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mutigold · 4 years ago

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∞ teacher’s pet — i.n.

summary: in which the top student fails a test and gets extra help from his favorite professor.

pairing: student!jeongin x teacher!reader

genre: college!au

warning: sub!jeongin, dom!reader, pet play, noona kink, exhibitionism, handjob, ear licking, humiliation, quirofilia, seduction, he still has his braces.

word count: 1.9k

authors note: i really don’t know where this idea came from, but all i know is subby jeongin = 🤤. thank you for supporting me! watching people like my little writings really make my day.. hope y’all enjoy this <3. stream “Going Dumb”!

“would anyone like to explain what it means to be dependent on an organism?”

jeongin’s eyes concentrated on you, as he listened to your voice encompassing the leveled platform. today’s lecture was based on the living organisms in the world and you seemed to be determined for everyone to learn the curriculum.

however, jeongin could not focus on anything except your figure. you were wearing a white skin-tight turtleneck and black formal pants that emphasize your ass. all topped off with a large suit jacket and black louis vuitton heels.

it overall made his heart jump for joy just enjoying the view.

he thought about how those heels would look wrapped around his waist as he pounds into you; screaming his name. or maybe how your tiny hand would slip around his throat as he begs for your come.

“mr. yang?”

jeongin quickly snaps out of his trance to hear you calling his name. and not in the way he wanted.

you looked up at him with sad eyes, upset at him for not paying attention to your favorite lesson. “what’s going through that head yours? is it more important than organisms?”

he quickly fixed his posture, shaking his head rapidly, and responded with, “n—no, i’m sorry noona. i just was thinking too hard about something. i’ll promise to listen from now on.”

you hummed with caution, continuing the biological lecture. the student sighs gratefully for you letting him go off easily and tries to at least take some notes.

“yo, i.n. you okay?” a familiar voice whispered.

jeongin turns to see his two close friends, seungmin and felix, staring down at him in question. “yeah, you seem a little off today.”

confirming he says, “uh. y—yeah; i’m okay.��

“mhmm. okay with staring professor y/n down huh?” felix smirks.

the heat on i.n. 's cheeks becomes noticeable when hearing about his staring. he then tries to ignore the statement by writing his name and the current date in his notebook.

“leave him alone felix. he’s just probably having some problems with the lesson; you should perhaps ask noona for help.” seungmin tries to intervene.

“yeah; i mean, maybe noona can also help you with other problems. if you know what i mean.” felix grins bumping jeongin’s arm.

“f—felix!”

“boys?! care to tell us what is so interesting other than my lesson?” your voice suddenly booms throughout the room. jeongin jumps at your tone and begins to apologize again once making you soften.

“that’s alright, but please pay attention. oh, and jeongin, stay after class for a few minutes to speak with me.”

he didn’t know what to think at that moment; with felix oohing in one of his ears and seungmin trying to shush him in his other or the fact that you wanted to talk to privately.

alone, with no one around, made his mind officially shut down.

“you wanted to speak with me noona?”

you shifted around to see jeongin’s stiff form; then took note of how nervous he looked and gave him a light smile. “hey, kiddo. i just wanted to see how you were doing lately.” you wished to see some type of relief release through him.

but unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

he still looked kind of anxious to speak with you, letting you know how intimidating you seemed. “hey it’s all good, you're not in trouble or anything, i promise. i’ve noticed how you’ve been acting recently in my class and how your scores dropped a little,” you reassured.

“ai! i’m so sorry noona!”

you giggle at the student’s consistent apologies. in your mind, you thought how cute he was; like a puppy aching to gain approval from its owner.

maybe you could make him as your puppy and work hard for that admiration.

immediately, you shake your head from the naughty images. ever since the semester started a few months ago, your thoughts almost ran around yang jeongin.

how his pretty smile, concealed by clear braces, shined at your speaking, how his crescent-shaped eyes followed your every move; making you feel sexy, how large and veiny his arms grew over time within the season, etc.

“that’s alright, jeongin. i just want you to feel comfortable in my lectures. how about this, you and i have a session later this evening to cover the material for the next exam. what do you think pup’?” you offering, accidentally calling him by the pet name you gave him.

after catching the tiny nickname, jeongin clumsy drops his possessions while feeling something swell in his pants. he begins to overthink the word. pup’? why did that sound so nice coming out of your mouth? and how was he gonna hide the fact that his dick got hard in the middle of their conversation?

“i–i’m sorry!”

“oh! no worries hun! here; let noona help you out.”

you instantly proceeded over, bent down, and gathered i.n.’s school objects. starting with some of his blue pens, his macbook, and then his green two-subject notebook. “n–noona! i got the notebook, it’s okay.” jeongin stuttered.

it was almost like he was trying hard to hide something in the notebook, and suddenly it all made sense as it opened to the front page.

yang y/n. it was his surname combined with your first name.

it seemed as if time swiftly froze with silence when discovering the secret. however, it didn’t bother you essentially much as jeongin thought it would have had. “aw, pup’, this is cute. yang y/n has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

the air that was in jeongin’s lungs properly stopped working when distinguishing how seductive your tone became. “i–i..”

“relax a lil’ pup’. listen, will you promise to meet me later this eveningfor some tutoring. i think you could really use it. plus if you’re good–”

you shifted closer to the student’s ear lobe and whispered, “–noona could give you a reward.”

jeongin swore he felt some pre-cum drip down from his pants. “y–yes, noona.” he swallowed trying to moist his dry throat, then jumped moaning in pleasure when your small hand gripped around his erection.

“good. see you then, pup’.”

a few hours later, jeongin ends up at the university’s public library, not knowing what to expect. though, he did make sure to be ready for any possible situation. what did you mean by rewarding him? did you feel the same way he did?

you must have since you did touch his swollen cock during your conversation. or maybe it was just his imagination?

jeongin sighs restlessly thinking of the concept while waiting for your arrival. that soon ends as he hears your alluring voice greet out, “hiya pup’! ready for our lesson?”

he peers up from the library’s table to see you wearing informal clothing. a tight crew neck that reveals your smooth arms extending down to red-painted nails and large breasts bouncing with every step you take.

“ah! i hope you weren’t waiting too long, i got held up in traffic.”

“t–that’s okay noona! i just got here.”

you smile at his nervousness, now acknowledging where it came from, and sat down in the hard chair right next to him. “good, we can get started. i hope you’re ready,” you whispered, feeling an urge to dominate.

jeongin gulps recognizing a certain excitement coming from his pants within hearing your tone and replies with, “r–ready?”

“so, what does adaptation consist of?”

jeongin couldn’t comprehend what you were saying being he focused on the way your glossed-up lips looked. the way he could imagine it wrapped around cock or it traveling up and down the side of his neck molding kisses; it worked him to the point where he was solid hard.

“pup’, what is going through that mind of yours?”

“s–sorry. it’s just, i guess this lesson isn’t grasping in my head yet.” he tries to explain not wanting to upset you.

however, instead of upsetting you, your colored eyes just darken. “oh! i have any idea; remember when i said i would reward you if do good–”

jeongin nods excitedly, making you giggle.

“–well, i know you understand the concept of this chapter. so to push you a little more, i’ll ask you a question and if you get it right, that little cock of yours will get to come.”

the student freezes up at your approach, thinking it was a dream too good to be true. “w-wait what?”

“what is the definition of homeostasis?”

“i, uh, i think it's an organism's constant adjustment to maintain stable conditions in itself?”

you reached under the table discreetly and unbuttoned the pants on jeongin grasping his swollen cock. “o-oh my god, noona!”

“shh, pup’. you gotta be quiet for me; now onto the next question. who created the biogenesis theory?”

jeongin’s breath became too much for him to handle feeling the pre-cum drip from his blood-filled tip. “n–noona, please.”

“come on puppy, tell me the answer or i stop.”

his mind starts to rush trying to find the answer before you let him go. it took him a couple of seconds, but once he got it, he hurried to speak. “henry charlton bastain!”

“good puppy.” your tiny hand moves faster, satisfied with the statement. you felt his cock throbbing with every stroke you took. like jeongin, you dreamt of this same exact moment. you wanted to control the poor student every time he walked through your room, when he made eye contact with you, or even when his plump bottom lip was bitten from his teeth.

and finally, it was happening.

“oh, who’s a good puppy for noona?”

“m-me! i am noona.”

“that’s right pup’. next question, what are the five steps to the scientific method?”

i.n.’s vein from his cock popped out sensing the rubbing moving faster than before. “i only know four noona!”

“too bad, i wanted five or i slow down.” you coldly demand.

jeongin began to try to think hard on the five steps letting the sensation run through his body. “o-okay. it’s defining the problem, making a hypothesis, testing it, analyzing the results… then..”

your hand slows at his hesitation. “give me the last one puppy.”

“oh! noona, don’t stop! i–i. is it d–drawing the conclusions?”

“good puppy!”

his cock grows bigger when your finger grips at the base. then, you painted nails lightly scratch at his tight balls. “oh! noonaaa. that feels sooo goood. pleaseee.”

“continue to answer like a good pup’ then i’ll keep going.”

soon after the next few questions, jeongin sits near his breaking point. “nooonnnaaa! please!”

“grab your textbook and hold it up.”

i.n. clutches the hard-covered biology book to cover both you and him from public eyes. suddenly, you lower yourself to his lips, deeply kissing him with tongue, and wander towards his earlobe. “one more question, pup’. what does stimulus mean?”

“uh! noona! please let me come! make your puppy come!” he moans a little too loud.

“shh. answer the question, then i’ll let you come.”

“s-stimulus? it m-means anything an organism responds to.”

you then move your head to spit down to moist his penis. “good puppy! getting your small cock rubbed in front of everyone like a little slut.” you cup the back of his neck feeling the shivers release through him.

“you can come pup’, come for noona.”

jeongin then lets go, coming hard in your hand. “o-oh! thank you, thank you noona!”

after guiding him to his high, you let go of him and licked the white, sticky substance from your hand.

“good puppy. i’m sure you’ll be ready for that next exam.”

#stray kids #skz #skz imagines #skz jeongin #skz smut #skz x reader #skz x stay #skz x y/n #skz x you #smut #sub!idol #sub!skz #sub!jeongin #dom!reader #kpop #kpop smut

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licncourt · 3 years ago

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What if Lestat and Louis are humans of our time? What things would change? what jobs would they have? do you have any headcanon?

Okay, here's my proposal for modern human AU Loustat (tw for some dark content, but nothing that isn't already in the books. I'll put most of it under a cut just in case)

Louis is a nepotism trust fund baby. He's making big bucks off his late father's real estate investments and spends most of his time on paperwork/bookkeeping or holed up in his fancy New Orleans townhouse

Lestat is an ex-theater actor, current rock singer, and aspiring fantasy novelist who moved to the US from France to get away from his family and his ex, high school sweetheart Nicolas, and he's pretty adrift in his "fresh start"

They meet in their early twenties at a bad time in their lives. Louis is grieving the sudden death of his brother, Paul, and having a bit of a sexuality crisis all while dealing with newly presenting alcoholism. Lestat is struggling with the news of Nicki's suicide after their breakup and dealing with the aftermath of a sexual assault that ended his stage acting career while trying to keep his band afloat

When Lestat first sees Louis, he's out on a bender at a dive bar and is the spitting image of Nicki. It's love at first sight (he's got a thing for sad brunettes with drinking problems in any universe) and he's blasted enough to go introduce himself. Lestat is exactly Louis' type and he's had enough vodka to shut up the internalized homophobia, so they go home together and have very pathetic and depressing yet frenzied sex

Even though it turns out they kinda can't stand each other the next day, something about the night before sort of trauma bonded them and they're feeling self-destructive enough to keep going out

They're hardly even on speaking terms most of the time but also weirdly committed. It's very fucked up and codependent, but they're definitely in love even if they won't acknowledge it. Sometimes things are good and they go on real dates and kiss and have fun together, but other times all they do is scream at each other and have angry sex in a neverending loop

Lestat is in BPD overdrive in this new toxic relationship and not dealing with his trauma even a little bit. Louis is still depressed and drinking and his control issues around his sexuality and addiction caused his eating disorder to escalate out of control, and that puts even more strain on the relationship. They can't stop bringing out the worst in one another

It all comes to a head when one of their fights turns very physical and Louis leaves that night. They don't see each other for years, but they never stop thinking about their relationship. Neither of them are even close to "good", but they do make some progress on their own

Lestat goes on to pursue his writing more than his music and publishes his first novel some time down the road. It's a bestseller. Louis, bookworm that he is, finds out about it immediately and waits outside a bookstore where Lestat is doing a signing and a show with his band

(Lestat held one in New Orleans on the tiny off-chance Louis might come)

They spend the entire night together, just talking. The time apart has made them both realize the mistakes they made and how much potential they wasted making themselves miserable. There are no apologies yet, but there's an understanding. Empathy where there wasn't before

They get back together and it's different this time. It's hard, REALLY hard, but they're trying. It takes a lot of patience and even more therapy, but they get it right this time. When Louis proposes, Lestat doesn't hesitate to say yes

In their thirties, Claudia comes along. Her mother died of cancer when she was five and she doesn't have any other family. She's a perfect fit and she's their pride and joy from the first day

Her interests are more in line with Louis', but she's a blonde menace after Lestat's own heart. There are some rough patches where Lestat's generational trauma comes back to haunt him, but he's determined not to become his father and he fixes things with Claudia before it's too late

Not long after Claudia joins their family, Lestat finds them the perfect house on Rue Royale and they live happily ever after there

(Claudia grows into the most wonderful young lady ❤)

#answered #loustat #human au

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berlinini · 3 years ago

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Like you I refuse to believe that this latest round of stalker and lads night out pics is louis' preferred marketing strategy or image choice. It never has been and has always reeked of some kind of ultimatum that's put him in between a rock and a hard place. Does anyone actually believe that the same louis that came up with The Festival and spent a ton of money on it so that the fans could have something, is the same louis who would appear to be so tuned out of his fandom that he would decide "You know what let's give 'em some old tired shit!" The same louis that works his butt off and sings his heart out and stress cleans when he's talking about wanting to achieve something great is the same louis who we're all meant to believe doesn't pay any attention to what we want and has no clue how we would react to this. I don't believe he puts on THAT t-shirt (the one we were really loud about and the one that points to things not being okay) at the same moment this all goes down. He's said before that he notices how we find meaning in the symbols. Has anyone given any meaning to him pulling out all the vintage jackets? It's impossible for me to believe that he doesn't know that he's giving us recycled shit. And I also can't believe that after years of witnessing Things That Don't Make Sense there are still people out there who haven't connected the dots.

(In relation to this)

I wrote this 30 days ago, just after the live performance of AFHF:

Again, I refuse to believe that Louis has chosen anything when it comes to the current state of his promo/PR. He loves his fans and put the festival on mainly for us, but there is no way he worked so hard not get the recognition he deserves. And he must know he deserves it, because he shatters records with anything he does. He hasn’t given up and he’s still pushing the lid of the box to get it open, and he’s such a stubborn little shit that I hope he never stops pushing, faith in the future yady yady yada, but fuck if it isn’t frustrating for us, and so it must be x 1000 for him!!!

Fans who are unable to see the patterns aren't looking very far. As a reminder, AFHF didn't get any promo and almost 2 months after the global streaming event, we still have no ideas how many tickets Veeps sold for the event. That's even worse than the dodgy way the ticket numbers for the London Livestream were shared in 2020. When Louis' signing with BMG was announced in May, we had Jamie Nelson say Louis was already working on new music. Louis was spotted several times in the studio this summer. Now we know he's been in there for a week/ 10 days. We have no information about the state of LT2 coming from Louis himself or from LTHQ.

So please, don't go around pleading Louis for better promo options when there's no way in hell he's happy with the current situation.

If we, as fans, are able to sense that things are not normal, wouldn't you assume that Louis, being the main interested party in all of this, being the person who's said "Too many times in my career have I had to pick myself up and go ‘right let’s go again’.", being the one who - 2 years ago - announced that his debut album was "finally" coming, is aware of how things are abnormal for an artist of his status?

I'm always surprised at people in this fandom praising Louis' intelligence - his easter eggs, the 369 stuff, his lyrics, etc - on one hand, and then blaming him for the lack of promo with the other hand. Make it make sense, please...

#answered ask #anon #louis promo #stalkers week #louie discourse (serious)#tumblr user berlinini

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falsegoodnight · 4 years ago

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a new header??? it matches better <3 these are the fics I read or reread and enjoyed this month! like last time, i’m separating it into different sections: main list, wips, and non-1d. rereads will be included in the main list and marked with a star (*).

*note: this list encompasses the fics i’ve read from the 1st to the 28th only

—

main list ~

✰ Don’t Wait Up by reliablyimperfect | NR | 1k

Without Harry’s warmth next to him, he felt the chill of the air creep over his skin. He tugged the blanket down from where Harry kept one draped over the back of the couch for him, grateful. With the blanket, he instantly felt warmer, but it backfired when his eyes began to droop again. Trying to keep his eyes open was impossible, and he was consciously aware of how long his blinks were becoming. They stay closed longer and longer until, eventually, they didn’t open again.

so soft and sweet and lovely! made my heart feel so warm <3 will return to this for some quick comfort in the future!

✰ my ugly mouth kept running by @hadestyles | E | 4k

Sometimes second chances are more important than the first.

rori’s lush writing + abo + exes to lovers = absolute perfection. my fic cameo gives it a bonus too :’) definitely one of my rori favs

✰ i’ve loved you three summers now honey, i want them all by @softloubabie | M | 4k

The restaurant was small and bright, soft colors filled the walls and tables and fairy lights hung from everywhere. From what Harry had read, the food wasn’t overly expensive but it was still comparable to what you would get at one of the more expensive places. If Harry could he would take Louis to the biggest most expensive and extravagant restaurants to do what he planned to tonight, but this would do.

After being led to their table Harry nervously tapped his jacket pocket, sighing in relief when he felt the small box still there. Tonight was the night. He couldn’t wait till it was time to surprise Louis with all the gifts he got for him. Then finally the big surprise.

so cute and sweet! their kids were so adorable and the proposal so lovely!! they love each other so much <3

✰ love me in between the future and the past by navigator & quitter | E | 11k

Harry's scared of history repeating itself.

this honestly hurt to read but in such a raw and emotional way?? was mad at harry and then sad for him :( this writer duo’s fics never fail to amaze me!

✰ sunshine on my mind by @raspberryoatss | E | 13k

Louis visits Harry in Portland

this was so sweet and lovely! the perfect addition to this wonderful universe! pip’s characterizations and fluff never fails to make my heart feel warm <3

✰ rapture in the dark by @stylinsonsupporter | T | 13k

Harry Styles is a breakout musician who has shed his boyband label in favor of embracing his inner brooding rockstar. His PR team think that his rebrand is the perfect time for Harry to come out of the closet and have devised the perfect plan for doing so. Enter Louis Tomlinson, up and coming (and very openly homosexual) model whose public image as America's Sweetheart is the perfect foil for Harry's new edge. From a PR standpoint, it's a dream come true - a power couple that can slowly coax the public into accepting Harry's altered image. The only problem? They hate each other.

always love a good fake dating au and this is no exception! and model louis >> really enjoyed this!

✰ Maybe, Baby* by thoughtsickles | M | 16k | mpreg

It all feels too easy, too good to be true. It all feels like a scene from Louis' daydreams, the kind of life he'd always imagined he'd have when he was younger and bored at his momma's work, sneaking around the hallways of the maternity ward until the nurses let him in to hold the babies. He'd felt so important being allowed to touch them. He'd told them stories of the lives they were going to have, houses with nice wallpaper that wasn't peeling, yards filled with sunshine and flowers and grass that never went yellow. A hammock to nap in, cuddled up with his husband.

You can't stay here, he tells himself, but Baby doesn't want to listen.

have reread this one quite a bit of times now and it still makes me so happy <3 this Louis and Harry deserve the world <333

✰ Let Me Inside by reliablyimperfect | E | 18k

Louis is Harry’s boss, but Harry is the boss of Louis.

loved this one! really enjoyed the balance between h&l and how they maintained their dynamic in subtle ways outside of the bedroom while also keeping it separate. very much enjoyed the jealousy as well <3

✰ a scintilla of predilection by @dehydratedpoolfics | T | 20k

There, in the far back of the room, next to the only available seat left, is none other than Harry Styles. Harry, who grew up next door to him, who knew all his secrets as a child and played FIFA with him on Saturday mornings after he would spend the night Friday evenings every week, whose curly hair would tickle his nose as they held each other during bitter cold nights that made his room glow a haunting blue.

love ex-childhood friends with misunderstandings!! louis was so cute and i loved his poetry <3 harry too was so stupid but so smitten and lovely :’) really enjoyed this!

✰ Keeping The Flame Alive by @crazyupsetter | E | 20k

Recording with One Direction never felt like this. There’s a couple reasons for that, Harry thinks. One is that they did most of their recording on the road, rushed and in busses and hotel rooms, never in one place long enough to really get an argument going. The other, larger and more important one, is that back then he had the sweetest, meanest little omega around to distract him from all of that frustration.

The first time around, when he’d been recording his debut solo album, it hit him pretty hard. He likes to think he’s better adjusted to it now, but frustration is warring under his skin nonetheless. He doesn’t want to be told what to do most of the time, and he especially doesn’t want to be told what to do when it comes to his music.

What he does want right now is that sweet, mean little omega right in front of him with his mouth on Harry’s cock. Unfortunately, the best he’s got is his own hand and a shared toilet. So. That’s really not going to work.

✰ like it’s a game* by @soldouthaz | E | 32k

There is little Harry hates more than truth or dare.

And Louis.

queen of enemies to lovers! it’s been a while since i’ve reread this but too absolutely no surprise, it’s just as amazing as always <3 sarah never misses!

✰ Too Young To Know by @2tiedships2 | M | 35k

Harry doesn’t present as an alpha… until he does.

really enjoyed this as per usual! exes to lovers is my jam and the added angst of Louis dating someone else at the beginning... love <3

✰ Some Things Take Root* by navigator & quitter | E | 50k

Louis' ex doesn't get jealous of anyone besides Harry. Harry helps Louis use that to his advantage.

stumbled upon this randomly and decided to reread on a whim... ended up staying up to read it in one sitting! so good!

✰ Safe and Sound (You’ll Always Be) by @all-these-larrythings | E | 58k

When a failed case and a guilty conscience leaves Harry more than a little lost, his boss presents him with a new, less taxing assignment to help him cope. An escape from all the madness is just what Harry needs to get his life back on track. It's just too bad his new client has a grin like the devil, a pair of electric eyes that Harry simply can't get over, and no intention whatsoever of letting him catch a break.

i don’t know how i’ve never read this before??? it was absolutely amazing though! perfect blend of humor and fluff and tension and angst <3

✰ Mind Over Matter (You Under Me) by @youreyesonlarry | E | 74k

It’s dark outside when Harry finishes practice for the day.

the slow burn in this fic killed me - which is to say, it was perfect! loved how they progressed from working together to being friends to something more and how much they genuinely cared for each other! the hockey was so fun too!

✰ Call Out My Name by frenchkiss | E | 102k

Apparently, it's bad PR to fall in love with the omega you hired to help you through your rut.

Harry Styles begs to differ.

ellen truly knocked it out of the park with this one!! had everything i could ever want: abo, famous/non-famous, fluff, humor, angst, drama, and more! i loved it from beginning to end!

wips ~

✰ ‘cause all our tomorrows lead the way by @loubellies | E | 64k | 7/11

So maybe Louis’ in over his head.

He had signed up for the Bachelor on a whim after his second bottle of wine and well, here he is. He’s just been announced as the twenty-sixth Bachelor and his ass is sweating. Like, literally sweating. He’s positive that if he was to turn around, the entirety of Bachelor Nation would get a nice peek of his ass sweat.

am thoroughly enjoying each chapter!! it’s been a wild ride so far and although things are currently calm, i am still on edge!! but i trust mar with my life <3

✰ Truth Behind Golden Eyes by @lwtisloved | E | 83k | 8/16

Louis is a royal servant born with magic in a kingdom where his sole existence is outlawed with a war he has no idea he has a part in upon him. Harry is the prince on whom the burden of mending a broken kingdom falls upon and he might be willing to risk it all for a simple servant if only he admitted it to himself.

caught up last night! still really enjoying every chapter and can’t wait to see what happens next!! things are *happening* with h&l and answers are being given!! (love the jealousy too!)

non-1d ~

✰ Keep Me Close (I Need Your Faith) by @princelouisau | E | 23k

Somewhere along the way he had fallen in love and in doing so, had broken the one rule he knew he couldn’t come back from. As quickly as he realised, he decided that he must never dare speak it. He resigned himself to loving Draco in silence.

first foray into reading drarry... and, to no one’s surprise, i loved it! beautiful writing as always and beautiful atmosphere! it’s really not a shock that i fell for these characters and their story when danielle is behind it <3 it had me entranced from beginning to end!!

finally, i myself actually posted a fic this month:

my fics ~

✰ yesterday came suddenly by me | E | 49k | mpreg

Harry the deadliest member of the NYC assassins’ guild, is forced to face a seemingly impossible task in hopes of finally leaving the underground behind for good, but when ghosts from the past come back to haunt him, escaping the darkness becomes that much harder.

If you read any of these beautiful works of art, remember to leave kudos and comment to show your appreciation!

*if i made any errors, please let me know :)

enjoy!

#my fic recs #fic recs #28th appreciation #march recs #2021 recs #march 2021 recs #scheduled

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apiratewhopines · 3 years ago

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Thanks to @teamhook for the updated artwork. She’s the only person I know who will provide a gift for her own gift 💝

Thanks to @motherkatereloyshipper for helping me pick Killian’s hometown in this story and for being an all around lovely person

Midnight

Chapter 2 — The Stroke

Summary: In which our heroine does what she does best

Chapter 2 of 7 on AO3

“And my imagination will feed my hungry heart,

Leave me one thing before we part”

-A Kiss to Build a Dream On, Louis Armstrong

The spot he was referring to was an out-of-the-way pub serving the greasiest onion rings in existence and a lively clientele that didn’t notice it was one o’clock in the morning and all decent people were in bed. After days of getting by on breakfast bars and the memory of what a full meal tasted like, Emma thought she had died and gone to heaven.

Melancholy tunes droned softly in the background as she demolished enough food to feed an army. The pretty waitress earned her respect when the woman didn’t even blink at her handsome companion, and she liked to think she earned it back when she ordered three of their daily specials without a trace of shame.

Ignoring the way Killian watched with an expression close to awe as she stuffed her face, she happily gulped down a cup of coffee and observed, “Nice place. Come here often?”

“Not as much as I used to,” he murmured, taking a sip of his drink. “Tell me about this man you’re hunting. Is it personal?”

“Please, don’t make me lose my appetite. Surely we can come up with something else to talk about,” she groaned around a mouthful of beef and melted cheese. He had removed his leather jacket when they entered the pub, and his black short sleeve t-shirt stretched across his biceps in a manner entirely too distracting for comfort. Their high-backed booth made it feel as though they were on an island all by themselves, the dark wood and Tiffany lamps creating a cozy cocoon while still allowing a view of the nearly deserted dance floor.

“Ah, definitely personal then. Did he insult your honor? Break your heart? Have you ever even been in love?”

It stung how quickly he was able to see through her. Did she wear her heartache like a stamp on her forehead announcing to everyone she was an idiot? Ignoring the last question, she replied, “He hurt the only person who ever cared about me out of petty revenge. Neal Cassidy broke me. Now I’m going to return the favor.”

“Chills, darling.” His tone was teasing, but she thought she saw him shudder at her words. “I guess you don’t abide the notion of turning the other cheek.”

“Not when the first hit cost me my home, my possessions, and my peace of mind.”

“So he’s the reason you haven’t eaten in days and don’t have any luggage? Sounds like a lovely chap.”

“I don’t need your commentary or your sympathy, Captain. While I appreciate your help tonight, and I definitely owe you one for the meal, I think my past is closed for further discussion. Let’s talk about you instead. What’s your story?”

“I don’t have one, love. What you see is what you get.”

“What I see is someone dodging my question. Guess I’ll have to fill in the details myself then. Let’s see…thirty-something-year-old man who lives a life of boredom and pines for more while feeling stuck in his white picket fence world. You have a decent career in a field that pays well but decided to start a side hustle to meet new people and have something to do after eight in the evening.” Gesturing with her chin toward his forearm, she continued, “Currently nursing his own broken heart over the woman who loved and left him. The only thing I can’t figure out is what part of England you’re from.”

“Well, aren’t you the perceptive one,” he answered with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Although, I would argue it’s cheating since I have my emotional baggage inked on my skin for everyone to see while you carry yours around like an invisible tumor on your soul. As far as where I’m from, a man likes to maintain a little mystery.”

“Come on! You really aren’t going to tell me anything about yourself? After I guessed all that about you?”

With an unfathomable look, he smiled softly and said, “Fine, I’m from Cambridge. Now you know all my secrets. And allow me to call your attention to how well my devious plan worked. My first evening with my side hustle, as you call it, and I’m already having a late night rendezvous with a beautiful woman. One full of food and dancing.”

“There will be no dancing, Captain. But I wouldn’t be opposed to more food.”

“Not sure where you’ll put it, love, there’s no more room on the table. But I’m game if you are. Come on, one dance, and I’ll buy you a whole pie.”

She wanted pie but not as much as she wanted to feel his arms around her. She wanted it so badly her mind raced with images of skin on skin and restless hands exploring. Then her stomach twisted at the knowledge they would say goodbye soon. They probably should have already said it, truth be told. As she debated what harm could come from giving in just this once, he extended his hand and pulled her gently from the seat. Slowly, she felt a small section of her walls crumble and gave him a reluctant smile. “One dance.”

The soft music wasn’t loud enough to allow for an appropriate selection of dance style, but she didn’t mind when he gathered her close and swayed gently in time with his soft humming. She felt his breath stir the hair around her face and realized this was a mistake. Now that she knew how it felt, it would be harder to deny herself an encore. Especially knowing tonight was a one-time thing.

“Tell me something, Swan. Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“No, I don’t believe in love at all,” she answered. Her words conveyed her deeply held conviction that poets and Hollywood movie producers invented love to make people so miserable with the lack of it, they had to seek out fictionalized versions to find some measure of happiness. Her tone, however, sounded as though she was open to being convinced otherwise.

“That’s a shame. I think you’ll miss out on a lot of what life has to offer by being so close-minded and scared.”

“If I were scared, which I’m not, I have every reason to be. One of my foster moms told me a long time ago that love wouldn’t buy me a diamond ring, and it was as easy to be in a relationship with a rich man as a poor one. Easier really. I used to think she was a witch, but now I think she had a point.”

“Bloody hell, what exactly did that man do to you?”

She felt his direct gaze like a physical thing caressing her even as his eyes flickered with disappointment. “I told you. He broke me. And my bank account.”

“Money isn’t everything, love.”

“Excuse me if I ignore advice telling me to count my non-monetary blessings from the man who picked me up in his Beamer. It may not be everything but not having it leaves you with nothing.”

“A person who needs forty dollars a day and makes forty is richer than someone who has everything and needs more.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” she said as she slipped from his arms. “And when a rainy day comes? What then?”

“I recently took up being an Uber driver in my spare time, love. I imagine I’ll make more on rainy days.”

Laughing as she looked at his endearing face under the dim light, she shook her head. “About my pie…”

—

She knew what she was doing. She lingered over the large platter containing a sampling of every type of pie the surprisingly eclectic menu had to offer. She watched him with affection as he critiqued each in turn, always saving the bites with whipped cream for her. The best parts, in other words.

She was stalling.

The night hadn’t turned out as she expected. While her main goal was unfulfilled, she couldn’t make herself think of it as a loss when her sides hurt from laughing, and her troubled heart felt at peace. It was a pity it had to end. And not because she had nowhere to go, although that was certainly the case.

Slowly they made their way back to his car, neither one speaking as the noises of the summer night buzzed in the background. She’d said a lot of goodbyes in her lifetime, eagerly in most cases, but was strangely reluctant to add this one to the list. “Well, Captain, it’s been an expensive night for you. I think you better drop me off at the nearest bus station before I cost you any more.”

“You’re always trying to bring the conversation back around to money. Get in,” he ordered as he handed her into the car.

The air in the cabin of his luxury sedan felt heavy with expectation. Neither of them spoke nor hardly moved a muscle. She considered asking him to turn on the radio but didn’t want to miss out on the last few moments of hearing his even breathing next to her. Minutes passed, and it took her a while to notice they had left Storybrooke and were heading back toward Misthaven. “How much further to the bus station?”

“We passed it several miles back. You’re going to stay at my place.”

Under normal circumstances, this would be where she prepared to kick someone’s ass, but she knew deep down, as surprising as his announcement was, she had nothing to fear from him. Well, nothing except a repeat of the broken heart fiasco that was getting harder to remember with every second spent in his company. “Oh no, I’m not. What happened to no strings and no funny business?”

“Calm down, Swan. Our deal stands. I’m working the rest of the night so you’ll have the place to yourself. Trust me, the bed in my guest room is much more comfortable than a seat at the bus station.” Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached into one of the compartments in the console and pulled out a key. “There are some shirts in the dryer if you need something to wear. Help yourself to whatever you want. If you hang around until nine, I’ll even make breakfast. If you don’t, leave the key under the Welcome mat.”

“I think you better keep your key, Captain. There are two ways this could end, and neither one is pretty.” She gave him a sidelong glance and was mildly irked to see him grinning at her.

“Only two? Please enlighten me with your power of premonition.”

Heaving a sigh of frustration, she wished he would be logical about this whole thing. Sure they had attraction in spades; the very air around them seemed to crackle with electricity whenever their eyes met. But she knew it would fade, and the only thing left then would be goodbye. Better to skip the messy part and go straight to the end. “The first is I stay and have breakfast, and it turns into the day and then another night….”

“That doesn’t sound so bad, love. And the second?”

“I leave the key under the mat, and we never see each other again.”

“Hmm, option two is decidedly less appealing. I’ll take what’s behind Door Number One, please,” he joked.

“You think so until reality sets in and you realize you’ve taken in a stray with a score to settle and not a cent to her name. It won’t be long before the sight of me in your shirts makes you cringe, and you resent having to share the couch with a woman who has nothing to give.” She would know having been in a relationship with a person who was only capable of taking, and she vowed never to do that to someone else.

“I have half a mind to hunt down this Cassidy fellow myself after seeing the hit job he did on you. Listen, Swan, the key has no strings. Breakfast is just food. Whatever happens, happens. But if you think I’m going to drop you off at a deserted bus station with only the clothes on your back, fetching as they are, you’ve got the wrong idea about me in more ways than one.”

“I’m not yours to rescue, Captain.”

“You could be,” he whispered in a voice that made her skin tingle. He tossed her a half-hearted smile, eyes stormy with the knowledge she was going to turn him down. Again.

“The fact we both want me to be is warning enough it’s a bad idea. Come on, Killian, let’s call it a night now so we can remember it fondly in the years to come.”

His jaw clenched, and she was worried he was going to fight with her sensible argument. People didn’t meet people in the middle of the road and form attachments in one night. This wasn’t a fairy tale, and she was as far from a princess as a person could get.

Although she had to admit he made a rather fine prince.

Pulling off into a nearby gas station, he turned to her and said almost threateningly, “We’re not through discussing this.”

Then he stepped out and slammed the door as the sky opened up.

—

It was a dirty trick. She knew even as she did it, but it was for his own good. For whatever reason, he felt like he needed to protect her, and she needed to save him from himself. So she waited until he walked into the convenience store and made a run for it.

That’s not to say she didn’t have a brief moment of whimsy. She couldn’t stop herself from placing a kiss on the key he had casually tossed to her as if inviting her into his home and his life wasn’t a big deal. Then she carefully placed it on the dash, grabbing the newspaper from his backseat as an afterthought, and scurried away before she was caught.

Like a rat.

Maybe Neal was exactly the kind of man she deserved.

The rain beat down in a punishing way, her makeshift umbrella getting soggy and soft under the onslaught. She was so busy looking over her shoulder, convinced he was going to search for her and half hoping he was successful, that the sudden absence of the storm took her by surprise.

“Here, miss, it’s raining cats and dogs tonight,” the sturdy doorman of the fancy establishment she was passing said as he reached out to place his umbrella over her. The burgundy awning extended to cover most of the sidewalk and, despite the late hour, classical music was drifting from the open door. Limousines lined the street, spilling well-dressed patrons as they approached the swanky club.

Before she could maneuver out of the way, she was swept into a tide of rich fish, all glammed out and ready for the party to start or continue as the case may be. She overheard one woman, whose hat was so large she had to tilt her head to make it through the door, complain, “Regina’s parties are always so dull even nature weeps.”

Deciding a boring party indoors was better than a lonely night in the rain, Emma changed her stance and walked over the threshold with her head held high like she belonged there. She noticed the plaque on the wall as she entered read The Rabbit Hole and couldn’t help but think it was aptly named. With its marble floors and curving staircase, it was no wonder this wasn’t one of the stops on the Captain’s tour of town. This place was as high-end as they came.

There was a man collecting tickets at a small side table and, with only a minute to improvise, she was glad to see the stubs were roughly the size of the photo she was toting around, one of the few remaining possessions to her name. Without a moment of regret, she turned the photo face down, relieved the love note Neal had written on the back was faded and worn, so only his faint signature was legible. Luckily, the sheer volume of people entering the place meant the employee merely took it from her without looking to confirm it was what it appeared to be.

Following the crowd into a large ballroom off to the side, she saw a black grand piano played with a precise kind of violence by a wild-haired man in a tuxedo. The room was packed to the gills, the group she straggled in with taking the last seats on the far side of the room. The audience was appreciative but far from silent, conversations carrying on as if private concerts of this caliber were a normal everyday occurrence for them. Every time Emma thought she found a place to rest her sore feet and sorer heart, someone took it before she could get there and, in one near miss, she almost flattened a lap dog that warranted his own seat for the show.

Finally, after pushing her way through a narrow row, she found a place and asked the man in the next chair with a hint of desperation, “Is this seat taken?”

Shrugging a silent negative with brooding eyes that lit up when she neared, she tried to ignore the searching glance he gave her as she dropped into the chair and surreptitiously removed her shoes. She could tell by the hint of a smirk he noticed the movement, but at least he had the good grace not to comment on it.

He was handsome in a careworn kind of way. His tousled dark hair and thick stubble were eerily similar to the Captain’s look, and it made her shuffle in her seat with guilt. The man kept staring, his light-colored eyes settling somewhere between gray and green, keenly taking in her appearance and finding it amusing if the continued presence of his smirk was any indication.

As the final notes of the concerto echoed through the room, a burst of applause started. Now that she was fed and able to sit for a few moments, Emma realized she was exhausted. It was a bone-deep weariness far beyond fatigue, and she was fairly confident it could be traced back to a man with blue eyes and more charm than any one person should be allowed to have.

She wondered where Killian was now. If he had already given up or if he was wasting more time and losing out on more money combing the streets looking for his erstwhile damsel in distress. Emma knew what she did was for the best as surely as she knew she would be haunted by the feeling of his arms wrapped around her for a long time.

After a brief break, the musician approached the piano again. Before he could start hammering out another song with the intensity of a madman, a raven-haired woman stepped in front of the instrument. She called out in a commanding voice, “Pardon the interruption but does anyone recognize this man? It would seem there was a mix-up at the ticket counter and someone accidentally handed in a photograph instead of their invitation to this private event.”

Resisting the urge to sink deeper into her chair, she furtively looked around as the audience murmured amongst themselves regarding the unusual disruption. She could tell by the sardonic tone of the woman’s voice and the way she emphasized the word private she wasn’t convinced it was an innocent mistake. A scene would be made if the guilty party were found and couldn’t provide the appropriate documentation.

“Really? No one is going to come forward?” With an annoyed look at the assembly, she sulked, “Fine, I won’t waste any more of your time.”

She saw the woman hurry to the corner and carry on a quick conversation with a few men before the group disbursed and fanned out to cover the room. Feeling her luck was running out, she slipped her feet back into her shoes with barely a wince and slowly stood under the watchful gaze of her neighbor.

She needed to escape for the second time that night, but now she had hundreds of witnesses. Nonchalantly, she surveyed the room, trying to determine the best way. During this perusal, a man caught her eye, and she froze as he began to cut across the room to her side. So much for a stealthy getaway.

Her pursuer had an air of refined boredom with an edge of mischief. His graying hair was an attractive finish to a lean, well-dressed form. Cocking an eyebrow in disdain or maybe curiosity, he spoke quietly to not draw the notice of the surrounding crowd. “A word, madam.”

“With me?”

“Indeed.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Squaring her shoulders, she ignored the way her neighbor watched with rapt attention as she resolutely marched toward her fate.

@teamhook @kmomof4 @jrob64 @motherkatereloyshipper @stahlop @xarandomdreamx @xsajx @klynn-stormz

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tasloveskk · 4 years ago

Text

Some folklore thoughts 💭🌲✨🏳️‍🌈

Part 1

I’m going to take it song by song while also tracking key themes in red! Please also feel free to add in your thoughts in the comments, I’m curious to see what else people think folklore is about...

folklore

‘folklore’ is defined as “a body of popular myths or beliefs relating to a particular place, activity, or group of people.” or, by Steve from Taylor’s IC,”the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth.” Taylor herself in her introduction/prologue says “A tale that becomes folklore is one that is passed down and whispered around. Sometimes even sung about. The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact. Myths, ghost stories, and fables. Fairytales and parables. Gossip and legend. Someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold.”

the 1

- firstly, it’s the best opening track she’s ever had! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

- “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit” = sounds to me like a conversation you have with an ex, like someone is saying “yeah I’m doing great, I’m dating/doing ‘x’” the first time they run into their ex in a while.

-“I thought I saw you at the bus stop” has BIG “this city screams your name” energy but is also very clever by Taylor because Miss Karlie Kloss is ALWAYS on advertisements on bus stops/literal buses around the globe 🚌

- “I hit the Sunday matinee” to me seems like an inside thing, because obviously as the world biggest pop star, if taylor is going to go to the theatre or cinema, she’ll pick the least busy and most filled with older people which would be the Sunday matinee.

- “you know the greatest films of all time were never made” —> the greatest love stories never get told? happen behind the scenes? There’s something deeper here but I’m still forming the cohesive idea!

- “if you wanted me you really should’ve showed” = showed up or showed for the world, either way Taylor wanted KK to chose her not Josh so they could work but that didn’t happen so now she’s left to wonder.

- “roaring twenties” evokes two clear images for me! 1. They were both in their 20s for the entiretyof their relationship, the best years were spent together and 2. The Roaring 20s were a time of independence, pushing boundaries and breaking the rules of prohibition - which is basically what Taylor and Karlie were doing behind the scenes.

- “if my wishes came true, it would’ve been you” = let’s say, ONLY FOR ARGUMENTS SAKE, that Taylor really IS with Toe, that still means that this song is her yearning for someone else who she always loves more AND had to lose at some point. Looking at her past beards “relationships”, there are only two plausible options - Joe (which seems unlikely seeing as they’re still “together”) or CH who she supposedly wrote “you would’ve been the one if you were a better man” about. Either way doesn’t seem like it fits. However, if you look at it as Karlie is the 1, it becomes clear - it would’ve been fun being best friends and lovers for ever baking cookies and dancing around the kitchen, it would’ve been forever if Karlie hadn’t “married” jerk, it would’ve been her and it still is. 💗

- “in my defense I have none, for never leaving well enough alone” & “I know that I went psycho on the phone, I never leave well enough alone” are about the same moment with the same person = she didn’t leave well enough alone because she kept writing about Karlie and re-engaging us Kaylors as well as I’m sure, she kept up with seeing Karlie or keeping tabs on her to the point where it forced someone to reach out to the other.... she can’t apologise or defend her actions because you can’t explain the things you do for true love.

- “I have this dream you’re doing cool shit” aka starting a podcast, expanding businesses, making headway as an entrepreneur and being a highly-paid and respected international model? Seems straight forward 👀

- “you meet some woman on the Internet and take her home” = 1. Karlie is specifically interested in tech and the internet, it is literally her entire business and 2. if Karlie and Tay did break up, then because Karlie is actually NOT married to Josh, she hooked up with someone she met through the internet somehow (probs social media not an app) and Taylor found out this is probably a snarky comment about that from a jealous ex. Could possibly also be about the dream mentioned above. 💔🔐

- “another day waking up alone” = lost her lover, sleeps alone? Bold claim on opening tack.

- “persist and resist” = very famous feminist saying, civil rights/political echo?

- “the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different, would everything be different today” = this what if mentality continues through the album but personally, I think this is about Kissgate.

- “Rosé flowing with your chosen family” = repeats later, your chosen family could refer to Karlie’s group of friends like Derek and Jourdan etc.

- “would’ve been sweet if it could’ve been me” = flipped perspective, wishes Karlie chose her.

- “dragging up the grave another time” = firstly, THAT pin on her EW jacket now makes more sense. second, Taylor has written about Karlie for 4 straight albums now, she hasn’t let their love story die even if they did.

cardigan

- “brand new phone” = this is not some story, this is current reality. Taylor hides behind era-specific language and imagery in some other songs but this one is clearly about here and now, and her.

- “sensual politics” to me stands out because only really here and in TLGAD is politics explicitly mentioned and sensual politics to me screams sleeping with someone for political gain or with political connections which certainly sounds like someone...

- “when you’re young, they assume you know nothing” = sounds to me like a lot like a) love story and b) “you don’t know you’re gay, it’s just a PHASE! you’ll grow out of it!” 🏳️‍🌈

- “chase 2 girls, lose the one” = supposedly, when KK and TS met, Taylor was still in love/entangled with Dianna so perhaps she’s reflecting on making the wrong choice?

- CIWYW links: my baby’s high above the whole scene—> heartbeat on the high line, tidbit:as is clear in both Lover & 1989 New York is a sacred place for TS and KK’s love story, the high line is a) a beautiful NYC icon and b) right in between the girls’ two places...

- as mentioned, miss Karlie ELIZABETH Kloss was the brand model for Levi’s and definitely has worn some sequins and black lipstick on cobblestones sooooo.... 🤷🏼‍♀️

- “you drew stars around my scars” = see Drake’s birthday party and the infamous third Polaroid mystery 👀

- “stepping on the last train” could mean one of two things to me; 1. The last resort for KK was marrying J*sh or 2. the last train could represent some goodbye the girls had where KK chose something/someone else over Taylor.

- “peter losing Wendy” is such an interesting metaphor on so many levels but specifically, Wendy loses Peter because she wakes up (from nearly dying but nvm) and grows up and stops believing in Neverland and magic, basically Wendy loses an attachment to Peter because her reality shifts and that’s what gets remembered especially in the Disney version of the story. HOWEVER, the opposite is also true meaning Peter Pan loses Wendy because he can never co-exist with her again, he can never grow up or bring her back to Neverland without either killing her or ruining her. So this idea that someone wanted to change the ending from peter losing Wendy because he had to do what was best for her because he loved her echoes as Karlie didn’t want to marry Jerk or hurt Taylor but had to in order to protect her. Right? 😅

- “leaving like a father, running like water” = Taylor’s parents got divorced and there’s SOME thoughts Scott left the house and Taylor lives with her Mom in Nashville in her teen years.

- “I knew everything when I was young” - Taylor has always know she was LGBT+ 🌈 and also, baby VSFS vibes because as we all know, “we were both young when I first saw you...” send tweet.

- “I knew you’d come back to me” hopefully, HOPEFULLY foreshadows the girls being together/coming out soon !!!!!!! 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

- music video wise, I’ll do a break down soon.

TLGAD

- ‘Rebekkah’ refers to the previous owner of Taylor’s Watch Hill, RI house, Rebekah Harkness. She was a divorcee until marrying Standard Oil heir William (aka Bill) Hale Harkness, a new-money dynasty was formed in this time from their profit. There are MANY wild, whimsical stories about ‘Betty’ (which is obviously an extended metaphor of folklore) that this song tries to re-create/recapture.

- Taylor is also known as ‘Becky’ due to the popular meme so this is quite literally a play on her own character as well as the previous inhabitants of the house.

- St Louis is not only Rebekkah’s hometown, but also Karlie Elizabeth Kloss’.

- “the wedding was charming, if a little gouche” seems like a direct shot fired at Karlie’s woodsy photoshoot of 2018 😂😂(ironically, folklore’s key aesthetic is the woods!!)

- “it must’ve been her fault his heart gave out” refers explicitly to William dying of a heart attack in the house, but subtly I feel like this is a dig at the media who constantly blame women for things they cannot control, as they have done with Taylor too many times to even count.

- “who knows if she never showed up, what could’ve been” seems like Taylor is stuck thinking about what may have happened for her and Karlie if things had been different, see the 1.

- “she/I had a marvellous time ruining everything” is such an incredibly provoking lyric on two fronts, 1. obviously taylor buying her RI house had a massive impact on an otherwise sleepy holiday town that is now more famous for Taylor’s july 4 parties than anything else and 2. seems introspective or personal, as if the things that ruined everything for Karlie and Taylor were the best and most marvellous parts of their relationship (big sur, kissgate etc.)

- “flew in all her bitch pack friends from the city” is not only about the friends and celebs Rebekkah was notorious for hosting but also Taylor’s ‘bitches and model’ girl gang circa 2015 which includes one Karlie Kloss.

- “blew through the money on the boys and the ballet” refers to Rebekkah’s love of wasting her fortune on things, including a ballet company that went under not long after she created it BUT also refers to Taylor paying so many boys to be her beards and PR stunts whilst also spending her money on a certain ex-Ballerina. Also remember her AMA’s performance of Lover/ bts of Shake It Off? 😉😉😉

- “50 years is a long time” - 50 seems deliberate, a bit of a reach but note it WAS the 50th anniversary of Stonewall last year. 🏳️‍🌈

- “free of women with madness, their men and bad habits and THEN IT WAS BOUGHT BY ME.” - this clearly shows that ALL the songs are being narrated by Taylor, some of the lyrics are about her, some are about these fictional or fantastical characters she’s created but there is her truth behind all of them too.

- “the loudest woman this town has ever seen” = Taylor is undoubtedly the most famous woman in the town who regualrly causes uproar there (see the Sea Wall debacle and the Taylor Swift Tax)

- in all, the two famed women owner’s of Holiday House have many overlaps and are forever intertwined.

exile

- “i can see you standing honey with his arms around your body” as the opening line is LOUD. to me, feels like this is about ALL those staged photos of Josh and Karlie uncomfortable/fake as hell on social media.

- “laughing but the joke’s not funny at all” is something we’ve all thought about Karlie’s marriage before and is about that moment where if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry at the situation.

- “it took you 5 whole minutes to pack up ... holding all this love out here in the hall” to me is about someone moving out of a shared home, like Karlie from Taylor’s NYC apartment, after a break up or fight. We know it is MORE than likely that the girls’ broke up, for a while or for good, in 2017/18.

- “I think I’ve seen this film before, and didn’t like the ending” is a lot like “Cause cruelty wins in the movies, I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you” / “All of my heroes die all alone.” which makes me truly believe that delicate > the archer > exile are all the progression of the same love story. ❤️

- “now I’m in exile seeing you out” = both of them have lost their home, exiled from the relationship.

- “I can see you staring honey, like he’s just your understudy” has a lot to unpack. Firstly, see this photo. Second, as a beard, Joe is quite literally Karlie’s understudy - stepping in only to fill a public void or play her part when she can’t.

- “like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me” is basically this tweet

- “second, third and hundredth chances” - hopefully this means the girls WILL be together again soon!!!

- “those eyes add insult to injury” - Taylor has often made explcit reference to her lover’s eyes, but this could also mean the eyes of the public on her every move and relationship not allowing her to properly grapple with break ups. 👁️

- “i’m not your problem anymore, so who am i offending?” - homophobes love to say wlw or mlm relationships “offend” them or their beliefs, so who could taylor be offending if she’s publicly in a straight relationship?

- “you were my crown”, Taylor was/is Karlie’s princess, if Karlie is gone, Taylor doesn’t feel like she’s a princess anymore. Likewise, Karlie is Taylor’s sunshine which makes the moody, misty, dark aesthetics all the more relevant to this album.

- “so I’m leaving out the side door’ - this side door? the other side of the door?

- “all of this time, we always walked a very thin line” between outing themselves and being happy?

- “I gave so many signs” - Taylor has queercoded EVERY album since her self-titled, she has been dropping hints and signs for years that she is LGBT+ so it must be exhausting to have to keep hiding who she loves. This is repeated so many times - it means a lot.

- written with William Bowery who nobody can quite identify, but Karlie and Taylor have been to the Bowery many times together and William is mentioned earlier in TLGAD

- this whole song is a duet, a two-sided conversation between lovers - her and karlie both without each other.

my tears ricochet

- Track 5 is, as per usual, deeply confessional, personal, emotive and moving. 😿😿

- there are lots of theories and layers to this masterpiece of a song, including that it’s in reference to big machine. I personally think every single song of Taylor’s is made up of layers that reflect multiple things in her life and experience so plausibly it can be about multiple things all at once including Sco** and Scumbag as well as Karlie, who was under Scumbag’s management for the majority of the decade. Another theory which with every new listen I think is more and more possible is that this is alternating between Taylor and Karlie’s perspectives.

- ‘if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too” whoever is associated with Taylor will ALWAYS be dragged down with her. If she’s being attacked, they will be too. Big 2016 energy.

- “even on my worst day, did I deserve babe, all the hell you gave me?” could be directed at a lover, or at Big Machine, or even the public for all the shit they’ve said about Taylor over the years.

- “I swear I loved you ‘till my dying day” seems a lot like the 1, as well as could be about the music and the label she helped build.

- “I didn’t have it within myself to go with grace.” Taylor was LOUD about her split from Big Machine, she called them out (rightly) and made noise which is not a ‘graceful’ split.

- “you’re the hero flying around saving face” very easily is about S+S jackasses but deeper than that, while Taylor was under immense attack and criticism, everyone who actually like her music pretended suddenly to hate it and her to stay ‘cool’

- “cause if I’m dead to you why are you at the wake?” this lyric becomes especially important in the final verse but essentially those who publicly distanced themself from Taylor still showed up when she was thriving again and/or because they actually truly loved her *uhmm karlie uhmm*

- “cursing my name, wishing I stayed” either at Big Machine or with Karlie/Taylor.

- “some to make a diamond ring” > firstly we still have never understood the ring image from the LWYMMD and ME! videos, it is entirely possible this is a continuation of that same symbol/image. Second, I think this hints to Karlie getting ‘engaged’ while still being with Taylor, the rock for the ring in the song was found by the two people gathering stones after all.

- “you know i didn't want to have to haunt you” both Taylor and Karlie have big reputations all over the world that follow them everywhere. For either one, they will always be haunted by reminders of each other.

- “you wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me” - on the Big Machine side, Taylor made the label professional and big, she is literally the sole reason it succeeded in the music industry so she handed Sco** his fortune and reputation which he still had when he sold her music to Scumbag and got into a very dirty bed with him. From the Karlie side, many people have noted that not only does she wear her black cartier necklace, which is assumed to be from Taylor, but to her ‘wedding’ wore a necklace she’d worn before with Taylor.

- “when I’d fight you’d tell me I was brave” could refer to Sco** encouraging her in 2016 to defend herself. Could refer to Karlie supporting her behind the scenes.

- ‘and I can go anywhere I want, just not home” seems like a continuation from exile, as in she’s lost the place she called home because her lover is no longer there but could also mean she can’t go back to her other albums and the house (see the lover music video) that they created as her musical home.

- “you will still miss me in your bones” could be about Sco** losing his money and label without her there to physically support and carry it or about the fact that the love Taylor and Karlie had is so ingrained it’s in their bones forever.

- “and i still talk to you when I’m screaming at the sky” this lyric has a lot of possible interpretations (i’ve seen one about cursing out God?) but i think it’s similar to “asking the traffic lights if i’ll be alright” as in, it’s Taylor asking the universe to help her make sense of things.

- “when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies” suggests a) sco** + scumbag is still haunted by the music they stole from Taylor because it was literally the backbone of the business which is now practically worthless and b) that Karlie is kept awake by the songs Taylor has written for and about her over the years which again were stolen away by the jackasses at Big Machine.

- “you had to kill me, but it killed you just the same” again, same idea - big machine will never be profitable without her/while they hold her masters hostage. BUT Karlie wise, breaking up with Taylor broke her too?

- this is where the song changes. it shifts from Taylor’s story to someone else’s, personally I think Karlie.

- “you turned into your worst fears” as in she settled for the money and sold her values off by marrying Josh. Also, Karlie was under Scumbag’s management for years (part of Taylor’s hatred of him was him keeping the girls’ from doing as they pleased) so by being completely controlled by him, she turned into this completely fake person. Contrast 2014/15 Karlie with 2017/18 Karlie and it so much more all about PR and money.

- “you’re tossing out blame, drunk on this pain, crossing out the good years” - sco** and scumbag have made so many false excuses for their behaviour and completely erased the good relationship between the Swifts and sco**. Not sure yet what the Karlie side is here but it’s here somewhere.

- in conclusion, this is about Big Machine and Karlie. As the first song Taylor wrote for the album, I think it’s clear just how incredibly multi-faceted this album is. ☕☕☕

mirrorball

- first off, we can never forget about this and this look from both girls. ✨✨

- “I’ll to show you every version of yourself tonight”, the public and the private sides to them both. this is big glass closet energy in my opinion

- “and when I break it’s in a million pieces” is so personal and heartbreaking. 2016 and Kaylor breakup vibes. I cannot elaborate at this time.

- “when no one is around my dear” = the secrecy, forbidden love motif returns and again, if she’s in a hetero relationship, what’s to hide?

- “you’ll find me on my tallest tiptoes”, Just an fyi, Karlie, a giraffe, is 6′2″, Taylor is 5′10″ -- thats a big difference. 🦒🦒🦒

- “i know they said the end is near” = end of the relationship or the end of hiding it, either way, it’s a romantic last private moment together, swaying as the room burns down.

- “i can change everything about me to fit in” = Taylor when she was starting out was forced to create this all innocent, american-girl image of herself. She has had to hide herself to succeed, as she said in Miss Americana, she was muzzled.

- “you are not like the regulars, the masquerade revelers” = Karlie is different to everyone else, or any other ex, ‘masquerade’ implies masked or hidden figures at a party, very Love Story

- “and the called off the circus, burned the disco down” = the ‘circus’ could be the media/public, or all the illusions Taylor has cast in order to appear straight. The ‘disco’, and Taylor is the ‘mirror ball’ to her lover means that this isolated existence of just the two of them.

- “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything” for now, she’s still closeted, she’s still trying to have the best of everything.

- “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why” believer in everything working out perhaps, or perhaps believing it’s better if she’s in the closet and it’s only the two of them.

- “never been a natural” = she has completely created herself through years off trying to be what people want, not who she naturally is.

seven

- “picture me” implies this is retrospective of Taylor, she’s reflecting on her childhood/youth.

- “I hit my peak at Seven” could either refer to the age 7 or album 7, ‘Lover’ which many critics argued was her best work.

- “Over the creek I was too scared to jump in” = fear of jumping is something Taylor has discussed in many songs but this is different, the creek represents something she fears will drown her.

- “High in the sky with Pennsylvania under me” = obviously, Taylor was born and raised in rural PA, so this truly is a childhood memory unearthed and explored. It’s personal to Taylor, it’s her story. 👏🏼

- “Are there still beautiful things?” Recognizing the world isn’t all daisies and rainbows

- “cross your heart, don’t tell no other” = again, secret keeping and hiding something is a big queer image, ‘cross your heart’ is a quite childish phrase but it’s adult equivalent in Taylor’s world is an NDA, ie swearing people to secrecy is something she's always known... 🔐

- “Although i can’t recall your face, I still got love for you” = this childhood love has faded with time to memories, this girl simultaneously forgotten and remembered.

- “Your braids like a pattern” = definitely about a girl (1996 rural Pennsylvania was not the kind of place where boys had braids), specific use of YOUR pronoun not ‘my’ or ‘our’ suggesting again it’s about a girl. Very obviously about a first girl crush. 🌈

- “passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long” = firstly, reference to Neruda’s poem Taylor used in the red prologue. second, folksongs change slightly from generation to generation but the heart/melody remains the same meaning that in Taylor’s mind, the story of her first girl love has changed but it’s still the same song/story all the years later. also, clearly a reminder of the setting of the song and the album as a whole being folklore. 💛

- “your dad is always mad and that must be why” feels a lot like Love Story and forbidden love, also again rural Pennsylvania in the mid-1990s was not the most liberal place so I can imagine a lot of homophobic ideas that perforated Taylor’s childhood.

- “I think you should come live with me” is such an innocent image of someone in love and wanting to just fix things by bringing them home, it also is like a baby gay version of uhauling

- “we could be pirates” = pirates are not just a childhood image/motif but also one historically seen as gay, gangs of pirates often had ‘mateolage’ agreements that basically were like widow’s benefits. See John Swann. ☠️

- “you won’t have to cry, or hide in the closet.” = I think this one is explicitly clear but just to be sure, Taylor could’ve said “hide when he lost it, hide if you wanted, hide in the woods too” etc. Read this for a full understanding of why it such a LOUD image to use. It is VERY DELIBERATE PEOPLE. 🌈🌈🌈

- “just like a folk song, our love will be passed on” = different from the first bridge but deliberate again. Their story, aka Taylor liking girls from a young age will always be talked about, AND their love lives in this song she wrote.

- “picture me in the weeds before I learned civility” = again, given the homophobic attitude, ‘civility’ and straightness should be read as the same so Taylor is saying when she was a child, free in the grass and herself, she wants to always be.

- “I used to scream ferociously any time I wanted” = she wasn’t muzzled as a child, she could say and be who she wanted, screaming it aloud for everyone to hear but that changed as she grew up.

- “pack your dolls and a sweater, we’ll move to India forever” = ‘dolls’ again would imply it’s two girls running away together and India is this exocitc far off place to a child, a place where they can be together without anyone knowing them or controlling them.

August

- Karlie Kloss is born in August. Karlie Kloss posted yesterday about being a Leo (an August born). August belongs to Karlie Kloss. 🦁♌

- “rust on your door” = image of something well-worn, perhaps someone who’s been here too a few times before?

- “whispers of are you sure?” = obviously there is the sexual connotation, but beyond that, what if it’s about Taylor and Karlie going public etc.

- “never have I ever before” = see above but also the game ‘never have I ever’ evokes youthfulness and sounds almost like a reminder of a fun night with friends.

- “I can see us lost in the memory” = implies they’re still together, losing themself in the memory together

- “I can see us twisted in bedsheets” = again, sexual imagery but also the intimacy of sharing a bed with the person you love after sex

- “Like a bottle of wine” = matures the song a bit, the youthfulness of earlier is now more adult. 21 is America’s drinking age, 20s were mentioned early etc. 🍷

- “Cause you were never mine” = the whole of Taylor and Karlie’s relationship, Karlie has publically been dating Josh so she was never solely Taylor’s.

- “Will you call when you’re back at school?” = Karlie attended NYU in 2015, the height of Kaylor.

- “back when we were still changing for the better” = instead of changing to adapt/survive or keep up appearances.

- “wanting was enough” = wanting Karlie without labels was enough, rather than having to go public etc. Many have said for a long time that Karlie and Taylor fought about coming out or not.

- “cancel plans in case you would call” = sounds like a very love-sick Taylor Swift thing to do. Also waiting on a lover’s call when they constantly are travelling like both Karlie and Taylor do makes sense. ☎️

- “so much for summer love” = cruel summer echo? Summer 2015 was again, peak Kaylor so this could be a specific reference to that period

- “Do you remember? Remember when I pulled up and said ‘get in the car’” another specific reference, comes up again later in Betty, clearly is something personal.

- “Back when I was still living for the hope of it all” = back as in the past when everything was happening, hope of it all being the hope they’d still end up together.

TO SUM UP PART 1:

BENEATH ALL FICTION OR MYTH IS FACT & FEELING. Taylor is no longer hiding. Yes, some of these songs are about stories and people not her but there is so much of herself and her own story layered in too. PAY ATTENTION!!! Obviously, these are just my opinions, I’m not Taylor so I cannot know exactly what these songs are about but I think, after years of analyzing her music, these images/themes and deliberate word choice are well-versed in this part of the fandom. It is entirely possible this is the beginning of Taylor’s full, public coming out journey.

I’ll be back with Part 2 tomorrow. Stay Tuned!

#ts8 #taylor swift #taylor swift gay #taylor swift karlie kloss #Kaylor #kaylor proof #gaylor swit #Gaylor #GAYLOR RISE #karlie kloss taylor swift #Karlie Kloss #karlie what you want #tasloveskk #folklore #folklore taylor swift

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insanityclause · 3 years ago

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In the ultimate symbol of one Hollywood era ending and another beginning, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, home to James Bond and Rocky, finally found a buyer willing to pay retail: Amazon.

The e-commerce giant said on Wednesday that it would acquire the 97-year-old film and television studio for $8.45 billion — or about 40 percent more than other prospective buyers, including Apple and Comcast, thought MGM was worth. The studio, which had been shopped around for months, was once home to “more stars than the heavens,” as Louis B. Mayer liked to brag. But its vast production lot and pre-1986 film library were sold off decades ago. (Sony Pictures now occupies the lot, and Warner Bros. owns classic MGM films like “Singin’ in the Rain,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and “Gone With the Wind.”)

MGM does come with one Hollywood crown jewel: James Bond.

But even 007 has an asterisk. Amazon will own only 50 percent of the spy franchise. The balance is held by Barbara Broccoli and her brother, Michael G. Wilson. The siblings also have ironclad creative control, deciding when to make a new Bond film, who should play the title role and whether television spinoffs get made. (They have blocked such efforts in the past.)

The 25th installment in the Bond series, “No Time to Die,” is scheduled for pandemic-delayed release in theaters on Oct. 8, with Universal Pictures handling overseas distribution.

So why did Amazon pay such a startling premium?

For starters, it can. The company has $71 billion in cash and a market capitalization of $1.64 trillion.

But Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, is known as a conservative buyer. The purchase of Whole Foods for $13.4 billion in 2017 was the biggest acquisition in Amazon’s history. Its next-largest deals — until MGM — were for Zappos ($1.2 billion, 2009) and the smart doorbell company Ring ($1.2 billion, 2018).

The Whole Foods deal was a major strategic change for the company, pushing it into new markets of groceries and physical stores, which it had largely avoided. MGM is more about augmenting a current strategy: Amazon most likely paid more than others thought MGM was worth because of its all-important Prime membership program.

In addition to paying Amazon $119 a year or $13 a month for free shipping and other perks — notably access to the Prime Video streaming service — households with Prime memberships typically spend $3,000 a year on Amazon. That is more than twice what households without the membership spend, according to Morgan Stanley. About 200 million people pay for Prime memberships.

“More and more Prime members are using video more often, spending more hours on there, so I think this is a way to add more content and more talent around movies,” said Brian Yarbrough, a senior analyst at Edward Jones.

“This isn’t one studio buying another,” he added. “If you’re Amazon, the perspective is what’s the potential for Prime membership, what is the potential for advertising.”

In buying MGM, Amazon is bolstering Prime Video at a time when the biggest old-line studios are becoming less willing to license their libraries to outside streaming services; Warner Bros., Walt Disney Studios and Paramount Pictures must now supply corporate siblings like HBO Max, Disney+ and Paramount+.

That shift has made independent film libraries more valuable. In recent weeks, Sony Pictures licensed its old films and TV shows to Netflix and Disney in deals valued at more than $3 billion, a sharp increase from the expiring licensing agreements. Sony does not have a streaming service, unless you count the game-oriented PlayStation Network.

Although its library is diminished, MGM still owns 4,000 older movies, including pre-1986 films that come from two MGM divisions, United Artists and Orion. Those movies include “Rocky,” “RoboCop,” “The Pink Panther,” “Silence of the Lambs” and the James Bond catalog. (Fun fact: In true Hollywood fashion, MGM’s roaring lion mascot is lip-syncing; a cranky tiger sounded more ferocious.)

In addition, MGM has several movies in its pipeline that could be Oscar contenders, including “Respect,” an Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson; Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci,” starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver; and Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest project, which stars Bradley Cooper in his first film since “A Star is Born.”

Amazon’s appetite for movies became ravenous during the pandemic. It paid $125 million for the rights to “Coming 2 America,” $80 million for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” and $200 million for “The Tomorrow War,” a Chris Pratt adventure that will arrive on Prime on July 2. Amazon also has Oscar ambitions, buying the rights to “Sound of Metal,” which was nominated for best picture and other top awards at the most recent ceremony.

When it comes to making its own hit films, Amazon has long struggled. MGM managers could help: Michael De Luca, MGM’s movie chairman, has a track record that includes, at various companies, the “Rush Hour,” “Austin Powers” and “Fifty Shades of Grey” franchises.

MGM also has a television studio that makes “Vikings,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and various “Real Housewives” shows. In 2014, MGM acquired Mark Burnett’s production company, One Three Media, which holds rights to competition series like “The Voice,” “Survivor” and “Shark Tank.” Mr. Burnett, a contentious figure in Hollywood because he helped shape Donald J. Trump’s image with “The Apprentice” and remained close to him during his divisive presidential term, serves as MGM’s television chairman.

Anchorage Capital, a New York investment firm, has been the majority owner of MGM for more than a decade. Before that, MGM was tossed between owners and, bitten by falling DVD revenue, eventually ending up in bankruptcy. It was worth about $2 billion in 2010, according to analysts.

Kevin Ulrich, Anchorage’s chief executive and MGM’s chairman, formally put the studio on the block late last year. Anchorage has been under pressure from various stakeholders to exit the investment, with some agitators complaining that Mr. Ulrich was overly enamored with Hollywood and should have sold years ago.

The end of MGM as a stand-alone company adds to a vast reshaping of the media business as the big seek to compete by getting even bigger. Last week, AT&T announced a deal to spin off its WarnerMedia group and combine it with Discovery Inc., a move meant to strengthen WarnerMedia’s struggling HBO Max streaming service and a nascent streaming platform owned by Discovery. In a counterattack against the tech companies that have aggressively moved into Hollywood over the last decade, Disney paid $71.3 billion for the bulk of Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment assets in 2019.

Such megadeals have left smaller studios like MGM, Lionsgate and STX Entertainment looking for lifelines. (STX, known for comedies like “Hustlers” and “Bad Moms,” merged with the Bollywood studio Eros International last summer.)

#Amazon #James Bond #The Apprentice #Jeff Bezos

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alarrytale · 6 months ago

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But how do you know the fake laddy image is fake and not how he wants to do. He was forced at a you g age into a plastic environment where he had to almost perform at all times to protect an image, what if he just feels comfortable being a little bit trashy?

Hi, anon!

I've talked about this many times before, but it's about who you think Louis is when he's totally himself, when he doesn’t have to put up a mask or project a certain image. It's about who you think he is when he's with Harry. His image in 1D weren't totally him, but it wasn't that far off. His current image is an image that is curated to gain male fans, set him apart from the other 1D members and make him look straight and a father. Louis Tomlinson tm really wants to be indie, he really wants to be looked at as a common lad and as someone who grew up in the brit pop era listening to Oasis and Blur. It's pretentious, it's really far from the truth, and it isn't genuine or authentic and it shows. There are elements of it that’s real, but it's more about how he wants to come across rather than who he really is. He badly wants to look cool and he seeks male validation.

What we do know for a fact is that when he says in interviews that he got into music at 12-13 by listening to Oasis, that's a blatent lie. He was the biggest S club 7 fan according to his mother, he listened to Nickleback and got a Far Away tattoo. He went to see the Script in concert. His old bebo account doesn’t lie. He raves about the Artic Monkeys being from close to Doncaster but he's never said he saw them perform as a teen. He simply wasn't into that kind of music back then. He was more likely to jam out to ABBA or top 40 songs, than indie music. He looked up to Robbie Williams and he was too busy drooling over Chad Michael Murry in One tree hill and being a sappy romantic to listen to broody realism lyrics and heavy guitar music.

I do think Louis has changed and developed. I do think he loves football and sport and always have, i do think he's more comfortable in joggers and a t-shirt. I don't think wearing suspenders was him. I do believe he's caring and loving and a hopless romantic. I believe him when he says he's a half glass full kind of person. I don't believe him when he claims to be into punk rock and the anarchy tattoo makes me cringe.

Louis is a gay man hiding his natural flamboyance and mannerisms to come off as more masculine, straight and cool to an indie and male audience. He's deeply insecure, because he's been told by powerful people that he can't come off as gay, because he'll lose fans. He is still adhering to the same self-policing since the 1D days and still being self-concious. His image is still straight, even straighter than he came off as while in 1D. It's even worse trying to appeal to an indie audience and a male target group than teenage girls. He's trying very hard to fit the indie mold in all ways possible. But it's not totally him.

Also, he might love the athleisure wear and the 28 official programme stuff, i can believe that. I don't think he hates the indie image they're going for. I think it's something he thinks he can pull off, but they do need to exaggerate and build a narrative to sell the image because it isn't authentic nor genuine. That's important in that genre and to his target audience to be looked at as cool and accepted.

At the same time, he should also know that most of his fans aren't british and brit pop nostalgic like he's going for. His fandom still msotly consists of women who loves his softer side, his pop ballads and are into his looks. They reject toxic masculinity and most know he's gay. Louis praising Liam Ga*lagher is a red flag and is extremely off putting. Louis can want to be as trashy as he likes, but he's not gaining fans doing what he's currently doing. It's that simple. He's not indie and he's not genuine. It's easy to see he's still insecure, still not free and himself and he's trying really hard to come off as cool to indie fans and men.

I'd love to see more of the real Louis. Real Louis is a multidimentional man. He's not a laddy lad who is emotionally stunted, and only smokes and drinks, and brags on social media about his drug use. He isn't someone who mocks his fans and yells at them. He's not the stereotype he's trying to live up to.

I do think he's tired of complying to the cleanliness clause he was under in 1D, so hence the exaggerated and juvenile drinks and drugs promo. But it's very much a concious decision to perpetuate an image. It's not cute, and it's only slightly attractive to 14 year olds.

Regardless, he can do whatever he likes, but that choice has consequences. He's starting to see those consequences more and more. So is he going to do something about it to mitigate the consequences or not? I think he should if he wants to continue to be a world touring artist, but maybe he'd rather go full indie and play for fifty male indie audience members in Scunthorpe.

#no offence to anyone in Scunthorpe #solo louis #louis image #lthq #indie

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fatehbaz · 5 years ago

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Another compilation of thoughts on apocalypse; dystopia; better futures; post-crisis resurgence, contemplated during first week(s) of pandemic quarantine. [Part 1.]

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Pedro Neves Marques. “Parallel Futures: One or Many Dystopias?” e-flux. April 2019.

[I]t is important to remember that some futures never went anywhere – they were not allowed to – and yet they survive. These are futures that have been suppressed and canceled by colonial power. [...] I’m talking about parallel futures. By this I mean futures that have always been present, but that, together with the worlds they belong to, have been forced into one future only. […] There is only one planet, but there are many worlds inside it.

Writing from an Afrofuturist standpoint, artist and writer Kodwo Eshun suggests that the colonial present is managed by both a preemptive and a predictive power. “Preemptive” means that colonial power must control the past so as to deny the emergence of any future other than the one desired by the colonialist. “Predictive,” in contrast, implies that power must manage the present in such a way that the future is predetermined in advance. It is the active production of future horizons, compliant with power, that comes to shape the present. […] Borrowing a term from anthropologist Michael Fortun, one could call this preemptive prediction a “future anterior”: the forceful imagination of a technoscientific future that by its very utterance determines the shape of things to come. The future anterior orients the present toward a predetermined goal, while also rereading the past in its image. This is perhaps why Eshun writes that it is not the future that emerges from the present, as one would normally think, but rather the present (and the past) that arrives from the future. Colonial power creates a future in advance, so that no other will take its place. I want to ask how we can think through colonization and decolonization as a matter of futures. Colonization – of bodies and minds but also of nature itself – has always been as much about the negation and control of possible futures as about the erasure of the past […].

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Indigenous Action Network. “Rethinking the Apocalypse: An Indigenous Anti-Futurist Manifesto.” 2020.

Apocalyptic idealization is a self fulfilling prophecy. It is the linear world ending from within. Apocalyptic logic exists within a spiritual, mental, and emotional dead zone that also cannibalizes itself. It is the dead risen to consume all life. [...] Its an apocalyptic that colonizes our imaginations and destroys our past and future simultaneously. It is a struggle to dominate human meaning and all existence. [...] There is a song older than worlds here, it heals deeper then the colonizer’s blade could ever cut. [...] Why can we imagine the ending of the world, yet not the ending of colonialism? We live the future of a past that is not our own. It is a history of utopian fantasies and apocalyptic idealization. It is a pathogenic global social order of imagined futures, built upon genocide, enslavement, ecocide, and total ruination.

What conclusions are to be realized in a world constructed of bones and empty metaphors? A world of fetishized endings calculated amidst the collective fiction of virulent specters. From religious tomes to fictionalized scientific entertainment, each imagined timeline constructed so predictably; beginning, middle, and ultimately, The End. [...] This way of unbeing, which has infected all aspects of our lives, which is responsible for the annihilation of entire species, the toxification of oceans, air and earth, the clear-cutting and burning of whole forests, mass incarceration, the technological possibility of world ending warfare, and raising the temperatures on a global scale, this is the deadly politics of capitalism, it’s pandemic. [...] We are the antibodies.

The physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual invasion of our lands, bodies, and minds to settle and to exploit, is colonialism. Ships sailed on poisoned winds and bloodied tides across oceans pushed with a shallow breath and impulse to bondage, millions upon millions of lives were quietly extinguished before they could name their enemy. 1492. 1918. 2020 …

Biowarfare blankets, the slaughter of our relative the buffalo, the damming of lifegiving rivers, the scorching of untarnished earth, the forced marches, the treatied imprisonment, coercive education through abuse and violence. [...] The day to day post-war, post-genocide, trading post-colonial humiliation of our slow mass suicide on the altar of capitalism; work, income, pay rent, drink, fuck, breed, retire, die. [...]

The anti-colonial imagination isn’t a subjective reaction to colonial futurisms, it is anti-settler future. Our life cycles are not linear, our future exists without time. It is a dream, uncolonized. [...] We will not allow the specter of the colonizer, the ghosts of the past to haunt the ruins of this world. [...]

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Phil A. Neel. Hinterland: America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict. 2018.

St. Louis is where storms collide. [...] And as the air currents grapple over the middle-American sky, the storm-swollen Mississippi grinds forward below. Once-uncommon “freak floods” are now standard, the levees overcome every few years and large chunks of St Louis and its surrounding suburbs washed away by the intractable inertia of a river bound to outlive any city. [...] In recent years, growing climate chaos has only intensified this ambient war, each “extreme weather event” more volatile and less predictable. [...] The result is another slow apocalypse.

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Hugo Reinert. “The skulls and the dancing pig: Notes on apocalyptic violence.” Terrain. 2019

In a newspaper interview a decade or so back, during an earlier peak of reindeer-crisis discourse, a [Sami] herder named Johan Mathis Oskal put this issue very succinctly: “If the authorities do cut the number of animals by half, and we then get a bad year [udr], we might be left with no reindeer at all. That would be an eternal catastrophe.” […]

“Apocalypse” […]. The word has something of the titillating about it: a streak of prurience, redolent of spectacle and sentimental violence, the interminable grind of […] death-fulfillment fantasies […]. It feels indulgent; more specifically, perhaps, it echoes the affects and fantasies that are invested in the anthropological project of salvage – as a collective enterprise of acquisition and reification rooted, all too often, in the postulate of an apocalypse of the Other. […] The image of a reindeer excess has haunted the edges of the State in Norway for almost two centuries now: a fevered, imaginal swarm always threatening to overspill the borders, invade the cities, eating the land bare. [...] The underlying impulse has persisted: a will to contain the herd, to control them, reduce – and through this, to control and reduce a segment of the Indigenous Sami population that in conspicuous ways has resisted normalization […].

The escalation of this […] narrative has coincided neatly with the escalating interest of national and international actors in “developing” the tundra […]. “Death has occupied the tundra,” one headline proclaimed. […]. The miasma of this moment is simultaneously an effect and an instrument of governance: a kind of ambient manufactured context [...]. Acting on the vision of a vast catastrophe – a charnel dream of bodies that rot in the snow, devastation, collapsing systems, the stench of blood – the providential State deploys the killing-violence apotropaically, in a preemptive move: “To prevent them from dying, they must be killed.” […] In this sense, the reindeer crisis is also legible as a performance, a spectacle of justification orchestrated by the State in its own periphery: “disaster as a form of governance” […].

“Eternal catastrophe.” To someone like Johan Mathis, excess appears as a temporary and survivable mismatch in the calibration of herd size to grazing resources. The problem resolves itself: “nature itself reduces the [reindeer] number.” […]. Contrast this to the State narrative – in which excess appears as the continuous potential for a terrifying breakdown, a rampant and unregulated proliferation in which the dead scatter like leaves, chaotic and numberless across an incompletely known terrain. Even the possibility of that crisis disrupts the sovereign claim of the State over death. The threat of force tries to reestablish that claim, at least symbolically – aligning reality with a theory of power that takes this control (over death) as simultaneously total and already-given but also always under threat, inherently insufficient. In the crisis, the State falls chronically short of its own theoretical claims; the answer to that “failure” is expansion, growth, intensification of control, the further consolidation of power.

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

Nat Marcus. “At the Hellmouth Coatcheck.” Flaunt. November 2019.

Note that city limits are often transversive; radial lanes rather than walls at the perimeter. [...] Escalating seismics aside, the Hellmouth obviously wouldn’t open under Los Angeles, but rather off-center, somewhere out-of-pocket like Sunnydale. [...] Chicago acts like a trellis or lays out like a sheet of graph paper, one edge wet and thus easily torn away by Lake Michigan.

How, or assuming what posture, do we guide ourselves through the present via the future, if short-term futurity looks rich with suffering, and in the long-term, it’s merely void?

Apocalypse is a gradient, and the inferno [...] isn’t devoid of politics: while I write this ledger, the number of residents of what could be called hell on earth (shoreline eroding, uninsured pharmaceutical deadlocks, Western wars fought elsewhere, etc.) only grows. [...] By our current trajectory, those existing outside hubs of capital -- beyond the spatial and/or ideological limits of capital and major cities, the subaltern and incalculable -- will be swallowed by ocean or fire first. One doesn’t need a prophet’s eyes to see this. [...]

A bell-hooksian love ethic is one by which love is recognized as a form of action, one undertaken to stimulate the personal and spiritual growth of oneself and others. [...] Hell is either already here or just around the corner [...], at cross-hatched odds with the orderly loop of the city filled with law, may simply allow us to step into the shrinking space between those two places, and be here willfully [...].

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

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thedoormanteljesmagyarul · 4 years ago

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Definition and definition of Film / film While the players who play a role in the film are referred to as actors (men) or actresses (women). There is also the term extras that are used as minor characters with few roles in the film. This differs from the main actors, who have larger and more roles. As an actor and actress, good acting talent must be required that corresponds to the subject of the film in which he plays the leading role. In certain scenes, the role of the actor can be replaced by a stunt man or a stunt man. The existence of a stuntman is important to replace the actors who play difficult and extreme scenes that are usually found in action-action films. Movies can also be used to deliver certain messages from the filmmaker. Some industries also use film to convey and represent their symbols and culture. Filmmaking is also a form of expression, thoughts, ideas, concepts, feelings and moods of a person that are visualized in the film. The film itself is mostly fictional, though some are based on actual stories or on a true story. There are also documentaries with original and real images or biographical films that tell the story of a character. There are many other popular genre films, from action films, horror films, comedy films, romantic films, fantasy films, thriller films, drama films, science fiction films, crime films, documentaries and others. This is some information about the definition of film or film. The information has been cited from various sources and references. Hope it can be useful.

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thisisthepartwhereyou · 4 years ago

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BEASTARS MINI-STORY #8: “Shower me with Insights” by JCL

---

TEXTBOX: Somewhere in the ghetto, not far from the Back Alley market.

We find ourselves in a neighborhood somewhere in the ghetto, which is mainly composed of poor-looking apartment buildings that stand in close proximity to each other. We are a few stories up, the air between them criss-crossed by old wires and clothing lines heavy with clothes that’s been hung out to dry.

One of these lines is moving, as its content is getting pulled towards an open window. In it we can see Cosmo, the okapi-stripper whose life Louis and the Shishigumi once saved. She is removing the clothes from the line one by one, presumably to feed a basket next to her.

Suddenly, a swift shadow moves across her, as if something is passing over her in the air above. Her ears twitch and she looks up.

COSMO: "Huh?"

She can't see anything except more lines and the outlined roofs of the buildings around her, which are about two stories above from where she is. As she can’t see anything strange or out of order, she lowers her head and continues.

COSMO: "..." (Must've been my imagination)

Pulling off a bra and a Lil Bomber t-shirt, her eyes widen as another shadow moves across her. T-shirt still in hand, she looks up again with a mildly annoyed look.

COSMO: (No, there's definitely something moving up there. What is it, birds playing tag?)

She continues to look up, dead set on finding out what it is. Then, after a short while, she is given an answer:

It is Legosi, who is leaping from the roof above Cosmo. He seems unaware of being seen by anyone as he makes it across and disappears over the roof of the opposite building.

Cosmo drops her t-shirt, stunned by what she just saw.

COSMO: "WHAT THE FU-"

---

We go up and over the roofs, where we can clearly see Legosi chasing Kyuu.

The female rabbit runs and makes short but frequent leaps across the rooftops parkour-style. Peaking over her shoulder, she is looking back at the wolf. He struggles to keep up with her, as the distance between them keeps growing between them.

KYUU: "You're never going to catch me like that!"

Legosi, panting and sweating, realizes that she is right.

LEGOSI: (IMAGINARY CHIMERA)

The blurry image of Legosi's Imaginary Chimera-self manifests over him. While being just an optical illustration, the effect of the technique is clear: The wolf's standard running-style, which is quite rough and wide-stroked, turns more rapid and graceful. It's like comparing a spear thrown by hand suddenly moving like an arrow that has been launched from a bow.

---

We cut to the street down below, where we see a female tiger with her five-year-old son standing by a pedestrian crossing. She has her phone in one hand and her son's hand in the other; the two of them waiting for a traffic light to turn green.

The cub has an ice cream cone in his free hand, which he is licking profusely. Looking up with a bored expression, the cub's eyes suddenly widen as he spots Kyuu getting chased by Legosi from rooftop to rooftop. He turns to look at his mother.

TIGER CUB: "Momma, do bunnies and wolves fly?"

The mother, preoccupied with her phone, replies without looking up.

TIGER MOMMA: "Sure they do sweetie, all the time."

---

Going back to Legosi, we can see that the wolf is now catching up to Kyuu at a steady pace.

LEGOSI: (That's it! Just one more rooftop and I'll catch up!)

Kyuu makes a longer than average jump over to the next building, which is about a story lower than the one she jumped from. She lands on a scaffolding, makes an extra jump over to the roof and runs across it.

Right behind her, Legosi makes the jump as well. But on account of his larger and much stronger legs, his leap allows him to soar straight over the scaffolding. He is still in the air as he homes in on Kyuu like a triumphant-looking rocket!

LEGOSI: (NOW I GOT HER!)

However, Kyuu suddenly spins around. She has pulled out six throwing knives out of her ears, holding three each in-between her fingers. She proceeds to throw them at him in two simultaneous sweeps.

Legosi looks shocked. Having not landed yet, he’s unable to dodge! Out of alternatives, he stretches his arms out in front of him.

He then lands on the roof in front of Kyuu, bending over like he's hurt. But then he stands up. We can see that he is unharmed and has actually managed to catch all the knives between his own fingers.

Kyuu turns around and tries to continue her flight. Her eyes widen though, as she finds herself unable to move.

Legosi stands on one knee, leaning over Kyuu. Zooming out, we can see that he has grabbed her by her lower body. His hand is so big compared to her that his fingers have reached over her back and gripped her around her abdomen.

LEGOSI: "Tag."

His tail is wagging, showcasing that he has taken an instinctive canine delight in catching her. Kyuu on the other hand looks annoyed.

KYUU: "Okay, you won. Take your hand off or lose it."

---

We skip ahead a little, to where the two have returned to the roof of the abandoned breeding house where Kyuu, San and Louis were originally raised for meat-eating purposes.

LEGOSI: "You didn't say anything about having to defend myself while chasing you."

Kyuu, who is fiddling with the knives in her right ear, glances at Legosi.

KYUU: "It'd be very little purpose to train you to deal with surprise attacks if they're not a surprise."

She takes one of the knives out, holding it up so that she may inspect it.

KYUU: "Besides, you would have been fine anyway. These are totally dulled down. At most they would have cracked a rib or two."

Legosi sweat drops at this.

LEGOSI: (Yeah well that would've been a lot better...!)

Kyuu continues to inspect her knife. The edges of it gleams in the light of the sun.

KYUU: "Your defense has improved greatly, but you still show little initiative with your offense. For instance, if I had been an unfamiliar opponent, I could've misread you hunching over as having succeeded in fatally wounding you. My guard would've been down as I had moved in for the finishing blow, during which you could have either taken the opportunity to punch my head off or turn me into chop suey with my own knives."

Legosi grimaces at these ideas and leans back against an air vent. He raises his left hand and wipes some sweat off his brow.

LEGOSI: "I am really not good at forming such dark thoughts...!"

Kyuu lowers the knife and gives him an impatient look.

KYUU: "Mastering parries and dodges without any attacks doesn't make you a great fighter, just an exceptionally skilled coward. I've seen you at your fiercest. If you can master that instead of just using it as a last resort, you might have something. Otherwise you'll remain as half-assed as you are."

Legosi's left ear flickers at this.

LEGOSI: "Half-assed? I think I'm doing pretty good... Didn't I tell you about the buffalo?"

He refers to his fight with Mongo the caped buffalo in The Horny Horror Picture Show. Kyuu doesn't look overly impressed by said feat though.

KYUU: "You mean the muscle bound retard from Old Town?"

Legosi cringes at Kyuu's politically incorrect choice of words, which Kyuu ignores as she looks at him scoldingly.

KYUU: "Don't get me wrong, you are clearly above average, but you NEED to be more than that. You've done well so far, but with your current profession you'll eventually face opponents who are more formidable than you because they have one thing that you lack: a killer's instinct. That's the one thing that separates you from elite-fighters like that horse's ass of a Beastar you answer to. The only time I've seen you really use it is when you're cornered and there's no other way out... If you intend to continue doing this without getting yourself killed, you'll have to be able to whip it out like a switchblade!"

Legosi looks down. He has a melancholic and reluctant look on his face. Seeing this, Kyuu's expression softens a bit.

KYUU: "Speaking of which... Have you thought about what I told you back at that board game place?"

Legosi meets her look, remembering the time from a while back when the two of them talked with each at Yanni's, in Everybody Play the Game.

LEGOSI: "Yes."

KYUU: "And my little proposition in light of that?"

LEGOSI: "Yes."

KYUU: ".... And?"

LEGOSI: "I don't like it."

KYUU: "Like it or hate it, it is the most sensible option. Not everyone of your enemies will go straight to you in order to take you out of the equation. Some will go for where you are the most vulnerable. And in your case..."

---

We shift over to a collage featuring key-people in Legosi's life.

KYUU: "... It's your loved ones. Your former roommates, the members of the drama club, the tenants of the hidden condo and that girlfriend of yours. You can't protect them at all times from where you are now."

This collage feature images of his fellow-701s (Jack, Collot, Voss, Durham and Miguno), members of the drama club (Bill, Juno, Aoba, Kai and Els), his neighbors in the hidden condo (Sebun, Zaguan, Ebisu, Mugi, Raika and Fina) and finally his girlfriend, Haru.

---

The collage sequence ends and we return to Kyuu and Legosi.

KYUU: "Didn't you say you had a grandfather too? He might become a target as well."

The corner of Legosi’s mouth twitches as he thinks about Gosha, his badass komodo dragon-grandpa.

LEGOSI: "I pity whoever tries to go after my grandpa.”

Then his ears go down though as he thinks about his friends and loved ones.

LEGOSI: “But I am concerned about the rest. Most of them have no idea...! Still, it'd feel manipulative to do this without telling anyone about it, especially Haru. She if anyone should know if she's in danger."

Kyuu crosses her arms and gives him a skeptical look.

KYUU: "There are a lot of things that have happened since last Rexmas which you most likely haven't told her. What is another secret on top of that?"

Legosi's ears go even lower. You can tell that he feels really guilty.

LEGOSI: "Another addition to the pile of things I feel bad about... She still thinks I work at the Udon restaurant. I want to hell her the full truth... I am just not sure how she's gonna take it."

KYUU: "Look, I don't know squat about relationships, but if you can live through getting shredded by a psychopathic hybrid, surely you can survive getting yelled at by your girlfriend?"

Legosi turns to look at Kyuu. He is smiling.

LEGOSI: "You haven't met Haru. She can make me feel powerless in a completely different way... It's a kind of power you can't really fight."

Kyuu looks down. Feeling powerless when facing someone you're fond of is not unfamiliar to her, as we can see her think back to her savior and former teacher, Gouhin. Looking up at Legosi again, Kyuu suddenly wrinkles her nose.

KYUU: "...You stink of sweat. My nose is not as strong as yours, but even I can tell that you reek."

Legosi look surprised by the sporadic turn of this conversation. He then rubs the back of his head (which also happens to be drenched in sweat) with an apologetic look.

LEGOSI: "I'm sorry. It's unusually hot for this time of year."

KYUU: "We'll call it quits for today. Just go down and take a shower."

LEGOSI: "You have showers here?"

KYUU: "It's on the third floor, behind the orange door with two-three-seven written on it. There should be some soap and towels in there for you to use."

Legosi stands up with a grateful expression.

LEGOSI: "Thanks Kyuu-chan!"

Being called 'chan' earns him an annoyed glare from Kyuu.

KYUU: "Don't call me 'chan'. It makes me sound like I'm a little kid or something! Just 'Kyuu' or 'Kyuu-san' will be fine! You don't hear me calling you 'kun' do you?"

Legosi scratches his cheek.

LEGOSI: "Well no... But, considering my position... Shouldn't you call me 'aniki' or something?"

SHINK!

Legosi looks down. The knife which Kyuu had previously been holding has now been launched and embedded in between his legs, a few centimeters below his crotch.

He looks up and sees that the mere suggestion of having to call a dumbass, five-year junior wolf 'aniki' has led to Kyuu adopting an exceptionally pissed off look and summoning her own, monstrous-looking Imaginary Chimera, which is standing behind her like a rage-filled demon.

Realizing he may have overstepped his boundaries, Legosi gives off a nervous smile, raises his leg and steps over the knife.

LEGOSI: "Then again, I don't like to be pedantic. Just 'Legosi' is fine!"

KYUU: "Just head to the showers...!"

Legosi does as he is told and runs down the stairs.

---

Legosi manages to find the door on the third floor. Walking through it, he finds himself in what appears to be a changing room-like area with tiled floor and walls. Like the rest of the building it has the appearance of being degraded by time and disuse, with several of the tiles sporting cracks and ingrained dirt. The area is composed of two sections; the small square section that Legosi just entered, with benches and coat hangers along the walls around him.

The next section is longer and rectangular, with about a dozen long showerheads poking in from both sides of the long walls.

Legosi spots a couple of towels and a bar of soap lying on a bench nearby, as well as a few scrubbing brushes and an old raincoat dangling off one of the hooks.

LEGOSI: (I wonder why they would need showers in a place like this)

He then sees something alarming underneath the bench: a long chain with shackles. He looks disturbed.

LEGOSI: "...!" (I don't think I want to know)

He starts to undress, pulling his shirt over his head.

---

A few moments later, Legosi walks into the showers with the soap in his hand. He goes to the middle of the room and turns the closest tap. As he does, the showerhead gives off a strained, metallic sound before spitting out a stream of water that hits Legosi. The wolf shivers.

LEGOSI: "Ugh!" (FREEZING!)

Soon enough though, the water heats up and he becomes more relaxed. He rubs the soap in his hands, making it bubble and foam. As he does, he thinks back on Kyuu's words to him earlier, her face being visible in his background.

KYUU: “If you intend to continue doing this without getting yourself killed, you'll have to be able to whip it out like a switchblade!"

He sighs and closes his eyes as he washes his head and body.

LEGOSI: (Continue... I guess I have to continue, but I didn't get into this line of work because I wanted it... It just happened)

???: "Will you pass the soap?"

The wolf's eyes open wide and he turns to look at his side. He now sees that he is not alone in the showers. Next him stands San, the alpaca. He is naked and taking a shower as well.

Legosi looks surprised and instinctively takes a step back.

LEGOSI: "HUAH?! Where did you come from?"

SAN: "I came in right after you... Man, Kyuu really must drive you hard if you're so exhausted that you can't even notice a naked herbivore approaching you in the shower."

As he talks, Legosi can't help but to look at the alpacas's body. To his great shock, San is extremely skinny... Kind of like Christian Bale's character in The Machinist (2004).

The alpaca extends an open hand to him and raises his eyebrows.

SAN: "Now, if you’re finished with that soap...?"

Legosi politely puts the soap in the alpaca’s hand.

LEGOSI: "Here..." (I can practically see all the little bones in his torso! Is he ill or something?)

SAN: "Thank you."

San takes the soap and proceeds to wash his own body, taking special care of his long and fuzzy neck.

Trying not to look at San, Legosi continues to wash himself. As he does though, he notices that the alpaca is looking at him... Quite unabashedly.

LEGOSI: "..." (Why is he staring at me? He's not even trying to hide the fact that he's looking... Is it because he noticed me looking at his body?)

Legosi gulps and blushes as a thought crosses his mind.

LEGOSI: (Maybe he is into males?)

He turns his head to San with a civil expression.

LEGOSI: (Perhaps he'll stop if I show that I know he's looking) "Did you want something?"

The alpaca appears to be completely unmoved by Legosi's awareness.

SAN: "No, just looking."

LEGOSI: (It didn't work at all!)

Legosi grimaces, thinking back to moments when San has been around as he has trained with Kyuu.

---

We enter a brief flashback, which shows us one of Legosi and Kyuu's previous sessions. This one is special, as he is dodging an oncoming assault from the rabbit, who is wielding a chain sickle.

LEGOSI: (Now that I think about it, I know very little about San...)

We can see that unlike Kyuu, San doesn't physically partake in the training. Instead he sits down on a wooden box in the background, watching the two as they train.

LEGOSI: (He is sometimes around when Kyuu trains me, giving little advice here and there, but most of the time he's not around)

---

We return to the present, where Legosi is still thinking about this.

LEGOSI: (Though with a frail body like that, I wouldn't be surprised if he’s unable to do any physical training)

SAN: "You are a very good-looking animal."

Legosi turns and arches his head back.

LEGOSI: "HUH?!"

SAN: "Your body. Your muscles. They speak of an animal in great health... Do you exercise outside your training?"

LEGOSI: "Not really... I mean had gym class at school and I did some training with Gouhin, but I've never really gone to a gym or anything."

SAN: "Hm, I guess that kind of physique could be pretty average for male wolves then... I haven't showered with one before so I can't really tell."

He then points straight at the wolf's groin.

SAN: "Speaking of which, is THAT considered average by wolf-standards?"

Legosi crosses his legs and covers his junk with his hands. He feels targeted.

LEGOSI: "I ASSUME IT VARIES!"

San gives the wolf an amused expression.

SAN: "Ahaha, so that is the case! I am sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?"

LEGOSI: "YES."

San turns his head and looks ahead, proceeding to soap up and wash the spot between his ears.

SAN: "Sorry, old habits die hard. Checking out the anatomy of others is kind of my thing... Has been so as far back as I can remember… Did you know that our carnivore captors would take us when we were little? If you saw the chains, then you may have already guessed it."

---

We enter a flashback, in which we see a group of herbivore-children between ages three and five lined up in very same showers. They have no clothes and are linked together by shackles that go from ankle to ankle, with a long chain running through them.

SAN: "We would get cleaned, trimmed and deloused. Probably the most care that was ever shown to us."

The showers are running, and the children are all getting cleaned by carnivores in raincoats, who are roughly scrubbing them with brushes.

SAN: "Not that there was any real affection behind it though, it was just business. I mean who would want to eat meat with a side order of typhus?"

In the middle of the chain we see the young San, Louis and Kyuu standing in a row next to each other. San is getting the fur of his neck trimmed with a thinning scissor, Louis gets scrubbed behind his ears and Kyuu gets applied DDT through a large spray pump. The powdered cloud of insecticide causes her to cough.

---

The flashback ends. Despite the dark subject matter, San has maintained a jovial expression.

SAN: "At that time they would also take the chance to check us, to make sure our bodies had just the right amount of produce... It was probably there that I picked up the habit of checking the bodies of others, cause I knew that if I saw someone who looked particularly nice and healthy..."

San’s eyes go down to Legosi’s muscular and scarred torso, rising slowly up to his face. Something in his stare causes the wolf to look increasingly uncomfortable.

SAN: "... He or she would soon be gone."

Suddenly, the soap slips out of San's grip and slides across the floor.

SAN: "Whoops!"

San goes over to where the soap is and kneels down in order to pick it up, water dripping off his fur and forming a pool around his feet. We can see it even clearer from his back that he is alarmingly malnourished, with vertebrae, ribs and shoulder blades sticking out like the detachable appendages of a Mr. Potato-doll.

SAN: "What an upturned world, when being healthy seals your fate… Makes me glad I've always been quite skinny. I mean... Would you really want to take a bite out of this pitiful body?"

San glances back at Legosi with a grim look.

SAN: "Still, if I was cooked well enough, one could probably suck the meat off my bones the same way you'd lick the batter off a spoon..."

Legosi stares at him with an unreadable expression.

San purses his lips, looking kind of disappointed that he's not getting any interesting reaction out of Legosi. The alpaca then tries to stand up, but appears to slip and fall over, his knee hitting the tiled floor hard. He gives off a pained groan.

This prompts a look of concern from Legosi. He rushes over and kneels down next to San.

LEGOSI: "Are you okay? You’re not injured are you?"

San spins around, using a pool of water on the floor as a lubricant to move with a remarkable speed. He then makes a whipping motion with his forearm which launches a splash that is aimed straight at Legosi's eyes.

Legosi instinctively pulls back and raises a hand up to his face, managing to protect his right eye in the last second. The rest of the water hits his unprotected eye though, which he closes tightly. Apparently the soap in it really stings!

San's right hand shoots out at him, aiming at the left side of his chest. Legosi manages to block this blow with his left hand, holding San's bony hand back by his wrist. The wolf grits his teeth at him.

LEGOSI: "Stop! What are you-"

San's free hand shoots up and he pushes Legosi's left shoulder with two fingers.

Legosi's eyes widens. With his hand still around the San’s wrist, he throws alpaca away from him.

San stumbles back. He meets the wolf's shocked look and smiles.

SAN: "She HAS trained you well."

He then puts one of his hands over his other hand in a respectful, Bao Quan Li-gesture.

SAN: "Sorry about that, but I heard you were being tutored in surprise attacks today, so I felt obliged to contribute. I have to say you performed well, pulling a good, though imperfect, block as I splashed at your eyes. If I had managed to hit BOTH of your eyes, you would've been in serious trouble right about now."

Legosi doesn’t seem to hear this though, as his attention is entirely focused on his left arm, which hangs down and looks completely limp!

LEGOSI: "My arm... What did you do to my arm?!"

San raises two fingers and waves them at the wolf in a playful fashion.

SAN: "I hit a pressure point which rendered your arm numb and useless. I know it's a bit of a cliche to use in martial arts, but it's really useful if you ever get caught in and can't get loose. Don't worry, it's an easy fix though."

San walks up to Legosi and uses these fingers to hit the same spot on Legosi's shoulder as before.

SAN: “Boop!”

Legosi twitches. He then blinks, and slowly raises his formerly limp arm. Inspecting it with a confused look, he then uses it to wipe his closed eye. He has San fixed with an open, wary eye.

San scratches his chin and watches Legosi with a sense of intrigue.

SAN: "... Tell me though, did you try and cover your eyes on instinct, or did something tip you off to my intent?"

Legosi lowers his arm. Both of his eyes are open now, though his left has turned pink and bloodshot from the soap water.

LEGOSI: "By the time I knelt down I felt a nagging suspicion. You may look sickly, but as I recall you managed to immobilize Louis in just a few moves the first time we met, so I figured that you couldn't be as frail as you look... At first I thought you were looking at me because you liked males, but now I think you were taking a better look in order to further map out my physical weaknesses… You were baiting me."

SAN: "Exactly."

San gives off a jolly smile again, as if what had just transpired hadn't transpired at all! He then adopts an explanatory pose with his hand raised, as if he’s about to give a lecture.

SAN: "It’s called Deceptive Display: an old technique developed by herbivores that is meant to draw carnivores to you."

We see an illustrative scene playing out in San's background, featuring an old and limping wildebeest with crutches surrounded by the shadows of ill-willing carnivores with their eyes gleaming and tongues sticking out.

SAN: " See, for the average carnivore who is on the hunt, the notions of easy prey is irresistible. This instinctively draws them to the weak and injured before the strong and healthy. Deceptive Display exploits this, taking advantage of their dropped guard."

The illustrative scene fades away. San maintains his friendly smile, but his eyes have adopted more of an edge.

SAN: "However, you're not that average, are you? I had to act out a bit more, drawing you in by your unnatural sense of concern rather than your natural instinct to devour me."

Legosi stares at San, seeing the alpaca in a different light from before.

LEGOSI: (Kyuu-san is a tougher fighter than San, but San has more of a devious vibe to him…! Knowing he's been hiding such techniques this whole time behind such a lax and friendly face…)

His tail bristles and wraps around his leg.

LEGOSI: (It makes my skin crawl!)

KYUU: "Personally I think it's a one-noted fighting style."

Legosi blinks. He slowly turns to look down his right and discovers that Kyuu is standing next to him, stark naked and turning the tap of the shower head next to him.

The wolf's jaw drops, but Kyuu doesn't seem to be embarrassed in the least.

KYUU: "Trickery and deceptive tactics are invaluable if used sparingly, but are altogether too predictable for someone to fully rely on. If an opponent calls your bluff and you don't have anything else up your sleeve, you’re screwed."

She adopts an annoyed frown as no water comes out of her shower head.

KYUU: "Damn pipes...!"

San nods in admittance.

SAN: "Sadly enough, she has a point. I couldn't really fight in underground pits anymore after my opponents figured out how my technique worked."

Kyuu and San turn to look at Legosi, only to discover that the wolf has disappeared from where he was a second ago, leaving a Legosi-shaped imprint in the still flowing showerwater. Kyuu and San turn their heads to look at the way out, deducing from a series of wet footprints on the floor that Legosi has left.

SAN: "... What flew into him?"

KYUU: "Female nudity must embarrass him."

SAN: "Huh, how strange."

Kyuu takes Legoshi's place in the still running shower, and San goes to take his original place in the shower next to her.

KYUU: "I know, right? Males and females only differ in a few fleshy appendages left and right... What is there to be embarrassed about?"

Kyuu rubs her hands over her head, getting accustomed to the temperature.

KYUU: "Then again, he wasn't forced into shared showers when he was a kid. The differences between genders must be a big deal to him because he hasn't been exposed to them to the point of indifference."

Now being completely wet, the rabbit turns to the alpaca and extends an open hand.

KYUU: "If you're finished, hand me that soap."

SAN: "Sure thing."

San begins to hand over the soap, but his fingers pinch it, causing it to slip out of his hand and land on the floor behind Kyuu.

SAN: "Whoops."

Kyuu looks over at the dropped soap with slight annoyance. She turns around, bends over and reaches for it.

KYUU: "Still using the dropped soap-trick, even after my little speech about fleshy appendages and indifference? You're so transparent it makes me want to throw up."

SAN: "What can I say Kyuu-san? I'm male, you're a female. You may be embarrassed by your female drives..."

As she bends over, San can't help but to stare at the bunny's curvaceous backside. We can see that she has a few scars across her back; most likely from previous fights.

SAN: "... But I quite enjoy stimulating my male ones."

Getting up with the soap in hand, Kyuu proceeds to use it as she washes her armpits, her ears and her tail.

KYUU: "Giving into your urges so easily is one of the things that make you so predictable... It was no wonder Legosi could read you right away."

SAN: "Should you really be the one lecturing me on that? I wasn't the one who tried to proposition myself to that wolf the same night we met."

Kyuu’s deadpan expression breaks somewhat. She turns to give the alpaca an unamused glare.

KYUU: "I didn't proposition myself. It was part of his training."

San laughs.

SAN: "Yeah right, I bet that's all it was... I guess I would be way off for thinking you just wanted a taste of that desirable carnivore-strength through the raw, sexual onslaught of his HUGE-"

FWUP!

San looks stunned as the bar of soap gets launched into his mouth. He gags and spits it out. As he starts to cough up bubbles, Kyuu starts to whistle the Bubble Bobble (1986) theme song while she wrings the water out of her ears.

---

We skip over to when Kyuu and San have finished in the showers and are putting their clothes back on. San, now with his pants on, has taken a seat on one of the benches. He has his hand over his mouth and looks sick.

SAN: "My mouth still tastes like soap...!"

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Kyuu puts her own pants on.

KYUU: "Be glad that's all I did, considering your little street fight in the showers."

San looks up at her with a skeptical look.

SAN: "... What, you didn't like it? I just added a bit of extension to your lesson today. Considering surprises are my speciality, it’d be criminal if I just stood on the sidelines and did nothing to contribute."

KYUU: "There's a big difference between throwing a knife a dull knife at his face which you know he can catch and poisoning him and expect him to build up immunity to it on the fly."

The alpaca adopts a confused look.

SAN: "What are you talking about?"

KYUU: "Don't play coy."

Kyuu puts on her t-shirt and then her red training jacket over it.

KYUU: "I saw the whole thing. You tried to hit the pressure points on the left side below his ribs, which would've affected his heart and liver."

Kyuu turns around. Her deadpan eyes have become sharp and her lip has turned up to form an angry sneer.

KYUU: "If you had made a successful hit, he could’ve gone into cardiac arrest, putting his life in danger!"

San looks unaffected by Kyuu’s accusation. He leans forward, cups his chin in his hand and stares at her.

SAN: "... Why are you so upset? You mean to tell me you don't endanger his life during your training?"

KYUU: "I don’t throw lethal techniques at him before I'm confident he can handle them! He's not ready for what you're trying to pull… He probably doesn't even know that pressing pressure points is a real-life thing! You'll end up killing him if you pull more of that crap. And that’s not the only reason I’m upset."

Kyuu proceeds to pull something out of her pants pocket: one of the throwing knives she used earlier.

KYUU: “I took these for the training knowing they were dulle... But guess what I discovered just a little while ago?”

She then throws it across the room, aiming at a raincoat that dangles next to San. The knife pierces through the coat and becomes embedded into the tile on the wall behind it.

San turns to look at the knife. Meanwhile, Kyuu glares at him.

KYUU: “They had been sharpened. Sharpened to the point that I could penetrate the aluminum of an air vent! I sure as hell didn’t sharpen them, so it couldn't have been anyone except you! If I had hit Legosi with even one of them…!”

SAN: "If he would’ve died, he would’ve died.”

Kyuu looks a little shocked as she hears this from San. The alpaca turns back to give her a cold look.

SAN: “Survival of the fittest Kyuu, that’s the rule of the back alley market. If someone isn’t strong enough, fast enough or clever enough to keep the death at bay, then why should he amount to anything more than chopped liver? Isn’t that the exact words you’ve used in the past?"

Hearing this, Kyuu looks down and thinks back to the moment when Legosi asked her to command him to 'stay' in preparation for his fight with Melon; seeing that very memory play out in her background.

KYUU: "That was before..."

SAN: “I’ve been keeping watch you know. The training sessions you’re giving him now are freaking filler compared to when you started. You’re not acting like someone who wants to further him as a fighter. I don’t see a trainer teaching a pupil, but a girl who is enjoying a males company.”

Kyuu starts to look increasingly irritated (and quite possibly a bit embarrassed) by what the alpaca is suggesting.

KYUU: “Watch it...!”

San stretches his arm out and pulls the knife out of the wall. He looks down at it with a sneer.

SAN: “Just admit it already: You’re soft for him, otherwise he wouldn’t have caught back on that roof.”

---

We enter a flashback, at which we can see San standing on the roof of the building. Looking through a pair of binoculars, he spies on Legosi and Kyuu from a long distance.

SAN: “I could see your face.”

He witnesses the moment right after Kyuu has thrown the knives at Legosi. As Legosi bends over, San can see Kyuu’s face clearly.

She looks concerned.

SAN: “You looked concerned for him.”

Going back to San, we see him lowering the binoculars with a grim look.

SAN: “It distracted you, made you hesitate. It wasn’t because he was better that he caught you, but because your concern for him delayed your reaction.”

---

Returning to the present, we see Kyuu looking at San with a pair of big eyes. That look though is enough for San though as confirmation that his statement is true.

SAN: “You ARE soft for him… And because I am not, one can say I am a far more impartial teacher than you are being right now.”

Kyuu looks down. She seems to struggle at coming up with an appropriate response.

SAN: “... Let me ask you something, what is it about him that makes you THAT concerned about him?"

Kyuu grits her teeth at him, the question clearly irritates her.

KYUU: "... Louis and Gouhin trust in him. Isn’t that enough?"

San shakes his head at this.

SAN: "Louis and Gouhin also trust the Shishigumi, but I don’t see you hanging out with any of them in your spare time, acting all playful."

Kyuu blinks. Then she crosses her arms, fixing the alpaca a squinted look.

SAN: “Then again, maybe you would. With all that friendliness you are showing that wolf, maybe you would like a lion or two for the sake of variation. Maybe teach them an Imaginary Chimera or two while you’re at it?”

KYUU: “... Is that the core of your issue? Me being friendly with carnivores?”

SAN: “That tone in your voice makes it sound like I’m being petty. Don’t treat it like it's a small thing…! It’s when herbivores and carnivores kid themselves that they can co-exist as friends that they set themselves up for misery and bloodshed, with the herbivores getting maimed and carnivores weeping over their bloodied corpses."

San bends over and grabs a hold of the chain under it.

SAN: “You and Louis and this whole damn society is heading to that place because you forget one important thing:”

He throws the chain over to the floor in front of Kyuu.

SAN: “Every carnivore is the enemy of a herbivore. Remembering that is what keeps us alive!”

Things go quiet between them. Kyuu looks down at the chain... Two of it’s shackles are open and almost look like they're reaching out to bite her.

KYUU: "... Before Gouhin freed us, either of us were not seen as people. We were just consumable items… Meat to be eaten.”

Her arms go from being crossed to reaching further around her body and hugging herself, reservedly displaying a rare case of vulnerability.

KYUU: “Afterwards, each of the numbers went their separate ways… Found homes and families and what-not. The only ones who stayed here were you and me… We’ve spent our whole lives together… You’re my closest friend San, and because of that, you see me exactly as I am: A weak and self-serving turncoat... You may not say it aloud, but you KNOW IT. You don't judge me for it, and you’re my friend despite that... I am grateful, but I’ve also come to realize that that’s part of the problem.”

San stares at her, looking confused as to where she’s going with this.

KYUU: “My point is that I have never been seen as more than what I am… EXCEPT by that stupid wolf. For some reason, he thinks MORE of me, even after knowing what an ungrateful affair that has been to him! I still have no idea why he trusts me so whole-heartedly... Or why he doesn’t just see me as the gutter-filth who sold him out for money!”

She looks increasingly angry and frustrated the more she talks about this.

KYUU: “The Kyuu inside his head must be so far attached from the real thing that it’s laughable...! HE’S SUCH A FUCKING MORON I SOMETIMES WANT TO PUNCH HIM! And yet..."

Kyuu's imagination paints up a picture of Legosi's friendly face from before, as he thanks her and calls her ‘Kyuu-chan.’ This appears to melt her anger, making her adopt a calmer expression.

KYUU: "He’s made me realize that I want more out of this life… Not just possession-vice, but to be more as a person. Because of him… I want to be less like the Kyuu I am and more like the Kyuu he believes in."

San stares at her for the longest time after she says this. He then snorts and grins at her.

SAN: “Sorry, but… What a load of bull!”

Kyuu’s eyes widen and her arms go down on her sides.

SAN: “I know you. You want to be close to Legosi, and Gouhin if I remember things right, not because you think either will make you a better person, but because you HATE other herbivores.”

Kyuu tightens her fist and grits her teeth as San continues his talk.

SAN: “You hate us, thinking our line of thought and sense of self-preservation is what is holding animals like you down. Socializing with carnivores is just a way of catering to your envy of them… To make you feel more like one of them than one of us.”

Kyuu looks so angry at this moment that she appears unable to talk. But then, her fist loosens and her face relaxes. She closes her eyes, sighs through her nose and opens her eyes to meet San’s look.

KYUU: “Believe what you will… But consider the fact that you may not know me as well as you think.”

Kyuu turns and walks off to the door and opens it. She stops in the doorway and looks back at San over her shoulder.

KYUU: “I don’t hate other herbivores... But just because I am one, doesn’t mean I am required to love them.”

Her eyes turn sharp and bitter.

KYUU: “Carnivores may have kept us, carnivores may have wanted to eat us, but it was herbivores who sold us to them to begin with!”

She then walks out and slams the door after her, leaving the alpaca by himself.

---

Kyuu walks back to her room. Passing a staircase on the way, she stops to look down like she's noticed something.

We see that Legosi is still around, sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

KYUU: "You're still here?"

Legosi looks over his shoulder as he hears Kyuu. We see that he is still quite wet, with patches of water soaking through parts of his shirt (as he was in such a hurry to get away from the showers that he didn't stop to dry his fur off). He rubs the back of his head.

LEGOSI: "Ah... Well... I figured it would be rude to leave without saying goodbye, so I waited until you were done."

Kyuu gives him an incredulous grimace.

KYUU: "... What the hell? You don't have to be so polite. If you were gone, I would have just assumed you left."

LEGOSI: "Still, it wouldn't have felt right..."

Kyuu shakes her head at this, like she's thinking 'he's unimprovable'.

Legosi then stands up and gives Kyuu a more serious look.

LEGOSI: "I also wanted to tell you I've thought more about your suggestion... And I’ve decided on something."

KYUU: “Oh?”

LEGOSI: "I want to tell Haru first, before I say yes or no."

Kyuu blinks. Then she sighs, goes down the stairs and sits down in front of Legosi.

KYUU: "Very well then... When will you tell her?"

LEGOSI: "Golden week."

Kyuu raises an eyebrow.

KYUU: "... That's in like two weeks, why not right away?"

LEGOSI: "There are other things I want to tell her in the meantime... Some of which I think are better told as she meets someone very special to me. Golden week is the best time for that."

KYUU: "How very ceremonious of you. Personally I think the sooner the better but whatever, I’m not your fucking nanny. Do what you think is best.”

Legosi nods.

LEGOSI: “Thank you Kyuu-cha- I mean Kyuu-san. Oh, and thank San for the lesson too... It was very educational.”

Kyuu tilts her head in a questioning manner, like she’s not exactly sure whether the wolf is serious about appreciating San’s dangerous lesson or if he’s just being sarcastic.

Legosi turns around, looking like he’s about to leave. But then, he pauses and turns back to face Kyuu. He looks like he wants something.

LEGOSI: “Um...”

KYUU: “What now?”

LEGOSI: "Well, before I go… You know those swiping moves you made with the throwing knives... What do you call that?"

Kyuu gives the wolf a confused look.

KYUU: "Call?"

LEGOSI: "I mean, what is the name of the attack? What would you cry out while doing it?"

Kyuu gives him an incredulous look.

KYUU: "Cry out... What do you think this is, KAMEN RIDER?! What would be the damn point to cry out the name of a technique for the whole world to hear?!"

Legosi holds his arms out in an urging gesture.

LEGOSI: "Cause it'd be cool! You know, people would be like 'oh no, Kyuu's about to do her famous KNIFE SPLASH!'"

Kyuu stares at him with an open mouth, like she can't even compute the nonsense she is hearing.

KYUU: "... Knife splash?"

LEGOSI: "You know, cause the way it spreads is like water splashing... And it kind of sounds like 'knife slash'."

She continues to stare at him.

KYUU: "... Knife splash."

The rabbit smacks her mouth with an odd look, like she's trying to taste the word and it's turned out to be an acquired taste.

KYUU: "Knife splash... You'd like me to yell KNIFE SPLASH on the top of my lungs whilst doing it?! You don't do anything like with any of your attacks!"

LEGOSI: "Well not externally anyway."

KYUU: "Why Gouhin took you under his wing I'll never understand...!"

As they continue their banter, we go up the stairs and see that San is standing leaned up against the wall just out of sight. He is listening in on the conversation with an unreadable expression.

THE END... FOR NOW.

---

#beastars #jcl #2020 #legosi #kyuu #san #grey wolf #rabbit #alpaca #training session #fight #fanfiction #script style #mini story #shower me with insights

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