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sokayisaidiot · 4 years ago

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Dream SMP assumption #2

Today’s topic: What does Character Tommy have?

Please DO NOT read if you’re uncomfortable with the themes of death, depression and suicide. It’s a very complicated theme. I did NOT study it and do NOT know some aspects of it. I just go off the things I saw in the smp and made my own theories about it. If you’re even slightly triggered by this, please stop and do NOT try to read it. Please do NOT put yourself in some kind of uncomfortable zone. Please do not. Thank you

(This is all assumptioning from the fictional world of dream smp)

(Heavy spoilers on the resent events)

(Mainly around the lmanburg way, sadly need to learn more about badlands ): )

(This Series is created by another person, that’s just too fuckin lazy to move her butt)

Trigger warning today:

Suicide thoughts

PTSD

Depression

Child Neglect

Betrayal and Trust Issues

Death

Character Tommy’s Mental state in the last time? Terrible. But why does he goes so fast to the way of suicide? Well, maybe all the repressed Feelings, he had since a long time. For that I researched the signs for some of the points Depression

The main symptoms are:

depressed mood, sadness, depression = the start of the streams being completely sad, his quick Mood changes

Disinterest and joylessness = The disinterest coming with getting hurt and not really doing anything against it, with each visit he's getting, his joy gets smaller

Loss of drive and easy fatigue = Relying more on Plans he made

Side symptoms can include the following symptoms:

Loss of appetite = saying he has no appetite, when he clearly does

sleep disorders = Having Nightmares, sleep walking or completely not being able to sleep

Difficulty concentrating making decisions = Almost burning his compass, destroying part of the nether Bridge, less concentrating while mining

low self esteem = thinking to himself how he deserves the pain sometimes

You see my points of his Depression, he makes up ALL of those Points. His Depression came as easily at the start of his second exile.

PTSD

There are 4 Categories to diagnose PTSD

Exposed to actual or threatened Death, serious Injury

Psychological Stress (Flashback/Dreams)

Changes in Psychological Stability

Changes in Physical Ability

1. Exposure to actual or threatened Death.

There are three ways of getting the first one.

Directly experience a traumatic event

Witnessing in person a traumatic event

Learning of an traumatic event from a close friend/family member

The first one itself is the fighting and betrayal. The fighting for Lmanburg and the Duel with Dream on the Prime Path that took presumably his first two lives. The Betrayal of his close friends and ending in killing him. Mostly Eret in the start, with Dream switching sides again in the middle of the fight fo Lmanburg and Wilbur and Technoblade going against him. Wanting him to die.

Not only did Tommy witness one Death, the Death of his older Brother, Mentor Wilbur. No he also witnessed the Death of his big Role Model Jschlatt. Of course he wasn't big in the end. But he WAS a Big Figure in Tommy's Life. He saw both of them accuse and killing them completely. But the time he witnessed People getting killed and losing one of their hearts. He saw the death of his best friend Tubbo (his own execution). Also did Tommy witness Wilbur going insane and haunting him. Telling him he will never achieve him and betraying him in the end. And the teenager was there, when the nation blew up, he had to run to safety, for not being blown up.

Then he learns of his pets death, his close pets he loves. The third Criteria kinda.

2. Psychological Stress (Flashback/Dreams).

At least on of the 4 Categories have to be hit.

Unwanted Memories

Having Dreams Related to the Trauma

Psychological Distress when exposed to cues that remind you of the evebt

Psychological Reactions to those same cues

He stated as he talked to Ghostbur, that he can clearly remember when Tubbo got president and blew up the nation they FOUGHT for. Also was it shown, how he can remember every Bad thing clearly. And when Wilbur told Tommy how he never could be President, Tommy took it really bad. Wilbur meant how they would never listen to Tommy and just hold him for a joke. So he ultimately gave up his President role. Not only for his discs presumably.

Its canon that Tommy has nightmares of Wilbur going insane. He was alone with Wilbur. Exiled. Wilbur wanted to drag Tommy with him in insanity and Tommy did everything to not let that happen (and you guys have to think. Wilbur is canonically Tommys older Brother so he did already had an impact on Tommys life). He can't sleep or just sleep walks himself into the ocean. Every time going deeper and deeper. In the direction of L’manburg, also his ultimate Death.

To the last two points: Tommy, when he gave Lani, (Tubbos sister), a walk through Dream Smp, he said that the Pit in Pogtopia made him feel very uncomfortable, since the memories of getting beaten up by Technoblade, just after he killed Tubbo, were not old. Also, they forbid Rockets and TNT, since they were big part of killing or just destroying things he loved.

3. Changes in Psychological Stability.

There are 7 Points you have to fulfill, 2 of them are required and Tommy HAS 6 POINTS OF THEM

Briefly explained:

He blames mostly himself and others how things go wrong in the last time. Mostly Technoblade for placing the withers, triggering some big amounts of TNT. His friends for not visiting. Himself for not being perfect.

Thinking to himself how he couldn't be happy only with massive influence of others or talking to himself how he would do something that might make him happy.

He feels himself detached from everybody. Thinking how everybody could easily life on without him. So he detaches himself from talking TO PEOPLE. Stopping showing up anymore. Only after a while, he trusted himself, but with the time he does it slower.

His favorite hobbies not really being done anymore. As for saying he doesn't start to care for Primes anymore.

Telling himself how everybody is doing things out of pity for him. His lack in trust others in fear of being betrayed. That everybody is out against him.

His fear of being completely abandoned by the People he has left. His Anger for not coming to visit and just giving his gift or leaving him alone. Shame on being exiled by his best friend and the second time.

4. Changes in Physical Ability

The three points are (which upwards are already explained):

Problems with concentration = him not really able to think straight while mining

Problems with Sleep = Nightmares, sleep walking, not being really able to rest completely

Easy to Startle = startled with People surprisingly coming to his island without saying things. He gets more surprised and jumpy

(This is all seen by “The Film Theorists”, “Film Theory: The Spiderman 2 Mystery! Why Spiderman Lost his Powers!”)

He has many, way too many criteria for being so young. And he won't get any help. A way of getting better is having time to yourself. But Tommy is alone in Exile? Why is it just getting worse? Well, Tommy has time to himself. But he constantly gets watched over. He gets only worse through the manipulation of Dream.

Betrayal and Trust Issues

People are getting angry at Tommy for not trusting others. But what would have you done in his position. I mean nobody could have known about the Betrayal of Eret. So when that happened we were all in shock. When Dream switched sides to fight for Marburg, we were all shocked. When Wilbur was the Traitor and blew up L’manburg, we were also shocked. When Techno kind of told Tommy he should die and Placed Withers, we were shocked. When Tubbo exiled Tommy, nobody had expected that and everybody was shocked.

Now look at it from Tommys eyes.

Eret = A good friend, nice companion, trusted part of the rebellion. Betrayed them for seeing a better deal, leaving them to rot, while he had his castle.

Dream = Kind of older Brother, funny to be around and spends also time with him. Gives your already insane Brother Dynamite to explode the country you fought Tooth and Nail for and tosses you around like a doll.

Wilbur = Older Brother, Mentor, President, cool, awesome to be around, talented, someone who also spends time with you. kind of protects you from trouble. Goes insane, wants to drag you with him, explodes the country, betrays you for not having a thing he wants. Makes you doubt yourself

Technoblade = Also really talented. Big Brother. Teaches things like fighting. One of the best PVPers. Leaves you to rot and fight with the last bit, makes fun of you and not helping you, even if you are scared of small spaces.

Tubbo = The Person you did everything with, trusted with everything. You are like Brothers and no matter how many people against you, you are with each other. You make one thing for yourself and apparently you are selfish. You are alone now and he didn't come ones to visit once.

Everybody else = They find you annoying and only come to visit to make fun, look at him like he's a Zoo animal. but when something happens, then he is a hero apparently. And those pity gifts. Gifts saying he is on the lowest of the low, in need of “help”.

Help is right for you, but more like spending time with you when you're alone, and not being able to visit others. They act like they can visit him any time, because, hey look! He can't go anywhere anyways, so...

A Way of getting better is

Repairing the broken or damaged relationships = Talking and doing something with Tubbo, his best friend. Talking and making up with his brothers Techno and Wilbur. Spending time with his father. Just relaxing and letting him talk about his trauma.

Doing something he really wanted to do for some time = Finally getting his discs back, which were stolen and in constant danger, since its one of his most prized things

Letting him be his age = He is pretty young, but went to be a right hand man, made sacrifices, losing his lives for the country, his friends and other things. Letting him act his age, doing stupid things and not giving him consequences that would be given only people who are the worst kind. Letting him build his stuff with good arguments and letting him hang out. Not being Vice President maybe.

Putting himself over everything for once = Thats really a good discussable theme, but for my points, which I made with letting him be his age, it kind of stated it already. He wanted his discs after everything. The wars were won, L’manburg had its Freedom and its People safe. So he should have been allowed to do one thing for himself again. Burning Georges House is no excuse, but dude, thats easily reparable. The Trauma, Depression and PTSD that was given to this child not.

It also can fit in with Tubbo- Just sayin (Just some points have to be changed)

GIVE THOSE KIDS A BREAK

I got some of those things from other Posts!

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condorclaw · 4 years ago

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The different ways the DSMP characters reacted to Tommy’s return and what they dealt with in his absence

I've been thinking about today's stream (shock of the fucking century), and mmm let's just take a moment to highlight how interesting the reunions are between Tommy and the others (Sam, Jack, Tubbo, etc.) by looking at their reactions and how they felt when they heard about Tommy's death. (Note: I have not watched Ranboo or Jack's streams that take place after this one. This is only detailing the information that occurred in Tommy's stream.)

Tommy’s death impacted a lot of people, with them going through many different stages of grief and coming to a realization of their own in terms of how they viewed Tommy or the server in general. His death was sudden and gruesome, with Sam being the only one to witness the evidence, ending up leaving quite a few skeptical if he really did die.

Tommy was resurrected by Dream, and now has to deal with the reality that life was moving on, which he wanted to follow. He wanted to go back to the way how everybody treated him, but him returning is essentially a zombie to everybody else. There were many different reactions to this.

SAM

"H-How are you here...?"

Reaction: Upon hearing Tommy was still alive, Sam was frantic in getting him out, and after Tommy left the cell, Sam remained in shock, even as Tommy yelled at him. Despite not understanding what happened, Sam was willing to try and make Tommy as comfortable as possible, even putting away his sword upon Tommy's request. He remained soft-spoken throughout the process of getting Tommy out, allowing Tommy to yell and vent his heart out, even if the words were reminding Sam of his failure.

Before Tommy was found alive: Sam was the one probably most affected by Tommy's death. He was in an awful state of depression, causing his words to be softer and his actions were less calculated. Sam deeply blamed himself for Tommy's death, telling Ranboo about the extent it affected him, even implying that he would kill the one who set off the TNT, since it's what caused him to take precautions in the first place. San revealed he was tormented by Dream to both Ranboo and Foolish, with Dream laughing at Sam upon him finding Tommy's body, and demanding Sam to come into the cell so he could kill him too. Sam blamed himself for Hannah's corruption, thinking of himself as a coward for not going into the egg room due to his trauma.

TUBBO

"You're not real."

Reaction: Tubbo didn't see Tommy approach at first, since he was busy with his hotel. When Tommy startled him however, Tubbo backed away as fast as his could, breathing heavily as he tried to get his words out. Tubbo asked Tommy to pinch him to prove he was real, which Tommy did. As Tommy talks to Tubbo about what happened and how he's feeling, Tubbo tries to retain as much information as he can through the shock that Tommy was alive after another fatal incident. When Tommy asks if Tubbo can leave him alone as he processes things, Tubbo agrees to do so, but tries to secretly follow Tommy around, needing to make sure he's real.

Before Tommy was found alive: Tubbo had originally been in denial upon hearing Tommy was dead, being rather familiar with Tommy's previous assumed death. He continued to work on his hotel with Ranboo, his new husband that he got engaged to when Tommy was in prison, even adopting a son, Michael, with Ranboo. Aside from working on the hotel and spending time with Ranboo, Tubbo made it his mission to discover who planted the TNT, his denial beginning to fade as he accepted the loss of Tommy. He began to look for every possible solution, even going as far as to suspect things that are entirely unrelated to the cause. He built a memorial for Tommy outside Snowchester, building a bench, placing a jukebox, and making a prime log in his memory.

JACK

"Bigger elephant in the room, why are you alive!?"

Reaction: Jack had been working at his own hotel when Tommy came to see him. The shock from Jack was immediate, insisting that Tommy was still dead, and stating that he grieved for Tommy, so he can't be gone. He becomes so caught up in his rage, he reveals to Tommy that he had been trying to kill Tommy for months. Jack states that he went to hell, but becomes furious when Tommy fails to acknowledge it, and just brushes it off. He insists that he did everything better than Tommy ever could, and declares that he deserves to die.

Before Tommy was found alive: Jack was initially happy upon Tommy's death, declaring that he had won the fight against him. As time stretched on though, Jack began to lament over his and Tommy's shared history, realizing that Tommy was his closest friend on the sever, and that he had been angry due to believing that Tommy valued the discs above everything else. He decided to let go of his anger, and wanted to start all over again. With this mindset, he burned down his old house, and was the one who told several of the server members about Tommy's death, including Quackity and Ant.

CONNOR

"I just got this house, like, two days ago."

Reaction: When Tommy entered his house, Connor was scared, seeing Tommy as a ghost and hitting him, which triggered Tommy. Realizing that Tommy was alive, Connor asked if this meant he had to move back into Ninja's house, and showed Tommy his diary, with the third page sharing that he missed Tommy. Because Connor was the only one treating him like he always had, Tommy told Connor about how touch triggered him. He tells Connor about what happened, which allows Connor to express his feelings of wanting to improve the prison system. He patiently listens to Tommy talk, not asking Tommy about what happened after Tommy shares his discomfort in talking about it. Before the two separate, Connor says they can talk about the system when Tommy's feeling better.

Before Tommy was found alive (note: I haven't watched the stream yet, so I'll be describing past moments from their relationship): Connor has always had an interesting relationship with Tommy, the two being on rather neutral terms with some sort of understanding between them. Connor and Tommy had conflict at the beginning, but there was care shown between them. Even after Tommy and Technoblade kidnapped and traumatized him, Connor expressed that he didn't feel like Tommy was bad, just conflicted. He was one of the few adults who didn't believe that Tommy should be punished for things he couldn't control. Despite their bickering and occasional frustration towards each other, Connor does see Tommy as just a kid who got caught up in something, and Tommy does care about Connor as a friend.

RANBOO

"You're, uh... You're here! Wow! That's, uh, that's cool."

Reaction: Upon Ranboo and Tommy seeing each other, they both stared in silence at first, even when Tubbo went to slightly hide behind Ranboo. Ranboo tried to initiate casual conversation with Tommy while trying to process his return, asking Tommy how he's been. The conversation would occasionally get interrupted as Tubbo tried to make little advances towards Ranboo, making him amused. Ranboo tried to ask Tommy about how he was alive, and tells Tommy how he learned about his death through Sam. Tommy expressed his discomfort, frustratedly asking Ranboo if Tubbo was now his new best friend. Ranboo tried to give Tommy an allium flower, but Tommy immediately burned it out of frustration, stunning Ranboo a bit. Tommy leaves after saying he's uncomfortable, leaving Ranboo behind as Tubbo continues on to follow Tommy.

Before Tommy was found alive: Tommy's death affected Ranboo greatly, making him question the morality of everybody around him, leading him to lash out at Sam for allowing Tommy to go anywhere near Dream, and making Ranboo believe that people were only sad about Tommy because he was dead. Ranboo especially reflected on his first meeting with Tommy, thinking about how he threw away the allium flower Ranboo had given him. Later he realized that Tommy had never thrown it away, and understands that Tommy did actually care about him. Ranboo thinks of himself as responsible for Tommy's exile, and has to juggle with these thoughts alongside keeping his new alliance from discovering his secret husband and son. Ranboo became very protective of Tubbo and Michael, helping Tubbo deal with his grief and conveying that Michael was the only constant happiness he has in his life.

QUACKITY

"T-Tommy! Welcome back, Tommy!"

Reaction: When Tommy approached him, Quackity had stepped back, believing that it was somebody else in a Tommy costume, and calling them horrible for wearing it. After he sees Tubbo watching Tommy closely, reality starts to settle in, and after Tommy talks about a specific experience he had with Quackity, Quackity becomes overjoyed at his return, telling Tommy about his business plan and becomes excited that Tommy will be able to see it. Quackity also asks about the revival book, which Tommy uncomfortably tells him about, recounting memories from his death. He says goodbye to Quackity after that, but before he leaves, Quackity gives Tommy a fish, joking that he "found Nemo". Before he leaves, he says the two should catch up sometime, and dashes away happily, with his last words being: "what the fuck, that green son of a b-".

Before Tommy was found alive: Quackity hadn't been seen much around the server, his last big interaction being with Jack when he learned about Tommy's death. Upon hearing that he died, Quackity tried to hide his feelings, insisting that the business came first, despite how sorrowful he sounded. Before that, Quackity had been a very positive figure in Tommy's life, willing to defend him against Dream's unfair rules and harsh actions. He had visited Tommy in exile, even becoming worried for his mental health at specific points. Quackity cares a lot for Tommy, and though he won't outright state it, he has a strong connection with him.

CONCLUSION

Everybody on the server has had different interactions with Tommy, and were all affected in different ways when he died. Upon him leaving the prison and turning up alive, they all had different reactions to his return, each relating to their own character and what they experienced while he was away. They all showed different kinds of headspaces, ranging from overjoyed to furious, and Tommy had his own thoughts on each of them as well.

TLDR: Everybody's interactions with Tommy made sense with their characters' histories with him, and all express different kinds of thoughts and reactions that people can go through.

Now let's get all these fuckers some therapy, let's fucking goooooo.

#I might have missed some information but here we are! if there is something I missed lemme know!#this took! *checks clock* like three fucking hours help me #dream smp #dsmp #c!awesamdude #c!tubbo #c!jack manifold #c!connor #c!ranboo #c!quackity #c!tommy #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #I think it is?#my post

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rollerjason · 4 years ago

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THEORY TIME BOIS

Okay so, today we had quite a few lore streams that held a LOT of subtle Easter eggs! I’m gonna talk about them here and what I think they could mean.

Its gonna be a lot so be warned.

First things first, we finally got to see this room for where the members of the newly formed Syndicate can go to talk. (It’s a glorified club room) In this room there were several things I and many others noticed.

For one, I noticed there is a wither rose in the center of the table in the Syndicate. Now this could, honest to prime, just be a decoration with nothing meaningful behind it- BUT THIS IS THE DREAMSMP AND YALL SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN THAT, especially because Phil built it. I think it could be connected somehow to Karl and the in-between (or Ranboo) to tie together the lore. Perhaps whatever “the castle” or whomever is controlling the ways of the castle in the in-between is also someone we know in canon and they are using wither roses/placing wither roses around for some sort of purpose. I could have also just been there to match the wither replica on the back wall.

The other thing I wanted to talk about are the signs in the syndicate room; The three on three of the chairs.

Two of them were taken and claimed by Techno and Phil and one was not taken but saved and claimed by someone we are not aware of yet. (Techno and Phil know who though) Techno’s sign/codename (as they call them) said “Protesilaus”. Phil’s said “Zephyrus”. And The unknown person’s said “Harpocrates”. As is probably obvious, they are all the names of people from Greek mythology.

I wanna go through the different names and how they relate to the dump characters they are connected with.

Techno’s greek codename, Protesilaus, belongs to the first soldier who died from stepping off a boat in the Trojan War. He was killed by another man named Hector. This could all be pointing towards Techno’s character either being killed (for the first time) soon by entering someplace. Maybe the prison? Maybe someplace one of the other character’s tries to keep hidden, like Karl’s library where he stores his tales books.

Philza’s codename, Zephyrus, refers to the west wind. It was also said that Zephyrus lived in a cave in Thrace. This could tie to Phil’s character having wings. (canonically damaged wings from the first blowing up of L’manberg) The cave in Thrace could also maybe refer to the cave where Wilbur pushed the button, it being the place Phil was introduced and therefore his “base” in a sense.

Now, the final name, Harpocrates. This one is tricky because I have a few candidates for who it could be connected to.

My first candidate is the obvious, Dream. Harpocrates was a god (Dream was ranting about being a god in the prison with Tommy after resurrecting him), specifically the god of “silence, secrets and confidentiality”. Dream has so many secrets and has shown he can keep things confidential. (The secret of the resurrection book) The other little detail I got from google is that Harpocrates was seen as a embodiment of hope by Plutarch, a greek philosopher. Perhaps Tommy is not the Hope in Pandora’s vault and instead Dream?

The other person it could represent is Karl. Karl is holding a lot of secrets; The in-between, time traveling, and his library book room in Kinoko Kingdom. It could be him but I find it less likely than Dream because of the way Techno and Phil talked about this Harpocrates person. They referred to them like they were already a part of the Syndicate, I don’t believe Karl is with them as much as I believe Dream is.

Ik this is all kinda vague and its a lot to take in but I wanted to get it out there so people can theorize!

#mcyt #mcyt fandom #dsmp #dreamsmp #technoblade #techno #Philza minecraft #karl jacobs #Dreamwastaken #the inbetween #L'manberg #ranboo #pandora's vault

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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IN-DEPTH: How Did Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Become Japan’s Hottest Domestic Franchise?

At this point, it’s safe to say that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is one of the biggest franchises this decade. The manga series sold more than double what One Piece did at its peak in 2020, the Mugen Train anime film has outgrossed Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning Spirited Away to become the king of the Japanese box office, and the franchise is estimated to bring in 270 billion yen to the Japanese economy by itself this year.

Looking at all of that, there is no question that Demon Slayer is the hottest domestic property in Japan right now. But how did it get here? Let’s examine how the little manga series from new author Koyoharu Gotouge became a cultural phenomenon in Japan.

Demon Slayer’s History with Jump

Before the Demon Slayer anime started, the series was running in Weekly Shonen Jump, one of Japan’s top manga magazines. The series started in Jump on February 15, 2016, and had modest success, with around 3.5 million copies of the manga series printed and sold as of February 2019, just a few months before the anime premiered in April 2019.

During Jump Festa 2017 — an annual exhibition for series being released by Shueisha in Weekly Shonen Jump and their other manga magazines — the first chapter of Demon Slayer was given out in a sample booklet alongside other new series that had started in 2016, such as THE PROMISED NEVERLAND. Outside that sample booklet though, Demon Slayer barely existed in the mind’s eyes of attendees, with gazes glued to NEVERLAND and BORUTO as the new hot series.

It wasn’t until Jump Festa 2020 (held in December 2019) that Demon Slayer got some time in the spotlight, with the Aniplex booth doing its best at showing off the series that had become such a hit over the previous summer.

Demon Slayer at the Aniplex booth during Jump Festa 2020 (photo: Daryl Harding)

Even though the collected manga volumes weren’t selling as much as one might expect from the now behemoth of a series, Demon Slayer was slowly gaining traction among fans, but wouldn’t really break out until just before the first episode of the TV anime aired on television in Japan.

The Outside Influences Brought into Demon Slayer

When the Demon Slayer TV anime was announced in June 2018, it was revealed that the studio Ufotable would be adapting the series. The Aniplex-affiliated studio is widely praised for their work on the Fate franchise, which has culminated with the Fate/stay night [Heaven’s Feel] film series. Ufotable-produced works are known to already be event-type series, and with Demon Slayer being their first Weekly Shonen Jump adaptation, it was a series to look forward to on that point alone.

First Demon Slayer TV anime key visual (source: Anime Eiga)

Just before the series premiered in April 2019, it was also revealed that popular singer LiSA — who was then mostly known for her work on the Sword Art Online openings, including the wildly popular theme to the Ordinal Scale anime film “Catch the Moment�� — would be singing the opening theme for the series, with the first preview of the song at Anime Japan that year. LiSA went on to have a solo concert at the Yokohama Arena on the last days of the Heisei era in April 2019, selling out the 17,000 capacity hall.

youtube

AnimeJapan 2019 Trailer

Music can be a huge element in propelling the popularity of a series in Japan. Some of the biggest anime over the last decade was supported by their opening and ending themes, which kept the anime in people's minds. Demon Slayer’s opening theme “Gurenge” became such a hit in its own right that it dragged the rest of the series along with it. This formula worked to bring Your Name to the forefront of Japanese pop culture in 2016 — you couldn’t go anywhere in Tokyo without hearing Radwimps. And the double whammy of “Gurenge” and “Homura” (the theme for Demon Slayer: Mugen Train) has helped the series achieve even more success.

Rounding out the series was the star-studded voice cast who all have their own fan bases. Voicing Tanjiro is Natsuki Hanae, who was best known at the time for Ken Kaneki in Tokyo Ghoul; Zenitsu is voiced by Hiro Shimono, who voices Connie in Attack on Titan, and the boar himself Inosuke is voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, who voices Kirito in Sword Art Online. Nezuko's voice actor Akari Kito, who largely played side characters up until her casting in Demon Slayer, would become a well-known name and go on to play many more lead roles after the series became popular.

On paper, the breadth of talent involved in Demon Slayer far exceeded that of just any TV anime series. The production committee, led by Aniplex, was banking hard on people giving the series a try before the first episode had even aired. And it worked.

Topping the Film Charts before the First Episode Even Aired

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train has topped the film charts since it first premiered on October 18, 2020, but it’s not the first time the series has been in theaters. Prior to the TV airing of the first episode on April 6, 2019, the first five episodes were shown in eleven theaters across Japan starting on March 29. The screenings were dubbed “The Bonds Between Brother and Sister” and topped the mini-theater rankings, with over 10,000 people going in just the first three days.

Ironically the press release from Aniplex announcing that the screenings were being extended in early 2019 said the “excitement for Demon Slayer is at its peak!” If those screenings were anything on the mountain of the popularity of Demon Slayer, they’d be right near the start of the trek.

“The Bonds Between Brother and Sister” Visual

Due to the immense popularity, the two-week special screenings were then extended for another week at all eleven cinemas, which were coming in at Number 1 on the mini-theater rankings (for screenings in less than 30) for the two weeks it was originally scheduled for.

It’s no surprise then that just after these screenings had finished, and during the early broadcast of the anime on TV, that the production committee ordered the Mugen Train arc — which directly follows after the ending of the first season — to be produced as a film, according to industry sources.

Demon Slayer’s Evolving Popularity Throughout Its Airing

Hiroyuki Nakano, the editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Jump, spoke to Nikkei Entertainment in the March 2020 issue of the magazine on the slow success of the manga series, explaining that “normally the number of sales of a series increases gradually during the broadcast, but the number of copies sold of Demon Slayer exploded when the broadcast ended.” Nakano alluded to streaming services helping the anime series escalate the popularity of the original series by giving people the accessibility of being able to catch up on the show the next day via services like Amazon Prime and Netflix, who streamed the show weekly in Japan.

Gone are the days where an anime fan would have to record an episode of a late-night anime series because it aired early in the morning. With streaming services on the rise within Japan, that night’s episode of Demon Slayer could be watched the next day on the way to work or school, on the train, or on the toilet.

“I felt that the way people interacted with anime had changed and that we had entered a new phase,” Nakano explained, discussing how Demon Slayer’s rise in popularity was due to the evolving ways of media consumption.

This helped the series when the famous Episode 19 aired, blowing away all expectations of what an anime could do in animation. If Demon Slayer wasn’t already part of the modern anime zeitgeist, that one episode — which trended worldwide on Twitter after airing — propelled the series to the forefront by word-of-mouth. Inside Japan, people couldn’t help but talk about the latest episode of the series, treating it like prime-time event television in the same vein as Game of Thrones would have been in the west.

Demon Slayer’s success has also been well documented since the anime finished airing on September 28, 2019. The manga series has broken all records to become the most-sold series for a year, the Mugen Train sequel film is now the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan, and has given Japan the honor of being the third country to have a film reach US $300 million in a single market during its initial run.

Why Does Demon Slayer Resonate With Japanese Audiences?

How Demon Slayer became popular is one thing, but why did this one series, when many others have the same level of talent behind them, become the cultural phenomenon it is today? In December, Oricon released the results of a survey given to Japanese people on how well they know the series, and if so, why did they like it so much.

An astonishing 97.6 percent of the 3,848 respondents, who ranged from teens to the elderly, said they knew of the series, with 40.5 percent of people saying they knew it well. Of those who knew the series, they described how they liked the world setting and had sympathy for the characters. A male teenager said that he “was fascinated by the story of the main character growing up while struggling with various difficulties,” while a woman in her sixties enjoyed “the storytelling and LiSA's powerful voice.” A woman in her thirties remarked that she “never thought I'd be talking about anime at my age with my 60-something mother.”

All through the responses, Demon Slayer is bridging the divide between generations, with each generation taking something out of the story that Gotouge has crafted.

The top-notch action scenes and relatable characters draw in the younger crowd, while more middle-aged people get a kick out of the family bonds that weave throughout the story, and the aesthetic of the entire series gives older people a sense of nostalgia, also known as “Taisho romance,” but without it being overly melodramatic about the era. Even kids are going to the schoolyard to reproduce the breathing techniques seen in the series. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga joined them when he made a cheeky reference to Demon Slayer’s breathing techniques while speaking to the DIET in November.

The accumulation of these points has made Demon Slayer a cultural touchstone, one that could only be born out of Japan. Even if the world wasn’t in the current state it is in, the Shonen Jump series would be just as big in its homeland, if not bigger, with more people going to the theaters and traveling to the areas that influenced the series.

Living in Japan at the moment means living in a world surrounded by Demon Slayer. From billboards promoting the film to masks people wear, you can’t go outside (not that people should be!) without having the series in your eyesight. And with how good the series is, and how many people are enjoying it, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba deserves its time in the sun.

Demon Slayer masks being sold in Harajuku in December 2020 (photo: Daryl Harding)

Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daryl Harding

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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spicy-ahjumma · 5 years ago

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❕WHY SORI DESERVES YOUR URGENT SUPPORT & ATTENTION! ❕

I'm not talented with GIFs or anything like other people on here are, so I'll leave that to them, but I want to take a second of your time to talk about Kim Sori.

Sori (stylised as SoRi) is a female solo artist under M.O.L.E Music. She was formerly half of the nugu duo CoCoSoRi, whom have since disbanded.

She featured as one of the main roles on the Amazon Prime K-Drama, [email protected], and was a member of the resulting project group; Real Girls Project (RGP). This was her first major acting role and she absolutely smashed it.

SoRi then appeared on MixNine, hoping to gain some more exposure for CoCoSoRi, where she was told by YG that she should "give up on being a singer" because she's "too old". (She's only 29!!) He reduced all of her achievements in her drama and her previous promotions with CoCoSoRi to nothing and was honestly unbelievably cruel and sexist towards her.

Despite that, SoRi continued to fight for her dream. She started a YouTube channel, SoriNotSorry!, where she began filming vlogs and other fun videos to communicate with her fans (called SoriNation or SweetNotes!) and she began working on crowdfunding for her solo debut.

On the 4th September, 2018, SoRi made her solo debut with the song 'Touch'. This song was actually received quite well, unlike SoRi's previous work in her duo. 'Touch' started to generate a lot of views & exposure for SoRi, meaning that she was able to do a full promotional cycle on music shows, and her MV was even shown on a screen in Hongdae. SoRi was finally starting to get the recognition that she deserved....

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But, things got worse when SoRi's former group member, CoCo, along with her Koreaboo YouTuber friend, Edward Avila, decided to slander Sori's name, out of jealousy that her solo debut, 'Touch', did better than CoCo's solo work. They accused SoRi of receiving preferential treatment from the company for her solo debut, despite both members using crowdfunding for their solo works, and they claimed that SoRi was relying on showing her body to gain views. (M.O.L.E has since taken legal action against CoCo for this.)

Following the success of 'Touch', SoRi released her 2nd crowdfunded single; 'I'm Ready'. Unfortunately, this didn't quite receive the same support that 'Touch' did, and whilst it managed to hold it's position in the top 100 on the charts for quite a while, it seemed like SoRi was back to square one again.

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That brings us to today, the 10th of July, 2019. SoRi has just released her 3rd single, 'I Am Not Alone'. This will probably be SoRi's last comeback, ever, unless we can get the same kind of response that 'Touch' had!

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SoRi has worked so so hard throughout her career, she has had to deal with things that she never should've had to deal with, and she is honestly such a kind and pure person.

Her new song is a collaboration with Folded Dragons. It is an EDM-style song that talks about facing challenges but refusing to let them overcome you. SoRi, who has self-proclaimed herself as not being the best of dancers, has worked with 1Million Dance Studio for the choreography, and it is honestly a piece of artwork more than an MV.

That's why I'm asking you, please, PLEASE, don't let this be SoRi's last comeback! She deserves so much better than this! Please stream her MV and show her lots of love!

Thank you for your time.

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paintingwithdarkness · 5 years ago

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How and Why Bluepulse Should Be Canon Next Season

So, we didn’t get it this season. With everything that went on, all of the plot holes left unresolved and some general disappointment all round, I suppose it wasn’t the right time. I’m upset, don’t get me wrong, but I can live with it, IF bluepulse can become canon next season. I believe S4 is the prime time to get bluepulse, (if Grandon decides to finally stop jerking us shippers around) and here are the reasons why:

THE TIME SKIP. One of the major reasons bluepulse couldn’t become canon this season (at least according to Greg) was because of Bart and Jaime’s age gap. I know a lot of people expressed concern over the difference of the three years between them (some even going so far as to call it pedophilia) and how that would effect things. Greg agreed that 15 and 18 was too much of a difference. Now that s3 is over however, there is the opportunity for the characters to be aged up yet again with another timeskip. I’M NOT SUGGESTING ANYTHING DRASTIC HERE. I think three or four years would be about right. It wouldn’t leave too much time in between seasons, so there is a chance the plot points that went unresolved this season can be rectified. Additionally, it puts Bart and Jaime into the same age range. Both of them would be in college. Bart would be 18 or 19, and Jaime would be 21 or 22. The three year gap would no longer be problematic. Plus (and I know I’m getting ahead here) I would love to see the boys on the League. As I recall, 18 was the agreed upon age to admit new members. Plus, Barry has to raise the twins! Being the Flash, maintaining his job as a CSI and raising two speedster babies all at once can’t be easy. Let the guy retire! Bart’s a legacy. Seeing him take the Flash mantle would complete his journey!

THE SHOW IS ALLOWED TO HAVE REP NOW. Though I really can’t fathom why special permission was needed. Being gay, or lesbian, or bisexual, or trans, or any other member of LGBTQ+ isn’t explicit, or warrants a mature rating. It’s the same thing as a heterosexual relationship. The precedent that two men or two women having a relationship together is considered explicit is really unhealthy and harmful. Special permission to include LGBTQ+ characters should never have been needed. ANYWAY, getting back to the show, Grandon tried, and fell short. Violet came out as non-binary. Great! But after the three seconds it took her/them to come out, the subject of her/their gender was never brought up again. A discussion about Violet’s preferred pronouns, or even just hearing the other characters of the show switch to using them/they for Violet would have shown viewers that Grandon was actually serious about Violet’s gender identity, and not just throwing that bit in there to make a point. Secondly, we had the Harper/Harper scene. I’m not going to go into it, because we all know why that scene was so harmful, but I do need to bring it up. And finally, we have Seabreeze (Kaldur/Wynnde). THAT IS THE ONLY GOOD REP WE GOT THIS SEASON. Am I happy for Kaldur? Yes. That man deserved some happiness after all of the stress and heartbreak he’s been through. Seabreeze was the ship we didn’t ask for, but the one that we deserved. This however, doesn’t give Grandon an excuse. One good gay relationship doesn’t erase the two previously mentioned mistakes. If Grandon is actually serious about making an attempt to give us good representation and understanding the LGBTQ+ community, they will give us more characters that we can relate to. Also, it will show fans that Grandon isn’t just ticking a box by including one gay couple. It isn’t ‘one-and-done’ with this issue. We have a plethora of cis-het relationships in this show (some of which are really unnecessary). All I’m asking for is that the same respect and consideration can be put into including characters of different sexual backgrounds. (Two white guys have no problem introducing characters of color- they’ve actually done a pretty good job of being inclusive- with a few exceptions. Why is it different for two straight guys to introduce LGBTQ+ characters?)

NATASHA IRONS. We got Steel this season. Why not his niece? Granted, there have been a lot of new character introductions this season with little/no development. I understand that. But one of those characters who got little screen time was Traci. She was heavily promoted pre-s3 and was in two episodes? I know there are people in the fandom who wanted to see more of her. Introducing Natasha next season will give Grandon that opportunity. Having Traci come back next season in a healthy lesbian relationship? Even better. Natasha and Traci were girlfriends in the comics. There’s no reason they can’t be together in the show as well. Going along with that train of thought, Traci dated Jaime in the comics too. I have a feeling that’s why Grandon put them together this season. But, if I’m being honest, Jaime and Traci’s relationship didn’t go anywhere in the comics, and aside from one episode this season, it wasn’t developed in the show either. There’s really no point in keeping them together next season. There is however two excellent opportunities for good rep, if Jaime and Traci break things off. It frees them both up for relationships with Bart and Natasha respectively. If Grandon really wants to impress us and make up for the bad rep from this season, this would be an excellent way to do it. We’d get a healthy gay pairing and a healthy lesbian pairing. Relatable to a HUGE population of non-straight viewers.

THE SHIP IS POPULAR. It’s not a very good arguing point, but it is true. I understand Grandon have never been huge listeners of fanservice, and I don’t necessarily think they should be. Young Justice is their show to write, and if they gave into every fan request, the show would be a disaster. BUT, it’s not like they can ignore the fans either. They have to make a show that we will enjoy watching. If they go around disappointing the fanbase and insulting us at every turn, they’re going to lose a lot of viewers. We fought hard to get this show back. Grandon would be stupid to let it last for only two more seasons. Yj has been trending on DC Universe since we first came back in January. It’s the most lucrative show for the streaming service (I personally only bought a subscription for this show in particular). Including things such as popular ships that the audience will enjoy seeing is just a smart decision to keep people coming back and paying that subscription fee each month. Bluepulse is the third most popular ship in the fandom behind Birdflash and Spitfire. With the bridges Grandon has burned with Wally West at the end of s2 and now again in s3, the two most popular ships are going to be a little hard to continue pulling off. Birdflash fans got Dick’s slip of the tongue in Private Security and his fever dream this season, while Spitfire fans got Artemis�� moment of closure in ep25 today. But how are these ships supposed to be carried on into the future? I really really hate saying this as someone who actually loved Wally in s1, but I don’t think he’s coming back. With all of the teasers and everything Grandon has done with him/his ghost this season, I think it was their way of letting the fans down easy. (Trust me, I was really hoping he was going to come back. I held onto that hope until the end of the season). So that leaves them with bluepulse. It would honestly be stupid not to put Bart and Jaime together. With Birdflash and Spitfire out, it’s the most popular pairing in the fandom. The two have had plenty of time together on screen to grow and become friends (potentially develop feelings) that suddenly having them together when we go into S4 won’t be any kind of shock. With all of the development they got together in s2, it’s a waste to not make them a couple. It’s all there. All Grandon has to do is make it official.

These are the most important reasons and justifications I’ve been able to come up with. Honestly, I don’t know why Greg and Brandon wouldn’t take this opportunity. Bluepulse becoming canon next season would be easy to include, and make up for a lot of the canon relationship B.S. that occurred this season. It should be the top goal for S4.

#young justice #bart allen #jaime reyes #blue beetle #kid flash #bluepulse #yj #s4 #please grandon #just listen for once #don’t be stupid #this is such a good opportunity #don’t waste it

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devnicolee · 5 years ago

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The Beginning

A/N: Just some random fluff on how this couple finally got together. This started as a flashback in one of the chapters and became way too long haha

Word count: 3,197

Jabari summers were Zarah’s favorite part of the year. Though still relatively cold compared to the rest of Wakanda, the snow melted and gave way to lush green pastures, vibrant and colorful gardens, babbling streams and hiking trails ripe and ready for exploration. It was the perfect time for exploring all the hidden secrets of the mountains that everyone was forced to miss out on during the harsh winters.

And that’s what brought Zarah out to an old hiking trail in the mountains west of Gorilla City with her friend. He had shown up at her parent’s cottage earlier and demanded she accompany him on a ride because he found "the best view of Wakanda yet". He did a lot of demanding and usually got his way, a perk of being chief.

She wondered if there was an ulterior motive to this excursion. After all, everyone knew that the best view in Jabariland was on Gorilla Mount, right next to the Great Lodge. But still, Zarah indulged him as it allowed her some quality time with him and gave her an excuse to escape her parents for a little while. There was a comfortable silence over the pair as they rode leisurely. They were just happy to be together, listening to the thuds of their horses hooves, the quiet jitters throughout the trees, and the occasional chirps from the birds flying above them.

"How is home little one?"

Her face fell into a scowl at the question and his pet name for her. One, she hated that nickname (and he knew it) and two, he knew how home was. Home was how it always had been. "The usual." She knew the answer didn’t satisfy her riding companion when she received a grunt and a hard glare in response, both demanding the full truth. She bristled at how M’Baku saw through her facades. "Well… you know N’Danna is away at training. So it has gotten worse without him there to play referee. Apparently someone at the council meeting asked why I hadn’t settled down yet, haven’t been courted by the other councilmembers’ sons or your brothers. ‘So many potential suitors,’ they said, and I am ‘wasting my time and youth’" she emphasized with air quotes."Mother and father have been on the warpath ever since, saying I am spoiling their efforts to find me a suitable husband." "Why didn’t you say anything? I could have made some excuse for you to come to the Lodge or we could have gone camping?" He knew how Zarah got after her parents attacked her, despondent and distant. She took their words to heart, desperately wanting them to be proud of her and as her friend, it was difficult to watch her struggle to meet their insane expectations. Their words would take root, branching out inside her mind until there was no longer room for her to feel anything else. It could take days for those branches to break and allow her usual energetic personality to seep back in.

Zarah sighed, shifting in her saddle slightly, running her fingers through her horse’s mocha-colored mane. She appreciated his willingness to step in when N'Danna wasn’t there to do so but he couldn’t stop them, no one could. She tried very hard not to let their words get to her, not allow them to affect her, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to believe they meant well but it didn’t stop them acting as a toxic force in her life. Zarah was emotionally drained after being criticized nonstop. Home felt like more of a battlefield than anything else, constantly trying to dodge a new arrow or the swing of a knobkerrie. By the end of the battle, Zarah dodge little and was left with nothing but new wounds to clean and heal by herself. If it didn’t advance their standing in the tribe, it was wrong. If it didn’t align with the carefully planned life they outlined for her, it wasn’t acceptable. If it didn’t meet their ever-changing expectations, she failed them. No matter how fast Zarah raced to get to the finish line and make them proud of her, she always fell short. Never making it because the line was unattainable or because they moved it just as she got within reach. All she desired… all she craved was love and validation, instead she got the harsh lesson that even the purest of love was conditional and will be ripped from your hands the moment you fail. "That is sweet of you, M’Baku. But putting it off does not halt the inevitable. If it wasn’t today, it would have been tomorrow. It wasn’t so bad I suppose. Just the usual stuff. ‘How can any suitor be interested in you? Not pretty enough, not invested enough in your appearance, too obsessed with useless work,’ she mimicked her mother’s voice bitterly. "Still upset that M’Cebo hasn’t tried to court me yet, as if I have any control over that." "I don’t know why they are so keen on you marrying my brother anyway. He is awful," M’Baku grumbled , unable to hide the frustration in his tone. Zarah laughed. It was no secret the two royal brothers did not get along. And it was no secret why, M’Cebo was a royal ass, he was arrogant and entitled, believing that everyone was beneath him simply because he bore Jabari Royal symbols on his armor. Many wanted M’Baku to exile him once he became Chief, to just be done with him. But M’Baku believed in the power of family and until he had an heir, M’Cebo was his successor, which meant he had to stay. But to Zarah’s parents, who didn’t much care about the character of the man their daughter married, successor was better than another elder’s son so he was the best choice for Zarah. "M’Cebo is my age… next in line for the throne, a warrior. He is no chief but he is next in line. So in their eyes, he is a step up the social ladder," she mused. "Well if a chief is all you require, I happen to know one,” he offered. Zarah laughed, thinking he was joking. But if her eyes hadn’t been trained on the dirt path in front of them, she would have seen the seriousness in his. This was far from a joke from him. "Yea right… The elders are already forming a list of suitable women for you to marry and I am surely not on it," she laughed. "You are Chief M’Baku, you can’t marry just anybody. You have the most beautiful and brightest women in the tribe after you. You can’t settle." Hurt flashed across his face at that. How could she think that being with her was settling? Truth be told, Zarah was among the most beautiful and brightest his tribe had to offer. She was the runt of the tribe, barely hit his torso. But she was gorgeous with a body hand-crafted by Hanuman.He always had to catch himself, afraid of being caught staring at her perfect hourglass shape. And she was a genius. Very few in the tribe had a knack for engineering and an understanding of Jabari wood like Zarah. Everyone thought so. Well, everyone except her and her parents. What was there not to love about her? He didn’t understand how a genius like her could be this clueless. But before he could press the issue further, they had arrived. M’Baku had come earlier and set out a small picnic right on a small secluded cliff, equipped with her favorite fruits and sweets from the Lodge bakery. "This is too much M’Baku. You said we were just going on a ride,” she accused as she dismounted her horse and tied her to the nearest tree. M’Baku’s hand encompassed hers as he led her over to the blanket. Zarah felt warmth spread through her body at the physical contact. "I just wanted to do something nice for you. You do so much for everyone else. And after the last few days, now I hope it will lift your spirits a bit," he said as they sat. Her heart fluttered at his compassion. He was right, she needed this. "Well, thank you. It’s all too much but it is appreciated. And you were right. This view is quite lovely," she remarked. The mountain provided a view of everything - the villages in the valleys, the Lodge on Gorilla Mount. And in the distance, Zarah could see the waterfalls that marked the end of greater Wakanda and flowed into Jabariland, and the Great Mound. A small smile of contentment graced her features, the first real smile she had in days. Wakanda never ceased to amaze her or failed to lift her spirits when needed. If only I could stay here, away from everyone forever, she thought. "You haven’t even seen it at its prime. Just wait until sunset in an hour or so. You will be stunned." Zarah leaned back and snuck a few glances at M’Baku’s profile and the look of pure contentment on his face broadened her smile. This was the most relaxed she had seen him in a while. These were the moments she loved, that sustained her through the tough days. But they were also bittersweet, reminding her of the desire bubbling beneath the surface every time she was with him. The love she held for him caused her physical pain sometimes. Zarah knew never to act on it- she wasn’t good enough for him. She always told herself that there was no way her feelings would be reciprocated. What would a man as amazing and strong as M’Baku want with a woman like me? But still, even knowing that they could never be did not stop Zarah’s heart from fluttering with every touch or kind word. It didn’t diminish the heat in her womanhood when she saw him sitting with the air of a king on his throne or training shirtless with the soldiers. It didn’t weaken her desire to spend time with him or dampen the pang of sadness when he had to leave. She didn’t mean to fall for him, she wasn’t even sure when it happened. But it did and it was the sweetest, cruelest form of torture Hanuman or any God could have conjured up for her.

"Zarah, could I ask you a question?" Her eyebrows furrowed slightly at his formalities. "Of course. What is it?" "Have you ever been in love?" She choked slightly on her glass of mead at the question, sending Zarah into a coughing fit. M’Baku patted her back forcefully to help her clear her air passage. What was this man? A mind reader? She thought to herself. After taking a few moments to recover, she looked off at the horizon as she contemplated what to say. Zarah knew she couldn’t tell him the truth buts he could omit. "Well, yes… I’ve been in love, or maybe still am? Not sure it goes away. He doesn’t share my feelings unfortunately. That’s the trouble with falling in love I think. You don’t know if the person feels the same until it’s too late sometimes. You are already head over heels. Why do you ask?" He continued to stare at the horizon. "I am in love with this girl and I am not sure how to make the first move. I am worried she will say no. How did you approach that guy?" Jealousy blooming in his stomach at her holding affections for another, just as it did every time she mentioned his brother or any other man. They didn’t deserve her. Zarah let out a real belly laugh at that ludicrous statement. "What woman in her right mind would reject you Baku? Just put yourself out there… women love that. And besides, she would be a fool to say no. But I know that is easier said than done. I didn’t actually ask him. I just know he could never see me… love me that way. No one could," The last statement was quiet, more to herself than the man sitting beside her. But he still heard it. "Is that what you really think? That no one could love you?" Zarah could hear the disappointment in his voice, like her lack of self-esteem was a physical wound to his body. Zarah scoffed. "Who loves me Bak? Aside from N’Danna of course... Certainly no one romantically. I can’t even make my own parents proud of me. Hell, I am not even sure they love me. How could someone else? Why would someone else?" Zarah suddenly realized she said too much, feeling too exposed and vulnerable. She didn’t like putting those thoughts to words. Hearing them leave her lips made them too real. She quickly decided that this wasn’t a rabbit hole she felt like spiraling into while they were having such a good time. "I am sorry Bak. I shouldn’t have burdened you with my troubles. They are my crosses to bare. I am supposed to be helping you with your problem. Maybe we can think of a grand gesture to help you woo this mystery girl, I can’t believe you never mentioned her to me," Zarah ranted. She didn’t realize that M’Baku wasn’t really listening to her, noting her attempt to change the subject. He wished she had said more, secretly pleased at her vulnerability. Moments like that were rare with her so when he could get one, it felt like a win in his book. He understood why. He saw firsthand how cold and callous her parents were with her. His heart did ache at how little she thought of herself. If she only knew how in love he was with her, that his world rose and set with her in mind, and that the meaning of this little excursion was not to show her a view but a grand gesture to finally declare his affections for her (after years of subtle hints). No, Zarah didn’t know any of that, she just knew what a lifetime of self-deprecation had taught her - men like M’Baku don’t fall for women like her. "Entle. Look at me." Enough was enough, he thought to himself, figuratively throwing his original plan and prewritten speech over the side of this mountain. No more subtle hints, no more flirting or wasting time. He was going to make his feelings plain to the lovable but clueless love of his life right here and right now. Zarah’s eyes didn’t shift from the village as she absentmindedly watched Jabari the size of ants walking across the bridges that connected the mountains together. After a few moments, she felt his hand gently grasp her chin and force her eyes to meet his. "Sithandwa sam… I- m- I wish you saw yourself as I see you. The most beautiful and talented woman this tribe has been blessed with. Your mind as brilliant as your heart is pure. My soul aches that your world is filled with people who are motivated by the worst intentions. People who try to dim the bright light inside you with vicious words. You deserve better. You deserve someone who truly sees you for the light you are. And this is partially my fault because… I have been afraid for so many years. But the truth is, you are the one I am in love with and a-a-and I should have told you that years ago. I should have told you that I can’t live without you. But I was afraid of losing you as a friend but friendship isn’t enough for me anymore." Zarah was rendered speechless, her mind moving far faster than her lips could ever maintain. But M’Baku didn’t give her a chance to even voice a response before his hand slide from her chin to her neck and pulled her close. "M’Bak…" she whimpered right before their lips touched. The kiss held a gentleness that seemed out of character for a man of his status and stature. She was hesitant at first, still surprised by his admission. But after a few moments of feeling his lips on hers, she couldn’t deny that she needed this, desired it more than anything. It was intimate, filled with intense longing and passion. This kiss was over a decade in the making and each party seemed determined to make up for lost time. M’Baku’s hands slid down her back to pull her closer. Before she knew it, she was in his lap, legs straddled around him. Both of their hands began to roam and explore the other’s body as they kissed. His hands slid down from her waist, gripping her thighs, kneading them softly. She moaned into his lips, her mind in a frenzy of desire as he set off a fire in her. Her hands acted off that feeling, working far ahead of her logical brain and started to fumble with the clasps on his jacket. She was in a race to undress him before Zarah could mentally comprehend what winning that race would mean. She didn’t get far before his hands grabbed hers and stopped her movements. There was a moment as they both caught their breath. As her lungs filled themselves with air, her body filled with embarrassment that she let her desires run out of control. "I am s-s-sorry. I d-d-don’t know what came ov-"

"Stop talking," He barked causing her jaw to clamp shut. “Don’t apologize to me. That was amazing. Everything I wanted."

Zarah looked up at him with confused eyes. "Then why did youstop me? You want me yes? I thought that meant... physically." If she were a few shades lighter, M’Baku would have seen how much she blushed at the idea of being intimate with him. He chuckled, shaking his head at her. "Of course, I want you Za… Believe me, I desire you more than anything. But your first time… our first time…shouldn’t be outside and in public. I want to court you and when you are ready, have every part of you. But only when you are ready. Understand?"

Zarah let out a sigh of relief, "Yes… sorry. So are we really doing this? You, the chief, want to date me?"

His fingers pushed a few loose twists out of face before recapturing her lips for a softer, quick kiss. "Yes, yes I do. And soon, you will become the greatest Chieftess this tribe has ever seen."

****

@destinio1 @muse-of-mbaku @great-neckpectations @missmohnique @dawva @jellybean531

#black panther fanfiction #black panther imagines #black panther fics #winston duke #m'baku imagine #m'baku imagines #m'baku x oc #m'baku x reader

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daisyridleyupdated · 5 years ago

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The wait is almost over! Claire McCarthy’s OPHELIA, starring Daisy Ridley as the title character, is nearly here after a year long festival run.

Shot back in 2017, we got our first official look at Daisy as Ophelia with a still published by Entertainment Weekly on the first week of filming. The film received mixed reviews in back in Sundance Film Festival 2018, then visited the screens of Moscow Film Festival and Deauville Film Festival during the same year. In late October, the first trailer was released online for it’s future screening in British Film Festival. The trailer was later removed on most online sources by Covert Media.

In early 2019, it was reported that IFC Films bought the rights of the highly anticipated Hamlet adaptation. However a release date wasn’t announced until Spring. USA Today shared the first official trailer for the movie in late April. The low profile promotions were followed with IMDB’s exclusive poster reveal and some clips of the film were shared by People.com, Entertainment Tonight and Vulture.

Now’s the time for general audiences to watch and review the movie themselves. Ridley’s US fans will be able to see Ophelia in cinemas June 28.

Not so long after that, a VOD release will occur on July 2. EDITED ON JUNE 26: IFC Films say the digital release date is July 5 in the descriptions under Ophelia’s official trailer and two extra clips they recently published (Hens in The Yard & Wondrous Fish) on their Youtube page. While this might mean a delay of three days happening, it could also be a simple mistake made by the social media team. IFC’s website and their most recent twitter promo still claim the former date.

While the streaming service in which the movie will be shared was not mentioned by public outlets, it is safe to assume that it will be available on IFC Films Unlimited, which is an Amazon Prime channel you can subscribe to.

Naomi Watts has already started her own promotional appearances and Daisy Ridley will be a guest star in both Good Morning America and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, July 26.

The film will be also shown in cinemas in Russia on July 25 and in Australia on August 1. Other release dates, if any, are not yet officially announced.

#daisy ridley #news #2019

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absence-of-decomposing · 5 years ago

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Demametamort

Have you ever heard of the term Demametamort? If so then this story might make sense to you. If not then please please refrain from looking it up in my personal dictionary and stick around till the end for an explanation. I will now begin his story.

Imagine a light grey sky, like the ones that make rainy days feel emotionless. Then imagine an unofficial road that borders on a cliff. The cliff has a hard drop into the ocean and at that moment a car had been recently met with sharp rocks and the high-pressure water. The water surrounded the tan automobile in waves that hit the skin of investigators like knives.

If you looked around a bit more you could see the face of a boy who had somehow survived the tragedy. As he stood emotionless and highlighted by red and blue he was led to dry off while his 6-year-old body was drenched in saltwater. His dark hair and green eyes accompanied by a police officer to the ambulance where most adults looked in awe at how torn up this child was, frantically moving to apply pressure in the right spots. No one could explain how he could have survived the impact and sharp rocks; if that didn't do him in the water would have. This is a prime moment we can look at as an example of how things always worked out in his favor, as long as he didn't bring attention to it he could avoid any consequence.

The most shocking part, however, took its place in the unphased attitude of the child. Every adult at the scene was shocked he survived, shocked his parents had dragged him along for their suicide, shocked. Shock is what defined the atmosphere so they wrote off Luca’s behavior as him being in shock.

Little did they know this boy genuinely didn't care. His parents were scared of him but he didn't know why so why should he care? All he did was draw on the walls. Sure it was with the neighbor’s pet mouse but no one seemed to miss it after he stole it at the end of his playdate with their 13-year-old daughter. They just got a new one. And sure, his babysitter didn't know he stole it but to him, the rodent would be much more useful being used as paint than in a cage where it sat in its own mess and made squeaking noises.

Apparently, this was the last straw. His parents started to talk about how they “couldn't do this anymore!” and “At least it's not as bad as when he was 3.”. Luca doesn't remember what other things he's done but no punishment made his actions not worth it so he had little memory of anything that was deemed “bad”. His parents tried to punish him for his behavior they really did, but it was hard to punish him when he stopped showing his “art” to them. In the end, they considered getting Luca into therapy but this had his mother and father worried about being judged as parents so, in the minds of a couple of parents whose will was stretched too thin, suicide would probably sound like the only option. They loved their son so maybe that's why they brought him with, or maybe it was an attempt at stopping his actions.

If we move on to the next event of his life you'd see a hospital room with white walls and a small window, where he stayed for a couple of weeks until a caseworker came to situate him into a foster home. You'd see his emerald eyes opening in the hospital bed and his small feet moving to pack up his pencils and toys before his hands where being held on either end by a perfect cookie-cutter family. You'd then see him staying in that home for many more years because the Bander family took a liking to his obedient behavior and witty humor, and as Luca grew in this privileged household he learned to accommodate to people's expectations because that meant he could keep practicing his illegal passions without losing the attention he received from others. The same kid who played football in high school was watching people bid on body parts on the dark web. The same kid who laughed and teased his friends about being stupid compared to his straight A’s was the same kid who was planning to kidnap a few of those same friends and turn their beings into soulless sculptures. He was pleased with how smoothly his plan worked, how the laws of not just humans but of karma has never touched him. He reveled in how simple everything was and how godlike he was compared to his peers who were always facing a misfortune and getting dragged for their underage drinking or for harassing a girl at school. It was when he made his first kidnapping, one so obviously tied to him that it would hurt the observing eye. That is if eyes were ever on him, despite the girl nailed to the walls of his basement being his girlfriend, no one ever questioned him. That is when he realized he was different, god must not know he exists. He's a ghost among men and as visible to every eye as he was not there. I think this is when he rationalized the idea of, “If God doesn't know I exist, then neither does death. Right?”

Today Luca is a couple of years out of high school, he lives in a studio apartment while on a break from college and has a body count of 7 and his work has been all over the news. As he sat on a leather couch and toyed with the volume of his Tv his frustrations grew and grew.

“Stop ignoring my work! It took me ages to make that!” He whines in frustration to no one in particular as the screen flashed images of his sculpture made of a female body whose bones were exposed due to the skin and muscle being nailed apart like a dissected frog. It zoomed into the bone where he was mastered the art of carving into. After cleaning the bones and draining the blood of the body out, he drills away to create designs so beautiful it could be compared to Chinese ivory or jade sculptures. Beautiful waves of the sea that represented the girls' love for surfing, a few animals like tigers and rabbits also danced along the streams of her life. It was truly beautiful despite its canvas. Lucas carefully tanned skin started to shift over to the arm of the leather couch before placing his hand down for support and standing. He began to pace around, mumbling incoherently. He then made his way to a laptop that was propped up on the counter of a kitchenette.

“I will make them see, they will worship me. People have begged for this! They loved being used, they cried in joy when the found out they had been chosen by ME!” he claimed. His shadowy whispers did hold some truth however, a few victims had fallen victim to love him and would do anything for his approval.

However, Lucas fetish for attention was currently driving him mad as his fingers type away at the obsidian keys and made the finishing touches on a public Instagram. He began to upload image after image with his name and face next to countless bodies and gore that he had only ever shown in private forums. The next morning he woke up outrage on his phone and in the news. He had missed calls from his family and friends and he just smiled in glee as he picked up the phone and called his mom back.

He expected to be greeted with admiration like the last girl he carved but in his delusional mind that was realistic, I guess. He was greeted with screams and tears.

“Luca why! Tell me this isn't true? This is someone else framing you right baby?” she said with obvious distress.

“Mama I just made another sculpture, it's not a big deal.” He said, confused at her reaction.

“They have feelings, Luca! FEELINGS! And I am not your mom anymore. I'm calling the cops.” she said shakily before hanging up.

Luca didn't think she was being serious, I mean she knew he that would affect him, right? He put on his apron and gloves and had just picked up the head of a dog he had recently started to work on as a side project when a loud, sharp knock was made from outside his apartment. With head still in hand, he opens the door only to be tackled down by police forces and dragged outside in cuffs. Bright rays of light burned into his eyes as he yelled and laughed. His confusion apparent and his resistance futile. He had dropped the dog's head in the process and suddenly he began to cry out.

“Get off me! Its what they wanted! You know you can't kill me right?” he laughed. This was met by a shaky voice.

A woman was standing in the crowd with puffy eyes and sagging skin. Her auburn hair mirrored that of his last victim, and she held a gun. Without a moment's hesitation, she said,

“Want to bet?” before her shaky hands released the firm hold on the gun to pull the trigger.

Lucas's life didn't flash before his eyes. His life didn't matter much to him but when he fell to the ground he looked at his reflection in the pooling blood coming from his throat. He recognized the look on his face and that similar to those when he was 6. He recognized shock and fear in his face before he was put into the black void of death.

Crippling and quiet black and was like white sound in a realm with no structure. No walls or floor yet his non-responding conscious was suspended in it. Time did not exist and although empty it was not peaceful. It wasn't a place that provided a feeling of tranquility nor did it scare. It was completely empty. That was until Luca's vision reappeared through opening slits. He could suddenly see a different and darker black, his hands could suddenly feel silky cushion on his hands and his mind was suddenly able to register these things. He was awake, but was he? How could one tell when he all he could see was darkness and the smell of wet soil encased his nose. One would have to define being alive and being dead, what requirements are there to be considered living? Is it the ability to crave and breathe air? To need it? Because Luca definitely craved air but no matter how much he gasped there was no oxygen to fill his lungs. Wheezing was barely possible and when his fingers moved to touch the scabbed hole in his throat, it explained why. Gasp after gasp he was brought back to nothingness and his suffocation was over. Until it wasn't.

He woke again and the events repeated.

Again.

And again.

So, do you think you can guess what a “Demametamort” is? If not I will let you in on it.

A Demametamort is someone who believes they are above, beyond, or better than death. They don't think they can die or can change death. And sometimes they can.

#oc #creative writing #new word #imaginary word

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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INTERVIEW: Children of the Sea’s Director on How Doraemon Taught Him About Filmmaking

Ayumu Watanabe is one of the most versatile under-the-radar directors in the past few years. His works have ranged from the funny comedy/drama Space Brothers, to the classic Doraemon movies, to the nostalgic and bittersweet TV adaptation of After the Rain. Today we sit down with him to discuss his latest and grandest work yet: Children of the Sea, a movie that hit Netflix and other streaming services earlier this month.

Children of the Sea is a movie focusing on a girl named Ruka, and her mysterious connections to two other kids — Sora and Umi — as they investigate the unnatural disappearance of ocean life. The bonds of their friendship are tested by fate, the call of nature, and adolescence as they find themselves intertwined with a greater force than anything they could have imagined.

Before the movie hit streaming services this month, we got a chance to talk to Ayumu Watanabe and take a look at the themes of this movie, the incredible animation and work put into it, and what it was like working with the famous Joe Hisashi (composer for many Ghibli films).

What is challenging adapting such a dense and mysterious manga from the prolific Daisuke Igarashi?

First, it was the visual aspect. We aimed to get the atmosphere of the manga just right. We didn’t want to simplify the information. Especially for the close-ups, we drew in more elements to make a stronger impression.

Then there was the structure. We didn’t have enough runtime to fit the manga’s expansive story, so we narrowed it down to the points that maximized the appeal of the manga. And for the parts that didn’t make it into the movie, we decided to leave it to the manga. We wanted to narrow the story to being about a girl to open the door to a vast world.

I hope we were able to achieve it.

Children of the Sea uses a mix of traditional animation as well as CG animation. Could you tell us a little about how you integrated both aspects to make such a visceral experience?

Everyone on the team was aware of what we were pursuing, and we thought about what we need to do to achieve it. What we wanted to animate, to film…we thought of those things first and how to make them come to life, rather than primarily focusing on technique. I think that was all influenced by how much of an impact the original manga had on us.

You’ve worked on a variety of adaptations in the past decade, ranging from Space Brothers, Doraemon, and After the Rain. Was there a particular work or experience that helped you tackle adapting Children of the Sea?

I learned everything I needed to know about animating films from Doraemon. Films have an audience waiting for them, and I was able to experience the wonder of sharing emotions with them. I also learned the harsh reality of when things didn’t go well, either. What does the audience want? I value the determination to identify and show it.

The way I approach any property or work is the same. All of the films I worked on were titles that I liked. And I am really fortunate for that.

Some of the animation in Children of the Sea is incredibly inventive. I’ve heard that a variety of techniques were used, including backward imposing of CG on genga, mirroring the sea’s lighting with composite, etc. What was the most technically challenging moment to create in this movie and why?

It was difficult to determine how much to express in the film. Simply put, it wasn’t easy to decide where the goal was. All the staff made every cut, every scene with their heart and soul. The more effort we put in, the better it got. We could have continued working on this film forever, but then we would lose sight of the goal.

It wasn’t about the technique; it was about our spirit. The retouching of every drop. Matching the CG to the hand-drawn parts. The magnificent motion and lighting to create the size of the whale. Also, the movement and denseness of the water that surrounds it. Coloring it. Anywhere we can put in the effort, we can keep working, lol.

I don’t know if this answers your question. But it was always the ideals that led us and not the techniques.

Ruka is a delightful and refreshing female protagonist. She’s feisty, impulsive and wears her heart on her sleeve, but she’s also struggling with some personal issues. Could you tell us some of the work that went into the process of making her such an engaging protagonist?

Ruka is a difficult character. I’m not a teen nor a female, so it was hard to understand her emotions. Especially because I think that she didn’t understand herself either. I patiently waited until she started to move on her own. Then, I was able to understand what she was thinking. Words are so light and fluffy, but if she doesn’t put it in words, no one will comprehend her. But it’s so hard to put in words…her thoughts went in circles. She was always wavering, like a flower floating in the water.

What was it like working with Joe Hisashi? What were some core musical elements that you wanted to bring out in this film?

It was my dream to have Hisaishi-sensei to compose for me, so I’m excited that it was fulfilled. I am a huge fan of his. I heard his music for the first time when I was a teenager and was fascinated. I also think that he is best-suited composer for this film. His unique style of minimalistic was perfect for this property.

What was important was the objectivity of the music. As an entity that overlooks the story, the theme simply flows with occasional silent moments to casually snuggle up next to the audience. But in the festive scene, it is firm and lifts our emotions. When you realize it, the score envelops those who are watching. That is the kind of music Hisaishi-sensei creates.

Speaking of music, the sound design of this film was incredibly detailed. Could you go into what that process was like and how you synced it with the animation and soundtrack to make those moments?

Mr. Kasamatsu has incredible instincts. He has the ability to come up with sounds that don’t exist. And the sense to put in no sound at all when necessary. It was refreshing to have scenes that don’t have a score, but you felt like you could hear something. He pulled back to match the music and the dialogue.

For the scenes where I wanted the audience to focus, he was discreet, using extreme bass. His use of range that didn’t create sound was also wonderful. I learned a lot about sound design from him.

Children of the Sea captures many sweeping themes - growing up in a world where there are more questions than answers, the cycle of nature, and finding the beauty in our surroundings and the surreal. Is there a particular moment or theme in the film that you found most interesting or personally moving? If so, what was it and why?

This film is completed when the viewer interprets it freely. It makes it interesting that the interpretations differ. That indicates diversity. Everyone is part of this world. I think it would be wonderful if we can acknowledge our differences yet share the same awareness. I believe this film gives a clue to how we should exist while depicting the mysteries and joys of life.

Was there any additional scenes or stories you’d like to have incorporated from the manga into the movie that didn’t make it in?

There are many scenes that didn’t make it. I wish I could have included them. Especially the background of Umi and Sora, Anglade and Jim’s past, etc. It would be great if we can depict them in Children of the Sea 2, but this project only exists in my heart. Jokes aside, we made it so that the stories we couldn’t include in the film would be shown in the manga, so it would be great if you can read the manga as well.

Any last words you’d like to share to Western fans?

I’m excited that everyone will get to see the film. How you interpret the film is up to you. Please watch it with an open mind and accept the story as it is first. I would be happy if you enjoy it. And I would love to hear your thoughts.

Children of the Sea can be watched on Netflix, Google Play, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and is available for purchase via Blu Ray/DVD by GKIDS. Our thanks to GKIDS for the opportunity.

Got a favorite Ayumu Watanabe work? Enjoyed Children of the Sea? Leave your comments below!

When not finding ways to doom all her ships, Natasha can often be found on her twitter as @illegenes, or writing more about anime on the blog Isn’t It Electrifying! Feel free to swing by and say hi.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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boyce9333bonito · 3 years ago

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Live streaming | UEFA Champions League |

Uefa champions league live streaming - Where to watch the UEFA Champions League | UEFA Champions League |

Can I really watch for free? What is leagke catch? Your first month is completely free. You can cancel your free month at any time with a few clicks. You will not get charged during your free month. Getting started on DAZN is quick and easy. Simply click Sign Up Now, choose between an annual or monthly pass, enter your name and email address and then your payment details. Liverpool put their Premier League woes to one side by staying in the hunt for Champions League glory in Budapest.

Is Haaland ready to be a Pep nine? Watzke: No alternative to Haaland. Guardiola wary of Dortmund threat. Tuchel wary of Porto uefa champions league live streaming. Tennessee Titans.

Washington Football Team. Big Big Sky. Big South. Big Ten. Sun Belt. SW Ath. Arizona Diamondbacks. Atlanta Braves. Baltimore Orioles. Boston Red Sox. Chicago Cubs. Chicago White Sox. Cincinnati Reds. Cleveland Indians. Colorado Rockies. Detroit Tigers. Houston Astros. Kansas City Royals. Los Angeles Angels. Los Angeles Dodgers. Miami Marlins. Milwaukee Udfa. Minnesota Twins. New York Mets. New York Yankees. Oakland Athletics.

Philadelphia Phillies. Pittsburgh Pirates. San Diego Padres. San Francisco Giants. Seattle Mariners. Louis Cardinals. Tampa Bay Rays. Texas Uefa champions league live streaming. Toronto Blue Jays. Washington Nationals. Atlanta Hawks. Boston Celtics. Brooklyn Nets. Charlotte Hornets. Chicago Bulls. Cleveland Oive. Dallas Mavericks. Denver Nuggets. Detroit Pistons. Golden State Warriors. Houston Rockets. Indiana Pacers.

LA Clippers. Los Angeles Lakers. Memphis Grizzlies. I have 1 of 2 Univision channels. I also have Galavision and Univision Deportes Network. Lague are 15 providers and Comcast is not one of them. Do you know why? Thank you so much and keep up the excellent work! It appears that the Univision games not televised on a linear channel will this year require a subscriber login. Last year, the non-televised games were available without any authentication. I think that you get the games via tudn.

From the apple app store page:. Thank you for the update on upcoming matches and for the info on channel changes. We do get some of the South American leagues here too occasionally. Select games from smaller continental European clubs are shown via mycujoo. But it appears that the other games are available on a club-by-club basis. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are not available to viewers in the United States.

Well that is shocking! Would make sense for CBS to start their coverage early, but uefa champions league live streaming they basically brand new in covering this type of event, would also make sense for UCL to give it to someone more established in soccer for the resumption of the tournament and give CBS lead time for next year make it a 4 year deal instead of 3?

ESPN makes sense, as does Fox. As a beIN fan would also be funny if they got it and everyone complains about not getting that channel…. I agree with everything you typed. TNT network should have never gotten the Champions League TV contract as they are not a good sports covering network and do not have good qualified people to manage it.

We also cannot watch any games in English without paying, I hate listening to Univision as they only broadcast in Visit, which is a pain to my ears. A uefa champions league live streaming shame on UEFA. A big uefa champions league live streaming on TNT.

They should have never uefa champions league live streaming in winning this contract a they are simply incapable in handling it and doing a good job. No, I am not happy as CBS will start their coverage next year in It is also disheartening on why TNT stopped covering this year, they should have at least broadcasted all the games starting August 7th between Real Madrid at Manchester City, and continue coverage till the final in Lisbon website August They offer a 7-day free uefa champions league live streaming ,ive it is worth trying it.

My anger and disappointment is at Leagye for just cancelling their coverage before this season was completed. They should have at least completed this whole season. I will not miss their poor coverage anyway. I am also very angry and disappointed at stupid and greedy UEFA for not acting in a proper way to service English speaking soccer fans in the US.

Uefa champions league live streaming poor decisions are most unbecoming and very poor business I am trying to be polite here. TNT stfeaming have at least covered till the end of this season…. Their abysmal disregard to all US soccer fans is unpardonable.

Watch Champions League online: Live stream, TV channels, schedule

Agree with everything above. If streamong super elite rich person hates soccer so much they want to destroy the game in USA, then the contract to TNT and not showing the games is how you do that. Amazing TNT really had no idea what they were getting into with this. Any clue who has taken the remainder of this years CL?

CBS is next year but not Aug games. Remember that all matches starting with the quarter-finals are all going to be held in Lisbon and are single elimination matches, no more home and away matches, so these games should be very exciting. They offer a 7-day free trial.

Maybe it is worth buying this just for a month. You can watch these matches for free on Univision if you have this channel available, but it is only in Spanish. The only free way to watch these games in English is to find a free online streaming site, Google should come in handy in finding them. Again, UEFA fumbled these arrangements very badly. If we are lucky…. More matches will be available on TV too just as soon as the decisions are made on which matches will be on English-language TV.

Thank you Christopher Harris for all your help and information. This page must have been updated to include a uefa champions league live streaming of new and useful current information, which I had not seen before. We soccer fans appreciate all your good efforts. Stay well and wish you oive the best. Today, July 25,I checked what Leagke read the following on the top of this page here: Manchester City vs.

It is possible that this schedule has not been updated yet …. If and home this information is ever updated and corrected please share it here. Of course, they can always change their mind. Hi Christopher Harris, thanks for your prompt reply and explanation.

You could be absolutely right as I too expect this scheduling information to be corrected and updated closer to game day. Thanks continued lot for all your help strdaming information, we all soccer fans appreciate all that you do here. Have a wonderful day and stay well and healthy, we need you.

The advantage is you can watch this channel on your TV with this new coming app and without needing to stream it through your WiFi or Internet. Check with your TV provider. Champlons luck all. Chris do you think CBS is uefa champions league live streaming only going to show the final on all access? That seems horribly inconsistent with their prior claims. When Turner had the rights, none of the games were on over-the-air television. My question is will I able to watch the Streamkng League through my Prime account or will I have to pay for a separate subscription?

If anyone can answer this question it is greatly appreciated. Thanks Chris. If you pay…. You are right Christopher. Amazon Prime does make available many shows and channels to Prime members, the sad fact is that many of these available offers are NOT free, the customer is forced to buy their selected packages at extra cost besides paying for Prime membership. I made this fact very clear in my earlier post which was deleted from here, I uefa champions league live streaming because I was unkind to Jeff Bezos.

Hopefully this one will be fixed in time. There is no DVR offered. A great relief to have that in place. Or does coverage begin at the Playoffs? Group Stage uefa champions league live streaming How much do those rights in the past cost. How in the world does acompany only get half a tournament. I guess this is the new streaming world we now live in. Is CBS interesting getting that or later?

Real played very poorly today to have any chance to eliminate Manchester City. The only consolation for Real fans is that at least we won the La Liga championship this season. Now we have to wait till the next season starts. It has been a very sad day for all Real Madrid fans. Real Madrid lost and got eliminated because of their French Connection. He picked wrong players for this very uefa champions league live streaming game and did not srreaming players till the game championd almost over.

Even though Zidane is highly regarded as a brilliant coach his stupid stubbornness is also his downfall. I will not be sad if and uefa champions league live streaming Zidane departs Real Madrid.

His personal stubborn and poor decisions have hurt this team enormously, Had he planned smarter and more logically Real would have uefa champions league live streaming a much better chance to win and advance to the quarter-finals. Champion: Bayern Munich. You are welcome to use my tips and call your bookie and get rich. Hi guys, anyone getting rich with my accurate picks?

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multipleservicelisting · 4 years ago

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A Vaccine Road Trip

Want to get The Morning by email? Here’s the sign-up.

Good morning. The Biden administration has a huge amount of work to do to get the virus under control.

I took a 1,600-mile road trip this week that has left me even more amazed at how poorly the United States has handled the coronavirus — and more worried about how much work the Biden administration has to do to get it under control. I want to tell you that story this morning.

The U.S. now faces two main virus problems. First, our efforts to minimize the virus’s spread remain halfhearted, with many Americans refusing to wear masks or practice social distancing. Second, the early stages of the mass vaccination campaign have been a mess, far behind schedule and full of frustration for people trying to get shots.

The second of those problems was the reason for my road trip. I live in the Washington, D.C., area, where the vaccine rollout has been even slower than in most places.

I hear maddening anecdotes from neighbors and friends all the time, and I imagine you’ve heard similar anecdotes. Many Americans who qualify to receive the vaccine — like people over 65 — don’t know what they are supposed to do to sign up. When they try, they often find that all the slots are filled.

Millions of doses, unused

My mom, who’s 74 and has been living with my family for the last few months, was one of the people trying to figure out how to get her shot. And it felt impossible. Fortunately, she had an alternative. She normally lives in Colorado, a state with a somewhat better vaccine rollout. By checking repeatedly online, she got an appointment in Colorado.

So the two of us got in the car and spent a couple of days driving west (to spare her the risk of contracting the virus on a plane). My sister, who lives in Denver, drove east, and we met halfway, in St. Louis. I then drove back to Washington, and my sister and my mom drove to Denver. We are all grateful that she is about to receive her first shot.

But it’s worth pausing to reflect on what an indictment of our society this story is. The world’s richest, most powerful country has almost 20 million vaccine doses that are sitting unused. Meanwhile, people are desperately trying to sign up — and often failing. Many families don’t have the resources or flexibility to make it a full-time project.

For some, the consequences of the bungled rollout will be fatal. More than 3,000 Americans a day have been dying from Covid-19 recently. Some of them would not have contracted the virus if the Trump administration and state governments had kept the vaccination program anywhere close to on schedule.

President Biden announced his plans yesterday for a “full-scale wartime effort” to speed things up — including the construction of mass-vaccination centers, the involvement of drugstores and an accelerated manufacturing program. You can read the details here, as explained by The Times’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg. How well Biden succeeds will help determine how many Americans survive this pandemic.

‘Required’ and ignored

The other big factor will be how hard the country tries to reduce the virus’s spread while the vaccines are being rolled out. In the short term, masks and social distancing probably matter even more than vaccines. “The brutal truth is it’s going to take months before we can get the majority of Americans vaccinated,” Biden said yesterday.

But I came home from my trip shaken by what I had seen.

Almost everywhere I stopped — gas stations, rest stops and hotels, across Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois — there was a sign on the door saying that people had to wear masks to enter. And almost everywhere, most people ignored the sign.

At a Fairfield Inn in Ohio, a middle-aged couple sat unmasked on a lobby sofa for hours, drinking beers and scrolling through their phones. The hotel staff evidently did nothing about it. At a convenience store in Indiana, a hand-drawn sign on the door read: “Face masks are required. Please do not enter without one!!” Customers did anyway.

Nationwide, about half of Americans are not wearing masks when in close contact with people outside their households, according to a survey released yesterday by the University of Southern California.

Wearing a mask isn’t much fun. It’s hard to speak clearly, and if you wear glasses, the fogging is annoying. But the inconvenience sure seems worth the benefits.

Study after study has shown that masks reduce the virus’s spread. Yet millions of Americans have decided they would prefer more Covid — for their communities and potentially for their families and themselves — to more masks.

The persuasion problem

The Biden plan to accelerate vaccinations looks promising, many experts say. But the new president does not yet have a cohesive plan for changing Americans’ minds about safe behavior in the meantime. Repeating the same pleas, like Biden’s request that people wear masks for his first 100 days, seems no more likely to work than the signs I saw on my road trip.

What might work better? Perhaps a prime-time Oval Office address that’s light on policy and focused on a simple call to action. Or maybe the calls to action can come from a diverse array of celebrities, politicians and business executives. As behavioral psychologists often explain, the messenger can matter more than the message.

For now, I feel like I just drove across a country that is losing a winnable fight.

THE LATEST NEWS

The Virus

The drug maker Eli Lilly said that a treatment usually used to fight Covid-19 symptoms also prevented healthy people in nursing homes from contracting the virus.

A more contagious variant of the virus is forcing Britain’s hospitals to ration oxygen. “We’re practicing medicine in a way we never have,” one nurse said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said that working with the Biden administration was “a liberating feeling.”

The Biden Administration

Congress overwhelmingly approved a waiver to let Lloyd Austin, a retired Army general, serve as Biden’s defense secretary. The Senate appears set to confirm him today, making Austin the first Black American to lead the Pentagon.

Biden is planning more executive actions today, including one that aims to send additional federal aid to families struggling to afford food.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, will ask Democrats to delay former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial until February.

Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s choice for transportation secretary, pledged to prioritize climate policy. Here’s how he could do so.

When the Bidens arrived at the White House, they briefly encountered a closed door — awkward. “The delay in opening the door did puzzle me a bit,” a former White House curator said.

Trump did what many older New Yorkers do: He retired to Florida. Not all of his Palm Beach neighbors are happy.

Other Big Stories

Morning Reads

Modern Love: A mother becomes her daughter’s dream partner in the pandemic.

From Opinion: Columns by Farhad Manjoo and Jamelle Bouie.

Lives Lived: Charles R. Saunders’s fantasy works reimagined the white worlds of Tarzan and Conan with Black heroes and African mythologies, giving Black fans of the “sword and soul” genre champions with whom they could identify. Saunders died in May at 73.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The rise and rise of “Drivers License”

Most songs that debut at No. 1 on the Billboard charts come from stars, who often benefit from coordinated efforts by superfans. How, then, has “Drivers License,” a brooding debut single by the 17-year-old actress Olivia Rodrigo, rocketed to No. 1, broken Spotify streaming records and reached the top spot on Apple Music in 48 countries?

The answer is a mix of old and new techniques. Rodrigo, who stars on a “High School Musical” spinoff series on Disney+, is following a path similar to those of acts like Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus, who also had built-in fan bases from their Disney roles. The song’s lyrics, alluding to a love triangle involving a co-star, have helped too, fueling gossipy online chatter. And the song has received endorsements from Taylor Swift on Instagram and from TikTok tastemakers like Charli D’Amelio, helping it explode in popularity on the platform.

“TikTok videos led to blog posts, which led to streams, which led to news articles, and back around again,” Joe Coscarelli wrote in The Times. “The feedback loop made it unbeatable.”

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was plaudit. Today’s puzzle is above — or you can play online if you have a Games subscription.

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: 50% (four letters).

And what do you think is happening in the photo below? Take this week’s news quiz, and see how well you stack up to other Times readers.

Multiple Service Listing for Business Owners | Tools to Grow Your Local Business

www.MultipleServiceListing.com

from Multiple Service Listing https://ift.tt/3sPpVwU

#multiple #service #listing #news #local #business #ads #near #me

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

Text

India is the biggest prize in tech. Meet the gatekeeper

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/india-is-the-biggest-prize-in-tech-meet-the-gatekeeper/

India is the biggest prize in tech. Meet the gatekeeper

Between March and November last year, even as the coronavirus upended lives and devastated economies around the world, India’s richest man was handed more than $27 billion to make a bet on the future of the internet.

The recipient of all those billions is Jio Platforms, part of Ambani’s sprawling conglomerate Reliance Industries. Jio started as a mobile network in 2016. Since then it has amassed around 400 million users and launched a streaming service, a video conferencing app, a fiber broadband network and digital payments.

Its super-cheap data has helped bring hundreds of millions of Indians online for the first time. When Ambani launched Jio, India had fewer than 350 million internet users. Now, it has 750 million.

Jio has become the gateway to India’s internet, and Ambani holds the keys.

“A lot of this change, especially in terms of bringing people online, has happened on the back of the positive disruption that Jio triggered,” Ajit Mohan, Facebook’s vice president and managing director in India, told Appradab Business. “Jio has been the hero in that story in terms of providing that access, and I think that sets the context for our investment and Jio and our partnership, because… we saw alignment of the vision.”

Ambani’s vision keeps getting bigger.

After raising more than $20 billion for Jio Platforms, Reliance went courting investors for its retail business. Between late September and early November, Reliance Retail raised around $6.4 billion, much of it coming from Jio investors including Silver Lake, General Atlantic, TPG as well as the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.

Ambani’s retail chain is the biggest in India, with more than 12,000 stores. And he has made no secret of his ambitions to combine his retail and tech empires to take on two big US players. Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart’s (WMT) Flipkart dominate online shopping in India, controlling more than 60% of the market between them. Ambani is making an aggressive play for a slice.

He’s doing that with JioMart, an initiative announced in 2019 to bring online thousands of India’s mom-and-pop stores known as “kiranas.” And Reliance Retail recently acquired one of its biggest Indian rivals, Future Retail, for $3.3 billion — a deal that has kicked off a protracted and complex legal battle with Amazon.

Even as he digests all of that, India’s richest man is already looking to the next big thing — bringing 5G to India in the second half of 2021.

“It will be powered by an indigenous developed network, hardware, and technology components,” Ambani told a virtual audience at the India Mobile Congress in November, in a possible nod to calls for China’s Huawei to be excluded from building the country’s 5G network.

Any one of those plans on its own would be a big undertaking and executing them all together is a huge ask even for one of the world’s top billionaires. His ambition is to fundamentally transform the way more than a billion people communicate, do business and make purchases.

And the ultimate goal is to reach billions more.

“We are creating compelling homegrown solutions in education, health care, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and new commerce,” Ambani said in his speech. “Each of these solutions, once proven in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges.”

Geography vs Technology

But the billionaire, who is reportedly looking to take Jio public in the United States, may find it challenging to parlay the company’s meteoric rise in India into success on the global stage.

“Reliance does not have any one area where it has a technological edge and superiority like say Google’s search, Facebook’s portfolio of social networks, Amazon’s e-commerce engine, Alibaba’s combination of strengths in e-commerce and payments or Tencent’s super app,” said Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi, research director at the Institute for Business in the Global Context at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.

Rather, Jio’s dominance has been largely geographical, helped by a regulatory regime that supports homegrown players.

“One would be hard pressed to come up with a meaningful list of technological innovations and IP that Jio created that could be the basis for its expansion abroad,” Chaturvedi added.

India is, of course, a massive prize in itself that Jio has largely already captured.

The country’s online population of 750 million — second only to China, which has shut out US companies for decades — is the biggest draw for global tech. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix (NFLX) and Uber (UBER), to name a few, have already spent several years and billions of dollars to crack open the market.

“For Silicon Valley, the Indian market alone is bigger than the five next biggest consumer markets — by population — in the world combined,” said Chaturvedi.

Where China has its “Great Firewall” of online censorship that keeps out US tech companies en masse, Ambani has succeeded in creating a “Great Indian Paywall” that runs through Jio, Chaturvedi argues.

Global tech firms have been forced to navigate a series of regulatory hurdles from an Indian government that has shown a greater willingness to clamp down on foreign players — whether blocking Facebook’s efforts to provide free internet, changing how companies can store and collect data or, more recently, shutting out Chinese tech companies over a border dispute.

Ambani has been the biggest beneficiary of many of those regulations, and the billionaire has been a vocal champion of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his campaign for a “self-reliant” India.

A few cracks — albeit small ones — have started to appear in Ambani’s dominance. Barely a day into 2021, the Securities and Exchange Board of India ordered Reliance Industries and Ambani to pay a $5.5 million fine over what the regulator described as a “fraudulent and manipulative trading scheme” over a former subsidiary in 2007.

But that’s unlikely to dent his tech ambitions. Ambani, who declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this article, is used to making audacious bets and having them pay off — usually with enormous resources at his disposal and a fair political wind at his back.

“After all he’s India’s richest man, he has therefore the deepest pockets in this country,” said Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, journalist and co-author of Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis. “I can say without any risk of contradiction that he has been supported by a favorable political dispensation and a regulatory regime,” he added.

From Oil to Jio

The corporate empire that Ambani presides over today looks rather different to the one he inherited.

His father, Dhirubhai, started a small yarn trading firm in Mumbai in 1957 that he subsequently spun into a thriving textile business. Over decades, it grew into the sprawling conglomerate Reliance Industries spanning energy, petrochemicals and telecommunications. Dhirubhai’s death in 2002 kicked off an acrimonious succession battle that split the business in two.

Mukesh Ambani ultimately took over the company’s main oil and petrochemicals assets, while his younger brother Anil assumed control of the newer ventures, including telecom and digital businesses.

Then, in September 2016, Mukesh Ambani stormed onto his brother’s turf with an offer that blew the lid off India’s telecom and internet growth. Jio gave every new customer six months of free 4G internet and Indians signed up by the millions, triggering a brutal price war.

“You lure your users by giving something free, and once they’ve got hooked onto it, you gradually start increasing the prices,” Thakurta said. “It’s the classic way all kinds of monopolies work across the globe.”

One of the major casualties of the price war was Anil Ambani. His Reliance Communications company announced in late 2017 that it would sell most of its assets and exit the mobile business. Two days later, Jio acquired Reliance Communications. And two years later, the elder Ambani underscored the divergence in the brothers’ fortunes by helping pay off an $80 million debt to Ericsson (ERIC), keeping Anil out of jail.

Jio’s meteoric rise has helped offset some of the volatility in oil that cost Ambani billions last year and set up Reliance for a future that’s further removed from its core business. In fact, a company spokesperson previously told Appradab Business that the name Jio — which means “to live” in Hindi — was chosen in part because it’s a mirror image of the world “oiL.”

The bold attempt to transform his $170 billion conglomerate faces a massive test in 2021 as the Indian economy recovers from its first recession in nearly a quarter of a century. Like other tech companies around the world, Jio has strengthened during the pandemic, but the question is whether it can continue to grow fast enough for the company to meaningfully transition away from oil.

Ambani charted his course years ago.

“Data is the new oil,” he said in 2017, just six months into his campaign to disrupt India’s tech landscape.

India first, then the world

For American tech giants, having a big homegrown player in your corner often makes life easier in a foreign country, and Jio is by far the biggest in India.

“Why did Facebook, why did Google…put in their money in Jio at a time when the world economy is in a mess, the Indian economy is in recession, why would they do it? Obviously because there is more than an economic angle,” said Thakurta. “It’s also I believe, indirectly… a political insurance of sorts.”

Mohan, Facebook’s India head, denied that government regulation was part of the conversation.

“That didn’t have anything to do with our investment in Jio or the partnership,” he said. “It really did come from recognizing that this was a special company that had done pretty amazing work in transforming the digital infrastructure of India in a short period of time.”

From Ambani’s perspective, a wide-ranging coalition of some of the biggest names in tech is just a way to further Jio’s command over all aspects of India’s internet.

The company already controls a lion’s share of the pipes through its vast mobile network. Through Facebook, it is working to integrate JioMart with WhatsApp, the only platform in India with a user base comparable to Jio’s. With Google, it’s gunning for control of mobile devices by jointly developing an “entry level, affordable smartphone” for India’s huge middle class. And it’s even got an eye on the chip technology that underpins those networks and devices through partners such as Qualcomm.

“As digitization of the Indian economy and Indian society picks up speed, the demand for digital hardware will grow enormously. We cannot rely on large-scale imports,” Ambani said last month. “I clearly foresee India becoming a major hub for a state-of-the-art semiconductor industry.”

Qualcomm, a longtime Jio partner, joined the investment bandwagon by spending around $97 million in July for a 0.15% stake. Jio’s commitment to building out its own network while also developing a smartphone presented the chipmaker with a unique opportunity to get involved on both sides of Ambani’s internet access plan, according to Quinn Li, senior vice president and global head of the company’s investment arm Qualcomm Ventures.

“If you look at operators across the world, not many are that vertically integrated,” he told Appradab Business. “Given we’re the technology supplier to the industry, we’re I think best equipped to work with Jio both on the device front as well as infrastructure.”

Ambani appears ready to leverage the global backing for Jio and Reliance Retail into IPOs, saying in June that he would “move towards listing of both these companies within the next five years.” An IPO for Jio Platforms on Nasdaq could come as soon as 2021, according to several media reports and industry analysts. Reliance did not respond to a request for comment on its IPO plans.

“I wouldn’t be surprised in the least,” said Thakurta. “Once you’re on Nasdaq, you give all these investors a good exit route.”

Ambani seems confident he can get the world to buy into India’s moment, anchored in his company. And given his track record so far, he has no reason not to be.

“Friends, we are about to step into a glorious decade of the India story,” he declared. “Nothing can stop India’s rise, not even Covid-19. This is our chance to create history.”

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namariea · 7 years ago

Text

Hello, Neighbor | V

Since moving in you have compiled a comprehensive list on your mysterious neighbor across the way.

Do Kyungsoo, otherwise known as Asian Bobby Flay and apparently Bruno Mars’ protégé.

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader

Words: 3.4 k

Genre: Fluff

Previous: I II III IV

The coffee shop by the apartment was bustling with life, the endless stream of customers eager to get their caffeine fix.

An easy jazz tune filled the gaps between the chatter in the room but tucked away in the back corner, no amount of smooth saxophone could ease the tenseness in your body. You hung your head in your hands over the table, silently having an existential crisis as the figure across from you hummed in contemplation.

“So let me get this straight….and feel free to stop me if I go astray” Seulgi started, her voice slightly wistful, paying almost no mind to your despair.

You grunted.

“For the past month that you have been living in your apartment, you have been having sporadic encounters with the guy living across from you”

Grunt.

“During that time, you thought nothing of those moments except for about two weeks ago when you apparently saw him looking … how was it you described it…. Ah, like Korean Adonis”

Your head slipped lower in your hands.

Grunt. “And since said moment, rather than simply asking the boy why he was dressed like some incubus you decided the logical path to take would be to just never look at him again. By keeping your curtains closed for the past two weeks in an attempt at avoiding him…”

…

“Are you an idiot?”

Slipping from your grasp, you let your forehead crash into the table with an audible thud. People around turned and glanced quizzically in your direction, but you paid them no mind, starting a rhythmic smashing of your face against the surface. You heard Seulgi give a forced, polite laugh and quietly apologize to the fellow patrons saying something along the lines of quarter life crisis, nothing to see here, terribly sorry. Groaning, you gave your forehead a couple more good thumps before looking up. You were immediately met with a blank face, but you knew she was secretly reveling in your pain.

You are surrounded by sadists.

“I really do not see what’s the problem here, from how you’re reacting he must have gone from 0 to 10 real quick”

You grumbled from your splayed position on the table

“That’s not true….”

“He was at least a 7 before that”

Seulgi gave you a dull look

“…8.6 at the most.”

Letting out a bored sigh and picking at the remnants of what was a blueberry muffin, she deliberated “So you have always had a hot neighbor, woo, good for you, but just because seeing him in something other than baggy workout clothes suddenly got you all hot and bothered-”

“Oi, I was not hot and bothered-”

“-as I was saying” she gave you a pointed look, not appreciating your interruption “now would be the prime time to be looking, no? Icarus loved the warmth of sun so what did he do? Boy got himself some wings to see it closer.”

“Leading him to fly too close, thus melting his wings and falling to his death.” you deadpanned.

She waved a dismissive hand, “Pah, that’s just the Grimm brother’s version"

“Seulgi, the Grimm brothers didn’t even- look” you sighed, finally sitting yourself up from the table.

“You’re right, I probably shouldn’t have avoided him for so long, but what else was I supposed to do? He looked so…” you trailed, hand waving in the air in search of a fitting word, not having to wait long as your impatient comrade offered after a beat,

“-bangin?”

“Wow. It is truly a wonder why you never took the literary route when we were in art school”

Seulgi scoffed, taking a sip from her coffee “I had the option of being active and dancing to my heart’s content or sitting on my butt all day taking notes about some dead guys poems, it was a no question”

“Regardless” she continued, “the reality of the matter is that you now know you have the hots for your beta-turned-alpha neighbor and you’re going to have to face him eventually, lest you move again”

She almost smacked you from across the table as you gave a thoughtful look. Looking at her watch she reached for her bag and began to stand, you reluctantly following suit, realizing your break was over and it was time to head back to the office.

“Don’t be such a coward. He’s just a guy, he won’t even be in the same room as you when you talk for crying out loud, not unless he decides to break through two panes of glass, leap 10 feet over and land in your apartment. Though seeing your behavior, I wouldn’t be surprised if he resorted to that”

“And just what exactly am I supposed to say if he asks where I’ve been?” You shook your head as you felt the start of a headache beginning behind your eyes.

If he even noticed my absence that is

“Well that’s your fault it dragged on this long, isn’t it” She replied flippantly, the both of you exited the shop and started walking towards the subway.

“But if you want my opinion, I’d highly suggest not revealing how you have hiding because you cant control your impure thoughts around him-”

“For God’s sake, I told you it’s not even like that -”

“Ohhhh” An arm came out in front of you to bring you to a halt on the sidewalk. Turning to you slowly, you saw the beginnings of a smile take form on your friends face.

A very scary smile. One that only appeared when she was about to suggest something really dumb.

You were getting bad ju-ju vibes.

“I know exactly what you should say, say that you had …company…over and didn’t want to be disturbed”

You blinked. Once. Twice.

Then you hit her over the head.

“He has never shown any interest in me, what am I supposed to gain from that?”

Not deterred from your violence, if anything her eyes lit up with mischief, she pressed on “nono, it’s great, it’s like in those dramas, you throw down the boyfriend card and he is suddenly drawn to you because your unobtainable” she actually let out a cackle.

“I’m saying this because you are my friend and I care about your well being,” you almost let out an appreciative awww, but alas, tender moments were never in your cards.

“But if I find out you haven’t emerged from your hermit hole by Wednesday, I’ll come over and get his attention myself” You began to protest but she wasn’t hearing any of it “whether or not you listen to my advice is up to you, but so help me if I don’t get some juicy update by Wednesday I’ll take matters into my own hands”

Sadists, I say

You were walking past the living room one day when you heard a sharp yowl from the window.

Pausing on your way to the kitchen, you cast a tentative glance towards the cat perched on the windowsill, figure hidden by the curtain. You listened carefully, thinking that maybe she got her claws tangled in the fabric of the curtain again. The first time that had happened you calmly approached her with the full intention of relieving her from her cloth prison, as any caring owner would do. However, it would appear the frightened lump of fur was so lost in her terror, clearly thinking that this was the end, that she mistook your hand for that of the curtain God’s there to take her away. She then proceeded to bite and scratch anything she could get her stubby hands on.

Two and a half hours in an emergency waiting room later, you were being stabbed by multiple needles and given three beautiful stitches on your right hand. The freeloader didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed when you got back.

Since then you have always made sure she was fully aware of your presence before doing anything to help, for both her safety and yours. But secretly you were also still bitter about the first incident that you wanted to watch her struggle and realize her folly.

That’ll show her that the one with the opposable thumbs is the boss around here.

Another yowl came from behind the curtain and you made your way over, rolling up your sleeves in preparation.

“Missed me that much huh?”

You stopped mid-step, hand halting in pushing up your sleeve. The smooth baritone carried to your ears and you couldn’t stop the nervous stutter your heart gave in response. You were not ready for this confrontation, it wasn’t even Wednesday yet. Your palms began to sweat, not knowing how to proceed, however the voice was oblivious to your presence, and carried on.

“Looks like it’s just you and me again, Miss Mimi. Are you sure your owner hasn’t left you for some other stray?”

Meow.

There was an easy laugh in response, “Well hopefully despite wherever she has run off to she has you looked after, I wouldn’t want to have to pull some mission impossible stunt and save you”

Your eyes widened in horror as Seulgi’s words from the other day echoed in your mind. There was absolutely no way he was serious, you knew this, but just the thought of him being in your apartment set your mind into a frenzy.

You heard a phone ringing in the distance, “Ah, I’ll have to cut this short today, Mi. Say Hi for me the next time you see her, ok?”

Meow.

The silence that followed indicated that he had indeed left his spot at the window and you let out a shuttering breath. A million thoughts were swirling in your mind, so he did wonder where you’ve been. Granted, he said it because he wanted to know Mimi wasn’t going to starve, but it was still indirectly about you nonetheless. He also said he had to cut it short today, just how often does this man sit there talking to your cat? You try to think, but you were positive you’ve never heard him before today.

The nudge to your leg had you looking down, staring into bright cerulean eyes.

“You’re either the best or worst wingman ever”

She purred in response.

Eyes cracked open tiredly, blearily staring at the ceiling you blinked until your vision cleared.

Noting the lack of sunlight, you rolled over and pressed the home button on your phone, the harsh light making you squint in annoyance.

5:33 AM glared back at you and a groan highly resembling a beached whale emitted from your throat. Knowing there was no way the remaining hour before your alarm went off will be spent sleeping, you begrudgingly rolled out of bed.

Today was Wednesday. The thought came to you as you stirred creamer into your coffee, throwing a wary eye towards the closed curtains in your living room. Oh, how easy it would be to just keep them closed for all eternity… it wasn’t like you were some houseplant that needed sunlight for photosynthesis anyways. But you knew deep down that you would have to face the inevitable, because even though you loathed awkward situations with a burning passion, you feared the wrath of the brunette waiting for a reply today much more.

Best not tempt the fates today.

Cautiously you approached the curtains, suddenly feeling a strong sense of trepidation.

Oh square up you pathetic f-

You pulled back one of the white curtains with gusto, coffee in hand and eyes shut in anticipation. Cracking an eye open, you almost let out a victorious laugh, as you were met with dark curtains blocking your view from the apartment across.

Well…that wasn’t half bad.

You took this time to take in the view you had for the first time in two weeks. It really makes the room look a lot nicer, you mused, glancing back and watching the rising sun trickle in and brighten the living room. You almost felt foolish for your behavior, it was your house for Pete’s sake, you shouldn’t be letting one encounter prevent you from living your life as you wished.

Berating yourself, remembering your inner dilemma weeks ago that you knew nothing of the dark-haired male that lived in the other apartment. You owed each other nothing and if you didn’t want to interact with the man all you had to do was not talk to him, it wasn’t like the conversation was mandatory every time you saw him, you weren’t friends.

But you want to have those conversations, don’t you? Wouldn’t mind getting all buddy-buddy with Mr. Mysterious.

Your left eye twitched in annoyance as your heart and mind continued to have heated debate over what if’s. Once your coffee had gone cold and barely half finished, you were no closer to coming to a decision on how you were going to interact with your neighbor whenever you saw him again. Making the decision to get ready for work earlier than usual, you did so for no other reason than not wishing to be in this apartment any longer.

Picking up the keys off of the coffee table, as you made your way towards the door an hour ahead of schedule you missed the site of a familiar pair dark curtains pulled back.

Once you returned to your apartment the sun had almost set in the sky.

Not only had you arrived earlier to work that day, you had unconsciously stayed later than usual as well.

You thought nothing about it until Seulgi found you in your office, typing away at your computer.

She all but forced you out of the building, raging to herself about I don’t care if it’s not politically correct in 2017, but you need to grow a pair and man up, woman.

In all honestly it was not your intention to stay late, you were so caught up in your work that you simply lost track of time.

It was not until Seulgi found you that you realized what may or may not be waiting for you when you arrived home.

Having left your curtains pulled back, it was highly likely that you would encounter the other when you got back, and you still hadn’t figured out what you were going to say to him.

Deciding to wing it as you approached your door, as you unlocked it and stepped into the hallway you took a long, meditative breath.

Here goes nothing.

You started by walking to the light switches in your hallway and in one fluid motion, your living room was illuminated.

If you were going to do this, you weren’t going to do it as a coward.

You had, as a wise woman once said, grown a pair and manned up.

Not entering the lit-up room just yet, you instead walked back to the bedroom and changed out of your work clothes, wishing for nothing more than to get out of the business casual attire you were confined in all day.

Slipping on a baseball tee and some shorts you took your laptop out of your bag and padded towards the kitchen.

Since the kitchen and living room were situated in an open concept you had no choice but to eventually face the kitchen, however you busied yourself with dinner first, as your stomach was making itself known.

Whipping up a quick meal that you found on your laptop, you hummed as you worked, mindlessly bopping to the music that you had playing in the background.

Once you finished cooking you walked to the cabinet and refilled Mimi’s bowl before taking your culinary creation to the small dining table.

While watching an episode of your favourite drama you finished off your dinner and did the dishes. Returning back to the table to retrieve your laptop, you had intended to finish the remainder of the episode.

Meow.

You swore that cat was out to get you.

You stopped midway from picking up your laptop and glanced over at your cat who was sitting on the windowsill.

Not alone.

You stared at the man in the distance and though you couldn’t properly see him, you nevertheless lent forward and offered a polite bow.

He returned the gesture and you took a deep breath.

Showtime.

You began to make your way over to the window, closing the laptop and tucking it under your arm as you gave the man before you your undivided attention.

“I’m sure she has told you all of my deepest darkest secrets by this point,” you started, throwing a suspicious look at the furry mass by your hip “there isn’t a loyal bone in her body.”

The man smiled and let out a chuckle, “She has been talking about you in great detail I’m afraid”

“Just bad things, I presume”

“Only the worst” he offered a secretive smirk and you snorted.

“Speaking of the worst, I was afraid that the paint fumes had done you in” setting your laptop down you paused at his words and your mind went into overdrive thinking about how you were going to respond.

Briefly you wondered back to your friend’s advice, wondering if you should lie and make up some outlandish story.

Deciding that living a life of treachery was not something that tickled your fancy, you looked up in response.

“Ah, almost, I must have breathed in too many fumes, I was quite sick so I was out of commission for the last while” that wasn’t a whole lie, you were feeling oddly sick, just that it was most definitely not from paint fumes.

But like hell you were going to let him know that.

He let out a hum and nodded his head, apparently accepting your answer, but his eyebrows then furrowed.

“But you’re fine now, right?” he looked cute, worrying over you like a mother hen.

You gave him a grateful smile, waving your hand dismissively.

“It’s going to take more than paint fumes and bad ramen to do me in, fear not good sir”

“Besides, I need to see if SooJin wakes up from her coma and realizes that Joonwoo-“

“-is actually the man that saved her from the burning building when she was a child and that he is being swindled by her uncle who wants to take over the company?” you blinked at the excited look the boy gave you, who was nodding his head eagerly, hands animatedly waving as he spoke.

“….you watch soap operas?” You couldn’t believe the usually reserved man was actually gushing about a daytime drama.

Eat it, Seulgi, you uncultured swine. I told you it was an art.

“Well I’m never home to watch them when they air, but I usually stream them when I get the chance.

I dislocated my ankle really bad a few months ago and was put on home arrest, it was the only thing on at the time and I’ve been hooked ever since” He let out a sheepish laugh as his shoulders shrugged indifferently.

You let out a loud laugh and he seemed startled by the sound, but you weren’t paying attention to him anymore as tears began to well up in your eyes.

You started to shake as giggles bubbled from your throat, needing your hand to brace on the windowsill, not being able to stand straight.

“I can’t…believe…this…is happening…” You could barely breathe, “-looks are definitely deceiving” You commented, sending him a sly smile, eyebrows wiggling.

His face suddenly was dusted with a stunning shade of pink and you wanted nothing more than to squish his cheeks together.

Too precious

He began to mutter something about being totally manly and how it was good study material.

You started to come down from your hysteria but the smile never left your face.

“It’s ok, it will be our little secret, neighbor. But really,” you leaned in conspicuously, as if you were discussing something top secret.

“What do you think Soojin’s next move will be once she wakes up?”

From that moment on you managed to entice him into a totally manly conversation about plot holes and never-ending character resurrections.

Much like work, you were so lost in the conversation, completely forgetting about the awkwardness that you were supposed to be feeling, that you lost track of the hours passing as the two of you talked. The conversation drifted from daytime dramas, settling on mindless chatter that left you with bits of information about the man before you that you never knew you wanted to know.

All the while a wide smile adorned both of your faces.

Chapter VI

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