i actually tried experimenting with my own original ideas and scenes (my copying roots were still around at this time tho, seen in the november drawing which is based on ssbu’s mural art. i mainly moved on to copying artwork from feh). this was also the year i got my ipad and finally got into making digital art. i didn’t have the knowledge of digital art that i have today obviously, so colors and lighting were usually on the plain side. i also hit my stride with making more ambitious traditional art that incorporated backgrounds and such, and they’re pieces i’m still really proud of!

2019: so, i actually made this chart some time in 2021 or 22 because i didnt make an actual chart in 2019 officially (i forgor). which bums me out because i deleted my amino account by then, so a lot of dates for traditional pieces were flushed down the toilet the one time i needed them. so, to compensate, i tried scraping any digital piece i could to fill in some spaces, which is why some are more underwhelming than others. but yeah since this isn’t fully accurate to my art progress that year, 2019 is a bit fuzzy. main thing of note that year is midway through i got really REEAALLY into fire emblem: three houses and drew a lot of art of the characters (not shown much on the chart because they were mostly sketches and whatnot). imo there’s not much improvement or stylistic changes from 2018 in this year to note. 2020 on the other hand…

2020: if it wasn’t clear, this was my jojo phase. i got into jojo at the end of 2019 and my downward spiral into jojo hell bled into 2020 :p as such, i made a lot of jojo art. and because i made a lot of jojo art, this was the year where my style shifted drastically. i feel like it’s a common phenomenon for artists getting a total stylistic makeover after getting into jojo. whether it’s to imitate araki’s style or just trying to accommodate the characters’… features, i ended up facing the same thing. gone were big round heads with tiny mouths and in were tree trunk necks and higher effort placed in learning anatomy, both for the full body and well as the face. it was around may of this year i got procreate and moved on from ibis paint for digital art. while i still have my personal hangups with procreate, im glad i ended up investing in it since it really just works for me!!

2021: around summer 2020 in peak pandemic mood, i decided to indulge in some nostalgia and listened to some old vocaloid tunes from my middle school days. and then i kept rediscovering more stuff, and then i ended up browsing producers' individual discographies, and uh yeah i am still suffering the consequences of my vocaloid renaissance to this day. while it wasn't prominent in the 2020 chart, it really started to leak its way into my art subjects in 2021. however, i still primarily stuck to my roots with fe/"smash"/jojo fanart. this year was mainly trying to find my style again i suppose? i had already learned the ropes of procreate, its limitations, and the options it has to aid with the art making process, so it was just a matter of flinging a bunch attempts at a ~style~ to see which one i liked the most. i did try finding a painting/rendering style a lot by way of copying (mainly guessing based on speedpaints) other artists' styles and process with digital painting which ended up growing into my own thing. i know they all sort of look the same, but march, april, and october of this year all had slightly different ways of doing all the shading n rendering for painting that i liked experimenting w/ in the future.

2022: by this point, i had fully gotten used to procreate and the methods i used to make art, and the vocaloid train had no signs of stopping. i think the main thing of note this year was that i was able to break out of the "5 million overlays of pink and purple color vomit" box my digital art was set it. while it used to amuse me when i first began abusing it in my art, i guess i just sort of grew out of it? it ended up making a lot of my art look homogeneous, and it took out the fun trial and error of picking the colors to match the atmosphere myself. i also tried to get more experimental with my compositions, mainly in trying to make them more dense with Stuff as well as finally get a little more comfortable with drawing backgrounds. besides those things however, i remember feeling my art progress was very stagnant this year, with not much noticeable change from january to december. perhaps i've gotten a bit comfortable with the state it's in. regardless, still a good year all around.

~~~

whew. THAT'S finally done with. if you made it to the end of this very me-centered ramble, congrats. i will probably make reblog additions in future years to continue this little saga. idk if i'll be as detailed as i was for the 2023 lineup, but we'll see.

[tatlandtaelsurveys]

Nineteen

Survey by a-zebra-is-a-striped-horse

When is your birthday? It is one of the twelve containing months. When’s the last time you got a bruise? Where? Haha on my side from a goat. I did Goat Yoga and got scraped by its hoof accidentally when it got down off my back. What is your birthstone? It is one of the twelve containing months. Do you braid your hair? Sometimes, not well. Do you like babies? Yes. Do you have any brothers? Yes. What’s your favorite type of bear? Black bear. What’s your favorite book? I don't know. Bambi, Brave, or Beauty and the Beast? Beauty and the Beast. Favorite breakfast food? Bacon. Do you enjoy bubble baths? I haven't had one with bubbles in a while. Blowing bubbles in general are fun. Do you have any beaded bracelets? No. I don't care for them. Favorite kind of bread? I have this one I like of lately. Boobs or butts? I like my butt. Do you like men with beards? I liked my bf's beard. What kind of beer do you like to drink? Ugh I don't like beer. Do you own any boots or belts? Boots. Bootcuts or bell-bottoms? Bootcut. Do you like bologna? Yes. Do you like going to the beach? Yes. Baseball or basketball? Basketball. What’s the name of your best friend? I really don't know if I have one. Though I do consider my bf a best friend. Favorite color out of: blue, black, or brown? Hmm black. Do you prefer blondes or brunettes? Maybe bald? Brunette. What’s your bra size? I wish smaller. Which types of bugs creep you out? TICKS. Screw them. Do you have a boyfriend? Yes. Favorite kind of bird? I don't really have one.

What is your favorite color? Purple. What is your favorite type of cookie? Oatmeal and Rasin. What kinds of clothes do you wear? What’s your style? I rather not be too descriptive here. Last time you cried, and why? Yesterday. A deep conversation with my bf of something I was having troubles with. Do you still own any CD’s? Yes. How many cousins do you have? Geez a lot from my mother's side. What’s your favorite type of cereal? Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Do you prefer crayons or colored pencils? It depends how I feel but I lean more towards Crayons. Which is creepiest - caterpillars, cicadas, crickets, centipedes, or cockroaches? Cockroaches. Who do you care about the most? My bf, family. How do you take your coffee? Cream. What kind of a car do you drive? Haha no thank you. Would you rather play chess, checkers, or croquet? Checkers. Are you Catholic or a Christian? - Who is your current crush? My bf. What’s your favorite type of candy? Sour. What’s your favorite card game to play? Uno is one. What’s your least favorite chore? Dishes or folding laundry. How much time do you spend on the computer? A LOT. That or my phone. What would you like to do as a career? I don't know. Not what I am currently doing for too long I think. I enjoy it but I don't know if this is long term for me.

What is today’s date? Look at your calendar.

Have you ever had a dog? Yes.

Have you ever gone on/been put on a diet? Hahaha tried for a day, it didn't last.

Did you know that donkeys can mate with zebras and with horses? I read they can with horses, but I see maybe for Zebras. I didnt' know that though no.

Do you ever feel like you want to die? Do you have any loved ones who have died? I have had moments but didn't have plans to carry on with it...and my Mother was on the, suicidal side.

Did you know that Degu are actually a type of rodent that can be kept as a pet? No. Just went and looked it up to see what it is. Wait, is this what

What do you like to drink? Smoothies sometimes. Other sugar drinks.

Have you ever tried to count the spots on a Dalmatians before? Yes.

What’s your favorite kind of dinosaur? I think pterodactyl because of Pokemon.

What’s your favorite dessert? :)p

Daffodils, daisies, or dandelions? Dandelions are pretty.

How often do you cook your own dinner? Microwave that stuff.

Keep reading

Do you remember your first date? I do vaguely. It was in preschool. As far as a first date date being older, I don't. Have you ever kept a diary? I tried. I got lazy when it came to writing in it, and also worried a family member would find it. Are you a daring person? Do you take lots of risks? Not dating but I will take some risk to try new things like swinging off a ledge and jump of the high rope. Lately though I have been hesitant for those kind of things. Have you ever filed for divorce? No. Do you have a doorbell? Yes. Do you ever feel like you are doomed? Umm not doomed if I don't go to see a therapist I will be on the sad side for sure.   Have you ever smoked dope? No. Do you ever experience dysphoria? No. Which day of the week is your favorite? Thursday, Saturday. Do you know anyone who has diabetes? No. How many DVD’s do you own? Not many. What is your dad’s name? Ok. Do you like to dance? For fun. Do you drive? Do you have your license? Yes and yes. Do  you believe in destiny? Mhmm. Have you ever been dumped before? Yes. How often do you experience diarrhea? Not often, thankfully but I have had it this year and that was awful. What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done before? I rather not say. Have you ever dyed your hair before? Yes like the ends. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever dressed up as for Halloween? A white trash can. Why. Do you know how to dab? Not well. How often do you go to the doctor or the dentist? When needed. Dentist lately. How often do you dust your house? Are you allergic to dust? Dust is rare but I will if people are coming over. A little. What’s the last good deed you’ve done? I gave a coworker a ride home. Do you believe in equality? To be equal, yes. Early to bed or early to rise? Yup. Are you early or late for appointments? Usually cutting close. Have you ever had an ear infection? Yes. Do you go see an eye doctor? I used to A LOT but not as much luckily. How many earrings do you wear? I am allergic to the metal in earrings :(. I need to look for different material. Do you care about the environment? How do you help the Earth? Pick up trash, recycle sometimes, I can be bad at it, don't litter. How often do you exercise? Do you go to a gym or do it on your own? Hahaha. What are you favorite things to eat? Oh man the snacks. Do you know anyone who is pure evil? I have read things. Do you get along with everyone? No. Not everyone is going to like you. I have met those people that let me know but I mean I consider myself friendly and approachable. Do you have a certain routine that you go through every day? Yes. Have you ever felt like you’ve lost everything? In a way. Is there anywhere you’d like to explore? More cities, road trips, and other cities. Elevators or escalators? Escalators. What do you do in the evening? Nothing really. Have you ever been evaluated for anything before? ADD. What’s the worst you’ve ever done on an exam? Probably a 7 on a test honestly. I can't remember but math was a struggle. Are you easily exhausted? Yes. Do you like visiting exhibits? Yes. Have you ever felt exiled? Hmm not sure. Have you ever felt like everybody was talking about you? Yes. For sure. Have you ever entered through an exit sign or exited through an enter sign? Haha I have done that with like grocery stores.. How have humans evolved over time? I don't feel up to answering this. Would you ever consider eloping? As right now, nah. If you could erase one mistake from your past, what would it be? The question's answer above "What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done before?" I hate myself for it. When’s the last time you’ve used email? How about sending something through the mail in an actual envelope? Email everyday. Mail, it has been a long time. Do you dye eggs at Easter time? Used to. Is the glass half empty or half full? Of right now half empty. Have you ever had elbow macaroni before? Yes. Have you ever fractured or dislocated your elbow? No. Do you know how long an era or an eon is? I had to look it up. Do you chew the Extra brand of gum? I don't care for gum that much anymore. When was the last time someone showed empathy towards you? Yesterday. My bf came over and hugged me to him when I was crying. Did you have an Elf on the Shelf growing up? I don't remember but my mother had so many Christmas decorations so it is possible. Is your bedtime closer to eight or eleven? - Would you go around the world in eighty days? Haha I'd fall out of the air ballon. Did you turn eighteen in high school, or afterwards? Baboopity do.

[layniapetrovnaaa]

Hank Palmer Imagine

I wrote this fic about two years ago, so bear with me. I just felt bad about not writing much, so I hope this will suffice for some of you.

Warnings: smoking, swearing?, infidelity, age-gap, bad writing and self-projecting lol

***

"Dry martini with a twist please." I announce to the bartender as I slide into an open seat in the crowded bar.

I take the package of cigarettes out of my pocket and shake it, one falls out. I light it up and take a slow drag, listening to the faint sound of 90s r&b in the background of all the slurred words filling the tavern.

The smoke from the cigarette surrounds me, and I can't help but close my eyes and hang my head a bit low.

I would have stayed in my thoughts a little longer if it hadn't been for the bartender setting down my drink in front of me.

I take a sip. Take a puff. And then the man on my right starts talking to me. "Wouldn't have pegged you for a martini girl." I turn and look at him.

He look quite a bit older than me, but quite handsome.

He had a little scruff on his jaw,it looked like salt and pepper. His hair was cut short and styled to perfection. He is dressed in a white button down, and a black suit and tie. And he has deep and rich brown eyes.

Brown eyes are just brown eyes unit you love someone with brown eyes; that's what my mother always used to say.

I know his type, hot shot lawyer I bet. "Yeah, well, I've never been the most conventional girl."

"I can tell."

"How?"

"Your voice"

I clear my throat.

It's true, my voice was lower than most of the women I know. I always got teased about it when I was younger, but as I got older all the men seemed to like it; it was 'sensual'.

I take a sip of the liquid and another drag of the cancer stick, it's quiet for a moment.

"Y'know the drink you order says a lot about you also."

Another puff.

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

Another sip.

"Well, you ordered a martini, you're old fashioned."

He gives me a once over, and continues.

"You ordered it dry, you're stressed, work has been taking a toll. But, you're sophisticated and you can hold your liquor well. You probably watch a lot of  old movies don't you?" Coincidence.

"You ordered your drink with a twist, you're neat, clean, classy."

I can only stare into the half empty martini glass.

"And you like to be fancy, it's a distraction from your childhood which was quite the opposite; that's why you moved to the city."

How did he-

I look up at this man in wonder, and can't help but whisper a quiet "Damn."

"What's your name?"

I give it to him, and he returns it with his own. "Hank Palmer"

"Has anyone ever told you that you are very good at this game?" Another sip. Another drag.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have very sensual lips?"

"Really? A movie quote to try and seduce me? I think we can do a little better then that, can’t we, Mr.Palmer?" I tease. He only chuckles.

"You a fan?"

"One of my favorites actually."

"So the thing about the old movies is wrong?"

"No."

He nods and takes a sip of his scotch, I presume.

"Let me do you."

"Excuse me?"

He raises an eyebrow at me and snacks on the almonds in the bowl next to his glass. "Let me read your beads Hank." I smirk, then bite my lip as I continue to observe him

"Fine." He gives in, a small smirk also playing in his lips.

I gulp down the rest of my drink, and study him.

"Mmm...well, for starters your married."

He looks shocked.

"You forgot to take your ring off."

He clears his throat in a bit of embarrassment.

"That being said, you probably have a child, only one. You don't seem like the type to have lots of kids."

He squints a little, and puts a finger over his lips like he is thinking hard.

I take a drag of the cig and think for a moment.

"Scotch?"

He nods, and so do I. "Well then...you're cocky. It's little over the top, but well deserved, your great at your job." He smirks a little and waits for me to continue.

"Lawyer?"

He nods as he takes another sip of the liquor.

"You're a bit of an alcoholic, aren't you?"

He gulps the rest of the drink down and doesn't look at me.

"I mean you keep it together, but you have at least three big ones every night." I can't help but giggle a bit, but it stops almost as soon as it came. I finished off the cigarette. He finally faces me and gives me a once over. The once crowded bar was now almost empty, time flies I guess.

"Oh I'm good." I grin. "How old are you?" He asks, still serious, crunching down on the last of the almonds. "23. You?" "49." 

He's seems a bit cautious saying that number, but when he sees it doesn't affect me, he continues.

"Would you maybe want to come back to my place?" His voice sounds huskier than before.

"Is your wife gunna be there?"  I can't help but giggle. He's not amused, and rolls his eyes.

"I'm joking!"

I bite my lip, now serious, I answer him. "Yes."

[ciggylungz]

Benefits

Rivals blurb: 2.8k word

Request: y/n & harry go to a bar and someone from harrys office flirts with her and he gets jealous

__

Work parties were never very exciting, so when Y/n and Harry had a combined company benefit party at one of the upscale lounges in London she was hardly excited. Her publicist had decided it would be good to do it together to get more hype and press on it by proving even though their companies split years prior there was ‘no bad blood’. She only agreed because some of the profits were going to different charities and that gave her the stamina to stick out a work event, and well free booze was a plus.

She had just enough time to make a pitstop home to change into a formal appropriate cocktail dress, pumps and fixed her hair before making her way towards the bar. Upon arrival she could already hear Harry’s distinct fake laugh, her eyes rolling automatically knowing he was cheesing up to some rich beneficiary to milk as much cash out of them as he could. She headed straight to the bar, ordering a vodka soda with lime deciding she’d need a little help getting through the night If she’d be trapped with that prick in such an enclosed space.

After two vodka sodas she was feeling a good buzz, good enough that her uptight nature seemed to unravel enough for her to entertain the gentlemen who decided to start talking to her, joining her at the bar. He wasn’t too bad looking, typical business man look with a crisp suit and hair styled with some sort of product that made it stiff. He was well groomed and she had recognized him as one of Harry’s employees. Mark was his name, and as long as he kept her drinks coming, she was more than willing to keep chatting with the man. Seemed like a good trade to her, booze for flirting- a win-win for both parties.

“How old are yeh doll?” the man was giving her the typical flirty eyes, she’d typically cringe at how thick this guy was laying it on already but she was too tipsy to care. “ ‘m 23, you?” the man had a sly smirk on his face at that, rubbing his chin slightly before taking a sip of his whiskey. “I’m 46, props to you fo’ havin’ such a big company at your age. I was just getting’ coffee for asshole bosses when I was your age. A business woman is sexy you know? You like older men hun?” his game was truly weak, almost embarrassingly so for someone of his age. She questioned if he could be a 40-year-old virgin, or he was just a terrible flirt. Yet she answered truthfully, not caring much since she’d likely never see this bloke again. “Depends, been with ‘em before but it’s not a preference or anything.”

His eyes flicked over the expanse of her body, his smirk not dropping at her answer as he licked over his lips. “Oldest you’ve been with?” his question made her roll her eyes starting to get a little tired of him now, knowing full well he just wanted to bang her which wasn’t going to happen. “I don’t kiss and tell Marcus.”

The pair weren’t aware of the irritated glare that was watching their every move, reading their lips from across the room as they talked. Harry was the peeping tom in question, staring the two adults down with a strange feeling in his gut and a tingle in his palms- like he wanted to punch his employee but- why? It’s not like he had any real reason to, but still a flare of…jealousy crawled up his spine and burrowed inside the ripples of his brain. He had been in this position before, when him and the girl were younger and he’d see her makeout with another guy or her boyfriend of the time or when he’d hear them fucking in a neighboring room while a young Harry grew overly irritated at the fact someone else was feeling what he’d felt before. He was being immature he knew that, but he didn’t care as he marched over to the pair acting casual despite his mood when he leaned against the dark wood of the polished bar.

Harry rubbed his pointer finger over the wood, collecting a small amount of dust on the digit before tapping his knuckles on the wood getting the attention of the bar tender and the pair he’d been practically stalking since he noticed them together. “Gin and tonic please, love and another one of whatever Y/n had. Put it on my tab, thank yeh” he was always a polite guy, his mother truly raised him well in that aspect and it was refreshing for Y/n to hear the man talking to someone kindly instead of the usual bickering they partake in.

Y/n turned to him on her swiveling barstool, giving him a tipsy soft smile and nod in acknowledgement not noticing the side eye he was giving the man on the other side of her. “Hello Harold” she greeted him using the name she knew got on his nerves, his name was simply Harry yet everyone assumed it was a shortened version of the rather old-fashioned name typically tied to it. Yet, he didn’t bother getting irritated or retorting with something annoying no- his focus was more on the man he had an itch to fire at the moment. He managed to keep his professional nature regardless, “Evening love, hello Marcus what are you lot talkin’ about?” Y/n was more confused on the pet name he’d used towards her than about the harsh gaze he was sending toward the man on her left.

Mark seemed to sense the animosity, knowing his bosses irritated look very well. He opted to respond to his employer with an awkward chuckle a shrug added to it, “Nothin’ much, business and such. Was admiring how she’s runnin’ a company so young just like you. Would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit jealous.” His free hand went up to scratch the back of his neck, sipping his drink to have a way to cover his nervous lips whilst Harry stared him down. Y/n was honestly a bit amused at the situation at hand, wishing she had some popcorn to go with her fifth vodka soda to enjoy the little testosterone standoff happening. She’s seen Harry get like this a couple times, so she shamelessly added fuel to the fire.

“Yea, and askin’ me if I like older men then following that up with askin’ the oldest man I’ve slept with. It’s been a very professional conversation H, no need to worry.” She knew exactly what she was doing, and she got the reaction she wanted when Mark nervously fiddled with his tie and Harry’s jaw clenched, the action still noticeable in the dim lighting. Y/n was tempted to laugh at the surge of tension she had just created, opting instead to sip her drink as she waited for what was to come next.

Harry straightened himself up, turning to look at the man with a raised eyebrow. “Oh really? That hardly seems appropriate for a work event.” Harry was trying his best not to show the possessive feelings he was having, rather opting for a reprimanding boss act to fit the occasion. “erm…uh was just some casual banter Mister Styles. Might have had one too many, wasn’t using my best judgement…I apologize Y/n” he was rushing his words, obviously anxious to escape the confrontation which Y/n found even funnier. Harry gave the man a curt dismissal with a request to see him in his office on Monday, and in true Y/n fashion she decided to add a second dose of fuel to the fire- calling out to the fleeing man- “The oldest was 54 by the way!” this of course made Mark scurry away faster and Harry lower his gaze to the woman before him with a irritated yet quizzical look.

“54?” his tongue darted out to lick over his lips, a sting of gin hitting the tip of his tongue from the drop lingering on his bottom lip. Y/n shrugged, crunching a rouge ice cube between her back molars while she nodded. “Vegas, tequila, he had major sugar daddy vibes and 19-year-old me was into it.” Y/n was always rather shameless when it came to sex, she’s been sexually active for the majority of her life so the shyness of talking about it left her long ago. Harry snorted slightly, shaking his head with an amused grin at the girl. “Naughty! you’re somethin’ else Y/n. I’m gonna tell your dad.”

“I don’t think his heart could take it, he did an awful lot of blow back in the day so I’d appreciate it if yeh didn’t do that sir.” She rolled her eyes, taking a subtle jab at her less than respectable antics of her filthy rich father. “Seems like you were doing an awful lot of a different version of blow to me.” the man smirked at his own joke getting a light slap on his bicep in return. “Shut up, I haven’t forgotten when you got gonorrhea when you were 18. You’re just as bad as me.” Y/n poked his ribs making Harry groan at the memory, “I got that treated you asshole. I’ve learned to wrap it before I tap it since then and be selective with what I put my dick in now. For the record, all my std tests have come back clean since so fuck you.”  

Y/n gave him an innocent smile back, resting her cheek on her fist. “Is that an offer?”

The response wasn’t one Harry was expecting. Not by a long shot, he hasn’t been inside her in a little over a year so her response to his jab took him by surprise. His eyes immediately met hers, finding a curious glance coming from her orbs. Setting down his glass the man turned towards her, facing her completely before responding.

“If you want it to be.”

Y/n smiled at him, standing up from her stool to get closer to the man pulling him down by his collar to talk in his ear. “Your place or mine?”

__

  After a painful ten-minute taxi ride, they’d made it to Harrys home. They were well aware of looming neighbors and press so they kept it professional till they were inside the four walls of the mansion- rushing up to his bedroom like two teenagers scared of getting caught. Anxious rushing of feet up the stairs hands struggling to stay to themselves on the way to the king-sized bed waiting for them.

After what seemed like forever, the pair burst into Harry’s bedroom the door hitting the wall with a loud bang as the man lurched forward to smash his lips against hers. It was frantic, sloppy and rough- it was fucking hot.

“you drive me up the fuckin’ wall you know that?” His voice was gruff, heavy with lust and jealous rage. Shoving the woman onto his bed with little care, he knew she liked it rough. A fact confirmed to him after he’d seen the rather violent bdsm porn she had saved to her computer and the various sex toys-including restraints, collars and clamps in a box in her closet 2 years ago when she moved into her current home and forced him to help her put everything away.

Y/n let out a small gasp when her body flew onto the mattress, kicking her heels off after she had settled with a smirk painted on her pretty lips. “Do i?” her tone way teasing, hands moving to unzip her dress while the man moved to stand before her yanking the fabric down her body to leave her in only a silk bra and matching thong, his eyes shamelessly taking in the sight of her body- intimate parts only covered with think sections of emerald green silk fabric.

“Ya know I didn’t appreciate you tellin’ that bloke about other men fuckin’ you, was rather impolite y/n.” Harry gave her a stone cold glare whilst tugging his belt out of the loops of his dress pants, tossing it carelessly behind him as the woman dove forward to work the button and zipper of his trousers undone. “Why? You jealous? Are you jealous because I let other men and women fuck me? Are you mad that you never get to taste me, fuck me and cum with me like they do?”

Y/n’s comments were soon cut off by a ring clad hand wrapped itself around her neck with enough pressure to stall her speech. “You never know when to shut the fuck up huh? We both know full well, no one can fuck yeh the way I do. Now, are you gonna quit your blabbering so I can fuck yeh or do I have to shove this skimpy excuse for underwear down that gabby throat? Hmm? Because I like to hear your dirty moans but I’m not a fan of this snarky mouth baby. Are you going to behave or shall I go have a wank instead?”

The pitiful whine accompanied by a pout coming from the woman made Harry’s cock twitch, she was so desperate for it and he had her right where he wanted her. He soon felt her hands pawing at his crotch, tugging the material of his tight dress pants down his legs before returning to pull his cock from the flap in the front of his boxers. It had been entirely too long since he’d held her small soft hands on his prick, watching with baited breath as her right hand moved to rid herself of the sorry excuse for undergarments she had on.

“Want it in, H please”

He obviously couldn’t say no to that, not when she was giving him those eyes and leaning back to show the web of wetness dripping from her slit onto the sheets below her snapping when she swiped her finger through it to rub on his already leaking tip. She had his head swimming, chest heaving and balls pulsing with every move she made.

The man tossed her body further up the bed, getting between her legs giving her no warning as he sunk completely in. The pressure and harshness of the thrust took her breath away, an overwhelming fullness almost uncomfortable as he gave her no time to adjust before driving into her beautiful body. The sound of her wetness clicking when coming in contact with his hips and filthy groans of pleasure filled the space, the slapping of skin harsh in their ears with every nailing of his pelvis into hers.

“This what yeh needed? No one else fucks yeh so good you can’t breathe do they? Got your face goin’ almost purple, feel my cock in your chest don’t you baby?”

His words were filthy, yet held truth. He pulled halfway out to give her a chance to take a few breaths, the dark redness of her oxygen starved face starting to fade to a flustered pink before he continued his rough ramming. Her nails pierced the skin of his tattooed arms, screams of pleasure rawing her throat when she felt her orgasm about to reach it’s peak.

“Holy fuck!”

Her exclamation was loud, filthy and drenched in sultry bliss as the knot in her stomach unraveled. She tried desperately to climb away from his hammering hips, the stimulation making her entire body feel like it was screaming yet his hands kept her pinned to the bed fucking her relentlessly through her orgasm.

“Fuckin’ hell! Cummin’ hard huh? No one else can make you cum like this, say it. Tell me baby, admit it”

His teeth were clenched painfully tight as he spoke, Y/n struggling to get her words out with the surge of feeling rushing through her nerves managing to ramble out the words almost incoherently.

“That’s fuckin’ right doll, only I can do this to yeh.”

Even with his body on fire, he held his cocky persona pounding into her a few more times until he jerked his hips out just in time to spill his seed onto her heaving stomach. Watching the ribbons of thick white cum paint her flushed sweaty skin, her body trembling from her orgasm violently while being painted with her ‘enemies’ hot cum.

The bed shook when Harry dropped down beside her, breathless and worn out. a proud smirk painted on his sweaty red face when he turned to the woman who was looking at him already struggling to remember how to breathe. Placing a smacking kiss to her swollen lips, a strong arm tugging her into his sticky side.

For the first time in a long time, they felt content in each other’s grasp. Making them both silently wonder if these feelings weren’t just lust, but something else entirely.

[something-very-special]

Impressions

I know I’m way behind on progression through Replicant (insofar as anybody can be ‘way behind’ in the sense of playing a video game for personal entertainment), buuuut I figured I’d share a few thoughts.

Presently I’m doing sidequest mop-up post-Barren Temple, for reference:

So just to get this overall out of the way, I am legitimately fascinated by the differences between NIER and Replicant. This is something I picked up on when I played RepliCant to grab footage for my LP, but given my extremely limited understanding of Japanese all I could get was the tone between characters and to my unpracticed ear they sounded pretty different. I always assumed that Weiss was somehow even more condescending to Brother and hah hah, wow. Even kind of expecting the dialogue and delivery differences I was not prepared for some of the dialogue and delivery differences. Weiss just straight-up insulting BroNier on the regular, not even doing sarcastic eye-rolls like he does with Papa. I don’t remember the exact line that set me off but somewhere in the Barren Temple I was just laughing my ass off at how much of a dick Weiss is.

Thought the ‘miracles’ conversation in the Junk Heap was interesting, too. I remember Papa Nier telling Weiss to stuff it because ‘those kids need a miracle’ and Weiss kind of backs down-- obviously doesn’t believe it, but he knows better than to push. And Brother tries but Weiss is just not having this optimism bullshit. Little things, but the tenor of the relationship is definitely different.

One of the more interesting aspects early on is the way the Lunar Tear is treated. Obviously I don’t know if this was part of the original game or a script adjustment, but Brother talking about the Tear as a source of money as opposed to Father saying it can grant wishes was interesting. Maybe it was to justify that Kaine just has a whole necklace of the damn things and therefore it’s rare but not literally magic, but it always sounded like it was just meant to be taken as a myth to me anyway. Then again, it’s established in the Grimoire that Brother has a fixation specifically on making money so he can support himself and Yonah (versus Papa Nier, who has obviously already established himself as an adult rather than a kid still figuring things out and hoping that enough money will solve all their problems).

Where the dialogue doesn’t diverge is interesting, too. Mostly I’m talking about the scene after defeating Hook. I always found Papa Nier exclaiming “You’re going to live, Kaine!” and “Yes, we’re friends now!” to be obvious holdovers from a younger protagonist just goddamn hilarious when Papa Nier is saying them. They’re still really funny with Brother Nier but just remembering Papa Nier doing the exact same delivery in his deep, manly voice just re-elevated the whole scene into comedy gold.

All of that is really why I was interested in getting the game so already my money is well spent. But there’s some other stuff:

They butchered the OST! ...or so people keep telling me on Youtube. I admit I do think the re-orchestrations is largely inferior to the original (although there are some that are at least as good in a different way, and whatever they did to The Lost Forest -- which was one of my least favorite tracks in the original -- I really enjoy) but I wouldn’t call it a butchering and I highly suspect that if I didn’t have the eleven years of the original OST and its association within the game itself I wouldn’t bat an eye, it still all sounds great.

Also, a weird observation, but I found that the soundtrack sounds much better coming out of the TV speakers than through headphones. I’m not sure if somehow it was optimized for play through external speakers, or maybe just not hearing the added orchestration right up against my eardrums, but when I went to the Lost Shrine with headphones on I was admittedly disappointed, but going to it again and listening through the TV it worked significantly better.

(I’m not sure if this is necessarily a factor, but the booklet in the White Snow edition mentions that the new soundtrack was all studio mixed rather than having the individual tracks layered. While I don’t think that would have an impact on music quality it almost definitely makes a difference in the way it’s produced.)

I miss chest-thrusting to double jump Movement overall feels much more refined and polished. It’s not as slick as Automata, but it definitely feels like a natural evolution of the original game, and as an apologist for NIER’s combat I can appreciate that. A little more responsive, I appreciate being able to move while casting magic, and it still has a bit of a crunch behind weapon impact (although I wish it felt a bit heavier).

But goodness I miss the stupid animation for double-jumping. I mean sure, an aerial somersault is a classic indication of a double jump, but I just loved that Nier would chest-thrust so hard he would break the laws of physics and ascend higher.

It also feels a bit like the aerial dodge was nerfed for movement purposes? I really don’t feel as much horizontal thrust to get a running start after diving off the Library balcony.

Fully voiced? Fully voiced?! I knew this was happening but I totally forgot until the NPC villagers started talking to me! Some of the incidental deliveries are a bit awkward, but as somebody whose glasses prescription is a decade out of date I appreciate this immensely.

The item guy in Seafront just being from the goddamn Bronx is a thing of beauty.

BroNier does fit into the Village better. One of the little details I love in the game is that each bit of civilization has its own style. The maps aren’t large enough to really convey how long travel takes, but the different styles between the Village and Seafront just kind of helped to ‘place’ the characters in a really neat, subtle way (Emil’s sash identifies him as ‘belonging to’ Seafront, which is actually pertinent when you get that sidequest where you find the letter from his science-mom in town! I assume she always wore a kicky sash when she went to work in the underground child torture bunker.)

Facade obviously also has their own style, but it’s... hard not to appreciate.

Papa Nier’s dress doesn’t really ‘place’ him anywhere, which doesn’t feel weird for the main character, and I feel like it’s implied that he isn’t really from the Village in a meaningful way anyway and kind of drifted in at some point after Yonah had been born. But younger Brother Nier is actually wearing the local fashion and it’s a neat little detail that I didn’t appreciate back when I played PS3 RepliCant. (Probably because I didn’t bother talking to any NPCs what with not being able to read the dialogue, so I never really had him standing next to anybody for long enough to process.) Older Brother Nier takes on a very different outfit that winds up displacing him from the rest of the Village (and any other towns), which is a pretty nice visual metaphor, too.

I have a confession to make. I still enjoy fishing in this game.

Yeah I said it. I’ll say it again too-- I like the fishing minigame. I happily blitzed through the Fisherman’s available Gambits, and then just caught five sharks while I was hanging out, and then also caught the sandfish ahead of time, and also wound up with a half-ton giant catfish (??!?) trying to remember where the black bass are located.

Cart me away.

Related but I laughed far too hard when the fisherman says “the WESTERN beach”. I wonder why they changed that line. I just can’t imagine.

And those seals. Always a delight to go to early Seafront and just plant yourself between a couple of seals. Watch the ocean. Listen to the music and the waves. Watch the seals lazily roll around and make cute seal barks.

The most depressing thing about the timeskip is losing those seals.

My garden--! The gardening timeskip exploit was fixed due to a difference in PS4 architecture. :/ I know there’s still an exploit involving time zones but I didn’t go in knowing that and I was horrified when I adjusted the system clock only to find my crops weren’t growing. Is Legendary Gardener still a trophy? Fffffuuuuu

My BARREN TEMPLE. The Barren Temple is, to me, a legitimately funny dungeon, between Sechs getting himself abducted, Kaine getting herself abducted and Nier and Weiss just sighing in resignation, and the whole concept of the rules-based challenges. And the adjustment they made to the Prince’s dialogue before you meet him is so good-- the original felt a little disjointed and felt like it ended with the Prince being confused. It was still funny, but here Weiss just gives zero fucks about insulting the Prince (and presumably knows that’s exactly who he’s talking to) and it’s just great.

And I say all of that because I just died laughing when I got to the infamous Racing Wolf room and saw they outlawed evasion.

Evasion works differently in this game anyway so you wouldn’t have really been able to do the same trick before (dodge roll; in the original release you would dodge roll forward by tapping the button, but a default evasion has you backstep. Of course you could arrange BroNier to face away from the trap and then evade, but it would be significantly dicier, and I feel like the pattern on the shots was awkward enough that you wouldn’t have an opening in the second row (and probably would’ve have dodged your ass right into the bullets anyway). But just that they acknowledged the trick and then flipped you off with it was amazing. Aggravating? My amusement far outweighed my frustration since the Defend trick was still solid.

It also felt like more rooms outlawed jumping? That I can’t corroborate (I was really focusing on whether they did something to Racing Wolf, which is of course the most traumatic of the rooms) but I feel like it wasn’t as easy to cheese some of those rooms as it had been previously.

Dark Blast is amazing. Cheesed the shit out of the actual ‘Evasive Mouse’ room, though. I remember having some difficulties when the miniboss shows up since you can’t dodge out of the way of his lava pillar attack, but I just circle-strafed with Dark Blast and he died comically quickly.

This is actually more relevant to the magic as a whole, but in the time since I first played NIER (so... probably the time I fifth played NIER) I learned more about the little intracacies of the magic system. Like, really little intricacies, like how you can use magic with just a button tap and it actually has different effects... like Dark Blast dealing significantly more damage. It’s not as easy as just holding down the button and getting the multi-shot off the charge, but for a single enemy like that just rapid-fire tapping the button chews through the lifebar.

This tap strategy is really appreciated for Dark Hand (forward thrust punch) and Dark Lance (which is even better thanks to the game’s lock-assist-- a much appreciated quality-of-life adjustment), and I look forward to getting Dark Execution because of its fast activation feature (spreading the lances in a forward cone in front of you, extremely useful for crowd control when you can’t afford to wait for Execution to charge up).

Fragile Delivery still sucks. I don’t know why I had such a terrible time with the first Fragile Delivery but I broke that... Ming vase or whatever you’re delivering half a dozen times. Send that guy a steel rug instead, Guard #3, he is not worth whatever piece of art you had me destroy six times.

And the game still holds up. This is probably a ‘needless to say’ thing but yeah, this is still a great game. I always have a little bit of apprehension going back to something I loved just in case there’s a rose-colored effect going on. Not that I really expected that to happen with this game (I’ve played NIER recently enough that I didn’t think nostalgia would blind me) but, you know, always a possibility.

(That and that the remaster would be... perhaps of dubious quality. It happens.)

Nope! Still engaging. Still charming. I’m always impressed to go back to this game with all the knowledge of its inevitable misery and remember that it’s also just plain funny. NIER is one of those games that’s just like I remember it but better every time I go back to it.

I’m so glad that Automata did well enough to spur greater interest in this game. It really didn’t get the chance it deserved back in 2010 and now it’s topping some of the sales charts. That’s fantastic.

Just... fantastic.

[sweetchup]

Not A Chance!!

Type: Shalnark x reader

Prompt: O’Inari’s Wisdom — On any day during this week, people of the ages of 19-30 years old will go through a walk in the woods carrying a clear ornament (Traditionally it used to be a Jar). The ornament is usually filled with the person’s favorite scent or perfume, Name and Phone number on paper slip, and their dream type of lover on a rose petal. When walking through the woods, the person allows the God/Goddess of the woods O’inari’s Imps to trick them into meeting their soulmate. It is a must to switch ornaments with that first person they see for it is said the imps won’t allow them to leave the forest unless they do so.

Author Note: I decided to try a different writing style with the kiss scene this time. Tell me what you guys think.

(Prompts/Rules) (Masterlist)

“Hey (y/n), Bisky, What’s this?” Gon asks. His voice was hardly heard over the many chattering of the NPCS and other players in the city as you looked at him. Gon first shows Bisky, who was closer to him, a baby blue flier that you couldn’t quite read from where you were standing. “Is it some sort of Greed Island event?”

“Wait a minute. Gon do you not know what O’inari’s wisdom is?” Bisky questions, shocked. Walking over closer and looking from behind Bisky, you realize that the Winter Holiday of O’inari’s Wisdom was indeed taking place on Greed island. You were slightly surprised for a second but it soon started to make sense the more you thought about it. It had started snowing on the island recently and if the game was parallel to the times in the real world then it should also be December in the game. So it just made sense that Holidays were also coded into the game to match the changing seasons.

“Oh, so it’s a Holiday,” Gon says surprised once Bisky explains it to him, “We didn’t celebrate it on Whale Island. Maybe it’s because I was so young. But, at the very least, (y/n) will be able to celebrate it with us.”

“Huh?” You murmur confused. You never mentioned anything about doing it, “I’m not doing it. Actually, why would you think I would do it?”

“Well, you don’t have a boyfriend right? So you must have not done it yet. So you should do it! It will be fun!” Gon explains enthusiastically as Bisky nods in agreement. Of course, it was just straightforward thinking done by Gon, not thinking of other possible possibilities. Man, why exactly did Killua have to leave you to take the Hunter exam again?

“I actually have done the Holiday before,” You tell the two as you start to walk away, calling forth “book” as you do so. As you examine through your binder, you continued to explain what you meant to the younger boy, “I’ve actually done it many times. Sometimes doing a full week some years. Other times going to different locations from other cities or towns. But in all the years I’ve done, I never once heard nor bumped into anyone else in the forest. So I just gave up on th—”

Bisky suddenly cuts you off with a loud exaggerated gasp.

“Oh My~ Then that must mean you really do have a soulmate out there (y/n)! What powerful young love!!” Bisky states dreamily as sparkles and flowers seem to dance around her. All you can do is sigh at the older woman antics and continue on your way. Honestly, to you there was no way Soulmates could exist. Not a chance! There was just no science nor reason behind it. Nen could be explained. Monsters could be explained. But soulmates, not at all. It was just some made up myth with no hard facts.

As you make your way to the gate of Aiai, you feel Gon tug at your top to catch your attention.

“But, (y/n)?” You take your eyes away from your binder to look at Gon. “Do you think you could try? Perhaps one of the needed 99 slot cards is given at the event.”

“Oooo, good thinking Gon,” Bisky states looking at the flier and then looking at you. “With that possibility, I order you to do it then (y/n). Afterall, you are the only person who could do it out of us.”

You and Bisky stare at each other tensely for a little. Slightly challenging each other to step down until eventually you give up and finally look away. Even though you aren’t looking at her, you can hear Bisky doing a dance in success. “Fine then where do we go to take place in this event?”

“Apparently, you can get there by using an Accompany to Winterfell. We don’t even need to go there beforehand to use the accompany card.” As Bisky explains, you flip your binder and grab a spare accompany card. This is the last one from your binder so Gon and Bisky will have to start using their ones from now on. Well, Until you can get to Masadora to get some more.

“Okay then, let’s get this over with,” You state. Though for some reason you have an uneasy feeling in your stomach as you hold the card up. You wondered why, perhaps you felt nervous? But why would you? Greed Island was hardly crowded so this is the lowest chance of meeting someone during the Holiday. Maybe it was just the fact you haven’t done this tradition in a while. Yeah, that was probably just it, “Accompany on! To Winterfell!”

—.—.—.—.—

The crunching sound of snow is the only thing you hear as you walk through the forest. For what felt goes on for miles, all you have been seeing was snow covered pine trees. Not even birds or other sources of life have been spotted while you have been walking in this forest which was quite strange. How long have you been walking you wondered. It was hard to tell but you guessed maybe an hour or so?

Stopping next to a tree, you run your hand up it’s trunk somewhat tracing the engravement in it. You had already seen this before. It was like you have been going in circles, even though you have actually only been going straight. Was this some sort of test in the game? Maybe Gon was right about a specified slot card being here.

“Book!” In a poof, your binder opens up. Or, at least that's what you expect to happen. However, it doesn’t pop up. After calling the book a couple more times, you realize it was no use. It just doesn’t work. Was this some glitch in the game?

All of sudden, a rush of wind catches you off guard. It wasn’t just any breeze however, this gust of wind was similar to that of a giant icy blizzard. You cringe as the snow in the wind pricks and scratches at your skin. You needed to take cover from the harsh wind before you freeze to death.

Quickly, when you try to look around to find somewhere to take cover, something whips into your face, blinding you. As you struggle to pull it off of you, the wind suddenly comes to a complete stop. Weird, very weird. Finally getting it off of you and taking a good look at the item, you realize it was just an in-game scarf. Actually, you weren’t even sure it was an item from the game since it had a tag from the real world.

“Hey! That’s my sc—“ Turning around at the cheerful voice behind you, you see a familiar man a couple of feet away from you. You don’t understand why you recognize the man until he suddenly goes on guard and realization hits you. Wait a minute you remember that stance. He was a member of the Phantom Troupe wasn’t he? Shalnark, right? You quickly get on guard as well when he grabs an antenna from his pocket. An manipulator, huh? In a one on one fight like this, he has the clear advantage on you.

“Hey, I’m not here with the chain user,” You state, breaking the silence between you two. You weren’t usually someone to give up but avoiding a fight with him and going your separate ways is the best way to go in this situation. Afterall, the last thing you needed was to become his newest puppet. “I’m with the kids and all we are doing is playing the game by collecting cards.”

You wrap up Shalnark’s scarf and lightly toss it in front of his feet.

“I have no problems with you guys and I don’t want to fight you.” You continue as you start to walk backward, away from him. Hopefully, that woman, Pakunoda, told the other troupe members how you deteratarted Kurapika away from the option of placing a Nen dagger in her heart and helped spared their boss’ life.

It’s quiet and tense for a couple of minutes, not even the wind was blowing, before the blonde nods in agreement to your idea. You watch as he carefully picks up his scarf and then both of you two turn away from each other at the same time to walk away. Thankfully, counting on that woman seemed t—

All of sudden, after a couple of steps, the large gust of wind returns. You tried to fight against it and continue forward but it only seemed to grow stronger the more you tried. It grew so strong in fact that it lifted you right off your feet and threw you backward. You hoped to land on the soft snow but, of course with your luck, you hit something else very hard with a loud thump. Originally, you thought it was a tree that you hit but once you roll onto your side, you come to the realization that whatever you landed on doesn’t feel anything like tree bark.

“Ow! What was that…” Shooting up at the voice, You realize it was Shalnark that you had hit. You attempt to scurry away from him fast however, as soon as you get too far away, a gust of wind drags him back towards you. You pause as Shalnark lifts his head from being buried in the snow and looks at you confused.

“I-It’s some sort of error in the game. I swear. Maybe with the coding? Or—“ You blab out in a tangent trying to explain what was going on. Soon however, Shalnark sighs loudly, cutting you off.

“That’s a really stupid conclusion you cam up with. If you had once stop to look around you in this game, you would have realized this place, Greed Island, actually takes place in the real world. Specifically a straight shot east of York New.” Shalnark explains, somewhat sarcastically. All you do is roll your eyes. Of course you got stuck with the jackass of the troupe.

“Well then since this game isn’t actually a game, what do you think is going on, if you think you are oh so right?” You spat back at him. For some reason, you just couldn’t understand why he was being so rude in this situation, it was clearly neither of yours fault.

“Simple. This,” Shalnark states confidently as he takes the ornament from his pocket and lifts it up to you. You can’t help but laugh loudly at the idea, causing him to scowl at you.

“Y-You can’t be serious?! You and I? Soulmates!?”

“Of course! You do realize that in the myth it’s impossible for us to leave until we exchange our ornaments.” Shalnark explains, tossing his ornament at you. Clutching it in your hand, you quickly examine the ornament before scoffing.

“Yeah, not a chance,” You state as you toss his ornament back to him, causing Shalnark to sputter confused. “In no ways am I giving my personal information and phone number to the tech expert of the phantom troupe. That’s just plain stupid.”

You and Shalnark bicker on back and forth for a while until eventually he goes quiet and just glares at you. Honestly, in your opinion, it was better if he just chose to quit talking. He snaps his fingers catching you off guard, “Okay I have an idea! How about I try to convince you we are destine—”

“Soulmates?” You finish for him, slightly cringing.

“Yeah, that! And if I can convince you, then you can feel safe to give me your ornament so we can both leave.”

You ponder a little on the option he suggested. Honestly, you actually didn’t have much of any others option to begin with, “Fine. What do you got to convince me?”

“Well, first,” You watch closely as Shalnark grabs the Rose petal out from his ornament. Oh, you knew where this was going, that was actually a smart idea. Maybe this guy actually had some brain cells. “I’m going to read off my dream type of lover. I bet this will describes you.”

Reading off his petal to you, you listen carefully. As the more he goes on, you can’t deny that it did somewhat describe you, almost on the dime. As Shalnark shows the petal to you to prove he wasn’t making stuff up, You decide to grab your own petal. He seems to get excited that you finally understood what he was saying.

“See I tol—“ Shalnark is cut off when you let out a loud laugh.

“Yeah no way. Mine is ‘Someone who is like the sun; always cheerful as well as mentally bright.’” You read off, chucking it back into the ornament.

“Hey! I’m pretty cheerful! And bright!” Shalnark states, finally flashing you a smile for the first time you’ve been with him.

“Ha, I doubt that.” You say, though you can’t help but feel your heart skip a beat at how handsome he looked with a smile on his face. Your eyes go wide and you mentally slap yourself. What in the world were you thinking just now? You were flustered over him?!, “N-Next! What’s your other ideas?!”

“Aw come on!”

After a couple of more attempts from Shalnark to prove you two are soulmates, as well as many more confused borderline bipolar back and forth feelings on your end, Shalnark has run out of ideas and you two sit in silence as he tries to come up with more.

“Is that all the ideas you have?” You ask him shivering slightly as you pull your jacket closer for warmth. Looking up towards the sky above the thick pine branches, you see that it had just started to get darker out, effectively making it ten times colder as well. It now dawns on you that at this rate with your progress, you two could possibly freeze to death out here if you couldn’t get to a warm shelter before night.

“Shalnark. Here I—“ You suddenly pause what you were saying as you turn to face the man, “what the hell do you think you are doing…?”

You looked confused at Shalnark, who had moved closer to sit next to you. You didn’t know what he was up to but you definitely still didn’t trust him. As you try to lift yourself up to move away, Shalnark quickly grabs your wrist to keep you put where you were. Oh hell no. You struggle against his grip, attempting to pry his fingers off of your wrist but while you are distracted he uses his other hand to grab your arm. Effectively trapping you.

You struggle against him a little more but it only causes him to push you backwards down into the snow, him slightly leaning over you. Now nervous about what Shalnark was possibly doing, you shout out to him, “H-hey! I’ll give you the ornament okay? I don’t want—“

You feel the rest of your words die in your throat as Shalnark leans his forehead against yours, causing him to get very close to your face as well. Biting the inside of your mouth, you close your eyes tightly as a way to try calming your pounding heart. You couldn’t tell if your heart was racing out of fear or possibly something else. Though, again, it wasn’t like you could think straight at this point on time to figure which one. Cutting off your thoughts, Shalnark lets out a boyish giggle and tells you, “For someone who says they hate me and doesn’t believe in soulmates, your face sure is feeling quite hot. It’s almost as if you are flustered by me.”

Quickly, most likely in an attempt to save your dignity, you turn your face away to him so his face could no longer touch yours. As you do so, your heart leaps out of your chest when you hear him let out a small aww in disappointment.

“H-hey! I said I’ll give you my ornament so let go of me!” You sputter out, trying and likely failing at keeping yourself composed. You know it’s hard for you to think logically in a situation like this but you would’ve thought you had enough common sense in you to not get flustered by a mass murder.

“Hmmmm… Nope” Shalnark answers, popping the “p” at the end. Surprised and bewildered, You whirl your head around back to look at him. He seemed to get a kick out of your reaction because he can’t help but laugh. “You are correct by the fact that all I wanted originally was to take the ornament and leave. But the more we went on, talking and bickering, I realized I wanted something else.”

“H-huh? What? I don’t have much of anything else.” You questioned. Was he talking about cards in the game? Gon carried all of the number slot cards so you didn’t have anything that was useful to Shalnark.

“Silly girl~ It’s simple.” Shalnark flashes you a smile as he boops your nose with each next word, “I. Want. You~”

As you give a weird expression in response to Shalnark flirting attempt, he looks at you confused as to why you looked like that before full on laughing, when what looked like steam started to flow from out of your head. He couldn’t believe he fried your brain with a silly pick up line. It wasn’t even a good one either.

“Adorable~” Shalnark whispers out so softly and quietly that you almost don’t hear it. You go to ask him to repeat what he said again, but stop when he leans down. He wasn’t—

You can only watch as he inches closer and closer to your face. You don’t get why you don’t stop him, you know you probably should. But you just couldn’t for some reason you didn’t quite understand.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Shalnark kisses you. Stealing your first kiss, a precious thing you could never be able to get back from him. Though you doubt you would even try if you were able to.

As his lips moved against yours, you had to admit they were surprisingly soft, not at all rough or chapped like what the very few romance books you’ve read over the years described. Though you had to admit those boorish books were right about one thing, kissing someone was a feeling you’ve never once experienced before in your life. Authors have described the experience in many different ways but as Shalnark pulls away from your lips only to dive it once. Twice. And so many more times that you’ve lost count, you realize yours wasn’t like the ones written down. It didn’t take your breath away, it wasn’t rough or deep, it wasn’t messy or desperate.

But, it was yours. A feverish kiss if you must find a word to describe it. A kiss that even while pushed down into the freezing cold snow, you felt you were burning up inside. So much so, that your brain seemed to melt and your muscles turned to jelly from an non existent heat.

Finally after a while, you two pull away from each other, still in a trance like state from what happened. It’s quiet, nothing is heard nor said between you two as you just stare at each other. You know it is now dark out. You know you should be trying to get back to Gon and Bisky before they worry. You know it would be in your best interests to try to get away as far as you can from the dangerous man before you. You know you shouldn’t be feeling such feelings for him, for it is too soon and he probably doesn’t even deserve to be able to experience a pleasant emotion like this one. You know all these things almost as if they are engraved in your heart.

But, even when knowing all these things, you can’t stop yourself from dragging Shalnark back in to give you another kiss.

[bbugyu]

in your dreams + lee seokmin

your lifetime best friend visits you in a less than pg dream.

wc.7413 | fluff, mentions of sex, potty mouths across the board, hs/friends to lovers au, fem reader

i finally am posting a fic about one of my ults haha! this is also a recycled/reworked fic from my old blog so if you've read something similar to this before no you haven't <3

Mornings were never your strong suit. You always hit snooze as many times as possible, rushed to get your uniform on and fix your hair, then ran out the door with a piece of toast. You knew you’d feel less tired if you just woke up at a decent time, had a proper meal, and got ready like a real human being, but staying in bed felt so much better for those few luxurious moments. There was no stopping your bed bug habits, especially after being accepted into university. Suddenly, getting to school on time was the last thing on your mind when you were swimming under your covers.

You always knew you would make it when you caught up to Seokmin. He lived a block up from you, and he always turned up for class exactly three minutes early. If you saw him, you knew you’d be okay.

Today, he was much further ahead of you than he normally was. So, you sprinted past his house, earbuds in and chewing on your breakfast that you hadn't even managed to toast, hoping you would see his familiar form when you turned the corner a couple blocks down.

Sure enough, as you skidded around the corner, you spotted him at the end of the street. You let out a groan, already winded, before shoving the rest of your bread in your mouth and running towards him. You flew past him and pulled out the earbuds when you were a few yards ahead, bent over with your hands on your knees, trying to catch your breath. He laughed as he caught up to you.

“You’re later than usual.”

You wiped your nose on the back of your hand. “Really? I hadn't noticed.” You fell into stride next to him, still breathing heavily while you straightened out your skirt. “I swear if we're running in gym today, I’m going to fake a migraine.”

He watched you pull your ponytail tighter. “Did you run the entire way?”

When you nodded, he got a plastic water bottle out of his bag and handed it to you. “Oh, god, you’re the best,” you said, drinking from it. “Water tastes so good.”

Seokmin laughed as you chugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “That means you're dehydrated.”

“I’ll buy you another bottle when we get there,” you said after you drained the one he gave you. “Thanks.”

“You should’ve tried for the track team this year,” he said teasingly, nudging you with his elbow. 

You laughed. “I’d only do well if you’re at the finish line, yelling at me that I’ll be late.”

“I would have done it, but you better break some school records if I’m doing that much work.”

You liked Seokmin. Your mothers were good friends, forcing the two of you to play together while they talked when you were barely potty trained. Lucky for them, you got along well, and lucky for you, you ended up in the same class all the way through elementary school. You had been worried when you entered high school that he would grow out of having “girl friends,” as many of the guys did, but he never stopped hanging out with you. He continued to walk home with you, at least as far as his house. He still helped you with your homework, even when he was just as confused about the mathematics problem. He kept the promise he made you when you were little tots.

“Seokminnie,” you had said, tiny hands covered in markings from your colored pens. “Can we be best friends forever?”

He had given you the biggest smile his six-year-old face could manage. “Yes! Best friends forever.”

You walked into the classroom and put the bottle of water you had just purchased on Seokmin’s desk, letting out a “thanks again” as you passed. He saluted you as you walked to your seat, then went back to his conversation with his friends. You could hear them teasing him as you put your bag down.

As the two of you grew older, you gained more friends of the same sex. It didn’t stop you from calling Seokmin your best friend, but it seemed natural to have a different group to hang out with at school, one you could go to the bathroom and fawn over boys with. However, whenever the two of you interracted within eyeshot of any of them, they seemed to insinuate that the two of you should be something more than friends.

“You know who’s handsome?” Haseul said once. “Seokmin.”

Sooyoung giggled. “Watch out, somebody already has dibs.”

You rolled your eyes. “Stop it. We’ve been friends since diapers.”

“How romantic,” Haseul swooned. “Childhood friends turned lovers!”

You threw your pencil at her, and she laughed as she deflected it. "Guys and girls can be friends, you know!"

From what you could tell, Seokmin’s friends did the same to him, teasing him endlessly about his girlfriend, even though you had spent plenty of time with them by proxy.

“You look like hell,” Sooyoung said as you sat down in your usual seat behind hers. “Late again?”

You laughed, tucking a loose hair behind your ear. “Thanks. Yeah, I had to run to catch up today.”

“Thank god for your oppa, huh?”

“Ugh, don’t call him that,” you said, covering a yawn.

“Ah,” Haseul exhaled to your right, straightening out her notebook. “Is ‘jagiya’ better, then?”

You hit her shoulder and she yelped, making Sooyoung laugh. They started talking about something else and you stole a peek over to Seokmin’s desk. He had his face buried in a hand, being prodded by his friends. His eyes opened and he noticed you. You sneakily pointed a finger gun under your chin and he stifled a laugh, which set off his friends again when they realized he was looking in your direction. You would have to apologize later for triggering his torment

When classes ended, you found Seokmin waiting for you by the school gate. Sooyoung cooed at the two of you from a distance, making you roll your eyes as you straightened the straps of your bookbag.

“They’re relentless,” you said.

Seokmin groaned, throwing his head back in agreement. “Has it been especially bad recently for you, too?”

“It's springtime,” you laughed. “They want to watch a pretty romance blossom with the flowers.”

“Someone should tell them to stop watching so many dramas.”

You ended up at his house, reading a webcomic on your phone while he played a computer game. Afternoons were often spent like this. You were sprawled out on his bed, mindlessly crunching on a bag of chips, when he suddenly let out an expletive and dropped the controller on his desk.

You looked up, then read out the red text that was splattered across the dark screen. “You died.”

He spun in his chair. “Yeah.” He pulled the chair towards you and stole the bag, shoving a handful of Fritos into his mouth. “Whatcha reading?”

You looked at your phone. “Slice of life romance. It’s cute, I like the art style.”

He nodded, chewing slowly. He was obviously thinking of something else, even as he was staring at you, but you didn’t blame him for having other things on his mind.

When you looked up at him again, he suddenly dropped the bag by your side and turned back to his computer, scooting his chair as he did. You tucked your hand into the bag of chips and went back to your comic. You ended up going home for dinner, messaging Seokmin when you made it back to your house.

You found yourself in his room again that night, this time the details warped. You spent so much time with Seokmin, it wasn't uncommon for him to appear in your dreams, but this context was entirely new for you.

He crowded you, filling your personal space, his fingertips tracing lace patterns on your bare shoulders. A hand found its way to the back of your neck, tipping your head to let him place delicate kisses on your lips that left you breathless. Every time his mouth found yours, a shock of electricity ran down your spine, the tingling settling in your core. He caressed you, held you, laid you out on his bed. Your understanding of the situation was blurred by the dreamscape, but you liked it. In this reality, you liked him. And you liked what he was doing to you. You even liked it when his thumbs grazed over the peaks of your bare breasts, when he sucked bruises onto your neck, when you felt the pressure of his erection filling you. 

He muttered your name into your lips. “I love you.

Your legs were wrapped around him, hands desperately pulling him close. You gasped. “God, I love you, too.”

You woke up suddenly, sitting up in bed with your heart pounding. It took you a moment to recognize the sound of your alarm clock, and you hurriedly shut it off. You were sweating. You kicked off your covers and swung your legs over the edge of your bed, staring down at your hands.

Was that a wet dream?

You felt your already hot face turn red. Not only was it a wet dream, but it was about Seokmin. An involuntary shiver ran up your body, remembering the torturous detail that your imagination had held you hostage for.

Unsure of what to do with yourself, you rushed to the bathroom to splash cold water on your face. The feeling of his hands ghosted up your torso, and you stomped your feet slightly in an attempt to ward off the strange sensation.

It was just a dream, you told yourself. But... it had felt so real.

With nothing else to occupy yourself with, you got ready for school. You spent a long time staring at yourself in the mirror, fixing and re-fixing your half up-do. You couldn’t remember the last time you had this much time to get ready. The time felt empty, somehow. Your mother saw that you were awake and excitedly fried an egg to put over rice for you. The metal spoon lingered in your mouth as you stared into space. 

“I love you,” he had said. His voice had been low, gravelly, a tone you had never heard before. You shuddered.

“Are you okay?”

You snapped to attention, looking up to your mother. “What?”

She pouted. “You look feverish.”

“Ah,” you felt your cheek. It was hot. “I’m fine.”

“Be careful of hay fever,” she said, clearing her own place at the table. “Your father has bad seasonal allergies, too.”

As you left the house, you realized that you would have to walk right past Seokmin’s. Panic stricken, you wondered if you should start walking faster to make it past and avoid him, or if he had already left. You checked the time on your phone, realizing that he would probably be leaving soon. 

Your legs moved as fast as they could without running. If you made it past his house before he left, you wouldn’t have to face him until you had more time to process. But, as you were about to pass, the front door opened.

“Ah!” Seokmin waved to you. “You’re early.”

Externally, you smiled and waved. Internally, you collapsed into yourself.

“Your hair looks nice,” he said, patting your head. “Did you actually wake up properly today?”

You nodded, trying not to wince at his touch. “For the first time ever, I didn’t want to go back to sleep when my alarm went off.”

“Wow,” he laughed as you walked beside him. “I’m impressed.”

You had never seen Seokmin as anything but a brother. Your best friend. Someone you had been close with since childhood. Now, you looked over to him and couldn’t help but see his naked body hovering over yours. Your heart raced as you stared at your feet, all while he told you about the complex lore of the game he had been playing the day before.

It was unbearable.

Your friends would be no help. You knew better than to confide in them - they had already been so convinced that the two of you should hook up, if you said anything that hinted at some subconscious attraction you might have towards Seokmin, they would never let you live it down. You spent the entire day avoiding him, thinking that if you allowed yourself time to forget the dream, things would go back to normal. But when you saw him with his friends by the school gate at the end of the day, your stomach flipped in your gut and you felt your pulse quicken. You thought about walking past them, blending in with Sooyoung and Haseul, hoping he would be distracted with their conversation, but you had no such luck.

“Hey!” Seokmin waved you over. “The guys wanted to get some food, you in?”

“Uh,” you looked over to your friends for help. They stared back at you.

Mingyu spoke up. “You two are welcome, too, obviously.”

“Sure,” Sooyoung said. “It’s Friday, why not.”

Haseul nodded, and you were dragged along with them to a small restaurant a few blocks down. This had happened a few times before, where the two of your friend groups went out together. The six of you crowded around a table, everyone hungrily picking at the side dishes while you waited for the stew to boil in the center of the table. After getting a consensus from the table, Mingyu got the attention of a waitress.

“Unnie! Could we please get some ramen noodles, also?”

“And more kimchi,” Seokmin muttered, shoving a scoop of rice in his mouth.

“And more kimchi,” Mingyu repeated. “Thank you!”

Sooyoung laughed. “You guys sure like to eat well.”

“We’re growing boys,” Seokmin said. 

The dried noodles got added to the stew, and you took it upon yourself to break it up as it boiled, mixing it in with the army stew. Mingyu was the first to steal some of the cooked noodles, slurping them down and grabbing bits of meat from the stew as he chewed. 

“Oh, it tastes really good,” he said, leaning back. “It never tastes this good when it’s just us guys.”

Haseul laughed as she took a spoonful of the broth. “It can sense your fear.”

“Hey,” Seokmin nudged you with his elbow, sticking a folded bit of meat and kimchi in your face with his chopsticks. “Eat up.”

This was a normal gesture, you tried to remind yourself. This was something he did all the time when you went out to eat. You always distracted yourself so much with cooking the food, you hardly ate anything, and Seokmin always made sure you enjoyed the meal with everyone else. But the action felt strangely intimate today, and your leg bobbed nervously as you chewed. It reminded you of the electricity you had felt when he touched you.

In your dream, you reminded yourself. When he touched you in your dream.

“The three of us will split the bill,” Minghao said when all the food had all been devoured.

“Eh?” Sooyoung looked at you, then back to the boy across from her. “We can pay for ourselves.”

“No no no,” Seokmin insisted. “We’ve already discussed it. We invited you three out, so we’re paying.”

“Wow, what gentlemen,” Haseul giggled. “Thanks for the food!”

You and Sooyoung repeated the thanks, the boys saying that it was no big deal. The three pooled their money to cover check, then met you girls outside the restaurant.

“I should study for that quiz on Monday,” you said when the conversation started to die down. 

“Ugh, you’re no fun,” Mingyu groaned. “I don’t want to think about school all weekend.”

Haseul laughed. “Good luck failing, then.”

You threw up a peace sign, backing up towards the road that led to your neighborhood. “Thanks for the food, guys!”

“Seokmin-ah,” Minghao nodded to him. “You coming over?”

Seokmin shook his head and started to follow you. “I should get help studying while I can. Tomorrow?”

You waved to your friends as they headed in the direction of their own homes. Seokmin fell into step beside you as you trotted down the steep alley that was a shortcut towards your street. His hands stuffed in his pockets, as usual. You tucked your thumbs under the straps of your book bag, examining your feet as you walked.

“I love you,” he had said. For some reason, the dreamy sound of his voice wouldn’t get out of your head. The words rattled in your skull; you could almost feel a headache coming on in response to it. The two of you walked in near-silence the entire way.

“Do you wanna come in?” He asked as you approached his house. 

You distracted your fingers with the hem of your shirt. “Ah, maybe not today.”

“Eh?” He punched your shoulder. “Why not? I wanna play Mario Kart.”

You laughed shortly, hoping he wasn’t noticing your blush. “I was serious about studying, Seokmin.”

“Well, come on, then.” He tugged on your arm, pulling you towards the front door. “We can study and then play Mario Kart.”

Unable to find a worthy excuse, you let him pull you through the front door. You slipped off your shoes, greeting his mom and waving to his sister, both of whom were practically family for you, but the interaction felt stilted in your current state. The two of you escaped to Seokmin’s room, where he dropped his bag on the floor and pulled a folding table out of his closet. Trying to not act as awkward as you felt, you busied yourself by messaging your mother on kakao to let her know you would be at the Lee household for a while. You thought about sitting on his bed, but you were hit with a sudden flashback of being pushed down onto it. You picked at your nails instead.

Seokmin quickly set up the short table in the middle of the room, then situated himself at one of the sides, pulling his bag closer to get his school things out. You hesitated before you sat across from him, back to his bed, tucking your legs under you and flattening your skirt.

“You’re acting weird,” he said suddenly. 

You looked at him, wide eyed. “What do you mean?”

“It’s been all day, but don’t know how to describe it,” he said, leaning back on his hands and furrowing his brow at you. “It’s weird. You’re acting… timid.”

You tried to laugh it off, but it sounded unconvincing even to yourself. “You’re crazy.”

He laughed at you. “You know it, too. You’re acting weird but you’re trying so hard not to.”

You groaned, putting your forehead on the table. “Leave me alone.”

“So... are you gonna tell me why?”

You adjusted onto your chin, eyeing him. “I said leave me alone.”

“C’mon, aren’t we supposed to be best friends?” He reached over and poked your forehead. “Tell me what’s up.”

You exhaled while you got up onto your elbows, rubbing your face. “I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about it with you.”

Seokmin’s eyebrows furrowed again. “Is it really that serious? Are you okay?”

You laughed, despite how incredibly nervous you felt. “It’s nothing serious, I promise. It’s stupid, really.”

“Now I’m worried,” he whined.

“How about that quiz, huh?” You said, pulling notebooks out of your book bag. He whined at you again, but complied and retrieved his own study supplies. He allowed an hour to pass before he brought it up again.

“Do you have a crush on someone?”

Your pencil clattered on the table when you fumbled with it. “What? No! What the hell?”

He squinted at you. “Is it Minghao?”

“Min, seriously,” you rubbed your face again. “I don’t have a crush.”

“You’re lying.”

You laughed incredulously. “I’m not!”

He studied you a moment. “You have a tell,” he said finally. “I’ve always known when you’re lying.”

You were sure the color washed from your face. Always? Surely that couldn’t be true. Besides, you really weren’t lying this time. “Seokmin. I don’t have a crush.”

“Liar,” he said after a beat. “You were being weird when we went out for food. Minghao?”

“No,” you said, suddenly nervous.

He squinted at you. “Mingyu?”

You rolled your eyes. This was insane. “No.”

He paused. “Haseul?”

You laughed. “You think I’m gay, now?”

“Well, who else?” He asked, exasperated. “Me?”

“No way.”

He stared at you a moment, clockwork moving behind his eyes. “Oh my God.”

You frowned. “What?”

“You have a crush on me.”

“You’re crazy.”

He pointed at you. “You chewed on the inside of your cheek. That’s your tell. You did it just now.”

You stared at him, your tongue running to the side of your mouth. He was right. The inside of your cheek was raw from the nervous habit. You stuttered. “Min, I swear, it’s not a crush, but I really don’t want to talk about this with you.”

“How long?” He asked, slouched over the table, watching you closely.

“Listen to what I’m saying, idiot.” You pointed at your lips for good measure as you enunciated each syllable. “It’s. Not. A. Crush.”

He exhaled and leaned back on his hands. “Then what is it? I’m not gonna stop until you tell me.”

You whined, dropping your head onto the table. “God, this is a nightmare.”

He poked at your head. “Tell me.” You whined in response. “Tell me!”

“Fine!” You said, sitting up and slapping away his hand. “I’ll tell you. But you better not tell another soul, Seokmin. Swear on your life.”

He crossed his heart. “I swear.”

You sighed deeply, leaning back, avoiding eye contact. “I had a dream last night.”

Seokmin watched you. “Wow, I got chills.”

You threw your pencil at him. “Shut up, I’m getting to it.” You exhaled again. “I had a dream about you last night, and it was… confusing.”

“Confusing how?”

You looked over at him. “Confusing… like, I don't know how I feel about it. It was… charged. Sexually.”

He stared at you blankly for a second. “Wait-”

You groaned and collapsed onto the floor, already regretting saying anything. “This is a nightmare.”

“Wait wait wait,” Seokmin’s hand hit the table. “You had-”

“This sucks!”

“-A sex dream-”

“Shut up!”

“About me?”

You groaned. “This is why I didn't want to talk about this.”

He picked up your pencil off the floor, laughing. “Wet dreams happen. Why do you feel so weird about it?”

“What,” you said, straightening out your shirt as you sat up. “You wouldn’t feel weird if you had a sex dream about me?”

“Well, I mean,” he paused, fiddling with the pencil. "I have. Had them about you, I mean."

You stared at him, cheeks burning. “What?”

He laughed, looking down. “I’m a guy,” he said, nervously folding the corner of his notebook. “And you’re pretty. I can’t control my subconscious.”

“Pretty,” you repeated.

“Yeah, I mean, obviously.” He shrugged. “That’s not a secret, or anything.”

“Right.” You nodded slowly, “So you’ve dreamt about… us.”

“Not on purpose,” he said, fussing with his notebook still. “But, yeah.”

“I guess that makes sense,” you said sheepishly. “We spend a lot of time together.”

He nodded, pointedly tapping the table with your pencil’s eraser. “Yeah, that probably has a lot to do with it. Was this the first time for you?”

“With you, yeah.” You pouted. "I know I've had them before, but I never really remember them like this."

Seokmin chuckled. “Well, I’m flattered.”

There was a pause between you two, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as you expected it to be.

“So,” you swallowed. “Are yours just fucking, or…”

“More than that?”

You nodded, staring at your hands.

“It depends,” he laughed nervously. “Sometimes they freak me out a little bit, actually.”

You chewed on your lip. “This one freaked me out.”

He shifted, obviously wanting to ask about it, but not knowing how. You took the hint.

“It was really… intimate,” you said quietly. “Like,” you paused, studying the wall. You put your hands up, palms together. “Like, looking-deep-in-your-eyes intimate.”

He stared at you. You cleared your throat nervously.

“You said you loved me.”

He exhaled. “Damn.”

“And I said it back.”

“Like…” he trailed off, gesturing.

You nodded. “During.”

“Wow,” he flipped the pencil around his thumb. “That’s a lot more than just fucking.”

“No kidding.”

“So,” he started after a long pause, then cleared his throat. “That’s why you've been acting weird?”

You groaned. “Yeah, it’s all I’ve been thinking about all day.”

He stifled a laugh. “It was that good, huh?”

“Shut up,” you giggled, despite how embarrassed his implication made you feel. “I don't know. Every time I see you now, I see that dream in my head. It's awkward.”

“Does that mean…” he paused, tapping your pencil again, his eyes wandering around his room. “You’re imagining me naked?”

“Ugh!” Your hands covered your face. “Well, now I am, you asshole!”

He laughed. “For what it’s worth, I have to pretend that I’m not imagining you naked way more often than I’d like to admit.”

Your fingers slid down your face, uncovering your eyes so you could stare at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I mean,” he dropped the pencil on the table. “Like, yesterday. When you were reading that comic on your phone?”

You nodded slowly, flattening your skirt against your thighs.

“It reminded me of this dream I had once, where you showed me a hentai and wanted to act it out with me.”

Your jaw dropped. “What the fuck?”

He laughed. “Listen, I don’t come up with this stuff on purpose.”

“How long ago was that dream?”

Seokmin thought a moment. “A few weeks ago?”

You eyed him. “How often do these dreams happen?”

He shifted. “I… I don’t know.”

“You’re lying, but I’ll let it go,” you said, sitting back and leaning against his bed.

He laughed. “Thanks.”

You watched him a moment as he stared at his fingers, fiddling with your pencil again. You suddenly remembered the way his lips had felt against yours. You had never really paid much attention to them before, but when you examined them now, you realized how full they were. They formed a sweet heart, you thought, and you wondered if they felt as velvety as they looked. You spent too long staring at his lips, you had to stop yourself from biting your own.

Seokmin exhaled and held out your pencil. “Back to studying, I guess?”

You blinked. “Right. Yeah.”

His brow raised while you took the pencil from him. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

He laughed. “You were looking at me really weird.”

You examined your pencil. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Seriously.” He cocked his head at you, a smile teasing his lips.

“Stop that,” you muttered, pouting. “I don’t like that I’m noticing you like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like,” you scoffed for a second, unable to believe yourself. “Like not my brother. Or best friend. I’ve been noticing you. As a man. All day. It’s weird and I can’t stop it.”

“As a man?” 

You looked up. Seokmin’s brows were furrowed, but his expression was still gentle. You felt your heart quicken. You screwed your eyes shut. “I’m going to do something. I want you to be totally honest about it after it happens, okay?”

“O-okay?”

Before you could change your mind, you steadied yourself as you leaned over the table, planting your lips on his.

And you stopped. And he stopped. And you felt electricity run down your spine.

Then time started again, and you pulled away slightly, your eyes opening to find him staring at you.

“I-I’m sorry,” you stuttered. “Was that-”

His hand reached up to you, pulling you back into him with a gentle grip on the back of your neck. This time, his lips moved against yours. You immediately settled into him, goosebumps forming on your arms when you felt his tongue brush against yours. When the pace slowed, he let out a hot breath, and you rested your forehead against his.

He laughed. “Holy shit.”

A giggle escaped your lips. “Yeah.”

“I,” he laughed again. “I’m not gonna lie to you. I have a raging boner.”

You couldn’t stop yourself from looking down, immediately noticing the tent in his pants. You sputtered out a laugh. “Oh my god, Min. You’re such a romantic.”

“Listen!” His hand moved from your nape to your jaw. “That was… A lot. I didn’t realize that kissing you would be like that.”

You smiled gently. You’d never seen his eyes this close before. “Me neither.”

“Like,” he paused. “Is it always like that? Or are we just… insanely compatible?”

You giggled. “I’ve never had a kiss that felt that good.”

“One second,” he said, adjusting himself quickly and standing. He stepped around the table and put out a hand to help you to your feet. “Can we continue?”

You giggled as you stood, straightening your skirt with your free hand. “Yeah, I think I want to.”

He placed his hands on your waist hesitantly. The touch was new. Different, but not unpleasant. You settled your arms on his shoulders, and he dipped down to kiss you again. It was exploratory, almost nervous, but you both settled into a rhythm quickly. You found your hand burying itself in the hair above his nape, and he pulled your hips into him. You gasped slightly, surprised by the unfamiliar feeling of his clothed hard on against your pelvis.

“Too much?” He asked breathlessly, pulling away.

You shook your head and pulled him back onto your lips, immediately deepening the kiss. After a few beats, your teeth tugged on his lip and he groaned, fingers gripping you desperately. His heavy eyelids opened, and you stared at him, trying to catch your breath. “We should… stop.”

He nodded. “Probably, yeah.”

“This is…” You watched his lips. “This is your first time kissing a girl, right?”

He nodded.

“And it would be, you know…” Your fingers were still buried in his hair. “The first time doing that for both of us.”

He nodded.

“So…” You bit your lip. “We should stop.”

He nodded.

But neither of you really wanted to stop. Despite all logic pointing towards it, you really had a hard time justifying it to yourself when you were here, with him, and everything felt so good.

So you didn’t stop. Not yet.

You slowed the pace, both of you aware that you were no longer participating in a sprint, but rather a marathon. He was gentle with you, his hands following the curve of your waist as he discovered your weak points - the small of your back, your lower lip, and the skin between your ear and jaw. You couldn't stop thinking about how you just couldn't believe he had never kissed a girl before, considering how easily he was making you melt in his hands.

And when a curious hand found its way to your ass, playfully pulling up your skirt to grip you better, you nearly fell apart. You desperately wanted to do something, despite knowing that you probably shouldn't, and you fought with the notion for a long moment, all while Seokmin made a very compelling case for you to strip down right that second.

You needed to think logically. Seokmin was your very best friend and you didn’t want to ruin that, but you were a bit beyond that at this point. You had only admitted attraction, not even feelings. You weren’t even close to dating, you thought. You always wanted your first time to be with someone you had been seeing for a while, someone you really cared for and really cared for you. Someone special. But the more you considered it, you realized Seokmin might be the perfect candidate; he was the person you were closest to, and you shared an emotional intimacy that you couldn’t even imagine with anyone else, so even that argument seemed null.

It didn’t take much for you to work up the courage. He pulled your hips into him again, and you let your hands drift downward, finding their way to the (impressive) bulge in the front of his pants. He made a noise - a mix between a yelp and a groan - before grabbing your shoulders and pushing you away slightly.

Your already rosy pink cheeks went bright red. “Bad?”

“I-” Seokmin stuttered. “I thought-”

“I just,” you paused, looking down. You tried not to stare at his crotch. “We don’t have to do anything major but… I want to touch you.”

He let out a strangled laugh. “What happened to ‘we should stop’?”

You bit at your lip, pushing him lightly until he sat on the edge of the bed, sinking to your knees in front of him. “Do you want to stop?”

He stared at you, seeming to consider everything for the first time, suddenly awake to what you were suggesting. “Not really, no.”

“Then,” you looked down. “Let me touch you.”

-

The next day, you were on his bed. You were laying next to each other, listening to music, when you suddenly propped yourself up on an elbow to look at him. He raised an eyebrow at you.

“Can I help you?”

You laughed. “Yes.”

He smiled, placing a hand on your nape to pull you down to him, resulting in a long, slow kiss. That same electricity ran down your spine.

“Uh oh.”

He laughed lightly. “Why uh oh?”

You examined his face for a moment. “I think I might actually have a crush on you.”

“I told you you were lying yesterday.”

You laughed and hit him. The music stopped suddenly, his phone ringing from where it was plugged in across the room. Seokmin groaned.

“Can you get that?”

“You’re closer than me, asshole.”

He groaned again, rolling off his bed and onto the floor, crawling his way to his desk. He pulled it off its cord and answered. “Hey.”

You watched as he stood, making a noise of recognition. His hand hit his forehead.

“Ah, I forgot. Do you wanna come over here instead? I don’t wanna leave the house.”

As Seokmin walked back towards the bed, you could hear Minghao’s annoyed voice through the phone. “-been waiting all afternoon. Mingyu’s here already, you know? And you’re gonna make us come to you?”

“Ah, well,” he said, flopping back onto the bed and putting his phone on speaker. “Y/N’s over here, so. Are you gonna make her walk all the way to your house? Are you even allowed to have girls over?”

You laughed at Minghao’s stutter as he repeated your name. “Hey, am I on speaker? That’s rude, you know.”

“Hi, Hao,” you said, giggling. “You and Mingyu should come over, the four of us can play Mario Kart!”

“See!” Seokmin said. “Listen to your elders, Myungho.”

“We're the same age, don't call yourself my elder.”

“See you soon?”

He sighed into the phone. You stifled a snort. “Fine, we’ll come to you. Be there in twenty.”

You laughed at the dial tone that signified Minghao hung up without letting Seokmin say bye. He had a look of betrayal on his face before he dropped the phone and rolled onto his side, facing you. You raised a brow. He contorted his face to wink at you dramatically, making you laugh, and him follow suit.

“Yah,” he rolled over again, rubbing his face. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

You poked his side and he swatted at your hand. “What do you mean?”

“To be totally honest?” Seokmin inspected the ceiling. “I’ve liked you for a really long time.”

Your mouth opened involuntarily. “Really?”

He nodded. “I woke up this morning thinking for sure that I dreamt yesterday. I’ve thought about confessing to you so many times, but you never seemed interested in me that way. I didn’t want to make our friendship awkward.”

“Well,” you said, picking at your nails. “I’m interested in you now, so…”

Seokmin laughed, tucking a hand under his head. “Good thing, I was getting worried I wouldn’t be able to keep it in much longer. You keep getting prettier every day.”

You coasted on that high, laying on your stomach and smiling at your phone, for the time it took your friends to make their way to you. You heard the door opening downstairs and Seokmin’s mother’s voice as she told them to go ahead up. 

Seokmin rolled off the bed. “I should move. They might suspect something if we’re laying in bed together.”

You nodded at him, looking back at your phone and mindlessly playing a puzzle game as he settled, seated on the floor with his back against the bed. There was an unspoken agreement that the two of you should keep whatever relationship developed a secret, at least for now. The two of you didn’t even know what this was yet, it’d be stupid to let others in on it, too.

When Minghao and Mingyu practically kicked open Seokmin’s bedroom door, you jumped at the noise and stared at them wide eyed.

“Yah!” Seokmin yelled. “Be careful! The hell is wrong with you?”

Minghao looked like he was trying to be intimidating, pursing his lips to stop himself laughing while he tried to be serious. “You lazy assholes made us walk all the way over here.”

You looked from him to Mingyu, who looked back at you, his face reading like a hostage. You burst into laughter, rolling onto your side.

“Don’t laugh!” Minghao pointed at you, a smile breaking through his facade. “I’m serious. This jerk agreed to come over to my house, yet we somehow ended up here! Because you’re here! Why?”

Seokmin was staring at him, mouth open and squinting. “In my defense, I forgot.”

“I wanted to hang out,” you said sweetly, sitting up and leaning against the wall. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s always choosing you over us,” Minghao pouted, crossing his arms as Mingyu snuck around him to sit on the bed next to you. “What’s up with that?”

“Well, first of all,” Seokmin said. “She’s way cooler than both of you.”

You laughed and said “thanks,” while both Mingyu and Minghao whined in unison.

“Secondly, I’ve known her for literally a decade longer than I’ve known you guys.”

“Whatever,” Minghao said, pulling his phone out of his jeans’ pocket and sitting on the floor. “You’re weirdly confident today. Did you finally get laid?”

You almost snapped your neck with how quickly you looked up at him. Mingyu snorted, laughing at the idea, but both you and Seokmin were frozen, staring at Minghao, who’s forehead creased when he saw the looks on both of your faces. Realization dawned on him and Mingyu almost simultaneously.

“Holy fuck, you two-”

“I have to pee,” Seokmin announced loudly, standing so suddenly that he toppled slightly before walking past Minghao and exiting the room. You stared after him incredulously, ears bright red, silently cursing the scaredy-cat bitch for abandoning you.

Mingyu cleared his throat. “So.”

“Nope,” you said. “This isn’t happening. We’re not talking about this.”

Minghao pointed at you. “So it’s true!”

You shook your head and rubbed your face. “That idiot really just walked out of the room.”

Mingyu laughed his big loud laugh, making you chuckle into your hands as you continued to cover your face.

“I’m so pissed. I can’t believe he actually just walked out.”

“I can’t believe you fucked him,” Minghao said.

Your hands fell off your face. “I didn’t! We didn’t fuck!”

He pointed at the door. “Then what the hell was that?”

“That was an idiot.”

He pouted a moment. “That’s not fair. I can’t argue with that.”

When the door opened again, you threw a pillow at Seokmin. “You jerk!”

He caught the pillow and stared at you. “What?”

The other boys stifled laughter as you fumed. “You abandoned me, you asshole!”

“I had to pee!”

“Nice cover, dick.” You crossed your arms. “I’m mad at you.”

“Don’t be mad at me!” He pointed at Minghao. “Be mad at him!”

Mingyu whined. “Mommy and Daddy are fighting...”

You smacked him in the arm with the back of your hand, and he jumped, rubbing the spot you hit. 

Minghao laughed and leaned back on his hands. “You’re a real dumbass.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled, hugging the pillow while he sat down across the room. “I didn’t know what to do.”

You scoffed. “Clearly.”

“So... are you guys done talking about it?”

You threw your phone at him, and he deflected it with the pillow. 

“Hey! That could have actually hurt me!”

“Yet it didn’t,” you said, trying to grab Mingyu’s phone out of his hand to throw that, too, but he held it out of your reach and pushed you away. “We didn’t talk about anything, and we’re not gonna talk about anything.” You pointed a look at Minghao. “Right?”

“Right,” he said, sighing. “Whatever. I’ll corner Seokmin later.”

You continued to fume from your curled position on the bed, pouting and glaring at Seokmin. He stared back at you, eyes wide and lips slightly curved downwards. He mouthed an I’m sorry, but you just kept glaring.

“So,” Mingyu said, scratching his head. “Mario Kart?”

Hours passed, and you slowly let out your anger one shell at a time, Seokmin crying out and begging you to stop every time you hit him. At the end of a Grand Prix, you announced that you needed to pee.

“Have fun,” you said to Seokmin, then stood up to go to the restroom. He stared at you, wishing for mercy, as you closed the bedroom door. You giggled to yourself as you walked down the stairs.

You purposefully took your time, using the restroom downstairs, washing your hands extra well, looking at photos in the hall, peeking into the kitchen and chatting with Seokmin’s mother. When you finally returned, Seokmin looked shellshocked and both Mingyu and Minghao looked up at you.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

Minghao nodded. “He’s easier to crack than you are.”

That was the moment where you thought, oh, this may have been a mistake. You gulped, looking at Seokmin. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” he said, but it came out as almost a whisper. He cleared his throat. “Nothing, I swear.”

You looked at Mingyu, and he shook his head with a frown to tell you he was lying. “Seokmin, what the fuck?”

“You abandoned me!”

“That doesn’t mean you can tell them everything!”

“I didn’t tell them everything…”

“Oh,” Minghao said, “So you guys did do more than that.”

You stared at him. “Seokmin, what the fuck!”

“I’m sorry!” He put his hands together and getting on his knees to plead with you. “I’m sorry! I’m weak! You know this!”

“You’re a fucking traitor,” you said, shaking your head as you sat down. He practically put his head in your lap while he bowed to you, muttering apologies. “I’m never sucking your dick again.”

His head shot up while both of the other boys burst into laughter. Seokmin let out a weak “really?”, which made them laugh even harder.

You almost snorted at the look on his face, shoving on his shoulder while the boys were distracted laughing. “Stop digging your own grave, idiot. What did you even tell them?”

He sat up, lower lip sticking out as he stared at you, clearly searching for a sign that you weren’t absolutely pissed at him anymore. "Just that you, y'know," he muttered, aimlessly gesturing. "Taught me how to make you feel good."

"You got pretty good, too," you giggled. You leaned over, planting a quick kiss on his lips.

“Wait, no, come back,” he said, pulling at you with a hand on the back of your neck. You laughed while Mingyu made a gagging noise behind you.

“Ugh, get a room.”

“This is my room,” Seokmin snapped back, looking over your shoulder. He kissed you again, then finally let you sit back. “Hey,” he started. You looked up at him, pursing your lips. “Wanna be my girlfriend?”

You giggled.

“You two aren’t even together?” Minghao whined.

“Seriously, you have to do this right now?” Mingyu groaned.

“I’d like that,” you said.

“Me too,” Seokmin grinned.

[back-and-totheleft]

"Hollywood rabble rouser"

Late one night in the summer of 2008, I found what turned out to be a stockbroker’s iPhone in the back of a NYC taxi. Turning it on in order to contact the owner, I noticed that amongst the stock watch apps and currency converters was an icon of Gordon Gekko, the corrupt market raider immortalized by Michael Douglas in Wall Street, Oliver Stone’s 1987 tale of insider trading and corporate excess. Intrigued, I hit Gekko’s pixilated face (it felt good) and a website flashed up with an entire transcription of his infamous “Greed is good” speech — one of Hollywood’s most iconic parables to the pursuit of unrestrained greed. Whoever owned the phone found those words as important as checking Facebook or texting his girlfriend. Gekko was his hero, his daily inspiration.

Watching back Wall Street a few weeks later as news of the Lehman Brothers collapse and global recession spread, it struck me that a whole generation of financiers must have grown up, like Charlie Sheen’s character Bud Fox, yearning to be Gekko. He was the business equivalent of a rapper wanting to become Tony Montana, another Stone creation. And some of these brokers, as we’ve all since discovered, were willing to trade money that didn’t exist in pursuit of pin stripe suits, corner offices, penthouses, boats, women, and stacks of cash. Perhaps the perks made the 22-year prison stretch Gekko received at the end of the film seem like a viable risk. Or they deliberately chose to ignore his downfall.

Inspired by financial fiends like Bernie Madoff, Stone decided to spring Gekko out of prison for Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. Set in 2008, he is a reformed character that tries, and fails, to warn business leaders of the impending credit crunch. Many fans are understandably nervous about Douglas reprising his Oscar winning role, especially since his hair gel and brick phone have long been put into storage. Stone, who only agreed to direct the film because he felt that current financial climate lent itself to a sequel, understandably feels that it’s time for bankers to grow up. As the director of Natural Born Killers, JFK and Platoon he’s used to Marmite reactions. But, after giving Dubya an easy ride in W, will Gordon 2.0 be one step too far? Is the world ready for goody Gekko two shoes? Or will traders across Wall Street be deleting their “Greed is good” iPhone bookmarks forever? As they say on the stock market floor, let the bull charge.

Tim Noakes: When you were 18 your father got you to work on a financial exchange in France. Was that your inspiration for Wall Street?

Oliver Stone: No, it was a great summer job actually, because it was very exotic. My father was always into the stock market, into numbers. He loved that world in New York and I grew up on the fringes of it but I wasn’t particularly attuned to it. So it was a chance to see it first hand but I didn’t do very well as a trader. In those days you’d run from the phone booth in the back to the floor. It was cocoa and sugar. It was violent and busy. They used to elbow each other to get into the inner circle, like matadors. It was a real crush. I elbowed my way through it and got up to be assistant buyer, which was very complicated because you had to make the orders for everything right. You couldn’t screw up. A lot of money’s involved. So then I thought I should be one of the cocoa buyers. I was a little too ambitious for my own good.

Your father died before you made Wall Street. What do you think he would have made of it?

I think he would have appreciated that I had done a business movie. We always talked about it. He loved movies and he took me to them. We discussed them afterwards, which was an invaluable experience, and he would say that there weren’t many business movies. And there weren’t. There was not a specific genre. Hollywood was not into the business movie concept. It’s hard. I can understand why. It’s all financial talk, it’s not interesting to most people and it lacks those human emotions. Money is an interesting subject, however, for America. That’s why I addressed it in 1987. I thought, ‘Americans love money’, and what lengths they will go to get it is what that movie is about. Especially coming off Platoon, which is a different kind of movie. I was trying to prove that I could do something domestic with ‘Wall Street’.

The original was very much of its era.

It was the era of “Greed is good” and Reagan. With Wall Street 2, I’m obviously more mature, I’ve done more films, I have more confidence, I hope. I’m trying something a little bit deeper in the relationship field. There’s no Darryl Hannah in the movie. There’s a real English girl this time (Carey Mulligan). She anchors strongly the emotions of the film, because she is damaged. She’s the daughter of Gordon Gekko, if you can imagine what that can be like.

Michael Douglas once said that your style of directing is like taking people into the trenches. What did he mean by that?

He makes it sound like I dress him up in uniform and have a military hierarchy. Every single actor that I’ve worked with, and there’s obviously dozens now, you’d have to talk to every single one of them to get their perception. I would say some would disagree. Maybe Michael, because he hasn’t been in the military, would regard it as a military experience. I didn’t think of it that way. I think of a movie as an organisation that has to work at a very fluid pace involving a large amount of people who have to move quickly over a landscape. Call that what you will. It could be an adventure party or a military organisation. It’s really a satellite business. You form, you group, you rehearse, you shoot, you separate. It’s very nomadic. In that chemistry you bring together so many conflicting types of people who have different kinds of egos. It’s quite a mix. At the end of the day, if you look back at the — what is it? 19, 20 films — that I’ve directed, it’s just a mix of styles. Sometimes it really works with people. It clicks. I think Michael did great work on both films, so I’m very pleased with his result. My style might not have been good for him, but it works for other people. Some people, like Shia LaBeouf and Josh Brolin, were digging it. They loved the way I worked because it was intense and to the point and relatively fast.

Do you see yourself as a hard taskmaster or a disciplinarian?

No, I’m not a disciplinarian. I’m disciplined with myself and I think I try to lead by example not by imposition of my will. I try to lead by example. That’s just to say that people know that I’m trying to get this thing done. My approach is that we’re all in this together. The idea is king. We all serve that king. It is not a democracy, it is a constitutional monarchy, so to speak, with strong legislative power in the House of Lords. No, but the idea is king. I repeat that. Not the director. The idea. I serve the idea.

How do you balance the logistics with trying to create a piece of art?

Oh boy, if I didn’t tell you I wasn’t humbled so many times, you would not believe it. It’s a very humbling experience to make a movie, because you’re at the mercy of the elements. Of the winds and the weather as well as conditions that can go wrong — disease, sickness, bad tempers. All sorts of stuff can happen. Given that nature, to pull off a movie is extremely difficult. The editing room is another humiliation. All your mistakes are thrown back in your face. No matter how many good choices you make, and making a movie involves thousands of choices, you’re constantly having to question yourself again. I find it a very difficult position. I don’t think I enjoy it. I think I’m more experienced at it but I don’t think I completely enjoy it. I think sometimes it’s so painful you want to scream bloody murder and run somewhere.

What’s the cut-off point? How do you stop?

How do you stop? A famous director once said that every film is abandoned, never finished.

So you just let it go?

Some people won’t but I do let it go. I’m not looking for perfection. I don’t believe in it. I believe that a film is many things to many people and it changes over time. I think you have to feel good about it and about what you did. It hangs together and it’s going to be a story that can move an audience. It’s so difficult to pull off quickly. It takes time.

The world’s moved on since Wall Street. Were you apprehensive about creating a sequel to such a well-loved film?

Apprehensions? No. I’d have had more apprehensions if I’d had to do it in 1990, I think. Twenty-three years is a long time to call it a sequel. I think of it more as a bookend.

Don’t you think that’s laying you open for even more criticism? Look at what George Lucas did with Star Wars..

We’re not going back into that period. The beauty of this thing is that there’s a new period upon us, which is quite different, technically. It’s a different kind of Wall Street. The landscape has changed. It’s no longer 1987. It’s really a computer game now. The money has accelerated at a square root that is beyond belief from millions to billions. Hedge funds invest 30–40 billion dollars. Even to have one billion dollars is an enormous amount of money. When you hear these guys say, “Oh, it’s just a billion dollar hedge fund” it’s unbelievable arrogance. The heights are dizzying, and the losses are dizzying. It’s just unbelievable what happened. By all accounts it was a near-fatal heart-attack.

Were you planning on revisiting Wall Street is the crisis hadn’t happened?

No, that was the catalyst for it. It wasn’t the only reason. It was a wonderful idea for a script, that Gekko would be a different type of person. That he would start from the outside. He didn’t have power or connections anymore. Time had passed. He was dated.

Is Michael Douglas in danger of becoming a pastiche of what made Gordon Gekko good?

I feared that. That’s why we approached it in a wholly different way. Michael is playing it twenty-two years older, he’s coming out of prison. Michael has changed in that interim. He was a charming rogue, certainly, in the Eighties. You saw a lot of that in his subsequent performances. You saw a lot of Gekko in later films, so I think it was smart to move away from that pastiche, as you call it, because it would have been boring after a while. There are flashes of the old Gekko, which I love, but it’s not like the charming reptile, so to speak. It’s a different man now. I’m not saying that he’s a wholly reformed figure looking for a martyrhood, but what’s interesting about him is what he’s going to do, and how he’s going to play the game to get back. He has suffered extensively in prison, his family has fallen apart, his oldest son has committed suicide. It’s very tough on him.

How did you persuade Michael to get back on board?

Frankly, I didn’t convince anybody. I passed on the script in 2006. It wasn’t important for me to make it. I felt, what was the need to make this movie if it was going to glorify the pigs on Wall Street? They were really making money and it was ugly. There was a spate of books too like The Wolf of Wall Street, which was a big hit and they are going to make a movie out of that. There was kind of a surfeit and there was sickliness to it all. I got turned off by it. I passed, and I moved on with my life, and I did W and World Trade Centre and stuff like that. Then there was this crash and the crash changed the equation I think, I hope.

Do you think the original message of Wall Street failed because young traders ended up idolising Gordon Gekko?

That’s a very good question. Frankly, I wondered at times. The original Wall Street came about because of my experiences on Scarface. I was living in New York and I was hanging out with the dealers and the mob. That whole scene in Miami was a very shocking thing in 1982–3. Wall Street, was like Scarface north. I was suddenly seeing people my age, in their twenties, making millions of dollars, so easily, so quickly. Moving inordinate amounts of money. Also, snorting and drinking. The partying scene had really kicked in big time in the 80s. It was all new to me, so that’s how that was born. Then it went to excess. But I was very clear that Gekko was the antagonist in the movie, but as you say a lot of young people caught on to him. I do think, and perhaps I’m retrograde, that although he was not feted at the time the anchor of the movie is Charlie Sheen.

But no-one wanted to be Bud Fox.

Well that’s the movies. They want to be heroes. They want to make money. I did meet a lot of people in their 40s that said, “When I saw your movie I was studying this-or-that at this-or-that school, I was going to do history or medicine or law but then I saw the movie and I moved to Wall Street for that reason.” The the kicker was that some of them were multi-millionaires, one of them was a billionaire, and they had moved to Wall Street because of the movie. I said, “Oh boy, I wish I had a royalty on that.” These guys are really rich.

I find that quite worrying.

I gave birth to some rich people. But some of them did good. Some of them created something. That was the whole point of the original. Not to shit on Wall Street but to basically say, ‘Look, this is an engine of capitalism’. This can work. My father always felt that Wall Street was a good thing. It creates companies, it finances new companies, creates research and development, and it does. It still does, by the way, it’s not forgotten but it’s been buried in the greater picture of making bigger profits and more greed, but it’s still there. Wall Street is a good thing. It was a good thing and it can be a good thing.

Throughout your career critics have said you shouldn’t glamourise the people you put on the big screen. Do you like to provoke that reaction?

No, I like to make bigger-than-life characters but ‘World Trade Centre’ is about two very ordinary men who were real heroes. On Bush I guess you could say I supped with the devil and brought out all the reasons I thought why people voted for the guy. There is this fundamental thing which Americans like in him, and I was trying to root that out and how he became President.

You were criticised for making Bush too likeable.

You can fault that, but he was re-elected. I didn’t like him. I was very clear — I empathised. Empathy means I walked in his shoes, or tried to. As opposed to sympathised. I don’t agree with anything he said. Anything. I think he was a disaster. It was a nightmare eight years.

Do you think you were too soft?

No. I wish I’d done it a year earlier and it would have been more timely. He was out of favour when it came out, because of the economy, but frankly the movie was about the national security state which concerned me more.

Why are you drawn to these anti-heroes?

They don’t do me any good. Nixon, too.

I see a lot of similarities between Tony Montana and Gordon Gekko. In Scarface, Tony says “You need people like me to point the finger at and say, ‘That’s the bad guy’”. Do you think film critics see you in that light?

I think you’re right. I think film critics have me as a punch ball. It’s an easy target, I guess. I’ve been misidentified with the characters, but I think over time you see that there’s a whole assortment of different characters. But I agree, I think that’s true and I think that’s hurt me. It’s hurt my career as well as some of the political statements I’ve made and positions I’ve taken in documentaries I’ve made. They’ve hurt me too and they’ve given me a profile that’s not necessarily me, it’s just a profile. Absolutely.

There’s been huge furor recently that you’re reported to be attempting to humanise Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong.

I think it’s out of context. I did use the word ‘scapegoat’ and I think that was an unfortunate word, but frankly it’s a very interesting history that we’re putting together. We’re using the facts that we have, that are known but have been forgotten. There’s no question that Hitler had a big hand up the ladder. He didn’t come out of nowhere. He is a Frankenstein, he is a monster and I have no sympathy for him, but he was created by a Dr Frankenstein. That Dr Frankenstein is a very interesting mixture and you have to study cause and effect to understand history, otherwise you don’t learn anything from it. It’s my fault because I’m interested in the world, and I’m willing to go out there. I’m not trying to provoke, I’m trying to look for the truth. I’m trying to shine a light. For Christ’s sake, I feel like we’ve become so politically correct that you can’t do shit anymore. You’re not supposed to turn around.

Do you feel like you sometimes exploit sensitive subjects too much? More than some people can take?

Well, that’s why I like the English. They’re much more out there and they’re willing to explore subjects that the Americans are not. Having been to war, having seen the devastation America visited onto Vietnam, I cannot just be another typical American and live in isolation. My taxes are going as we speak to blowing up people in Afghanistan. I don’t feel good about that.

Back to Wall Street. Gekko says “Every dream has its price”, what’s the biggest price you’ve paid to get to where you are?

I’d have to talk to my psychotherapist, who I haven’t seen in ages. I suppose the price is that you do have long absences from home and normal quotidian values, at times. Your children grow up and you have to readapt to the fact that you haven’t been the attentive father. That’s a big issue, but I have been as attentive as I can be in taking care of them. Still, there’s gaps there. Divorces have happened. Those things.

I see Wall Street as epitomising the ruthlessness of the Eighties. During that era did you find yourself being a slave to the success that you had earned?

Yeah, I suppose everybody can become a mental slave to the need to produce. Remember, I was on a roll in the sense that I had to get financing for very complicated movies. I felt like I had a mission. To get JFK made in that era was very tough, still. You need heat. To make that movie after The Doors you need to keep rolling. In a sense I worked very fast, and hard, but I knew that I could get things done. Nixon was sort of the end of the line. I was making movies all those years. Platoon was impossible to get made. So was Salvador. Every single fucking one. ‘The Doors’. They were always problems. There were always tremendous issues. You asked what the price is? The price was to keep going fast, before they change their mind. The idea was ‘Wrap it up, get another one done’. These are tough subject matters. With ‘Nixon’ I’d done eleven or ten, I was exhausted. Frankly, I needed to take a break.

What kept you moving on? Obviously the pressures that you’re talking about manifested in different ways. You had your drug problems earlier on, but how did it manifest when the financing started to crumble down? Did you resort to those kind of vices?

I think there’s other factors. There was a lot of living. A lot of pain. Children. Divorces. This and that. But I think I have been very successful. I got movies made that wouldn’t have been done in the normal radar. They were not on the scope.

In Wall Street 2 Shia LeBeouf says, “No matter how much money you make, you’ll never be rich”. With all your success, do you empathise with that sentiment?

Of course I do. I don’t think money is the solution to happiness. Life is complicated, but certainly money can have the opposite effect. It can make you unsatisfied with life, and make life harder for you. There are two effects of it. One is that it leaves you unsatisfied, you always want more, as we see from these billionaires. Two, it leaves you falsely content and over-satisfied.

And you’re not either?

I don’t feel that way, no. I feel like I’m one trade away from disaster.

The new film is called Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. What gets you off to sleep?

What gets me off to sleep? Sonata. Medication. I’m just joking. The best solution for sleep is having lived a full day and tried hard to live life fully. That makes you feel the reward of sleep.

-Tim Noakes, "The Hollywood rabble rouser sets his sights on a new generation of Wall Street wolves," Medium, Mar 3 2010 [x]

[tuttifuckinfruttifriday]

Sending lots of love to my gorgeous @randomly-a-fan 🥺💖💖💖💖💖 If you ever send hate to her(correct me if I’m wrong on the pronoun, bby), you’re going to have to go through me 😤😤😤

🌺I got you🌸

Pairing: Jason Voorheese x MJ, MJ x Malon and Malon x Jason

Warnings: Violence, gore, small angst, lots of fluff and cuddles <3

Like always, don’t hesitate to tell me my mistakes 💕

Songs: <3

—

Today was a really sunny day, so a smile appeared on MJ’s face as she felt the rays of the sun on her sleepy face through the open curtains. It was probably her husband who opened them, wanting her to wake up on her own or see the beautiful weather. Thinking about him, MJ wasn’t surprised to see that he wasn’t there, but a small person was sleeping peacefully beside her, the person being her Malon. The light enlightened her messy red hair and sleeping face, making MJ smile. If there was a camera somewhere, she would have took it and taken the cute moment in picture. Not wanting to wake her up, she tiptoed out of the room and changed her clothes for something less warm, after she kissed her forehead gently, eating a little something. She didn’t bother making breakfast, since Malon would probably wake up in maybe 2-4 hours and Jason was on patrol. Putting her bowl of yogourt/berries into the sink to wash later, an idea came to her. Since it was really nice outside, she would take a small walk to sketch some other things, but she would take a small bag with her because she didn’t want what happened to her first sketchbook to happen again. Putting everything she needs in the brown homemade bag, she swung the strap over her shoulder and opened before closing the door carefully, telling herself that nobody would come here anyway so she didn’t need to put the lock. Her gaze drifted towards the sky, the sun peeking between the leaves of the trees and looking strait at her. It made her feel at peace, the light making small cream dots on her skin.

The crunching of the leaves under her shoes distracted her from thinking about anything bad that could happen, her smile still resting on her face—

Before it vanished as she saw a camping tent where she would normally sit. There was obviously at least one camper inside, the sun showing a shadow through the impermeable blue fabric. It was like her insides where moving around and she felt sick to her stomach, fear making its way through her brains as she took a big breath, walking backward slowly as to not alert the person... only to freeze as she stepped on a branch and felt the twig and leaves snap and rustle, the noise obviously stopping the person inside. “Hello? Who’s here?” A male stepped out, at least 10 years older than her. His hair was almost all grey and he had a really good built, but not too much. His blue eyes drifted towards MJ who decided to be brave and he tilted his head with a frown. “Hello... H-hi! Huumm... Sorry to bother you, mister.” Listening to her with an eyebrow raised, his eyes never left her form as she got a little closer, now almost in his campement. “Hi? What do you want..?” Snapping out of her shy phase, she took a deep breath and started to tell him that it was a private property, and that he couldn’t camp here. “I’ll camp wherever I damn please, lady!” He suddenly snapped, making her jump a little. “I-I’m sorry—“ She desperately tried to explain to him, putting subtle Camp Blood hints to try to scare him away.

It went like that for some time, the adrenaline making her look calmer and stricter than she was. In reality, her heart was still beating really fast, and she could see her shirt moving up and down because of the rapidity and strength of it. She was absolutely terrified, the man having terrible anger issues. But before he could become violent, they heard the rustle of leaves from somewhere. The man stopped abruptly his angry yelling, jumping a little. He was so frustrated that he didn’t see the big shadowy figure coming towards him, a barbed wire in his hands. Before he could have the time to react, the person put the wire to his neck and brought it back, choking him and cutting his throat successfully. Blood splattered on her face, but her body was still frozen in place as she breathed heavily and rapidly, her eyes fixed where the man was standing. Everything buzzed, the gurgles and strangled screams of the man blocked, as water came to her eyes, her anxiety and stress getting the best of her. Before she could do anything else, Big strong arms wrapped around her, supporting her body from behind as she felt all her strength leaving her. She couldn’t say anything else, her eyes moving rapidly and she tried to breath normally, feeling comfort coming from the person that was obviously her husband.

Seeing his wife so distressed and scared made the undead man want to cry, so he took her in his arms bridal style and walked slowly toward their home, cradling the best he could her shaking body into his chest. He would get rid of the man later, right now, he had to take care of the love of his life, not wanting her to feel scared anymore. When they got inside, Malon ran towards them, only to stop with tears in her eyes as she saw her mom shaking, trying to stay strong and not let the tears fall down her face. “Mommy...” She followed them as Jason put her on their bed, coming up on the mattress to hug her mother, feeling her shaking arms wrap around her. MJ’s never been so scared before, not even when she was hurt and kidnapped multiple times. Her thoughts were cut when heard her little girl trying to comfort her, her face buried into her neck. “It’s okay, mommy... Everything’s okay... Me and daddy are here and we’ll protect yoooouu.... “ Instantly, a sad smile appeared on her face as she forced out a small chuckle, seeing that her girl could read her like a book and is so brave.. With that, she calmed a little, cuddling with Malon as Jason tried to make some food for the three to eat. He didn’t know a lot about that, but he tried to remember what his mother would make... Thinking about her, since he met MJ, he never heard from her anymore. Maybe she had finally crossed over, if yes, he was really happy for her, but still really sad..... Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he continued on the task of making food, his hands working carefully as he remembered his mother doing the same, her hands working skillfully as he looked at her cooking from the table. His didn’t look as good, but at least they could eat it. So he separated the food into plates, putting one on the table as he saw his daughter coming in the kitchen happily, hopping on the chair and eating with a smile towards him. Not seeing his wife, he decided that he would take the food to her and did just that, placing the plate on his lap as he hugged her and obliged her to eat, watching carefully as she did her best, her body still shaking a little, tears coming to her eyes now and then.

After that, they played her favourite board game, MJ wining most of the time and them smiling as they saw her cheering. It was a really nice night, and the family were happy, almost forgetting about the dangerous encounter. When it was finally time to go to sleep, MJ and Jason kissed Malon before they tucked her in gently, the little girl hugging her mother one last time before she was out like a light. Then, the couple went to their bedroom, closing the light when they considered themselves comfortable and closing the blinds. But as MJ tried to sleep, she seriously couldn’t.... the encounter with the trespasser coming back to her, his pale bloodied body on the forest ground....

Big strong arms wrapped around her, her body melting under the soft and protective embrace. Her husbands large body spooned hers as she suddenly felt all her worry melting away, happy tears coming to her eyes as she closed them, feeling a very gentle kiss on the top of her shoulder before she fell into sleep, her body one with the other behind her, feeling like she was floating...💕

[knifesxedge]

hi pi! i hope you are well :) if you'd like to, could you share more abt poison and ghoul as parents? i love them so much <3

hi eden! i’m well ty!! and i would LOVE to

uhhh so they’ve raised a kid before, obviously, but when the girl was a baby all of them were teens (ghoul & poison specifically were about 16 when she came home for the first time) so the ‘parenting’ style with her was different than it was with charlie. mostly because it was their first time trying to take care of a child and so when charlie came home they were a bit more confident but ALSO definitely because they mellowed out a bit (poison mostly) when they got older. with the girl it was a more complicated situation — the fab four were somewhere between parental figures and older siblings to her, she was able to get away with a lot more stuff but also saw a lot more claps because they didn’t have any way to keep her from that. with charlie they were able to keep a bit more from her — the girl could watch her, when claps happened, and by the time charlie was born they’d stopped looking for violence/picking fights with dracs, crows, etc. too, which helped.

i think when they were talking about having a baby, one thing that was really important to them was being a Team. so they do their best to talk to each other about everything. and especially when charlie is very little, she always wants to be held, so they take turns passing her back and forth. if poison’s got her, ghoul will make her formula and bring it out for her, with a kiss for both of them and a can of power pup for poison. if ghoul’s got her, it’s poison who’ll get the clothes/bottle/diapers/etc. teamwork!

ghoul has a tendency to talk to babies like small adults. serious faces, serious questions, “uh huh, mm hm, tell me more” with babytalk. i think he kinda talks like this with charlie (and the girl. but this clip specifically makes me think about charlie). he’s very gentle, very good with kids, diagnosed with older sibling syndrome. the problem with that is that he can be a little fussy and overbearing when charlie gets older (he tries not to be. but sometimes he can’t help it 😔) um i think he’s particularly good at doing charlie’s & the girl’s hair. at the same time that he’s good with kids he also has a tendency to take the girl and later, charlie, to dubiously safe situations (ie bomb deals/trades with sort-of dangerous rough-and-tumble crews in like. a jerryrigged baby bjorn/sling with a bag of teddy grahams and a sippy cup in a diaper bag. it does occasionally help deescalate situations if the other crew is jumpy.) also i think ghoul will sing her little songs to help her go to sleep and keeps her with him if he’s working in the shed/diner and she’ll be in either her highchair or on a blanket with her toys where he can keep an eye on her.

poison loves kids and is an older sibling but is also very nervous about turning out like what he vaguely remembers his parents being. also between starting the crow program and leaving the city with kobra he wasn’t....the BEST older sibling (he was actually kind of a dick, and really regretted it later). and they really don’t want to project any of that (any issues whatsoever, really) onto a child, so they’re really careful with kids. they kind of treat the girl and charlie like they’re breakable, especially when they’re very small babies. almost....touch-shy? like especially as a teen he would smile at kids and play with the sandpups at gravel gertie’s when the four volunteered, but he wouldn’t want to hold them, wouldnt want to touch them too much, and that carried over a bit with the girl and even when they had charlie. they got better about that, though they still have a tendency to overthink the way he interacts with kids and talks to them. the upside is that he’s very soft with the girl & charlie, and once he got more used to it, he wanted to make sure they weren’t touch-starved and started being a lot more touchy-feely. it’s like all their sharp edges that outside crews see (and even some that friends/members of their crew see) get smoothed over with their kids. poison’s a bit of a pushover for the girl & charlie so they’ll come home from the market with a new pack of crayons and a little pouch of candy just because charlie pointed at them and made big puppy eyes. ghoul’s more willing to tell her no, so they DO balance each other out. on the other hand if poison is on a run alone with charlie there’s no one to stop them from buying her a new toy or stopping on the way to let her play at gertie’s even if there’s a time crunch <3 (and they will). poison will also take her out on drives if she’s fussy during the night, and he’s a night owl so he’s pretty willing to sit up late with her when she’s an infant and needing to eat formula or be held at like 3 or 4 am.

they keep her crib in their room until she’s old enough to have her own; ghoul made her a mobile out of meticulously cleaned and sanded down spare parts from discarded projects and poison painted the wall behind it. i don’t wanna call them crafty because that makes them sound like a diy pinterest couple (tho. modern au that’s honestly what they are) but they do make a lot of stuff for the girl/charlie (and even later jet’s little cousin) including but not limited to: a new highchair (the girl’s was a lil old by then and also uh. made of a crate and some wood planks), a set of blocks with her name on it, a drac-in-the-box, a monkey halloween costume based off a picture in one of cherri’s many books, and a plush animal (rabbit? giraffe? horse? yes) only a little more finessed than the one ghoul made for the girl when they first adopted her.

other assorted thoughts: they do the little swinging thing between them when they’re standing on either side holding her hands.

poison draws pictures with both the girl and charlie.

charlie will help ghoul make food in the kitchen and steal little bits of batter while ghoul pretends not to notice.

charlie loves being in on a secret so she gets to help plan birthday “surprises” for both her parents & uncle kobra and jet. sometimes it’s not so secret but she gets so excited about it that obviously no one’s going to point it out to her.

when she’s about four charlie finds a hurt baby bird out on the carpark in front of the diner and through the combination of her & the girl making a “presentation” on all the reasons they should be allowed to keep it and ghoul making soft sad eyes at the baby bird in the shoebox poison reluctantly says she can take care of it until it’s better. by the end of the chick’s stay with them poison cries when they have to let it go, so.

this isn’t necessarily a poison/ghoul parenting thought but it is charlie-related um i think the girl was super excited to be an older sister and even though they have a ~14 year age gap between them the girl and charlie are very close. charlie thinks the girl is the PEAK of cool and if they aren’t going to be doing something overly teenage and stupid the girl will let charlie tag along with her and her friends sometimes. she’s also very patient in playing games with her and charlie’s most vocal advocate when it comes to doing stuff she wants (charlie wants to go to see doc. charlie wants a popsicle. charlie wants to play at the playset in zone 3. charlie wants to borrow a movie from uncle cherri) and can understand her when she’s first learning to talk even better than poison or ghoul especially really early on. she’s the diner’s best CJ translator (also i think charlie has a bit of a speech impediment & is hard of hearing so for people outside of the fab four & their circle of friends it can be hard to necessarily understand everything she’s saying; the girl really helps with this and they practice sign language together with ghoul since he’s the best at ZSL in the crew. also she’s autistic just like poison)

anyways wah i talked a lot sorry but i hope this is what you were looking for! (i always love talking about my canon tysm for giving me the opportunity 🥺❤️)

[terramythos]

I beat the 2021 Nier Replicant remake, here were my thoughts overall (I did play the 2010 release a few years ago). SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

*so this game was MOSTLY a straight remake/remaster, with improvements to some baseline things, but a few totally new storylines/content here and there. 

*obviously everything got a graphical overhaul, which brings the style more in line with Automata. I think they did a great job w/ this, the old character models were... pretty rough. But the new ones still keep the general feel of the characters. and environments etc obviously look better. it’s not the most graphically amazing game ever, but that’s fine 

*the updated music is EXCELLENT. the original release already had legendary tracks, and Keiichi Okabe + crew either scaled up the tracks well or reimagined them in new and improved ways. I’m super impressed and know I’m going to play the new tracks a lot. (there are some tracks i just think “this is what 10 years of music comp experience does to a motherfucker” (admiration)) 

*i’m also glad most of the original VAs returned, even ones that are bigger names now than they were when they first appeared in the 2010 release. Laura Bailey knocks it out of the park as Kaine, but they’re all good. i also liked Roy Chase’s (new) performance as older Brother Nier. 

*combat is way better and fun compared to the original release. look, i didn’t hate the original’s combat (i’m in the minority on this), but it’s WAY better with a more Automata style. 

*totally new content: i really liked the new storyline/boss/level with the girl and the ship. i didn’t know going in, but apparently it’s based on a Japan-only short story? i thought it was nice they added anything at all. it was pretty obviously new content based on the animation quality (i.e. it’s an animation that’s new from the ground up, not a remastered one) and the sort of random placement in the story... but i liked it; creepy and sad. i’m a little confused that the conclusion with the letter is different depending on the ending path you’re on. 

*the BIG new content: ending E. on a meta level, i think it’s hilarious that the game doesn’t tell you it exists, unlike the other ones. you have to know about it or look it up. So theoretically there’s someone out there who will beat the game, get ending D, put the game down for 3 years, decide to replay it, and accidentally activate this totally bonkers ending 

*i loved ending E! I know this one is vaguely (?) based on a Japan-only story as well. but playing as Kaine was awesome since she’s my favorite character. i thought the visuals were an interesting callback (callforward?) to Automata at parts. the big boss fight where you fight as Kaine in the weird simulation realm is just fun/trippy/horrifying. and it is heartening to see Weiss, Emil, and eventually Nier again after the huge downer that’s ending D. Even if it’s all pretty fucking weird/surreal in context. 

*so i’m going to talk about the... old? content? stuff that’s in the original release and present in the remake 

*the strong part of nier is definitely the story and characters. all the leads are likeable, and they have a great found family vibe. i also LOVE that there’s the big “hey Shades are humans actually” twist at the end which changes your perspective on everything. and i LOVE that the game forces you to replay the second half not only with that knowledge, but with additional scenes and dialogue that make everything horrifying and depressing. 

*the fact that it’s all a meta commentary on violence in video games (why do you like killing hordes of enemies? what if the enemies have a reasonable point of view that you don’t understand?). the closest comparison i can think of is... Undertale, of all things? but OG Nier came out 5 years before that game. 

*it’s kind of wild/complex, but i do like the Drakenier lore and how it fits into the story of the game, even though it (unfortunately) requires research outside of the game to appreciate. imagine if kingdom hearts lore was like, actually good and compelling. 

*some of the side quests are good and interesting, and also introduce new perspective on the overarching story. i like that some quests from the first half lead into quests in the second half, often with their own surprising twists and turns. 

*my big beef with Nier, which is unfortunately still present in the remake, is it wastes your time. the main quest has you run back and forth a lot. the side quests (and sometimes main quest!) are often just... grindy MMO fetch quests. do not get me started on the gardening mechanic, one of the few things that is actually WORSE in the remake (it’s time consuming both in game and in real life. and you can no longer cheese it with your system clock. yes, it is optional, except for one of the side quests that requires you to do it. yes, i still bred Lunar Tears. don’t look at me). there’s a fast travel... partway through the second half of the game. the game is self-aware about some of these things, but i’m not sure that makes it better. 

*the part where it comes to a head for me is the C/D path. i LOVE that the B path has you play through the second half again. But C/D add almost nothing new. so you’re just required to speed through the second half again without anything new or interesting. if you’re a moron like me, you also accidentally overwrite over your pre-final dungeon save, so you have to do it a fourth time. 

*and there’s no reason for it! it’s the one thing i thought was a no-brainer to change in the remake! automata literally has a timeline jump for this exact reason. you can navigate anywhere in the story after a certain point to do side quests and other stuff. not so in 2010 Nier, OR the 2021 remake. it’s boggling. 

*if they didn’t want to do a timeline jump, i feel like it would be simple to let you access the final dungeon once the weapon requirement is met. or remove the weapon requirement entirely (shock). as it is, it’s a pointless waste of time with a couple new scenes (which could easily be put in the B path). 

*it sounds like i’m harping on this, but i had a hard time defending it in the 2010 release. In 2021 we have an oversaturated market of excellent games, and wasting someone’s time the way Nier does is difficult to justify when you can pick up a game that doesn’t do that at any time. i love Nier’s story and characters, but it’s a tough game for me to wholeheartedly recommend without disclosing the grindy repetition of the game. something which Automata lacks (there IS some repetition in that game, but it’s kept in the spirit of the B path in this game; new context and scenes that change your perspective). 

*however, as remakes go, i think this was a good one overall. i’m a fan of the game, so i had no problem clocking 56 hours, even as certain parts grated on me. i wish they changed more than they did, but i can understand the desire to stick to the original pretty closely. there’s also the whole COVID thing which happened mid-development, and i imagine had an impact on the final product. as always, i’d rather have a humanely treated development team than a crunched one for the sake of what i want in a game. 

[bakugous-abs]

Day 1 of Halloween 2020!

Todays piece is brought to you by Admin Eun!

***TRIGGER WARNING: possessive/abusive relationships, degradation, swearing***

Shigaraki was a selfish man. If he wanted something, he didn’t just want it—he craved it. The ferocity one man could possess when he didn’t get something he wanted was childlike, yes, but daunting regardless. In life, Shigaraki wasn’t faced with too many challenges that he couldn’t just dust away. Yes, that was the life, wasn’t it?

Shigaraki scoffed, the noise sending a soft echo throughout the cramped walls of a small studio apartment. He saw the inhabitant, or rather, you, look up in confusion. Your eyes scanned the room for a moment before you shrugged tersely before returning to whatever seemed to have you so entranced on your smartphone. 

Oh, yeah. Had he forgot to mention? He was but a simple poltergeist, roaming around (there really wasn’t much room to roam, but anyhow) a small, minimally decorated apartment that had all the bare essentials. It was cleaner than the bar he used to hang around in his life. Used to. That one damned day—just the thought of it made his skin crawl, so really it’d be better to just not think of it at all. Nevertheless, the point was that he was dead. Was he mourned? Maybe by a few ‘friends’ with a similar mindset as his, but at this point, they were probably offed by a hero as well, or at least in their middle ages. He didn’t know why his spirit was connected to this apartment in particular, because anytime he tried to leave, his body refused the action. Whatever the reason being, he had to admit...you were cute. 

You weren’t anything especially eye catching beyond your physical features. Other than perhaps a particular clothing style, you didn’t do much to grab others attention. How very ‘fresh out of college’ of you. You didn’t seem to have a huge, loudly obnoxious friend group that you brought to your cramped apartment. Certainly no men or women to spend countless nights with, much to Shigaraki’s pleasure. In fact, the subject of your love life seemed to be pretty stale. If it was a cupboard it would have a cartoonishly appropriate cobweb growing inside. 

This is how it had been for the year you had inhabited this place. Shigaraki would watch you come home from a job that didn’t seem to satisfy your artistic passions, but, you know, capitalism. He’d watch you repeat the same schedule of waking up groggy, maybe having a sip or two of some coffee, tea, or juice before leaving and coming back to simply sit on your couch and watch movies, maybe play a video game here or there on your console that broke your bank account or the only affordable PC setup you could muster. You’d eat a meal, shower, sleep, repeat. And, you know? Shigaraki liked that. He thought your very intact yet boring lifestyle was cute. You entranced him. Hell, if he was alive, you’d be something he’d so desperately want. 

But...he wasn’t alive. You couldn’t hear him, you couldn’t see him, you couldn’t feel him. You didn’t even know he was there. It was fine, though. As long as you didn’t have anyone else in your life, he was satisfied. He knew that was an unreasonable request, but he was an unreasonable man. 

It was a day like any other. You came home and sighed, letting your bag drop at your sides. Shigaraki watched you from the couch, waiting for you to come over and take a seat next to him like you always did. This time, however, you didn't sit. You stretched, massaging some knots out of your neck, before making your way over to the small wardrobe you had in the corner of the room. Your voice traveled through the room—you seemed to be thinking aloud. Shigaraki watched curiously as you brought out a nicer outfit that he’d never seen before. What was going on? He floated next to you, watching intensely as you dressed yourself and cleaned your appearance up before checking the time on your phone. You cursed briefly under your breath before a knock on the door alerted your attention. As you hurried to open it, Shigaraki made his way down to you and narrowed his eyes as you pulled on the knob.

"Hey, (Name)! Long time no see. You look great! Ready to go?" A man showed up at your doorstep. Maybe just a bit older than you, judging from the pricey out-of-your-budget kind of stable job looking watch he was wearing. Almost instinctively, Shigaraki's hands itched to reach out and wrap around the other man's neck. Who was this asshole? Why was he showing up at your doorstep like some hotshot? You must've been confused, right? He listened, fully expecting you to smack him, or even better, full on kill him for even having the audacity to show his face in front of you. 

"Thanks...let's go, I'm pretty excited," you mumbled shyly. With that, the man took your hand in his before pressing a kiss to the back of it and leading you down the hall.

Shigaraki's eyes trained on you as you left, before finally he couldn't see you beyond the apartment. His breathing shallowed and his nails dug into his skin. He let out a shrill, deafening scream. The house rattled around him, various mugs on high shelves shaking until they rolled off and shattered on the floor beneath him. How fucking dare you? Who the hell did you think you were to just leave with another man right in front of him? Before he knew it, Shigaraki was screaming, throwing a tantrum, and grabbing whatever his cold hands could reach.

.

.

.

You let out a breath of air, relaxing your shoulders as you approached your apartment door. The date had been an absolute disaster, but who were you kidding? First date in a year, and of course the guy just had to be some self-centered douche bag. The entire time, all he did was talk about himself. Turns out, apart from being over-confident, he was also shockingly close-minded. You thought to yourself that this is precisely why dating was overrated. Anyhow, you sighed, entering your apartment gratefully. 

The first thing that hit you was the smell. It was so foul that it made you double over, holding a hand over your mouth before you gagged. Flies had already swarmed in from your open window, obviously attracted to the scent. They flew around your fridge, the door wide open and the little food that resided in there riddled with mould and decay. If it hadn't been for the confusion, you would've cried then and there. You took a step forward, your sole crunching on the floor beneath you—glass. Cups and plates had somehow shattered all over your small kitchen, and the entire apartment had looked like someone had come inside and just thrown whatever they could get their hands on around. But...your apartment was on the fourth floor, and your door had been locked perfectly. You took out your phone, hands trembling to dial the police.

“You’ve returned, you little fucking bitch?” 

 A cold, almost frigid hand wrapped around your neck before you could even blink, a choke barely rising from your blocked throat. Hot tears welled up in your eyes as you tried to muster out words—pleas, anything. Nothing came out.

“You think you can fucking taunt me all of these months? Months of you just undressing in front of me and letting me, ME see and hear every sinful, disgusting, shameful fucking thing that’s ever came out of you? And then you leave with another man, you little fucking tease? Well you know what,” he whispered, his pale lips leaning in to whisper in your ear. “I am going to fucking kill you. And you know what? I’ll still be here as your body sits here to rot before they drag your stupid corpse out. You’ll be stuck here with me, in this shitty little apartment, forever, and you’ll learn to love me, because you’ll have no one else. No one to care about you except for me. No one to talk to except for me. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Hi! Do you follow some sort of exercise regime? If so, would you mind sharing it? Were you able to stay in shape whilst at university?

Staying fit and living a healthy lifestyle is important to me and I do my best to try and sustain that especially as one gets older. Although compared to how sporty I was during my university days and what I do now is a touchy subject as I fall woefully short. Real world demands of of work and the personal keep sabotaging my good intentions. For me being sporty was less about weight loss and fat gain than about the mental side of being physically fit. The release of oxytocin was natural way to fight any stress or anxiety that we all have to deal with at different times in life. It was about challenging my mind through my body to set goals and have the bloody single mindedness to focus to go beyond them. The benefits were for me developing a mental steeliness and emotional resilience.  

As a girl growing up partly in the Far East I learned martial arts which was a very healthy way to keep fit. I did ‘baby’ judo at 4 years onwards which was really about having fun learning to fall over and getting up again. More seriously I then progressed to jiu-jitsu (Japanese and then later in life Brazilian style) and Kendo (I fell in love with the Samurai heritage living in Japan). I dabbled in other forms of martial arts over the subsequent years but nothing too seriously. In India, as a teen, I started to do yoga. Don’t laugh but yoga (not the Californian bohemian kind from the 60s that’s been mainstreamed into the modern Western bourgeois lifestyle) really gets you fit. You can leave aside the more questionable spiritual side of it and still enjoy the physical and emotional benefits of yoga as I still do.

At boarding school I still carried on with martial arts but also did ski-ing (very Swiss) and cross-country ski-ing (very Norwegian). I did do lacrosse and field hockey naturally - partly because we were forced to - but I ended up breaking a few bloody noses and bruised shins because I was overly competitive and I hated losing. I enjoyed the camaraderie but it wasn’t really my métier. Instead I did a lot of fencing and that required focus, agility, speed, and good bum muscles! Mountaineering and hiking were my outdoor escapes from being suffocated inside school walls.

So by the time I reached university I was already somewhat sporty. At university I primarily did field hockey and also modern pentathlon. Modern pentathlon includes the five disciplines of running, shooting, horse riding, fencing, and swimming. I did all five disciplines separately growing up as a girl. I grew up with horses but I would be the first to say I wasn’t a natural rider. Swimming and running I loved to do in the open countryside. Swimming in the sea, river, or a fjord was heaven because I disliked crowded public swimming pools. Running over semi-long distances was really my bread and butter of staying fit and mentally resilient. I also carried on my martial arts of jiu-jitsu and Kendo. University was the only time I ever really went close to hardcore in the gym but out of duty rather than love.

The Norwegian winter sport of Skiskyting (now called biathlons) was something I did from the time I was almost 11 years old. During my university years I did it less because I could only do it in Norway and not in England where I was studying. Skiskyting is simply cross country skiing and rifle shooting (the rifle you carry on your back as you ski) over 12 km or so. Like most Norwegians, I was born with skis, and so I took to Skiskyting like a duck to water. If my father had taught me fencing (very British army), my Norwegian mother is the one who showed me her Norwegian traditions - she’s always had been a very good skier. I love to ski and in Norway we do lots of ski walking which really gets you fit.

Coming up to the present day I have reduced my activity to fit around other demands on my time especially with work and travel. It’s been a constant juggling act because when you live in a big city and you have a demanding career with long hours (as well as travel) then it becomes more tough to adapt and sustain a healthy routine.

I still dislike gyms. Even to this day I try and avoid them if I can. I can’t stand the overflowing testosterone and the social posing. Overhead music is a huge turn off for me. I prefer the solitude of my own thoughts if I can and not listen to blaring music.  

These days my daily routine always begins with morning yoga - partly because I have to. To avoid muscle cramp as a result of of an old back and knee injury from my past Army days I have to keep supple and flexible as much as I can. Even when I travel and I stay in a hotel I’ll do yoga in my hotel room - I won’t do it in the hotel gym and spa - so I’ll steal/liberate a yoga mat from there and stash it in my hotel room.

I try to do a 5 km run every other day. I love doing this because it helps me to release the oxytocin and this puts me in a good mood for the start of my day. I feel free and unbound when I am running. I get my best ideas to solving problems when I am running. It doesn’t matter if I am traveling as I will get out of the cocoon of the hotel and just go out for a run (as I dislike hitting the tread mill inside the hotel gym). To me, a great way to discover a city is by getting lost in it. At home in Paris, the Bois de Boulogne isn’t far for me to do my run. In the park I’ll do sets of crunches and squats. If I have a breakfast meeting then I’ll switch my run to lunch time or after I finish work I will do a late night run. I’m fortunate that I can shower at work if I need to.

Every other day when I’m not running I will cycle into work which gives me an alternative cardio work out. I supplement this by going swimming twice every week but I do that at a private health club and on a day when I haven’t done my 5 km run.  

I continue to keep up my martial arts by joining martial arts club to do Brazilian jui-jitsu and Kendo. I also keep my fencing up by joining a club. I attend when I can, usually weekly. Both martial arts and fencing are a good way to keep fit and mentally alert.  

Every two weeks I’ll play a game of squash with friends at a sports club as we’re part of an informal squash ladder. It’s a fun way to stay healthy and chill out with friends.

Every calendar year I will do a charity half marathon - there are plenty in France such as breast cancer - often with a friend. I’ll do it because it’s firstly for a good cause and secondly it forces me to have a set goal and and so my running and training regime will reflect that.

Every year I set myself a goal of competing in 2-3 amateur/semi-professional triathlons spread out in the calendar year - usually in the middle of rural France. The best way to train on technique is by joining a regional club/team. I enjoy the friendly camaraderie when we travel for the events together. The great thing about this is the age range from super fit teens to avid competitors into their 50s from different walks of life. It’s very down to earth and there’s no peer pressure other than the goals you set for yourself.

Every year I also set a goal of doing 1-2 biathlons in Norway. Again, I do that by joining a semi-professional club in Norway and I’ll go to compete when it fits around my seasonal calendar. I love this because it allows me the rare treat of just being Norwegian and forgetting everything else of being English or thinking like the French. So I love the Norwegian dry humour and the laid back friendly atmosphere of being back even if the food is barely edible!

Speaking of food, as you well know there’s no point going on any exercise regime if you don’t address the other half of the equation: a healthy diet. The truth is you can cut out more calories from what you eat than you can burn with exercise. Exercise and diet go together hand in glove. For me this is an extra challenge. Contrary to what you might think just because you live in Paris doesn’t mean you dine on gourmand food every day. The days of 2 hour lunches with wine are fading away and giving way to grabbing ‘le sandwich’. In fact, there are worrying culinary habits from American culture which is dictating bad eating habits especially amongst the young. The temptation to buy processed food and use the microwave or grab a takeaway is too much for some. It’s also true many young Parisians simply don’t know how to cook.

Speaking personally I love cooking and one of my weekend rituals is to go to a local farmer’s market and buy fresh vegetables, fruit, and lean meat for the week. Cooking helps me to ‘power down’ from the stress of work. I enjoy the ritual of trying out new recipes and putting on small intimate dinner parties or cooking for loved ones at the weekend. To me it’s a lame excuse to say you can’t whip up a quick healthy meal when you come home after a hard day at work. You can. You can buy ingredients and prepare food ahead of time. Make up a rough menu for the week and plan ahead. There are plenty of recipes to healthy eating for the week.

My biggest challenge when it comes to diet is saying no to good food when I dine out. One of the side effects of my work is that I have to attend quite a few business dinners with corporate clients. So it’s nearly always a well regarded restaurant. It would be rude to say no to the fine food. I enjoy good food - one reason why I like living here in Paris - and if I get the opportunity to dine at a great restaurant then I’m not sticking to a celery stick and mineral water. I do try to be sensible about what I eat when I dine out. I’m not a freak in the sense that I’m counting calories in my head but I do reason to myself that if I gorge on cake here then I better make up for it over there, perhaps a few extra laps of the pool. I love wine - as I also like whisky and other drinks - but I limit the number of glasses by also taking mineral water and herbal tea instead. I smoke cigars on occasion so I adjust my exercise routine accordingly.

I am also sometimes guilty of cheating myself out of a good night’s sleep because of meeting some work related deadline or my body clock is off because of travel jet lag. So I try and make it up some where because rest is so important. The point is to know your body and know your limitations. Above all, be reasonable and be kind to yourself.

There’s an old maxim I learned from my army days. No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. This is true in life too. So plan your exercise and diet regime with that in mind. How we stay fit and healthy depends largely on our environment so there is a difference between being a university student in a dorm room with a bad case of the munchies and an essay crisis, and being a harassed mother with kids to feed and who want MacDonalds and candy in the suburbs, or a young person taking first steps in a first job on the career ladder and resorting to late night microwave dinners. Social media environment keeps pushing perfect body memes which again is unrealistic so don’t let that be the benchmark of defining success. The key is get real. Set realistic goals and break it down to a level manageable for you.

One can instil good habits that are healthy and sustainable. If I was in your position I would first see a nutritionist to explain and educate you about food groups. He or she would tell you where you can get your nutritional requirements from a wider variety of foods according to your means and availability. You also can get an idea of where you can have your pizza or your cake and not feel guilty about it.

Get a nutrition plan and take it to your gym - I know, I know, I said I hate gyms and I do but you might not. A good gym will have competent personal trainers on hand.  They can draw up an exercise plan based on the nutrition plan and also listening to your expectations that is hopefully based on realistic goals. I’m not suggesting you have a personal trainer on retainer. But you only need one lesson for him/her to draw up a plan for you to follow. The rest will be up to you and how you motivate yourself. You may find the grind of going to the gym of doing cardio one day and actual gym work the next too much. Fine, find other things outside of the gym that you will enjoy and get you comparatively fit and doesn’t bore you. If you find it hard to motivate yourself then do it with a friend.

Once you start to enjoy it and see the benefits of it, it will no longer feel like a turgid routine but just a growing habit towards leading a more healthy lifestyle.

Thanks for your question