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sleepykittypaws · 3 years

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Celebrate the Olympic Spirit

Sure, the Olympics aren’t a holiday, per se, but the every-four-year, or two if you count both Summer and Winter editions separately, massive international sporting events sure seems like a reason to celebrate, especially given their recent, unprecedented delay. And what better way to get into the Games mood, than by watching a sports movie?

Here are my favorite motivating, inspirational, and aspirational tales of athletic derring do…

Favorite Sports Movies

The Cutting Edge (1992) - This figure skating romance was released around the 1992 Olympics, and actually name-checks that year's winter host city, Albertville, more than once. It's not good in the traditional sense of great storytelling or athletic veracity, but I loved it so very much I saw it three times in the theater as a teen. Watching it at some point during every Winter Games is a tradition for me so, yeah, I can’t help it, I love this silly sports movie/romance, which also features a bit of holiday feels.

Wimbledon (2004) - It's a rom-com. It's a sports movie. It's a rom-com sports movie that really should be better known. Notting Hill but set at tennis' best-known event. Paul Bettany and Kristen Dunst have surprisingly great chemistry, and there's more sports-related tension than you'd think.

Friday Night Lights (2004) - A football movie for people who don't really like football. a.k.a. 🙋‍♀️. The TV series it spawned is also brilliant (”Clear Eyes, Full Hearts,” indeed), and well worth a watch, but the original movie, starring Billy Bob Thornton, is, honestly, a masterpiece. Definitely Peter Berg's best work and the original book, written by Berg's cousin, Buzz Bissinger, is a great read.

Muriel's Wedding (1994) - You mean you forgot this Australian export, which made Toni Collette a star, was a sports movie? Yep, one of my all-time favorite movies, of any genre, this absolutely brilliant, ABBA-soaked comedy is not only a girls-night go-to, but also a stealth Olympic sport classic.

Remember the Titans (2000) - OK, football isn't in the Olympics, but it sure does make for a good sports movie setting. Even if this early 1970s-set story is most definitely Disney-fied, Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Ryan Gosling and a baby Hayden Panettiere really sell this sort-of true story.

Invictus (2009)-Rugby isn't an Olympic sport, or even one most Americans know much about, but this Matt Damon-led, Clint Eastwood-directed, based-on-a-true-story tale made me care about a sport I'd only tangentially knew even existed before watching.

Hoosiers (1986)-I grew up in Indiana so, by law, I have to include this basketball classic on any "best of" sports movie lists. Also, it actually is really very good.

Rudy (1993)-Ditto the above. But, again, it's hard not to root for Sean Astin (and Jon Favreau!) in this love letter to the Fighting Irish. Plus, there’s no better scavenger hunt task or TikTok challenge than going into a bar and convincing a patron to allow you to put them on your shoulders and march around chanting, 'Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.'

Miracle (2004) - Given how much more popular the Summer Olympics are, it's weird that the Winter Games seem to get all the good movies made about them, but this Kurt Russell-led true tale is another Disney sports movie classic.

McFarland, USA (2015) - Disney, and Kevin Costner, just really know how to make a sports movie, damn it! This movie made me care about cross country for which it, too, could have carried the title Miracle.

A League of Their Own (1992)-The best baseball movie ever. Yeah, I said what I said. Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Lori Petty—even Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell are making it work. 1992 was a weirdly great year for sports movies.

Moneyball (2011) - A movie about baseball, and math, and yet it's also great, I swear. In addition to all of the above, it's also a stealth Christmas movie and maybe Chris Pratt's best non-Marvel, movie role.

Creed (2015) - This surprisingly effective Rocky reboot starring Michael B Jordan as Apollo Creed's illegitimate son has spawned its own movie series which, in many ways, exceeds the original Rocky franchise.

Rocky Balboa (2006) - Maybe it's because I was a toddler when the original Rocky came out, so only saw the ever-worse sequels as a kid, but this mid-aughts return to the character for Sylvester Stallone, as both writer and actor, is a triumph.

Eddie the Eagle (2016) - That Hugh Jackman features in as many movies (spoiler alert) on this list as Kevin Costner surprised me, too. This story of the English ski jumper who became infamous for being, well, less than golden, is one of those non-Olympic triumph stories that really works. If you're going to watch one underdog-at-the-Games movie, I definitely prefer this this to the more ubiquitous Cool Runnings.

Love & Basketball (2000) - Only because I'm an anglophile is this great, chemistry-filled Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps college basketball romance not my favorite sports-movie-meets-rom-com.

I, Tonya (2017) - Margot Robbie and a nearly unrecognizable Sebastian Stan are perfectly cast in this sarcastic, highly stylized look at the Tonya Harding scandal.

Pride (2007) - Apparently I like this swimming movie, which I think almost no one saw, better than critics, but I found this 1970s-set, Terrence Howard-Bernie Mac-starring story of inner city kids excelling in the pool emotional and entertaining.

Field of Dreams (1989) - This Kevin Costner magical realism baseball classic is often goofy and imminently tease-worthy and yet…It also works. Maybe it's no surprise that someone who loves cheesy Christmas movies as much as I do would have a soft spot for Field of Dreams.

42 (2013) - Chadwick Boseman is absolutely fantastic as legend Jackie Robinson. One of those movies that's ostensibly about baseball, but is really about so much more, except not in a pretentious way.

Race (2016) - Before Jason Sudeikis was Ted Lasso, he was famed track coach Larry Synder in this Jesse Owens biopic that is far from perfect, but still important. Plus, I honestly don't think Stephan James got enough credit for his relatively nuanced portrayal of Owens.

Goon (2011) - This overlooked gem starring Sean William Scott as a semi-pro hockey player whose main skill is his ability to take, and dole out, a beating, is surprisingly great.

Real Steel (2011) - This is a robot-boxing movie starring Hugh Jackman that is basically Rocky meets Over the Top—and yet it's actually really good. Yeah, I was surprised, too.

Forget Paris (1995) - OK, so maybe Billy Crystal playing an NBA referee doesn't really make this a sports movie, but it does begin and end (spoiler alert) at real NBA games, and I will die on the hill that this rom-com co-starring Debra Winger is wildly under-rated.

Bend it like Beckham (2002) - This girl-power sports movie has some highly questionable romantic dynamics (the coach is their love interest???) but this Parminder Nagra-Keira Knightley movie is also a heckuva sports movie and an inspiring immigrant story.

Bonus Pick: The Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso is one of the best things I watched in 2020, and I'm sure of that, because I watched it twice since, just to be sure. Jason Sudekis is absolutely perfect as an American college football coach taking over a UK Premier League team. This sweet show with a heart of gold is smart, funny, and absolutely impossible not to love—even for a cynic such as myself.

More Sports Movies Worth Watching

For someone not very into sports, I am, apparently, into watching movies about sports, so while not a comprehensive listing of the entire, vast genre, here are a few more suggestions I personally think are worth watching.

The Miracle Season (2018) - This movie about high school volleyball champs whose star player dies suddenly stars Helen Hunt and is a lot better than you'd think based on its tiny budget and, honestly, fairly small story. Just missed making my Top 25.

The Way Back (2020) - This Ben Affleck as a drunken high school basketball coach movie is a lot better than expected. Released just as the pandemic kicked into high gear, it was overlooked last year, but worth seeking out.

Fighting with My Family (2019) - Does it count if it's a show, not a sport? Either way (but that's why this isn't in my Top 25), this stealth Christmas movie/love letter to the WWE is a lot better than it ever needed to be thanks to some really great performances from Florence Pugh, Lena Headey and directer Stephen Merchant. Even The Rock reins it in.

Warrior (2011) - You couldn't pay me to watch an actual UFC bout, but this Tom Hardy story of (literally) battling brothers is incredibly compelling and well done.

Win Win (2011) - This movie isn't really enough about wrestling, even though its ostensibly centered around the sport, to make it into my Top 25, but it's still really good, and Amy Ryan gives an outstanding performance.

Fever Pitch (2005) - Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon star in this remake of a UK film whose ending they had to shift when the Red Sox unexpectedly won the World Series.

Fever Pitch (1997) - This Colin Firth-starring, Arsenal-centered original is much smaller, more realistic and arguably better than the big budget Barrymore-Fallon redux.

We are Marshall (2006) - A real-life sports tragedy made into a sports-movie tearjerker starring Matthew McConaughy. And my tears were very much jerked by the end.

Coach Carter (2005) - Samuel L Jackson plays real-life basketball coach Ken Carter and, because it's a Disney movie, doesn't use the F-word even once. Now that's a feat worthy of its own sports movie.

Invincible (2006) - Yes, it's Mark Wahlberg, and another based-on-a-true-story, Disney sports movie that hits all the cliches, but dang it, that works on me. It just does.

Glory Road (2006) - If you're sensing a theme with me and Disney sports movies…Well, you're not wrong. This look at the first all-Black starting lineup at the 1966 NCAA Final Four does, unfortunately, center white coach Don Haskins, played by Josh Lucas (though I always mis-remember it as Josh Charles), making the important story it tells less than what it should be, but it still mostly works.

Million Dollar Arm (2014) - Admittedly one of the lesser Disney sports movie entries, and another that centers a white guy in a film mostly about people of color (not a great look), this Jon Hamm movie about a scout seeking an Indian cricket star who can make it in the Major Leagues still mostly worked for me.

The Mighty Ducks (1992) - One of the few movies on this list aimed directly at kids, this beloved peewee hockey saga actually is cute, and mostly does hold up.

Cool Runnings (1993) - Kind of shocked this movie that is part White Savior-movie and part-wacky kids movie essentially making fun of a real group of athletes of color came out in 1993 and not 1973, but the earnest charm of John Candy and a general Disney gloss keep this from being totally unwatchable and mostly just mildly, rather than extremely, offensive. Not really recommending, but feels like it belongs on an Olympic movie list.

Nadia (1984) - This made-for-TV, mostly true biopic, starring Talia Balsam as Nadia Comaneci, was a Disney Channel staple in that network’s early days.

Munich (2005) - It's a movie with the Olympics very much at its heart—namely the 1972 Israeli athlete hostage tragedy—that isn't really about the Olympics at all, but this Steven Spielberg-directed movie about national revenge is compelling, if problematic if you think about it for too long.

American Anthem (1986) - Is this Mitch Gaylord-Mrs. Wayne Gretzky (a.k.a Janet Jones) starring movie good, realistic and/or well-written? No, no and none of the above. But did I still watch it 8,000 times as a kid on HBO? Yes. Yes, I did.

Men with Brooms (2002) - Once, on a business trip to Canada, my husband was stuck in a hotel that only got three channels, and one of them always seemed to be showing curling, which actually got him weirdly into this obscure sport. This movie wasn't quite as fun as I hoped, but it's still a mostly charming, if slight, Canadian classic.

Unbroken (2014) - The harrowing and incredible real-life story of Louis Zamperini deserved better than this Angelina Jolie-directed movie delivered, but it's still a serviceable version of a worthy tale.

Chariots of Fire (1981) - I remember being bored out of my mind by this movie trying to watch this movie on cable as a kid, but no denying that, if nothing else, the score is iconic and indelibly linked to sports-movie magic.

Without Limits (1998) - Jared Leto’s Prefontaine beat this one to the theaters, but this Billy Crudup-starring film is the better of the two movies about the life of running pioneer Steve Prefontaine. There’s also a 1995 documentary, Fire on the Track: The Steve Prefontaine Story.

Personal Best (1982) - Mariel Hemingway’s story of ambition at odds with love, is a sports and LGTBQ+ classic.

Olympic Dreams (2019) - The story of how this small, meandering movie was made during the 2018 Winter Games is, unfortunately, more interesting than the movie itself, but there is some charm in watching Nick Kroll as an Olympic dentist making his way through the real Village, while interacting with real athletes.

Foxcatcher (2015) - This excellently-acted story is more true crime than sports inspiration, but if you're seeking a look at the dark side of the Games—and don’t want to turn on a doc like Athlete A—this is very dark tale indeed.

Seabiscuit (2003) - Every great athlete deserves to have their story told.

Any Given Sunday (1999) - Oliver Stone and Al Pacino take on pro Football. 'Nuff said.

The Replacements (2000) - I mean, the movie isn't amazing, but Keanu Reeves is super charming and Gene Hackman is always worth a watch.

The Program (1993) - Another bit of a dark-side-of-football take, worth it if only for the fantastic cast: James Caan, Halle Berry, Omar Eps, Joey Lauren Adams.

Everbody’s All-American (1988) - Not a movie I particularly love, but this Dennis Quaid-Jessica Lange football story that spans decades has always stuck in my memory.

Bull Durham (1988) - Just let Kevin Costner play actual baseball already.

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delusionland · 3 years

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STEPHCASS FOR THE MEME <3

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet?

here is my personal hc. tim told cass about a girl. he didn’t tell her anything about the girl, just that she was woefully unprepared to be a crimefighter... but also she was kinda cute, in a totally naive way (90s tim was kind of an asshole, never forget). cass couldn’t quite understand what he was saying while he showed her the batfile on her---the picture of the spoiler, etc. but she got his general tone and body language. cass then sought steph out. for nights. nights looking for the spoiler. when she found her---she tackled her, immediately engaged her in a fight. she went so, so easy on her. she just wanted to see what a cute girl was. and steph... was definitely a cute girl. at the time, cass couldn’t talk, couldn’t communicate with her. but she left her a gift. a nice knife that she had throw at her head---deliberately missing it, that was... especially ornate, and seemed shiny and valuable, and most of all purple to match her costume. pretty purple girls like pretty purple things, right?

What was their first impression of each other?

steph probably did not think well of cass, at first. after that first outing---the batfamily got involved. cass was to help steph with her fighting. steph was to help cass with her speech. without the mask on---steph could see how much cass enjoyed her company. it was hard not to realize she had a sense of humor about everything. the laughter she had exhibited on a still-baby-at-the-time spoiler screaming her head off about what she thought was some kind of demon-ninja batgirl was... genuine, and not malicious in the slightest. she seemed to want to be friends, and every time steph frowned at her, or was a sore loser, cass simply smiled and laughed harder, finding everything steph did perfectly amusing. as they got to know each other---cass got better at talking, and steph got better at fighting, and they kind of, met somewhere on the outer edges of the middle for a while. there was always something standing between them--though. a resentment, not between them, but a misunderstanding. that cass belonged to bruce and the bat. and steph belonged to tim.

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together?

i feel like conner kent at the very least shipped it. alfred really thought there was a spark between them, and during their brief frenemy stage---alfred made sure steph knew cass genuinely cared for her. bruce did NOT want them to get together at all, though. neither did tim, for obvious reasons.

Who felt romantic feelings first?

cass. it was love the first time steph managed to punch herin the face. did she win? no. but she GOT her. and through that tenacity, cass realized that her friend was so much more than a silly, pretty girl. she was a fighter. she was a champion. and more than anything, she was brave, and determined, and they had practiced a thousand times for just this moment. and afterwards, steph was just so proud of her overall failure instead of being herr typical loser.... cass couldnt help but know steph was always going to be the love of her life.

Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

they both did! didn’t want to ruin the friendship!

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

cass would get a curious look, steph wouldn’t believe you!

What would their lives be like if they had never met?

they would be a lot worse, a lot lonelier. steph never would’ve become batgirl, that’s for sure, and cass would’ve learned to speak---but in a way entirely removed from her own personality and love of herself & life.

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

it was a mutual thing in ocean city, maryland. they were in a photo booth, sitting in eachother’s laps, leg over leg, they did a silly face, and then another silly face, and then their faces were so close---and then SMOOCH CITY, and they WOULD NOT LEAVE THE BOOTH lol.

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

they considered ocean city their first date. but they’re not really the ‘dating’ types. they both LOVE to fight. they both LOVE to crime fight. they both LOVE spending time together doing NOTHING. if anything, the first time cass had to go to a gala with her was the first time they realized---ugh, do we REALLY have to be WAYNES? do we really have to have REAL LIVES? why can’t we stay in our cuddle - asskicking bubble forever?

What was their first kiss like?

it was the most natural possible thing, and it was something they had both almost had so many times before that it was like drowning in sensation after you had subsisted off of gerbil-cage drips of water for years. they couldn’t stop! they were consumed with want, and they only stopped when they started to get a little TOO frisky and somebody moved the curtain of the booth because they wanted to get their own picture taken and they were like ‘fuck! okay lets get french fries!’ lol

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

steph is cass’s first gf, and vice versa.

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

cass is 5′7″ JUST tall enough to be taller than her gf >: )

What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

cass will kill the puzzler or whatever the fuck his name is. he sucks. steph’s mom loves her tho :’ ) and well. the less said about bruce and steph the better, but like. your whole blog is proof of how much the rest of the batfam loves steph!

Who takes the lead in social situations?

they both are the ‘HAHA! THE ECONOMY!’ gif tbh.

Who gets jealous easier?

cass. steph is special cargo, the first girl / person she ever loved romantically, the first friend she ever had. however, cass has made it very publically known she wants threesomes with other hotties of multiple genders.

Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear?

CASS CASS CASS.

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first?

steph, and she agonized over it, only for cass to say it so easily in a way cass didn’t think it would ever be easy for her to say. like steph is some magical fairy tale princess that lifts the curse on cass to never be able to express love the way love is supposed to be expressed. steph just makes things easy. she makes everything easy.

What are their primary love languages?

TOUCH. GAMES. QUALITY TIME. GIFTS.

Who uses cheesy pick-up lines?

they both do they’re TERRIBLE.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

batgirl and the black bat are forced on seperate patrols bc they do this so much and they HATE it and SNEAK OUT and kiss ANYWAY!

Who initiates kisses?

cass!

Who’s the big and little spoon?

cass is big spoon!

What are their favorite things to do together?

they really like watching wrestling and kung fu movies together i think. steph also likes girly movies, but cass gets bored after a while and just starts wrestling with her over the popcorn and then wrestling leads to hankypanky. most of all they love fighting and dancing AND PLAYING PRANKS on the bat boys.

Who’s better at comforting the other?

cass is.

Who’s more protective?

CASS IS.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

physical affection.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

jenny - studio killers

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

they both call each other batgirl affectionately, cass also learns new words to say girlfriend and sweetie all the time and uses those.

Who remembers the little things?

STEPH.

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes?

they COMPETE to see who will do it first. they use the batcave to make sure the other isnt going to look for rings. and when they find the other one shopping for rings. its fucking GO-TIME BITCH. you’re not going to propose to me, i’m going to propose to you! when they pop out the boxes at the exact same time, cass steals the ring from steph’s hands and holds it up over her head and throws hers at steph’s head like ‘YOU HAVE TO MARRY ME FIRST. NO TAKEBACKSIES.’

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

it’s a big wedding. cass loves, loves people. it’s a whos-who, especially since cass is gonna be batman and she has all the justice league contacts now. cass turns a bit into a bridezila, but like, as a joke, mostly, and she calms down when steph is like ‘i thought we could be more intimate...’ lol

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

they adopt some bratty street kids that are tangentially related to joker / black mask / puzzler / lady shiva as a fuck you. they love their kids so much.

Do they have any pets?

so many cats. a million cats.

Who’s the stricter parent?

cass.

Who worries the most?

steph.

Who kills the bugs in the house?

cass.

How do they celebrate holidays?

they go to concerts!!!! big loud concerts where they can mosh!!!

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

cass! no school! just cuddles!

Who’s the better cook?

steph. cass doesn’t know how to, and also refuses to, fry an egg.

Who likes to dance?

cass most of all!

#ooc: hc #ooc: replies #chaoticblondes

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jadelotusflower · 3 years

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April 2021 Roundup

Welp - a few days late on this, but I’ve had a busy week, including finding a blue-tongue lizard in my house. I have no idea how or why the poor thing got in or where it thought it was going, but it gave me quite the shock. After some trial and error I was able to herd it into a box and release it in the backyard, where I suspect it’s made a home in my compost bin.

Other than that, this month I was lucky enough to live see my first live musical in over a year - The Wedding Singer. I love the movie and have listened to songs from the Broadway cast album, but this is the first time a professional production has been staged here. It was enormously fun, with an exuberant cast and tongue firmly in cheek. It was so nice to be back in a theatre (with social distanced seating) after everything was cancelled last year.

Reading

David Copperfield (Charles Dickens) - I’ve never really read much Dickens outside of A Christmas Carol, but I enjoyed the Iannucci film so much last year I decided to go back to the source material. I was surprised at how much that adaptation retained from a novel so large, at least in terms of important plot points, but then there’s a great deal of characters sitting in rooms and talking about things only tangentially related to the plot. It was an enjoyable read and of course Dickens is a witty writer, even if I found some parts a bit tedious - anytime Mr Micawber or Mr Peggotty shows up my eyes tended to glaze over. But the novel is dense with so many intersecting characters and plots that I can certainly see why it’s been well read and much studied.

A Column of Fire (Ken Follett) - the last (chronologically) novel of the Kingsbridge series, this time set in the 16th Century amid the Catholic/Protestant conflicts in England and France, but also touching on Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands - even the Caribbean. Follett’s favourite tropes are all here; lovers kept apart by circumstance, despicable villains with too much pov page time, rape as a plot device, the apathy/self serving nature of kings and queens. Ned Willard is a typical Follett male (self insert) hero, and as usual it’s the female characters who are far more interesting - Margery the devout but conflicted English Catholic, and Sylvie the enterprising and determined French Protestant. Both are the object of Ned’s affection, which I suppose is telling, and Follett desperately needs to learn how to write some other kind of romantic plot.

Of course it packs in the historical events for them to witness and/or participate in, from the end of Mary I’s reign all the way to the Gunpowder Plot - but it does feel that the latter is rushed in at the end and the novel probably could have ended at the Armada. While I did enjoy the broadened scope, a part of me missed the locality of Kingsbridge as a microcosm of England - this book was more concerned with the macro perspective where the other books (particularly Pillars) was effective in telling the story through Kingsbridge-as-a-character. On the other hand, I did enjoy the France side of the plot (mostly for Sylvie) that covered the machinations of the Guise family, the struggles of French Protestants, and events such as the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre (a rather harrowing section).

Watching

Shadow and Bone (season 1) - I went into this show completely cold (other than the trailer and general excitement on my dash), and really enjoyed it. Alina was a bit generic spunky heroine at first, but she grew on me by the end although I can’t say I really cared much about any of the romantic plots (and want to stay faaaaar away from the discourse). It was the Crows were the real draw for me, and while I was aware that their material came from later books, for me (not knowing any better) their integration into the Grisha plot was seamless.

While I was impressed by the worldbuilding I could have done with a bit more exposition - I still don’t know who the Shu and Suli are, where Fjerda is in relation to Ravka and what the basis of the conflict between them is. On the other hand, I can appreciate they resisted the urge to do too much “as you know”-ing and assume the rest of the world will be revealed as it becomes relevant. Still, I think if shows can learn one thing from Game of Thrones, it’s the value of finding some way of presenting a map to the audience to give some geographic perspective - a few times I did find myself needing to think about which side of the Fold the characters were on at any given time, and have no idea where Nina and Matthias were meant to be at the end. But then I’m the person who constantly flips to consult the map at the front of a book while reading - I need to see it.

I’ll add my disappointment to the RH fans at the chance of seeing Lucy Griffiths again, only for her role as Luda to be a brief flashback that saw her promptly stabbed to death (her entire demo reel could be made up of death scenes at this point). It’s a real shame, because she is perfect for a series like this (in a role like Genya perhaps), and it seems like such a waste.

Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (episodes 1-6) - The new strategy for family entertainment: taking a property that was popular with young Gen X-ers and/or Elder Millennials in their childhoods, and rebooting/reviving it as a show they can now watch with their own kids. The premise is simple enough - the Ducks are now a corporate juggernaut of the live long enough to see yourself become the villain variety, cue a new rag tag underdog hockey team, training at the run down ice rink owned by a disillusioned Gordon Bombay.

It’s mildly entertaining, the child actors are all very good and I’m always here for Emilio Estevez, although I can do without the inevitable romance with Lauren Graham (the team’s coach and mother of one of the kids). But the most recent episode, where a bunch of the og Ducks (sans Charlie) appear, coupled with liberal use of the Ducks Theme, hit me right in the childhood. They got me! They got me with the nostalgia! Because I am a sucker.

The Handmaid’s Tale (season 4, episodes 1-3) - I was very frustrated with this show last season, because it seemed more concerned with endless extreme close ups of Elizabeth Moss emoting rather than telling a coherent story. June is a character with the thickest plot armour I’ve ever seen, while almost every person she comes into contact with meets a bitter end. Rather than the slow domino effect to topple the regime depicted in the original novel and its sequel The Testaments, the show is moving at a breakneck pace, while somehow little actually happens except rinse repeat torture/endurance porn.

More interesting is the Canada side of the story with Moira and Emily (the excellent Samira Wiley and Alexis Bledel), and the difficulties for refugees adapting to life outside of Gilead, which wasn’t explored in either novel and could use more focus in the show. Ann Dowd is absolutely compelling as Aunt Lydia, and a far more interesting villain than the Waterfords (whose scenes have become interminable) yet funnily enough doesn’t get the devoted close-ups, long speeches, or writer interest they do. I’m still watching, if only to see if the show follows her story in The Testaments or not.

Writing

Not a very productive month on the writing front at all, I can’t even bring myself to look at the meagre word counts, so I’m going to let them roll over into May.

#personal #april roundup #long post #reading watching writing

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mermaidsirennikita · 4 years

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how do you think 365 dni compares to movies like 50 shades and after?

Why thank you for asking--

I would say that there is a single similarity, which is that they do stem, if not directly, then tangentially from the general fanfiction-turned-romance novel tradition that has existed for a while but really took off after Twilight. While you can point to Harry Potter inspiring YA fanfic-turned-novels like The Mortal Instruments, Twilight’s impact has really been a lot greater because I think it gave aspiring romance novelists a place to play. And since romance is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) publishing categories in terms of $$$, it makes sense that publishers saw an opportunity to make money off of popular fanfic. This is where 50 got popular, as we all know, and other romance novelists like Christina Lauren, to name a bestseller, cut their teeth on Twilight fanfic.

Then, that gave way to Wattpad and 1D, which is where After came in. I’m not sure exactly where 365 drew from, but it’s definitely at the minimum taking from a lot of mafioso fanfic AUs. And ultimately, fanfic, and in turn crystallized romance novels, are at their heart wish fulfillment scenarios. In romance, that’s usually wish fulfillment not just for the characters you like (as with fanfic) but for yourself.

I think that the biggest issues with After and 50, before we even get into the heroes, are the heroines? Because there is nothing fun about Ana; Tessa in After is MILDLY better, especially in After We Collided wherein she has a bit more fun... but she still sucks. Both Ana and Tessa are excessively passive and accepting of not only poor treatment, but frankly mediocre sex? Lol. I mean, 50 suffers a lot from Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson hating each other in a not good way, but After suffers from both a lack of chemistry and like... not even a sexual gimmick lol. Am I really supposed to buy this 19 year old boy as a sexual dynamo? Sure. But I digress. Ana and Tessa are quite dull, and I cannot find any way to relate to them.

Laura? Laura is FUCKING AMAZING. She’s introduced to as us this Business Bitch, and sure, there’s nothing substantive there, but it makes a lot more sense to me than Ana being given a job by her boyfriend and then being treated like she earned it. Laura comes off as older, more mature--you’re really given a reason to believe that she’s bored with life. Her boyfriend sucks. She’s sexually unsatisfied, but certainly takes matters into her own hands (I don’t think Ana or Tessa ever masturbated onscreen lol, which seems a bit? Odd? In “erotic dramas”). And she’s FUNNY. That’s one of the main reasons I love Laura. She’s kinda ridiculous. She wanders about in her sequin caftan, clearly hoping to get kidnapped (which really sets the tone for the movie.... if you were taking this seriously after that, I don’t know what’s wrong with you and your ability to have fun). She takes control of her Beauty and the Beast inspired dinner with Massimo. She gives him shit all the time, trots off the tarmac like she’s going to walk to Rome, jumps in a fountain just to give him shit. In the final 50 Shades movie, Christian tells Ana that she’s topping from the bottom. But you never see that. I see it in Laura pressing Massimo’s buttons, in her scoffing at him whenever he tries to throw his weight around. She’s never afraid of this guy for real, lol, and it’s very clear in her face.

She’s also a much more sexually engaged heroine. There’s a lot of......... Like, I won’t say that 365 is nearly as kinky as it could get, OBVIOUSLY lol. But it’s definitely kinkier than the supposed kinkfest that is 50, just in terms of its dynamic. And I love that Laura is allowed to be kinky, in particular. She clearly enjoys sex that isn’t always incredibly tender; she enjoys watching Massimo get a blow job from another woman. Both 50 Shades and After are remarkably straightforward and traditional in their depictions of what “healthy” sex looks like.

But of course, the point of 365 is not to depict a healthy and normal relationships lol. It’s to fulfill a specific type of fantasy. Sometimes, you kind of want to get kidnapped. Not literally kidnapped, obviously. But the idea of giving up control and having decisions made for you and being pampered by some rich hot guy who fucks you all over his boat is not bad. And this is where 365 succeeds so well compared to 50 and After. The latter two movies just have this constant stream of boring drama, inauthentic drama, just this guy and his bullshit problems that are, in both films might I add, CONNECTED TO HIS POOR MOTHER. Whereas Massimo literally has to bend to Laura’s will and “become gentle for her”, while also maintaining his position as an archetype. Honestly, aside from the general conceit and the ending, 365 is pretty much angst-free. Laura goes on shopping trips. Laura has great sex. Laura eats and naps whenever she wants and has someone hang onto her every word and need and desire.

The thing is, too, lol--even when Laura does have some angst, she easily has a superior friend to any meager cardboard stand-in seen in 50 and After. Olga is FUN! They have a legitimate spa day montage after Laura has spent hours bitching about her stupid boyfriend. Olga is also the only character who’s like, this shit is INSANE. Olga is fabulous.

Finally, 365 is a movie focused on the female gaze to the nth degree, and we need more of that. The camera worships Michele’s body; it zeroes in on his ass, his abs, his sexual pleasure. Even when Laura is chained to the bed and wearing a spreader bar, she’s less naked than he is. Compare this to 50 in particular, where we saw so little of Jamie and so much of Dakota, in a movie supposedly targeting people who are into men.

It’s just a FUN movie. So much fun. And that’s where After and 50 fail so hard, imo; they’re just kind of agonizing and the female protagonist really doesn’t even get cookies for her time in either of them.

#365 dni #loisfreakinglane

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pixxyofice · 4 years

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You guys know how in PQ2 there are scenes that jokingly give the members of other teams Phantom Thief names? How these names were not the most serious, how they weren't exactly treated seriously?

Well. I decided I wanted to give a serious shot at trying to determine what the Investigation Team's Phantom Thief names would be. Note that due to a lack of familiarity with the SEES members that I won't be doing them; just the Investigation Team members.

The Phantom Thief Outfits are based on what someone's Image Of Rebellion is. The Phantom Thieves (usually) name themselves after the image their Phantom Thief outfit represents. If not that, then they are named after something meaningful to the Phantom Thief themselves (which can tangentially relate to the outfit in some way.)

For examples...

Joker looks like the traditional Gentleman Thief. His name relates to how his wild card ability makes him a useful asset up the sleeves of the thieves. The Joker's power can depend based on what game of cards you are playing, after all, sort of like... Well, Joker.

Queen looks like a post apocalyptic hero, which are usually in Very Badass Action Scenes. Cool scarves, odd outfits, spikes and metal armor... Very cool. As someone with a position of power, she can be seen as a sort of 'ruler'... A Queen.

Noir looks like a musketeer. Traditionally defenders of justice, known for a tale where they fight off evil to their kingdom. Noir named herself that because she views herself as working on the darker side of the law... hence the French word for black. (Which actually fits her thief outfit a lot! The french, I mean.)

So when giving the IT thief names, we have to consider what their personal images of rebellion would look like. Along with that, we have to consider what they would name themselves based on those images.

Let's get started.

Souji Seta/Yu Narukami. (I prefer Souji, so that is the name i'm going to use.)

Souji's image of rebellion very likely closely resembles his Persona. What was his persona based off of... A banchou or something? Kingpin, whatever. His image of rebellion seems to be a cool, collected, intimidating figure. See his Persona and also how he dressed up for the cross dressing pageant. His mask could look very similar to Izanagi's mask.

As Souji is similar-ish to Joker, I reasoned that Souji would be named in a similar manner. He is the leader of the team, the level head making the decisions... And a Wild Card. His look is intimidating, like a Kingpin, so... Name him after a strong card in a deck, or the central piece of a chess board: King. (After all, if he falls, the game is over.)

Yosuke Hanamura.

I'll be real with you. I thought image of rebellion for Yosuke, and I thought Superheroes. Sure, his first persona looks like a Ninja... But all of his Personas have a Hero Vibe to them, yeah? And he wanted to look into the TV world because he wanted to be a hero... So, Superhero Costume. His mask would probably be that Traditional Superhero Mask.

As for his codename? Knowing him, he'd probably try to come up with something Cool. Hero Sounding. I am not good with names, alas, but... What I came up with is Galestorm. It fits his wind vibes, it's a cool sounding word... Uh... I dunno. It fits him maybe!!

Chie Satonaka.

Let's be real here. Her image of rebellion is TOTALLY the protagonists of kung-fu movies. She would probably wear a yellow tracksuit, like her Persona, which.... Yeah, reference. As for her mask? ... Haha I have no idea, y'all come up with one.

As for her name.... Well, Dragon. As in Trial Of The Dragon. Alongside that nifty reference, Dragons, as mythical creatures go, could very well fit Chie. Protective, aggressive towards those it deems a threat, a fiery attitude... Its pretty good! Maybe!

Yukiko Amagi.

Yukiko Amagi's image of rebellion is likely closely related to birds. You look at her outfit and you probably think 'bird'. Remember in the Anime how Yukiko admired her pet bird for being able to fly free? Yeah. That. That's why her image of rebellion would be birdlike. Her mask could resemble plague doctor masks, somewhat. Think a less pointy Prince Akechi and also it covers more of her forehead for Beak.

As for her name? She would likely connect the feathers on her outfit to the attachments of her Persona, which represent... Sakura Petals/Blossoms. She probably had a thought jump from "sakura" to "flower terms", and probably prefers Blossom out of the two terms she thought of. It sounds pretty... But also has a tougher name Feel than Petal. Blossom sounds more like a codename, too!

Kanji Tatsumi.

Lets be real here. There's a reason the Thieves named him Skull 2.0. Their images of rebellion would be... similar? Kanji's is influenced by various outside factors, including a certain manly push, but still. His costume would probably represent his punk ideal... maybe subtly mix in his preference for cute things here and there in accessories? Dunno.

As for his codename? Well, he looks tough, and he is tough! He's the one to point to if you want someone to smack people down. Call him... Breaker. Because he breaks things. (Additional thing I only realized and laughed at now: he's an electric user. Aren't Breakers also the names of the things you use to control whats powered in the house...?)

Rise Kujikawa.

I'll be honest, I... Have no clue. In the version of this post that I lost, I think I HAD a clue, but it went with the wind. If I were to think, though... Maybe her image of rebellion is... sorta like Panther's. She has an image of a woman who is assured of herself, knows herself and her friends, and reflects their brightest points. A somewhat revealing outfit, but one that's... mature? I don't know... Her mask would probably resemble Himiko's "face" of solar panels (somehow).

As for her codename... Let's think about how she's the IT's support. Or... Well, her Persona. Her Maxed Persona has a solar system orbiting around her, with the Persona itself being the very center, like a sun. The Investigation Team could be like those planets; strong and sturdy on their own, thriving with the touch of the sun. She's like... Sunlight is necessary for a human to live, and she provides that sunlight for her teammates to stand even taller. With her outfit idea in mind... Sunlight sounds too "young". So perhaps Sunbeam for her codename. Same idea, but sounds Better!

Teddie.

...... Hey, before I just go right out and say it... Technically... Aren't both of Teddie's forms some form of rebellion from the other Shadows? He formed his bear image so he could be loved by humans, and then formed his human image so he could be with his human friends. That... That's rather unique, isn't it? Could be a rebellion in itself.

... And now for me to just say... It's Ted. Teddie gets the Morgana treatment here. A shortened version of his name that just sums up that, yep, he sure is a bear that helps in fighting shadows. No fancy name for him.

Naoto Shirogane.

Naoto's image of rebellion is rather simple, honestly! ... The outfits of the heroes of shows like Neo Featherman! Sure, Naoto admires detectives and loves reading/watching detective things... But thats not their image of rebellion. When they think rebel, they think of posing live action heroes, fighting bad guys regardless of the laws! As for their mask... Uh. Bandana across face look. Also worth noting: their Persona's little wing/cape thing would Definitely be a part of their thief outfit.

As for their name... Naoto would probably go with something on the simpler side. Their outfit reminds them of their Persona, who is bug based, and thus, bug theme names. Wasp... Beetle... Moth. Moth fits their Persona's wing/cape thing the most, and sounds sort of soft... But if you underestimate Naoto, they'll show you that their softer name hides a brain of steel and a quick trigger finger.

So... The Investigation Thieves are:

Souji Seta/Yu Narukami - King

Yosuke Hanamura - Galestorm

Chie Satonaka - Dragon

Yukiko Amagi - Blossom

Kanji Tatsumi - Breaker

Rise Kujikawa - Sunbeam

Teddie - Ted

Naoto Shirogane - Moth

What do you guys think? Should I have come up with better names? Reblog/Tag with your thoughts!

please I know there could be better names for Yosuke and I know someone out there has a good Rise Thief Image, please

#persona 4 #persona 5 #pq2 #persona q2 #long post #yosuke hanamura #chie satanoka #yukiko amagi #kanji tatsumi #rise kujikawa #teddie #naoto shirogane #souji seta #yu narukami #there. the IT.

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vanaera · 6 years

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Reds, Spaces, and Signs

Synopsis | Jeon Jungkook does the good ol' prepping up his girlfriend with ice cream and movies to help her through her red days. The only difference is, you're actually his girl-space-friend and he hopes that someday, you may eliminate that space between you. Lucky for him, you may do so tonight. Pairing | Jungkook x reader Genre | Flufffy dy fluffy dy fluff Wordcount | 1.9k

A/N | This is somehow related to the request so yeah…I hope you enjoy this anon as much as I enjoyed writing this while having a terrible red day. Thank you so much for loving this drabble series!

Read more of football!jk drabbles in The Prince and His Rose

By the sound of a small 'ding!' and the sight of your name on his notification bar, Jungkook is already crouching down, tying his shoelaces to prep his fifty meter dash to your dorm.

Saturday 7:15 PM

Otor-nim Y/N: Kook, I need you to do the biggest favor of the month.

Otor-nim Y/N: I need long ass pads. I can't fucking move. The satanic waterfalls between my legs is furious as hell. It rained on my pads so bad.

Otor-nim Y/N: And yeah, I can't damn move.

Past him would be totally cringing by now, begrudgingly stomping to the grocery to grab what you need and chunk them all to you on your couch before going out of the door without even a goodbye. However current him is different. Current him is much cooler and manly than past him. Current him is more gentlemanlike and more mature than past him. And current him is in love with you.

Being his bestfriend for so many years, you have dealt with his too-many-to-count nonsense comebacks, childish competitiveness, annoying shenanigans, and stupid misadventures. You've helped him find his dream of playing football, tutored him for free on his difficult subjects, and...okay you've always been there to bring him back to rationality whenever he's about to do one of the stupidest things you’ll soon put down in a book titled Jungkook's Endless Shits. You even sit and wait on the bleachers for him to finish his night practices whenever you can just so you can go home together. You've also stayed up with him countless of nights, pressing down ice packs on his sore legs when he's done with long trainings and big matches on the field since high school. By now, it's obvious that he should return the favor, right? Growing up with you ever since he's a troublesome six-year-old, the idea of you being completely stuck by his side till you both grow old has already embedded itself on his head. Although back then, he meant living in a nice house in the future with your own house just across or beside his, your own families growing close to each other. Right now, however, he imagines you being with him inside his own house and building your own family. So knowing you’re one of the women who’s got the worst dysmenorrheas ever, of course, he's gotta take care of you so you'll still be alive when the day he'll finally be a man to confess these stuff to you - Okay, this is complete nonsense, so anyway-

Saturday 7:16 PM

Star Kook: on my way

Otor-nim Y/N: Thank you, Kook! Oh and bring that film Tae is Talking about.

Star Kook: Love, Rosie?

Otor-nim Y/N: Yesssss

Star Kook: Okay

Otor-nim Y/N: Have I ever told u that I LuV Ya??????

Star Kook: Ew.

Oh god, does he wish you mean that. Please bless his rampaging heart.

Three knocks were made against the door before Jungkook uses the spare key of your room you gave to him. At the sound of your door unlocking, you look up from your haphazard state of your right leg laid on your couch and the other on the floor.

You pull yourself to see him. "Heya Kook! That was...fast."

"Yeah, what do you expect from me?" He gives you a smug smile, walking to your couch to land his butt alogside yours with a plop. He wouldn’t tell you that he actually spent a long ass time deciphering the best brand of pads in the convenience store. "You know I'll always be fast. It's the Jeon Effect."

The stink eye you're giving him made him lean back and release a loud guffaw. You're probably slapping his face in your head.

"Here's the pads. And yeah. I bought you ice cream and Chinese takeout."

"Really?!" You turn your body towards him, eyes bright.

Jungkook smiles, eyes mimicking the crescents of the moon. God, even if your hair has yet to feel the bristles of your brush, even if you look so pale with no make-up on, even if you practically look like death in front of him, you look so beautiful.

Jungkook clears his throat. "Yeah, really. Now sit down. I'll grab us some spoons, then we'll watch the movie. What do you wanna eat first? Ice cream or the take out?"

"Hmm...I'll go with ice cream."

"As always. Dessert before the main course."

You chuckle as you return his grin. "Dessert before the main course."

Ten minutes later into Love Rosie, you've already curled up on your couch, head now placed on your bestfriend’s lap when a few minutes prior it was settled on the crook of his neck and shoulder. The rhythmic feeling of Jungkook’s fingers carding through your locks was probably the culprit. Anyway, it was only then that you seemed to remember something.

“Kook…”

“Yeah?” Jungkook stops the movements of his fingers, angling his face towards you.

“I forgot to grab our map.”

“Oh yeah, okay just sit there. I’ll get it,” he says, immediately grabbing a pillow to place under your head as he scamper to your room.

The map was easy to find. It’s folded on top of your bed, a blanket studded with colorful stars that have already faded hues through age. While it wasn’t the prettiest fabric, your blanket has served its purpose of providing you comfort and warm, even actually beyond what a blanket could provide. He remembers the seven-year-old you who claimed that this blanket wasn’t a blanket but a map – his and your map to the worlds your creative mind has planned and put into ink on paper. The stories you created grew and grew that you have to immortalize them into something tangential, something real for the fictitious tales you colored his and your life with.

It took six years in high school before Jungkook realized that this blanket was not just a map for the Emerald Prince’s Kingdom, for the Empire of the Dandelion Lions, or for your favorite Golden Prince and his quest to reunite with his Rose. It was a blanket that always mapped his way back to his home when he ran away and you and your blanket were the only ones that accompanied him that lonely night, back to his self when you covered him in its fabric after one cold night after playing football for the very first time, and back to you when he suddenly avoided you for weeks because of the romantic feelings that grew in his ribcaged heart and all it took was one tearful night and your blanket over your heads to see you, your eyes, and the probability of him balancing the gravitational differences between your hearts. Two years have passed and Jungkook thinks his quest for your affections have also been fruitful, if the pink blush on your cheeks whenever he does surprise bear hugs and uncalled gifts were indicators of that. Anyway, Jungkook is yet to give up. He’s got more years to pour his love for you to make up for his lost chances in the previous years.

Jungkook makes his way back to you, unfolding the blanket before draping it on your shoulders. He goes back to his seat and settles your head back on his lap. You grab his right hand to put it on your tresses and at the sound of your relieved sigh when he plays with your hair again, he chuckles. “You really like me playing with your hair, huh?”

“Shut up, Kook.”

Jungkook laughs. “I’m going to buy you a starry pajamas set when your birthday comes.”

“Way to break the surprise, Jeon. Anyway, you know I’ll only wear them when you got a set that matches it so you better buy yourself one too. Who knows you’re planning to make me look hideous again.”

“Of course, Y/N, we have to look horrible together, I’ll make sure of that.” Jungkook doesn’t reply to your huffs of “how about you look hideous without dragging me into your stupid shits” and just tells you to focus on the movie.

An hour and forty minutes later, the credits were rolling and Jungkook could feel your soft even breaths. He turns off the TV before crouching down to pick you up in his arms, blanket still draped on your body. You instantly snuggle into the warmth of his arms, the tip of your nose grazes the soft flesh of his neck, making him shudder.

He sets you on your bed and tucks you comfortably in your blanket. However as he draws back to give you a good night kiss on your forehead you’ll never know off anytime soon, your right hand shoots out and grabs his, immediately sending a thousand electric bolts running rushing through his veins, from your cold hand, the fact you’re actually awake, or the possibility of him almost caught red handed, he doesn’t know.

“Kook, y’know, Rosie and Alex are kinda stupid.”

Oh, you’re talking about the film. Jungkook opts to sit on your bed. He doesn’t have it in himself to let your hand go. “Hmm…yeah, why is that?”

“I don’t know…I mean, they had so many chances to just be brave and say what they felt to each other? They would have…y’know, don’t get through those stupid misunderstandings and conflicts when they just…said it aloud. Ya’get me?”

Jungkook nods and squeezes your hand. He doesn’t know why, but it felt like a personal attack. All these things he’s been doing, all these staged fronts he pulls up just to keep his cool and not act like he’s actually whipped by you – yeah, they’re kinda stupid. But–

You flutter your eyelashes at him and let a smile spread on your face. “I know I’m blabbing trash. Anyway, thank you for keeping me company and helping me with my shitty day…yeah…and I hope you won’t go stupid too and just say upfront whatever you’re feeling.”

Before Jungkook lets your words sink in, he feels a pair of soft lips land on the apples of his cheek, so fast as if a butterfly fluttered past him. Jungkook’s mouth falls open, his hand on his cheek frozen as he turns to look at you, head now ducked beneath your covers.

“Y-Y/N–“

“That’s all. G’night, Kook.”

“O-okay. G’night.”

Only when Jungkook closes your door does he hear a faint “Love you,” and before he lets his imaginations take control again, he dismisses them and treks back to his dorm.

Maybe it was all a dream, maybe it was real, but all Jungkook knows, this is a sign, and he sure as hell will not take it for granted. As soon as he reaches his room, he immediately pulls the familiar pink stationery, and the iconic golden crown tape you always find in the love letters addressed to you in your locker. For the very first time, Jeon Jungkook will be honest with everything now. No more pretenses–just him and you, and the reality of his feelings.

“Dear Princess,

It’s time for me to introduce myself. I’m Jeon Jungkook, your childhood friend, and bestfriend for more than ten years, and the Little Prince who’s been sending you love letters for the past six months.”

So…Did you give her the letter?

Not yet, Hyung.

Why?

It’s not the right time, Tae…I-I gotta have the time right.

But I thought you’ll court her for real now?!

I’m self-contradictory, hyung, okay? I’m stupid, I know. I just-ugh! I just gotta wait…ease my way out of the friend zone, then I’ll send her the letter.

Okay, If you say so.

I will, hyung, I’m sure. Very soon.

A/N pt. 2 | Is this a sign hons? HAHAHAHHA don’t worry, TPAHR won’t be ending anytime soon. I’ve still got loads of stuff planned for this drabble series. Anyway, enjoy the suspense. Feedback is always appreciated! Thank you for the support you’ve all been giving me! I love you, hons!

#bangtanarmynet #kwritersworldnet #bangtan bookclub #btsguild #the prince and his rose #tpahr #jungkook scenarios #bts scenarios #bts x you #jungkook x you #jeon jungkook #bts #bangtan #bangtan seonyeondan #request

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needsmoresarcasm · 6 years

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A Review of Crazy Rich Asians Before Seeing Crazy Rich Asians

And several years ago, she had been e-mailed a humorous list entitled ‘Twenty Ways You Can Tell You Have Asian Parents.’ Number one on the list: Your parents never, ever call you ‘just to say hello.’ She didn’t get many of the jokes on the list, since her own experience growing up had been entirely different.

That’s the passage that sold me on Crazy Rich Asians. I know, it’s no “Life lilted to the sounds of her soliloquy, skipping across lily pads, seeking to fill her soul with elusive validity” or whatever nonsense collection of pretty sounding words sells people on books these days. That’s all to say, for me, the thrill of Crazy Rich Asians does not rest in sparkling prose but in its revolutionary ordinariness.

You see, in that passage, Rachel, a first generation Chinese American, is reflecting on the differences between herself and other Asian Americans, as a result of considering her differences with Nick, her Chinese Singaporean boyfriend. A character in a story saying “I’m not like all the other [girls/boys/teens/football players/handsome men named Chris in a comic-book based superhero movie]” is hardly new ground. But an Asian American character specifically contemplating her differences from other Asian and Asian American characters? I feel pretty comfortable betting that you can’t even name another instance of it. Because that would require at least two Asian American or Asian characters, and then a recognition that those characters did not encompass the entire experience of all Asian Americans.

I’m confident making that bet because there are so few mainstream stories that include enough Asians to make that opportunity possible. Only 11 percent of network TV shows in 2015 even had more than one Asian actor in its main cast. There have only ever been three network sitcoms featuring an Asian American family. Ever. There have been that many network sitcoms featuring a group of predominantly white friends with the word “Friends” in the title in the last decade. And that’s not even including “Friends”! (Best Friends Forever, Friends with Better Lives, and Friends with Benefits, in case anyone was wondering. Yes, I watched every episode of them all, in case anyone was wondering again.) And TV is the medium where Asian actors are doing the best. Want to know how many major studio films featured an Asian actor in the leading role in 2015? Zero. None. In 2015, only 3.9 percent of characters were Asian, the same as in 2007, despite the fact that Asians are the fastest growing demographic group in the US.

That’s hardly shocking, I hope, because we’ve all been outraged about whitewashing for like a solid two years now. It’s exhausting, and I don’t know that I need to rehash it. But, for the sake of propriety, let’s just see how many movie characters were whitewashed in say… the last ten years: Allison Ng in Aloha (Emma Stone), Mindy Park in The Martian (Mackenzie Davis), The Ancient One in Doctor Strange (Tilda Swinton), Light Yagami (nee Turner???) in Death Note (Nat Wolff), Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell (Scarlett Johansson), Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness (Benedict Cumberbatch), Hae-Joo Chang in Cloud Atlas (Jim Sturgess), Boardman Mephi in Cloud Atlas (Hugo Weaving), the Archivist in Cloud Atlas (James D’Arcy), Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender (Noah Ringer), Lena in Annihilation (Natalie Portman), Goku in Dragonball Evolution (Justin Chatwin), Keiji Kiriya in Edge of Tomorrow (Tom Cruise), Kyo Kusanagi in The King of Fighters (Sean Faris), everyone in 21, and everyone in Speed Racer. In the last ten years. And that’s not even counting the characters who were not necessarily whitewashed, but were still inexplicably white: The Last Samurai, The Great Wall, the random white person POV in the Bruce Lee biopic Birth of the Dragon, those seven seconds on the Internet when the Mulan script had a white dude. I guess what I’m saying is, thanks Ed Skrein for opting out of Hellboy.

And so, Crazy Rich Asians is revolutionary. Sure, its satirization of class is nothing that Pride and Prejudice hasn’t done. And it’s got a Game of Thrones convoluted web of familial relations. And a Tolkein-esque love of a tangential backstory for a tertiary character (no one ever needs to know anything about Bernard Tai). But it’s not a bunch of white people in Regency era England or Westeros or Middle Earth. It’s a bunch of Asian people in the 21st century. And so when Rachel says she doesn’t identify with a Buzzfeed list, I not only get the reference, I feel it. It’s a mundane aside that feels written for me--not written for an Asian audience generally, but written for me specifically. It’s the kind of representation you only get when identity assumes the role of a character’s foundation, not a character’s personality: when you can no longer win a game of Taboo by giving the hint “the Asian one.”

It’s the type of representation that allows me to feel no pause about decrying how Eddie should just be written out of Fresh Off the Boat (send him off to college, already) because that show still has the rest of the Huang family. The Fresh Off the Boat gag about not knowing the dishwasher was more than a drying rack? That’s the hardest I’ve laughed at a TV show in ages, as a person who hadn’t run a dishwasher until he was 24, despite having grown up with one in the house. The extended bit about having to prepare for Asian glow? Still funny, but I’ll die of alcohol poisoning before there are any signs that I’m visibly drunk. When every joke is from the perspective of an Asian American family, I don’t feel lost when a few aren’t for me.

I love Fresh Off the Boat because it’s a great family sitcom. It’s funny and heartwarming and totally accessible. And as a network sitcom entering its fifth season, that’s all it needs to be. Because if you’re looking for a different flavor of representation on TV? Try Master of None or Kim’s Convenience. Or The Good Place, in case you identify with a sweet, dumb molotov cocktail or a fancy British giraffe. Or Superstore, for either sass or sadness personified. There might not be a buffet of TV sitcom representation, but at least the prix fixe menu has some decent options.

And books are much the same. Crazy Rich Asians (and then China Rich Girlfriend… and then Rich People Problems) is fun, pop spectacle. It’s propulsive, with drama escalating through multiple storylines until they can’t help but burst into each other. It’s a great beach read. It’s a story you could live tweet. But you’d be disappointed if you were looking to read a rumination on identity and place in America or scrolls of lofty prose. The great thing about books, though, is that there are so many of them. So if you want those things? You could probably find it somewhere.

I don’t know that I realized how truly powerful it was to feel like something was crafted just for you until devouring Chemistry by Weike Wang. Chemistry is about an Asian American PhD student who leaves her PhD program in part because she feels like she lacks the motivation to dedicate her life to answering single research questions. She’s frustrated by lab work, by the unpredictability of scientific research. When she leaves her program, she tutors kids in science - and she so clearly loves science, as she peppers scientific trivia throughout the narrative. Her voice is deadpan and her thinking analytical. Switch some pronouns around, and I’m pretty sure I just wrote an autobiography circa 2012.

It’s hard to describe just how much feeling that catered to entirely changes the power of a piece of art. Honestly, it’s not something I’ve had much occasion to think of. Of course, Chemistry is great for so many more reasons. The writing is breathtaking in its economy. As an author, it feels like Wang can take the same five words and rearrange them into the world’s best joke and the world’s saddest tragedy. Every observation feels elemental - like chemistry, a fundamental truth of this world that Wang has just discovered. And as any good scientist, Wang has published those truths for the benefit of the public.

Celeste Ng has a similar knack for observation that’s on full display in Little Fires Everywhere. Now, Little Fires Everywhere is not primarily about Asian American characters. The only prominent Asian character does alight the most dramatic narrative in the book - a custody battle smoked in class and race wars. Still, I can’t say I particularly identify with the character, a Chinese immigrant so impoverished she leaves her child on a doorstep. But that’s not to say I don’t identify with the book. Because Little Fires Everywhere is a book about white identity, written from the outside looking in. Set in a midwest town in the 90s, race smolders in the background. Instead of merely being the default setting, the characters’ whiteness is a clear choice. It’s on full display. Much as it’s impossible to not notice the Asianness of a Mr. Miyagi, it’s impossible not to see the Richardsons’ every move as coded with whiteness.

And that perspective - the one that notices when things are particularly white - is something I can identify with. Little Fires is much more subtle about noticing whiteness than I am though. Where I muttered “this is some white nonsense” when a bar trivia category was “songs with the world ‘sail,’” Ng has the McCulloughs promise to feed a child Chinese food to connect her with her culture. Or has Lexie, whose boyfriend is black, declare that it’s so great that no one sees race in their town. Or has Mrs. Richardson feel entitled to barrel headfirst into affairs she has no business being part of. It’s in the claustrophobia that builds from the deliberate confines of the setting: a utopic, white-picket fenced community decidedly apart from the less desirable fringes of the town. A subtly observed us vs. them, where the central characters are almost certainly the “them.” In its hyper-awareness of whiteness, Little Fires gives its reader a sense of what every person of color lives through.

For me, Little Fires Everywhere and Chemistry and Crazy Rich Asians and Fresh Off the Boat are excellent forms of representation, even as they’re all incredibly different. And I am so grateful that all of these things exist. They’re great as independent works of art. And they’re even better for me, because I get to have the joy of being on the inside of the inside jokes.

But still. Not a single character in any of the works I’ve referenced is Japanese American. Not a single character in any of those works is a fourth generation Asian American. But I don’t blame those works for that. Those works are at least giving me something I recognize - an outsider's perspective on whiteness, a former PhD candidate, an exasperation with Buzzfeed lists, a family that doesn’t use their dishwasher. I would just like more. And when it comes to movies, I would just like any. Crazy Rich Asians is at least something. And all I’m asking for is something. And then, well, and then I’d like more something.

Because I am so glad that a story exists where an Asian person sees-and then rejects-a list of items that attempts to encompass every Asian American. Oh and as a last note? My parents really don’t ever call me “just to say hello.”

#crazy rich asians #little fires everywhere #fresh off the boat #chemistry

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ruminativerabbi · 6 years

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Machines and People

Art is the medium that allows an artist to communicate something profound and meaningful to his or her audience in a way that does not merely inform but truly inspires…and which also allows the artist to transcend the brevity of human life to speak not solely to contemporaries, but to countless future generations as well. When put that way, the underlying concept sounds fairly abstruse. But when considered in the context of real life, it feels almost natural: when we sit in the audience and watch King Lear talking to his daughters on stage as the curtain goes up and the play begins, it’s not at all difficult to understand that it’s only him talking to them in a certain sense, but—and far more profoundly—it’s really the playwright talking to us. Indeed, the difference between a great artist and a hack lies precisely in his or her ability to communicate deeply and movingly with an audience in a way that merely telling them that same information would not even slightly accomplish: what we learn in a few minutes of King Lear about parent-child relations and the degree to which greed can poison even the most natural kind of love couldn’t possibly ever be conveyed as deeply or as effectively by even the most talented university lecturer giving a public talk about the ins and outs of childrearing. Or about the nature of love. Or about greed.

That all being the case, art requires three things (or feels as though it must): an artist, an audience, and an artistic medium of some sort. The first and the second absent the third is just two (or more) people standing in a room. The first and third absent the second is the artistic version of a tree falling in a forest with no ear drum present to vibrate sympathetically when the tree hits the earth. The second and third is, at best, unrealized potential, a batter at the plate and a ball resting on the pitcher’s mound…but no pitcher in sight actually to throw the ball and, as such, no game to watch and either to enjoy or not to enjoy. And, of course, also no winner or loser.

So that’s two living, breathing people and one artistic medium that feel requisite. But now that we live in a new world in which machines can think—if not quite in the way human begins do, then at least to an extent that even a quarter century ago would have been unimaginable—the time may have come to revisit that those requirements.

Take, for example, these eyes:

They are expressive, thoughtful, fully human. It is a man or a woman? Is that the hint of a moustache under his nose or just a shadow? These eyes suggest a certain sadness to me, a certain world-weariness born of insight into the way that people are so often their own worst enemies. Without being able to see the rest of the face, this person seems to exist outside of time. If the rest of the picture depicted him or her dressed like an Italian aristocrat of the sixteenth century, I could believe it. But if the rest of the picture portrayed him as a cowboy or her as an astronaut, I could believe that too.

Here’s the rest of him:

So, not a cowboy or a doge, but a Dutchman. And this, I can hear you thinking, must surely be a work of Rembrandt, the greatest of all portrait painters and (of course) a Dutchman himself. But this painting is neither a Rembrandt nor a work by any of his contemporaries or students. It was created by a 3-D Printer that was programed over the course of an eighteen-month experiment by a team of art historians, computer scientists, and engineers brought together by Microsoft, the Delft University of Technology in Holland, and two Dutch art museums, the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam. Bringing together digital data culled from 346 of Rembrandt’s real paintings created between 1632 and 1642, the idea was to create a portrait of a man not only dressed in the style of the time and with facial features similar to the men in Rembrandt’s real paintings, but to use the finest gradations of shading, texture, perspective, brush usage, pigmentation, and lighting to create a new portrait, one of no one at all but that surely feels as though it could be of someone whom Rembrandt could easily have known.

Is that art? It’s hard to say. The work has an audience and it exists…but does it have an artist? Clearly, a 3-D printer is not an artist, just a machine that does its programmers’ bidding. But are its programmers then the artists? I want to say no, that this project was just some digital silliness dreamt up by people because they had the technical skill to pull it off. But then I look again at the man’s eyes…and I feel a certain sense of kinship with this non-man who never existed. Does that make me a crazy person? Or does that make this a work of art?

Christie’s is about to auction off a portrait called “Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy,” a work created by an algorithm (whatever that means exactly) and thus a product solely of its machine-creator’s artificial intelligence. The bidding is going to begin at $10,000. The creators, if that’s the right word (since they specifically did not create the painting), are a trio of French businessmen with degrees in business and computer technology who call themselves Obvious. No artistic implement was used to create the picture—no pencils, no paints, and no drawing tools of any sort. Nor was human creativity involved other than tangentially: what the members of Obvious did, almost simply, was to feed thousands of portraits from the 14th to the 20th centuries into a computer that had been programmed to analyze the images in a dozen different ways and then attempt to mimic them as best it could. And here is, so to speak, Edmond de Bellamy himself:

Is this art? Most of me still wants to say no. But I find myself unexpectedly unsure as I look carefully at the painting and allow it to speak to me in precisely the way great works of art communicate outside of language and without being themselves animate.

I saw Her, Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie, and came away unconvinced that a man could truly love a machine, even one possessed of as intelligent and enticing an operating system as the one whose voice in the movie is Scarlett Johansson’s. Machines are not people. They cannot love. They cannot reproduce. But can they create? That is the question the portraits pasted in above awakens in me.

These questions lead to others. Can machines make music? Can they write books? Can they make scientific discoveries other than by processing huge amounts of data that their human masters have programmed into them? All these views have their proponents. Listen, for example, to Drew Silverstein, the CEO and co-founder of Amper, a company eponymously named after its sole product, an artificial-intelligence music composer. Touted as the ultimate in artificial creativity, the program, so claims its founder, can create “unique, professional music tailored to any context in seconds” once you’ve provided it with the style of music you wish it to create, the mood you’d like to convey, and the length of the piece of music you wish to end up with. It’s beyond impressive. (To hear the whole spiel, click here.) And the product is certainly something like music. Maybe even it is music…at least in the sense that what they market as “cheese food” is some version of cheese. But what it lacks is the inner quality that, at least for me, defines what music—and what art itself—is: the ability to transcend the temporal and physical boundaries of the universe to communicate deeply moving ideas and emotions through the medium of human creativity. And that is what is lacking in all of the above. If there is no human artist, then there simply is no one for me to commune with through the medium of his or her art, no one to speak to me either deeply or superficially. Or at all. And without that psychic bridge between one human heart and another, all that’s left is technique and content.

Coming closer to my own turf, I find myself wondering if machines can write books. You may recall reading in George Orwell’s 1984 about a world in which the “proles” of a dystopian future solely read books written by machines. You may also be aware that amazon.com features over 10,000 books by one Phillip Parker, each of which is computer-generated and so, at least in some sense, “written” by a machine—but those books are merely compendia of facts and data, so hardly literary works other than in the sense that tax returns are or that telephone books would be if there still was any such thing. But other efforts are more intriguing. A Russian computer scientist, Alexander Prokopovitch, programmed a computer to produce his (or do I mean, its) 2008 novel, TrueLove, an attempt to tell the story of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina in the style of one of my own favorite authors, Haruki Murakami. It was, however, not deemed a particularly successful undertaking and is no longer in print. (For a fairly dismal appraisal of Prokopovich’s efforts, click here.) Others will do better, I’m sure: to teach a computer to produce a text that retells a story that it has been programmed to regurgitate on command using a specific set of literary quirks and tendencies it has also been programmed to bring to bear in its effort to recast the story in different words doesn’t sound anywhere near impossible. But we’re back to the tree in the forest: if there is no beating heart inside an actual human breast with which I am being invited personally to commune through the medium of that person’s art, then there is—at best—a document, a story, or a book…but not literature. An image but not a painting. Sound, but not music.

The bottom line, at least for me, is that art should be defined first and foremost as a mode of communication, as a way for two souls to meet even if their possessors never will or even could. If there is no other person involved, then even the most sophisticated effort to mimic art is just so much unrealized potential. Art, like love, requires two.

#artificial intelligence #art #Alexander Prokopovich #Drew Silverstein #Obvious #Edmond de Belamy

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zukadiary · 6 years

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Arch of Triumph / Gato Bonito!! ~ Snow Troupe 2018

I feel a bit weird writing this up after only day 2 of the run, because I’m sure the troupe is still very much warming up... but this is when I happened to be here. Yukigumi fan life has not been ideal for me since Chigi’s retirement and this was BALM FOR THE WOUNDS in unexpected ways. Beware of spoilers.

Arch of Triumph

I happen to really like the original version of this show (from back when Tom was Yukigumi’s actual top star), but despite that the primary emotion I felt re: this show choice, as a Daimon fan who has to travel 7000 miles to see her, was saltiness at the stolen lead. I anticipated suffering through this and prayed that Fujii-sensei would carry the experience for me entirely, so I was truly taken aback by how much I loved Gaisenmon.

There is a pretty long summary on the Takawiki page, and the original is also available from TIP with subtitles.

Just objectively as a show, it’s so beautiful, and it’s beautiful in ways that I didn’t know about at all because you can’t see them on the recording. It’s a dark story and the set is kept fairly dark as well, so all the meticulously colored lights and gobos and gorgeous rain effects dissolve into unintelligible black fuzz on an 18-year-old Sky Stage video. From the second floor you can also appreciate the incredible fluidity of the set rotations and scene changes along with the amazing choreography, of which there is A LOT. It’s a really impressive feat of direction; I am (despite my Takarazuka-related fervor) not a well-versed technical theater person at all and the artistry of it still struck me as something really special. The music is also gorgeous; it’s a very moving show, but I don’t like the main characters as people enough to cry from the culmination of the story... however, the reprise of main song, delivered in beautiful powerful troupe harmony as the curtain fell, murdered me, and I burst into tears on shonichi.

My main worry, especially considering that we have a guest lead and I adore Yukigumi as a whole with all my heart, was that it’s a very top-heavy show. Yesterday I was SO pleasantly surprised at how well-balanced it felt compared to my expectations; today, unfortunately, I felt the same from my vantage point but also realized it will probably feel just as top-heavy as the original on DVD. A sizable portion of the other main players’ stage time comes from beautiful but wordless dance scenes. But despite the light usage of most of the troupe I actually felt better than I did watching Robespierre. Everyone may be on stage less, but I felt like their characters were more lovingly crafted and very distinct from each other even with the simplest backstories.

My two biggest gripes about Tom swooping in are 1) they often like to pretend she is still 25 which she is distinctly not and 2) in what I’ve seen recently I felt like she and the troupe she’s borrowed were acting separately from each other. I think a big reason why Gaisenmon worked for me is neither of those things applied. While there were a few insertions to balance the stage time a little better, the show is largely the same as the original, yet there is nothing in it that suggests Ravic—a surgeon who escaped Germany as the Nazis came into power—is any specific age, and he works at any age... specifically, even a large age difference between Ravic and Joan is totally reasonable and believable. Against the chaotic backdrop of refugee-laden pre-war Paris, an older doctor and a younger aspiring actress could absolutely meet and fall in love. Tom also meshed with the troupe a lot better than I expected. There’s no way to sugarcoat how shot her singing voice is, but damn the woman can act, and her otokoyaku mannerisms (stage kisses in particular) definitely show her long years of practice.

Kiichan slayed, I thought she was even better than Tsukikage Hitomi. Joan is a REALLY HARD role; she’s practical out of necessity but a bit frivolous at heart, and she’s in love but also struggles to differentiate between actual love and the fear of being alone in an increasingly dangerous world. It doesn’t sound like it in writing but in execution it’s really easy for her to come off as weak, clingy, and annoying, when she’s actually a very nuanced character. Kiichan hit all the right notes, she didn’t appear intimidated at all by Tom, and even their romance seemed totally natural for the aforementioned reasons. Her sudden lovesickness could have been so one-note but I felt the tinge of anxiety behind it throughout the whole show, and I was so impressed by that. There is a scene of misunderstanding between Joan and Ravic at a cafe that in a way triggers the unfortunate events that occur thereafter, and it’s gut-wrenching, especially on a second viewing when you can watch it unfold with the knowledge of what’s coming. Her death scene is also extremely intense.

Salty as I am, I LOVE the role of Boris for Daimon. I’ve been feeling like I’ll explode if I have to see her do another sad French play, but after watching this somehow it wound up exempt. The story is heavy and all of the characters are struggling, but amidst the turmoil Boris is a calming presence, refreshingly level-headed and quite positive in a lot of ways (EDIT: in chatting in the comments the words I wanted but couldn’t find at 3am came out: he’s definitely got a cynical edge to him as well, but it was kind of like his cynical view of the world freed him up emotionally to be quietly supportive of the other characters’ problems... I think that’s what I mean by positive). And I can’t even express HOW LOVELY it was to see Daimon play THAT CHARACTER for a change, how fulfilling not to just watch her suffer for an hour and a half. Boris is in the story himself but also the narrator. In the story bits, he’s cool and reliable and there’s a really heartwarming sense of purity in the way he freely shows his emotions. Daimon seems to enjoy over the top acting just fine, but it’s her roles that rely on subtle facial expressions and body language that absolutely kill me—this was the latter. In the narration bits, she weaves an intricate tapestry with her voice. As I said every detail of the direction is intentional and beautiful, but so much of the mood also comes from the emotion in Daimon’s singing, not only in the actual songs (one of which she sang in probably incorrectly but nonetheless tantalizingly pronounced French, ugh ♥), but also particularly when she hums background tunes as other bits of action are taking place. She barely moves and her voice is so soft and yet STILL it reverberates throughout the entire theater somehow, like it flutters into every corner. And she was so beautiful, she worked the hell out of some costumes that definitely wouldn’t be flattering on everyone. I’m TEARING UP right now, my heart is so full.

Here’s where things get bit eh for some people and downright unfortunate for others. Saki and Shou barely had anything to do, although I understand why they were relegated to those roles versus the Aasa, Hitoko, Kari group which although comprised of very distinct characters still felt like a single unit in a way. After a bit of prologue choreography Saki doesn’t show up until past the halfway point. She’s Henri, the handsome but creepy and possessive movie producer who lands Joan some acting jobs and then also shoots her in a fit of jealousy. She really only has two notable short scenes toward the end, when Henri first tries to coerce Joan into staying with him and then comes to Ravic pleading for her life after shooting her. Shou is a sexy doctor who talks on the phone sometimes.

The Aasa/Hitoko/Kari group, however—and, tangentially, Asu, Manaharu, Michiru, Kiwa, and Agata Sen—shone more than I expected remembering the original group (our legendary Yukigumi 3兄弟 Touko/Komu/Naruse Kouki). While they also only had a few scenes to themselves, those scenes were some of my favorites, and they’re the ones who got to decorate the outskirts of the other scenes’ action with beautiful dancing. Aasa is the only one whose role I’d call a step back from Robespierre, but only because she was my Robespierre MVP, and she was still wonderful as the more subdued Jaime. I felt distinct forward momentum from everyone else. Hitoko was absolutely adorable and injected way more into Rosenfeld than Komu did (which I can say even with the ultimate bias on my side), and Kari was truly outstanding, I could melt just looking at her and I’m so glad she landed a role with that kind of prominence. The whole Hotel International group just had so much humanity.

Final shout outs go to Niwa who I love unconditionally in every role she plays but particularly here for a) A+ slimy awful Gestapo officer and b) the novelty of Kouju Tatsuki squeeing OMG YOU WERE KEN-2 IN THE ORIGINAL AND NOW YOU’RE SCHNEIDER?! in the talk show; and Miho Keiko who I was SURE they stuffed into Gaisenmon because Fujii-sensei demanded her presence in his show as usual, leaving me quite dumbfounded when she wasn’t in Gato Bonito at all. It wasn’t a role that one of our many boss beautiful perfect upperclassmen musumeyaku couldn’t have done, but nonetheless her presence leant some more gravitas to the show in addition to balancing out Tom a bit.

Gato Bonito!! had the opposite effect on me initially. I expected to dislike Gaisenmon and it wowed me, and then it wowed me twice over because that feeling of your expectations being so far exceeded is wonderful. Meanwhile I’ve been laying in bed at night screaming DAISUKEEEEEEEE into the darkness for months, praying he’d deliver me a perfect trilogy of HOT EYES!!, Santé!!, and now THIS!! (boy he loves double exclamation points doesn’t he).

Well, it sure wasn’t HOT EYES. But in retrospect, that’s a damn high bar. After watching Gato Bonito today with my expectations in a reasonable place, I liked it more... especially when I think about how SUPER VOYAGER was everything I never want to see in a revue ever again tied up in one neat package, and this, in contrast, was a lot of things I want to see very much.

From the start I liked or loved all of the scenes individually, but something about the show as a whole didn’t come together for me, and after two viewings I think I have some idea of why. The sets and backdrops were off for me, in a way that I did not think could have such a large effect on the show’s overall vibe. Most revues will have a big eye-popping scene, then they’ll close the curtain and have people dance in front of it for a short transition, then open it again to another eye-popping scene. There’s a nice rise-climax-break-repeat flow. But there were so many scenes in Gato Bonito where they’d drop a curtain down, have a dance in front of it, then drop A DIFFERENT THING down and have a dance in front of that, and I just felt like I was being constantly led toward a climax that never came. When they did open up the whole stage I found the sets really spread out and airy, such that it felt as if no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t fill the stage with enough people. They were also FLAT, like literally flat on the floor, not enough gradated pieces with people standing atop them to fill the back as well as the ground. I might feel differently when I watch it from the first floor, but for now I think some pretty small adjustments could have given it overall more impact.

Also, WAAAAAYYYY too many LITERAL CATS for my taste.

THAT SAID, boy this was SO MUCH of what I love to see out of Daimon. It was hot and extra and the music was amazing and she got to stand there making these burning faces and do TRULY UNFATHOMABLY STUPID THINGS WITH HER VOICE and flamenco and tango and all that jazz. Everyone was melting pile of orange goo no thanks to the weather and the insufficient air conditioning, but other than that there were even enough good costumes to balance out those ruffle abominations (you know the ones) that of course showed up a bit. Saki was ON FIRE, I know I said I was tired of riding the Saki coaster but oops here we go up another hill. They made up for shafting her in Gaisenmon with a loooooot of juicy revue time. She’s gotten so good at emoting through her dance, she was just dynamic and sexy and 150% energy from start to finish. Kiichan has a little ways to go to catch up with everyone in her Latin dancing but there was already a really noticeable improvement between shonichi and today.

Highlights:

Argentine tango to Yo Soy Maria ft. Daimon singing in Spanish, guessing by the lack of bedazzling on the suits that that was the ANJU-sensei scene. When the curtain opened on all the otokoyaku just mingling in the dark smoky background it PHYSICALLY HURT (it also began with all our boss beautiful perfect upperclassmen musumeyaku in slinky dresses)

There’s a scene with Saki, Shou, Aasa, and Hitoko taking turns grinding on Daimon in the world’s tackiest bodysuits, but there was something so inexplicably hot about the drag + otokoyaku hair despite the melting orange goo and poor Saki and Aasa absolutely drowning in their own sweat

The chuuzume starts with a conga line across the ginkyou, and EVERY PERSON IN THE TROUPE comes out in single file in rank order, it was A LOT for my Yukigumi-loving heart

Kiichan gets to do stuff, Daisuke is aware we have a top musumeyaku which is apparently a challenge for some people

Daimon enters from the back of the first floor singing Kuroneko no Tango at one point and when she reaches the stage there’s a daily “ad lib” (in quotes because I’m sure she’s already written them all down and rehearsed them ad nauseam), but her ad libs are so dumb I love her

ASU GOT A WHOLE SONG

I forgot to pay close enough attention through the applause today to grab the exact words, but I’m like 90% sure the final lyrics as Daimon is descending the stairs in the parade are something she also referenced in her +act interview right when she became top (I don’t have the magazine on me but I translated it as “we can live through today for the sake of tomorrow and for the sake of living tomorrow we can stand firmly right here today”). She was talking about the “soul of flamenco” and that being something that turned her whole outlook around during Don Juan, so I thought it was REALLY SWEET they threw that in as a nod to her continuing to grow. Haha nope, after 4 viewings I'm sure I was wrong, but I like my idea better Hankyu pls hire me

Did I mention her dumb stupid voice? I know Robespierre was literally written for her by a Broadway composer but for me there was no comparison; in both acts it danced and changed and filled the theater in ways that don’t seem like they should be physically possible. Like this is the ????th time I’ve seen Daimon live and I was still just absolutely slain by all the heretofore unheard things her voice can apparently do.

I’m whole and healed and so surprised and delighted I didn’t have to wait till 2019 for that to happen.

#takarazuka #reviews #arch of triumph #might as well just tell people I live here

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ardentmuse · 6 years

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Hello, may I request a male ship for HP, Marvel & Kingsman (if that's alright to ask for all three), please & thank you. I hope the length is alright, if not send me a message in the chat box and let me know. I’m putting it in a link to the tumblr blog with my personality description, I hope it works . LINK - The first part is shortintrovertships(.) tumblr(.) (com) (without the parentheses). Take as much time as you need, I know I asked for a lot, so I don’t mind being patient & waiting.

Hi Dear! Thanks for the super-thorough self-summary! You basically get a love story for all different stage of your life (teens, early 20s, late 20s) so we’re living some fun fantasies today :)

Lover: Peter Parker

Best Friend: Michelle (MJ)

Place of Origin: Earth, Bronx USA

Occupation: Student, Bio-med interests

Partner / Team Affiliation: Peter and Tony (and Avengers by proxy)

Powers / Abilities: N/A, just a lovely human

Equipment: Do books count?

Hobby: Video games

Peter was incredibly nervous to start another school year, specifically he was quite nervous about keeping his Spidey secret and balancing classwork with his new responsibilities. The only thing keeping him sane was that he was going to be in most of his classes with Ned and he was taking a new bio-med elective that had keep quite excited.

But when Peter arrived at the course, he was surprised to see so few faces he knew. Ned hadn’t signed up, but he had expected at least Michelle to take it. But as he looked around the room, he felt rather alone. The only open seat was sharing a lab table with you, a new transfer student coming in from a magnet school in the Bronx.

Peter took the seat and introduced himself, albeit quite awkwardly. He muttered a little under his breath at how strange he was behaving, but he couldn’t help it. You were clearly smart and quite attractive. He watched as you pulled out a variety of colored pens, each of which you organized at the top of your desk, and a lab notebook with tabs ready to go. Your level of precision and detail let him know you were going to be the perfect study partner.

Pretty soon, you were spending quite a bit of time in the library working together. For months, you were just studious work partners, pleasant and amiable but nothing more. Honestly, Peter liked being able to just be himself without any pressure to put on a cool facade for you. But one day, he had mentioned a video game he was currently playing that was only tangentially related to the problem you were working through. You immediately lit up and began rambling about your love of the game. Peter felt the warmth of your smile seep into his veins. Your passion was contagious. He invited you over to play with him, which you accepted. And Peter knew then that he had stepped in a sinkhole. A curious, friendly, excitable, easy-to-be-around attractive girl who shared his love of video games? How he hadn’t seen you as his dream girl before that moment seemed ridiculous now, but his crush hit him full and hard from that moment onward.

Aunt May was all over you when you arrived for your “date”. She was so excited to see Peter have a new friend, especially a female one. She made you dinner, asked a lot of questions about your family, another topic that had you passionate and smiling, and as a result had Peter blushing, your spirit having that sort of impact on him. May saw and made herself scarce so Peter wouldn’t be embarrassed.

As you played in his room, you were laughing and teasing each other. Peter was trying his best to be flirty but you were not processing it. Together, you were able to conquer the big boss that Peter had been struggling with for week. He lifted you up and spun you around in celebrating. And when he set you back down, you couldn’t pull your gaze from each other. With a hand on your cheek, he leaned down and kissed you. It was a quick peck, and Peter was a blushing, foolish mess afterwards and you were too. Both so embarrassed, you decided to watch a movie to keep from having to look at each other. Instead, Peter set you between his legs, your head leaning back against his chest as he reclined on his bed. You both fell asleep long before the second act of the movie. And when May came in to ask if you needed an escort home, she let you sleep, leaving the door open and calling your parents so they wouldn’t worry.

When Peter awoke with you still in his arms, he was the happiest he’d ever been. He watched you in your sleep with a smile on his face. And when you awoke, he immediately asked if you’d be his girlfriend.

Dating Peter was always enjoyable. He was a source of excitement, was incredibly supportive emotionally, and was the king of compliments. You’ve never felt more loved than you have as Peter’s girlfriend. You learned about Spider-Man on accident. Aunt May had invited you over for dinner as a surprise for Peter’s birthday, and you had been waiting in his room for him to come home when he snuck into the window clad in his suit. He had been nervous as to how you would respond, but you were honestly just so proud that he would sacrifice himself for the good for others. And so Spidey dates also became a thing, him swinging you around the city to rooftops with the best views. And May and Tony loved more than anything how much you encouraged Peter to be his best and try his hardest in all things.

Lover: Sirius Black

Best Friend: Molly Weasley

House: Hufflepuff

Family: McKinnon

Favorite Subject: Charms

Clubs / Accolades: Order of the Phoenix

Job: Misuse of Muggle Artefacts at MoM

Patronus: Hippopotamus

Sirius Black had always been a creature of great mystery to you. You had been a first year when he was a seventh and never knew each other. And then he went off to Azkaban and the reputation took hold. He was the biggest criminal in the wizarding world and you honestly avoided thinking about him and all the harm he caused. Your entire family had been murdered by death eaters so of course you avoided thinking upon the subject.

When you finished your years at Hogwarts, you joined the Ministry of Magic Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department. Arthur Weasley was your boss and mentor. And given that you had lost much of your family during the war, he often invited you to dinner at his house among his wife and children. They didn’t have much but they were always hospitable and generous. You quickly grew to love them all, bringing over a side dish every Sunday as you crashed their family get together and often babysitting the little ones.

When the war broke out in earnest, you immediately joined the efforts of the Order of the Phoenix. You were not about to let any family get torn apart the way yours had been. And that was how you met Sirius Black. At first you had been scared, given his reputation, but meeting Sirius Black was much different than you expected. You had arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place with Ginny, bringing in the latest groceries as Molly prepares a meal for that night’s meeting. And who was standing at the door to greet you but a handsome man with shaggy black hair and piercing grey eyes, a little gaunt but still strong and commanding in stature. He was striking in a much better way than you thought. He took a bag from each of you and showed you the home. He was chipper and gregarious, kind and thoughtful. You found yourself easily forgetting the reputation and simply enjoying the man for whom he was.

Many meetings allowed you to get to know each other and you became cordial acquaintances. A few times you awoke on a couch in the living room with a blanket you hadn’t had on you when you fell asleep or a cup of tea warm and waiting. You knew it was Sirius’s doing, but he never said a word.

You developed romantic feelings for the man the first time you saw him interact with Harry. He was clearly a good father figure to the boy, so gentle and honest, determined to do right by him. He was to Harry what you were to Ginny, the non-parent parent, the trustworthy, honest, reliable adult companion. Sirius was a gentle, sweet, understanding man under his highly cultivated exterior.

You had taken down Bellatrix during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, saving Sirius’s life, he knew. That night as you helped him heal his wounds, he told you how much he admired you and how scared he had been of losing you. The honesty was so refreshing, and you somehow found yourself in his arms, clinging to each other and crying for the all the loss you were sure was able to come.

And thus your relationship began. It was hard dating amidst the war, but you found comfort in each other. Long nights spent talking kept you both sane and missions were taken together, both of you fighting hard to protect the other. You married just before things got really bad, the Weasleys, Remus, and Tonks in attendance. And when you fell pregnant, Sirius sent you away, determined to keep you and his child safe as long as he could. You already had a target on your back and a baby would only make it worse. And when you learned of the fate of the Lupins, you were secretly glad for the few months along.

A few weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, you returned to England and gave birth to a son, whom Sirius asked rather sheepishly if he could be named Remus. In the years following, Remus gained a few siblings, all of whom Harry treated like his brothers and sisters. Molly was incredibly excited to provide all the parenting advice she could, a new brood of Blacks who supported the rights of muggle-borns to begin to repair the poor reputation generations before had cultivated.

Lover: Harry Hart

Best Friend: Merlin

Mentor: Arthur

Code Name: Vivien

Specialty: Onboarding

Dog: Dachshund

What you did before Kingsman Statesman: Translator

Vacation / Honeymoon: Singapore and other foodie destinations

When Harry Hart joined Kingsman, you had the privilege of leading his on-boarding. Your primary work with Kingsman was training and recruitment, and so every new agent that came through the door spent a few weeks with you, learning the ropes, meeting the teams, receiving their initial assignments. Harry had been just another part of your job, albeit a nice one, but nothing more. Pretty soon he was out in the field and you were back at your desk job, nothing different in your life other than the occasional smile from the attractive man as he walked by your office to go about his meetings.

That was until a particular mission required someone who could speak Japanese colloquially. Harry was the primary on the mission, coming in as a British investor in hopes of doing business with the target. But he needed a translator to come with him, particularly one that could hold their own in the field. Arthur had practically begged you to go and you hesitantly agreed. The field was not your favorite, but you understood when your skills were necessary.

For the two weeks, Harry spent every evening at your desk, working with you to prep for the mission. He was kind and generous, always bringing you a coffee or tea so you could keep your focus, consistently answering your questions and including you in all his important decision making. He treated you like a partner, a true partner, and you found yourself eager to go out into the field for the first time since your recruitment.

During the initial meeting, the target was a little too forward with you, handsy and flirtatious, making you incredibly uncomfortable. Harry was quick to react, pulling you to him and kissing your forehead, asking the man if he would kindly stop hitting on his wife. And thus all your plans were out the window and the next week you would have to spend posing as happy and in love. But honestly, it wasn’t that hard. Holding Harry’s hand, sitting a little closer, sharing hushed whispers and gentle kisses, it all seemed so natural after the past few weeks you had spent working late into the night. Come day five, you were unsure of what the two of you were actually faking.

When you returned to headquarters, you had no reason to interact anymore. A week went by without you seeing each other. But soon your boss informed you that Harry had requested that he have involvement in the next recruitment round. And the following day, Harry showed up at your desk after lunch, a drink for you in hand, and you began working again late into the night. A few days before recruits were to arrive, Harry kissed you as you worked together to prep their sleeping quarters and after the recruitment round was complete, he took you to his favorite restaurant in his hometown, the next night to see your favorite play, then his favorite gardens, and on and on it went until you married on the grounds of the Kingsman estate.

Field work became more difficult when you decided to start a family but Harry enjoyed being a father more than anything in the world. And your children were insanely well-traveled and cultured, Harry often inviting you out to whatever destination he was in once the dangerous work was over.

#ship #ships #marvel ship #mcu ship #harry potter ship #hp ship #kingsman ship #peter parker #spider-man #sirius black #harry hart

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nedflix-n-chill · 4 years

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Franchise Retrospective: Psycho (BONUS ) Deranged I usually like to end the big franchise retrospectives by watching a film that, well, isn't part of the franchise but usually is somehow if only tangentially related. Like something inspired by or in some cases a flat out ripoff but in this instance I chose Deranged because both this and Psycho have real life murderer and uhm... is there a word for "likes to dig up bodies and use the bits for arts and crafts projects" cuz that's the word I'm looking for, Ed Gein. Listen if a movie ever tells you it's based on a true story it is lying to you. "Based" is such a vague word. Lady Gaga could have came up with the idea for Telephone while taking a shit and you'd be technically correct in saying that Telephone is based on a shit but you'd also be wrong because Telephone is fantastic and Gaga is a saint. Ed Gein is somehow the basis for both Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and those films aren't anything the fuck alike. Now with the full understanding of the lying power of cinema, if you were to watch a film based on Ed Gein with accuracy being the goal then Deranged just might be the way to go. It also helps that it's an entertaining, darkly humorous, and a surprisingly gruesome 80-something minutes also. Writer and co-director, Alan Ormsby, takes the same sly macabre satire he used when excoriating art students in Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things and applies it to the Butcher of Plainfeild. It also helps that there are heaps of rotting corpses made by a young Tom Savini not too far removed from Vietnam where his unfortunate knowledge of what actual corpses look like is most definitely put to use here. There's definitely an eerie realism added to the rotting corpses in this film that the normal Hollywood dead bodies don't have. Listen it's good, it's short, its gruesome. And it is only lying to you slightly less than all those other "based on a true story" movies. Plus the Ed Gein character (Ezra Cobb here) is played by the old scary but actually friendly neighbor from Home Alone so maybe Buzz was right and Kevin McAllister should have stayed the fuck away from this necrophile. https://www.instagram.com/p/CMFzDXfl-AL/?igshid=e00xjyipziyj

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10ccs · 7 years

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it hasn’t been talked about in months. it’s been buried, locked behind steel doors so thick that you’re convinced they’re impenetrable. you think it’s been forgotten about, and you’re okay with that.

then, without warning, the steels doors are blown open and vicious memories come crawling out of dirt with daggers for teeth and claws so sharp the slightest scraping against your skin has you bleeding.

“it was my dad’s company,” he says nervously, stuttering through the explanation with eyes that dart around the living room, from the pictures that hang on the walls to the art to the dogs that watch him as carefully as you.

the five words don’t mean anything until they do. it hits you like a freight train and your sunken eyes widen. you’re stuck somewhere between disbelief and fury, and suddenly you wish you had never let him inside your house. this feels like an invasion, this feels like an old wound being ripped open. it was supposed to remain forgotten. you were supposed to leave it in the past along with every other horrible thing that’s happened to you.

words don’t come to you, but your jaw works, tensing, releasing, rinse and repeat. the memories that flood your mind leave a metallic taste in your mouth so strong it hits your throat and you feel like you’re choking.

“did you... did you know?” you manage to force out past your lips in a harsh whisper, your body taut with anger, with fear. your eyes briefly dart to the door behind him, expecting someone to kick it down and drag you back to that horrible lab kicking and screaming.

“no,” he says in a way that you think is too quick, too suspicious, but he’s gesturing and his hands are trembling in the same way his words are. “god, no. i didn’t. i don’t have anythin’ to do with him. i swear.”

you don’t want to believe him. not believing him gives you a target to take out all your emotions on, and you’ve have them bottled up for so, so long now. your breath shakes and your legs feel like rubber. the room spins and you almost laugh because it feels so fucking cliche. is this a scene in a movie? it might be. you hope it is because you don’t want it to be real.

the monster was so close all along. you thought you were victim to something that you couldn’t understand, that existed out of your sphere, but the monster, or part of the monster, you think, was lurking a twenty minute drive away from your house the whole fucking time.

angry tears prick at the corner of your eyes and trying to blink them away is useless. wiping them away would only draw attention so you do the first thing you think of. you clench your hand into a tight fist and electricity so violent it pricks at your own skin snaps at the air.

he doesn’t make any move to defend himself at first and there’s a satisfying crunch and crackle as your fist collides with his nose. blood spurts out, staining his skin, staining yours. he stumbles backwards, yelling out in surprise and pain, and you move with him. you reach out and curl your hand into the collar of his shirt, the electricity burns through the fabric, snaps against his skin like a taser.

the dogs bark behind you, but all you can hear are your own screams. you hit him again, you him a third time, then you both wind up on the living room floor. a black eye already forming on his face, blood dripping from his nose and his mouth.

“i didn’t . “ more blood drips from his mouth as he speaks. you still have his collar clenched in your fist. “i didn’t know.”

“i don’t care!” you yell, voice ragged. you’re afraid and you’re angry. your heart is beating so hard against your chest you think it might burst through flesh and bone. “i don’t give a shit!” all that you give a shit about is that you have a target. somebody tangentially related to ruining your life, to ruining everything you’ve been trying to work for. “it’s still your family.” you spit the words out, then your fist collides with his face again.

at least you think it does, but it hasn’t. it’s collided with his open palm. his open palm that curls around your fist in a bone-crushing embrace that makes you yell out in pain. something cracks and your weight shifts backwards enough that he can slip out from underneath you. searing pain rockets up your arm and it’s doubled when your entire wrists makes a nasty cracking sound. you drop away, cradling your broken wrist to your chest.

he stumbles to his feet, staggering backwards until he hits a wall and uses it to support his weight. “i’m sorry,” he says, then repeats: “i’m sorry. i am. i didn’t know, but i’m sorry.”

you stay there seated on the floor, breathing hard through the pain, through the anger, through the fear, and the heartache. you stare at him and you see a target. you stare at him and you know better than that.

you stare at him and will yourself not to care.

“i. don’t give a shit.”

( you can’t will yourself to do anything. )

he wipes blood from his face and stares right back at you. there’s a long moment of silence, and his eyes drop. “i’m still sorry,” he says and then he leaves, bloodied and battered and bruised.

you win, but you don’t feel good about it.

#( drabble. )#( when i grew up fast i grew up mean. ) ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴ #i should've done this months ago lmao #this is probably the best thing i've written in months #tryna a new writing thing too it's from sam's pov obviously #the other guy is charlie in case that's ... not obvious

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kairiofknives · 7 years

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The S Word (TftTG Ch. 2)

Summary: For almost two years, Futaba and Akira's relationship has been...rather tame. But one well timed innuendo sends the house mates into a spiral of assumptions and jokes that starts as amusing, but ends up being a source of stress for our young couple, especially Futaba.

Advisory: Contains discussion of body insecurity and sexual themes. (Nothing too major, but still something to prepare for.)

Read on AO3

If Makoto tried hard enough, she could probably pin point the week in which this whole debacle started. It was probably late in June, in their fourth month of officially living in The Guild, when the assumption first brewed in the minds of their members and started spreading like wild fire. Honestly, as much as she would like to remember it being Ryuji who started the whole thing, it could have been anyone. All parties were interestingly enough on the same page back then.

Futaba and Akira recall what most do not: that the topic of their sex life was first brought up by Makoto herself during a movie night.

Life in the Guild changed a few things for everyone. Now, there was constantly someone doing something interesting and worthy of their attention. Spontaneous trips to Central Street were common place. There were frequent video game tournaments in The Den, which was what Ryuji and Futaba referred to their bedroom as. Akira hadn't argued so the decision was decided to be unanimous. (Akira had also been asleep, but no one mentioned that part.) The most scheduled events were family meal times and the Saturday night movie.

With seven different movie preferences, it became obvious that a rotation of movie selection privileges was required for this to work. They had installed a large white board on the wall, indicating such important things as who picked the movie that week as well as who was doing dishes (the most despised chore) and an open slot where any plans for outings could be formally announced. This particular week, Ann had chosen Leap Year. From Makoto's perception of the cover, it was your typical Rom Com. Still, that was perfectly fine. Two weeks ago, Yusuke had offered up A Dog's Purpose as their movie, which had brought every single person to tears and prompted Morgana to take a pilgrimage to tell all dogs in the neighborhood they were good boys. It seemed no one had yet to recover their full range of emotions, so sure, a Rom Com was fine.

By the climax of the movie, most people were asleep, including Akira and Futaba who were curled up on Makoto's lap and snuggled against her shoulder respectively. Ann and Ryuji, the only other two conscious beings by the time the credits rolled, looked over and cooed affectionately at the display.

"Hey, Mom, look. You're cuddling an entire relationship," Ryuji snickered.

Makoto giggled good heartedly. "So it seems. On the topic of our family designations, doesn't that make this," she gestured to the sleeping beauties, "kind of weird? The Dad of the family is dating the cute little sister?"

Ann stood to stretch, laughing. "Yeah it's pretty weird, but those are the most accurate family titles. I mean, when any of us have problems, we literally just wander the house until we find you or Akira. And you guys were the leader duo of the Phantom Thieves too. So yeah, you're our parents. And Futaba is...Futaba so she's our littlest sister."

"Literally and figuratively," Ryuji pointed out.

Makoto smiled, stroking Akira's hair. Futaba snuggled in deeper to her shoulder and added groggily, "You forget that Akira is basically Sojiro's adopted son so he is also my brother."

"Oh my God, that's so true," Ann muttered. "He's Phantom Dad and Coffee Son."

Akira finally joined the conversation, flopped from his side to his back and yawning, "The family that stays together gets together. What is life without a little incest?"

Makoto rolled her eyes. "Well, I suppose the one silver lining is that you aren't blood relatives. Congratulations. Your children may not have horrific birth defects."

Ryuji burst out laughing, "May not?! Holy crap, Makoto."

Futaba finally sat up, wiping at her eyes. "Well, I'm kind of hoping we are all still least tangentially related because my line of the family is a curse to all daughters."

"What?!" Ann demanded, indignantly. "What's that mean, Futaba?"

The girl simply blinked and cupped on small breast in her hand pointedly. "As the one girl in this group without bombshell tits or a tabloid worthy butt, I feel justified in this assessment."

Akira made a very unhappy grumble from his spot, still not opening his eyes. Futaba smiled a bit and kissed his forehead. His frown remained present.

Makoto shook her head in amusement, "I agree with the others on this one, Futaba. You're lovely just as you are. Besides, Akira seems to have no complaints about your body."

Akira's eyes shot open and met Futaba's. They passed a look of "whut" between them, that was drowned out completely by Ryuji's added, "Yeah! I mean, come on, Futaba. How many people could Akira have conceivably ended up with? He picked you over all of those "bombshell girls". Your sex appeal may not take the same form as Ann's, but it landed Akira freaking Kurusu in your bed, didn't it?"

"Wow Ryuji, way to make it seem like the only reason she should approve of her body is if a guy does," Ann scoffed, heading into the kitchen.

Makoto ushered Akira off her lap and patted Futaba's head before following Ann. "Good try Ryuji. We will work on it."

Ryuji grumbled, swiping his drink off the table and headed upstairs.

Akira and Futaba sat in the silence of the living room, listening to Yusuke and Haru's deep breathing. Akira was the first to speak up. "Do you think we should have said something?"

"Meh. I mean, it really isn't any of their business."

"I feel like they're making it their business anyway. And with inaccurate information at that."

Futaba stood, stepping between Akira's spread legs to wrap him in a hug. Her still tired boyfriend hummed happily, wrapping his arms tightly around the girl and nuzzling against her chest. "I don't see it being a big deal. It might even turn out being kinda funny if they think we're always sneaking away to bone at all hours of the day."

Akira laughed into her stomach. "You derive amusement from the strangest things."

"Guilty as charged."

~~~

In truth, Futaba expected to never hear about the conversation post movie night ever again. Surely, everyone else had better things to talk about, right?

Evidently not. The references to her private life started out rather timid and vague. Ann complaining about guys who were taller than her and Makoto sweetly pointing out that she and Akira got along just fine. It was cute and harmless and Futaba liked the feeling of being the referenced source material for "successful relationships".

Then, things got a bit weirder.

Haru and Ann had convinced Futaba to let them paint her nails. She liked having her nails painted and liked being pampered even more so she agreed. That's how she ended up with her hands on her thighs and her legs comfortably in Haru's lap. The girls chatted on and off about various things, mostly Ann's modelling gigs, when suddenly, Ann turned on her. "Hey, Futaba, I was wondering...ya know, Akira's a pretty tall guy. How does he not like...crush you when you do it?"

Futaba.exe is not responding.

"Uhhh, what?"

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, I was just curious."

Haru shook her head, shooting Futaba an apologetic look. The youngest girl struggled to keep up. "I-I mean, it's not that big of a deal. He lays on me all the time. He's not that heavy."

Ann beamed, feeding off the power of "girl talk" like it was a consumable resource. "Yeah, I guess he is kind of a string bean. Not the same way Yusuke is, but, you know what I mean."

Futaba really did not want to think about Inari and sex in the same sentence.

Uncaring of Futaba's lack of response, Ann carried on, "I guess I've just been thinking a lot about the physicality of it, ya know. Porn makes it look so easy, but I just can't imagine sex with a super tall guy being comfortable. Where would his legs go? Where would your legs go?"

Haru huffed, putting the cap back on her bottle of nail polish. For a moment, Futaba hoped that maybe Haru was going to spare her poor soul and end this strange conversation.

"You haven't been watching the right porn if you think missionary is the only way to do things, Ann-chan," Haru chirped pleasantly, before placing Futaba's feet carefully in her chair and strolling out of the bedroom.

She wasn't sure who was more shocked: her or Ann.

Luckily, that embarrassing endeavor ended there. Akira had also been falling victim to gratuitous sex talk. He pulled her aside one night before dinner. "Can we please tell them they're misunderstanding the situation? I feel like all I hear about anymore is other people's opinions of some made up version of my sex life. It's making me pretty uncomfortable honestly."

Futaba felt for her poor boyfriend, but was still sort of having fun listening to the weird conversations that were prompted by this whole situation. She laughed, "Oh come on, Akira, lighten up. You're not embarrassed are you?"

Akira's gaze darkened a bit. "Honestly, yeah."

With a scoff, she muttered petulantly, "Well I'm sorry I'm not who you want people to joke about you rolling around in the sheets with. Geez."

The silence following her quip was heavy. Futaba cautioned a look up at Akira to see him staring at her with an almost emotionless expression. Uh oh. Before she could say anything, he turned and walked down the hallway, up the stairs. She heard his door close heavily and sighed. She didn't see him again that night, but he responded to her to good night text. So, he was mad, but not completely avoiding her mad. She could work with that. She vowed to try to make it up to him the next day.

~~~

When she got to the house the next afternoon, she had absolutely no plan for how to approach this conversation with Akira, only knew that it had to happen. She had spent a good deal of the day trying to get the thoughts in her head to condense into words, to almost no success. Nothing would help though, so Futaba planned to politely ask that Ryuji chill in the living room for an hour and hash it out with Akira. That probably would absolutely not make the "our friends think we're having sex but we're not" issue worse, but she could only battle one thing at a time.

That was the plan anyway. When she climbed the stairs, she was instantly spotted by Ann.

"Futaba! Hey! Can we talk real quick? I need your advice."

She sighed. One quick diversion wouldn't derail her plan. "Coming."

When she entered Ann's room, she honestly had no idea what to expect. Ann loved to chat with her, but very rarely ever asked her for help unless it was about her laptop.

"Ok, so you know how I've been talking with this male model I did that shoot in July with?" She nodded. "Well, we've been flirting. A lot. And it's been getting a little....intense. Anyway, he offered to send a pic and I figured, eh, why not, and...well, just look."

That...was certainly not a part of the male anatomy she planned to see today.

"He sent you a dick pic?"

Ann nodded, looking completely casual about the extremely explicit image on her phone. "Yeah. He said I didn't have to send anything back, but now that I have this, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with it. It's sort of...weird to look at without the rest of the body to also look at, huh?"

She had to get the hell out of here. Like now.

"Uh, I don't know. I've never gotten a dick pic before, I guess."

Ann giggled, "Yeah, but you've see a dick though. That's much more helpful. So, reason I called you in here, in your opinion, how...sizable is this?"

Oh my god. "Sizable?" Could her face get any redder?

"Yeah, like...do you think it would hurt? I mean, you could just compare it to Akira's I guess and tell me if that hurt."

Futaba squeezed her eyes shut. Ok, no way. Uh uh. Nope. Akira was right, this was actually the worst. "Ann, I don't really feel comfortable talking about that."

When she opened her eyes again, she was surprised to see Ann looking a bit, panicked. Ann shook her head quickly, frowning. "No, no, I'm sorry that was super untactful." She was speaking pretty quickly. Even for Ann. "I...guess I'm just not sure what to do here."

The younger girl smiled to herself. Ann was quirky and could sometimes be far too blunt, but she never meant to make her uncomfortable. Still, Ann's behavior ever since she starting talking to his guy had been...a little bit off. The level of boy crazy the blond had been recently was just a bit too drastic to be normal. It almost felt fake. Futaba's eyes widened a bit. Maybe it was. "Do you even like this guy, Ann?"

The blond blinked, bit her bottom lip and then shook her head. From the troubled look on her face, Futaba knew she had hit the nail on the head. "I mean, kinda? He's cute. But, we don't click super well." Ann sighed, picking at her nails. "But, ya know, it's not like I have anyone else lined up. And he's not that bad. I could maybe start to like him...if I tried hard enough..."

Futaba frowned, tone stern. "The Ann I know and love would never just try to make it work with a guy just for the sake of it."

Ann groaned and dug her palms into her eyes, "Ugh! I know! I'm just...ugh." For a moment, Futaba was worried Ann would start crying. She was not well equipped for that sort of comforting. Eventually, though, Ann lowered her hands, looking more defeated than Futaba had ever seen before. "I guess I just wanted something."

"Something like what?"

"I don't know," she whined, "Like what you and Akira have, I guess." That one, Futaba did not expect. She had been half viciously enjoying how envious everyone had seemed of her apparent experience on this matter. Unsurprisingly, watching one of her bed friends actually acting out due to jealousy that she was making worse...didn't make her feel too great.

"Ann, no. You're wonderful, and gorgeous, and driven and a fantastic catch. I'm honestly jealous of you. How...effortless everything seems to you. And even if you don't have everything all figured out, you sure look like you do, which is even more impressive." She paused, holding Ann's hand. "I'm not single, so I can't exactly relate to how you're feeling. But, I do know that you're worth a hell of a lot more than settling for some guy, who is willing to send out dick pics rather than connecting with you like a normal person, just because he's pretty to look at."

Ann's smile started small but grew larger the more Futaba talked. Finally, she decided, "Ya know what, you're right Futaba." She stood, hands on her hips and a determined shine to her eyes. "Ann Takamaki settles for no one!"

"Here here," Futaba agreed, glad to see Ann back to her normal fiery self. "Now if you don't mind..."

Ann blushed, "Oh gosh, I'm so sorry I dragged you in here just for this. Enjoy your evening with Akira!"

Futaba fled before any more innuendos or attempts at long emotional conversations could be made.

~~~

Futaba wandered down the hall in a daze. She loved her friends dearly, but sometimes they could be a little bit...exhausting. Also, she never wanted to think about another penis for as long as she lived.

Ok, well maybe not, but it would be at least a few hours. Maybe even days.

As she approached the end of the hall, she ran into Ryuji who was dressed in a ironed button down, nice jeans and holding his pillow and blanket. What?

"Going somewhere, Ryuji?"

The boy grinned at her. "Hey Futaba! Guess what? No actually, you'll never guess. Or just be mean about it. Anyway, I got a date tonight!"

"Huh, really? You look like you're headed to a business casual slumber party."

Ryuji puffed his chest out, "Nope, your sarcasm cannot hurt me now, Futaba! I've just scored some expert advice so I may not be home until late."

Futaba's brow raised at the idea of "expert advice". So Akira had gotten grilled too, huh? Damnit. She'd be giving him back rubs and head scratches for weeks to make up for this mess...

"And you have your pillow with you because...?"

"Oh I'm gonna. Ya know. Give you guys some alone time. Sleep out on the pullout tonight. Figured it's the least I can do."

The girl groaned, "Ryuji."

"No no. I get it. Couples gotta do the do sometimes. If this date goes well, I'm gonna need to be kicking you guys out. It's all good. Equivalent exchange." He snickered to himself. "See what I did there? That was totally an FMA reference."

Futaba blinked but let him run his mouth. She was far far too tired to argue at this point. What the ever living hell had she gotten herself into? Maybe she'd take advantage of Ryuji's generous offer. To hang herself quietly in the privacy of their quarantined "sex den". Geez.

"How kind of you. Alright. Well, gotta run. Lots of carnal relief to be had. See you later. Good luck on your date," she replied mechanically, shuffling to the room and shutting the door firmly behind her. She leaned back against it with a sigh.

When she finally opened her eyes, she spotted Akira wrapped in the large blue comforter, face down in the bean bag chair she insisted they buy for the room. She observed him idly for a few moments before sighing again and grumbling, "Ok. You were right. I was wrong. We should have told them right away. This kinda sucks."

Akira unburied his face from it's cloth tomb and looked up at her, looking utterly unamused and just as exhausted as she was.

"Oh, don't give me that face. You know I can't deal with that sort of emotional blackmail," Futaba groaned, slumping against the door a bit. Akira continued to stare at her, blinking occasionally. He didn't even seem mad at her. Or even annoyed or disappointed. Just tired. Her heart squeezed, unable to just leave him looking like that even despite her own crabbiness. "Oooh. Damnit! Alright. Fine, you win."

She threw herself down on the bean bag with him, assuming Akira's favorite position of her on her back, arms spread wide open, waiting to cuddle the hell of him. It took him a minute. At first, he only looked at her blankly from his blanket cocoon. But eventually, he huffed, untangling himself to flop down on top of her chest, face hiding in her neck. She took some time to tug at the blankets, arranging them to fit over her as well. Futaba arranged her legs so he was trapped between them and pressed her face into his hair. There. Finally comfortable.

They laid like that for awhile, one of her hands scratching at his scalp, the other buried under his shirt, running her nails softly up and down his back. By the amount of happy rumbling and sighing she was getting, she imagined he had forgiven her. Still, didn't mean they shouldn't talk about it. "I'm sorry, Akira. When you said you were uncomfortable with how much everyone was talking, I should have immediately corrected them. I wasn't thinking about you at all. All I cared about was what I was getting out of it. I'm an A tier jerk. And a trash tier girlfriend. And I'm really really sorry."

Akira huffed against her neck. "I wouldn't go that far." He planted a kiss on her pulse point, sending pleasant shivers through her. "What were you getting out of it, out of curiosity?"

Closing her eyes, Futaba grimaced. "In reality, nothing. But. I guess. In my mind, I thought I was being adult." Akira made an inquisitive noise, nudging her with his nose. It was such a feline thing to do, she made a mental note to buy him a black cat onesie for Christmas. Morgana would probably love it. "I don't know. It's like...hmm. You know how Ann and Ryuji call me the little sister? Well, suddenly, I was better at something than them. They wanted to be in my shoes for once, not the other way around."

"Futaba, you were already better at something than them. Than all of us. How many times a week does someone ask you to fix their computer or teach them how to use a program? You're a genius and the only tech savvy soul in this building."

"Not like that though," she mumbled. "Ok, fine, maybe it was more so Ann than Ryuji. Almost entirely Ann actually. And Makoto." Futaba sighed, biting her lip. "I guess the whole thing about the other girls being more...womanly than me wasn't just a joke. I'm only a year younger than Ann and look at the difference between us. She's literally a super model and I'm...just me."

Akira adjusted his weight, trying to get his arms underneath him and push himself up. Futaba tugged him back down her chest. She needed to say this and knew the moment their eyes met, her train of thought would be derailed. Once he stilled once more, she continued.

"It's not just physical looks either though. It's. Ugh. Ann is so confident in herself. And maybe it's because she looks the way she does, but part of me feels like if we traded bodies right now, she'd still have this aura of utter sexiness and I'd still be a wreck. I know you're the one who suggested we go slow. You've said multiple times you're content with just kissing. But. I guess I wonder if that's really true. It's been almost two years after all. And I've...felt you get excited while making out but you never push me. Which is so sweet, but..."

Futaba paused, drawing in a breath, then releasing it slowly. "I know you want to go further. I'm worried that you're holding back for my sake and not enjoying it as much as you could. And as much as I wish it weren't necessary that you hold back...it is. I do get overwhelmed easily and that frustrates me. Because if I were Ann or Makoto or Haru, I probably wouldn't have any trouble jumping your bones and not feeling like...I was about to explode even thinking about it. And I guess I just feel like...you deserve someone you don't have to hold back with."

She stopped and listened to the combined sounds of their breathing. Akira's was a bit faster than normal. She knew he was probably clenching his fists a bit. Maybe she had made him mad. But, she thought, looking at the ceiling as if it contained the answer to the meaning of life, she wasn't unsatisfied with how the words have come out. She wasn't sure exactly what outcome she wanted. What did she want him to reply? Her breath hitched in her throat at the idea of Akira actually agreeing with her. Eyes squeezed shut, she tried to convince herself that would be ok.

It wouldn't be, though.

"Are you finished?"

Sweet boy, always careful not to overstep his bounds. Even now. Futaba loosened her hold on him. "Yeah."

Akira sat up and scooted backwards a bit. His eyes were trained on the his crossed legs, a dark gleam to them that she simply couldn't decipher. The distance he was putting between them, in both the physical and emotional sense, made her heart constrict painfully. She was not the biggest fan of having these tense, seemingly life or death type conversations. But, despite the obvious discomfort of having to drag all their shadows into the light and look them in the eyes, they had never had a rough heart to heart of his nature that didn't immediately and thoroughly clear up misunderstandings and provide plans of attack for the future. They were good at this, she and Akira. They were on the same team, she reminded herself. Oracle and Joker. If she just honestly conveyed her thoughts and trusted in him, everything would be fine.

Didn't mean it wasn't nerve-wracking though.

She mirrored the boy's stance, maintaining the distance he had purposefully created. As soon as she was settled, Akira let out a loud sigh. "Does what I want not matter at all in this situation?" Futaba stayed quiet. The unspoken rule between them was that if the other wasn't meeting your eyes, they were still thinking. Akira pointed watched his fingers fidget with the hem of his pants. She would wait.

"People use the word 'deserve' a lot. 'You deserve better' or 'I don't deserve him'. As if the only things worth having in life are that which we are somehow derived to deserve. Never mind how subjective the idea of deserving something is, but if everyone got what they deserved...well, Shido and Kamoshida would never have even met me, in all likelihood." Akira shook his head, clenching and unclenching his fists. "My father is no sage, but he has taught me a couple interesting things. One of them was that the word 'deserve' is usually never directed at the right person. It usually reflects the speaker's own desires. I don't think that's always true." Akira spared a glance up at Futaba, eyes roaming over her face before flickering back to his lap. "But I definitely think it is true in this case."

Both hands came up to run through his hair roughly. His bottom lip was caught between his teeth, his gray eyes stormy in appearance. Whatever idea he had rolling around in his head spun and spun, until he finally lowered his hands again. "Whether I want to go further is irrelevant. This wouldn't be bothering you if you weren't discontent yourself." Akira clicked his tongue against his teeth, "When we first tried getting you acclimated to being outside of the house, I pushed you. We threw you into different social environments head first and expected you to swim or me to save you. We very well could try that here too, but..." Akira wrung his wrists in agitation, frowning. "This is so different though. This isn't just coaxing you out a room that you thought of a prison. This is more like...trying to coax you out of the assessment of your body as a prison."

Futaba inhaled sharply. Akira's eyes flew to meet her own but she closed them defensively. She remembered with striking vividness what being a prisoner of her own heart felt like. The constant desperation, echoing self hatred. No, this wasn't quite like that. This type of discontentment settled in her stomach, akin to the feeling she got before the panic when she first got separated from Akira in Akiba. She opened her eyes again, and saw that Akira had placed his hand next to hers, palm up. An invitation. She met his anxious eyes, smiled just a bit, just enough to show she was ok. "It's not a prison," she corrected, tone soft, almost a whisper. "It's more like...an unfamiliar place. It's...my body, but I don't feel like...I completely own it. It's like a stranger sometimes." She grimaced, shook her head, met his eyes. She needed help.

Akira wet his lips and offered, "So a bit like a new house, maybe? Your name is on the sign out front and the lease, but the inside doesn't quite look like home yet. Is that it?"

Futaba ruminated over the analogy for a bit, tried to picture it. Her time as a shut in meant she ignored her body, in multiple ways. Didn't eat always. Slept too little or too much, no in between. The loathing and self hatred made emotions like arousal and lust just as useless to her as happiness and hope were. The most time she ever spent naked was in the shower, which she admitted to herself she didn't do often enough. She supposed, in many ways, it was a lot like a new house. She hadn't spent time in it, didn't try to decorate or make it hers. Yet, was shocked or upset when it felt alien to her.

...And if she didn't even feel content in this house, why would she feel comfortable inviting guests over...?

She nodded, slowly at first, then more firmly. Akira's eyes lit up a bit, pleased. "Yeah, that's exactly it. I'm not completely comfortable looking at my own body naked yet, so it kinda makes sense that I'm jittery about letting someone else see." She sighed a bit, slipping her hand in Akira's outstretched one. She liked the way their fingers slid together, nice and snug. In a weird tangential way, that was what she really wanted out of physical companionship. Feeling a secure connection. Being close for the sake of closeness. As close as two people could possibly get. Futaba met Akira's eyes once more. "I want to be with you. Closer than anyone else. I want to touch you and make you feel good and not be scared for you to return the favor. I just...I want you." A bright red blush spread across Akira's cheeks, bringing a smile to her equally red face. Her mood dampened a bit as she admitted, "I want that so much, but...I don't know how to get there."

Akira squeezed her hand and declared, "I do." Futaba's eyes widened. "Same way we got you used to being out in the world again. You just need to get used to it. Much slower this time, probably, but same basic process. We can give you assignments to get you more comfortable being naked or being touched. Work our way up to whatever end point you want to reach."

Futaba's smile was soft, but excited. "Another promise list?"

"Exactly. We'll go at your pace. You write out the steps you want to take, and we can get there however or whenever we please."

Her optimism made her bold. The smile slowly spread to a smirk. With mischief in her eyes, Futaba leaned in right next to Akira's ear and purred, "And if my end goal happens to be 'fuck Akira Kurusu absolutely senseless'?"

Futaba felt the body underneath hers shudder, a hand coming up to hug her close to him. His voice was a bit raspy, "Well, first I would ponder where on Earth you got so disillusioned as to think you're not the sexiest woman living in this house." He planted a firm kiss on Futaba's cheek, and nudged her gently back a bit to look into her eyes. "And second I would say that Akira Kurusu must be a pretty lucky guy."

Futaba snorted in amusement, obviously blushing, "Stop fibbing, you nerd. Didn't we just agree my body is like an ugly house or something?"

"Hey, don't insult that house. I happen to like it a lot and would be honored to become intimately acquainted with it, should to invitation arise," his hands rose up to cup her face, pressing kiss after kiss to her hairline, soaking in the sound of her happy giggles. Akira pressed their foreheads together and waited until Futaba met his eyes before whispering, "I love you, Futaba."

"I love you too, Akira. I don't know what I did to deserve you."

"Would you like the mystical Chinese fortune cookie answer or the dry simple answer?"

She giggled, "The latter, please, sir."

"It doesn't matter what you did or didn't do. I wanted to be with you and you apparently want to be with me, so we are together. Now, no more of this deserving or undeserving bullshit please?"

"Deal," Futaba nodded.

They decided that it was late enough that getting home might be a stretch for Futaba, even if she left immediately. She anticipated that Sojiro would be livid with her, but as soon as he answered the phone, he immediately barked, "Just stay at their house tonight, Futaba. I'd rather begrudgingly trust Akira not to do anything stupid than risk you missing your connecting train in Shibuya and getting stuck out there."

Futaba smiled, "Alright. Thanks, dad."

Sojiro sputtered, as he always did when she threw down the Dad Card unexpectedly. "Well, just...," he sighed, "Just make sure you get to school on time alright? And you can thank me by having dinner at the Cafe tomorrow with your poor dad. Both of you."

"Okie dokie, artichokey."

"Alright. Good night, Futaba."

"Nighty night, Sojiro."

Akira was dressed for sleep, sprawled out on his bed like a content cat. She giggled to herself. The resemblance between their wonderful Trickster and dear old feline guide was sometimes uncanny. The usual post important conversation exhaustion hit her immediately. She knew she was free to use Ryuji's bed, or even ask Akira to take Ryuji's bed, if she so chose, but they did just decide to start pushing her comfort zones again...

"Hey, Akira," she got a hum in response. "Can my first promise list item be to sleep in your bed with you?" Akira smiled sleepily at her, patting the bed and waggling his eyebrows. She grinned. "And would I be able to borrow a shirt to sleep in tonight?"

"Only a shirt? Damn, girl. You'll be jumping my bones in no time."

Just to spite him, she did indeed jump into bed without pants, relishing his surprised squawk when his hand landed on her bare thigh. It took her awhile to fall asleep, but Akira was warm and she fit quite nicely tucked against his side, one leg thrown over his hips and head pillowed on his chest. The gentle up and down motion of his breathing was soothing and when she did finally drop off to sleep, it was the deepest and most comfortable rest she ever remembered having.

~~~

She woke up on her own, about twenty minutes before her alarm was due to ring, based on the LED clock on the bedside table. She had obviously done some tossing and turning at some point because her face was squished against the mattress, which she found to be sopping wet. The culprit was likely the trail of drool dried on her cheek. Gross. Futaba shifted her body, trying to account for all of her limbs. As she became more aware, she realized there was an arm trapped beneath her rib cage and a hairy leg shoved snugly between her thighs. When she turned her head to look at her bed-mate, she very nearly burst out laughing. Akira's face was perhaps the most calm and adorable she'd ever seen it. She'd seen Akira sleep before, but this was the deep, lost to the world type of sleep. Long eyelashes and gorgeous relaxed facial features. He really was one of the most attractive men she'd ever had the pleasure to meet.

The large amount of her hair trapped in his mouth sort of detracted from the angelic image though.

Trying hard not to laugh, she slowly pulled her hair, watching with gross fascination as Akira attempted to chew it as it slide by. Like a freaking cow. She pressed her face back into the bed, body shaking with her mirth. Falling asleep with another person was a bit difficult, but soothing. Waking up with another person was actually pretty disgusting and slightly uncomfortable.

She loved it.

The arm under her suddenly curled around her and jerked her against Akira's incredibly warm body. She squirmed for a minute, giggling. The sleeping beauty crackled one gray eye open and slurred, "Wh's so funny?" which caused her to laugh even harder.

"You uh, probably don't need breakfast I guess. Your stomach must be pretty full from all the hair you were munching on."

Akira hummed. "Your hair?"

"Who else's hair could you eat?"

"It wouldn't be the first time Morgana's tail ended up in my mouth."

"Oh my god, that's soo gross."

Akira simply hummed again.

Her alarm going off was what finally pushed them out of bed. When they got downstairs, Ryuji and Ann both had large grins on their faces, no doubt overly invested in the fact that Futaba had spent the night. Makoto was quietly sipping coffee and petting Morgana, who looked to be half asleep. Haru was long gone, headed to her morning shift at LeBlanc. Yusuke was buttering toast in the kitchen, but not so subtly throwing glances their way every now and then. What a bunch of idiots, she thought. Akira looked like he was going to say something, but Futaba put a hand on his arm. She started this mess. She would end it too.

Akira didn't argue, instead went to heat her up some curry, portioning out the rest in a container for her lunch. As she waited, Ryuji and Ann kept giving her looks. Fine, if they didn't want to make the first move, she would.

"How'd your date go, Ryuji?"

Ryuji blinked, then grinned at the invitation to blab about his evening. Idly, Futaba noticed that Ann's grin visibly dimmed at the mention, but she promptly filed this information away under the category 'things to absolutely not butt her nose into' along with following up on their...enlightening conversation from last night. "It was fantastic! We really hit it off. I don't know what it was about Akira's advice, but no matter what I said to her, she was eating out of my hands. We've got a second date coming up soon."

Makoto smiled, "That's wonderful, Ryuji. Glad it worked out."

Ryuji nodded, chest puffed out proudly. "Yep! Man, who would have thought my best friend getting some would benefit me? Like this weird spiritual wing man thing."

"Well," Futaba started, getting right to the point, "I'm happy the advice helped, but you do know that the only 'some' Akira has gotten has been a pretty stellar amount of making out, cuddling and long heart felt conversations, right? Well...at least from me."

The room was quiet for a moment before Ann and Ryuji both muttered, "huh?"

Akira chuckled, placing a plate of curry and rice in front of Futaba before sitting down himself. "It's true. We never indicated that we were in a sexual relationship. That was something you all suspected all on your own."

Makoto squinted at the pair, "You never denied it either."

"Yeah, you're right," Futaba acknowledged around a mouthful of rice. "That was mostly my fault. Didn't see a reason to correct you because I didn't think it would be much of a conversation topic. That was until...well, it was the only conversation topic."

Morgana stretched and launched himself into Akira's lap, nuzzling his best friend in greeting. "I'm surprised none of you dumb asses thought to ask me. Not only do I often sleep in that room, but I'm the one with heightened smell and hearing. If anything were going on, I would have probably known about it."

Ann smiled awkwardly, "I think the real issue is that we just didn't ask anyone. We all just rolled with the assumption. I'm sorry, you guys."

The other guilty parties murmured apologies as well. Silence fell over the group once again, everyone sitting there awkwardly and not looking at each other. It was surprisingly Yusuke who chimed in, "Damn. I was so hoping that you'd agree to model for me. I'm close to perfecting the artistic portrayal of lust, I just need about an hour of reference material."

Various screams of indignation and laughter broke out and just like that, the weird tense atmosphere was shattered. Their morning moved along as normal then. They all rode the train to Shibuya, Futaba still muttering to herself about "that pervy Inari." As empties out into the underground walkway, Ann timidly pulled her aside. She motioned to Akira to wait and went with Ann to a slightly secluded corner.

"Futaba, I am so so sorry about last night. And how obnoxious I've been in general. I can't even imagine the sort of pressure all that talk must have been putting on you. I promise that I at least will try my best not to let something like that happen again."

Futaba shook her head, amused. "It's fine, Ann. I could have said something at any time. You couldn't have known." She gave a weak laugh and joked, "And see? Not so much to be jealous of between Akira and I, now is there?"

Ann blinked at her, stunned. "No, Futaba. If anything, I'm more jealous. Our whole society thinks of sex as the pinnacle of development in a relationship. It's like some weird milestone people rush off to reach and let control their whole relationship. You guys have gone two years just enjoying each other's company and going against the flow." She grinned, rubbing her neck awkwardly, "That's the sort of dynamic I'm going to strive for now."

Futaba felt pride bloom in her gut, pride for her relationship that relied on healthy conversations and pride in her partner, who constantly pushed her to be the best version of herself she could be. "Thanks, Ann."

When she met back up with Akira, Ryuji and he were having one of their bro hugs. Maybe even Ryuji could have important heart to hearts when the need arose. She sidled up to her boyfriend's side and tilted her head curiously. Akira merely smiled and flicker her forehead playfully. When they all went their separate ways, Futaba assured Akira that she'd just meet him at LeBlanc for dinner after school let out.

Speaking of school, she had to seriously haul ass to make it on time. She felt like her lungs were about to pop as she sprinted up the stairs and burst into her classroom just before the final bell rang. She very narrowly restrained herself from fist pumping in joy and made her way to her seat so the teacher could start.

Everything was back to normal. The group chat was filled with senseless garble, mostly courtesy of Ryuji. (She certainly helped though.) Classes were as boring as ever and the window was just as lovely to distract herself with. At lunch, her friends were discussing the idea of living in the dormitories at college. "Can you imagine living with like all of your friends though? I can't tell if that would be amazing or absolutely terrible!"

A smile crept over her lips at the thought. So far, living with the Phantom Thieves was hectic. Everyone shoved their noses into everyone else's business, there were more weird quirks to get used to and deal with than ever before in her life, and everyone had their own issues that all slammed into each other when they got home. But for all of that mess, Futaba knew there was only one thing she could say on this topic.

"I think it sounds like the best thing ever."

#persona 5 #akira kurusu #futaba sakura #akira x futaba #ann takamaki #fanfiction #my fics #The Hermit and her Joker #Tales from the Thieve's Guild

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