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kookicrumbs · 3 years ago

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╰ pink love

pairing: jungwon x fem!reader genre: fluff word count: 2985 warnings; like one super minor curse word (hell)! just some cutesy stuff for ya today! summary: jungwon and y/n go on a build-a-bear date! a/n: i really wanted to do something sweet beacuse i love fluff a whole lot, so please enjoy c:

“Are we there yet?” I pout, tugging on Jungwon’s sweater. I attempt to sway him with my best puppy eyes, but he continues walking, pulling me along with him.

“This honestly reminds me of a movie,” He laughs out, “Since when did asking a million times get us there faster?”

I’m not actually that annoyed, but it’s fun to tease him. “What if this is all a movie? Ya think we can break the fourth wall?”

“I don’t know, I’d consider us powerful enough to. If this is a movie, I’m obviously the main character. Since you’re my girlfriend, you can be my sidekick!”

“Ohh, ha, ha, ha. If I’m the sidekick, pigs can fly.”

He puts on a shocked expression, pointing up into the air. “Did I just hear an oink all the way up there?”

“Shut up!” We giggle, shoving each other with our shoulders. Our footsteps match each other as we pad through the open-air mall. Warm sunlight drifts down, encasing us in a soft bubble of relaxation.

“Hey look, I think that’s it!” Jungwon tightens his grip on my hand and we take off towards the familiar shop. As we run, the eyes of other passerbys follow us, but I don’t take the time to feel embarrassed; life’s too short for that.

My legs are shorter than his, so I nearly trip several times. The universe is totally watching out for me today though, because we manage to arrive at the store’s entrance without suffering from a single scratch or bruise.

The Build-A-Bear logo passes overhead as we make our way inside. We are still glued together, buzzing from the excitement of our date. We’re going to make bears for each other! With any other guy I might have found it cheesy, but when Jungwon suggested we do it, my heart fluttered in a strange way.

“Hello! Welcome to Build-A-Bear Workshop! My name is Kiana,” A sunny looking lady welcomes us with a large smile on her face. The cute bobble headband perched on her hair seems to wave at us as well. “Will you two be needing any help today?”

Jungwon throws one arm over my shoulder and presses me tight to his side. His dimples peek out playfully as he responds. “I think we’re okay right now, we’re gonna make some bears for each other. This is my girlfriend!” He looks so proud as our eyes meet, and my stomach twists. Even though we’ve been dating for one and a half years now, whenever he looks at me like that, it feels like the day I first met him.

We’d been at the movie theatre, not together, but coincidentally there on the same day. Jungwon was sitting in the seat in front of me with a couple of his friends, while I was there with my own. His buddies were being idiots and throwing popcorn and other snacks at each other, when a whole bucket came flying at me. Being my easily scared self, I screamed and jumped backwards, simultaneously kicking my legs out and up. It took a few seconds to realize that my feet hadn’t collided with Jungwon’s seat, but instead his head.

I’d been absolutely mortified, and my friends’ muffled laughter didn’t help with that. I’d expected a huge tantrum from him, considering his friends seemed the type to start a huge fight over it, but his reaction was the complete opposite. In fact, he was apologetic and blamed it all on the buffoon who launched the snack at me.

I immediately caught feelings when he laughed and complimented my kick; apparently he knew taekwondo, and he thought I’d be good at it. He got that from a poorly done, unaimed kick to his own skull. To this day, I think I knocked something out of place there, but what can ya do.

Regardless, we ended up exchanging numbers, which is something that confused the hell out my friends and I. A month later, we started going out. I’ve dated some questionable people, so getting the chance to be with someone like Jungwon is a dream come true for me. Another plus, I finally get to check “Build A Bear date” off of my date idea list!

“You guys look adorable together!” Kiana gushed. My cheeks heat up, but not in an awkward way. “We have all our plushes over there. You can take a look and pick one, and then we’ll get that all filled up for you.”

“Thank you!” Jungwon and I say at the same time before strutting towards the plushies.

“We should split up so our bears, or whatever we pick for each other, stays a surprise! Okay?” I’m already looking at each option, and I begin to wonder how I’m ever going to pick just one.

“Since it looks like the queen has already laid claim to this particular piece of territory, I’ll go browse the accessories so I can get your plush decked out in a gorgeous outfit.” He winks and makes his way to the rows of plushie-sized clothing.

The variety of options is amazing. There’s the classic bears, but there’s also other cute things, like lobsters, giraffes, and seals. I’m a sucker for the classics, so I want to pick out a bear for Jungwon.

Two specific bears are in a fight for my love. One is a simple vanilla color with rainbow sprinkle accents, and the other is a pink bear with heart shaped ruffles. Oh god, do I just… buy both? No, that’s be stupid. Eeny meeny miney moe, a classic just like the bear.

I’m not disappointed when my finger lands on the pink bear, meaning I made the right choice and won’t have to switch to the vanilla bear out of a previously hidden lust for it. Awesome.

I peek my head around the aisle and still see Jungwon sorting through racks of outfits. In the time I’d spent picking a plush for him, he grabbed a basket and began filling it with stuff I couldn’t make out. Comfortable with the fact that he isn’t looking, I sneak over to the filling station, the pink bear clutched tightly in my hands.

“Hi! I’d love to get this guy filled, please!” The man working at this station has a name tag that reads, “Jordan”, and he looks equally nice as Kiana.

“Good choice,” He leads me to a filling spot. “Are they for you or for someone else?”

My chuckle causes the worker to smile. I reply while he gathers a few items. “My boyfriend and I came here for a cute date, so it’s for him! This one is super cute so I had to get it for him.”

“Aww, I’ll have to write that down. I'm sure my partner would find it a great idea too!” Jordan sweeps his arm across in a grand gesture, showcasing the variety of hearts and other button-looking objects that sit before him.

“Would you be interested in adding a sound to your bear? You can pick from any of these or you can record your own.”

I pick quickly, sure of what I want to do. “Mm, I’d like to do a recording, if possible. Make it extra special, right?”

“Of course, let me grab that for you and you can record your message!” He gets the heart and let’s me know what to do. Once again making sure Jungwon is not nearby, I record my message and hand it back to Jordan. He puts it in the bear, a small smile playing on his lips. Did he hear me?

“Alright, perfect. Any scents or are you ready to stuff?”

I choose a sweet raspberry scent and get the bear stuffed. It’s fun to push the pedal and see the stuffed animal become plumper, until I finally fill them all the way up. Hugging it feels like hugging a cloud.

I thank Jordan and hide the bear behind my back as I go to the dressing area. Jungwon seems to have moved on, as I spot him at the plushie picking station. I wonder what he’ll get me. Knowing him, it’s going to be adorable.

His eyes meet mine and I suppress a squeal, making sure the bear is out of sight. My strange salute makes him smile and he turns back to picking a plush for me, but not before making sure I won’t look while he gets one.

“So, what would you wear…” I whisper to the pink bear. He seems fashionable and needs something that fits his personality.

Each outfit makes me want to curl up and scream. They’re all so cute and tiny, and I can’t help but want to grab a whole bunch. I create outfits in my head, imagining each on the plushie. Letting the bear try them on seems like a step too far. Instead, I pick up a white button down shirt, pressed pants, little shoes, and a pair of heart shaped sunglasses from my pile and get to dressing.

Putting everything on the pink bear proves to be a struggle. “Come on… tuck in your tummy!” The bear’s legs don’t want to squeeze into the pants I picked. Looks like Build-A-Bear needs more size options. After a somewhat graphic commotion involving lots of pulling, pushing, and whispered yelling, he is finally clothed.

“Jungwon better like what I picked because I don’t think that’s ever coming off.” I brush off my shirt and hope that no one was watching my heated argument with an inanimate object.

I swiftly finish up the washing part of the process, which consisted of pressured air being blown at my plush. I enjoyed seeing the bear’s fur waving around luxuriously. It really fit his vibe. I end up having to consult an employee about what to do next since my amnesiac brain likes to forget simple things: it’s naming time.

After I scan the pink bear’s tag, a naming screen is brought up. I’m given suggestions like Mr. Cuddles, Tiny, and Snuggles, but I choose to make his own name. What do I name you?

Maybe Love? Too plain. Bear? Way too basic. Pink? Pinky? I clearly don’t get around to naming things very often. If it hadn’t been for my siblings, I would have named our dog Cat.

I rack my brain for anything. At this point, the next thing that pops into my head is gonna be his name. No turning back. And my brain provides. Sir Loves-a-lot is inexplicably forged in the depths of my mind, and it shall be the name of this honorable bear.

I imagine a knighting ceremony for Sir Loves-a-lot and enter his name into the computer. It goes through and I get a printed certificate with his name on it. I’m extremely excited to give him to Jungwon and see his reaction.

Jungwon seems to be finishing up at the washing station, so I pay and wait near the entrance of Build-A-Bear. I swing around my finished bear, which is tucked neatly into a bag so Jungwon can’t see it yet. Our date is soon to reach its peak: when we get to see our finished products.

“Hey! Look what I have!” Jungwon skips over to me in a playful manner. His joy envelops me as he gets nearer. His eyes are alight with what looks to be the same thing I’m currently feeling. Is it love?

I show off my bag, my competitive side instantly coming out. “I’ve got yours right here too! If you want to see it… you’ll have to catch me!”

Adrenaline shoots through me as I take off running, Jungwon quickly shifting into a quick runner. My laughs impair my speed as I hiccup and yell, Jungwon’s voice matching my own. We both giggle like idiots while our shoes run thin on the hard ground and our bags crinkle with the whip of the wind.

“Got you!” Jungwon takes care not to throw me onto the ground, instead grabbing my shirt and pulling me to his chest. He lets out an umph as I knock into him full force, still reeling from the sudden shift in direction.

“Jungwon!” A shriek of laughter explodes out of me as we tumble to the concrete with a soft thump. No one is around as we breath off our fit of giggles, still in a heap.

“Looks like my bear made it.” He lifts up his unscatched bag. “Can I say the same of yours?”

A strike of fear hits me, but quickly dissolves when I see my bag looks fine. “I am pleased to report that Combat Bear Number 2 has survived.”

“Combat Bear Number 2? Don’t tell me that’s his name. What a mouthful!” He puts a hand to his chest and sighs dramatically.

“Don’t be stupid, I named him Sir— wait! Don’t try and cheat!” I softly whack him on the shoulder, earning a look of faux-sadness.

“Ouch. But you named him Sir… something. What a noble name! Of course, nothing but the best can come from you.” He holds out the Build-A-Bear bag. “But I’m actually dying to exchange these, so swap?”

“If that isn’t the most relatable thing ever.” I hand him my bag and he gives me his. “You can open mine first!”

“Ooh, don’t mind if I do.” He eagerly opens the bag and pulls out the tissue-paper wrapped bear. The material easily comes off and he holds it up. His eyes seem to glow with delight.

“Oh my gosh.” Jungwon swipes at Sir Loves-a-lot’s fur, fascinated by the heart-shaped ruffles. “He’s so cute! His clothes are... so tight,” His face betrays his confusion, and I snicker as he speaks, “but he looks hella fashionable! I really hope mine will live up to these standards.” He seems to get nervous so I hold his hands to try and calm him down.

“What do you think I named him?”

His mouth shapes into an “O” and he pulls out the certificate. His previously timid face transforms immediately as he reads it.

“Sir Loves-a-lot? Why?! So cheesy but so good!” He crumples onto himself, his head coming to a rest between his knees. I’m overjoyed by his reaction and I press forward to hug his side.

“I love him so much. I’ll cherish him forever.” He looks at me pointedly, almost like he’s trying to tell me something. He switches course though, gesturing to the bag that lies at my feet. “Now open yours!”

I cross my legs to get more comfortable, and I open the bag, wondering what he made for me. My heart dances when I see what he chose. It’s a blue bear with stars in her fur and white wings protruding from her back. I didn’t even see it when I was picking my bear for him.

“Woah…” I hold her up, noticing a soft scent coming from her fur. When I lift the bear up to my nose, I can detect citrus. “Jungwon, you made her smell like lemons! I love lemon… and—and look how pretty! All the stars, and the color… she’s perfect.”

I look at the certificate, all bright and new, and see her name: Mrs. Lovey. Mrs., not Ms.

Jungwon looks at me innocently. “What do you think, am I making my point clear? The future is never far away and I—”

I can’t help but turn away as I feel a prickle in my eyes. Never will I ever cry on a date.

“Awww! Don’t cry, you’ll make me cry!” Jungwon leaps towards me, catching me off-guard. I end up falling backwards with a yelp, but he throws his hand under my head and catches me before I can slam into the concrete.

We stare at each other for what seems like hours but is in actuality only seconds. The silence is loud, but Jungwon slices right through it when he whispers to me, “Is this a kdrama?”

“And… off!” I sit up, hugging my bear closer to me. I’m overwhelmed by Jungwon’s confession. He wants us to really stay together. As in, I’d be his “one”.

“Is—is that what you want too? It’s okay if not, I’ll understand if you wouldn’t be ready, even in the months it would take to get there, unless sooner is better, and I—” He rambles, more emotional than I am, before I put a finger to his lips.

“Yeah, it’s what I want too. I think we should go with your plan, um, wait a little longer since we’re so young and I don’t want to scare my parents.” That earns a laugh out of us both. “But the answer to “would I want it?” is definitely yes!”

Jungwon hugs me tightly, squealing in my ear. I squeal right back, suddenly lighter than ever.

“Dude, I want to say something. Yep, here I go. I— I love you!” Jungwon yells out to me, loud enough to wake up everyone half-way across the world. My heart expands when he says it. I want to scream it back and kiss him under the blue sky, but he continues speaking.

“Okay, look, even though I would have totally respected you for saying you wouldn’t want what I want, I’m feeling so relieved right now. Like whooh! I could jump off a plane! Ride the biggest wave! Sir Loves-a-lot here would come with me, wouldn’t you?” He high fives his bear.

I’m confused when his eyebrow raises. “Did you put a sound in him? Why didn’t you tell me?” Truthfully, I’d forgotten too. However, I smirk as I remember what I recorded.

“Press it.” I urge him to push on the bear’s paw, and he does, putting it near his ear so he can hear it better. The clear sound of my voice comes through, bringing waves of pink, soft love to both Jungwon and I.

“I really, really love you.”

#jungwon #yang jungwon #enhypen #enhypen fic #jungwon fluff #jungwon fic #enhypen scenarios #enhypen fluff #jungwon scenarios #fluff fic #kpop fic #kpop imagines #kpop fluff #enhypen writers

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hpalways · 3 years ago

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can i request a picnic date drabble/oneshot/scenario (don't know the difference, sorry) with zhongli? (he wanted to take them to a nice restaurant but, well, no mora 😔) thanks!

this is such a cute idea omg!! thanks for the request, will certainly do.

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Characters Included: Zhongli x gn! reader

Warnings: None

A warm hand wrapped around your wrist, pulling you across the streets of Liyue Harbor. His back was turned on you, a long, dark ponytail swaying behind him in all his glory. His classic brown coat outfit glistened under the light, leaving you wondering if he was hot today. He had long legs as well, and because he was going at such a fast pace, you were stumbling after him, flustered and confused. Where was he leading you?

Zhongli glanced back for a moment, yellow amber hues widening momentarily to notice your struggle. He slowed down considerably, a gloved hand scratching his head sheepishly. “Fret not, love, we’re almost there.”

Taking a deep breath, you nodded in response. Perhaps it was best to let it unfold before you; the consultant at Wansheng Funeral Parlor was someone you trusted. Where he went, you shall follow.

Leaving the city, the two of you left the paths and the roads were replaced by grass and the wilderness. Birds whistled in the blue, cloudless skies and the wind brushed through the trees. Animals darted from the bushes, getting scared off from the human intruders.

You weren’t going to lie. Being away from the city and any other beings felt nice. The calming presence beside you helped to soothe your nerves -- from the stress that ate away at you for the past few days. Liyue was always busy, never once taking a break from the daily lives that contained contracts, businesses, merchants, and mora. The change of scenery was a nice change.

Nearing the edge of the sea, you looked out at the blue waters. Rippling waves furled at each beat, sparkling at the sun’s reflection. Clear enough to see the bottom, schools of fish swam along the current, sticking together in a swarm.

And that was when you saw it. Laid out beneath a tree’s shade and overlooking the sea was a picnic blanket, striped in blue and white lines. Settled over it were a beige basket, already opened and the dishes on the side. There were a variety of courses, filled of meats, fruits, and vegetables. They all looked delicious, causing your mouth to water and your stomach to grumble. You realized you hadn’t eaten anything all day.

Turning over to the tall male, your [e/c] eyes grew wide. “Is this for us?” you asked excitedly.

He nodded. “It is. Do you like it?”

“Of course I do! I can never say no to food!” you exclaimed, throwing your arms around the man. His figure stiffened for a second, almost as if he was unsure how to respond, but after a few ticking seconds, he hugged back, cheeks tinted in pink.

“Why don’t we sit and try some food then,” he suggested after you let him go. “I managed to bring some of my favorite teas here. Some tasting delightfully sweet, while others may be more on the savory side. I would like to give them all a taste, accompanied by honey or sugar cubes, perhaps.”

“I’m not even surprised at this point,” you said, chuckling at the tea enthusiast. Planting yourself down on the cool fabric of the blanket, you reached over to the nearest dish. Gobbling it down almost instantly, you licked the bowl clean, feeling content by this pleasant surprise. This was delicious and you wondered how he managed to get a hold of it. “When did you find the time to do all of this?”

“Well, I asked Tartaglia for mora, but he didn’t allow it this time around. Instead, I was given some dishes the Fatui had stocked up,” he explained. “Does this meet your expectations? I fear this isn’t what you wanted.”

“No, this is perfect. Thank you, seriously. I’d rather not be stuck in some stuffy restaurant.”

He beamed, nodding silently and peacefully taking a bite out of his meal. “Reminds me of the old days. It’s as if I have a contract that’s almost bounded to the world around us. I can feel a connection with it and it’s always much stronger when we’re away from the crowds.”

“Go off, old man,” you teased. Grabbing dessert, you plopped a strawberry into your mouth. Plucking another one from the pile, you held it up for Zhongli. He stared at you blankly for a few seconds, lost by your actions. “Open up your mouth!”

The red, juicy fruit made its way towards his mouth. He hesitantly parted his soft lips before you dropped it in, your fingers slightly brushing him. You nearly flinched at the contact, gulping and yanking your arm back. The male ate it slowly, his expressions flipping like a light switch every few seconds. “What is this?” he asked you. Dropping your jaw, you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. He made this picnic and he didn’t even know the name of a fruit? It was honestly laughable.

“It’s a strawberry,” you told him. “Do you like it?”

He nodded. “It’s a little sour, but it’s also sweet. The texture is harder than it looks, at least until you bite past its skin. Tastes really refreshing though. Perfect for days like this.”

You loved his little analyzations. He always overthought everything, but that was how you knew it was Zhongli. His voice was low and soft, a tickle into your ear, pushing every worry you ever had away.

Leaning your head onto his shoulder, you shared a small smile with him, taking in the beautiful, talented man -- the man you found yourself to love.

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opbackgrounds · 4 years ago

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so I was doing some research after watching movie 6...

...and apparently it was originally written as a comedy

Yeah, I was surprised, too

Baron Omatsuri is not my favorite One Piece movie—Film Z has too many of my favorite tropes to be usurped from that position—but I do think it is the most daring. Of all the supplemental material I’ve seen and read, it feels the least...One Piece-ish.

Yes, that includes the noodle commercials.

If you haven’t seen the movie and can stomach a little spookiness, do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Unlike movies like Strong World or Z that have the look and feel of a manga arc, Movie 6 transplants the Straw Hat Pirates into a world that doesn’t feel like a One Piece story, taking risks and exploring themes that would never fit in the manga proper.

In addition to the obvious changes in art and animation style, there are supernatural elements that don’t make sense within the One Piece world. None of the Straw Hats win a fight—Luffy included, although he is heavily implied to have killed the big bad at the end. The moral of the movie, if it can be said to have a moral, is if you lose the people closest to you, the answer is to forget about them and make new friends. The story ends with many questions left unanswered and the main drama between the crew unresolved.

And, if you allow me to get philosophical for a moment, I wish there were more movies like it. As I wrote in my review of Novel A, I don’t go to supplemental material or side stories looking for a repeat of what’s in the manga. Oda has written 1000 chapters of One Piece—why not spice things up a little and try something different for a change?

I know the answer isn’t that simple, and by their very nature not all risks will pan out. There will be people who don’t like this movie because it’s different, both in look and tone. But there’s something to be said about a creator putting their heart and soul into a work and having it show in the final product.

Which brings us back to the original premise. How does a movie go from a light-hearted comedy based on a variety show theme to...this

Baron Omatsuri was directed by Mamoru Hosoda and came out in 2005. To put that into perspective, the movie was in production when the Luffy vs Usopp fight was first seen in the manga. Manga!Luffy had not yet faced the challenge of an inter-crew disputes when the story was being written and boarded, nor did the creative team have the events of Sabaody and Marineford to see how Luffy would react to the loss of his loved ones. They were working without a full understanding of Luffy’s character, and to a lessor extent the character of the Straw Hat Pirates, and it seems like Oda was much less involved In production than has been in movies since Strong World and beyond.

Likewise, Hosoda had just left a tumultuous situation at Studio Ghibli while working on Howl’s Moving Castle, and if this interview is anything to go by (https://instrangeaeonsblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/mamoru-hosoda-on-omatsuri-danshaku-animestyle-interview-part-1/) was going through a lot of personal shit when he was brought on as director. The script he was given was originally written like a variety show—something that was carried over into the various trials seen in the final movie—and meant to be a lighthearted affair after the relatively serious Movie 5 (which I have not seen am thus unable to compare tone).

With that backstory in mind, it’s easy to see how the bickering and backbiting between the Straw Hats early in the movie is a metaphor for Hosoda’s time at Ghibli, which is something he admits to in the interview. Movie 6 feels different than any other One Piece movie because it’s the project of a man who has had to endure the loss of those who he was close with, at least in a professional capacity.

There are moments in Movie 6 where Luffy doesn’t feel like Luffy. More than once a member of the Straw Hats ask him to intervene during arguments, moments Luffy either ignores or doesn’t notice. It’s a version of Water 7 where instead of fighting Usopp, Luffy ignores the underlying differences within his crew, and as a result loses everybody.

The structure of the three trials follows a clear path of deterioration within the crew, the initial goldfish scooping game showing the Straw Hats at their best and inciting the jealousy of the Baron, the ring toss sowing discord among the crew even as they snatch a narrow victory, only for them to be utterly crushed in the third and final challenge as they’re unable help one another survive.

It is somewhat implied that the Breaking of the Fellowship(TM) is magical in nature—that like the One Ring, the Lily Carnation was able to influence the Straw Hat’s thoughts and actions, but this is never stated outright and I prefer the more mundane interpretation: That without strong leadership the Straw Hats fell victim to the manipulative machinations of the Baron, and simply self-destructed as a result. In the end, it’s up to the interpretation of the viewer.

And speaking of things up to interpretation, I love how the Lily Carnation isn’t explained in the slightest. The plant that initially absorbs the Straw Hats looks more like the stem of a devil fruit than a flower, it for some reason rings like a gong when hit, and somehow is able to turn pieces of itself into facsimile of the Baron’s old crew who can somehow move around despite being plans. It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and the element of the unknown works so well in the horror-lite setting.

My personal theory is the island somehow managed to eat a devil fruit which manifests itself as the Lily Carnation (which due to the L/R conflation in Japanese, is pronounced ‘reincarnation’, which I think is a nice touch of foreshadowing that may or may not have been intentional).

(Also, I can’t decide if little chewing animation it makes when it’s eating people or the weird bullseyes it makes when shit gets real are the most terrifying thing in the movie.)

Hmmm, tasty.

Anyway, this is getting long, so here are some final thoughts:

1) This movie has some low key fantastic outfits. The Straw Hats all look very cool without being over designed like a lot of recent movies. Big hat Robin is of course a fave, and makes me really want to see her in a Carmen Sandiego getup.

2) Screenshots do not do the animation of the movie justice. It’s very fluid and has a lot of excellent expressions/poses, although I admit the 3D is jarring at times. Do not let the art put you off if you haven’t seen it

3) Also, I don’t think there’s any shading? Like at all? The movie does a lot of cool stuff with color instead. For example, the scene where Luffy initially loses to the Baron his skin goes all grey, and I thought it was because he was fighting at night, but it stays grey even in the better lighting of the underground tunnels and stays that way until he finds out the Straw Hats are still alive, where it returns to his normal color

4) There’s an extended Benny Hill-type gag when Luffy first chases after the little mustache pirate that’s perfectly timed to the music, and ends when Luffy just uses his power to grab him. The comedic timing is amazing and it’s probably my favorite funny moment in the movie, of which there are several despite the overall darker tone

5) The extended jungle shot from Nami’s POV? Very cool

6) I love how from the earliest scenes nothing is as it seems. The opening text is Robin reading the map, but the storm that’s seen on screen is the one that sank the Baron’s crew. Likewise the whole fancy city is shown to be fake panels early on, the goldfish catching game is a trap, etc., etc. It does a good job clueing the viewer in early that’s something’s very wrong on the island, even if they don’t realize it at first

7) I don’t think this type of movie would work in modern One Piece without somehow nerfing Luffy. Horror works best when the protagonist is weak and vulnerable, and that fits best with a pre-Gear 2/3 Luffy (same with the rest of the crew, tbh. I was waiting for Nami to use her lightning stick during the games, forgetting it hadn’t been boosted yet).

8) I like how there are four captains on the island representing different levels of loss—the Baron has lost his crew and wants to destroy all others because of it, mustache pirate lost his crew and is willing to put it behind him to make new friends, Luffy has freshly lost his crew and hasn’t decided what path he will go, and coward dad hasn’t lost his crew yet but is at risk if he doesn’t change his cowardly ways

9) I think the reason why Chopper was the first Straw Hat to disappear is he’s the most likely to play the part of peacemaker. He’s also the only crew member needing rescuing at the end of the goldfish scoop game, when Luffy foolishly puts his life at risk trying to save him from drowning, just like he recklessly charges the Baron at the end of the movie. Except that time there was no Sanji to save him, leaving Luffy to get his ass thoroughly kicked

10) This is a very good Halloween movie, and I’m glad I watched it in October

#opbackgrounds #long post #movie 6 #review #one piece #Baron Omatsuri

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un-beel-ievable · 5 years ago

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The brothers reaction to seeing MC all dressed up for a ball/formal event 👠

Author’s note: Please do not repost!! If you like my writing, please leave a like and a comment (and follow me to see similar content in the future :D)

I’m sorry it took me this long to get this written and edited for you guys...I know it’s been a while. Please enjoy!! xxx

( @obeyme-life finally got around to answering your request lmao)

_____

Lucifer ☕

• He had to arrive at the venue early to assist Lord Diavolo in supervising the preparation for the event, so he doesn't get to see you beforehand. After spending most of the day running around and helping to make sure the event runs smoothly, the last thing he wants to do is to head to the ballroom and mingle with the crowd. But at Lord Diavolo's insistence that he learn to "lighten up and have some fun", a worn out Lucifer finds himself stepping into the ballroom in search of you and his brothers.

• It sounds cheesy but when he steps into the room, you are the first person to catch his eye. He tries to maintain his composure as he strides over to you, –he has an image to keep up, after all– but his face definitely lights up at the sight of you. You are the perfect remedy for the stressed out Avatar of Pride —even if he'll never admit it out loud.

• Now that he's gotten a good look at you...he can't take his eyes off you. Your outfit really compliments your curves and brings out the colour in your eyes. You are the most ethereal being he's ever seen.

• You become the star attraction, the light of the party —to him anyway, he can't speak for everyone else. He's definitely monopolising your attention, but there's no way he's letting anyone else near you. Especially his brothers. You're his. He steals you away from the crowd and leads you to the rose gardens so that he can enjoy a...private moment with you.

Mammon 💳

• You had told him to head to the event without you –you needed more time to get ready, so you'd meet him there later. There was no reason for him to have to wait around for you when he could go ahead and start enjoying himself first. But Mammon wasn't having any of it; he wasn't going to leave and allow one of his brothers the satisfaction of escorting you to the event. So he insists on camping outside the door to your room, waiting for you to be done with your hair...or your make up. Or whatever it is you're doing in there.

• Half an hour passes. And then another. And another. Nearly two hours have passed, and Mammon finds himself still crouching outside the door to your room, waiting for you to make an appearance. What's taking you so long?

• Too impatient to wait any longer, he barges into your room without knocking, demanding to know why it's taking you forever to get ready. But when his gaze focuses on you, he trails off mid rant. His jaw drops. You look...astounding.

• And then he retraces his steps and backs out of the room the way he came in, slamming the door shut behind him. He's a blushing mess in the hallway; he buries his face in his hands and thanks Diavolo that his brothers have left for the event already, and that no one is here to bear witness to what a human did to his heart.

Leviathan 🎮

• He never wanted to come to this event. He had a plan: he was going to spend the first half of his evening grinding for a special event item, and then he was going to order an extra large Spicy Rainbow pizza and binge watch his entire collection of TSL DVDs for the billionth time. He had a plan, and now his plan was ruined because Lucifer insisted that all eight of you show up to Diavolo's gala. Why did ALL of you have to come anyway? There were so many people milling around that he was pretty sure no one would notice if he didn't show up.

• He's so busy sulking in the corner, that you manage to creep up on him. A shriek resounds throughout the ballroom, and from across the room Lucifer sighs. Heavily.

• Levi's about to tell you off for scaring him...but then his gaze falls on the outfit that you're wearing. He immediately turns beet red. You look...amazing. It's just like that anime he watched the other day – 'My brother forced me to attend a formal event and I thought my night was ruined, but then my really attractive crush came up to me and it was totally worth showing up.'

• He might even go so far as to say you looked even more beautiful than Ruri-chan.

Satan 📚

• It is a well known fact that the Avatar of Wrath is a bookworm. As both a member of the student council and someone who consistently makes the honour roll, he is the very definition of a model student. Satan likes to educate himself of a wide variety of topics, and his room is filled with books on every subject that has ever caught his interest. So it is to no one's surprise that the well read forth born is a master of several languages.

• When he first lays his eyes upon you, however, Satan -for the first time in his entire existence- is at a lost for words. You're...beautiful. Ravishing. Absolutely stunning. He knows that...but the silver tongued demon still finds himself tongue tied as he extends a hand towards you to escort you into the ballroom.

• He spends the entire night admiring your beauty. You were already attractive to him before...but watching you twirl around in an outfit so different from what you'd usually wear make him fall in love with you all over again.

Asmodeus 💋

• Okay, let's be real. Asmo already knew what you were going to be wearing. He'd spent the past month accompanying you around the various shopping districts in the Devildom, advising you on colour palettes and quizzing you on your personal style as you both tried to find the perfect outfit to wear to Diavolo's ball. Did you really think the fifth born was going to miss out on a chance to go shopping with his favourite human? Not a chance. He wanted you to look your best when you showed up to the event...and besides, he wouldn't be caught dead escorting someone whose outfit clashed with his own.

• He showed up to the event knowing exactly what you'd be wearing, he was even aware of what accessories you'd be pairing your outfit with and how you'd style your hair. And yet...when he laid his eyes on you, it felt like the first time.

• He'd been intimate with many, MANY people in his lifetime, but you were the first person to make him feel something...other than lust (the fact that you were immune to his charms definitely helped, but it wasn't the main reason). And in that moment...he knew that he'd give up being the Avatar of Lust if that meant he could spend the rest of his life with you.

Beelzebub 🍔

• Beel's one of the first guests to arrive at the event. Most of his brothers weren't entirely keen to show up to the event, but Beel was more than happy to attend...for the food, if nothing else. Diavolo always spared no expense when it came to catering, and Barbatos's cooking was to die for. He felt a little guilty about leaving ahead of you...but you'd heard his stomach rumble and reassured him that you didn't mind, and would catch up with him later.

• He positions himself by the buffet table and busies himself by laying waste to most of the spread –while the other guests hover awkwardly around him, unsure whether or not braving the Avatar of Gluttony for a bite of food is really worth it. (To his credit, he has set aside a plate of food just for you. Now all he has to do is to keep it uneaten until you show up.)

• When he catches sight of you stepping into the ballroom, he chokes on his food. He can't take his eyes off of you –you're more appealing to him than all the food on the buffet table combined. You always looked good, but tonight you were looking especially...delectable.

• ...he might be hungry for something other than food right now.

Belphegor 🛏

• Belphie can't decide whether he's awake or if he’s still dreaming.

• On one hand...this seems exactly like the kind of dream his subconscious would conjure up to torment him. The person of his dreams, all dressed up in an absolutely stunning outfit that compliments their body and brings out the colour of their eyes. And then getting to escort said person as their date to one of the Devildom's most illustrious balls, and getting to introduce them to everyone as his partner. It's a dream that's taunted him before in the past, before he wakes up too soon with flushed cheeks and a heart that's longing for more.

• On the other hand...your hand in his dreams has never felt this warm. The warmth of your palm against his keeps him grounded as you gaze up at him from behind your eyelashes. He feels the heat rising in his cheeks as he takes in your coy smile and the knowing look in your eye. No, this definitely isn't a dream.

• But if it was then...well, you were the most amazing thing his mind had ever conjured up for him.

#obey me shall we date #obey me game #obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me shall we date headcanons #headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me readers insert #gender neutral reader

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retirementhomecollab · 4 years ago

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☾ intro + masterlist

☾ warnings: f!reader, mention of alcohol, swearing

☾ word count: 1.3k

You hear the party before you see it.

In fact, you hear it from a good block away before you see it, its heavy bass heartbeat thrumming down the street. You can’t help but think that it's pace is so irregular that it almost sounds like the apartment building itself has a condition.

“You mean cardiac arrhythmia?” Hiromi questions when you make this observation aloud.

“Yeah!” you exclaim, re-adjusting your hat. You aren’t bothered by not knowing this; she’s the physiology major after all. You’re just the blissfully ignorant literature student who occasionally understands phrases like “cell membrane” and “venereal disease”.

She gives you a funny smile, only made funnier by the deep-looking latex scars by her mouth. Going all out, she’d purchased a wide variety of face paint and makeup palettes from the Halloween store and spent most of the afternoon perfecting her look. You had simply sat back and watched, throwing on your witch costume when the time came and letting her turn her attention on you when she was done.

“Do you think people will know what I am?” She frets as you slip through the building door. Someone had propped it open with a milk crate and stuck a little paper ghost on it.

You look her up and down. From the sickly green face paint and artificial scars running across her cheeks it would be evident to anyone that she was a zombie. The tricky part would be the rest of her outfit; a shirt made of some shiny looking material with a belted pleather skirt and a matching cropped jacket. The makeup around her eyes is excessively glittery, and there’s a headset mic hanging down one side of her face.

“I’m a zombie idol,” she had explained when you’d first seen the test run for her costume. It was obvious after she’d explained it to you but you just know she’d be getting confused looks for the rest of the night.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” you lie with a grin as you ascend the stairs. “Now let’s go, undead Jennie Kim. We have some orange jello shots to do.”

The door is ajar as you walk past the landing, music and people spilling across its threshold as you urge Hiromi on. Already, you can spot some people from your lectures; a strawberry blond who slept through most of microeconomics and a girl you’d been partnered with for one chemistry lab.

You both manage to squeeze past the entrance and into the dense, beating heart of the event, illuminated by at least a dozen packs of LED fairy lights. Groups of your peers mill about, fake fangs and shiny capes glinting around the room like passing stars. You think you see someone familiar and are about to call out to them when Hiromi yanks at your wrist, pulling your attention back to her.

“Shit, shit,” she hisses, fiddling with one of her many bracelets as she turns away from one of the corners of the room. You’re about to ask what’s wrong when you spot him from across the room, red solo cup in one hand and his phone in the other.

“Ohh,” you say knowingly, giving her a small smirk. “Funny seeing him here,” you exclaim, your loud voice barely audible over the pounding bass of the music.

You watch with amusement as she runs her fingers through one of her carefully crimped pigtails, her sparkly nails catching in the strands as she attempts to work more volume into them.

“I didn’t know he’d be here,” she moans, narrowly avoiding the elbow of someone dressed like Saitama from One Punch Man.

“But you were hoping,” you tack on pointedly.

“I was hoping,” she sighs admittedly. “I just think he looks so good tonight, don’t you?”

You glance over at her longtime crush and cock your head. In his Halloween store pirate getup, complete with feathered hat and velcroed-on shoulder parrot, you can’t say he’s your type exactly. But the heart wants what the heart wants and what Hiromi’s heart seems to want right now is to talk to dollar store Blackbeard.

You sigh. Who are you to stop her?

“Go,” you say, giving her a light nudge in his direction. Her expression brightens before you catch a flash of hesitance in her eyes.

“But—” she begins, unsure.

“I’ll be fine,” you add reassuringly, trying not to let your apprehension show. True, you’d only come on the condition that she’d be by your side for most, if not all, of the night. But these are extenuating circumstances, and if you don’t let her try to get with the world’s most average looking Captain Hook, then you know you wouldn’t be any kind of best friend at all.

She squeezes her eyes shut, causing the glittery makeup to refract across her eyelids. “I love you,” she finally utters, taking hold of your hand.

“I know,” you grin, feeling the press of her acrylics in your palm as she pulls away. “Just text me when you’re ready to leave or let me know if I’m going home alone.”

“Will do,” she nods, patting the phone in her jacket pocket. You know there’s a chance you won’t get any message but that would be an indication in itself so you aren’t too worried.

“Alright,” you sigh, sending her off with a smile. “Go on and get the Jack Sparrow of your dreams.”

“Thank you,” she says again, adjusting one of her earrings before she heads on her way. You watch as she maneuvers past a posse of Sailor Guardians before making a beeline for her crush. A mixture of relief and pride swells in your chest as you see her make contact, and you grin as you see him lean in, clearly more interested than Hiromi knew (or noticed).

However, your quiet satisfaction is immediately quashed as someone jostles into you from behind. You stumble, nearly toppling into an overloaded coatrack before managing to right yourself against the wall.

“Asshole,” you mumble to yourself as whoever it was slips away without so much as an apology. It’s then that you realize the situation you’re now in; alone and sober at a party you aren’t even sure you want to be at.

During your time here you’d seen at least a couple of people you’ve spoken to, but no one you know well enough to hold onto in this swirling chaos of booze and tacky costumes.

Okay, you think to yourself, patting down the folds of your skirt as you assess your surroundings. You can do this. You can get out there and, maybe with a little beer as social lubrication, have a good time like everyone else.

Glancing towards the kitchen you see two people making out near the pantry, along with another four oblivious farm animals acting like nothing’s going on right next to them.

To your other side is the hallway, the small bathroom door swinging open as its occupant (a vampire) makes a hasty exit. You think you could use the opportunity to freshen up before attempting socialization.

Looking past that, there are two other doors; one of them tightly shut and the other cracked open just a sliver, showing the end of a made bed. You know the rules about being a good houseguest and all, but you can’t help but feel a bit curious.

However, the heart of the party is right before you in the living room. You spot a group of people leaning over some kind of board game, their occasional hollers and shouts drawing your attention.

Past them is the sliding glass door that leads to the balcony. Its inhabitants, plural or otherwise, are obscured from view, thanks to the glare of the room. Despite this, you think fresh air could do you some good.

You decide to: > Go to the closed bedroom. > Go to the open bedroom. > Go to the balcony. > Go to the kitchen. > Go to the hallway. > Go to the bathroom. > Go to the living room.

#flashing cw #epilepsy tw #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x y/n #the witching hour

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entertainment · 5 years ago

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Entertainment Spotlight: Lisa Edelstein, The Kominsky Method

From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo’s first scripted series Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein’s range of roles are as diverse as her talent. You can catch her playing a recurring role in the Golden Globe winning Netflix series The Kominsky Method, and she recently reunited with House creator David Shore for an arc on The Good Doctor. Edelstein resides in Los Angeles with her husband, artist Robert Russell, two step-sons, and several rescue dogs. She volunteers her time with a variety of charity organizations including Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, The Anti-Defamation League, Planned Parenthood, and The Center for Reproductive Rights. Lisa took the time to answer some questions about her career. Check it out:

Do you have a favorite line or scene from season 2 of The Kominsky Method?

My favorite scene from Season 2 of “The Kominsky Method” is making amends to my father. I love so many things about it. First of all, you get a real glimpse of the father/daughter dynamic that created a child like Phoebe, because Alan is hilarious and his character is incredibly tough on her. Secondly, Phoebe has a little bit of sobriety under her belt, but she is nowhere near understanding how awful her behavior has been or how badly it affected people. She still thinks everyone has a “take to your grave” list of mistakes they’ve made. And I love, when out of desperation because her father is so mad at her, that she even suggests the housekeeper might have done something ELSE wrong to deserve being deported directly to death squads. Anything to get daddy off her back. It’s such an incredible scene with so many layers of sickness, it’s the most fun to play.

What type of scripts and roles are you drawn to?

Anything that’s well written. I really try not to preplan my future parts because they always come as a surprise and are more interesting then moving in a strictly linear fashion. I try not to play the same person over and over again, in a row, because that gets you into trouble. The minute you play something well, you get ten offers to play the same part in other shows and for me it was always important to push back against that and wait til I could do something new. Not everyone manages their career in that way and it’s neither right nor wrong, it’s just how I like to move through the world. Our business is very difficult to succeed in. I always felt that we fight so hard to get our careers, you better make sure its a career you enjoy.

Did you do any research or shadowing to prepare for your roles on House and/or The Good Doctor?

Not really. My father was the town pediatrician. I used to go to the emergency room with him for fun; “help” him give stitches and such. Don’t worry, I wasn’t actually stabbing needles into people’s wounds, but I would be the “cotton swab holder” or some such. I just thought it was so cool. So, I always loved medicine. Being on ��House” was the perfect way for me to be a doctor: no med school, no one dies IRL, and totally awesome and completely hospital-inappropriate outfits. As for “The Good Doctor,” I was just happy to work with David and crew again and torture Richard Schiff. Richard played my dad on one of my earliest series, “Relativity,” then we worked together on “The West Wing,” so we go way back.

How do you get into the mindset to play Phoebe in The Kominsky Method?

To me, Phoebe is a woman with the brain of a hurt, angry, lonely 14-year-old. In season one, that’s all you really see of her, acting out till someone notices. In season two, you really see her first true attempt at growing up. But every conversation with her dad tries to suck her back into the same adolescent dynamic. So it’s not about finding some ulterior mindset, it’s more about just reaching into a part of myself I can certainly remember. It’s letting go of a few adult ideas and allowing that rich dynamic Chuck created to wash over me. She’s sort of a permanently injured teenager although Season 2 leaves some space for her to find her way into recovery for real.

Is there a specific role or moment that you feel was most impactful to your career up to this point?

There are a series of moments, not a specific one. Jobs that led to other jobs, moments that I knew meant as much for the moment as they would for my future. But I’m not one with a lucky break. I’m fortunate enough to be in this industry and actually work, so there’s that. But I’ve never taken great leaps forward, just little steps. I got my SAG card because I chastised Oliver Stone in my audition for “The Doors” and he liked my sass. So that got me one line you can’t see on screen, but it also got me my SAG card. Step one! I had moments in auditions for jobs I didn’t even get that made casting directors believe in me and push for me to get future work. I got cast for the live episode of “ER” because of a good audition then the director called me last minute to replace an actor on an episode of “Sports Night” which led to two episodes and then to sex worker Laurie on “The West Wing.” Bryan Singewr was a huge “West Wing” fan and loved my character and fought to cast me on “House” as Cuddy. So work begat work. Step by step. With a lot of other steps in-between.

Thanks for taking the time, Lisa!

#entertainment spotlight #lisa edelstein #the kominsky method #the good doctor #house

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sugarcomatosed · 4 years ago

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On Miyuki Inaba and Macross:

I’ve heard nothing but love for wave 2-10 of destruction; but I’ve realized that the scene loses some of its magic for western audience because they don’t know it’s a shout out.

So today I want to break down for you today the biggest reference in 13 Sentinels you most likely missed out on; Miyuki Inaba, Lynn Minmay and The Super Dimensional Fortess Macross.

Join me under the cut for massive spoilers for Sentinels of course, and a nearly 40 year old anime you’ve never seen.

I think everyone knows Sentinels is chock full of sci-fi shout outs. From War of the Worlds, to Terminator, The Matrix, heck even GroundHog’s day, the list goes on and on. Most western audiences will be able to spot the bulk, so why haven’t you heard of Macross?

Simply put, copyright battles. In 1985, Hamorny Gold stitched together three unrelated animes to create Robotech. One of the anime series involved was Macross and Harmony Gold has kept a tight leash on the copyright preventing the series from ever getting a real proper English release ever since.

...so what is Macross?

Well, in super blunt Wikipedia stolen summaries:

Macross (マクロス, Makurosu, English: /məˈkrɒs/) is a Japanese science fiction mecha anime media franchise/media mix, created by Studio Nue (most prominently mechanical designer Shōji Kawamori) and Artland in 1982. The franchise features a fictional history of Earth and the human race after the year 1999, as well as the history of humanoid civilization in the Milky Way. It consists of four TV series, four movies, six OVAs, one light novel, and five manga series, all sponsored by Big West Advertising, in addition to 40 video games set in the Macross universe, 2 crossover games, and a wide variety of physical merchandise.

If you asked me to boil the series down to it’s three staples I’d pick the following three elements. Big robot fights, love triangles and music, usually all interplaying together to make some of the most exciting fight scenes in anime.

The series is going strong in Japan ever since its 1982 release, with the most recent series Macross Delta’s newest film “Absolute Live!!!!!!” getting its first teaser trailer days before I sat down to write this post. It’s insanely big in Japan and you’ve probably seen a half dozen Macross references if you’ve watched a sci-fi anime before. Most likely the signature missile blast.

Sentinels pulls specifically from the 1984 film: the Super Dimensional Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? The story is largely a shortened version of the first tv series which aired in 82 and is considered in canon a film retelling of the events.

The film focuses on a colony ship adrift through space suddenly being attacked by an alien race called the Zentardi, it’s both a war film and a very quiet drama all tangled up in the three central characters of Hikaru Ichijo, the young pilot, Misa Hayase, one of the bridge officers and then Miss Macross herself; Lynn Minmay. An idol singer aborad the ship who has during its journey become a huge celebrity after starting as a simple waitress at her family’s restaurant.

Minmay is considered something of the face of the series and while other characters may never come up again in its extended universe, the story of Lynn Minmay is akin to legend in later entries in the seires.

When mankind was faced with these invaders, there was one simple thing that managed to send the enemy into disarray, the music of Lynn Minmay shocked the Zentardi who had no concept of culture and music. They end up capturing her and the other two leads during the course of the film and while the others manage to escape; Minmay is trapped behind with the Zentardi.

They eventually ask her to look and exam a relic they’ve kept on board their ship, and Minmay discovers it’s of all things, a song.

So, if isn’t obvious enough by this description alone, Miyuki is modeled after Minmay. It’s not a 1 to 1, but the curls in her hair and the style of her outfit make it even more obvious.

They have a lot of the same general vibes too, Minmay over the course of the film becomes a tragic melancholic figure and a symbol of the war effort against her will. Her sweet dreamy smile and glittering energy become subdued as she faces set back over setback. She remains strong up until a point behind her facade of confidence until she discovers Hikaru now has feelings for Misa. Culminating in the finale of the film where a despair filled Minmay refuses to sing because it all seems pointless.

Miyuki foils this of course with her journey from the plucky Tomi Kisaragi of a prior loop to a ghost in the machine; a somber beautiful figure but a changed person. She only has this role she’s taken on in the end. All she can do to impact the out come of this fight is sing and hope Shu hears her.

In the finale, Minmay is given a wake up call and asked by Hikaru to sing her song and try to save the lives of everyone left aboard the macross. Roused from her despair, Minmay agrees and the final battle is set to the tunes of the song the Zentardi had shown her, now with lyrics Misa had translated. At long last reaching them and halting the conflict.

This is of course, what 2-10 is a direct reference too. Miyuki sings Seaside Vacation until she can’t be heard any longer.

Even if you’ve never seen the film, the clip alone is a treat in itself. It’s a lovely piece of animation

But Macross’s influences go deeper than just Miyuki and the original Macross. In Macross Plus, the primary idol is the artificial intelligence Sharon Apple. She is also it’s major villian as her AI becomes destabilized during the course of the film.

With the illegal modifications installed in Sharon takes control of the capital of Earth with her music and nearly destroys the city. Miyuki’s character is all Minmay, but her role in the story is a heroic Sharon Apple.

And outside of Miyuki, Macross references and influences can be spotted in Tomi’s story in which she and Nenji are trapped in 2025 and he begins to fall for her mirrors the arc that occurs between Hikaru and Misa after they escape the clutches of the Zentardi. The pair find themselves trapped on a mysterious planet, which turns out to be Earth rampaged by the Zentardi. Misa and Hikaru’s hostility towards each other fades as they try to come to grips with this truth. They spend a long time alone in the ruins and eventually fall in love before eventually being saved by the Macross. Which, is roughly what occurs in Tomi’s story between her and Nenji.

Shu’s story as well, with the minor focus on his confusion of his feelings towards Tomi and Yuki are also arguably a tongue in cheek reference towards the series many Love triangles, which aren’t always true triangles but always remain a corner stone of the series.

Does Shu actually have feelings towards Tomi? No but she’s showing up everywhere and it’s left him a little out of sorts and plays into the misinformation sentinels feeds you, leading you to think there’s a triangle of some sorts:

Maybe they’re stretches, but considering it was stated in an interview the film was a huge inspiration for the game, I wouldn’t be shocked. I found the interview on twitter back in November but can’t track it down now and I’m v. sad

There’s also the matter of the Protoculture.

The Macross is a massive colony ship, sent out into space with the goal of returning to earth after a long space voyage to insure humanity’s survival, much like the probes the 2188 colony sent out. Misa and Hikaru return to find this was the only thing that’s had prevented humanity from being wiped by the Zentardi.

While on earth, Misa and Hikaru manages to discover a set of ruins of a highly advanced civilization that had created both humanity and the Zentardi. The protoculture.

The logs they manage to Find reveal that their inventions grew too great and they have all but disappeared from the universe, but humanity in the end are aliens as well. The invading Zentardi were just tools used by the Protoculture to wage war on itself and contributed to the death of their people.

The song Minmay sings is a relic of the Protoculture, an ancient highly advanced civilization from thousands of years ago.

Now Hm. Why does that sound familiar? What was it Fluffy said about 2188 and the Deimos code....

They’re obviously not 1-1 references, but Sentinels was such a labor of love that pulled from so many genres it’s nice to see such an iconic series get a well thought out reference.

I hope this was something of a fun read and gives you a better love of Miyuki and 2-10.

I don’t know if I’d recommend getting into Macross if you liked Sentinels, but if you’re interested send me an ask and I could probably give you a helpful breakdown. I love both series so much and consider them my top two sci-fi!

#macross #13 sentinels: aegis rim #miyuki inaba #lynn minmay #sugar speaks #i almost always listen to macross tunes while working on 13sar fics and am really passionate about both series and ready to shill lmao #i wanted more pictures and tumblr said....no #sugar’s 13 sar collection

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glowyjellyfish · 3 years ago

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I wasn’t planning to do much tonight, but... then I did. It was working! Although I may have misplaced some CC I would like to have along the way, I’m not really prepared to test the limits again just yet.

Here we have the Village Green for Belladonna Cove! It isn’t much, just a meadow with a few activities and a bunch of plants and animal spawners.

In this corner, a small traditional wedding tree, for those sims who don’t care for marrying in the church.

To the side, a small performance area, an outhouse, and a few targets for games that involve hurling a pointy object at said targets. Oh, and a trambopoline of hay.

Scattered along the side and back are choppable trees, nut spawners, wild herbs, wild berry bushes, and spawners for birds, squirrels, deer, and rabbits. I am also very pleased with how I artfully arranged this little shady copse to line up with the few trees on the Town Well lot. One day, there will be additional Meadows lots of various compositions filling out this particular patch of land, but the Town Well and Village Green are all I feel I require to start with; future lots will need to be properly owned and paid for. I might also come back and add more activities; I’m disappointed I couldn’t add a themed telescope (I have community lot telescopes, and I have themed telescopes, but they do not intersect apparently).

Anyway, on to the makeovers!

That’s right, it’s Pleasant family time! Everyone’s... third or fourth favorite Pleasantview family, probably. Here they are Yeomen, and I continue to struggle with figuring out what clothing I can give them that is neither too peasanty nor too fancy! And you can just forget the notion I’ll try to give everyone unique outfits--I’ll try, but there are many sims, not a ton of variety in clothing except maybe among noble ladies, and it’s been almost two months I barely remember anything. Here, Daniel is sporting an outfit that I’m never sure where to place among the social classes, but it suits him just fine.

Mary-Sue! Thinking about Fortune, and how she can get one. She’s a sim I considered giving fancier clothing too, and her formal outfit is probably a bit above her station, but ultimately I ruled on the side of practicality; they will probably be shepherds.

Angela, looking very cute if I say so myself! I think the dress I picked for her is one I might have used before, but the nice green and the pattern matches her original outfit and suits her nicely.

And Lilith, who lucked out in being goth, meaning that I ended up giving her what’s probably too fancy a dress in order to properly represent her personality. Since she doesn’t really have the option of spiked collars and stompy boots unless she goes rogue or something.

Next, the Burbs, our last Yeoman family in Pleasantview:

I tried to match John’s default outfit as best I could, and somehow he turned into a pirate. It’s just the outfit, really, although I might make up a nautical past for him.

Jennifer. I feel like I really managed to nail her design, although she might like to try some fancier dresses to match her ambition.

And Lucy! I didn’t intend to have her match her mother so much, I just gave her a yellow-heavy outfit to match her default, and whoops I gave Jennifer some gold because solid brown looks so blah and peasanty...

Oh, I also got this cute picture:

Very much in love, those two.

Anyway, finally, we have the Oldies, a pair of Merchants!

Herb. Given his first name, I am considering having him own some kind of apothecary shop, although I seem to be planning a lot of those. It would, however, go well with his wife’s calling...

...Coral, the first midwife. She’s dressed down a little to reflect the often messy work. Ideally, each subhood will have its own midwife, but for now she’s it.

That’s it for tonight! If the game continues to run smoothly, next up will be the Ramaswami family, who are being placed in Pleasantview as the second Merchant family, then on to makeover Bluewater Village as I already did the Goths, and Frances J Worthington III who is being assigned as Pleasantview Gentry is just going to have to wait until I makeover all the college sims. As for lots, I still need to remodel or build homes for the Cordial sisters, the Clevelands, Geoff Rutherford and Connor Weir (who will be establishing their own homes), and the DeBateaus; and I need to build the Baldwin’s hedge tavern and the Cordial sisters’ magic shop. And before I go much further, I need to back everything up, update the Sun&Moon apiary set, make sure it works, then work on eliminating blue CC, making sure I don’t have gaps in my theming, and using a bulk renamer to get that loading time down. Hooray!

#the sims 2 #ts2 medieval #the megakingdom of simland #simblr #i feel like i am forgetting a tag or two

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zosonils · 4 years ago

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surely post some autistic ferb things for us all,,,,,,

hell yeah anon!! here’s an absolute hell dump of Ferb Autism Indulgence Things because i have really been wanting to get my grubby little autistic hands all over him lately

his special interests are engineering and tetris [which is the game he’s internationally ranked in!]

he stims vocally by humming or repeating other vocalisations, but rarely with actual words

if he’s too nervous to vocalise/just not in the mood he goes for small hand movements to stim like clicking pens or tapping his fingers

he does flappy hands/arms when he has a lot of excitement to release! otherwise he prefers to stick to smaller/more subtle motions for a variety of reasons

he only repeats actual words as echolalia, almost always off of either phineas or perry! that thing they do where perry chatters and the boys mimic it and they all just loop off each other for a while is absolutely an echolalia loop for all of them [yes even the platypus]

a very epic headcanon i have is that owca agents are typically labelled as having therapy animal training to give them some more wiggle room with showing intelligence, so perry is officially a therapy platypus for the flynn-fletcher kids, especially the boys. ferb does the aforementioned echolalia chatter thing with perry and also just generally finds him extremely comforting to hold. of course perry’s figured out all of ferb and his siblings’ needs by observation and makes sure to subtly be as comforting as possible for his kids, especially if they’re having a meltdown and need to hold someone who won’t try to talk to them

ferb genuinely dislikes communicating verbally, due to a combination of general social anxiety, struggling to translate his thoughts into words, and finding it physically uncomfortable to talk. it’s not serious enough to prevent him from cracking a joke or vocalising his thoughts every once in a while, but he prefers to be nonverbal as much as possible and communicate through gestures and body language

throughout the series he only ever speaks on his own terms and as much as he’s comfortable with, so it comes out without issue, but if he’s forced to talk when he doesn’t want to or while he’s under stress he struggles to string sentences together and stutters really badly. fortunately he’s got nice friends and a great family so this issue rarely presents itself, although it comes up sometimes during the school year in battles with pissy neurotypical teachers over oral presentations

over time he starts to work past the discomfort [genuinely, it’s on his own terms as opposed to masking to get allistics off his back] so that by the time he’s an adult he can hold an entirely verbal conversation for a decent while before it drains him, but he still tends to avoid speaking if he can

phineas instinctively understands ferb’s silent emotional cues, a lot better than he understands most people’s [but that’s a whole other infodump lmao], and unless ferb actively indicates that he wants to talk for himself phineas usually speaks for both of them and translates any of ferb’s less neurotypically obvious signals

phineas and ferb made The Ultimate Fidget Cube as one of their daily projects [they were being mass produced for an hour or two and then something or other happened, there was a mobile phone and an avalanche of instant noodles, long story short only the handful they made for themselves and their friends are left now] and neither of them go anywhere without it

ferb doesn’t have any specific comfort/security objects but he feels significantly more at ease if he’s got some kind of tool in his hand or within reach [or, failing an actual building-stuff tool, anything he can hold and Do Something with, like a pen or his fidget cube or a video game controller], and is a lot more stimmy with his hands and generally anxious if he isn’t holding something

perry performs the task of comfort item better than any inanimate objects but platypi aren’t allowed to come to school even if they’re very polite :(

believe me the brothers have tested this numerous times

school is stressful for ferb because it fires up his sensory overload and is usually where he’s forced to do some neurotypical shit that upsets him, but his friends always have his back and linda and lawrence are definitely super involved in making sure their kids’ needs are met and respected by their teachers, so he manages pretty well unless something really bad happens to set him off

he’s susceptible to sensory overload, mostly with bright lights, sudden noises, and being touched. the light and sound involved in many of his and phineas’ projects is alright because he usually designed them and knows exactly when they’ll come on and what it’ll be like, but if he doesn’t have that prediction available he freaks out easily. being touched [especially without warning] is the absolute fucking worst and he almost invariably flips out if someone unfamiliar tries to touch him or he’s hit with an unexpected sensation he doesn’t like

he only rarely has meltdowns because he’s good at self-regulating when he needs to and his friends and family know what does and doesn’t fly with him, but when he does they’re often triggered by either sensory overload or being forced to talk

when ferb starts entering meltdown territory his verbal skills are the first thing to shut off, and if it gets worse he usually stops communicating altogether and enters a really bad dissociative state that he won’t come out of until he feels safe again and can be carefully brought back to his senses

standard procedure for ferb meltdowns is to get him a weighted blanket and some tea and a perry if you can find the slippery little bugger, let him snap back to reality at his own pace, and once he can communicate his needs again pay extra close attention to them until he calms down enough that he can properly self-regulate again

his favourite sensations are weight/pressure, the funky bumpy shit perry’s tail has going on, and anything soft!

most of his clothes [including his usual outfit in the show] are tight-fitting but made out of soft fabric for maximum comfy

the blanket on his bed is a weighted one, but if he’s too far from his room or it’s too hot to be comfortable under a blanket sometimes he’ll just find the tightest spot he can wedge himself into without getting hurt or stuck and squish himself in there to calm down a bit

his favourite food texture is crunchy stuff, and he samefoods with particular cereals and sandwich combos that rotate every few months when he finally gets tired of the exact same breakfast and lunch every day and wants slightly different identical meals

while he’s fine with variation from day to day, he’s very firmly attached to the summer/weekend formula of wake up > cereal > big idea > where’s perry > [building montage] > mom holy fuck > sandwich > [having fun montage] > our fuckoff massive contraption has vanished somehow > oh there you are perry > snacks > nondescript vibing > dinner > bed time, and if this schedule gets significantly thrown off it really bothers him

ferb shows his emotions more subtly than neurotypicals, which can make him seem hard to read, but his external emotional range is still extremely distinct - he just expresses it in atypical ways sometimes!

one of his most notable atypical emotional cues is that thing he does when he’s startled and he pulls his hands up - he does this in we call it maze when candace falls over on her skates in the beginning, split personality when busting candace scares him, lost in danville when he’s worried another capsule might fall on him or phineas, and the phineas and ferb effect during how do i do it when milo’s exercise bike crashes, just to name a few instances! this boy has Unique Emotional Cues and i love him for it so much

he’s better at reading emotions than phineas [as low as that bar is], but sometimes misses more subtle cues and doesn’t quite trust his ability to read anyone aside from phineas, candace, and his closest friends

he’s been aware that he’s neurodivergent ever since he was diagnosed as a little kid [he was first diagnosed with autism when he was extremely baby, not even three years old, and had it continually reconfirmed as he got older] and he’s been entirely happy with being autistic for as long as he’s known what that even means, with this only being reinforced as he found siblings and made friends with other autistic kids :)

good lord this is such an infodump i’m sorry i just love my son so very much and have been feeling particularly self indulgent today ;<;

#i've been on and off typing at this ask for like six hours help hsjnkdfnkj /lh #i love ferb so fucking much you guys have no idea #[diverges his neuro]#sonic forces me to answer questions #just fucking whatever #THIS post goes RIGHT in the infodump tag #long post #good lord i'm sorry lmao [except i'm not because talking about my comfort characters is awesome]#anon

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euphoriatxt · 4 years ago

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txt if they worked at an animal rescue center ♡

yeonjun

he’s in charge of walking the dogs and making sure all the outdoor cats come back by the end of the day

it’s not really a difficult job but it’s not easy either

there’s one dog that likes to gently headbutt every tree he comes across (his name is lorax)

if yeonjun doesn’t slow down and let lorax pat the tree with his head, he will throw a fit and start wailing

the cats usually don’t create any issues for him

it’s just that when they do come back to the center, they don’t go straight to him and just sit wherever

so he ends up having to take 30 minutes to an hour to find all of them

he loves dressing up the animals and matching with them

there’s an outfit for every holiday, color, weather event, sport, etc (the tiny rain jackets are his favorite)

he makes sure to prepare everything for future owners

he once sat down for 5 hours and went through every song on his playlist to find out each one’s favorite song

he has at least two personalized outfits prepared for each of them that he plans to give to their future owners

he gets really attached to them, and will cry when they get adopted

soobin

out of all of the boys, he spends the most time at the center

he’s there the earliest to feed all the animals and give them their proper medications

he spends his breaks comforting them and training others

before leaving he makes sure to check on every single one of them, giving them food, cuddles, or anything else that they would need

he just loves all of the animals so much :(

has a hard time accepting that some animals just aren’t that friendly

he had to learn the hard way when he found an injured skunk

he didn’t even get close enough to help it before it sprayed him, and he ended up running away

he still feels guilty about it, wondering if the skunk ever healed

he brings so many raccoons to the center for no reason?? and the raccoons just let him???

the boys are shocked that he hasn’t met a mean raccoon yet

“one day you’ll meet one that will try to scratch your eyes out.” - taehyun when soobin brought in the 12th raccoon that week

he always releases the raccoons after feeding them and making sure they’re healthy, but they just come back the next day

somehow able to recognize all of them and distinguish them by name

beomgyu

master animal trainer

he is the reason all the dogs and cats know basic commands and are potty trained already

has even trained some of soobin’s raccoons

absolutely fearless when it comes to helping the more “dangerous” animals

prioritizes the animal’s safety over his own :’)

literally gags when it’s his turn to clean the cages

he can’t last thirty minutes without nose plugs

he loves all the animals, but there’s this one cat that he has beef with

“this is the fifth time she’s put trash in her cage on my day, i know she’s doing this on purpose”

she refuses to be touched by him so they just end up getting into the most intense stare downs

teaches stray dogs how to swim uwu

clowns soobin about how the dogs swim better than him

it’s not often that they find abandoned birds, but when they do beomgyu gets so excited

especially when they’re able to talk

that bird will be able to call the other boys stupid by the end of the week, guaranteed

taehyun

he mostly works outside, overwatching playtime and keeping track of which cats leave

is actually really scared of soobin’s raccoons and how they multiply every time they come back

he tries to stay as far away from them as possible but for some reason they all really like him

he literally has a trail of raccoons following him wherever he goes

“i don’t understand why they like you more, i even built them a little house :( “ - soobin after a raccoon jumped out of his arms to follow taehyun

as much as he’s scared of them, he’s too nice to shoo them away so he tries to outrun them instead (it doesn’t work)

he went through a baking phase so he knows 20+ recipes for animal-safe gourmet treats

has managed to turn it into a side business

there’s a variety of meals/treats he offers that can be categorized by animal, specific allergy, illness, and diet

i guess you can call him an animal nutritionist?

even went as far as making a wedding cake for someone’s dog wedding

hueningkai

now if you thought yeonjun was attached??

this boy lives and breathes with the puppies

there is at least one puppy with him at all times

the puppies are just as attached as he is, it’s a bit concerning

he has full-on conversations with them and cuddle sessions that could go on for hours

he is basically their emotional support human

when he first started working at the center he would give cats catnip after their meals as a “treat” without knowing it would make them high

soobin literally screamed when he saw all the kittens rolling around on the floor

the poor boy had no idea until soobin yelled at him and gave him a lecture

he takes a selfie with every single animal they bring to the center and adds it to their wall of memories

every picture is marked with the animal’s name and the day they were brought in

he gets really emotional if he looks at the wall for too long and starts crying

he really is the purest baby

#txt headcanons #choi yeonjun #choi soobin #choi beomgyu #kang taehyun #hueningkai #yeonjun #soobin #beomgyu #taehyun #txt blurbs #txt timestamps #txt reactions #txt imagines #txt scenarios #tomorrow x together #tomorrow by together

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dorizardthewizard · 4 years ago

Text

Galactik Football: Season 1

I completely forgot that I wrote a load of ramble as I rewatched GF during lockdown, so uh here’s a sort of review for season 1!

------------------------------------------------------------------

First of all, the concept and setting is just so unique and wild I mean, football in space against aliens but with magical powers too? Epic. Superpowers are pretty common in sports cartoons and anime but here there’s actually an explanation for them, and they have significance for the world of the show. The concept of the flux sets up for an entire sub-plot of wars with weapons of mass destruction, corrupt mega-corporations ruling the galaxy, space pirates… the world feels very lived in, and makes you want to know more about the goings-on outside of the football games.

The pirate business doesn’t overshadow the Snow Kids though, because their personal drama and journey to becoming a better team together is interesting enough. Basically, this is a space opera with football sprinkled in. For such a big cast, most get good development and there’s no clear main character. This leads into me rambling about each character, because I never really appreciated the diversity of arcs when I first watched it as a kid :’P

Rocket:

He starts out pretty timid, doesn’t fight for his dreams, and has a habit of running away from confrontation (like when the others found out he was Aarch’s nephew) that follows him into season 2. He’s stuck tending to flowers (ironic, since he himself isn’t allowed to grow and bloom), but by the end of the season, he’s more authoritative and confident enough to suggest strategies to the team. Also has a habit of hiding his feelings and underestimating his importance to others, which he works on in season 2.

Tia:

You’d expect her to be more calm and similar to Rocket, and sure they bond over being out of the inner circle of the Snow Kids, and also both having emotionally unavailable parents, but she’s actually far more headstrong than she seems. I mean, she was willing to do anything to be in Aarch’s team, even faking her parents’ consent and almost dying when her ship crashed! (Plus that scene where she uses the breath is epic, that music? Chef’s kiss) She’s not perfect though – she’s very empathetic (like when they arrived on the Ryker’s planet and she was the most upset by the conditions there), and relates to Rocket, so she wants to give him the happy family she didn’t have, by reuniting him with his mother. Although well-intentioned, it’s preeetty invasive, and though it turned out okay in the end, she really should have consulted with Rocket first, especially after finding out his mother wasn’t dead, but had left them. For all Tia knew, she could have been a really shitty person.

D’jok:

Very clear ego problems :P He doesn’t know his past and doesn’t have much of a future on Akillian, so he pushes himself to achieve some great destiny, then feels like everyone else isn’t on the same level as him if they don’t do the same. He gets more than he bargained for when it turns out that Sonny Blackbones is his dad, and he realises what’s really important to him in the final match. Namely, he realises that the reason he found it so difficult to sabotage the match isn’t because he wanted to win at all costs, but because he doesn’t want to betray his team – he wants to win together with them.

Althooough, I was never entirely sure about him scoring the penalty before knowing Sonny was safe, like sure he didn’t know Sonny that well yet so maybe felt closer to the SK but dude, you just sentenced a man to death. I think the life-and-death situation by itself was enough to get him to rethink his priorities. Maybe they could have made him more aware that the whole galaxy was at stake if he lost the match, but that motive for scoring the penalty isn’t as satisfying for his arc I guess.

Micro-Ice:

To this day, I have no idea why he was named that :’P He’s the first Snow Kid we meet, which makes for a fun start to the show since he’s such a smart-ass and a joker that keeps getting in trouble. He could have easily been nothing but comic relief, but he isn’t. He’s actually pretty pessimistic and doubtful about his skills, and covers it up with jokes and fake confidence. He didn’t even want to go to the try-outs, to avoid disappointment if he didn’t get chosen.

The self-confidence issue keeps building up with things like being put as substitute initially, being the last person to get the Breath, and D’jok and Mei getting together, finally driving him to run off with the pirates thinking he isn’t really needed on the team. He also lets jealousy get the better of him, souring his friendship with D’jok and forgetting that Mei is free to choose whoever she likes. He eventually realises he’s wrong though, and comes back. I also love his friendship with Artie :’D

Mei:

She starts out ambitious, which in itself isn’t a bad thing, but she’s willing to throw others under the bus for personal gains. Then you start to see it’s because of her mother’s influence – always pushing her to do better. When Mei starts to actually have feelings for D’jok, she starts to care about him and regrets breaking up his friendship with Micro-Ice. Eventually, she manages to stand up to her mum and is happy playing the position she’s best at.

The execution cooould be a little better because at times it leaned a bit into the “overambitious woman who needs to be put in her place” trope. It only really comes down to little details, like why did Aarch refuse to let her try out as an attacker when he was forming the team? Back then he had no idea who she was or what her skills were?? He didn’t even want to consider the idea later when Micro-Ice left, which felt more like an emotional reaction than a tactical one. But anyway, it’s alright overall and I love that she got to score the winning goal despite not being an attacker.

Thran and Ahito:

Having a narcoleptic goalkeeper is just genius, and makes for some fun last-minute saves. Also love how despite being asleep half the time, Ahito’s the one that knows what’s up :’P Thran is also really underrated but there’s more to talk about with these two in season 2.

Also wanted to throw in some appreciation for how the older characters are written – usually the adults in kids shows are more on the side-lines, but in Galactik Football, they’re also pretty flawed and interesting. For example, Aarch isn’t the perfect, wise mentor – whether he did it for glory, to escape bad memories or a combination of both, he still left his brother and planet behind when they needed him most, and now he’s trying to make up for it. Norata’s not perfect either – he denies Rocket his dreams partly to protect him, but also out of bitterness towards Aarch and fear of being left alone again. Also, there’s a variety of different families being represented in the show – single parents, adopted parents, rich, not so rich, neglectful, supportive, ambitious, non-existent… and with some of them, this plays a key role in the Snow Kids’ characters.

The show might not be the most technically amazing, okay, the 2D animation is not the best, but the designs are pretty diverse and I miss that 2000’s style with the outfits :’P There are lots of locations with pretty backgrounds, and very varied planets that reflect the people living there. I also like the comfortable sci-fi design – it’s futuristic-looking enough, but more colourful than some of the CGI bores we get in movies these days.

The 3D animation is better – they reuse motions a lot but at least they shake it up a bit by using different characters and camera angles. Speaking of camera angles, there’s some really interesting ones and camera movements that really make the matches dynamic. Honestly, having CGI in the 2000’s that doesn’t look super ugly and dated now is great, partly because they transferred their designs to 3D really well and partly because they didn’t try to do much rendering on the models.

ALSO THE SOUNDTRACK SLAPS THEY DID NOT HAVE TO GO THAT HARD ON THE OPENING THEME AND THE SCORE SOUNDS SO EPIC ALL THE TIME

I don’t know how to end this so if you actually got this far, I’ll just say season 1 was the best one for me! There’s some parts and characters I left out but that’s for another time. Sinedd and D’jok’s rivalry deserves its own post :’P

#galactik football #jetix #cartoon review #i practicaly liveblogged s2 so i guess i'll post those thoughts later #my posts

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lockefanfic · 4 years ago

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Toy - Part 2

When Sana entered the hotel room, she did so while dragging another man by his cock.

Son Chaeyoung is sitting in your lap, naked as the day she was born, trying playfully to toss random rice snacks into the air for you to catch with your mouth. But when Sana approaches the large leather couch where you are lounging lazily with Chaeyoung and the equally naked Momo - dragging the male behind her like some obedient pet via the grip she had on his erect genitals - you found your attention locked solely on her.

“Hi!” she says to you, her face shining brightly, her tone equally so, as though she were introducing herself on some Korean variety show. You’d half expected her to go through the whole “One in a million! Annyeonghaseo, TWICE imnida!” introduction you’d heard a million times before - such was her cheery disposition, which was almost totally at odds with the intensely lewd nature of her surroundings and the fact that she had a man’s rigid cock in the palm of her right hand.

“H-Hi,” you answer back, still feeling a little shocked at the sight of the very same Minatozaki Sana you’d seen in a million photos and videos - here, in front of you, in the flesh - with a grip on another man’s cock as though it were a handle for a shopping cart. She is wearing a hotel bathrobe, likely only for some semblance of modesty during the short trip from her own hotel room to here - but the naked man she was quite literally dragging along had enjoyed no such convenience. If she wore the bathrobe to look discreet in the hotel hallways, the fact that she was dragging around a naked man by his cock kind of defeated the purpose - but you weren’t one to question the actions of a girl like Sana.

She was just as perfect looking in the flesh as she was in all the photos and videos - a real life anime character, her face bright and cute and sexy all at the same time; and with a body to match. Her body seemed sculpted from the wildest fantasies of every 20 year old male in the country, with round, perky breasts, toned stomach, and firm, thick thighs that led to long, luxurious legs.

“You must be Pikachu,” she says to you, smiling.

“Uh, wha-”

“That’s your toy name,” Momo says lazily, before tossing another potato chip down her hatch, “we don’t use real names for toys here.”

“Pikachu, I’d like you to meet Woody.”

“Uh, hi,” you manage to say to the young man standing just behind Sana in what was probably the oddest introduction to another human being you’d ever experienced in your entire life. You didn’t know the guy, but Sana’s choice of toy name for him was top-tier.

“Hey,” Woody answers back, both of you quite unsure of what to make of the surreal situation you’d found yourselves in. You assumed that he too was at the concert, and that Sana had picked him out of the crowd the same way Chaeyoung did for you.

“So Chaeyoung, Momo - can I borrow Pikachu to play with?” Sana asks, a wide smile on her face, as though she were asking Chaeyoung if she could borrow a plaything and not an entire human being.

“Ugh, I guess so,” Chaeyoung answers with a feigned sigh, “but don’t break my toy. I’m not done playing with him yet.”

The younger girl reluctantly hops off your lap, and you lament the loss of close contact with her small, tight little body. She slips into Momo’s embrace on the opposite couch, the older Japanese girl wrapping her arms around her invitingly.

“Well, as you can see, Woody and I have already gotten started. Time for you to catch up, Pikachu,” Sana says, stepping towards you and reaching out invitingly with a slim, slender hand.

You rise, slowly, from the leather couch as Sana drops to her knees between you and Woody. Your mind is still reeling - making eye contact with Chaeyoung at the concert was enough to make your day, enough of a memory to last a lifetime. You never in a million years could have imagined what would come next - never could have imagined Minatozaki Sana on her knees between you and another man, a cock in each of her hands, pumping each shaft of meat slowly with long, dainty fingers.

She doesn’t waste any time, quickly darting out her tongue and giving your rapidly hardening shaft a quick lick from base to tip. It doesn’t take much longer for you to reach full hardness, not with one of the hottest women on the face of the planet on her knees in front of you, taking you in and out of her mouth. All the while she is pumping Woody’s shaft with her right hand, his precum staining her perfect skin and making her fingers glisten.

For long, beautiful minutes Sana gives you and Woody a blowjob, alternating between the two hard shafts in each of her hands, sucking and licking one cock while pumping the other with her free hand. Every now and then she dips below the shaft to play with swollen testicles, and from time to time she lets a cock graze her full cheeks and face, smearing her own saliva and traces of slick precum onto her perfect vanilla skin.

After an especially long and hard suck on Woody’s cock that draws a soft sigh of pleasure from the young man, she turns to your shaft and slaps herself in the cheek with it, a look of bliss on her perfectly sculpted features - and the sight of it drives you insane. She rubs the hard meat around her face like it were a bar of soap, a sultry look of pure want on her perfect features. How could someone be so adorable and cute one moment, and become completely wanton and lustful the next?

“Holy fuck, Sana,” you hiss, involuntarily. Her bathrobe has been loosened by her vigorous work on the cocks in front of her, revealing the perfect creamy skin of her upper chest. Your view gives you a perfect look down the tantalizing cleavage between the folds of her robe - the same cleavage she loved to flaunt on stage, the same cleavage you thought would be forever beyond your reach.

“Mmm, I think both of our toys are ready now, don’t you think, girls?” Sana says, her gaze still locked on your shaft as she lets it press upon that beautiful face of hers. Your cock grazes one more time over her perfect nose, those full cheeks, and those wonderful pink lips. Her eyes are half-lidded and drunk with lust, her mouth slightly open to allow a small sigh of pleasure to escape her lips at the feeling of hard cock pressing against her face.

“Oh, they’re definitely ready,” Momo chirps from the couch. On her lap, Chaeyoung has turned to face the action, her back pressed against Momo’s naked chest - and Momo’s hand is playing, almost lazily, with the moist flesh between the younger girl’s legs. She lets out a soft gasp as Momo starts playing with her little tits, capturing and pinching the stiff nipples with a thumb and index finger.

Sana rises from her knees and takes a few steps towards the bed, allowing the pristine white cotton of the bathrobe to fall from her shoulders, finally revealing her naked body to your eyes. She does a little spin, finally facing you, and your eyes drink in the perfection of the female form standing in front of you. On stage in those skimpy little outfits she was so fond of, she was already a goddess - now, naked, clothed only in lust, she was outright sublime.

“I want you both inside me at the same time - I want both my pussy and mouth filled at the same time. But you’re both probably wondering which one of you gets my pussy first? Woody and I have already had a little private fun in our hotel room,” she says, her tone dripping with want and sex and all things erotic, “so I ch-”

“Don’t!” Chaeyoung and Momo snap, but it is too late.

“-I choose you, Pikachu.”

You couldn’t help but smirk at the joke, at the sheer ludicrous nature of your circumstances. You found yourself wondering yet again if you were in the middle of some crazy dream, and whether you’d wake up in your hotel room alone. But when you approach the bed where Sana is lying on her back and reach out and touch the perfect vanilla skin of her long, luxurious legs - your fingertips tell you that it was, indeed, all real.

Woody follows you to the bed, and he kneels on it next to Sana’s face, his cock pressing up against her cheek, where Sana caresses it lovingly with her long, dainty fingers, as though it were a familiar pet giving her a kiss. You take up position on your knees between the girl’s spread legs and take your shaft in your hand, pressing it to the moist, slick flesh of Sana’s opening.

“Fuck me, boys.”

The sound that leaves her throat when you enter her is nothing short of heavenly, but it pales in comparison to the feel of Minatozaki Sana’s tight, wet, hot walls wrapping themselves around your cock as you bury yourself inside her. Almost as soon as you fill her Sana turns her head and takes Woody’s shaft into her mouth, filling herself from both ends with hard cock. Taking only a moment to savor the feeling of being buried in the pussy of one of Asia’s hottest idols, you draw your shaft out of her body, relishing the sight of your cock liberally stained with her juices - it seems giving two men a simultaneous blowjob really got her off.

Your second thrust into Sana sends spikes of pleasure up and down your spine - pleasure you quickly find yourself needing more of. Before you know it you are fucking her with long, hard strokes, withdrawing until only your head is inside her before penetrating her slick pussy again and again. Woody is balls deep inside Sana as well, his shaft fucking her mouth and throat with a steady pace as you both pump the Japanese girl full of meat from both ends.

You watch as Sana’s body is rocked back and forth on the bed, her small, perfectly shaped breasts bouncing hypnotically to the rhythm of the cocks pumping in and out of her tight, wet holes; she loved to tease her fans on stage with her cleavage, but to see her naked tits now, bouncing and being rocked with each thrust of your cock into her body - it was a sight to behold. The rest of her body is equally perfect, her tight, flat stomach flexing with effort, and the creamy, soft skin of those full thighs spreading widely to accept each thrust into her body.

Her sighs and moans come out as muffled sounds, but the fact that they were muffled by the hard, thick shaft thrusting in and out of her mouth made them that much more erotic.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two of fucking, but being fucked from both ends clearly got Sana off quick, and soon you can feel her pussy tightening around you, her juices flowing more liberally around your pumping cock to stain your crotches and her thick thighs. You reach down with your palms and spread her flushed legs even more, enjoying the sight of your cock as it penetrates her juicy, slick pussy.

Her free hand clutches your wrist, her nails digging almost painfully into your skin. She lets Woody’s cock, drenched with her saliva, pop out between her pink lips. Woody’s precum and her saliva are flowing freely from her mouth and onto that perfect jawline of hers.

“Oh, fuck, I’m cumming!”

Sana becomes a quivering, shaking mess of naked female flesh on the bed as she orgasms, her eyes staring intensely at you as you bury yourself inside her one more time and savor the feel of her spasming pussy tightening and pulsating around you. She breathes heavily, her breasts bouncing deliciously as she does so, her skin flushed and pink all over.

“I told you... she got off on being filled,” Chaeyoung quips, but her tone is soft and lusty - a glance over to the couch, where Momo’s quickly thrusting fingers are knuckles deep inside the young girl, tells you why. Momo gives you a sultry stare from over Chaeyoung’s shoulder as she snakes her left hand around the younger Korean girl and gives her small chest a firm squeeze, toying lazily with the girl’s stiff nipples.

Sana takes a few moments to recover, lazily stroking Woody’s wet cock with a hand as she does so. When her energy returns, she rises from the bed and gets on all fours, her round, full ass and thick thighs now dominating your sight.

“Alright, I’ve had my fun. It’s your turn now, boys. Take me.”

“Fuck the bitch,” Momo snaps, her eyes fierce even as she fingers the mewling Korean girl in her lap, “make her scream. Fucking use her.”

“F-fuck, yeah,” Chaeyoung adds with some difficulty given the pleasure she was currently experiencing, “Use her! Spitroast the slut!”

Woody is the first to take their advice to heart, and he quickly takes a kneeling position at Sana’s head before grasping the back of her skull and thrusting it down onto his cock, filling her mouth with his shaft. His roughness surprises you at first, but the sight of Sana gladly taking his cock like a champ, combined with that perfect body of hers in prime position to be taken before you, quickly chases any hesitation away.

Grasping the Japanese girl’s raised ass with both hands, you squeeze the firm mounds, enjoying the feel of her flesh filling your palms and the sight of her clenched asshole between them - and the slick, wet pink flesh below it. You grasp your cock in your right hand, line it up with her slick folds, and soon Sana is filled with cock from both ends once more.

Sana was a sight to behold when she was being fucked on her back, but on all fours and taking a shaft from each end she was on a different level altogether. Her rear was almost as breathtaking as her front, with her toned back, moistened with sweat, and the perfect hourglass shape of her slim waist and full, thick thighs. You couldn’t resist giving her firm butt a smack, one that draws a muffled yelp of pleasure from the wanton Japanese girl around the stiff cock currently filling her mouth.

For a few wonderful, blissful minutes you and Woody fill Sana up with cock, falling into a rhythm as you each withdraw from her body as the other slams into her, only to thrust back in as the other leaves; your paces increase, hands on her skull and her ass keeping her in perfect position as her body is used by two stiff, thick cocks.

Sana lets Woody’s shaft slip from her mouth as she throws her head back and screams in ecstasy. The deep, dark sound that leaves her throat is almost like a growl - a wordless, guttural snarl made by a creature craving more. She grabs Woody’s cock and practically shoves it between her lips once again, and Woody takes it as license to continue fucking her mouth.

“Look at her fucking take those cocks,” Momo snaps, drawing your attention to the couch, where she has reduced Chaeyoung to a mewling, quivering mess in her arms, “look at her get off on being fucking filled!”

Chaeyoung’s only response is to let a long, drawn out moan escape her lips as her entire body stiffens and she cums on Momo’s fingers, her hands clawing into the couch as Momo’s touch finally drives her over the edge.

“Fuck, it feels so good!” Sana exclaims, letting Woody’s drenched cock slip out of her lips for a moment, “I feel so full! Fuck me, fucking use me!”

Watching one of your favorite idols get off on being spitroasted lent you further energy, and you resume pounding her from behind - and Sana shrieks in response, only to be cut off when Woody grasps her head and thrusts his cock into her wanton mouth once more.

“Fucking take my cock, bitch,” he hisses with an aggressiveness that surprises you - but when Sana responds with a muffled moan of pleasure, it encourages you to do the same.

Soon you are pounding her - not simply fucking her from behind, not simply enjoying her body - now you are using it, using her, using her to get the pleasure you so desperately wanted, and she was all too willing to provide.

It quickly becomes too much, and Minatozaki Sana’s perfect body pushes you closer and closer to orgasm.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you hiss, and Woody utters the same.

“Fill her up!” Momo shouts.

“Do it!” Chaeyoung adds, evidently having recovered from her own orgasm, “fucking fill the bitch up with cum!”

“Do it, boys,” Sana confirms, replacing her mouth with a pumping fist on Woody’s aching cock as she looks up at him. When she looks over her shoulder at you as you continue to pound her slick pussy, it is a look that drips with utter lust and need. Gone is the cutesy meme-material girl of Korean variety shows and their music videos - the woman being fucked from both ends in front of you was made of pure sex; she was lust incarnate.

“Fucking cum inside me, both of you. Fill me up with your cum!”

Sana takes Woody’s cock back into her mouth, and you savor the last few thrusts into her wet, slick, hot pussy before you bury yourself as deep as you can inside her and finally let go, sending stream after stream of hot, thick semen deep into her body. Woody cums soon after, filling Sana’s mouth entirely with his cock before sending his cum directly into her throat.

The muffled moan of utter desire and wanton need that leaves Sana’s throat as she is filled from both ends with cum is one of the hottest things you’d ever heard in your life, and it takes a significant amount of effort on your part just to keep upright as Sana’s pussy milks every last drop from your aching cock. You look down and watch her slick, pink lips being splayed by your pulsating shaft as you give her aching pussy a few last thrusts, pushing your semen as deep inside her as you could.

When you both finally slip out of her, the warm, thick cum that drips from her used pussy and the corners of her mouth flows down her thighs and jaw to stain the bed as she finally collapses onto it, her seemingly boundless energy finally drained. She lets out a small cough to clear her throat and lets some white cum leave her tired mouth, dripping down her jaw - her movements cause even more of your slick cum to flow from her pink, tired pussy lips until it stains the sheets beneath her tired body in a small puddle.

The next few minutes are a blur as you struggle to recover from one of the most powerful orgasms you’ve ever had; all you are vaguely aware of is Chaeyoung joining the three of you on the bed, and the wonderful sight of the young Korean girl making out passionately with Sana, the thick white liquid of Woody’s semen spilling down their chins as they exchange it between them. Chaeyoung loved sharing cum, it seemed - and she confirms it with a soft sigh that escapes her lips as she breaks the kiss with Sana, letting a long rope of cum connect their mouths - before she tilts her head back and swallows the cum in her mouth, savoring the feel of the thick white juices sliding down her young throat.

The next thing you are aware of is the feel of a warm hand wrapping around your spent cock, still slick with your own cum and Sana’s juices.

“I hope you haven’t broken our toy yet, Sana,” Momo says as she lazily strokes your sore shaft up and down, “He’s already cum three times, and I’m the only one around here that hasn’t gotten any cock in me.”

“Don’t worry, I think Woody’s still good to go - he’s only cum twice so far tonight,” Sana quips as she nonchalantly strokes Chaeyoung’s hair, even as the younger girl travels down her tired body to slurp the fresh, hot cum leaking from the Japanese girl’s pussy.

Momo gives you a smirk. “Fine, I guess I can go play with him. You rest up, Pikachu - you’ll need it.”

“F-for what?” you ask, your mind still hazy and drunk with pleasure.

“For whoever you want next,” Momo answers, as she straddles Woody’s still erect shaft. “You’ve done pretty well for a toy - and when toys make us cum, we let them choose which member they want to fuck next.”

Your mind races, the sight of Chaeyoung between Sana’s legs slurping up your own cum from the Japanese girl’s dripping pussy giving you plenty of ideas as to what to do next to the three women in the room.

“Even the members that aren’t here,” Momo says, as she strokes Woody’s stiff head up and down her drenched pussy lips, “let us know who you want, we’ll call them over, and you can have them.”

“Only three members get to choose toys per concert,” Sana explains, “to lessen the chance of getting caught by paparazzi or something. Momo and Chaeyoung chose you, I chose Woody. I bet the others are each horny as hell, just waiting for a call.”

Chaeyoung raises her head from between Sana’s flushed thighs, a thin stream of your semen dripping from her chin, the strand still connected to the mess she was making of the Japanese girl’s pussy.

“So who do you want to fuck?”

---

Author’s Note: As a thank you to everyone that’s shown so much love and support here on tumblr, I’d like to write the next chapter based on whichever TWICE member is requested the most. Leave a comment down below to let me know who you’d like to see in Part 3 :)

Thanks again for reading, everyone. As always, all your DMs/comments/asks keep me writing. Hope you’re all staying safe out there :)

#kpop fanfic #kpop fanfiction #kpop smut #pov smut #reader insert #male reader #twice #twice sana #minatozaki sana #sana

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syntheticpoetry · 4 years ago

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The Ghosts That We Knew

See my original post on the origins of this story here!

Summary: Blaine Anderson is no stranger to hospitals and has been volunteering on the pediatric unit of Lima General Hospital for years when Kurt Hummel comes along. After Blaine is attacked at his school's Sadie Hawkins Dance, he has his best friend Kurt to help him deal with the aftermath. And when Kurt becomes the target of the McKinley football team's bullying campaign, he can count on Blaine to have his back.

AU where Blaine transfers to McKinley instead of Dalton. Set during season 1.A story of two best friends finding courage to face their bullies and discovering love along the way.

Author’s Note: Blaine has a reason he has been in an out of the hospital since childhood that will be revealed, but if you are overly cautious of the level of angst surrounding it I can assure you it's nothing heartbreaking/super serious. It's actually quite common. I cannot thank @esperantoauthor enough for beta reading this for me and really helping me whip it into shape!

AO3 Link || FFN Link

Chapter 1: Of Viral Videos and Disney Princes

The last time that Kurt Hummel remembers being in a hospital, he told his mother that he loved her for the last time.

That was six years ago.

As he walks through the lobby, towards the directory by the elevators, he keeps his gaze fixed forward, careful not to spare a glance at the waiting area to his right. He spent so many months in that waiting room. Entire seasons, multiple holidays spent watching people receive good news and bad news, with his father stoic and silent beside him as his mother underwent procedure after procedure. Until it was their turn to be the family that received bad news. The doctor sounded sincere as he said a lot of big words Kurt could not quite understand at the time, but he understood the look on his father’s face. He took to studying the ugly designs on the carpet to distract from the tight clench in his father’s jaw, the way he kept himself so still and barely blinked through the entire explanation— Kurt knew, even at eight years old, what it was like to use up all of your willpower to hold yourself together for the sake of someone else. To this day, he cannot look at paisley print without thinking back to that awful day.

Kurt scans the directory before punching the up button to call the elevator and folds his arms across his chest, tapping his foot as he awaits its arrival. When he first heard about the volunteer program on the pediatric unit he was naturally hesitant to return to the place that held some of his worst memories. He had been on the fence about it all summer, torn between the desire to give back to the hospital staff that had gone above and beyond in their attempts to cure his mother’s cancer and wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the place where they finally had to say goodbye to each other.

Until he saw that YouTube video.

A curly-haired boy with big doe eyes and an unwavering grin, guitar in hand, leading a Disney themed sing-along with a group of elementary school age kids. The warmth that spread through Kurt’s chest was almost overwhelming as he watched the boy march around the room performing Hakuna Matata with the parade of children trailing behind, mimicking him raucously and off-key. It was the first time Kurt had really smiled in a long time.

So he had decided to look into the program. Mostly because witnessing the boundless energy of pure joy from each child singing along in that video elicited memories of countless nights of living room performances with his own father, both of them puffy-eyed and exhausted but still managing to find the stamina to sing at the top of their lungs, using the furniture as stage props. They were two lost souls attempting to cling to each other through tidal waves of insurmountable grief, and those nights together— well, those nights wereeverything to Kurt. He had never felt closer to his father than when they were both breathless and laughing their way through the most eclectic collection of songs imaginable, hugging each other tightly at the end of each performance.

And if Kurt happened to run into the boy from the video along the way, well, that would certainly just be an added bonus. Kurt did have eyes after all. And there was no denying the boy’s natural charm or the air of confidence with which he carried himself.

Truth be told, entering yet another school year with no friends was beginning to take its toll on Kurt and the possibility of finding camaraderie with a cute boy who seemingly shared similar interests was certainly enticing.

Ding!

The doors slide open before him revealing an empty elevator. Kurt steps in and presses the button for the fourth floor. He thinks about that video and jumping on armchairs and couches in his living room with his father for the entire ride up.

***

He has to be buzzed in to enter the unit, which he thinks is strange. But the woman who greets him, a young nurse with bright green eyes and deep auburn hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, explains it is the protocol for all pediatric units in order to prevent children from wandering away or being kidnapped. There are security bracelets around each patient’s ankle that trigger an alarm if they are taken past a bright yellow line painted on the floor.

“Who would kidnap sick kids from a hospital?” Kurt asks, looking absolutely horrified.

“You would be surprised at how common it is. Parents fighting over custody, usually.”

He nods and guesses that makes sense, but the thought is still deeply unsettling.

The hallways are empty as she leads him to a room behind the nurse’s station. The unit is certainly much different from the one his mother had been on. The walls are covered in murals of different cartoon characters and scenes from popular storybooks. While the nurse punches in a code, Kurt studies a painting of Rapunzel in a high stone tower, golden plaited hair strung over the edge of the window for a handsome prince at the bottom. The door buzzes and she holds it open for him. “I’ll let my supervisor know you’re here.”

Kurt thanks her and takes a seat at one of the tables to wait. On the far wall he spots a bulletin board covered in an overabundance of overlapping photos, hand-drawn pictures and a variety of cards both homemade and store-bought. He casts a quick glance towards the door before crossing the room to investigate. He cannot help but smile as he scans over the collection of memories, reminiscing back to his own pile of hand drawn cards for the staff on the oncology unit.

Then something catches his eye.

It’s the curly haired boy from the video. He’s standing, guitar in hand with the strap over his shoulder, in the center of a group photo, surrounded by children of varying ages and the unit staff. His outfit is different from the one in the video though. He’s wearing baggy sweatpants and a printed T-shirt, only the edges of the otherwise obscured design visible from behind the guitar over his torso. In the video he had certainly seemed more, well, put together, to say the least. He had worn light grey slacks and a navy polo shirt accented with a white bow tie, which Kurt could not help but notice because he could count on one hand the amount of teenage boys he had ever seen wearing bow ties in the state of Ohio, himself included.

Kurt wonders how often he comes by to visit and volunteer. Maybe there is a chance they will be able to meet after all.

The faint beeping of the key code and jiggling of the door handle to his left draws his attention and he turns in time to see an older woman with ashy blonde hair and huge round glasses that take up half of her face walk in. Her scrub top is printed with different Winnie the Pooh characters. She smiles and approaches him, extending her hand. “Hi, you must be Kurt. I’m Jeannie; we spoke on the phone last week.”

“Oh! Yes,” Kurt shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Shall we?” She gestures to a table and Kurt takes a seat opposite her. “So we just have to get some paperwork in order and then we can take a little tour around the unit so you can meet the kids.”

“Okay.”

“This is your first time volunteering, right?” She opens a Manila folder and begins rifling through a large stack of papers.

“Yes.”

“What drew you to it?”

Kurt steals a glance towards the bulletin board, lips curling up into a half-smile. “I heard about it through my school a few months back, but honestly? I spent a lot of time visiting my mom in this hospital when I was a kid and when me and my dad would get home he would always try to cheer me up. We put on a lot of concerts for my stuffed animals in our living room. And I mean… like a lot .”

Her eyes are soft as she listens, a piece of paper held loosely between both hands just inches off of the table, almost forgotten, and gives him an empathetic smile.

“I saw that video of the Disney sing-along online and I just really wanted to be a part of it, helping kids, especially with music, because it’s really helped me through some tough times.”

“Well,” She straightens up and slides the paper across the table towards him, “I think the kids will really love having you around. Do you play any instruments?”

“Never missed a piano lesson,” Kurt says, grinning. “But mostly, I love to sing.”

The paperwork consists of a lot of signatures. Kurt is not to discuss any of the patients or their health conditions with others in order to maintain privacy regulations, not to post anything to social media without permission, and just a lot of general information about the hospital’s protocols such as what to do in the event of emergency scenarios (of which there are many ). By the end of it, Kurt has a pretty sizable stack of papers to take home with him and a dull cramp in his wrist.

“I know it seems like a lot of information, but nothing you have to memorise. You’ll always be with other staff members who will guide you through every step of the way.”

Kurt releases a nervous laugh, “Okay, good. I can save my highlighters for school work then.”

***

Jeannie leads the way to the playroom which, she explains, is a safe space for all the children on the unit that remains open every day until 7 p.m. No medications or treatments are allowed to be administered to a child in the playroom, they must be brought out first. There are about ten kids inside, ranging from toddlers to older teens, all of whom have seemingly gravitated towards splitting into their own little cliques based on ages. As soon as they enter the room two of the younger kids, a boy and girl no older than three or four, look up from a mountain of blocks and start crying. Kurt casts an alarmed glance at Jeannie.

“It’s okay, you can keep playing.” Jeannie kneels down and stacks a loose block onto their small tower. “Everyone, this is Kurt, he’s going to be coming by to help out and spend some time with all of you.” She stands up and backs away from the two toddlers with the blocks to stand beside Kurt again.

“It’s the uniform,” she says quietly to him. “Some get scared when they see us come into a room cause it usually means it’s time for medicine or treatments.”

“Hi, Kurt!” A small girl with bronze skin, a round face, and long thick black hair comes over and takes his hand. “I’m Melanie! You wanna come draw with me?”

She does not wait for an answer before she starts tugging on his hand and walking back towards a small rectangular table covered with construction paper and crayons. She climbs into one of two plastic blue chairs which are far too tiny for Kurt to fit in, so he sits on the floor beside the table, crossing his legs. Melanie slides a piece of yellow construction paper towards him and pushes a pile of crayons into the middle for them to share.

“Did you draw all of these?” Kurt picks up a red crayon and starts sketching.

“Yes! My daddy brought my big brother to visit and we draw together,” she says, shading in what looks like a sunflower with a purple crayon.

“They’re very beautiful; I like that one a lot.” Kurt taps the one she is currently working on. “I’ve never seen a purple sunflower before.”

“I’m gonna invent them one day,” she says matter-of-factly. Kurt smiles and returns to his sketch of a new outfit design that has been floating around his mind for the past week.

“Woah!”

Kurt begins to lift his head up to locate where the voice has come from when he spots movement beside his left elbow. To say the boy is small would be an understatement. He is tiny . A pale, skinny little thing dressed in Batman pajamas that look two sizes too big on him. He has wide, bright blue eyes and is wearing a charcoal grey beanie. Clutched between his toothpick arms is a stuffed rabbit with drooping ears the size of its entire body.

“Hello,” Kurt says as the boy leans forward to peer at his drawing.

“You can draw,” the boy says, clutching his rabbit closer.

“Would you like to draw with us?”

“Can’t draw,” he says.

“Oh, I bet that’s not true,” Kurt says and holds out the crayon to him. “Everyone can draw.”

The boy looks at the crayon then up to Kurt and shakes his head shyly before raising the bunny up to his chin, hugging it tightly.

“What’s your name?” Kurt asks.

“Jason,” he says quietly.

“Well, would you like to watch me and Melanie draw?”

“I’m really good.” Melanie looks up at him. “You can sit next to me, I’ll show you.”

Kurt spends the next hour drawing with Melanie while Jason continues to peek curiously between them. The other kids begin to trickle out of the room, some led by nurses, some by visiting family members. Pretty soon, only the three of them are left until Jason’s mother comes in to collect him. Before he leaves, Kurt holds out a piece of paper to him.

“Something tells me you like Batman,” Kurt says as Jason’s eyes widen at the image of a child-sized Batman with bright blue eyes. “How about next time you can draw me?”

“Okay.” Jason grins, slipping the picture between his stuffed bunny and his chest to hold it there safely. “But you’re gonna look like a potato. I really can’t draw.”

It is the most Kurt has heard him speak all afternoon. Something about the way he talks contradicts the way he looks. Kurt wonders how old he actually is; the boy looks smaller than most five year olds he’s seen but definitely talks like an older child. Kurt makes a mental note to find out next time. “Deal. I can’t wait to see it.”

Jason’s mom gives Kurt a parting smile before she shepherds her son away. Soon after, Melanie’s nurse comes to collect her as well, leaving only Kurt and Jeannie in the empty playroom.

“That went well,” she says. “You’re a natural with them.”

Kurt beams back at her, a sense of pride swelling in his chest.

After his dad comes to pick him up, Kurt spends the entire car ride home filling him in on the events of the day, excluding Jason and Melanie’s names. He goes to bed that night with his mind already buzzing with activities for the next visit.

***

Kurt starts volunteering two days a week after school and over the course of the next month, he becomes very familiar with some of the regular kids on the unit. Jason, he discovers, is actually nine years old, has leukemia and is in his final round of chemotherapy by the first week in October. Melanie has sickle cell anemia and had been hospitalized for something called ‘sickle cell crisis’— she had gone home two weeks after they first met, but Kurt learns that she usually returns frequently for the same problem. There’s a teenage boy not much older than Kurt is, but taller and skinnier with jet black hair and sad eyes, named Julian who has cystic fibrosis— he usually keeps to himself, oftentimes choosing to sit in the back corner of the playroom and silently watch everyone else.

The rest have been a whirlwind of faces and names with a variety of issues such as pneumonia, appendicitis, broken bones and asthma attacks. There have also been quite a few cases of children who have come in with injuries as a result of abuse at home, more so than Kurt would have imagined actually occurred. He finds trying to interact and engage with those kids to be the most heartbreaking.

Some of the kids are not as keen to warm up to him as others, keeping to themselves or staying with their families while Kurt leads sing-alongs, painting lessons, hosts movie nights, and reads aloud during story time. He has developed a steady routine in the five weeks since he began volunteering. So on the Tuesday during the second week of October he waves hello to the security personnel by the front entrance like he usually does. He rides up the same elevator and is buzzed into the unit by Rosie, the first nurse he met with the auburn hair. And with his usual wide smile in place, he strolls into the playroom with a new four-pack of Disney themed puzzles under his arm.

But when he walks in, the kids are already sitting in a circle, staring up at a boy with loosely gelled curls coiffed into a fluffy side part, bright hazel eyes, and a sapphire acoustic guitar perched on his lap. Kurt is caught completely off guard as he realises, Oh god, it’s him! It’s the guy from the video!

He looks shorter in person than Kurt assumed. In both the photo on the bulletin board and the video his hair was ungelled and wild. Kurt vividly remembers his dark curls bouncing as he bopped his head along to the music while impersonating Timon and Pumba for the younger kids. He’s dressed in another carefully selected outfit though— bright red pants, a black polo and a white bow tie with black polka dots on it.

“Kurt!” A few of them yell excitedly.

“Ah, so you’re the famous Kurt I’ve been hearing so much about,” The boy with the guitar says, that same unwavering grin already in place. “Nice to finally meet you, I’m Blaine.”

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veryfantasticstudent · 4 years ago

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Mothers in Her Private Life (2019)

or Motherhood Pvt Ltd. A Publicly Traded Corporation

Spoilers!

Her Private Life is a 2019 Korean drama based on Kim Sung-yeon’s novel Noona Fan Dot Com, starring Kim Jae-wook and Park Min-Young in the lead roles. The show follows Sung Duk-mi (Park Min-young), the talented and dedicated Curator at Cheum Museum of Art, who has a secret that no-one at her work place must know about—she is a k-pop fangirl and fansite master The Road to Si-an. Trouble starts to brew when Duk-mi’s paths cross with Cheum Museum’s new Director, Ryan Gold (Kim Jae-wook), both as The Road to Si-an as well as in her role as the headstrong curator of the Museum. A rumour that Duk-mi is dating idol Cha Si-an (ONE) further threatens to dissolve the boundaries between Duk-mi’s work and private life.

Image from The Asian Wiki

Her Private Life was my first k-drama, and it took me a while to get to this even though a friend has been asking me to watch them for at least a year now. I decided to watch this show because the premise seemed familiar enough from anime and manga like Ore no Imouto Ga Konnani Kawaii Wake Ga Nai and Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai (The World God Only Knows). The show’s initial episodes follow the typical pattern of shows on fan culture: the censure and ridicule fan communities face, the struggle as well as joy of keeping up with one’s favourite music, games, TV shows, what-you-have-it alongside one’s daily life. Her Private Life is an easy-going romantic-comedy with bright production pallets, stunning outfits and make-up for its entire cast, and a wonderful OST list; it reeled in (G)I-DLE for the title track “Help Me” and also features songs by Ha Sung-woon, IN2IT, and Davichi. I did not think the show would go beyond the cute-sy and slightly contrived incidents that bring Duk-mi and Ryan’s together. I am happy to say I was wrong.

While the first half of the show focuses on the will-they-won’t-they angle, the second half picks on a very interesting strand: motherhood. There are a lot of mothers, biological and adopted, in Her Private Life. We see some of them while others are only present in the background, but this fabric of various mothers ties together the different characters in this show. We have Go Young-sook (Duk-mi’s mother), Lee Seon-ju, Editor Nam Se-yeon, Director Eom So-hye, Artist Lee Sol, and Ryan’s adopted mother—who never makes an appearance on the show but is an important part of it nonetheless. All these women have a different relationship with motherhood; they struggle through it in different ways as their male counterparts do not actively participate in child-rearing[1] or the domestic sphere--what is “private” must be managed by the woman. Inept men fail women and also trample the future of children in the process. In Her Private Life, the so-called domestic sphere mixes up with business when women rear children as a community and also become breadwinners. They are left alone to balance responsibilities both the domestic and public spheres, and can only rely on each other to look after their children. By exploring motherhood through the different mothers peppering its story, the show quietly states the feminist maxim “the private is the public” to throw out gendered division of labour.

Young-sook and Seon-ju are “traditional” mothers, and it may seem that there is nothing new about them. While the two women never meet on screen and discuss their lives, they have much in common; they spend much of their time with their children and derive pleasure from motherhood. Despite being married to men who are at least physically present, Young-sook and Seon-ju have to take much of the burden of parenting on their shoulders.

Image from Manga and Anime Maniac

Young-sook is an efficient and loving mother of two, Duk-mi and Duk-su. She also takes Nam Eun-gi and Heo Yun-jae/Ryan Gold, a supposedly abandoned child, under her wing. In the course of the show, she acts as a mother to Kim Hyo-jin, the Museum intern struggling with an insensitive with her own mother, Director Eom So-Hye. Young-sook receives little support from her husband except finances. Being a mother to five children at different points in time, Young-sook is a super-parent. Young-sook’s role as a nourishing caregiver to all these children ensures that they becomes well-adjusted individuals in the course of the show. Her affectionate rearing in the domestic sphere becomes the backbone on which single mothers like Nam Se-yeon can earn their livelihood in the public sphere. She is the glue who binds families together.

Image from Go K-Pop

Seon-ju, like Young-sook, shares a thorny marriage with her husband and practically raises Geon-u on her own. A “modern” mother, insofar she owns and manages a café, Seon-ju is self-sufficient when it comes to money. Her husband, Kim Seung-min is rarely available for the emotional support that Seon-ju wants in her marriage, and he remains busy with his work life. In the beginning of the series, it is only for the sake of her child that she stays in her marriage. Seung-min further alienates Seon-ju when he helps produce a documentary film called “Obsessive Fangirl of the 21st Century”, hurting Seon-ju who is a fangirl herself. Seung-min insists that his work is separate from his family life and thus Seon-ju should not be disheartened by the documentary; work life is separate from private life, a distinction that we can only draw in the case of gendered division of labour. Seung-min even tries to justify his contribution to the documentary by saying that he did it so that he could transfer to a variety show and be able to spend more time with his family. Seon-ju refuses Seung-min’s excuses, Seung-min apologises to Seon-ju for thinking that he could work on a documentary that portrayed fangirls in a negative light while also respecting Seon-ju’s life as a fangirl; their reconciliation only happens when Seung-min lets go of the constructed binary between a public sphere where one works and the private sphere of domestic life.

Editor Nam Se-yeon and Lee Sol are the two career-driven women in the show who raise their children, manage their domestic sphere by “giving them up”. Se-yeon is still single during the events of Her Private Life because few men her age seem to be compatible with “ambitious” women—a gaslight-y way of saying they are intimidated by her success. When Eun-gi was born, Se-yeon was desperate enough to consider leaving him since she could not rely on Eun-gi’s father to support her. Only a woman, Young-sook, steps forward to help Se-yeon in her time of need and allows her to move forward in her career. Women must hold the fort in both the public and the private sphere.

Image from MayRealm

Meanwhile, Lee Sol raises Yun-jae/Ryan on her own even as she toils to make it debut as an artist. Lee Sol loses her son when she is knocked into a coma after a car accident. Although Lee Sol is not able to find her son until she meets him as Director Ryan Gold of Cheum Museum of Art, Lee Sol’s lost son finds love and warmth first in the family of Young-sook and then in the Gold family. The accident damages Lee Sol’s hand enough that she can no longer be an artist and pursue her career. Again, it is Young-sook who initially takes care of Yun-jae. Even though she must later give him up for adoption, Young-sook steps in as a mother to prevent Yun-jae from being traumatically orphaned on the day Lee Sol met with her accident. Young-sook is a kind of a “middle mother” who willingly nurtures Eun-gi and Yun-jae in a way that they can cultivate strong and healthy bonds with their parents and themselves.

Motherhood, however, is not the sole test of these women’s characters or moral sense. In portraying the efforts these women put into all aspects of their life, Her Private Life does not offer any judgement on who is the better mother “and, thus the better woman”. Even though Young-sook is the super-mom, she is also the only mother in the show who loses a child. Her youngest, Duk-su, passes away in a car accident. There was nothing Young-sook did to “deserve” it and nothing she could have done to prevent it. She is not rewarded for being a super-mom, and the other mothers on the show are not censured for choosing to run businesses or pursue a career.

Perhaps the only mother Her Private Life condemns is Eom So-hye, who is not a bad mother but an insensitive person in general. So-hye cares little for her employees at Cheum and often makes life difficult for her daughter, Hyo-jin, even if it comes from a place of trying to prevent Hyo-jin from engaging in sasaeng-like (stalker) obsessive behaviour. Young-sook’s advice to So-Hye is not just advice for becoming a better parent but becoming a better person by listening to the needs of other people. Though So-Hye remains the drama queen character of Her Private Life, by the end of the show she is no longer the obnoxious person who wishes to boss everyone around.

Without introducing an element of “karma” or what-comes-around-goes-around for the different motherhoods—traditional or modern, involved or a little aloof—Her Private Life gives breathing room to motherhood. Since men cannot support them emotional or financially or both, women step outside their houses to take on the roles of breadwinners while balancing the role of caregivers. Women divide roles according to their strength and not their genders, and advance in their careers and raise well-adjusted children without the need for a patriarch to guide them.

[1] We do not know what relationship the Golds share.

#herprivatelife #korean drama #kdrama #park min young #kim jae wook #그녀의 사생활 #motherhood

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