#i only watched until midway through season 3.. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

solecize · 10 months ago

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ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 | 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘. every summer on your grandpa's farm was real-life magic to your younger self, who left a piece of her heart in amber valley when the years went on and the town became nothing but a faint childhood memory. soon enough, you become rocked by his death and realize the dead end in your bustling city world. this leads to you making an abrupt decision. despite knowing nothing but designer purses and the corporate ladder, you uproot your entire life to take over your grandfather's old farm in the town you were desperately trying to remember - alongside a familiar face from your youth that permanently finds his way into your heart. 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: jungkook/reader 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒. inspired heavily by stardew valley, friends to lovers, childhood friends, cowboy jungkook, small town alternate universe, slice of life, grief, growing up, mutual pining, jungkook as a parental figure 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓. 9k 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒. i don't even know what to say. i normally don't talk a lot and i'm mostly very unserious, but this is the last chapter of the farmouse and honestly, i'm super emotional about it. i'm really grateful for those of you who took the time to read and support this fic, every kind word has meant everything to me. i wrote this fic during a tough time when i needed warmth and joy, so i hope that this fic was able to bring even just a little bit of that for you while reading. (the writing of this chapter was quite literally delayed because my three year relationship ended midway through lol) this was also my first piece of writing in years and it's safe to say that i was able to fall in love with writing again because of this fic, so it'll always hold a special place in my heart. thank you times a hundred again <3

part ten: the midsummer festivalㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ previous. epilogue. masterlist

xxiv. the midsummer festival

squeezing through bodies in the stands, it took all of your focus to not drop the popcorn and drinks wedged in your arms. you should have asked someone to come with you, but you were in such a rush, not wanting to miss a thing. finally, you made it to your seat, plopping yourself in between jiwon and yoongi, and your eyes remained fixed on the lawn the entire time.

amber valley had the most beautiful days you’d ever laid eyes on and today was no exception. you weren’t sure if it was because of the natural charm in the sleepy town or a biased sense of nostalgia towards the countryside that you carried. the midsummer festival was held at the peak of the season, where humidity was as thick as honey and not a single cloud escaped being casted away from the cerulean of the sky. you had no choice but to throw on a tank top and shorts because anything else would feel like suffocation.

“i didn’t miss anything, did i?” you didn’t mean to scream, but there was no other way for your voice to beat the crowd amongst yourselves.

jiwon shook her head, her hair splaying from underneath the baseball hat that she so obviously stole from her brother. “no!”

the show-jumping competition was one of the newest additions to the fair and it proved to be one of the most popular. not only did the majority of the town come out to observe, but the fair also drew in an impressive number of visitors from elsewhere - some of which attended the fair specifically to watch the show-jumping.

“LETS GO KOOKIE!” screamed hoseok at the top of his lungs, holding up a customized poster board with a printed picture of jungkook and leo, depicting the words ‘go jungkook!’

yoongi groaned, “can you sit down? they haven’t even finished setting up for the jump-off yet.”

at this point in the competition, it was down to jungkook and another competitor, a man a few years younger named yesung. up until now, they both achieved the same score after the round performance and both cleared nearly perfect showings. the jump-off was a shortened course with tighter turns and higher jumps, intended to break the tie and determine the winner.

the crowd began cheering when jungkook and yesung reappeared, standing and waiting for instructions. you found jungkook adorable in his outfit, a dark green show jacket and breeches that emphasized his leg muscles. you had to catch yourself from staring too hard at his thighs because it seemed like yoongi caught you, waving a hand in front of your face with a snicker. you only glared at him.

it was mayor kim with the microphone, explaining the rules to the crowd. “and, to decide the order for performance, we have conducted a random draw. as a result, we will see. . .choi yesung go first!” he proclaimed, eliciting another round of cheers from the crowd.

from where you stood, you noticed jungkook naturally relax his shoulders. for that, you also breathed out a sigh of relief. he stepped away to where leo was, making way for yesung to complete his round.

when it was time to begin, everyone rose to their feet. from what you saw and heard of yesung, he was also a well-seasoned equestrian. he wasn’t as decorated as jungkook, but he had the advantage of winning the last show-jumping competition in the spring. you didn’t realize jungkook was out for vengeance, but he was indeed looking to reclaim his name.

every fraction of a second mattered in the jump-off round and so, your eyes were glued. the pressure was on and you watched yesung charge ahead. he decided to take some risky turns, likely to shave off time. the first one was executed perfectly and you nearly jumped at the second, challenging turn. it was not calculated well, as it resulted in a rail down at the penultimate fence.

“oh shit!” one of the boys yelped, watching the unfortunate accident.

yeung finished the course at a respectable, but flawed time. it was shame, since his speed and ability could have easily secured a victory. he knew it, too, judging by the disappointment in his eyes. you almost felt bad for him, if it wasn’t jungkook off to the side and gearing up for his turn.

now, it was jiwon screaming as loud as she could. “YOU CAN DO IT!” she screeched, cheering for her brother and you joined in.

already mounted on leo, jungkook looked up, right at your section. he gave a small wave and you all went wild - even mrs. oh, who brought her own sign to cheer him on. you guys weren’t the only ones, though, as it seemed that jungkook was a favourite amongst fans.

“jeon jungkook, jeon jungkook, jeon jungkook,” chanted the boys and you weren’t sure who started it, but you also began chanting, too.

he readied himself and at the sound of the horn, blasted off. the tensions were thicker, with the stakes at hand and the pressure on a seasoned competitor looking to re-establish himself. you couldn’t imagine the weight of the crowd under the beating of the july sun, considering the heat made you already down your water bottle by the first hour of the competition and were in half the clothing jungkook was in. between you and jiwon was a shared usb handheld fan, as the two of you silently took turns holding it - eyes too glued to the show and shouting jungkook’s name.

he was fast and sharp, yet every movement of his was so well thought out. at full force was a risky approach, but was so far bearing perfect results. you felt your heartbeat getting louder and louder, making your head pound with adrenaline. the last few seconds, the world became quiet and all you could focus on was jungkook. then, the eruption snapped you back into reality.

“LET’S GOOO!”

if someone was somehow not on their feet watching the final round of the show, they certainly were now, as jungkook zoomed to the end with no flaws and an incredible time. even you had to blink a few times, trying to see the time recorded clearly and realize your eyes were not deceiving you.

“there’s no way that’s not a record!” you heard jimin exclaim and you didn’t doubt him.

there was a hushed murmur over the crowd, as mayor kim stepped to the podium once more. tapping the microphone a few times, you and the rest of the crowd winced at the feedback that came with it. then, mayor kim spoke.

“ladies and gentlemen. . .” he begun, loud and clear.

jungkook was still catching his breath to the side, having yet to even take off his helmet. all eyes were peeled on mayor kim, as he took an extra pause for dramatics. if you weren’t also about to jump right out from your skin, you’d roll your eyes.

“. . we have a winner AND a record setting time. jeon jungkook, young man, please join me on this stage.”

no longer holding your breath, you roared along with your friends and the earth practically rumbled. jungkook’s smile was as bright as the day, as he whooped in response and raised his fist in the air. you were filled with nothing but joy.

before he stepped up onto the stage, jungkook displayed his integrity by walking towards yesung and enthusiastically shake the other man’s hand. yesung didn’t look too upset, more bewildered at the quality of performance that his opponent put on. they exchanged words, smiles reaching their eyes.

“that’s my brother!” screamed jiwon, as if no one knew the obvious.

jungkook then took mayor kim’s hand in one and attempted to balance his new, golden trophy with the other arm. in a split second, your friends, jiwon, and the oh family began filing out of the stands and you could hear hoseok yelling for you to follow. you widened your eyes, shuffling out of your seat as quickly as possible.

of course, jiwon was the fastest and made it to the lawn first. she squealed, as jungkook embraced her in a hug and spun her around. the cheers didn’t falter and only grew when namjoon and taehyung momentarily put jungkook on their shoulders.

you trailed behind everyone, nearly stumbling on your way down. you couldn’t see much, tiptoeing as far as you could. the chatter was still loud, but then the small crowd parted as you heard jungkook call out. it was your name. he was calling for you to come to the front.

“oooooh,” someone said, but you ignored it.

there was no doubt in your mind that your cheeks were a cherry red, but you refused to look anyone in the eye - even jungkook. you and your friends gathered around the podium with jungkook, as the event photographer asked you to move closer for a picture. everyone made way for you, as jungkook gestured for you to be the one on his right side, while jiwon and mrs. oh were on his left.

“congratulations,” you finally said, straining for your voice to be heard over the cheers. you still did not meet his eyes, finding yourself in a kind of shyness that was unknown to your normally headstrong personality.

that was something that came natural to jungkook, having an innate ability to bring out parts of you that you didn’t even know existed. before moving back to amber valley, you walked around with your chin up, thinking that you knew everything you needed to know.

now, at 25 years old, you knew harvesting soybeans and playing cards at the local pub with your new friends. you knew the smell of the ocean in the sweltering summer and you knew riding horses in sunflower fields at sundown. looking at jungkook, you knew what it was like to be slowly, but surely, swept off your feet. the realization creeped up on you, a sneaky little thing.

namjoon was the one holding onto leo, as your group huddled together for the picture. you instinctively hugged into jungkook’s touch, holding them in front of the camera.

jungkook spoke, right into your ear. “i’m so glad i was able to have this moment with you.”

that made you finally look up at his eyes and in that moment, a flash went off. this is when you also snapped out of your daze and despite his stare unwavering, you turned back to the photographer.

“oh, maybe we should take another -” you started, knowing that neither you or jungkook were looking in the camera, but he waved you off.

“no, no! this picture came out perfect,” the photographer winked at you and asked for everyone to disperse, before you could argue. something told you that you were going to see a picture of you and jungkook gazing into each other’s eyes on the front cover of the local newspaper.

he proceeded to take a few more solo pictures of jungkook with leo, followed by some shots with the mayor. jungkook was supposed to be kept busy, but he continued sneaking glances your way.

it was mrs. oh who gently tapped your shoulder. “now’s the time, honey. come to the store quick before he notices.”

beside her, sangwoo rolled his eyes. “he’s going to notice, he hasn’t taken his eyes off of her.”

regardless, you scrambled to follow behind mrs. oh. you weaved through the crowd, who all wanted to take a look at their champion in disbelief of the amazing time jungkook scored. the show began relatively early in the day, too, so the streets were only now becoming more and more full with the midsummer festival in full swing.

the roads were blocked off for pedestrian access only, as the fair was one of the busiest times of the year for amber valley. today was a day that drew crowds from outside of town, as the festival was an adored regional celebration and served as a tourist destination. you wouldn’t be surprised if you were told that the midsummer festival attracted the highest visitors of any other day in the year for the town.

carnival games, market booths and amusement rides were already set up since the morning and it was already getting tiresome to navigate through the festival goers. but, of course, you were trailing behind the force that was mrs. oh, who made way with ease with her commanding voice.

“time to get to work,” she sighed, pulling out a key from her pocket upon reaching the general store.

you said, “it’s a shame you can’t enjoy the festivities, mrs. oh.”

“oh, i don’t mind. i’ve lived in this town all my life, i’ve been here, there and everywhere when it comes to the fair,” she mused, unlocking the front door for the two of you. “business is business, the traffic the store will get is more important.”

a cool blanket enveloped your skin once you stepped in and you were never more grateful for the invention of air conditioning in your life. she was right, though, as you noticed some people nearby the store and already eyeing it.

“most businesses are closed today, but not us!” mrs. oh smiled, as she turned the sign by the window from ‘closed’ to ‘open.’

this is how you knew how much jungkook truly meant to mrs. oh. “jungkook is real lucky for you to open late just to watch him,” you said, examining the front counter and spotting a pair of jungkook’s work gloves.

“the store opens late every time he has a competition. sangwoo adores him and that young man and jiwon are family to us,” mrs. oh mused, seemingly lost in thought, before blinking back into the moment. “ah, don’t mind me. i almost forgot why you’re here, sweetie - the flowers are in the back room!”

you thanked mrs. oh, following the direction that she pointed towards. jimin called you corny for getting jungkook flowers for your first official date, but you thought it was fitting, given the competition. it was even better with the results of the show and you could only hope that jungkook liked the ones you picked out. you figured that men deserve to get a nice bouquet of flowers at least once, too.

the bundle of fresh sunflowers were actually your favourites, but that wasn’t important. you grabbed them from the backroom fridge, wrapped in cellophane and yellow paper. this was when you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket and your eyes widened, hoping it wasn’t jungkook just yet.

unfortunately, your hopes disappeared, but the text still put a smile on your face - just because it was him at the end of the day.

are you at the store? i saw you and mrs. oh lol i can be there in a few minutes.

you replied yes and came out to wait. the store already had its first customers within a few minutes of opening and mrs. oh was ringing them out. she met your eyes and winked, mouthing some encouraging words to you.

with the same smile on your lips, you mouthed a ‘thank you’ to her.

although you would have loved to loiter inside the store for the air conditioning, you were already bashful enough from everyone watching you and jungkook at the show and you would have rather met jungkook away from mrs. oh’s nosiness. she was lovely, but she appeared to be one of your and jungkook’s biggest fans and you didn’t want to act awkward, knowing that you were being watched.

the bouquet was hidden behind your back, as you patiently waited outdoors. you didn’t know what to expect out of your day, but the longer you waited for jungkook, you grew more and more nervous. it was odd, knowing that the anxiety pooling at the bottom of your stomach was because of your childhood best friend.

the thoughts were promptly swept away when you caught sight of jungkook approaching you. he changed clothes from his riding gear, sans his favourite dirty boots that remained on his feet, and was now wearing a plain white t-shirt and denim jeans. you always had to take a moment to admire the definition of his muscles and his sharp gaze that left you breathless, but you were distracted this time by the bundle of golden flowers in his grasp.

jungkook looked a little bit concerned at your expression, as you were stifling a laugh. you almost felt bad, but the sight was too funny for you to ignore.

“hey - uh, what?” he furrowed his eyebrows at you.

you revealed the identical bouquet from behind your laugh and he, too, looked dumbfounded. the wrapping and greenery differed from one another, but it was clear that the two of you picked your flowers from the same field by your houses. it was the same field the two of you rode on the past summer and played in as kids.

“congratulations again for first place,” was all you could manage to say, offering your flowers towards him.

jungkook finally broke out into a chuckle, shaking his head. “thank you. congratulations, for uh. . “

“for what? being jeon jungkook’s date to the fair?” you chided, as you took his flowers in your hands.

“shut up. am i not original or something?” jungkook asked. “like, come on, we got each other the same thing. i’m already failing at this date thing, aren’t i?” he joked.

you rolled your eyes and flicked his arms. “it’s been, like, five seconds.”

“ow!”

“we’re not just on a date today, jungkook. we’re on a mission to win some prizes,” you declared.

jungkook tilted his head slightly with a smile growing. “oh, are we?” he paused. “then, am i allowed to hold your hand during this mission?”

the idea startled you, but you didn’t shy away. nodding without a word, this was the signal for jungkook to pick up your free hand and interlock his fingers with yours. somehow, it wasn’t a moment that sent ringing sensations in your ears nor was it one in slow motion. it was familiar, almost, and felt. . . right. it felt natural, like it was coming home after a long day.

you leaned in to whisper in his ear, “and thank you for the flowers. you remembered my favourite.” you weren’t even sure how he knew, but you knew that jungkook would only give you a gift with a well-thought out meaning behind them.

this time, it was jungkook’s cheeks who reddened slightly. he didn’t say anything else, only squeezing your hand and leading the way.

***

jungkook was tired. you were tired of telling him to suck it up. you had gone two summers in a row without winning a single prize and you were determined to walk away from the fair with at least one thing. albeit, at this point, you ran out of tickets to play games and you knew jungkook had extra, since he received some from his parents, but your grandfather also gave him some. he was your last hope, as you begged him to use the last of his tickets to get you something.

“hoseok hyung told me these games are rigged. can’t we just go do bumper cars, bunny?” jungkook groaned, as the two of you walked away empty handed from balloon darts.

you pouted. “no. i just want one of those big charmander stuffies, i know you can win them!”

“why don’t you play the games?”

“because i’m bad at them, how do you think i lost all of my tickets so quickly?” you responded, crossing your arms over your chest.

jungkook grumbled more complaints under his breath, while you forcibly dragged him towards the ring toss booth.

“hey kids! giving the ‘ol ring toss a try?” beamed the booth attendant, who was the same every year.

you weren’t entirely sure what his name was, but you and jungkook collectively agreed on calling him “carnival man” and he recognized the two of you each time the festival was in town. though you were about four feet of fury at the time, you had quiet rage against carnival man. you were convinced he cheated you out of getting the xl sized penguin prize last year and you wanted revenge.

“kookie will do it!” you exclaimed, smugly pushing your best friend forward.

“yeah, whatever, kookie will do it,” jungkook rolled his eyes and handed over a single ticket to carnival man.

carnival man happily took the ticket from jungkook. “it’s nice to see you kids again. you’re always together, huh?”

“unfortunately,” the two of you said in unison, only for you two to shoot each other identical daggers.

at this, carnival man guffawed in amusement and gave jungkook his sets of rings.

here, jungkook did not win. in fact, he didn’t win you a single thing that summer and you didn’t speak to him for the following day because of it. only a day, though, since carnival man was right - the two of you were always together. you eventually gave in after the first day of silent treatment and showed up to jungkook’s house with your horse, marshmallow, and convinced him to join you by the sunflower fields. he had scoffed, called you stupid, and then without missing a beat, came outside to accompany you.

***

“kookie! and. . .bunny? is that you?”

carnival man was a lot older than you remembered, but you weren’t sure if it was just the tricks of time playing a game on you. it seemed like everything was so much more youthful and bright in your childhood memories. however, the brightness in carnival man’s smile didn’t falter and it only widened upon laying eyes on you and jungkook. then, his eyes trailed over to your clasped hands together and it widened even more.

“you remember me?” you gaped, as carnival man took your hand and shook it vigorously.

“of course i do! well, i remember the two of you, specifically,” he exclaimed. “i see jungkook here, but i’ll always remember how you two kids came around together every summer! you’re all grown up now!”

although lines of age creased his smile and streaks of grey contrasted against his black hair, seeing carnival man again made you feel like you were ten years old all over again. the fair seemed so much more larger than life and this moment was one of those moments that reminded you of why you loved summer so much.

jungkook smiled, “it’s nice to see you, mr. lee.” he appeared to be a bit shy, as the older man was fixated on the sight of you two holding hands.

it occurred to you that carnival man was never his real name and meeting him as mr. lee felt like a call to the reality in which you were now a grown up. you realized that jungkook continued to see mr. lee at the fair over the years without you and didn’t feel the same rush of nostalgia.

the only reason why jungkook couldn’t also shake mr. lee’s hand was the abundance of prizes nestled into his arms. the two of you left your sunflower bouquets at the general store - luckily, it was now busy with tourists wanting water bottles or sunscreen and the two of you avoided any gushing or questioning from mrs. oh - and thank god you did because you did not expect to be carrying around so many things. a mini teddy bear, a sheet of temporary tattoos, a t-shirt, some gift cards, and a larger kuromi plush toy that was double the size of your head.

thankfully, jungkook held onto everything without complaint and remarked that you had no business carrying anything so long as he was there. the funny part was that you two had barely visited all of the games and the only reason why you’d won so many prizes was because you two were competing at each one.

“and you know i refuse to lose,” jungkook said at the first game, which was a basketball shootout.

with the same competitive spirit, the two of you both did very well at each game and walked away with a prize from almost every one. it also probably helped that you were now adults with disposable income and could pay to participate in as many games as you wanted. jungkook had announced that he was ready to make up for his past failrures, never forgetting the summer that resulted in your silent treatment because of his inability to win you a prize. you didn't think that meant struggling to carry around your prizes within the first hour.

now, mr. lee began setting up the ring toss for the two of you. “so, you moved back to amber valley, young lady?”

“yes, sir. i’m running the family farm now,” you replied.

“congratulations, bunny. that’s some hard, honest work, my best wishes to you!” mr. lee said. “you know, i always thought you two had quite a special bond, even at a young age.”

jungkook avoided eye contact. “mr. lee, you’re kind,” he chuckled, nervously.

“i mean it! it fills my heart with joy to see you two here after all these years.” there was twinkle in mr. lee’s eyes as he spoke. “for some people, their universes are stitched together with unseen threads that will always lead them back to where they belong.”

it was your turn to squeeze jungkook’s hand and neither of you said anything more, only exchanging a look.

***

jungkook wouldn’t stop pouting and you weren’t sure what to do about it. it really wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t help the fact that, like most young girls, you got your growth spurt earlier than your male friend. you were a few inches taller than jungkook at this point and he was deflated to learn that you were tall enough for the rollercoaster, while he had yet to measure up.

“sorry kid. maybe next year,” the ride attendant gave jungkook a small smile.

you were disappointed, as well, as you and jungkook had waited nearly thirty minutes in line. all for jungkook to not be able to ride the coaster. you turned to him, who sighed.

he said, “it’s okay, bunny. you can go on without me.”

a part of you did want to get on the ride, especially after waiting for quite some time, but you didn’t hesitate to shake your head.

“no. i won’t go on without you,” you stressed, to which jungkook looked at you in shock.

he shook his head. “no, it’s okay. just go, we waited for so long.”

“i said i’m not going,” you said, standing your ground.

instead, you walked off from the front of the line, ignoring jungkook calling your name until he ran up to catch up to you.

“hey! what are you doing?”

“i said i’d go with you. if you’re not there, there’s no point,” you shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “we’ll go next time. hey, wanna go see carnival man and do ring toss?”

you didn’t wait for an answer, as you made a beeline for the ring toss booth. jungkook jogged up to you and you noticed that he was trying to hide the smile on his face.

***

“jungkook. . .this is the kid’s roller coaster.”

everyone else in the line was about half jungkook’s size, unless they were one of the parents giving the two of you a dirty look for getting on the kid’s coaster. there was no explicit rule that adults couldn’t ride the rollercoaster, but it was a very popular ride and jungkook had the privilege of cutting the line, as the two of you were given a free “fast lane” pass by mayor kim for being local small business owners. the fast lane pass was costly and the majority of fairgoers opted to wait in the long lines.

jungkook didn’t seem to care too much, though. “yeah, so what? you picked the giant swing and said the next ride was my choice.”

“you’re pissing off the kids,” you whispered in a lower voice, as the attendant let out the last party from the rollercoaster. you guys were up next. “i thought you would want to do the drop tower or something.”

“you promised me that we could go on the ride the last time we were here. remember, when i was too short?” he casually whistled.

“jungkook, that was, like, seventeen years ago.”

he continued, “and i wrote it for our summer bucket list! you may have never seen it, but i was dying to go on this ride.”

and that was how you found yourself crammed into a kid-sized rollercoaster at the very front with jungkook. with impeccable timing, it looked as though some of the boys were passing by. seokjin caught your eye first and tapped taehyung’s shoulder beside him, who then got namjoon’s attention.

“oh my god,” you groaned, watching the three of them wave wildly at you and jungkook.

on the other hand, jungkook found this hilarious. he waved back and you covered your blushing face with your hands. you were already embarrassed from the cut eye given to you by the parents in line, now this.

“have fun, lovebirds!” called namjoon, as seokjin and taehyung proceeded to take several pictures of you and jungkook from afar.

***

“my tooth hurts!” you whined, shoving your cotton candy into jungkook’s hands.

at seven years old, it was on the later side for you to lose your first tooth. you’d been wiggling it for weeks, but cried when jimin offered to rip it out of your mouth for you. this happened just a few moments ago, before jungkook yelled at him to go back to his mommy.

jungkook didn’t seem bothered and was actually pleased to double fist two sticks of cotton candy. “thanks bunny!” he ignored your complaints and happily continued snacking away.

this was the first year that you and jungkook were permitted to roam around without adult supervision - kind of. as long as you were in vicinity of ten year old hoseok, who was sitting on a bench and playing on his gameboy advance, the two of you were free to play together.

“this isn’t fair, i’m not allowed to eat anything,” you huffed. your grandfather warned you that any sort of sweet will just hurt and you were better off enjoying other parts of the festival.

“don’t tell my parents, they said i could only have one cotton candy,” jungkook said, as he observed your sad appearance. “why do you look like that?”

“like what?”

“you look sad. it’s ugly on you,” jungkook mindlessly commented and you flicked his arm. “ow!”

you glared at him. “don’t call me ugly!”

“i said looking sad is ugly on you. so, don’t be sad,” jungkook replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

when your expression didn’t change, jungkook sighed and looked over to where hoseok was sitting. the older boy’s eyes were glued to his screen and was now joined by jimin, who was cheering him on in whatever game he was playing. then, jungkook turned back to you.

“what?” you asked.

“wanna go watch the magician show?” he asked, grinning. “so you can stop being sad.”

your eyes widened, as you took your turn to look over your shoulder at hoseok. “your mom said to stay nearby! what if we get in trouble?”

“i dare you to come with me to the magician show,” jungkook countered, knowing that was the secret word that made you do just about anything. you hated the idea of losing dares to jungkook and had yet to do so.

you knew you were going to get an earful if you left hoseok’s sight, who was supposed to be watching over you. then, you remembered that, earlier that day, hoseok refused to let you play a level of mega man on his gameboy and decided you didn’t care if you got him in trouble.

“okay! let’s go!” your features suddenly brightened and you let jungkook take you by the wrist - not the hand because, ew, it was jungkook - towards the other end of the fairgrounds.

the cotton candy had already been consumed and jungkook tossed the paper sticks into the nearest trash can, as the two of you quietly giggled about your mischievous sneak-away.

***

unlike jungkook, jiwon had no trouble tracking down her sibling at any given moment, even with the large crowds gathered for the festival. she also didn’t seem to care that her brother was in the middle of a date, as you were the one to first notice that she was dragging sangwoo by the wrist in your direction.

“is something wrong, jiwon?” jungkook asked and there was a tinge of annoyance in his voice at the appearance of the younger girl. the two of you were engaged in somewhat of a flirtatious conversation and jiwon’s premise immediately killed jungook’s mood.

“hi y/n!” she greeted and then she turned to jungkook wearing a sickly sweet smile. “oppa, may i have ten bucks?”

“i gave you twenty bucks this morning,” he raised an eyebrow at her.

meanwhile, sangwoo was in awe of the amount of prizes in jungkook’s arms. “woah! you guys won all of those?” at this point, there was an addition of a frisbee and a stuffed octopus.

“i won most of them,” both you and jungkook said at the same time, resulting in a shared glare.

jiwon cleared her throat. “so. can i have ten bucks, please? we wanna get cotton candy!”

“what did you do with the first twenty bucks?”

“we went on the teacup ride! oh, and we got rice cakes and funnel cake and actual cake,” jiwon explained and went a little too fast, so you didn’t doubt that the kids did, in fact, consume all that sugar.

it seemed like jungkook also didn’t doubt it and while you knew he wanted to scold her, you were taken aback to find him letting go of your hand to reach for his wallet in his back pocket. he sighed and, as he was still carrying all of your prizes, merely held it out for jiwon to fish a twenty out of.

“only because today is the festival,” he warned and muttered a second part under his breath, “and only so you can leave us alone.”

you also had the same feeling that jiwon and sangwoo were not going anywhere without their ultimate goal, especially since the former seemed to have the same persistence that her brother had.

“thank you, i love you!” jiwon declared, handing the wallet back to her brother and planting an exaggerated kiss on his cheek. “thank you, thank you! we’ll leave you alone now!”

the pair scurried off together, as sangwoo also yelled out his thanks. they ran through the crowd together, giggling amongst themselves. when jungkook took your hand again, you were still lost in thought, watching the two purchase cotton candy from far away. sangwoo handed the first stick to jiwon and the two talked with one another, cheerily enjoying their treat.

“don’t get me wrong, making sure jiwon is eating healthy is important to me, but today’s the fair. it’s special for her and sangwoo like it was for us, might as well let her off the hook for today.” he noticed you watching them and followed your stare. “they’re cute, aren’t they?”

“they are. how long have they been that close?”

“since they were born, basically. they’re always with each other,” jungkook shook his head.

“do you think jiwon has a little crush?” you wondered aloud, as jiwon shoved sangwoo playfully for whatever joke he might have had made.

jungkook asked, “did you?”

he was referring to the two of you as kids, as it was clear that your shared wistful stares at jiwon and sangwoo were a product of looking back at your own childhoods. two best friends that stood by each other’s sides at all times and grew up together. you had to admit, you saw your and jungkook’s reflections when you looked at jiwon and sangwoo.

upon hearing the question, you rolled your eyes. “you wish, jeon jungkook.”

but, you weren’t entirely sure. adults joked that you and jungkook would grow up to marry each other, just from watching you two play chess or ride horses together. there was a magnetic force that naturally stuck the two of you together, from day one. you cared deeply for jungkook before you could have a comprehensive understanding of what it was like to have love for someone beyond your family.

“pretty sure i had a crush on you. that’s probably why i was devastated when you stopped coming to the valley,” he casually mentioned, but you turned to him in surprise.

“were you really?”

“yeah. you were my closest friend.”

“i’m sorry,” you said. “you were mine, too. i just thought you would forget about me, i guess. then, i don’t know - “

jungkook cut in, “- we grew up. that’s what happened, it’s okay.”

that was the reality of life. it was sad to look back on, but it was overshadowed by the incredible forces that brought you and jungkook back together. never, in a million years, would you have ever imagined standing in the middle of the amber valley midsummer festival with jeon jungkook ever again.

“ever since i came back, you became my closest friend again. even with all the weird stuff going on between us,” you admitted the last part with the roll of your eyes.

although you were just teasing, jungkook’s expression turned serious. “hey, i am sorry about that. but, honestly. . . “ he sighed. “like you said, we became close friends again. and so fast, too.”

“it got confusing, didn’t it?” you asked, looking at your feet. “when things seemed like it could be more, i kept trying to convince myself that, you know, this is just how we are. we’re friends, this is how we act and nothing more.”

“you read my mind. you really did,” jungkook said, looking at you with a surprised expression. “i think i always knew, though. from the moment i saw you again.”

you thought back to the first time you met jungkook again. you remembered how soft his hands were and how he managed to make you smile on one of the worst days of your life. that was just jungkook, though, and his way of bringing sunlight into your life, even when it was raining.

“i. . .i think i knew, too. but, i thought you just saw me as the little girl who used to play with you in your backyard.”

he shook his head. “i thought you had so much on your plate. and, well, i’ll admit, i’ve had trouble even considering a love life since becoming jiwon’s guardian. she’s always come first in my life before anything else.”

“i don’t blame you, i can’t imagine what the past few years have been like for you,” you said. “but, you were a tad bit stupid. let’s be real.”

jungkook snorted. “yeah, i know i was stupid. believe me, the last thing i wanted to do was fully push you away. my childhood best friend came back into my life and i had to confront that she was now a strong, beautiful and incredibly intelligent woman that i had feelings for.”

this was the first time that things were finally being said aloud and it was as if a thousand pounds was being lifted off of your shoulders. you were light, you were flying.

“but,” he continued. “i also had to confront that you were still my closest friend, the person who i can turn to when things go wrong. you were my friend who i laughed with and shared things with and i couldn’t lose that. i have the guys, but no one compares to how in sync we are.”

“i know what you mean. we complement each other in this crazy way. . .” you trailed off.

mr. lee spoke about destinies stitched together and things meant to be. holding jungkook’s hand felt meant to be in a way that it was just natural. so did laughing with him and making him dinner and letting him do things for you, simply because he didn’t want you to do it by yourself.

jungkook said, “do you see why i was afraid of this?” he gestured to the two of you holding hands. “if i fuck this up with you, i’ll lose both my girlfriend and my best friend. if i fuck this up with you, i’ll have let you down during a time where you just moved to a whole new town for a job with all these expectations that everyone has for you.”

“you don’t have to be afraid of those things,” you murmured, gently placing your free hand on his arm.

“i’m not. not anymore, when the what ifs and the idea of missing out on something good with you is even scarier.”

suddenly, you took a look around your surroundings. it obviously wasn’t planned, but the two of you were having quite the intimate conversation just across from the face painting booth and the craft stalls. you tugged jungkook into a random corner, where there was a lone chair in between walls.

“can you put the prizes down for a second?” you asked.

jungkook was confused. “huh?”

“can you put the prizes down so i can kiss you?” you commanded, giving him a pointed look.

then, he chuckled and without hesitation, placed your various trinkets down on the chair. you rolled your eyes with a smile and jungkook hooked a thumb on one of the belt loops of your jean shorts, using it to pull you closer. he leaned in, placing his other hand at the small of your back.

jungkook, too, smiled into the kiss and like everything else, it felt natural. it felt like home. you melted into his arms as you always do, softly kissing back.

although you could have stood there forever with him, lost in his touch, you had to pull away. “you scared of that?” you raised an eyebrow.

“shut up man,” jungkook said, but stole a quick peck from you before he let you go from his embrace.

you thought you would never stand in the middle of the amber valley midsummer festival with jeon jungkook ever again. the world worked in mysterious ways and you were proven wrong. more so, you weren’t just standing with jungkook. you were a woman standing in the middle of the town that built your hopes and dreams. you were standing in middle of the fair that never shook off its magic, even years later. you were standing with the man who made you realize that home wasn’t just a place.

***

it was safe to say that you freaked out when jungkook showed you what he stole from his dad’s tool box. you were so scared that jungkook had to beg you to not snitch on him and even threatened that he would tell your grandfather that you’d been making him help you complete your chores in the chicken coop.

“it’s just a pocket knife, bunny.”

“it’s sharp! you could hurt yourself!” you hissed, stepping a few feet away from him like he had mad cow disease.

jungkook sighed and ignored you, walking over to where your sitting spot was. this year, the midsummer festival fell on what was easily the hottest day of the summer. the heat wave was unlike any other you’d experienced so far and you were surprised that the fair was still going on. the two of you had completed just under ten minutes at the bouncy castle before you insisted you needed a break.

the two of you had found a random tree to sit under, as you split an ice cream float to beat the heat. this is when jungkook said he had “something cool” to show you.

you had no choice but to leave your grumbles under your breath, finding your place beside jungkook since the ice cream float was in his hand. “you’re hogging it all,” you complained and he handed it over to you.

“are you done freaking out?” he asked.

“what are you even gonna do with that?”

it was as if jungkook was waiting for you to ask the question. “this.” he clicked it open and turned behind him, to the lower part of the tree of which you were leaning on.

your eyes were wide, as jungkook began scratching away at the wood. the first letter you could make out was “J” and you nervously looked around your surroundings. it didn’t seem like anyone was paying attention to the two of you, occupied with the festivities or trying to not pass out from the sun.

jungkook completed a “K” and moved on to slowly carving out your initials. “so we remember today!”

“it’s gonna be there forever,” you sputtered. “my grandpa says that trees last forever if no one cuts them down. . .so, since our names are there, we’ll be best friends forever!”

a toothy grin stretched across jungkook’s face. “yeah! we are. we’re going to be best friends forever.”

***

considering jungkook’s victory earlier in the day, several people stopped to congratulate him throughout the afternoon. he was hard to miss and he was also just a generally well-known person around town.

that was precisely why you were scared shitless that someone was going to recognize either of you committing vandalism.

“you’re covering me, right?”

“i am, but can you hurry up?” you demanded through gritted teeth, trying to look over your shoulder to see if anyone was looking your way without looking suspicious.

from the unassuming eye, it looked like you and jungkook were merely engaged in conversation. . .but facing the tree. you were sat cross-legged, turned to the tree as if it was another person talking amongst yourselves. instead, you were trying to cover jungkook carving into the wood.

you shook your head. “i can’t believe our names are still on this.”

“we did say it would be forever,” jungkook reminded you and if he wasn’t holding a pocket knife in his hands, you would’ve shoved him over.

you always remembered that your and jungkook’s names lived on the bark of a random tree in town. there was no way you could forget the scolding the two of you received for defacing town property.

“what if they notice? we’re adults now, we could get charged for this,” you said.

“then we say it was always like this,” jungkook concluded and caught your eye. “what? what are they gonna do, tell my mom and your grandpa?”

at that, you did let out a laugh. “i can’t imagine what they’re thinking, watching us from up there.”

then, jungkook clicked his pocket knife close and scooted over on the grass, as he’d been blocking his work from your view the entire time. he made the initials deeper into the wood, ensuring that it wasn’t going anywhere, and added a heart around the letters. once depicting you and jungkook as friends “4ever,” it was now framed by the heart and shifted its meaning altogether.

“they likely made a bet about us getting together and the winner is probably rejoicing,” you suspected and jungkook nodded in agreement, snickering under his breath.

your hands grazed over the carved design and you thought back to the moment where the two of you first sat under the same tree.

jungkook said, “pretty good first date, huh? scammed some booths out of their prizes, pissed off the entirety of amber valley elementary and we vandalized town property.” he looked pleased with himself leaning against the tree and wrapped an arm around your shoulders.

with your legs stretched out and the crime completed, you were able to relax underneath the protection of the leafy branches. “mhm, definitely a first date that i’ll never forget,” you laughed, placing your head on jungkook’s chest.

the two of you bought an ice cream float for old times sake and jungkook brought it closer to you, so that you wouldn’t have to move. it seemed to be a constant - jungkook doing things for you just because. just because he didn’t want you to do it yourself. just because he wanted to do something for you.

“i have arms, you know,” you joked, but took a sip regardless.

he responded, unfazed, “i know.”

the smile the two of you shared confirmed your thoughts. whether you were kids and jungkook walked you home every time just because or you were adults and jungkook wanted to spend his whole day fixing your windows just because. that was just how he was always going to be for you.

“well, do you know that a first date implies that there’s going to be a second date?” you decided to be bold for once, as all your anxieties evaporated when you accepted that jungkook was both your best friend and a person you held feelings for - a coexistence that you realized was possible and even exciting.

jungkook scoffed. “second date? did you not see the tree, you’re stuck with me forever.” his joke resulted in you playfully hitting his chest.

“did you just curse me with some witchcraft on this tree or something?”

“rock hard, huh?” he asked, ignoring your accusation and was referring to you hitting his chest. “trust me, i know.” jungkook flexed his arm muscles and although he was kidding around, it was quite impressive and distracting.

“i’m totally objectifying you right now, by the way. i can admit that now, right?” you smirked. “‘cause i’ve been checking you out for months.”

at that, jungkook genuinely appeared to be a bit sheepish, his ears first turning pink like they always do. “drink your float, man,” he insisted, using it as a tool to shut you up. you nearly choked from holding in your laugh as you took another sip, which made him laugh, too.

you sat up slightly, but still mostly laying your body weight on your jungkook, only to crane your neck to see the letters carved onto the tree. the carving waited for you two for years to return. a part of you couldn’t believe that it was jungkook you were stealing kisses and blushing from.

“but, for real,” jungkook spoke, now also looking at his handy work. “a second date is nothing when the tree says you’re stuck with me. that means you’re my girl.”

he held your chin with his free hand so that you could look into his eyes as he declared the last part. jungkook’s gaze was warm and you now understood what it was like to feel butterflies in your stomach. it was always one of those things that you read about in books and couldn’t comprehend. you understood the moon and stars and you understood economics and science. this moment with jungkook was a pair of fresh eyes that opened your heart to a feeling of completeness that felt like it had always been there.

“wow, you’re not even going to ask me? this is the worst confession ever,” you managed to tease, your smile failing to fight the happiness spreading throughout your body.

jungkook retorted, “i saw it in your eyes, you were about to ask me first. i had to beat you to the punch, you know i hate letting you win things.”

“i think i won either way here,” you beamed, placing your head back onto jungkook’s chest. you could feel his heart beating loudly, but he didn’t seem to mind and planted a kiss on your forehead. jungkook wanted you to know how much this moment meant to him, too.

your first summer back in amber valley was nothing you expected. your grandfather’s last wishes for you were for you to discover nature and what it meant to make real connections with people. it was a head first journey that you embarked on, all by yourself. yet, months later, you found yourself surrounded by a family you found yourself and the beauty of a town that you thought was forever going to only live in your memories and dreams. you found belonging.

jungkook taught you that home wasn’t a place. home was the sunday market with friends. home was doing things you would have never imagined yourself doing, like salsa dancing and paddle boarding. home lived in watching your hard work bloom into something greater than yourself, with each harvest and each morning you spent feeding your animals. home was even a person - a horse-riding man who was unselfish at his core and loved breakfast for dinner.

you dreaded the end of the night, as it seemed like the midsummer festival was a blissful magic that you never wanted to end. you could have lived in this moment forever.

“goodnight, bunny. i’ll see you tomorrow,” jungkook said, as the two of you stood at the doorstep of the farmhouse. he leaned down and met you in a soft kiss, where he murmured a thank you against your lips for the perfect day you shared.

there, you realized that the magic didn’t have to end. there was always a tomorrow to look forward to when everyday was a new day to fall more and more in love with your best friend. the magic in the air didn’t even have to end when the last of the summer heat turned into the first chill of autumn, amidst the shifting hues of the leaves. the magic kept you warm throughout the winter and blossomed in the springtime.

for the first time in your life, you no longer had to walk away from jungkook come the rain of september. when you were younger, it seemed like the magic of amber valley only existed in the warmer months. summer was a special place in your heart and the memories of your youth, but home was something that stood by you through the changing seasons.

𝐓𝐀𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓. @shellyyy177 @myseokjinji @teddybeartaetae @jalexad @sstrongstyle @wobblewobble822 @seokout @taiwan0618 @firelcrds @xwniazx

#jungkook fanfic #jungkook x reader #kpop fanfic #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #bts x reader #bts imagine #bts au #bts series #jungkook imagine #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook scenario #jungkook x you #jungkook x oc #bts scenario #bts fluff #*** / the farmhouse.

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izelthewashbear · 1 month ago

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Good news: we finally know why c!Martyn fell off between his win in Limited life, and then his recent placements in Secret life and Wild life!

Bad news: Not angsty enough.

Worry not, for I have already thought of three (3) alternative reasons for why Martyn fell off the way he did!

(disclaimer: this post is NOT meant to signify that Eyes and Ears is a bad AU by any means. I respect the decisions that Martyn makes (as much as I wanna toss this man into a wall sometimes), but I decided to give this one thing my own little spin, since I've already been thinking about it for a while. Enjoy!)

These headcanons are placed in a particular order: 1 fits pretty well into EaE AU and technically could be canon if Martyn likes it ig?, 2 is a pretty neutral one that could fit into any AU or interpretation (+ is the closest one to what Martyn said on his lore stream, but a little different) and 3 is one I personally use in my own AU, called Preservers AU, or The ones who watch, the ones who listen, the ones who kill AU (WLK for short).

1. Martyn got fucked up the same way Cleo and Pearl did in Double life.

While doing research into EaE and watching Limited Life lore stream a while back, one particular thing caught my attention. As you may remember, in session 6, Cleo and Pearl were absent and Gem and Lizzie came to fill in for them. I really liked what Martyn lored there - the idea that Double Life messed up with them so much (especially Pearl, but Cleo too) that even after "resting" in the eternal fuckass void that the Watchers throw them into (the void has no name, so may I propose the name I use in my own AU - The Midway, as in the middle of the way between different worlds) they weren't quite in the right mindset to enter the games again - hence, for example, Pearl talking about Tilly in ep 1 of LimL. So, their souls got snached by the Watchers, threw into the void like into a microwave when you need to heat up your food for just a minute longer, and their conciousnesses were replaced with Gem and Lizze's.

And what if the same should've happened to Martyn?

Let's be honest, winning this series messes everyone up, especially if it ends by you backstabbing the only person who was nice to you the whole season (+ some random guy who just happened to be too close to your sword). Especially if we take into account the interpretation that Martyn got briefly possessed by the Watchers as he killed them ("time is delicious" yada yada yada, we know what you are sir). I can totally believe that this win messed with him enough that at the beginning of Secret life, he was still a bit woozy, a bit disjointed. That would explain him being the first yellow, first red, as well as ending up in the bottom half of the leaderboard for the first time. Funny how he was still the only person to never fail a task, I guess even when fucked up by the Watchers he still has his 300 IQ.

But why didn't the Watchers snatch him during Secret life and put him back into the aforementioned void? Cuz they like torturing him too much and they were like "naaaaaah he'll be fineeee" (he wasn't). Or, they wanted to, but they accidentally snatched the wrong blond guy (aka Tango) (just like in Wild life, they mixed up their blondes again and got Martyn killed before Jimmy).

2. The nihilism route

Martyn's explanation during the lore stream was that c!Martyn, after he won, stopped caring about his performance and decided to chill out a bit, hence him doing worse and worse each subsequent season. But c'mon dude, where's the angst? So I propose a slightly changed version.

You go through four painful, draining, exhausting death games. Each time you die too early to reach your goal. You see your friends die, and you die painfully as well. Until one day, it happens. You win, you kill everyone. You're ecstatic, now you can fix everything, free everyone, change everyone's fate and be free-

And then you're tossed into a new game. All your happy murder time didn't matter. You're right back where you started. Not to mention, the one you were fighting for isn't around, still. So what do you do? Wallow in sorrow, of course! You're all stuck and you're all fucked! There is no escape! Nothing matters! (/neg)

So yeah what Martyn said but make it sadder

3. The Watchers hate you, personally (spoilers for my AU! + if it sounds stupid out of context I'm sorry)

(TW for body horror, oops)

So I'm no stranger to writing horrible fates to characters I really like (and unfortunately that includes c!Martyn, this guy is just too fun to mangle repeatedly). In my AU, after a win, each player is granted a singular wish from the Watchers - and that wish is twisted into a sick version, making up the new game. WLK!Martyn, the nosey bastard he is, asked to know everything about the Watchers - all their secrets, all their knowledge, how to defeat them. Watchers said "bet" and in return, gouged out his eye and replaced it with their own, "lending" him some of their powers (with the side effects being migraines, insomnia, being flashed with horrifying visions, throbbing pains in half of his skull and falling off in general). So uh yeah, guy that loses an eye in such a fashion and doesn't have any time to recover will probably have a hard time placing high again.

It could also be made into a non-WLK version where the Watchers mangled him in some other way. Sorry Listeners but you can't save your boy from that, he too far gone

So I hope you liked my little ramble! If you have any of your own ideas, interpretations or even questions lemme know, I love loring and I wanna outlore the lore guy one day :3

#inthelittlewood #eyesandears #eyesandearsau #life series #limited life #wild life smp #secret life #life series theory #theorycrafting #martyn inthelittlewood #i am the one who lores

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roe-and-memory · 6 months ago

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before his debut in the piston cup racing series, lightning spent the previous season (that of 2005) in the dinoco grand national series (the pixar cars equivalent of the nascar xfinity series, essentially a level lower than the cup series).

at the time he started the season at 16, turning 17 in may, and became the youngest driver to ever win a race across all three of the top series (PCRS, DGNS, PCTS), and eventually he would become both the youngest person AND the first ever rookie to win a championship in any of the top 3 series as well.

at this point, this is his first year with harv as his agent, and his first year racing in the big leagues — meaning longer races in hotter places on longer tracks and much more restrictions on what he’s able to do within his car. he doesnt do much, of course, he’s waited his whole life to be at this level and is happy to accept their rules. he excels within this series, much better than anyone thought he would, and gains himself a fanbase of people who watch the DGNS regularly. hes not popular by any means, but damn is he good. he wins eleven races that season alone, including the final race of the season in which that crowns him as the champion (despite his already extreme points lead).

harv is very harsh. lightning assumes thats the way his agent should be — i mean, he IS trying to get a ride in the cup series for the next season — so the agent being on his back about winning and “not failing” seems natural to him.

halfway through the season, during the summer months, one saturday afternoon, its hotter than usual.

typically lightning would have a small desk fan in his car, but the piston cup prohibits that because, of course, they have other options that are more advanced than a plastic clip-on fan.

however, after the start of the race, about midway through, actually, lightnings gear malfunctions. he doesnt tell anybody until the race is over, in which he places ninth and gets out of the car in his pit box, immediately collapsing to the ground.

severe heat exhaustion is what hes suffering from, with headaches, lightheadedness, nausea, hyperventilating due to his struggle with breathing, and muscle cramps all throughout his chest and legs. there are immediately officials at his side, medics following soon behind with ice packs and more water bottles. he will have to go to the hospital, they figure out pretty quickly, as he’s panting like a dog and very obviously struggling to function. he cant even bring himself to think straight, ignoring the questions thrown at him and just curling in on himself.

an official helps him pull his firesuit down to his waist, another official is combing his curls out of his eyes and pressing a cold towel to his forehead, and another is calling the ambulance out from the garage area, all while the medics tend to his burns and press ice packs to his skin.

harv, of course, cannot have his driver looking like a fool in front of the cameras. ESPECIALLY after he embarrassed the entire team by coming in ninth when he had a car that was most definitely first place material. the man storms over to where the teenager is sitting on the ground, back against the side of his car, and starts yelling at him for his performance on the track and his “dramatic act”, referring to the kids medical episode that is still actively occurring.

the official that had helped him get his firesuit off his torso was having none of it. he stands up, gets right into harvs face, and tells him to leave immediately or else security will escort him from the area. when harv protests that hes the kids agent, the official scoffs and tells him it does not matter who he is or what he wants, he will be removed from the premises forcibly.

lightning wants to apologize for disappointing him, but he cant seem to form the words to say it, instead the mans words bury themselves like daggers under his skin and only make his hyperventilating worse.

that hospital trip wasnt fun. harv was angry, impatient, the entire time. he had the official that defended him and mack at his side the whole time, after the official informed the nurse that the teenagers agent should not be allowed into the room the man simply paced outside the door, occasionally peering through the small window to glare at the three.

lightning was plagued with guilt, and profusely apologized to mack for the disappointment. the trucker insisted he shouldnt apologize, it wasnt his fault — he just wishes the kid had told them that his cooling equipment had broken so they couldve fixed it and not had to have experienced this kind of hospital trip.

#cars 2006 #cars fandom #lightning mcqueen #pixar cars #cars headcanons #memory’s headcanons #harv cars #mack cars #piston cup #harv sucks #i genuinely hope he fell into a river after cars 1 #mack is the best big brother ever though #there for his little (17) year old brother all the way

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mysteryanimator · 4 months ago

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Watch it here :D

(heads up for any odd grammar, Grammarly cannot save me from my dyslexia)

I was originally not going to do a breakdown of this because a lot of my breakdowns and thought processes were getting really repetitive (also i was getting embarrassed by them HAHSDASHBDS). BUT boy oh boy this time around I can actually go "wait i can yap without being repetitive here, maybe, idk, we never know until i write it out."

STORYBOARD/ANIMATIC:

It was really fun to adapt AquliaofArkham's fic into a visual format! This is the specific section I had set out to visualize!

(Yes I only did thumbs for that section and freeballed the rest whoops, y'all do not follow by example, i didn't think i was getting this far tbh)

When translating this from written to visual, there were some key points I wanted down:

They are really really close to each other and the barrier between each other is SO thin, but the air is still super thick

visual eye breathing room compressed???

Is having stillness a way to convey that ???

We are following Mizrak's POV, ergo focus on what Mizrak is focusing on, where is his mind going

hold shots for longer???

limited movement due to Mizrak's hyperfocus???

Make shots intentionally heavily detailed ???

Zoom into details???

As much as I am passionate about storyboards, I do tend to get ahead of myself and end up locking myself into lots of close ups HAHAH. I like having each shot matter to me a lottttt so i end up reverting to reusing a lot of super common shot archetypes due to their attached meanings (I'd love to attend/watch some workshops on this, but uni ;-; i'll be free soon dwdw).

By the way, you will notice the animation is longer then the timed storyboard/animatic. This is because I retimed to placeholder dialogue (which y'all will NOT HEAR THATS EMBARRASSING, i dont need ppl to hear me yell clatter lol). Fun fact I originally had it in the first storyboard to help me with timing and then removed it half way through? Not sure why I did that, but regardless I came back around and retimed it so that the length of each shot feels believable enough to hold dialogue and has enough time to be visually digested by you guys.

ANIMATION:

This was a doozy, not because I found the animation hard, this time I actually was satisfied-ish with most of the end result and started implementing different approaches to the animation from all kinds of media; which was my issue LOL. My understanding of animation changed midway through. I can super distinctly see two different approaches, probably because I slipped into that naturally while having animated shows/movies while doing this and I can probably pin point to you which shots was influenced by what show.

First all dialogue and walking forward: rewatched TLOVM b4 season 3 dropped, which by this point is already out, (uh also Nocturne. again HAHAH)

WHICH, you'll see here, two different set ups were taken LOL (also oof you're seeing my setup). Personally, I like keeping my animation folders to the utmost minimum (so like the right! Olrox's folder is a whole character, separate moving bits like lips or even earrings will be in that one folder) because scrolling through can get a tad overwhelming and daunting, BUT, Olrox walking forward had so many small moving pieces with different timings that multiple animation folders was the best way to handle itttttt.

I feel like I only really care abt this BUT FILE MANAGEMENT IS IMPORTANT AAA. You should've seen my file management this time last year, actually horrific, but I'm so glad I figured out how to be cleaner, in turn speeding up my process. (which honestly was just thanks to being thrown into a studio environment and going "Oh my god so that's what I should be doing" and picking up things I noticed from other animators, which genuinely my learning comes from picking me up and throwing me into the deep end)

Secondly, Olrox arm and a scrapped walking scene: I was watching Prince of Egypt (literally that whole week, planning to rewatch again lmao), Sinbad, Road to El Dorado, and then work from Modernday James, Toniko Pantoja, Edward Kurchevsky

Fun fact, the very first walking was intended to be animated, and i redid it about four times before scrapping it completely. The first three iterations i didn't save because they were sooo clunky . It made me realize I gotta revisit my principles again I'm rusty (and i do LOLOLOL). I scrapped the anim because it did not flow into the next shot nicely but, It was good practice regardless HAHA

While mentally I feel like none of the shots match each other, they still do have some cohesion to one another

COMPOSITING:

The new thing, finally manually did the edge shadows in CSP HAHAH.

I will say this too, I got really nervous atp about the overall "quality" of the anim + the backgrounds. I was getting super hung up over it because I was alr worried abt the animation due to the safer choices I made (but also, I don't have to reinvent the wheel LMAO). SO, when I got to comping it was like "oh actually its actually fine LOL".

i stayed pretty sketchy with these since i was getting way too worried about it and wanted this to stay as a fun side project, also these are without comping- they become way more purple with compositing LOL

I feel like here too I ended up doing less then what I normally do, which I think mighttt be on part to finding more efficient ways to go about compositing things together (and faster too).

Also, I definitely got pushed into trying to lower the layer amount when I saw a tweet about layer efficiency/layer stacks and them mentioning applying Mattes and CC Composite. Actually a godsend, I didn't realize I could combine my effects like that to lower the amount.

Also, I swear no amount of precomping can save me from this. There's probably a better way to go abt this um LOL, everyone is getting a peep at my file management.

Also, I'm realizing I could've done a tad more with the actual composition itself, like the placement and movement of Olrox in the scene where he's walking forward. For now I have to leave it, because also, the intent for this one was to have fun rather then making every anim an exercise or else I'd burn out so fast LOL

Side tangent but, I've been digging my heels into the animation school club workshops on youtube rn due to having a moment with the scrapped Olrox side walk. Which holy shit, things have clicked for me, so I'm going to try and do more rough exercises b4 i do another finished anim again. It turned a light bulb in my head LMAO, and it pushed me to do the recent maria anim and mizrak and olrox kiss which has a massively greater understanding of timing and confidence LMAO

Ok now this is To Love a God finished! Another animation done :DDDDDD I'm super happy to be adapting a fanwork, it's always really fun and super exciting to bring other people's stuff to life, which what made this more enjoyable then anything else.

Will I do another polished anim before next year/before s2? Time will tell but for now i rest and speed to finish another semester of uni (there is a high chance for another anim because of a joke tweet i did not expect to get traction lol)

Thank youuu if you stayed this far, this was really lengthy and i think i went into different unrelated tangents, so i hope you enjoyed me pulling you into different directions HAHAHA

p.s i uploaded this to youtube and theres an age restriction BECAUSE OF THE FEET. Not because Olrox tells Mizrak he would fuck him, no it's his FEET. I've tried to appeal it but cant do much LOLOLOL

#mystery talks #fighting myself to post this coz embarassment is eating me with this #but its ok coz processes are cool and i like seeing process breakdowns from other ppl so hopefully mine is fine #closing my eyes and posting

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macaroni-and-antifreeze · 5 months ago

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sorry gang i'm on a writing roll so here is

Ash's Thoughts About Every Winner + A Bonus

Wife, this is your warning. Do not look under the cut. You will be spoiled for literally the entire series.

Also I do briefly mention self-harm towards the end so if that is a trigger for you, I would recommend either scrolling or not reading the massive paragraph at the end.

Dr. Will (BB2) - There's a reason he's an iconic winner. He's a bit of an asshole but he's a lovable asshole, much like my dad.

Lisa (BB3) - Now, do I think a bitter jury contributed to this win? Yes. Is this win still deserved? Yes. She was a strong player in her own right and I'm still happy she won.

Jun (BB4) - One of my favorite winners. Basically invented the floater strategy that other houseguests try and fail to replicate to this day.

Drew (BB5) - Honestly, I have not dived very far into this mid-stage of the old seasons but I guess he's okay.

Maggie (BB6) - Not a big fan of her, tbh.

Mike Boogie (BB7) - There's a lot of shit that happened outside of the game that sours my opinion of him.

Evil Dick (BB8) - Ok, listen. He's a character I can say that much. But, there was a lot of production protection around his win. I don't think he would've gotten as far without America's Player.

Adam (BB9) - I haven't watched BB9, and I probably won't.

Dan (BB10) - What can I say about Dan that hasn't already been said? He is a BB legend and probably the best winner.

Jordan (BB11) - Yeahhhh, no.

Hayden (BB12) - I have conflicting thoughts about Hayden. Is he kinda responsible for Derrick? Yes. Is he entertaining to watch? Yes.

Rachel (BB13) - Ok I gotta admit, I'm not the biggest fan of her in 13, love her in 12 though.

Ian (BB14) - Ian is my favorite, if you have anything negative to say about him fuckin leave.

Andy (BB15) - I refuse to watch BB15.

Derrick (BB16) - See my future "Derrick Levasseur Ruined Big Brother & I Don't Respect Him As A Person" longpost.

Steve (BB17) - I am extremely biased towards Steve. BB17 was the first season I watched and the first to make me fall in love with Big Brother. If you asked my dad, he would say Vanessa was robbed. And I kind of agree, but also don't. We didn't have good enough internet for the feeds at the time so there's a lot of shit we missed.

Nicole (BB18) - I hate Nicole Franzel. I am tired of seeing and hearing her and I do not care if she lives or dies.

Josh (BB19) - 19 was a garbage dump as a season which makes it only fair to get a garbage dump of a winner. Only Kevin winning would satisfy me because he was the only bright spot in this hellhole of a season.

Kaycee (BB20) - Honestly, I don't give a rat's ass about this season. I was on Discord most of the summer so I didn't get to connect with a lot of the players.

Jackson (BB21) - Why do we award racists? I only watched the first half of the season because I was so angry.

Cody (BB22) - The only good thing he did was evict Nicole. This season made me stop watching until midway through BB24 because all of the Pre-Derrick players were evicted for trying to, yknow, play the fucking game how it was meant to be played. So tired of white boys.

Xander (BB23) - I have not gone back & watched BB23 in its entirety due to certain events in my life happening at that time because I fear it may trigger me and ruin my excitement for Big Brother.

Taylor (BB24) - It's what she deserves. She is 2 in my top 3 favorite winners, those being Ian, Taylor, and Lisa.

Jag (BB25) - I don't think you should win if you were evicted, but that's my opinion.

And finally, our bonus player:

Paul (BB18 & 19) - I have incredibly mixed feelings on Paul. When they played in 18, I thought they were the greatest person on Earth. They were cool and funny and had awesome style. And to an autistic middle schooler who couldn't keep up with the changing tides of the social hierarchy, they meant a lot to me because we were already very similar. So I mirrored them. I mirrored them HARD. They were everything I wanted to be as a person. Instead of being the kid who got bullied all the time, I could be cool. To this day, Paul is a really special houseguest to me because they provided an escape from the newly developing self-hatred and urge to harm myself. I'm older and healthier now, so I don't value my worth against people but they were a bright spot in a dark time in my life.

Then BB19 came along. And I felt betrayed.

Why was the person I looked up to suddenly acting like the very thing I was escaping from? It genuinely hurt a lot. And because of those feelings that still linger today, I still feel like that 12 year old "girl" who didn't know what was wrong with them whenever I see clips of Paul on BB19.

Thank you for your time. See yall on Thursday.

#big brother #yes this post is a vessel to let off some steam

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dimplecki · 1 year ago

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Tides are turning - chapter 3

Masterlist

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!hunter, Sam winchester X Fem!hunter

Rating: R (violence, death, language, light smut)

Summary: When Sam died the first time, Dean brought him back to life. He didn't tell me about the deal he made with that demon until Sam forced him to tell me. We all knew that Dean only had one year left to live, and we all tried to prevent that from happening. The second time Sam was attacked by a demon close to Lilith and fought against it. he lost.

One year after Sam’s mysterious death weird things start happening and I realize things are not as they seem.

Authors Note: this story takes place post season 3(with the exceptional flashbacks to the past), Sam died midway through s3 and Dean never went to hell. we experience the story through the eyes a female hunter who went to Stanford with Sam and joined Sam and Dean in their revenge quest after jess’s death. she is Deans girlfriend but there are things happening with Sam as well.

| Chapter 3

Today is Tuesday morning and I decided to give myself a day off from work.

I dialed Ben's number.

"Good morning, you" Ben's voice answered. “Where exactly are you?”

"So, listen" I said with a stuffy nose and faked a cough. "I'm not coming today. I'm sick."

"You don't have to try to work me with that shit. I'll cover for you. You decided to be lazy?"

I laughed. "Yes. I'm sure you'll find a way to manage without me."

"The new boss will complain about you tomorrow. She’ll surely want a note from your doctor for not coming."

"Fuck the new boss. I miss Jake."

"Yeah, me too. He had a cute butt."

"Yeah …he really had." I said in a dreamy voice. "Speaking of ass, how's Drake doing?"

I turned on the TV. I have two whole days without having to watch 'Doctor Sexy' involuntarily.

"I broke up with him."

"What? Really? Well done! I have to say I didn't like him. When?"

"You've said that about nine hundred times." He chuckled softly. "Yesterday, we fought for the thousandth time, and I told him to take his things and get the fuck out from my house." Ben's voice was slightly regretful as if he didn't want to do it at all.

"Wow, Ben. Good on you, I'm proud. Don't be sad about it. Want to go out for coffee after you get off work?" I suggested. I had no intention of sitting and rotting at home all day, even though it sounded tempting.

"Can't. I have a date."

"Already?! You're quick to get back into the single world, benny."

"That's me. What about tomorrow?" He suggested.

"Sounds great." I said, slightly distracted by the movie 'Alien' that was showing on channel 4. Here went the next two hours of the day.

"Okay. Get well soon."

I laughed. "Thanks." I said and hung up.

I loved those times Dean was away for a few days. I obviously missed him, but it's nice to have your own space for a little while after living with someone for so long. It also gives you time to appreciate their presence.

It was late afternoon; I organized my purse and was about to go to the mall with myself and a lot of cash when there was a knock at the door. I walked towards the door and opened it. Oh, great.

It was Mr. Connors, our landlord in charge of collecting the rent. A real pain in the ass.

Connors is an aging man with scruffy beard and raggedy clothes that looked like they were cut straight from the sheep and sewn onto his body. And he always stank of cigarettes.

"Mr. Connors." I said with a fake smile, "What brings you here?"

I calculated the date. We don't have to pay rent until early January.

"You're not inviting me in?" He said in his husky voice, smiling back.

I gestured him inside. He walked in and I closed the door behind him. He stood facing me with his hands behind his back.

"I can help you?" I asked him, crossing my arms.

"I wanted to ask you a question, if it's... not too cheeky." he said quietly. "Your partner, Dean, right?"

I nodded.

"Where's he at?" He asked, smiling that same unpleasant smile of his.

"He left. He'll be back in two days. Why?"

"Where to?" he asked in an elusive voice. I didn't like his curiosity. I remained silent.

"He's got a brother. Sam, if I'm not mistaken." He continued, his voice getting lower with each word.

I raised my eyebrows. Connors never knew Sam. Dean and I moved here months after he died, and we sure as hell didn't mention his name in Connors' presence.

"What about him?" I asked, my heartbeat starting to speed up. This conversation is getting weird by the minute.

"Where is he?"

"Deep in the grave. Mr. Connors, I'm in quite a hurry, so if you don't mind—"

"You tell me the truth." He cut me off, his smile wiped off his face as he came closer to me.

I took a step back and was about to yell at him to get the hell out of the house when his brown eyes sank into their sockets and two black circles appeared in their place.

He pounced on me and nearly knocked me to the floor when I quickly moved aside and ran straight upstairs. What the hell is a demon doing in my house?!

I glanced over at our entryway rug, which has a demon trap painted on the underside. It wasn't there. He quickly followed me, and just as I finished climbing the stairs, he grabbed my ankle and knocked me all the way back down. My face and legs hit the stairs, I felt immense pain in all parts of my body.

He towered over me while I was still on the floor and punched me straight in the face.

"What you want?" I asked angrily, feeling my heartbeat pumping all the painful places over my body. His black eyes were inches away from mine and I could feel the stench of cigarettes way too close.

"Where are they?!" he asked, almost yelling; and punched me again. I tasted blood in my mouth.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Sam's dead!" I shouted, trying to get him off me but to no avail. He was much stronger than me.

"If you don't tell me where they are, I'll kill you." He threatened quietly. Suddenly my cell phone rang.

I took advantage of his distraction and kicked him, throwing him off me. I ran back to my room and ignored the pain in my whole body, grabbing Ruby's knife, which was in the drawer next to the bed.

He came up a few seconds after me and I jumped him with the knife in my trembling hands, pressing it to his neck. He went still.

"If it's not going to be me who kills you, it's going to be somebody else." he said, panting heavily.

I stabbed him right in the heart with the sharp knife, sounding a furious scream. Mr. Connors, or the demon that had taken over his body, dropped to the floor with a thud.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

((It takes a while, but I knew that eventually I would fit in here, even though I'm not really a normal girl.

It's been a month since I started college and I've already started making friends here and there, even though they didn't really interest me. Studies went well, I had something to do instead of resenting my life. It was starting to feel good.

I took the cell phone out of my pocket. 3 missed calls from mom. I ignored them. Ever since dad died, mom and I didn't get along - to put it mildly.

She didn't want me to be a hunter, she was afraid that what happened to father would happen to me. I couldn't blame her, but she didn't understand that you can't just walk away from it. I will never live a normal life again.

Our paths diverged. I rarely spoke to her, and only out of guilt. I knew that the fact that I went to university made her happy, and every now and then I emailed her my projects to give her some peace.

I went to my regular spot in the grass, the best place - not too far from the crowd, not too close. I took an apple out of the bag and slowly gnawed on it, then I saw him again. This tall guy, there was something about him that I just couldn't quite put my finger on.

He was hanging out with a friend; they talked a bit until he went his way and sat down on the grass exactly where he always sits - a few feet away from me. This time he did nothing - didn't read a book, didn't eat, didn't listen to music. Just sat there staring. His constant troubled look was familiar to me; from myself. Like you can never really be calm.

I decided to gather up the courage and approach him - what could happen? I've never been shy, and now is not the time to start. I stood up and approached him, sitting down next to him.

"Hi," I said with a smile. He looked at me, and his eyes shone turquoise with the sunlight. "I'm sorry if it seems strange - but I just wanted to say - you have a really beautiful smile."

He smiled, blushing slightly and seemed to be somewhat relieved - as if I had distracted him from something bad he was delving into.

"Thanks," he replied sheepishly. "I'm Sam." He held out his hand for a shake.

"Diana." I shook his hand. It was strong and big. "So... is it okay if I take a picture of you? I'm learning photography," I explained with slight excitement, touching my camera inside the bag.

"Um," he laughed, slightly embarrassed. "Okay. But don't post it anywhere, okay?"

"Sure, it's just for practice," I promised, bringing the camera closer to my eyes. It is obvious that he is not used to being photographed, and he did not exactly know what to do with his hands.

"Just act like I told you a really funny joke," I instructed him. He smiled slightly and that was enough for me to capture the picture I wanted. "Excellent!"

I put the camera back in the bag.

"Are you new here?" He was interested.

"Actually yes, I started studying a month ago." I replied.

"Welcome. I'm in the second year of law." Now that he was smiling directly at me, I felt something soften inside of me.

"So, it seemed like something was bothering you. Not that it's any of my business, but if we're talking..."

Sam laughed with a kind of misery. "It's nothing, just family stuff."

"Oh, I know a thing or two about screwed up families." I replied. If only he knew how much I understand dysfunctional families. I wish I could tell him. I wish I could tell somebody.

"Bet you a million bucks that's not even close to my family?" he asked in an amused tone, but his eyes were heavy with a burden.

"It's a bet." I replied, winking at him with a smile.))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a few seconds I just stood there, shaking; staring at Mr. Connors' corpse, paralyzed with fear. I couldn't think and I didn't know what to do now. Blood began to pool around his body on the floor.

This is not the first time nor the tenth time I killed a demon. But the way he was looking at me, the weird questions he was asking about Sam, him coming into mine and Dean's house to look for us... it honestly scared me.

I jumped over Connors' dead body and ran down the stairs. I had to call Dean. My cell phone was on the dresser in the kitchen. I grabbed it, ignoring the missed call and dialing Dean's number with trembling hands.

Dean answered after four rings.

"Hey babe," he said from the other line.

I had no time to waste.

"Dean, there's a dead demon in our house." I said quickly. I felt the pain in my face and all over my body pumping under my skin.

"What?!"

"He possessed Mr. Connors', he tried to kill me, he said more would come - Dean, what the hell? I don't know what... how..." I said fearfully, trying to catch my breath.

"Calm down, are you alright? Do you want us to come home?" He said in a reassuring tone, but I could hear the concern in his voice. I heard him talking to Bobby in the background for a few seconds and then he was back on the line. "Okay, Dee, don't call the police and don't do anything. We'll be leaving in half an hour."

"Okay." I said, taking a deep breath and sitting down in one of the chairs by the table. I already felt a little calmer.

"Be ready if there are more, okay? Kick their asses."

I smiled and closed my eyes.

"Yeah. Thanks, Dean." I replied and he hung up. I leaned back in my chair and massaged my sore knees. There's a dead man's body lying on the floor in my room, and I'm not going near it.

I wondered what we were going to tell the police. That he tried to rape me, and I stabbed him in self-defense? I doubted they'd buy it. What really bothered me were his questions. Why did he ask about Sam? Doesn't he know he's dead? Who sent him?

After a few minutes of sitting motionless I tried to get up. A mistake. My whole body ached.

I dragged myself slowly towards the mirror, to check for damage.

A busted and bleeding lower lip, a swollen and red bruise above the eyebrow and three more cute scratches, one under the chin and two on the cheek. I didn't even want to check my body. I knew that the bruises were mainly on my left knees and lower back.

I wanted to lie down and rest, but I didn't dare go up to the bedroom, so instead I placed myself carefully on the sofa and lay there with my eyes open. I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep, fearing another demon would come and kill me in my sleep. I clutched Ruby's knife to my chest, holding it desperately like a lifeline and laid like that for what seemed to be forever.

Dean and Bobby arrived around 9pm. He opened the door, and I was so relieved I almost didn't care anymore.

I ran to him and hugged him, climbing on my tiptoes as high as I could to bury my head in his neck. Dean quickly loosened the hug and looked into my eyes.

"Does your knee hurt?" He asked.

That was our code question. Our secret way of making sure I'm still Diana and he's still Dean. We used to ask this every day, but over time it dwindled. The correct answer wasn't in words; It doesn't matter what I answer, I have to wink while doing it.

"In fact, very much so." I said and winked with my right eye. It was a bit ironic, given that my knees really hurt from the fall.

Dean breathed a sigh of relief and hugged me again. "Are you okay?" He asked.

I nodded over his shoulder, and we loosened our embrace. I turned to hug Bobby and Dean began to look around the house.

"Where is he?" Dean asked.

"In the room."

Dean wrinkled his nose and turned towards me.

"You had to make a mess in our room?" He sighed and shook his head. "I see you two had a nice talk." He noted, pointing to the bruises on my face. I rolled my eyes and the three of us went up to the bedroom, standing around the body.

Mr. Connors's blood had already filled half the room. fabulous.

"What did he want?" Bobby asked. Dean examined the body and crossed his arms.

"He..." I hesitated. I didn't know how to say it. "He was looking for Sam."

Dean looked up at me, eyebrows raised.

"Sam?" He repeated. I nodded my head and shrugged. I didn't have the faintest idea what was going on, just like Dean.

"So, what do we do? Shall we go to the police?" said Bobby.

"We can tell them he tried to rape me or something, and I stabbed him in self-defense." I proposed the idea I thought of earlier.

Dean shook his head.

"You'll have to testify and everything. We don't need this shit." Dean went silent and thought for a few seconds, scratching his head. "He doesn't have a family, does he?"

I shook my head.

"Then we'll take him to his apartment and let someone else find him. We'll wipe him of fingerprints." Bobby suggested.

"That's an idea. Bobby, help me carry him. Dee, start cleaning up the blood and then we'll come help you." Dean commanded.

Bobby coughed and it sounded something like 'bossy', but I'm not sure. Dean picked him up by the head and Bob by the legs, and they started carrying him out of the house.

When everything was clean, and the body was in its place I sat down on the couch tiredly. Dean said goodbye to Bobby and sat next to me, examining my bruises, and furrowing his brows.

“You look terrible.”

"Thank you very much."

"Did you ice it?" he asked, pointing to the bruises on my face.

"No." I answered him and let out a small sigh of pain as I tried to change position on the couch. My back sent streams of pain through my entire lower body.

Dean sighed and got off the couch. I smiled to myself. He returned a minute later, holding a towel with ice inside it. I liked that Dean showed concern for me. He pressed the frozen towel to the bruise above my eye. It was cold against the hot wound, and it felt soothing.

"Great, now we're a match." Dean said pointing to the scab on his lip from a few days ago, and gestured to my own freshly busted, bleeding lip.

"That demon was looking for you too, you know," I said, closing my eyes as Dean move the towel to the cold side. "I thought he was going to come to you after he killed me."

"And then you ganked him." He said and smiled for a few seconds, then his face turned serious again. "So, what's the story?"

"He came into the house, we talked, all normal, and he mentioned you. Then he mentioned Sam. Then I found out he was a demon, he knocked me down the stairs, started beating me and asking me where you were. I got away and stabbed him. He said more would come."

I said all this in one breath. I remembered the phone call that, in fact, saved my life.

Dean paused to take in what I said for a few seconds.

"You know, I really had a feeling that someone was following me the last few days," he finally said.

Turns out we were both being followed. I didn't feel it, by the way. Dean gently moved the towel towards the bruise on my bottom lip.

"What the hell did he want? Doesn't he know Sam's gone?" I said and my voice sounded muffled through the towel.

Dean buried his head in his free hand and massaged it tiredly.

"I don't know. Let's just go to sleep, okay?"

We went to sleep with Dean's hand wrapped around my waist and holding me close. He fell asleep a long time ago, and I was exhausted but I couldn't stop replaying what happened today in my mind. I didn't even dare to think about the most logical conclusion that could be drawn from this whole story.

I finally gave up and focused on Dean's breathing on the back of my neck, falling asleep a few minutes later.

#dean x reader #sam x reader #spn fanfic #dean winchester imagine #sam winchester imagine

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tinylilemrys · 2 years ago

Text

Lonely In London

Relationship:

Trent Crimm/Ted Lasso

Additional Tags:

Angst and Romance | Romcommunism | Friends to Lovers | Romantic Comedy | Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Summary:

Henry, worried about how lonely his dad seems to be in London, writes into an advice podcast for some help. A podcast run by an ex-colleague of Trent's – one that he listens to religiously. If Trent falls a little for 'Lonely In London' because he reminds him of Ted, well that's just coincidence. An homage to romcommunism, largely based on 'Sleepless In Seattle' with a few others thrown in for good measure.

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

CHAPTER 3

As June ticks over into July, Ted declares that July 25th is going to be his and Henry's Christmas. Henry is sceptical at first, until he realises it comes with actual presents. Then he's all in.

Part of it is motivated by wanting to spend something close to an actual Christmas with Henry, the other part is that he's genuinely running out of things to do with his son to keep him entertained. Even the initial rush of going through the podcast fanmail (all pre-screened by Ted) is losing its shine. This way, whenever Henry gets bored, Ted can declare it's Christmas crafting time and the two of them pop on a Christmas movie and get to making streamers, Christmas ornaments, cards, snowflakes – anything that Ted sees on Pinterest that looks vaguely doable. It seems to work well for a time, until Henry declares that he's bored of this too.

The only thing that seems to hold his attention for longer than a few minutes anymore are his training sessions with Jamie and Roy. Jamie adores Henry as much as Henry adores him, and it turns out that the great Jamie Tartt isn't too bad at the whole coaching thing either. Roy's reasons for being there, as always, are more of an enigma, but he insists he's just there to make sure Henry's getting the training he deserves.

He rarely interferes with Jamie's process, however, instead holding back until afterwards when Jamie looks at him with earnest expectation, as if his thoughts on how it went are the most important thing in the world to him. And Roy always comes through. Ted gets the sense that Roy sees the same glimmer of potential in Jamie that he sees.

If nothing else, Ted has been enjoying watching the camaraderie the two of them have been developing through it. Considering where they were with each other a couple of years back, Ted can hardly believe it. If there's one thing he can take away from his time at Richmond so far, it's that.

Still, despite his pro one-on-one training, Henry has been restless. Ted tries not to take it to heart, but he can't help but feel like he's getting it wrong. Like he would know how to do this better if he was around Henry more. Like the time he's missed with Henry has caused a fundamental disconnect between them. And it's only getting worse now that Ted is back at work for pre-season training. Now that Henry's cooped up in whoever's office he wants to be in that day (usually Roy and Trent's or Rebecca's), or else pitch-side, itching to play but not allowed to. Not for the first time, Ted wonders if it was stupid of him to have Henry the whole summer. Maybe he should have sent him back just before work started back up again.

Add to that the fact that Rebecca is on his ass about beating Rupert in the upcoming season and the way Trent seems to be giving him the lukewarm shoulder for no good reason (other than that maybe he stepped over some kind of line during their last hangout), and Ted is wound tighter than a rubber band round a prosperity preacher's weekly takings.

It comes to a head one night when Ted's trying to get a team report done for Rebecca. Henry, midway through sticking bits of felt to a cheap Christmas stocking while watching The Grinch, declares that he's bored again, and Ted can feel the last of his patience slipping out of his grasp.

"Bud, I don't know what to tell you," he says, looking up from his report. "I've given you stuff to do. I've got to get this done for Rebecca. It's important, alright? If you're not feeling the Christmas crafting, find something else to do."

"I want you to play something with me," whines Henry.

"Henry, I've told you, I'm busy," says Ted. "I don't have time right now."

"Mom and James would have played with me," says Henry.

Ted knows Henry doesn't mean it. He knows it's just because he's tired and bored and barely shy of ten years old and a child of divorce and far away from his home and his friends and his mom. It doesn't stop the words from ripping his heart in two. Ted's last thread snaps and he stands up from the table.

"Fine!" he says, trying not to yell, but feeling the frustration boil from the pit of his stomach and up through his throat. "Hell, kid, If it sucks so much to be here maybe you should head to bed so you're one day closer to going home."

The look of hurt, betrayal, and even fear on Henry's face evaporates whatever anger was there a moment ago, replacing it with the most awful sick feeling. He watches helplessly as Henry bursts into tears and runs off to the bedroom. All the sound leaves the world along with the feeling in Ted's fingers. He's panicking.

He breathes deeply and tries to run through the grounding exercise Dr Sharon gave him. He begins describing the colors of the walls. What he can smell nearby. What the counter at his fingertips feels like. Three different sounds he can hear.

One of the sounds is Henry crying miserably in the next room.

He messages Dr Sharon to set up an emergency session and tries to keep breathing. He knows he needs to apologise to Henry, but he's never messed up with him this badly before. He doesn't know what to do. Where to start.

He's fucked up big time.

His fingers are typing before he can fully think about it.

Do you ever feel like you'll never get the full grip of this whole parenting thing? That you're always getting it wrong? That you're just doomed to make another broken grownup like it's some cursed family heirloom?

He doesn't know why he reached out to Trent. It's not like they usually commiserate about their parenting woes. He just needed to vent to someone who might understand. In any case, after weeks of nothing but polite small talk from Trent, he's really not expecting anything to come of it anyway. Which is why he nearly drops his phone when it starts actually ringing.

"Trent Crimm! To what do I owe the pleasure?" he says, trying to keep his voice as breezy as he can make it.

"I received your text," he replies. "Ted, are you okay?"

God, he never would have messaged if he thought Trent would call.

"Oh, sunny as a bunny, dandy as candy," he says. "No complaints here."

There's a deep sigh from the other end.

"Cut the bullshit, Lasso," says Trent. "You know better than to deflect that weakly around a journalist. I can hear your voice is shaking. Now tell me what you did that has you convinced that you're a horrible parent."

"Trent Crimm, always bringing that heat," Ted says, taking one last stab at humor. He's rewarded with deadly silence on the other end. "I yelled at Henry. I yelled at him in the most awful way. I told myself I would never raise my voice at that kid, but I went and did it anyway. And god, he looked scared, Trent. Like actually scared."

"Oh, Ted," says Trent gently. "Would you like to tell me how that happened?"

Ted explains the incident, including the stress leading up to the blowup. He leaves out that Trent's sudden aloofness was part of it.

"Well, okay, here's how I see it," says Trent after Ted has said his piece. "Children are almost scientifically designed to be the most annoying fucking creatures on the planet. Right? They get in places they're not supposed to be. They see themselves as the centre of the universe. They push our buttons and say the most hurtful things without meaning to. But they're kids. They're literally learning how to be people as they go. Not good people. Just people. From scratch. Pushing the boundaries is part of how they figure it out. It's our job as parents to gently reinforce those boundaries."

"Yeah, well I goofed on that one big time," says Ted.

"Sure," says Trent. "You did. There's no denying it. But the thing is, as parents, we're going through the same process. We're still learning how to be people from scratch. We're just a little further along the road. And the part of the road we happen to be on is the part where we figure out how to be people that are parents too. We're figuring it out as we go. We're figuring out where the boundaries are too. And our kids tell us when we've crossed them."

Ted let's out a long exhale of breath.

"You're a good dad, Ted," says Trent. "You just had a moment of bad parenting. But the good news is that now you've learned another way not to do it. Next to 'I love you' and 'I'm proud of you', what's the one thing you wish you'd heard more from your parents?"

"Probably 'I'm sorry'," says Ted.

"Exactly. And you now have the painful privilege of being able to say that to your boy. Henry's a great kid. Better than most. You should be really proud of the person you've helped shape."

"Thanks, Trent," says Ted, feeling so much gratitude and affection he might burst. He's missed Trent so much. "Say, you know you're real handy with your words. You ever thought about going into writing?"

"Goodnight, Ted," says Trent, though there's amusement in his voice. "And good luck."

He hangs up the phone before Ted can reply.

Ted scrubs his hands down his face and takes a deep breath. He can do this.

His phone dings and he sees it's a text from Trent.

Wait – I know this seems counterintuitive, but please give it at least 20 minutes before you go talk to Henry. You'll see why in a moment. 🌻

That's weird, but Ted trusts Trent implicitly. He must know what he's doing. Fifteen minutes later, there's another ding from his phone.

Front door.

Ted half expects to see Trent when he opens it a minute later, but instead there's a bag on the ground, held closed with what looks like a small sunflower hair clasp that he suspects must belong to Anabelle. Ted looks up and down the street, but if Trent delivered it, he's disappeared into the night.

Smiling, Ted grabs the bag and heads back inside. When he opens it, he finds two cartons of ice-cream: one strawberry, and one peanut butter flavored. His and Henry's favourites.

He fires off one last text to Trent before grabbing two spoons and heading to the bedroom to fix what he broke.

Ted's phone lies unlocked and abandoned on the counter when the first tentative giggles in the background signal that all is well. And below the short, simple 'Thank you, Trent 🌻', three dots appear and disappear.

***

To Ted and Henry's delight, Christmas in July ends up becoming a club-wide family event and, Trent decides, the opening chapter of his book.

From what Trent understands, it started with Jamie catching wind of it during one of Henry's training sessions. After telling the rest of the team about it, they all demanded to be allowed to buy Henry presents. Upon seeing the enthusiasm surrounding it, Ted declared that Christmas in July would be open to all. The Secret Santa lists were sent out (Trent included), and preparations at the club began. The main focus is on creating a magical day for the kids of the club, which includes, Trent is touched to learn, Anabelle.

"Well of course we're including Anabelle," says Ted, like he's silly for not knowing this. "You're going to be part of the Richmond family this year. Anabelle's one of ours now."

One of ours now. The words are like the warmest hug.

It's the last time Ted and Trent talk for a while after that though. Despite their phone conversation a few weeks back and the fact that they're now pretty much sharing an office, he's still trying to keep his distance. He knows now how Ted feels about him and how worried he is about the club's PR, so he's not about to do anything to put that at risk. And he's learned that too much talking to Ted leads to dangerous waters. Thus, most of their interactions come down to nothing more than a friendly "good morning" to each other at the beginning of the day, the occasional observance about the weather, and then hours of having their noses buried in their respective tasks.

He learns a lot about AFC Richmond in the lead up to Christmas in July that he didn't know as an outside observer. He learns that Roy Kent listens to a suprising amount of Enya for someone who always seems so highly strung. He learns that Jamie Tartt is secretly a massive fan of Doctor Who. He learns that Isaac McAdoo is a part-time barber. He learns that Ted brings Rebecca his homemade shortbread every morning without fail. He learns that Rebecca is one of the funniest people in the building and slightly whacky beneath her ice-queen image. He learns that Higgins is seen like a dad to a lot of the lads, and that Higgins sees all of them as members of his already large family. He learns that Coach Beard is even more eccentric than Trent suspected, and that no one speaks Nathan Shelley's name out loud. No one except Ted, who despite looking heartbroken when he does, always says it with kindness and respect.

Mostly he learns that every good and lovely thing at AFC Richmond seems to have Ted's fingerprints all over it, and it does nothing to ease the growing feeling that Ted might be the only man Trent could ever feel a hundred percent comfortable handing his heart to again.

He's not supposed be letting himself think like that.

As the 25th of July rolls around, it brings with it much excitement. Despite the sweltering summer day, the café has been transformed into a magical winter wonderland – an impressive feat considering that the majority of the decorations are handmade by the team, who all jumped in over the weekend to help when it became clear that there was no way Ted and Henry were going to be able to craft enough for a whole big room.

As Trent walks into the party with Anabelle who is beside herself with excitement, he can't help but feel another layer of loneliness peel away. It's difficult to think of London as bleak when you're faced with a room full of people from all over the world, from vastly different backgrounds, all mingling together and genuinely enjoying each other's presence.

Like family, Trent thinks.

"Merry Crimmas!"

Trent jumps at the sudden voice behind him, and immediately whips around to see Ted, wearing a smile so wide it almost blinds him.

"Teddy!" yells Anabelle, holding out her arms demanding one of his famous 'helicopters'. Ted doesn't need telling twice, immediately scooping her up and spinning her around. The whole falling in love with Ted thing would be so much easier to deal with if the man was terrible with his daughter. But no. They adore each other.

"Merry Christmas Santa-Belle," he says. "Henry, Chloe, and the Higgins boys are going to be so excited to see you. They're over there by the probably ill-advised chocolate fountain."

"Ill-advised indeed," agrees Trent as Anabelle runs off to find her friends. "Anabelle isn't going to want to move from there. Happy Christmas, Ted."

"Happy Christmas, Trent," Ted replies. "Wait, y'all really say 'happy' Christmas here?"

"Is that a problem?"

"No, of course not," says Ted. "But you have to admit that it's weird though. Doesn't quite roll off the tongue the same. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas…"

Trent leaves Ted alone with his semantic satiation and goes to say his hellos to the rest of the room.

For all that it's a Christmas party in the middle of summer, Trent has a wonderful time. The kids get a massive pile of gifts each, and have a wonderful time playing with them together. Even the adults' Christmas party goes well. He gets a set of expensive-looking leatherbound notebooks from his Secret Santa, Rebecca, and is thrilled when Roy likes the bagful of books he bought for him.

An hour or two into the party, the main entertainment becomes Roy, who somehow keeps accidentally standing underneath sprigs of artificial mistletoe. Now that Keeley and him have split, he's technically a free agent. Still, most people seem wary. So far no one has dared actually kiss him, but it's entertaining to watch various people get caught under it with him and weigh up the merits of trying. Rebecca asserts that she can't imagine anyone being brave or stupid enough to try, and Trent happily takes that bet. He's rewarded with twenty quid a half hour later when Jamie plants a huge smooch on Roy's cheek.

"Oi! What the fuck was that for?" Roy shouts. Jamie, wearing his trademark shit-eating grin, doesn't look contrite in the least.

"Mistletoe, innit?" says Jamie, winking at Roy as he swaggers off.

Roy stands there, perplexed, for several moments, before growling out a "fuuuuuck", and marching off to see what Phoebe is up to.

It's all fun and games until he gets caught himself an hour later. It's thankfully not with Roy, but at this point, being caught with Ted isn't that much less horrifying.

"Vaping still ain't great for you, you know," says Ted joining Trent out on the balcony where he's trying to catch a moment of fresh air.

"I promised Anabelle I'd quit smoking," Trent says, suddenly feeling self-conscious about it. "It's a temporary stopgap until I have the nerves of steel it takes to go completely without nicotine."

"Well, can't really argue with that," says Ted. There's a bit of silence between them again, like the conversation is a timid cat he's scared of spooking and Trent's heart aches. All he wants to do is talk to him. But it's dangerous.

Still, it's Christmas, a time for indulgences.

"Henry seems to be having a grand time," Trent observes, turning to look through the large glass doors to wear Henry is in a nerf gun battle between all of the kids and close to half of the Richmond team. "You don't regret opening this up to the whole club?"

"A bit," Ted admits, looking a little ashamed of himself. "But only a bit. The team needed a big old hype up to get the season going anyway, and it means a lot to me that everyone sees each other as family enough to go through all this fuss."

"I know what you mean," Trent replies. "It meant a lot to me that Anabelle and I were included. I've never had anything like this before."

"The Independent didn't do big old shindigs like this?" Ted's regarding him curiously, like he's trying to figure something out.

"Oh they did," says Trent. "But they were the most insufferable, lifeless events. Half the room was made up of the snobbiest kind of person with the most overinflated ego, the other was made up of a gaggle of journalists who would sooner stab someone else in the throat with a pen for a front page feature than ask about their personal life."

"That's… vivid."

"It's the truth," shrugs Trent. "I don't think you realise how rare this all is. Finding this many people who love and genuinely like each other? It's almost unheard of. Especially in this city."

"Well, then I'm glad we could make you a part of that."

You actually mean that, don't you? Trent thinks, not for the first time.

He lets out a huff of laughter and tilts his head back, more to escape Ted's gaze than anything. It's so fond that Trent is about to combust in it.

Unfortunately, glancing up reveals that the two of them have somehow found themselves beneath a sprig of artificial mistletoe. He can't help but throw Ted a panicked look, which immediately sends Ted's eyes up to see what caused it.

"Oh boy," says Ted. "Seems like we've found ourselves a little predicament."

"Yeah," says Trent, unable to form much more than that. Sure, he knows that kissing Ted will likely be a monumental mistake, but that doesn't change the fact that he wants. He wants so much that it hurts to think about. And here he is with this perfect opportunity. This beautiful moment of plausible deniability.

Neither of them say anything. They don't need to. The distance between them shrinks to nothing and until the agonising, perfect moment where their lips make contact and Trent knows he's fucked up.

It's tentative at first, but then Ted takes the smallest step closer just as Trent parts his lips and suddenly it's all hunger and longing, both of them trying to take everything they can from this moment, both knowing how fragile it is. Trent's world narrows down to the scent of peppermint, the sound of the blood rushing in his head, the feeling of the wool he's clutching to like a lifeline.

And then a car hoots in the distance and just as quickly as it happens, the moment is gone.

Fuck. Oh fuck. There's no going back now. That wasn't just a mistletoe kiss, Trent knows it wasn't.

Trent throws a nervous glance to where the party is still going on, where all of AFC Richmond is as full of the joy and spirit of Christmas as they would be in December, and Trent suddenly understands. He understands why Ted can't risk a PR nightmare. Why he needs to protect this. Now Trent also has to.

"Trent," Ted whispers, trying to lean in again, but Trent pulls back.

"I have to go," he says, trying to keep his voice steady as he does. "I just… I have to go."

Without another word, he strides back inside, gathers Anabelle and her newly acquired pile of toys and heads home. He's running away, he knows, but he can't bring himself to consider that this might be a bad idea. It's what AFC Richmond needs. It's what Ted needs.

Once Anabelle is safely in bed and fast asleep, Trent puts on Love Actually as a form of self-flagellation and begins working his way through his scotch collection. He doesn't normally allow himself to drink like this on his own – especially not when Anabelle is in the house – but he can't afford to think tonight. He just can't.

It's only the next morning, with his mouth feeling like it's full of rancid cotton, with the Love, Actually DVD menu playing on loop, that Trent fully remembers why he can't be trusted alone with alcohol.

Squinting against the brightness of his open laptop, Trent realises, with a wave of nausea, that he's sent an email to Lonely In London.

Fuck.

***

Ted isn't going to think about the kiss. He's just not. He can move on and pretend it never happened. That's definitely something he can do.

"So, Bud, how'd you enjoy your summer Christmas?" asks Ted, not thinking about the kiss, as he and Henry finally collapse back onto the couch in their living room.

Trent had tasted like mango sorbet. But he's not thinking about that.

"I had so much fun!" says Henry. "Can we do it again next year?"

"Of course," Ted replies, actually forgetting the kiss for a moment when he sees how happy Henry is. He pulls him into a tight hug. "This one's not over yet though. How could we possibly go to bed without watching the greatest Christmas movie of all time?"

"Muppets?" asks Henry.

"Muppets," Ted nods.

Ted continues not thinking about the kiss while Michael Cane acts up a storm in a sea of felt. He doesn't think about the way that Trent had clung onto him. He keeps his mind far away from the way he'd looked at him before it happened. Like he couldn't believe it was happening. He doesn't think about how hungry it had seemed. From both of them.

Maybe he was over-confident in assuming where he and Trent were at, but he doesn’t think he's been reading the signs wrong. Trent had wanted him, at least in the moment of that kiss. Whether that kiss was what put him off was the big mystery.

Ted despairs as he imagines where that's going to put their already fraught communications.

Not that he's thinking about the kiss.

A ding from his phone pulls him out of his self-pity and it's a welcome distraction. It's another Lonely In London email. He's largely started ignoring these on the advice of Dr Sharon after he complained that they could get overwhelming, but something about the opening line of this one grabs him.

Dear Lonely In London

London is a lonely shithole. It's cold, grimy, and the people aren't much better. It can make you feel like you're the only person on Earth sometimes, even when you're surrounded by people on all sides. I've been here my whole life and in 46 years nothing has changed that.

Until you.

Now, please don't misunderstand – I'm painfully aware of how crazy it is to put all that on you, a stranger from a letter on a podcast. For all any of us know, you could be completely fictional. Something made up by the hosts to boost their listens. You're not a stranger to me, though. You're real to me in a way not many people in my life are.

I'm currently watching one of those overwrought romantic comedies with several morally dubious storylines, and I'm hating every minute of it. However, it has made me realise that my whole life, I've been content to play things safe. Everything from my career to my ex-husband to the area in which I live seems as though I set up to risk nothing. And even with that, I've still lost so much.

But now there's you. And you can't know how much you've changed my mind about risk, even in just the short time I've known of you.

And that's why instead of playing it safe this time, I'm going all-in on a grand romantic gesture.

This Christmas Eve, at 8pm, I will be waiting at the arrivals gate at Heathrow. Meet me there. I know you have no idea who I am, but I have to believe you'll know me when you see me, just as I'll know you.

At the very least, you have a whole five months to decide. If you're curious, or haven't found anything better by then, you know where I'll be.

Even if nothing ever comes of this, I trust this email, at bare minimum, helps make London less lonely, the way yours made it feel less lonely for me.

Yours,

Isolated in Islington

"That's like Love, Actually!" says Henry, startling Ted. He didn't realise he was reading the email too. "It's Christmas in July and they're talking about Love, Actually. It's a sign. What if this is the love of your life?"

It can't be, Kiddo, thinks Ted. It's not Trent Crimm.

"Yeah? And what if it's a crazy axe murderer?" laughs Ted, gently poking Henry in the ribs causing him to giggle too. "Or worse, an accountant?"

"But, Dad," says Henry. "You have to meet them. It's like a movie."

"Not all movies have happy endings, Bud," says Ted.

Sometimes you get left under the artificial mistletoe, not knowing how you got it so wrong.

"A lot of them do though," says Henry. "Can we at least say 'we'll see' for this one?"

'We'll see' is what Ted says when his answer is mostly yes, but he doesn't want to admit it yet.

"Hmm, we'll see," says Ted, tickling Henry. "Before we ever cross that bridge though, we've got to talk about how it's a little on the impolite side to read things on other people's phones unless they specifically tell you that you can."

"Sorry, Dad," says Henry and then because Rizzo is yelling "light the lamp, not the rat" on the TV, Ted loses his son to the movie once more.

The idea of living out a grand romcom moment isn't the least appealing in the world. Trent's clearly not as interested as he thought he might be, and whoever this Isolated in Islington is, they seem, at the very least, to be on the same page as him.

In any case, the arrivals gate at Heathrow is about as public as public gets. There's plenty security around. Other than maybe a bit of press speculation, what would he really be risking?

Disappointment, Ted realises.

He decides to file it away to think about later. He's got 5 months to figure it all out after all.

He briefly debates texting Trent, to see if he can coax out a conversation about what happened, but decides against it. If Trent doesn't want him, he doesn't want him. It's as simple as that.

He'll leave being a muppet to Gonzo.

Next Chapter

#tedependent #tedtrent #ted x trent #trent x ted #trent crimm #ted lasso #ted lasso fanfic

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dragonhumper · 1 year ago

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apriki:

MARAUDERS, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. But since you did ask, let’s jump on that….

MARAUDERS: THE SERIES

Okay so - five seasons, BBC produced OR HBO in Game of Thrones style, keeping it British (JKR would insist, as she should). 12-14 episodes a season, potential Christmas special at the end of season 4. The first three seasons are MWPP’s fifth, sixth and seventh years, starting about midway through their 5th.

The pilot uses Harry as a framing device - it’s needed to establish the world and time period etc etc - maybe in third year, when Snape is digging in to Papa Potter? Harry then walks along the Hogwarts corridors, thinking about his father, and everything Dumbledore and Lupin have said about him, until he finds himself in the trophy room looking at one of James’ Quidditch medals. Harry says “my dad didn’t strut”, and we close in on the medal… ….only to pan out on James, strutting along the same corridor. Remus, Sirius and Peter fall in, and we watch them as they head in to class. James is your typical asshole of a 15yo, eating an apple and accidentally bumping into people, only to grin and give them fingerguns instead of apologising as he keeps on walking. Remus has his nose in a book, Sirius is poking at his ear with a quill, and Peter’s trying get Sugar Quill residue off his fingers. They walk into Transfiguration, their usual boisterous selves, not noticing a red headed girl rolling her eyes and turning away from them to talk to her friends, or a skulking boy in a group of Slytherins behind her, glaring at them. AND SO WE BEGIN. Each of the first four seasons would use one of the Marauders as a viewpoint into the main plot: Season 1 - Peter, as he feels like he belongs less than the others, and his practical hero-worshipping of his friends means that he views them outside of his relationship with them, and is thus a good starting point for the viewer. Season one also introduces us to the Marauders era Slytherins, and we follow their story in a parallel to MWPP. Lily and Snape’s friendship, their subsequent fall out, and Snape’s further immersion into the Dark Arts are the season’s main subplot. Snape’s Worst Memory happens in about episode 9. Season 2 - Remus. Season 2 covers MWPP’s sixth year, as they grow older and the war outside of Hogwarts begins to impact more on their isolated world. Lily and James begin to become friends - well, she dislikes him less - and this impacts on Snape, who begins to write in the margins of his potions textbook. Sirius starts to feel more pressure from his family and moves out; this makes him wilder than ever, culminating in the Snape prank (about episode 11). This is filmed to be a cruel trick, and we see the full blow out afterwards between Sirius and Remus. Snape approaches Lily in the aftermath and attempts to tell her about Remus, villifying James in the process; she tells him that she knows about Remus, and that Snape cannot reveal the secret. The season ends with Remus and Sirius still at odds, although partially reconciled, and James saying he just assumed that Sirius would be moving in with him. Season 3 - This year focuses more on James, beginning when he and Sirius decide to crash a pureblood party at the Malfoy’s. They make their getaway, running past three girls, on Sirius’ new bike, which still has some…. kinks to be smoothed out - they almost fall out of the sky more than once. They return home to the news that James has been made Head Boy; Sirius thinks it’s the most hilarious news he’s ever heard, but James is determined to use the opportunity to get closer to Lily (“I am TELLING you she’s Head Girl, Padfoot!”) The gang head back to Hogwarts - crossing paths with Narcissa Black - who had seen them run out at the Malfoy’s - on the train station. She becomes our focus Slytherin character for the season. Lily and James’ romance takes a front position in this season, with the mending of the Sirius/Remus relationship as a subplot. The season also has flashbacks to the group’s younger years, focusing on the Animagus process. Season 4: TIME JUMP. We go forward two years into the middle of the war. I see the final two seasons as one whole arc, with the season 4 establishing the various dangers of the war and MWPP’s role in it - focusing on Sirius, as suspicion starts to take hold of the group and their lives get more and more perilous. Through Sirius we get the Regulus subplot and our view into the Death Eaters, following Snape, the Blacks and the Malfoys. Two of Lily and James’ “thrice defied” events happen throughout the season. Remus is sent undercover into the werewolf community and drifts apart from the Order, causing the others to confide in him less and less. Peter sees this and, in the season finale, meets up with a Death Eater. Season 5: We begin with the announcement of Lily’s pregnancy. The fighting gets worse - there are battles and disappearances every day, both sides begin to lose friends and mentors. Narcissa’s pregnancy is played out as a parallel to Lily; she and Lucius grow closer and begin to resent the influence of Voldemort on their lives. They strengthen as a family unit and at the end of the season decide to break away from their Death Eater friends (and family). The prophecy is told, Harry is born, Lily and James go into hiding. Sirius continues to fight in the war, becoming friends with the Prewett brothers and eventually witnessing their deaths, Snape becomes worried for Lily, makes the deal with Dumbledore, and begins sabotaging Death Eater missions he thinks may harm her, Karkaroff flees England, the Longbottoms announce that they’re expecting, Peter begins passing information on to Voldemort himself, Remus is thrown out of a werewolf meetup when they discover he’s a spy. The season finale is two hours long. It begins with Harry’s first birthday - Bathilda Bagshot is present, and speaks of Grindlewald. The scene changes, and Sirius is sitting with Kingsley and a few other Order members - they’ve just heard the news of the McKinnons. Moody comes in with blood everywhere; he’s lost an eye. Sirius can’t stand to look at the blood and begins to walk out - then catches sight of Remus in the hall. He confronts Remus, asking where he’s been - Remus can’t say, under Dumbledore’s orders. They end up in a fist fight, beating each other senseless until they’re separated. They don’t speak again for fourteen years. It’s a cold day, and windy - Lily goes outide and pulls the clothes off the line before they can blow away. She and James decorate their cottage with jack o’ lanterns and streamers, and dress Harry up as a little Merlin in a purple gown. They eat Halloween dinner together, the three of them, and James jokes about how “it’s nothing on a Hogwarts feast - just you wait and see, Harry!” Lily goes to put Harry to bed - we watch as she changed him into his pyjamas, lays him in the crib and sings to him - until she’s cut off mid song by a blast downstairs. She’s at the door when she hears James scream, and then there’s a green flash of light, bright and cold, and she runs back to the crib, too choked with fear to even cry for her dead husband. A hooded man steps in the doorway, blocking out all the light. The screen is still black when we hear the revving of a motorcycle as it touches down on the ground. Sirius stands in front of the ruined house, and there are no words for the look on his face. He makes a sound - more animal than human - and before even knowing why, he starts forward, searching among the rubble. He hears a sound, and digs underneath the debris, forgetting his wand entirely, until he finds Harry, crying, the scar still bleeding. Sirius doesn’t know how long he stands there, holding the baby, until suddenly Hagrid is behind him, saying something about Dumbledore, and argues for a while but hands Harry over anyway, saying Hagrid can take the bike. It’s only then that Sirius thinks of Peter. Hagrid says something else, but Sirius doesn’t hear him, doesn’t hear anything - he Apparates, and he’s not even landed before he’s running, up and into Peter’s apartment, banging through the door and making things explode like he did when he was young and couldn’t control his magic. We follow Sirius through the confrontation with Peter and his arrest. Sirius is dragged away, laughing and crying manicallay, cut in a montage to parties and celebrations, random wizards and the Order, a thousand people cheering and smiling and all whispering “For him! The Boy who Lived! Harry Potter!” And, finally, a baby and a letter, lying side by side in front of a Surrey door.

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sakuratwilight · 4 months ago

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non-comprehensive list of things i want to watch/read/play, in no particular order (jesus this got long enough that i included a read-more to be nice):

rwby (full series rewatch + finishing the books and looking at the music and other side stuff, like the games)

miraculous (full series rewatch, as above)

(i consider this the Duology Of Things That Are Overhated.)

finish the story of tears of the kingdom

finish the pikmin 4 postgame

meet my arbitrary goals of completion for yakuza kiwami & start on 0

play more cult of the lamb

finish more of the elder scrolls online dlc (& maybe someday finish the skyrim main story)

i bought tales of vesperia like a year ago and haven't touched it yet

finish actually playing og twewy but it pisses me off on switch bc i hate motion controls and i don't have a good stylus for touchscreen purposes

pick up the splatoon 3 DLC and play it for the lesbians (also finish story mode of splatoon 3 bc i never did)

finish the game changer episodes i haven't seen yet + finish watching smartypants (ideally involves partaking in a powerpoint night. i have OPINIONS.)

check out that new yakuza series

ranma (the new anime and maybe the og manga? i never read it but it was pretty much always in my peripheral vision somewhere)

a couple random cute-looking anime from the last couple seasons. that cat cafe one looked cute

toradora (read the light novels. maybe rewatch the anime too)

pokespe (reread the full series; but also more specifically reread bw/bw2)

haruhi suzumiya (reread and rewatch that goes in light novel order and directly compares the anime to the books until i run out of space. includes all side content, including theatre; so will probably wait a little longer to start so by the time i hit theatre there's a fan tl at least)

love is war (rewatch of the dub this time now that i've finished the manga)

detective conan (just the kaito eps/movies and also the crimson love letter because i adore it)

sailor moon (full manga reread; maaaaybe revisit the 90s anime. maybe check out the live action show or the musicals if i can find good subs of either)

tokyo mew mew (full series reread; probably rewatching new along with it)

warrior cats (finish catching up on the new arc)

oshi no ko (check out the manga/anime at least)

pokemon horizons (i think i literally only saw the first couple episodes. oops.)

batman no man's land (i was gonna read all the cassandra cain comics and decided to start here, got really into it, and fell off midway through volume 1 of no man's land proper. i DID finish the road to volumes though!)

the spider-gwen comics

i should really catch up the idw sonic too

now that i think about it i never finished spectacular spiderman season 2 either

at some point i also i want to watch the tale of princess kaguya (the ghibli? i think? movie)

#ruby.txt #general nonsense #this is really a non-exhaustive list. if i thought about it longer i COULD keep going.

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brucebocchi · 1 year ago

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Ranking every new anime I watched in 2023, Pt. 1: #29-21

hey, i just started a ko-fi for my writing and possible other creative outlets. this post will also be available there, as will future entries, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i'm currently between jobs.

I have watched a frankly hilarious amount of anime in 2023. I got back into it as a medium in a huge way last year, and in addition to watching new stuff as it airs, I went back and caught up on a lot of what I'd missed when I thought anime was cringe. I watched existing shows come back for new seasons. I even read manga before watching some shows! I dove headfirst into romantic comedies, finally dug into some hype shonen, and even indulged in a few isekai.

If I ranked every anime I watched in 2023, we'd be here forever, so I decided to stick to the ones that came out in 2023. I have not watched all of them, because I had a job. I kept up as much as I could with the stuff that came heavily recommended and hyped, but I was unfortunately unable to watch all of them. I couldn't find the time to watch Vinland Saga or Pluto, and this list is long enough as it is. We'll be sticking to a very untidy 29 anime series that aired this year.

I'll be breaking the full ranking up over the next few days. This is publicly available, but if you liked what I had to say and you'd like to throw a couple bucks my way, I'd really appreciate it.

Let's get to it.

29. FLCL Grunge/Shoegaze

I absolutely adore the original FLCL, but I’ll cop to not having watched its sequels, Progressive and Alternative, until earlier this year. I knew going in that people hated the reboot and then forgot about it. For me, the experience was similar to when I saw Spider-Man 3 a week or so after the backlash died down: Nothing great, but I tempered my expectations and enjoyed them just fine. Didn’t hate them, didn’t love them. I had similarly mild expectations for Grunge and Shoegaze, and the six-episode run came and went without anyone really having anything to say about it. That was probably not a good sign.

I really wanted to give Grunge a shot, even though I was unimpressed by the trailer, but I found myself only watching it out of obligation midway through the first episode. I'm not as hard on CGI in anime as others, and I know that entirely-CGI anime has come a very long way since the likes of even recent works like Ex-Arm (you’ll see my thoughts on Trigun Stampede much, much later in this list). You can imagine my disappointment in saying that Grunge is fuck ugly. Character models are rigid and inert, the settings are unimpressive, and the only time anything on screen looks any good is in the little moments when they swap out the CGI for something slightly more FLCL-ish.

This one plays out like the original release of Arrested Development’s fourth season, each episode focusing on a single main character until they all culminate in the same explosive climax. That's an admirable enough storytelling ambition, but Grunge is three episodes long. That's not enough to get me invested in any of the characters, and it makes all their respective personal struggles feel more like lazy attempts at emotional manipulation. I just came away depressed. What’s worse is that this framing ends up placing Haruko, fucking HARUKO, as the main character, which is one of the worst mistakes anything calling itself FLCL can make.

I'll be real for a second: I'm very easily manipulated by nostalgia. There were moments in the final Evangelion Rebuild and this year’s Nier Automata anime that brought me to tears by calling back unexpectedly to moments I’d loved in previous entries of those respective franchises. When I first watched FLCL Progressive, the instant the Pillows’ iconic “Little Busters” first started playing, I immediately got misty-eyed because the song’s inclusion in the original FLCL was so formative to me as an adolescent. When the almost-as-iconic “Last Dinosaur” gets a needle drop in Grunge, I just rolled my eyes because the wool had already been pulled back from them.

Everything Grunge did, it did wrong, and it could not be more naked of a nostalgia grab. Haruko didn’t need to be there, the Pillows didn’t need to be there, and the FLCL branding didn’t need to be there. Worst of all, it’s fucking boring. FLCL Grunge, plainly, was a mistake.

Shoegaze, on the other hand, turned out to be a full-on sequel to Alternative, generally considered the better of the first two sequels (it also goes back to traditional animation). We get to see Kana as a grown woman, fully involved with the bureau that handles disaffected teenagers like she once was. It's neat to see a version of FLCL where one of its protagonists has actually grown up, and I do appreciate it when a long-running franchise acknowledges that its viewer base has gotten older and attempts to grow with them, but it feels cheap here because Alternative came out all of five years ago. There's a lot of additional shenanigans involving time and dimension travel around our two younger protagonists that could’ve been very fulfilling on their own even without the Alternative connection, but again, three episodes.

While Shoegaze isn’t all that great, it still kind of stinks to slot it this low, but Grunge was such a palate destroyer for what followed that it made me more annoyed that Shoegaze didn’t take up the entire six-episode run. Maybe watch it if you really liked Alternative, but otherwise this stinker of a miniseason is not worth your time. Grunge isn’t even worth a hate watch. I want my hour back.

28. KamiKatsu: Working for God in a Godless World

Speaking of fuck ugly visuals, here’s KamiKatsu. To be fair, that was actually the hook for me! I'd heard about and seen examples of this show’s intentionally low-quality, uncanny visual gags and I had to see what this trainwreck was about. Overcoming a cheap animation budget for laughs can actually work to an anime’s advantage if it’s done well, and Cromartie High School is legendary proof of that.

KamiKatsu, in reality, is nothing to write home about outside of its wacky visual meta-gags and a halfway decent premise. I generally steer away from the bloated wasteland that is the isekai genre unless a specific work either comes highly recommended by trusted sources or draped in the sash of “no seriously, this shit is bonkers, you HAVE to see this.”

KamiKatsu is the latter: The son of a cult leader is ritually sacrificed, reincarnated into a world where nobody has heard of religion, nearly executed, and saved by a goofy shitty goddess (think Aqua from KonoSuba but looks like a 10 year old) who can only carry out miracles if she has enough followers. Our protagonist, whose name I will never remember again, uses his prior knowledge of cult tactics to cultivate a following for the goddess whose name I keep forgetting so she can protect their village from outside threats.

Even putting the shitpost-y visuals aside, this show is… sloppy. There's a whole lore to this that isn’t really worth diving into outside of a system of elites that can attain similar benefits by amassing followers. It’s an uneven, poorly-defined power system and it kinda doesn’t matter. A lot of this doesn’t matter. Pretty much everyone is a weird pervert. There's a decent emotional arc among a pair of characters later on, and a few of the jokes land, but for as outlandish as KamiKatsu can be, it just kinda slides off the brain once everything is said and done.

Other than the aforementioned visual gags (such as PS2-quality monsters and animals poorly implemented into hand-drawn scenes and the rotoscoped combine harvester you see above), the only other thing I can really commend the anime for is the voice performances. The cast is genuinely great; there are some pretty darn good performances by seiyuu titans like Junya Enoki (more on him when I cover Girlfriend Girlfriend and Jujutsu Kaisen), Kana Hanazawa, Aoi Yuuki, Rie Takahashi (MUCH more on her as this goes on), and the legendary Megumi Ogata. I won't be so flip as to say they’re better than this show deserves, but they definitely help it punch above its weight.

Points for originality in concept, ingenuity in working around a low budget, and some very good performances, but something this consistently insane really shouldn’t be quite so forgettable. Shouts out to the writer of the subtitles in the version I watched, though, for actually using the word “cummies.” That took gumption.

27. Mashle: Magic and Muscles

Man, I really wanted to like this one. “One Punch Man goes to Hogwarts” should be a fucking slam dunk concept for an action-comedy shonen. It gains its footing as the season rolls on, but honestly, I'm unimpressed.

In a world where magic dominates everything and those without any magical aptitude are culled, a very un-magical young man is raised in secret to train the only asset he does possess, which is his very strong body. He’s found out as an “other,” and with the old man who harbors him under threat of penalty, he enrolls in a very familiar-looking school for young wizards for reasons I've already forgotten so he can save his adoptive father. Extremely mild hilarity ensues.

Mashle doesn’t look all that good, the action is so-so, and worst of all, it’s utterly convinced that it’s funnier than it actually is. The characters are solid, the lore is kinda interesting, and I have to give the original mangaka credit for ripping off Harry Potter so blatantly and shamelessly. I really wish I had more to say about this, but I'm coming up short. That's all I've got because that’s all the show gave me. Your mileage may vary.

Guess I'll be watching season 2.

26. KonoSuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!

I’m not as high on KonoSuba as many other anime fans. It’s one of a select handful of isekai I’ve watched by choice, and I had a fun time with it, but it’s far from the best or funniest anime I’ve seen. I was excited, though, that it was finally back from a four-year hiatus, and so soon after I'd picked it up. What I got was… not quite what I'd anticipated.

While I, along with most other fans, would’ve preferred a proper third season rather than a spinoff (and we’re getting one in 2024, thankfully), Megumin is pretty much the only member of the main party tolerable enough to spend an entire season with (and yes, that includes fucking Kazuma). This season covers Megumin and Yunyun’s backstory prior to their travels to the starter town, beginning with their education in the Crimson Demon Village. The 2019 movie did a very good job fleshing out Megumin’s family and the origins of the Crimson Demon race, which turned out to be one of the best jokes in the series, so I was looking forward to learning more.

What we got, unfortunately, is pretty mid. The story largely revolves around the onset of Megumin’s obsession with explosion magic and her stubborn refusal to learn literally any other spells despite her prowess, and above all, the negative effect that stubbornness produces for everyone around her. Although Megumin is probably the least shitty of KonoSuba's main cast, the show doesn’t hesitate to remind its audience that she’s still a piece of shit. She's still likable, relatively speaking, because she constantly finds herself surrounded by freaks and perverts, but she is also wildly capricious and selfish. The only person Megumin is even remotely nice to is her precious little sister, Komekko, and any time with that little shit is time well spent. Everyone else is grist for the mill, easily sacrificed or left for dead so Megumin can make some quick coin or save her own hide.

Which is honestly fine, especially when the Crimson Demon protagonists find themselves in the resort town run by the Cult of Axis (who are, uh, much more pedophilic than their appearance in the second season led us to believe). I'm not opposed to media where everyone is shitty and kinda hates each other; that’s really the whole bent of KonoSuba to begin with, but everyone in this season just plain kinda sucks in an unfunny way that left me watching out of obligation. We also see the genesis of Yunyun’s one-sided rivalry with Megumin, and honestly, this spinoff just left me feeling even worse for Yunyun than I already did. It's never been a secret that her “rivalry” was really her way of trying to make friends with Megumin, but the explosion gremlin is so consistently frustrating for her to be around that I really wonder if it’s even worth tailing her.

Rie Takahashi (there she is again) is familiarly excellent in her fourth go as Megumin, and doesn’t hesitate to depict her as somehow even more unhinged than she was after joining Kazuma’s party. Unfortunately, that’s really all this season has to hang its comically large witch hat on. There were so many teases of the main series’ other protagonists that by the time it was over I was ready to see Darkness, Aqua, and yes, even Kazuma again. This is a fine stopgap en route to the overdue third season, I guess, but it’s far from essential unless you’re a hardcore KonoSuba fan.

25. Girlfriend, Girlfriend, season 2

In my grand Get Back Into Anime quest that started a year and a half ago, I spent a lot of my downtime really digging into what I’d missed; the stuff that came highly recommended and really took me for a ride. Mob Psycho 100’s absurd action scenes and emotional highs, Serial Experiments Lain’s thematic vagaries and alarming prescience, and ODDTAXI’s multilayered, constantly-unraveling mystery are all well and good, but I'm getting dumber as I get older. Sometimes I just need to turn my brain off.

Girlfriend Girlfriend is so unrelentingly stupid that I fear I may be unable to turn my brain back on, and that is genuine praise. Naoya, an entirely-too-honest high school boy, finally got his lifelong crush to agree to go out with him, only for another very adorable girl to confess to him shortly thereafter. Rather than hurt either of their feelings, his solution was to date both of them, and because everyone in this show is very easily convinced (and to be fair, he’s a very convincing person), he manages to bag Saki and Nagisa at the same time. The three of them navigate the relationship together, with Naoya working overtime to ensure both of them receive equal attention while the girls make sure he doesn’t blab about their situation to anyone who’ll listen.

The first season was insanity from top to bottom, but the second takes a slightly slower pace as it focuses on the two girls who aren’t simultaneously dating Naoya. The first half is about Rika’s continuing (and extralegal) attempts to woo Naoya away from his girlfriends, and the second focuses on the main five’s trip to Okinawa as Shino wrestles with her emotional attachment to him. We can all see where this is going (Girlfriend, Girlfriend, Girlfriend, Girlfriend), but the manga lasted for 16 volumes, so the show will take forever to get there, if it ever does. He doesn’t even get to kiss one of his actual girlfriends until the penultimate episode of this season.

Rika’s sociopathic attempts at wooing Naoya are unfortunately more of the same, and while her appeal and feelings for him are plainly obvious and even understandable, her antics (inasmuch as you can classify her repeatedly kidnapping and hogtying Naoya as “antics”) in the second season don’t do anything to make me want to root for her or really even see her at all anymore. Shino’s struggles, on the other hand, are entirely internal: She’s had a crush on Naoya for as long as she’s known him, but her friendship with Saki only complicates things. She wants him to get serious with Saki so she can let him go, but she can’t let go of the nagging feeling that there might be room for herself as well. Shino still hates that Naoya is two-timing her best friend in plain sight, but she sees what a thoughtful and caring young man he can still be and can’t seem to let it go.

Shino’s side of the story is all well and good on paper, and Rie Takahashi turns in a characteristically great performance (Junya Enoki kills it as Naoya as well), but by the end of the season I almost didn’t care anymore. It’s always good when a romantic comedy actually takes its time to delve into the angsty side of things, but it felt like it put the brakes on the larger story so hard that by the end of the season, I had fully forgotten Nagisa’s name. Even this season’s better comedic moments felt like more of the same from the first, and you can only eat the same junk food over and over again so many times before you’re tired of it.

I do try to address each of the shows I talk about in a vacuum, but Girlfriend Girlfriend’s second season was done no favors by having to air at the same time as The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, [...] Really Love You, which frankly blows it out of the water in both concept and execution. On its own, I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say this show “fell off” in its second season; it was cheap junk food to begin with, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for the third.

24. Shangri-La Frontier

I gave this show four episodes because it seemed to carry some hype around it. I couldn't tell if I liked it or not. I left it for a few weeks, watched up to episode ten, and still couldn’t tell if I liked it or not. We’re now an entire cour into the show and I still cannot tell you whether or not I like this show. I can say definitively that I don't hate it, but I really don’t know why I kept watching it.

The premise is not “deceptively” simple so much as it is too simple: A gamer who specializes in the broken and buggy world of kusoge (literally “shit games”) decides to take a breather in a full-dive VR MMO that shares the show’s title as his first real experience with a kamige (“god game”). He takes a wrong turn and gets waxed by a roaming elite boss, and by a quirk of his equipment he finds himself able to access an emergent scenario that nobody else in the game seems to have found yet.

Because the curse he’s received from the boss prevents him from wearing anything but his original meme gear, he’s instantly recognizable, which makes things harder once he starts running around with an unknown bunny NPC that makes him the target of real-life acquaintances, player-killers, and of course, a guild of furries. The rest of the show is, and I cannot stress this enough, watching this guy play his way through a video game.

I’ll be fair: This is, by most objective measures, a very well-made anime. The action is excellently choreographed and animated, almost every joke lands, and the music is killer (especially the rabbit blacksmith hymn). I'm still yet to find the hook, though. Maybe it’s because I'm not an MMO guy, but I really am struggling to find a reason to care about this guy’s trek through a video game when there’s not really anything at stake. It’s probably a more relatable experience to those of you who enjoy MMOs; there’s plenty of stuff from the Universal Gaming Experience in there like getting cheesed by cheap boss mechanics or making a mad dash to a checkpoint while on the brink of death to make you go “ah ha, I do that.”

It just isn’t there for me though. This feels like an extended advertisement for a game that doesn’t even exist. Of course, not everything in anime needs to be high-concept; I'm a big fan of slice-of-life, for instance, but I really can’t find a reason to keep watching into the second cour beyond a sunk cost fallacy. If I do continue watching Shangri-La Frontier, it would be in search of a reason to continue watching Shangri-La Frontier. I guess that really is the MMO experience.

At least the bunny is cute.

23. Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero

I love it when anime can be both high-concept and extremely stupid at the same time. I watched way more fantasy anime this year than I'd anticipated, and almost all of them follow an unseen, Dragon Quest-y “yay the hero’s party beat the demon king” prologue. The turn this one takes, though, was so hilariously goofy that I had to go check it out.

Ten years after the fearsome Demon Lord is taken down, they reincarnate as a three-eyed, gender-ambiguous little gremlin thing. Though weakened and diminutive (and wearing a seifuku because it was the first outfit they were given), they go to seek vengeance on Max, the hero who befell them. After flying over a suddenly very technologically-modern town, they hone in on someone who looks an awful lot like the strapping young hero, except now he’s a shut-in slob with a beer gut and a porn addiction.

Turns out the spotlight of postwar celebrity was a bit too bright for Max and he got himself canceled like a half dozen times before deciding to go full NEET off his earnings. The unnamed Demon Lord, rather than taking advantage of an easy opportunity for revenge, just kinda… feels bad for him. Rather than seek revenge right away, DL instead goes the domestic route, to Max’s chagrin. They cook and clean and urge him to get back in touch with his old adventuring buds, which he’d rather not do because there’s some serious political turmoil going on outside with two of them on opposing sides.

I may have oversold the “high concept” aspect a bit, but I really do like the idea of an archetypal sword-and-sorcery JRPG protagonist having to survive in a modern media environment. What's more, there is some bizarrely potent romantic tension between Max and the Demon Lord (who can transform their appearance into that of an attractive young woman, which makes it look slightly less weird) that should serve as catnip for the enemies-to-lovers crowd. It’s also not quite as slice-of-life-y as the initial premise suggests; that political turmoil I mentioned is much more than a background element, and Max and DL keep getting dragged into the squabble to the point where it takes over the entire plot.

I went and read the manga midway through the season and realized that all of the flashbacks to Max’s adventuring days were entirely original to the anime, and they went a long way to padding out a frankly thin plot. The action and political intrigue are well and good, but I was so taken in by the silly domestic aspect of the show that I kinda hoped it would be the whole thing. Still, it’s a nice light watch (if surprisingly horny sometimes) and a nice palate cleanser for some of the richer stuff coming later in the list.

22. Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon

By all accounts, this shouldn’t work. The title alone yields a pretty expected response: “Jesus Christ, the isekai genre is really out of ideas.” It’d be a throwaway line in 30 Rock if that show made anime jokes that didn’t involve James Franco. And yet! And yet it works, and it’s… fine.

I will commend the author of the original light novel for actually exploring what can be done with the very silly premise of someone being isekai’d into a fantasy world as a vending machine. Yes, it’s a silly title that can steal some quick cheap views on Syosetu and Bookwalker, but credit where it’s due for digging into the questions the title raises: How can he move? How can he communicate? What use does he have in this world? Do the people there know what a vending machine is? Do they even know Japanese?

These questions are all answered in a short time as our vending machine protagonist, soon assigned the name Boxxo, helps protect a strong but clumsy adventurer named Lammis from a trash mob ambush. She soon realizes that Boxxo is more than a simple inanimate object, and that strapping a fucking vending machine to her back improves her balance and accuracy in battle, so she takes him back to town to meet her friends. He soon becomes an invaluable part of daily life in Lammis’ little pastoral community and adventuring party, providing rations and creative solutions along their quests.

Once the initial absurdity of the premise settles in a bit, this show works out nicely as a cozy turn-your-brain-off light fantasy story. It’s very fun seeing Boxxo figure out how to work his and the party’s way through challenges, especially as he learns to transform into different types of service machines (including air pumps, defibrillators, and condom dispensers), but nothing ever feels too high stakes. There’s conflict, there’s action, but none of it really feels like life or death. The rest of the show is just the story of a girl and her quarter-ton box. I refuse to rephrase that.

If there’s any reason to watch this, though, it's Lammis. She’s so goddamn cute.

21. Horimiya: The Missing Pieces

The original run of Horimiya was excellent, but very condensed given that it got only 13 episodes to adapt all 16 volumes of the remastered manga. It hit all the major beats of Kyoko Hori and Izumi Miyamura’s uneventfully-blossoming romance, but left out a good handful of the side stories and characterization of less-central characters.

That's more or less where Missing Pieces comes in. I flippantly refer to this as “the DLC season” but that’s effectively what’s going on here. While the aforementioned romance is the centerpiece of the story, Horimiya is always at its best when you get to just hang out with its ensemble cast. The original run of the show did eventually settle into the more slice-of-life rhythm of the manga, but this season really dives into those.

It’s not quite a sequel, nor does it really stand on its own, but it’s necessary viewing if you developed any attachment to the cast from the original anime or manga runs. We see a lot more of Miyamura’s friendships with his classmates, student council antics, Shu Iura’s hilarious home life, and even Kyoko’s parents. There’s plenty more of the titular relationship, of course, with a little extra focus on what a holy terror Kyoko can be, even to her boyfriend.

It’s more Horimiya. I really shouldn’t have to say anything else. If you liked Horimiya, then watch this. If you haven’t seen Horimiya, then go watch Horimiya, and then watch this. Or find a watch order so you can watch both seasons at the same time.

Part 2 coming in a couple days!

#anime reviews

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