#plus someone will probably post the pages a couple days after its release..

[ninjautizm]

// SHATTERSPIN ISSUE 2 (SPOILERS!) JUST SOME GORGEOUS MAJESTIC PICS OF GARMADON IN THE NEW SHATTERSPIN COMIC!! 💜

He looks so majestic.. and silly 🥹💜

For those wondering, I brought this comic off of Amazon Kindle, and I live in Australia so it's the 9th of October for me! Meaning it's the day of its release! Which is how I was able to read the comic,, but tomorrow it's gonna be released for everyone else,, just currently I'm spoiling them!

[amaya-chwan]

Takeaways from Therapy Game Restart 14 + Illustration Book Release Date

Hello again everyone! ❤️💛💜

It's finally here... chapter 14! In all its glory! 😍🥰✨

Before we get to our takeaways, just some news I missed in the last post!

🎉 SENSEI'S ILLUSTRATION BOOK WILL BE RELEASED AROUND THURSDAY, 23RD SEPTEMBER! 🎉

Image taken from this Twitter post from Dear+!

It is titled "日ノ原巡イラスト集　DARLING" and boasts a collection of illustrations from Sensei's works so far: Secret XXX, Therapy Game, and Kamisama no Uroko.

The current price is ¥2970 with tax (¥2700 without tax). If you'd like to preorder it on your proxy shopping service, I've found it on the Comi Comi Studios website here! The bonus for purchasing it on this website is a B5 clear file~ I haven't seen it on Animate just yet, so fingers crossed it'll appear on their website soon with another (different) bonus! ❤️💛

Alright, with this amazing news done, let's move onto our takeaways, the long awaited takeaways! Thank you for being so patient with me! 💜

My short life update: currently in week 8 of lockdown and I haven't left my house in a long time other than for exercise or groceries. But I do have my vaccination appointment booked so YAY! 🎉

Here are our takeaways for this chapter:

Oh man, we pick right up from the last page of chapter 13. MINATO, BB, YOU LOOK SO PAINED! 😭

Sensei is the BIGGEST tease... that's all we got of that Minato and Shizuma scene...👀😭

The female staff at the veterinary hospital have really mellowed out! They're not bad, after all. ☺️

Oh dear, Nakajou-sensei, please get better ASAP!

Whoa... did Onodera just...?? I'm starting to think back to that Onodera discussion we had a couple of months ago... 🤔

Poor Shizuma, always roped into Onodera's workplace stuff! IT'S BECAUSE YOU HAVE GREAT PEOPLE SKILLS, SHIZUMA! PROUD OF YOU! 😍🙌

Man, Onodera has a really... blunt way of saying things to her human clients. Wow, brave. 😲

But I will say, Onodera really is good with animals. 🙌

Yet again, I think about that Onodera discussion we had... 🤔🤔

And that’s it for this chapter’s takeaways! For a more detailed breakdown/summary of this chapter, please continue after the cut! There may or may not be a surprise scene (or two) there. Please keep reading if you want to see~  😉✨

Our chapter begins where we left off in chapter 13--Minato pinning Shizuma down on the bed. Shizuma looks up at Minato and reflects on his actions that caused the pained look he is seeing.

Image taken from this Dear+ Twitter post!

On the next page (title page), the dialogue reads: Shizuma wants to understand what it is about his director (Onodera) that is making Minato uneasy. // However, that beautiful liar hides it well...

(I believe we are taken back to the morning before Shizuma and Minato meet up for their date.)

The title page features Onodera walking back to the clinic, bread in hand, with a cat cozying up on her leg. We are then brought to the clinic's lunchroom, with the female staff and Shizuma on break. The roster in the room shows that Onodera is extremely busy, Nakajou-sensei has afternoon house call appointments, Tatsumi is Nakajou-sensei's support for these appointments, and Shizuma has a half day and finishes in the afternoon in lieu of working on his scheduled day off.

Shizuma asks his coworkers what presents they like from their partners and takes note of their answers. One of the female nurses asks if it's Minato's birthday. Shizuma confesses that their relationship has been affected by the various things happening lately, so he wants to get Minato a gift before seeing him later that day.

The nurses quickly pick up that the gift is a "tribute" of sorts as this line of work means a lot of missed appointments and dates, and Shizuma confirms their suspicions. While the nurses realise male-male relationships and male-female relationships aren't that different in this aspect, everyone in the lunchroom is alerted to someone shouting Nakajou-sensei's name.

Shizuma and a nurse see Tatsumi with Nakajou-sensei, who has collapsed on the floor. While the staff are concerned about Nakajou's well-being, she brushes it off as a dizzy spell. Before they can help her up, Onodera sweeps her off her feet and carries Nakajou to her (Onodera's) office. While Nakajou asks Onodera to put her down out of sheer embarrassment, Shizuma and Tatsumi are in shock, with Tatsumi commenting on Onodera's manliness in that moment. One of the other nurses gently smacks Shizuma's shoulder and tells the two to grab a blanket and a drink for Nakajou.

In her office, Onodera asks Nakajou why she's been overworking herself to the point of collapsing. The nurse (who gave the gentle smack) very obviously hints to Onodera that it is her fault. As Nakajou calms the nurse by saying that's just how the director is, Tatsumi asks Nakajou about their afternoon appointments. She says she'll be fine to go after a little rest, but the nurse says she mustn't overexert herself.

After a few back and forths about who should go and the clients' needs/personality (picky about the vet, had a pet that doesn't like men, etc), Onodera says she will go. The nurses are shocked and reminisce about all the issues they've had when Onodera interacts with the owners. Tatsumi and Shizuma stand there, and can very clearly imagine those situations happening.

While Onodera rearranges and informs the nurses of the shift changes to accommodate Nakajou-sensei, Shizuma has a terrible premonition that unfortunately comes true: he is appointed as Onodera's support for the afternoon house calls.

Wearing a sulky expression, Shizuma packs the necessary equipment in Onodera's car and reminds her that he has a very important engagement that night that he cannot miss, and as such will leave immediately after the house call appointments are done. Onodera bursts his bubble, and tells him to give up on those plans while he can since this is the line of work he's chosen.

As Shizuma reads the client files, he questions Onodera on why he is her support when he's never attended to these clients before. While Onodera tells him that good coordination is important with a physician's support and that he's the only one she can rely on to give her an honest opinion and calm the clients, Shizuma realises that he's basically the mediator between her and the owners. She confirms that this is his strong point, has great expectations for him, and proceeds to drive. Shizuma then reads the patient files at lightning speed, realising there's a threatening 'something' that Minato has sensed, but that's just how the director is. He then vows to make it to their meeting tonight, no matter what.

The first three house calls, as expected, involve Onodera insulting and angering the owners--Onodera tells the first client that his insistence on seeing Nakajou rather than a 'young' director is having a negative effect on his pet who needs immediate medical care; Onodera offends the second client, inferring from their conversation that her pet's appearance is more important than the need to shave their fur and get an ultrasound done; Onodera accuses the third client of being irresponsible in caring for his exotic animals and asks for more effort on his part. In all three scenarios, Shizuma awkwardly smiles while trying to ease the tension.

The scene skips to Onodera and Shizuma arriving at their fourth and final house call for the day. Just as Onodera explains to Shizuma that she must check a whole host of things at house calls (and indirectly be too blunt about it with the owners), Shizuma asks her to consider the owner's feelings and change when and how she says things. She glares ahead in silence, and Shizuma is just glad that she is now aware of it. He again reminds her to talk with the owner nicely and gently as he probably won't be able to help with the next client as their pet dislikes men. Onodera tells him to just sit in the corner and witness the client become furious while he doesn't help, making him feel slightly guilty for saying that. He is now adament on not helping her.

They reach the owner's home and we meet an elderly woman named Shiratori and her 9-year-old male cat, Tono. Shiratori apologises to Shizuma as her cat doesn't like men. Tono hisses at them as Onodera opens his cage, but is then coaxed into submission by Onodera who covers his vision with a towel and takes him into her lap to calm down. Shiratori and Shizuma are surprised at his sudden docile nature, with Shizuma witnessing how well she deals with animals.

As Shizuma looks on at Onodera while she completes a check on Tono, he sees she is crumbling at the friendliness and talkative nature of Shiratori, who sings nothing but praise for Onodera and how her family must be proud to have such an amazing daughter. Aiming to ease her troubles and remembering the earlier guilt-trip she gave him, he redirects Shiratori's attention to her broken fly screen and offers to fix that plus everything else that needs repair in her home.

Onodera watches as the two leave the room for a bit before apologising to Tono for ignoring him. Tono looks on at Onodera happily while she asks him how he can live with such a lively human and to tell her his secret to this. She brings him into her arms once more to check his limbs, and as Tono looks up smiling at Onodera, Onodera sees her reflection in Tono's eyes, and both seem to realise something.

BG Text: Stare...

Suddenly, Shizuma and Shiratori, who are busy fixing the window, hear a loud crash and rush into the room to find Tono atop the cabinet and Onodera on the floor, with her hair in disarray. In the next panel, Tono is shown to be hiding in the bookshelf, looking on irritatingly at the humans. Shiratori apologises to Onodera, who shakes it off and says it's nothing to worry about and no harm's been done.

Shiratori asks if Onodera will fix/tie her hair up again, but when Onodera says her hair tie was broken when Tono used her as a launchpad to get on the cabinet, Shiratori runs to get her a new one. As Shiratori gushes over the 3 piece dopey looking character hair tie set she received as a present from her grandchild (and lets Onodera pick one), a greatly displeased look is plastered on Onodera's face. Shizuma, in shock, notices her displeasure and hopes she just thanks Shiratori for it. And Onodera does, bringing a great big smile to Shiratori's face.

As Onodera and Shizuma leave, Shiratori says she's glad to have talked with Onodera and invites her to come over again. As she says this, we see Onodera looking back with a blank look in her eyes.

And that’s it for this chapter! THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR! 💜 While I was surprised at the lack of Minato in this chapter (Sensei legit is such a tease, LOL 🤣), I'm happy we can learn more about Onodera. Ngl, I'm starting to really question if Onodera is male or female now, given what transpired in this chapter. I guess we shall see in the next one!

I also changed the formatting a bit and removed the bullet points. Please let me know which format is better/easier to read! Ahah!

EDIT: Spelling and grammar checks are done! Didn't change a lot, but hope it reads better! 💜

📢 As always, please support Hinohara-sensei by purchasing her books and CDs! 📢

And please also refrain from resharing these translations and images outside of this post! Thank you for understanding! ❤️💛

There won't be a chapter in next month's (September release) Dear+, so I shall see you in two months for the next chapter (Dear+ November Issue, to be released in October).

As always, stay safe during these turbulent times and look out for each other and for your loved ones! 💜❤️💛

[off-in-the-moors]

Joseph Kavinsky analysis, part 1

aka how did I get here and why is he the reason

Warnings: spoilers for the whole Raven Cycle, mentions of: drug-use, abuse, death, murder, homophobic slurs, xenophobia

Part 1 // Part 2

After finishing The Raven Cycle and analyzing every chapter, character and the overarching plot with my friend, we were left feeling empty. It's been few months, I kept looking-up more TRC related things, other people's opinions, look through fandom content and even read some post from the author's, now deleted, tumblr account, trying to find answers to why I'm feeling like this. Why the books seem to decline for me in quality as I kept reading? Why I can't see Ronan in the same light as the rest of the fandom? Why I couldn't like the author? And the answer was looking me in the eyes the whole time.

"Depending on where you began the story, it was about Joseph Kavinsky."

I loved his character from the moment we met him in The Dream Thieves and still think about him to this day. But why? In a way, Kavinsky is too familiar to me, from his attitude, through appearance to his voice. It’s like I knew him, and this isn’t surprising. I met/saw Kavinskys on the streets, I know Kavinskys, and I was a Kavinsky once in my life. Although I'm the opposed to him, I still sympathies with him and understand how it feels to be in dark places in your life. And I'm not the only one, many people adore him and don't deny his actions to be terrible. But on the other side, the majority of fans hates him and titles him "the worst/most evil antagonist of the series". But why? What about K makes him so polarizing? The simple answer is: the way he was presented and the function he played in the plot. Even then, K's whole arc in TDT was handled horribly and damaged the way readers will view, not only people like K but also themselves. This and also future posts, I’ll be analyzing everything relied to K, including his treatment after book's release by the author and what some deleted scenes and unused ending can shine on.

This is part 1 of a series of posts to come.

This part is about the narrative and characters views of Kavinsky.

Narrative and characters

Narrative is a powerful tool of telling a story, well crafted and coupled with character's internal-voice makes the reader view the story under different light. In a PoV of one character, one thing might bring-up different emotions and ideas, than the others. Exploring relationships and events differ, because everybody experience it differently. But problem begins when the narrative forces a reader to a opinion, without backing it up with reasons or giving a opposing one. In case of Joseph Kavinsky, before we properly meet him, we are told by the characters to hate him and the narrative backs them up in reasons to hate him. All the reasons given to us at that time, boil down to "I heard a rumor."

Gansey hates him, because "There was nothing about Kavinsky that wasn’t despicable" and "he thinks life is a music video". He doesn't want Ronan to associated with him, which is connected with him covering and getting Ronan's ass for the mess he made, having him project his anger and frustration he has with Ronan on to K, who part-takes in the same activities and probably with Ronan, is understandable. But I didn't expect much from a guy who: payed the school officials so they won't kick Ronan out; insulted Adam and throw Adam’s abuse at his face, just to instant of apologizing to him, make a pity party for himself (also having Adam apologies to Gansey for his rightful outburst isn't okay), is fine with having a romantic relationship with Blue while she's still with Adam, hurting him even further but makes it all about himself, etc. Him hating K, just because of his lifestyle, made sense. But were the line was crossed, was when he started to decide on other people's worth. Lines like "we matter" (on which I'll extend later in the post) or "Ronan is fixable and has a soul [Kavinsky doesn't]", were used not only to show what Gansey himself thinks of K (he isn't a human being to him), but also demonize K and make the reader not consider him an equal to the Gangsey (a teenage).

Blue hates him, because he's yet another Raven Boy. Her hatred comes mostly from her distance for them, rich boys with privilege to which Gansey gang is an exception (although two out of four are exactly the kind she hates, and she told Noah directly she wouldn't be friends with him if he was alive) (There can be made a whole post about Blue's hypocrites regarding Raven Boys, but this isn't it). She also talks about how she doesn't feel comfortable around K and "if she couldn’t forgive Kavinsky for always managing to make her feel so insignificant", which makes sense. But while describing him, she calls him "a import from somewhere else", not only lessening him as a person but also making a xenophobic comment, noting his long nose as one of the factors (you could say, she meant him being from New Jersey, but you don't "import" stuff from inside a country, you only "import" from abroad and K is Bulgarian, doesn't matter if he's an immigrant or just has Bulgarian roots). Later, while discussing what to do with K draining the ley lines, Greyman offers to talk to him, to which Blue asks him "can you make him feel worthless while you do?”. Yes, she asked a hit-man, who killed not only Niall Lynch but also multiple people (including three on pages, which was described in the case of the ones breaking into Montmouth) for money. (Yes, fans say it's fine he murdered Niall, because he was a dick and horrible father, but what we forget is that it wasn't a fast death. It was slow and brutal, having him bludgeoned to send a message to Declan. No "he was a weapon in Greenmatle's hand" can excuse it.). Plus, he beat-up and threatened Declan with a gun if he doesn't give him the Greywaren. "Making him feel worthless" can only mean the worst. Kavinsky was a asshole, but he didn't deserved that. Also Blue gives the idea to give Kavisnky to the Greyman instant of Ronan, which was shot down, but not because it's horrible, inhuman and they can't decide on someone else's life, but because they think Greenmantle's people will come back also for Ronan. They were ok, with K being basically a scapegoat so Ronan will live.

Adam just "hates that prick" and "looked at the table with a studied disinterest" when K approached their table at Nino's, those are his only interaction in anything Kavinsky related (In a part regarding the "original" ending, we'll see it wasn't always the case.).

Noah barely exists in the series after The Raven Boys and never comes in contact with K or gives any opinion on him, outside of "ducked his head down into his shoulders, but couldn't take his eyes off the newcomer".

Ronan's relation with K could be its own post all together and there already are some good post about it, but for this one, I'll only mention few things. He gives us a very "I hate him but I'm into this lifestyle" attitude. He races against K but doesn't want to have anything to do with him or he's "dogs". (Yes, Dream Packs canon name is "Kavinsky's pack of dogs" as Ronan calls them. Ironically, Ronan gets angry then Declan and K called him "Gansey's dog" but is fine when Gansey calls him "his dog".) He never thanked or acknowledged K saved his life from the Night Horror. He accepted K's help in dreaming-up the new Pig but afterwords ditches him without even a slit gratefulness (his motivation being remembering Gansey's words), and mocks that K thought there could be anything between them (friendship or relationship, it dependents how you interpret it), turning this into just using K to get what he wanted. And yes, what K did while Ronan slept (tracing Ronan's back tattoo with his finger) was unacceptable, if it really happened and wasn't just phantom-touch while falling asleep (if it was real, it can be interpreted as K acting out of his internalized homophobia, letting himself a moment of “curiosity”, but it still wouldn't make it fine).

Ronan and K insult one-another multiple times through-out the story but the difference is quite showing. K's insults are mostly homophobic, calling Ronan a "fag" or implying Ronan and Gansey are together. This is a typical teenage insults, but are also showing of K's internalized homophobia if viewed through "Don’t say Dick Gansey, man. Do not say it. He is never going to be with you. And don’t me tell you don’t swing that way, man. I’m in your head." and "It's a bomb. Just like you." scenes.

But Ronan, excepting the typical insults like "ball-sack", goes after who K is. "Bulgarian mobster Jersey trash piece of shit" or "Russian" (to the latter, K responded "Hey now, let's not make this ugly") are personal, referring not only to from where K's from, implying he's a mobster like his father and just calling him "a waste". Unfortunately, K's whole character is already one big stereotype of Slavs as viewed not only by Americans. But insulting someone for being "Bulgarian", something they had no control over, is xenophobic. (And for "Russian", as a Slav myself, let me tell you. Calling a non-Russian Slav "Russian" is a quick way to get on their bad side.) And if you're like "Ronan isn't xenophobic, because he's Irish" or "Maggie isn't xenophobic, because Ronan...", you have no idea how things work in Europe. This is the same argument as "He can't be racist, because he's black". TRC fandom is always ready to bring-up all K's sins and even enlarge them, but when in comes to Ronan, all his sins are either forgotten or excused.

One more thing I want to touch on is one of K's parties. After Monmouth got broken into by people looking for Greywaren (which Greyman broke into first), Gansey thinks it must be Kavinsky's doing, because of the fake ID left in front of the door. Him and Ronan go to K's party, he tells them, it's a substance party and asks where are theirs. As an answer, Ronan hits him in the face and throws through a car, just to show him his blooded knuckles with "This is your substance.". The rest is Gansey and Ronan not believing K, that he didn't trash their place, and a "different Gansey" throwing a Molotov cocktail at K's car. After that, they leave. But one thing isn't sitting right with me. The "This is your substance" is a beloved, may I say iconic, scene that is glorified by fans and cited as this "Ronan is so cool and K soo deserved it" thing.

Here's the thing. K is in full right. It's his party, on his rules. Gansey and Ronan just came from nowhere, probably for the first time, so the rule is stated for them. And Ronan's response? Physically assault K. Even if he's angry about the apartment, still he shouldn't just assault him. And Gansey does nothing. And one more thing: K never hits Ronan back. Not in next chapters, not at the end. Never.

Before the chapter ends, we get probably my most hated line from this book:

"Closing his eyes, Gansey leaned his head back on his seat, chin tilted up, throat green in the dash lights. There was still an unsafe sort of smile about his mouth — what a torment the possibility in that smile was — and he said, “There was never a time when that could’ve been you and me. You know the difference between us and Kavinsky? We matter."

We matter. And he doesn't. I could talk about this line and how damaging it is to people who see themselves in Kavinsky, but instant I'll say, why I hate it.

I have anxiety mixed with being introverted and back-in-the-day I felt isolated from my classmates, desperate for friends but only had toxic ones who dropped me so the popular girls would talk with them, just to be friends with me again after some time, bullied to the point of breaking multiple times, and hating myself for not fitting in, unable to connected with my peers in anyway. The line "we matter" echos my worst fear and thoughts from that time. "Everyone matter, you don't". I was too young to even have those thoughts, but they were always there. In the back of my head, like a recurring nightmare.

Just the idea, someone can say with confidence that someone, anyone, doesn't matter, makes me sick. No one has the inside to what's going on in someones life, to what thought are plaguing their head. Everyone's life matter and to say something like this in a book targeted to 12-18 year olds, who are at there most vulnerable stage, is not only irresponsible but enraging. Gansey is saying this about a guy his age, who is drug-addicted and self-destructive, because he doesn't like him and wants Ronan to stay away from. No one calls him out on it. Not Ronan, not the narrative. Nothing.

Until the kidnapping of Matthew and the paradox/question "did the tattoo tracing scene happened?", Kavinsky did nothing to earn hatred from the reader. He was living his life, being a stupid, reckless teenage boy with a power to get everything he wanted. Ask yourself a question: "If you had the power to pulled anything* from your dreams, wouldn't you go crazy with it? Maybe in a very selfish way?"

*  Throughout TRC and CDtH, we see no limit to what a dreamer can pull-out. From a pen or working car, living creatures (animals, copies of real people or purely made-up) to abstract things, like a word with power to animate the dead or an apocalypses.

Yes, K's dreaming drained the ley lines, causing Cabeswater to disappear. But did K knew about it? He knew that he needed to wait for it to recharge before dreaming more things and he did just that. The over-draining was cause by preparations for this Fourth of July party (dreaming many copies of his Mitsubishi) but same did Ronan’s dreaming (but Cabeswater acts as weird gatekeeper, so Ronan seems to be forgiven). But did he knew about Cabeswater? Or furthermore, Glendower? We can't confirm or deny it, but considering K isn't from Henrietta and probably is there only for school, he's there for about 2 years. Would he be interested in some random forest or some Welsh King, which just idea of him being in America is so far fetched to believe in?

No. All he was interested it, was parting and wasting himself away.

We don't get any other or opposing opinions on Kavinsky, only the ones given by Gangsey. They are the outsiders looking in, not having any inside, just rumors and their shallow observations/interactions. But we don't even get any "inside", not from other Raven Boys or even the Dream Pack (who are barely characters). After K's death, the only thing we get is Gangsey's not caring or being glad K's gone. Aglionby is silent and Henrietta, doesn't even acknowledge Fourth of July's Party even happened (but to be honest, the town feels like a theater stage than a living place). The only mentions about K that gives some idea someone noticed anything, was his name alongside Whelk’s and Dittley's in the newspaper at the end of BLLB (but this plot point is never mentioned again).

[coraofwales]

Meghan the narcissist gets her day in court, but she’s too blind to see she’s already lost

Camilla Long

Sunday April 26 2020, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times

The trial of the decade kicked off on Friday morning, with much excited fiddling online — a pre-trial hearing conducted, “trickily”, on Microsoft Teams. In one window, the duchess’s little Italian waiter QC appeared, with a plume of glossy turkey hair. In another, there was the silent, clipped, gravedigger QC for the defence, representing The Mail on Sunday and its case for printing Thomas Markle’s letter. Both were in rooms that had been blurred out, while the purring judge — a man not unlike Alan Rickman — sat in a normal Harry Potter panelled courtroom.

Along with 80 or so other journalists, I watched the whole thing from start to finish. It felt vast and important, like Leveson part two. At one point, it looked less like a trial of the matter at hand and more like a trial of the press in general. If Prince Harry has his way, it will be a monstrous, all-consuming, neverending rapture: a terrible reckoning, a Book of Revelation for the people he hates. For Meghan it will involve an end-times level of self-promotion and publicity. Guess what? She will take the stand. It is their dream circus.

Be in no doubt: this is a circus. It seemed astonishing to me that these skilled and pre-eminent men, with 100 years of experience between them, should waste any time discussing a story of such effervescing Marie Antoinettish frippery and thin-skinned triviality. There was talk of “post-Naomi Campbell jurisprudence” and a comic moment when they stopped to consider whether Meghan’s “favourite snack”, avocados, fuelled “human rights abuses, drought and murder”. That was before we got to the 75 pages of articles that had displeased the couple. First impression: neither the duchess nor Harry can take criticism.

Harry and Meghan in early March, carrying out their last function as royals. The duke may regret leaving that life behind.

Second impression: for someone who doesn’t like to talk about her private life, the duchess sure does want to talk about it. Before this trial, we knew little about her relationship with her grim Honey Bear father; now there’s little we don’t. The hearing made reference to a whole 33 further pages of mostly personal content she made available 10 days ago, including texts to her father from Meghan and Harry before their wedding.

The messages add absolutely nothing. In one, she appears concerned for her father’s “health and safety”. In another, she seems most interested in getting “security” to the hospital where he’s just had heart surgery, presumably to stop him talking to the press. So why release them? Perhaps to provide a mirage of openness, give the impression she’s happy to lay it all out when she isn’t. If anything, the couple come across as unhealthily obsessed with the press and their own image.

But then, the duchess is someone who thinks she can win at anything; be the centre of all attention; have the moral upper hand in any dispute. Her own ego blinds her; it even blinds the people working for her, like her poor QC struggling to keep up with the vastness of her pompous submissions. I am no fan of the royal family, and in many ways I’d hoped she would expose them as the pale, stale charisma vacuums they are, but at least they have the humility to know when to stop, instead of throwing themselves into this extraordinary trial and its ramifications — the hundreds of pages of overshare, plus the added negative publicity that will never end.

Who wins is irrelevant — in many ways she has already lost. There will be a day’s headlines if she prevails after two, three, even four weeks of lashing stories about her destructive ambition and unedifying obsession with her image. Meanwhile she is reducing the pair of them to supermarket magazine fodder, telling Harry he’s getting better, when he is in fact getting worse. She will brush the whole trial aside as yet another injustice, whatever happens: “See what they made me do,” she will say, by way of explaining the roomfuls of dirty linen about to be laundered. It’s as mad as a box of prancing kippers.

By the end of it, Harry will secretly wish to go back to the relative anonymity of being a royal, living in peace at Frogmore, able to fully disappear once he’s clocked out of the day’s work, just like a normal person would. Royals are the most anonymous celebs in the world — Prince William, for example, lives in obscurity. We don’t know where he buys his clothes, gets his food, even where he goes on holiday. He had a whole job and none of us knew anything about it. As he appeared outside his house on Thursday to clap the NHS, I realised I didn’t even know whether he would like his own front door. All those riches, and all that power and no effort — it is the dream, and Harry is probably already missing it.

What not to bare — your boyfriend’s bum on camera It appears we’ve reached the “accidental bum” stage of lockdown. On Thursday the ad guru Charles Saatchi appeared naked behind his girlfriend, Trinny Woodall, as she livestreamed beauty tips on serums.

“I’m unsure if she knew he was in camera shot,” squeaked one viewer, Tracy Baker, because the television presenter had a £400 LED light mask on “so I didn’t see if she was embarrassed or not.”

Come on, Tracy, do you really think you’d be able to tell even if Trinny “Botox” Woodall’s magnificently frozen features had been revealed to the world?

It is testimony to the great woman’s sheer obduracy that you’re never able to tell what her face is saying — but my guess is she’s delighted, already planning the next “accidental” ratings hit.

As for Saatchi, he’ll be gutted after a lifetime dedicated to looking cool.

Fashionable potshots at Posh are way below the belt And so begin the great corona culture wars, in which rich people are shown as heartless, ruthless and greedy, and the rest of us are being mercilessly fleeced. Last week, fashion’s premier gloves clown, Victoria Beckham, was criticised for using the government furlough scheme to prevent her fashion label from collapsing. It was a shameless attempt to bolster her “profits”, screamed the internet, for her vapid vanity fashion label.

I hesitate to defend the grasping Beckhams and I’m no fan of the entitled mean girl that is another fashion designer, Stella McCartney, who came in for the same criticism.

But doesn’t a small misogyny underlie all this — the idea that fashion doesn’t somehow deserve proper treatment? The idea that women’s clothes are unimportant and it doesn’t matter if these labels fail?

If Beckham were manufacturing vuvuzelas or footballs, I doubt there would be this level of vitriol and attack. She can’t use her own “profits” to support the brand anyway — she doesn’t have any. The whole thing’s effectively a charitable enterprise, supported by David Beckham.

@the-best-soap-opera-ever here is the whole thing

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 238: Shigaraki Tomura: Tattered Goth Remix

Previously on BnHA: Young Shimura Tenko killed his whole family, as angsty young misguided antagonist characters sometimes do, and then proceeded to wander the streets feeling all sad about it until All for One just happened!! to come across him and was all “oh you poor thing it looks like you killed your whole family by accident, let me just adopt you and raise you to be my own personal killing machine.” We got some more flashbacks showing just how this transformation took place, plus some answers about the hands that kind of just raised more questions though tbh, and watched as little Tenko made his first premeditated kill after a number of effed up AFO pep talks. AFO then rechristened him “Shigaraki Tomura”, and we learned that Shigaraki is actually AFO’s own last name. The chapter ended back in the present day, with Tomura reflecting on how his family’s death wasn’t really a tragedy after all and ended up setting him free. We’ll have to agree to disagree, kid, but in the meantime have fun fucking up Re-Destro and dealing with Gigantomachia’s rampage!

Today on BnHA: Re-Destro tries to smash Tomura at 100% and absolutely nothing happens. So then he summons a bunch of robot armor bits like fucking Iron Man, and levels up to 150%! Tomura could not care less, because he’s leveled up to be one of those “yawn, is that all you got?” bad guys now, and while RD desperately tries to intimidate him, we briefly check in with the rest of the League. Everyone is freaking out at how quickly Machia is destroying the Liberation Army, and Compress calls Ujiko and frantically begs him to warp them all to safety. But Ujiko is all “nah” and says he wants to drive Tomura into a corner. Meanwhile Gigantomachia finally takes out Dairy Queen, since Dabi was doing fuckall, and the chapter ends with Tomura possibly killing Re-Destro?? To be honest it’s really unclear. For all I know the dude just dropped dead of a heart attack from all that stress. In fact, now that I’ve typed that, I kind of think that’s what did happen. Anyway! The point is I’m pretty sure the battle is finally over.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added one or two ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.) 

so I mentioned this in an ask post a couple days ago, but this recap is a day late because I was out of town this week. consequently I’m behind on my asks and other things as well (I know, what else is new), so I’m sorry about that!

also! @temperatezone informed me that there’s yet another BnHA spinoff coming out, and that the preview chapter debuted last week! so I went to check it out, and holy shit, it’s a manga all about the U.A. kids teaming up with various pro heroes!!!!??!! between this and the new anime season coming up in just two months (it’ll fly by) and BakuDeku: Heroes Rising coming out in December, I feel like I’m being fucking spoiled with BnHA content. and I didn’t even mention the 2nd light novel which just had its official English translation released last month! so all in all it’s a lot of good stuff, and I desperately want to recap chapter 0 of the new spinoff as soon as possible, but it’ll probably be a few days unfortunately, unless I decide to be very irresponsible and do that instead of the piles of work I should actually be doing. we’ll see which impulses actually win out sob

fortunately Jump is on a break next week if I recall, so that’ll give me some time to catch up. anyway let’s start this thing before I manage to procrastinate anymore! so the new chapter is called “Liberation”, probably after a certain army

and the chapter is picking up where we left off before, with Tomura taking his Father Hand out of his pocket and saying he doesn’t need it or any of his other hands

ooooooh

maybe the title isn’t referring to the Liberation Army after all! or just one of those cool double meaning things

oooh man

god but that is satisfying. is there anything more satisfying than seeing a character you’ve been rooting for finally reach out and take control of their own destiny? ahhhh yessss that’s the good shounen shit right there

lol Re-Destro

he finally scared you into using your ~full power~, huh? punk

don’t mind me I’m just appreciating how much of a total badass my boy here is

your move, RD. personally if it were me, I wouldn’t want to fuck with him anymore! but hey your funeral bud

hmmm

the last few chapters have been so well-drawn that I’m starting to think I was maybe getting spoiled. I wonder if Horikoshi will re-do these later for the volume release

anyway so it seems like what’s happening is that RD is trying to hit Tomura with another Almighty Bitchslap and Tomura is not having any of it, basically

oh wow

and this isn’t even the Gigantomachia damage. will there be any pieces of this town left larger than a toothpick once all is said and done here?? stay tuned! but the answer is no

so the rest of this two page spread is just more panels showing vague high-contrast images of the destruction. we’re also briefly cutting to Gigantomachia! and to Dabi, who is still fighting Pinkberry, and like, dude, come on. finish him off already

and now the dust is clearing after that latest clash, and would you guys fucking look at this dramatic bitch though omfg

Shigaraki Tomura: Tattered Goth Remix. you look like the cover of a Bauhaus album. thank god this arc isn’t set somewhere stupidly dark, like, say, a basement

lmao Re-Destro is so mad

once again I would like to point out that you invited him here, you overconfident dishrag

so now Tomura is casually conversing with him

Tomura did you burn one right before this battle. you’re so fucking chill all of a sudden. gotta say that if someone had asked me “what do you think it would take to get Shigaraki Tomura to mellow out” before this arc, I probably would not have answered, “hmm, well maybe flashbacks to his horrific childhood and the violent deaths of all of his loved ones”

well at any rate, watching Re-Destro progressively freak out while Tomura makes more (ﾟ⊿ﾟ) faces is my new form of sustenance, guys

“you seem a bit rattled. a bit ill at ease. perturbed. something’s got you in a tizzy, huh.” ⊂( ・ ̫・)⊃

(ETA: okay but rereading this here, he keeps talking about his heart pounding, and then he goes and summons a fucking robot suit that actually raises his stress on purpose. so like, I don’t know? but I vaguely recall reading a theory on reddit a few weeks ago that RD was going to have a heart attack and it looks like it could really be the case. or not! that last page is really inconclusive.)

and now the Re-Destro flashbacks that absolutely no one asked for! of course!!

-- OH MY GOD

I’M DYING I CAN’T. SEND HELP

Iida I’m so sorry. all this time I have been teasing you and calling you a 40-year-old man, when this whole time it was actually Re-Destro who Benjamin Buttoned his way from his mother’s womb

is he related to the Alpha Kid from the adventures of the Babysitter’s Club? he can’t not be, right? what else could it be? two characters just happening to vaguely resemble one another in a purely coincidental manner?? are you even hearing yourself?! get out!!

um hey, so what the actual fuck is happening

...Krestro??

lol what. Horikoshi Muriel Kouhei, did you seriously just give this fucker Hulkbuster armor. do you just have a list of Marvel comics tribute shit that you check off as you go

so apparently this suit jacks his power up to one hundred and fifty percent! wowwwwwwww

but meanwhile Tomura is all just

what would it take to faze new Toked Goth Remix Tomura, I wonder

sob omg

goddammit now he’s going to want one. Ujiko you’d better get on it

oh my god you guys

I’m starting to feel really bad about all of these nice Twice clones who are being so helpful and are just going to end up dying in the end omg

also, if someone ever asks you, “should I read BnHA,” you can say, “well that depends, how much do you like scenes of characters with two broken arms getting piggyback rides from other characters?” and they’ll be like, “that’s really specific, does that... happen often,” and you can be like, “well it’s officially happened more than once, so”

like, it’s a whole thing now I guess. also, ouch

anyway so Real!Twice is concerned that Machia is having far too easy of a time kicking names and taking ass, and he’s trying to regroup with the rest of the League

oh my god Compress, seriously?

League of Ungrateful Sods, is what you guys are. he’s trying to help you guys out!!

lol Dabi you fucking liar

no you fucking weren’t, you were going to keep fighting him for a million more years. your fight was going to make Goku VS Frieza look like a 15-second Youtube ad. once again, you guys should really be more grateful here

(ETA: why did they even invite Dabi lol. all he did was fight offscreen and have zero (0) flashbacks. fucking tease.)

so now Compress is calling Ujiko and asking him to warp them out of there

what...?

he’s absolutely 100% making this up, right?

lol yeah now even Compress is calling him on it

right, Compress??

okay now Ujiko is straight up telling him no

oh, this is good you guys

Ujiko, I don’t know how to tell you this but while you weren’t looking, the dude hopped on a fucking golf cart and drove his own damn self. and now appears to have made himself pretty damn comfortable in that corner too

oh is Halo Top finally about to fucking die??

the cornerstone?? really?? holy shit, it really is remarkable how thoroughly unprepared these guys actually were in the end

anyway so now more action panels are happening

did Machia kill him? it looks like he survived but just went flying

and what the hell does Hanabata think he’s actually going to be able to do. drive his van at him? give him encouragement??

anyway I guess we’re wrapping this up now, and we’re cutting back to Tomura who’s saying something extremely cool

it is kind of like that. except that it’s bullshit

anyway so it looks like he’s touching the ground and using his decay again and holy shit is this it???

!!!!!

YOU GUYS DID HE JUST DISINTEGRATE RE-DESTRO OH MY GOD. JUST LIKE THAT!!??!

YOU GUYS I HONESTLY CAN’T TELL, ALL I KNOW IS TOMURA TAPPED THE GROUND, AND RE-DESTRO HAD A WEIRD PANEL WHERE YOU COULDN’T SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING, AND HE HAD A THOUGHT AND IT WAS SUDDENLY CUT OFF, AND THEN WE CUT TO GIGANTOMACHIA WATCHING AND WE COULDN’T REALLY SEE ANYTHING OMG

but can you imagine, though?? “one single strike”?! like oh my god, there wasn’t even any fanfare? if he really did just kill him that is pretty much exactly how I would have wanted it to go down tbh

at any rate, it’s safe to say life just got a hell of a lot more dangerous for our Actual Protagonist with this new power-up. shit. oh my god

well I guess that’s it! does that mean this arc is gonna wrap up next chapter. because I’m also going to be away the 16th, so I’ll be a day late in doing that chapter too. I s2g Horikoshi, if you finally cut back to U.A. on a day that I’m not able to read the chapter right away, I will... well actually I’ll be pretty happy regardless, but secretly I will also believe it’s some sort of conspiracy against me. so just know that

[dcarevu]

Batman TAS: The Clock King

Hi, guys! Gee, it’s been a while! For another week or two, doing these blogs are going to be incredibly difficult to accomplish. It’s the last two weeks of my school semester, meaning that it’s crunch time. Overall, school has kept me so busy that watching the episodes has been doable, but writing about them has been a huge problem. It sucks, because doing this blog and venting my thoughts is incredibly satisfying. To be honest, if I didn’t include screenshots and captions for most of them (like how I used to do things), these posts would likely still be coming out regularly. But they are a lot of extra work. It more than doubles the creation-time, believe it or not. It is work that is worth it, mind you, it adds a massive leap in awesome-factor. But I just don’t have time for it at the moment. I have watched up to Robin’s Reckoning as of the moment I type this. Because of how far ahead that is without actually writing anything about those episodes, it’s going to be hard to write meaningful blog posts about them, simply due to the episodes not being as fresh in my mind. I will try to rewatch them (or at the very least skim through them and read about them). I’m in a bit of a rut. I didn’t want to stop watching episodes entirely, because I’d like to get through the DC Animated Universe in a somewhat timely manner (I’d watch an episode per night if only I could). Luckily, after the 10th of May I should be back at it in full. I’m likely way more excited about it than you are, but hey, I’m mainly doing this for me (with a hearty “welcome” to anyone who happens to discover and enjoy these along the way). Just figured I’d keep any readers updated! This is the last post for the next couple of weeks. I’ll check in soon! In the mean time…

“Thirty-seven pages? That would take a copier exactly one minute and forty-nine seconds. One more delay like this and you're fired!”

Episode: 25 Robin: No Writer: David Wise Director: Kevin Altieri Animator: Sunrise Airdate: September 21, 1992 Grade: B

So lately I’ve been watching these episodes using my Blu Ray copy, and receiving the screenshots from my DVD copy. There hasn’t been too much for variance, aside from one looking obviously better, but The Clock King is an example of a pretty drastic difference in how two episodes can be presented. The Blu Ray copy is much brighter than the DVD copy, and while that does allow us to see what is going on a little bit better in dark scenes such as when Batman and Temple Fugate face off inside the clock, it also makes other scenes uncharacteristically bright, and honestly a little bit tacky. Seeing Batman walking around in broad daylight is odd enough, but when you further get rid of the illusion of how cool he looks by upping the exposure an additional amount, it makes him look really out of place. In the series bible, I can see why they wanted to keep Batman only appearing after dark. In the real world, it would be a lot easier to see Batman as a normal guy in a dorky Halloween costume when not cloaked in the shadows or when the ability to see him before he attacks is present. Of course, this isn’t saying that if Batman were to see trouble during daylight that he should just ignore it. It makes sense to break the rule sometimes, and it’s not even a problem to me in this episode, I just don’t think that the remastering of the Blu Ray release does it any favors in this case. The brightness also brings out the budget, revealing a whole lot of bland blues, grays, and browns. These colors have not been shy since the beginning, but there is no disguising them this time.

Fugate is a villain who’s main flaw is not only how obsessive-compulsive he gets about his schedule, keeping track of things, being on time, etc, but also the fact that he extends this to other people. He expects them to fall in line with his standards. For example, he keeps track of how long he and Mayor Hill have been taking the subway together, and expects Hill to know his name just from that. Also, his employee/intern who brings him a stack of papers too slowly for his standards, because apparently a photocopier should only take “one minute and forty-nine seconds” on that particular stack. And then, the biggest one of all, when he expects Mayor Hill to immediately know the significance of the time 3:15. This is the time that Hill suggested Fugate go on his coffee break, indirectly leading to Fugate losing the court case, ruining his life and creating the Clock King. But this was seven years prior! If someone came up to you and went, “1:47!” would you have any idea what they were talking about? Sure, a lot of things have happened at 1:47, maybe even some significant things, but as far as what they are, most people probably do not keep track. Another theme that I noticed was the idea of hindsight. Have you ever been in a situation where you gave someone a mere suggestion, they willingly took it, and then when something happened to ruin it, they blame you and insist that they knew it was a bad idea? Right, of course in hindsight it’s easy to say that, but truth is, neither of you saw the consequences coming! On top of that, any bad things that happened were completely unrelated to what you suggested, and luck just did not happen to line up. Maybe if Fugate hadn’t gone on that coffee break at a different time than usual, something else would have happened (not to get Final Destination-y on you). Point is, Fugate is completely missing the mark by staying mad at Mayor Hill for that long, and it’s like the old saying goes, “Shit happens.” Ironically, for a man so precise and knowledgable when to comes to all things time and clock related, looking back in time without heavy distortion does not seem to be something he is capable of doing in this case.

The main thing I liked about this episode (as I think a lot of people did) was its incredibly cruel nature. Just how mean to a guy can the writers be? “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy”. That’s a Joker quote (taken from The Killing Joke), and it’s something I think about from time to time. I often wonder how much is between a rational brain and a completely irrational one. How much subconscious effort does being sane take? What’s keeping any of us from letting go and succumbing to the lunacy? Do our minds even work that way? Well, I sure as hell don’t know. And nobody worry, I’m not even the least bit afraid of snapping or anything, hahaha. It probably greatly varies from person to person as far as what would be enough to drive them crazy. In Temple Fugate’s case, it was a lot less than it would take for the majority of us. But this is hammered home by the drama of him being late to court. The bloody browns, dramatic shadows, and violent ticks of a clock do not necessarily represent how Fugate sees the situation, but they are there to represent how the situation affects him. If we were to be affected like him, this is how we would have to experience the situation. After all, everything is relative. This is juxtaposed brilliantly by the prior scene where birds are chirping and the sun is shining. Fugate seems like an alien trying to act casually as he struggles to relax for those few seconds. This is also more from our point of view than Fugate’s. These two scenes being back to back make us feel confused and baffled over our villain, all while allowing us to understand him completely. To me, understanding does not necessarily mean that something makes sense to us. Understanding is knowing the why. But, as an analogy, someone can tell me why they like the taste of zucchini. But that doesn’t make it any more clear to me those reasons can be enough for someone can like it. It just is what it is, and the bottom line is that all of our realities are different. For Temple Fugate, this is an unfortunate reality.

The producers of Batman set a goal of having a crazy set piece at the third act of every episode. They wanted it to aid in the excitement and to be memorable. I’m pretty sure not all episodes did this (it would become formulaic is abused), but this, along with Prophecy of Doom are the two that come to mind as demonstrators of this concept. Unfortunately, the animation lacks the spark that it needs. Luckily The Clock King wasn’t infected by Atom disease, and so the climax downright corny like Prophecy of Doom, and seeing the inside of the clock was neat, but… It wasn’t beyond just neat. I wish we got a bigger sense of scale, seeing further to the bottom of the clock, and maybe getting some better angles along with quicker action. I wanted a sense of height like what Mayor Hill was experiencing from the outside, as he was tied to the clock-hand. Plus just better fighting. It was such a tease of an action scene. I wanted to be at the edge of my seat, but feeling that way would require forcing it. And I just don’t have that kind of energy, man. Sunrise tried, they really did. The scene (and the whole episode in general) looks passable. But the blandness holds it back. It’s like eating the macaroni and cheese from my college. It’s mac and friggin’ cheese. So of course it’s going to be edible. Of course I’m going to like it. But where is the usual flavor? Where is the element that I usually am head-over-heels for? I can make vague comments about what it’s missing or what I would personally do to make it better. But probably the most firm statement I can really make is only, “Just do it better next time.”

I feel bad for people like this. We’ve all met them. They hold themselves (and others) to an impossibly high standard. Think about how much energy that must use.

The shock of Fugate hitting his coffee break at an odd time. She’s worked with him a long time. 

Batman’s idea of a nice, sunny day. As noted, it’s brighter on the Blu Ray. One of the scenes where the brightness adds to it. That tree is casting a shadow, but it almost looks like the clock is the one causing it...

The Blu Ray variant.

Great stuff! The tick of a clock gets louder and louder through the scene. 

“Then perhaps this will teach you to be on time for a change.” This line holds so much weight, as to someone like Fugate, it cements the idea that one moment of leniency was one too many.

This drawing could have been a little more grotesque, but not bad!

“I take it taxi-drivers are no longer required to obey traffic signs.”

I find it a little whacky that Bruce Wayne noticed trouble from way down on the streets.

Bruce going through that car was animated incredibly strangely. It looked like he entered the car, but then it looked like he emerged from behind it. But anyway, maybe this was a Superman homage? In one of the Superman movies, he walked through a car and emerged completely changed. Batman doesn’t have that amount of speed, so maybe this is kind of like his version of it. In the shadows, where he belongs. 

Wow, ugly screenshot. But see how odd it is to see Batman in the daylight?

Again, here is the Blu Ray version. And on a much better frame. 

Why he didn’t hurl the explosive directly at Batman is beyond me. He just kinda threw it into the distance. Maybe as a warning (much like Walter White vs Tuco for any Breaking Bad fans). 

See what I mean by blandness so far? A little more style would have gone a long way.

What an awful way to die this would be. Split in half by two hands of a giant clock. Imagine the impact this would have on Gotham if it had have worked. 

A few bits from inside the clock, including Fugate’s apparent death. But Batman doesn’t seem to think he’s gone... Some of these drawings of gears frankly suck. The line-work just isn’t there. This episode felt like a Twilight Zone episode, I’ve gotta say. I think it had to do with the personality of the villain along with some of the events that happened. Batman and Twilight Zone... Now there’s a crossover with possible potential...

Char’s grade: B Next time: Appointment in Crime Alley

Full episode list here!

[iceamericanoventi]

Love Will Find a Way, Well, Eventually : 2. In Between

“Where are you going?”

If it was inside Cartoon Network’s universe, everyone must be able to see the smoke fuming from both his nostrils and ears. Jinki looks beyond distressed when he’s lifting his ass from the chair. No one on the table was his partner, but Minho decided to throw some ridiculous question then played dumb as if he didn’t just ask one.

“Should I have number one here?”

He started getting irked, but that doesn’t stay long until Kibum casually munched his breadstick while spluttering his witty comments as usual, “Surely Taemin would be delightful.”

Taemin who didn’t do anything almost chocked himself with a piece of tomato and kicked Kibum’s shin under the table, eventually.

“Promise me you won’t run away?”

Dumbfounded, Jinki emptied his pocket and almost smashed the table with his belonging.

“Are you my husband? Here’s my wallet. And my phone!” and with that, he left the other three men finishing their meal.

“Is he always in this temper?”

Lee Taemin gave him another look, pleading him not to embarrass them further, but Kibum just shrugged and muttered ‘I’m just asking’ under his nose.

“He was mad with me since this afternoon. Plus, he has lots of stuffs to think about these days. But don’t worry, he never really got mad unless you disturb his nap.”

“What is he? A bear?”

“Yaa! Kim Kibum!”

Minho couldn’t help but laugh to the scene happened before his eyes. Taemin is famous for being friendly and very expressive only if you know him, even if he’s talkative. To penetrate his bubble is very hard at first, but this man sitting across him, he seems like he’s already inside that bubble since the very beginning. He really is someone closed to him. Kibum looks mesmerizing, even in his grumbling nature. The oversize sweater wrapped his lithe build perfectly.

A phone call arrived to Kibum's phone, he picked it up frantically and excused himself to take it outside.

"What do you think?"

“Eh?” Minho doesn’t even realized he got his eyes entailed Kibum’s silhouette until it disappear by the entrance door.

“You seemed in trance. I know Kibum is beautiful but I didn’t expect you’ll be this amazed with my friend,” Taemin’s sipping his wine, a smirk is very apparent in his devious face. 

“I guess it’s safe to say that you’re not a liar.”

Minho reopened his mouth few minutes after he’s assured that Kibum’s not going back any soon. Taemin is not ecstatic, sometimes he wondered if Minho has a decent sense of humor of a friend.

“For your information, I’m not and never been. I’m the most honest person you’ve ever encountered in your life.”

“Everyone in this room knows that’s not true.”

“Whatever. I might know my ways deceiving people, but I never lie to my friend.”

 “Did you just admit that you’re lying here and there, Lee Taemin?”

Taemin rolls his eyes, again, probably for the nth times already this evening. Without Jinki around, he can be more relaxed on throwing his tantrum on Minho.

“Choi Minho, people lies at some certain points of their life. Get over it.”

He gulped down the rest of his wine, Taemin then called a waiter near them to bring him another one.

“Kibum seems nice. He sounds smart.”

“Sounds? Did you even listen to yourself? No writer is not smart, Choi. Moreover, someone who’s been writing the past decade!”

“I only know him for one night. Who knows he’s just acting?”

“Dude, not everyone is an asshole like you.”

“An asshole wouldn’t agree to bring his best friend along in front of a psychopath like you.”

Taemin snorted and Minho’s smirk reappeared on his face.

“That is literally what a psycho would do, selling their friend for their own benefits.”

Minho wiped his mouth before washed down the dinner with cold water, “And that’s exactly what Jinki accused me for. You two shared a brain or what?”

“Any sane people would say the same, Honey,” this time Taemin’s smirk that made the other scoffed, “By the way, what’s the deal with Jinki? He looks like he’s been sitting on thorny cushion the whole dinner!”

Minho knows Taemin would ask such question eventually. However, he couldn’t say that Jinki hates the whole dinner date plan, it’s impossible. Besides that, knowing him for years, Jinki really is an angel in disguise, well, at least when he’s in the mood.

“People have different, what should I say, defense mechanism? And that’s how he is. What kind of person who talked nonstop during their first meeting, anyway?”

“Oh, I don’t know, me?”

“That’s why you’re a freak.”

“A freak who introduced you to your potentially next boyfriend.”

“Ha. Point taken,” Minho raised his hand to ask for the dessert, “Jinki is just not the type of person who will talk a lot and open up in a second. But I guarantee you, he’s a good person. Sometimes a little bit care too much for other at certain time so probably being brazen is his forte.”

“That reminds me of someone.”

Taemin and Kibum spent their high school days together. Separated for some years due to works and educations, their relationship’s all well maintained. They understand each other, including Kibum’s nature to always put others before him at any given situation.

“Appearance wise, though, what do you think about Jinki?”

“Choi Minho, I’m not a teenager anymore. Judging people around by its cover is no longer my habit.”

“But a designer like you must love a beautiful package, don’t they?”

“Well, to be honest, his lips and eyes itself could get me floored in one glance.”

“I knew it.”

“You’re a famous photographer for a reason.”

***

Cold wind slapped Kibum’s cheeks lightly when he pushed the door and parched to the corner near the valet post.

“Okay, now you can speak. Sorry, I don’t know why the reception wasn’t good enough inside.”

“Then I’ll be frankly here. There’s a possibility for making the special edition for the short story collection. But then, we’re still short of two stories at the moment.”

“Wait, wait, but we already have nine! I finished writing nine! Why should I add another two?”

“The publisher agreed to the preposition for at least twelve stories. You should be grateful I could pitch one less story!”

Kibum looks like he’s about to punch anyone passed within radius one meter around him, but nothing in reach besides a huge pot of short palm tree and concrete wall. And he needs his hand to finish his books still.

“But, Amber. Page wise, those are more than enough to make two new books. Are they out of their mind?”

There’s a loud groan banging on his ear drum came from the other line, “Dude, I almost flipped the table when I was at the meeting you have no idea. The board has new man and that guy is a pain in the ass.”

“Would it change the circumstance if I talked to them by myself?”

“Since when do they have time to talk to the writer directly? We’re head to head with bunch of snobs here, did you forget?”

“I should had not agree to let them touched my writings. Now we’re about to face dead end.”

It was a dream to work along this publisher. It was Kibum’s dream since he started writing when he took gap year after graduated high school. And as if it’s a fate, it was the only publisher agreed with his graphic novel concept five years he climbed his career professionally.

“Listen, Kibum. When I met you years ago, I promised I’ll work my ass hard to help you publishing your books. Not because I knew you, it’s because you’re good. You’re amazing writer and I’m not giving up easily. And neither you. Not when anybody can tell that you’re a gem.”

“I haven’t written any book since last year, Amber. I’m in a slump. Writer’s block is not even describing my bad luck at the moment.”

“Honey, you haven’t written any because you’re currently waiting two books released. And if I could do my magic, another one in, let’s say, six months.”

“If I could make up some words into another story within two weeks. If you could convince them to give me mercy.”

“Did you just know me yesterday?”

Kibum’s tired giving sane response, “What do you mean?”

“I’m waiting their secretary to call me in ten minutes. We’re going to discuss some new deals and I’ll make sure one of them is going to be your new nine stories book.”

“I actually have no idea if I don’t have you as my editor slash manager slash friend slash personal ranting partner slash whatever you want to be.”

“Rockstar. That would be cool.”

“You’re going to be a kick ass one to be honest.”

“I bet. Anyway, expect another call from me in the next couple hours. I’m sorry, but tonight we might need video call to resolve some issues.”

“I hate you for confiscating my time but you’re the best.”

“As always, ain’t I?”

The phone call ends already, but he still forlornly looking at his phone’s screen. With that, Kibum remembers all the works he needs to catch up for tonight. With that, he can put aside all the unnecessary anxiety and tension of tonight’s stupid match making session.

He took a glance of his watch and could only sighed, he better hurried inside to his dessert. The faster he finished, the sooner he can hit home and face the real deal. His deadlines.

Two steps away from the entrance however, he caught a familiar face sitting by themselves, staring to the busy street in front of the restaurant.

“Jinki?” he carefully calling the man, “Lee Jinki, right?”

The later tilted his head to the right and gave Kibum a simple smile, didn’t realize it dropped Kibum’s heart by the bottom of his gut.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Everyone would agree this winter is even harsher than last year’s. Jinki just lifted his left hand to make sure Kibum saw a cigarette slipped between his fingers, “Can I sit here?”

Jinki chuckles, “Aren’t you cold?”

Listening to the same question he threw a minute ago, he just rolled his eyes and took a place next to the other man.

“I’m waiting a phone call.”

“Important?”

“Kinda.”

Jinki blew some smoke out, “Hmm, I guess so. You sounded pretty upset over there.”

“Did I scream that loud?!”

“In my opinion? No. but a girl flinched and buzzed off rather hastily, so, you tell me.”

When he saw Kibum’s gaping like a fish in frantic expression, Jinki has no choices beside laughed again, surprising Kibum who’s quite convinced with his aloof personalities.

“I didn’t know you have so many jokes in store.”

“You learn something new every day.”

“Your face doesn’t show.”

“What about my face?”

“It’s handsome but with that attitude inside, seems like you’re the type who woke up at the wrong side of the bed every single morning and could kill someone annoys you at any time.”

“Well, to be fair, I did wake up in the wrong side of my bed this morning. But it’s because a certain dog occupied half of my blanket so I couldn’t disturb her.”

“You have a dog?!”

Kibum’s face lit up thousand times as if he just won some lottery. Strangely, it warms Jinki’s heart. No, scratch that, it would warm any heart, Jinki tried to generalize the situation.

“I don’t, unfortunately. She belongs to my friend. I’m taking care of her while he’s travelling abroad. Her father will pick her up this weekend.”

“Ah, too bad. We could have play date with my boys.”

“I’ll make sure to give you a call when I decided to adopt one later.”

“Do you think my invitation hasn’t expired yet by that time?”

“A man can only dream, can’t he?”

Kibum’s laughter is muffled by his own palm covering his mouth.

“Let’s go inside, you must be shivering.”

“But your cigarette?”

Kibum’s half stuttered caught red handed, Jinki already pressed the half-done cigarette on the sand bowl on his left, “I can always have another one at home. Besides, I doubt you would go inside without me dragging you along.”

Kibum thanked the universe that the place is not well lit, so he could hide the blush creeping his cheeks. Unfortunately, Jinki has a very good eye sight.

***

“Is my baby being a good girl when daddy’s away?”

Jinki scoffed when the man just entered his living room just literally threw his suitcase aside and scooped the little dachshund running toward his embrace. He gathered the suitcase and poor leather bag on the floor and placed it neatly near the saffron color couch.

The man later dropped himself next to Jinki who’s lounged himself there, checking his phone halfheartedly.

“Minho texted me the other day.”

“Why did he keep texting you?”

The man with dark grey hair didn’t catch the frown hanging on Jinki’s face and buried his face to the dog’s belly, making him groaned again. He lightly pushed the dog further and toppled his head on the other man’s laps.

The dog owner realized something’s happened when he’s not around. He put the dog on the ground and tapped her butt to send her back to her small bed near the pantry.

“Minho has my number and I have his name in my contact list. He can text me whenever he wants. Still jealous?”

Jinki closed his eyes when he started playing with his hair, “He’s still one of the reasons we broke up.”

“Baby, the only reason we broke up is because neither of us didn’t want to succumb into marriage. Minho was just a handsome face happened on the wrong time.”

“I have no idea why I still befriend him when it’s clear he wanted to shove his face to yours, all the damn time.”

“And I have no idea that you’re this type who holds the grudge for a long time. We were already out of relationship back then.”

“Still, a friend wouldn’t openly chase after their friend’s ex.”

“A friend wouldn’t, but a best friend would.”

“Whatever.”

He almost lost his control and slapped Jinki’s head of him, “Oh, come on. What’s bothering you this time?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. It’s written all over your face the second I saw you behind the door. And I’m pretty sure it’s not because my daughter misbehaved while I’m on my annual pediatric conference.”

Jinki sighed, nothing he could really hide it from the other man. Since they were in their almost five years relationship, since they became best friends around three years prior.

“Minho invited me for a dinner night.”

“Wow, fancy,” actually Minho already texted him about the dinner a bit, how he wanted to introduce Jinki to some acquaintance he has, “He gave up on me so he went for the only option?”

“For the record, your mom agreed that I’m way much sexier than you.”

“Three years ago, before your cheek bones buried under those mount of fluffy fat.”

“Said a man who came to me and straight ahead told me I looked cute after leaving a piece of paper with their number on my table.”

“I will put aside the fact that I love how romantic you’re for still remembering our first meeting but let’s back to the right path here because I don’t like the upset you. It’s fucking annoying.”

“He introduced me to someone, Jonghyun.”

He let out inaudible gasp and thanked the universe Jinki’s still closing his eyes. Otherwise, he would stop at once and avoided any discussion of the main reason which distressed his ex-boyfriend. Knowing the scenario before hands didn’t prevent him with the sheer pain graze him when it came from Jinki’s mouth himself.

“So? Isn’t that great? Do you think it’s about time?”

“I was about to argue that two years are still not enough to get over you but I guess you’re not in the same page with me so I’d say that I’m not interested into some relationship whatsoever at this point.”

Jonghyun wanted to cry listening to such words. His heart clenched, he inhaled – a very long one – before he continued caressing Jinki’s forehead.

“I am flattered, but I know you’re just teasing me.”

“Ha, you know me so well.”

“I’m not gonna fall on the same hole, Lee.”

“You won’t. You’re too smart to repeat the torture on the loop.”

“It wasn’t a torture, Jinki. I love you as much as you do. Or maybe just slightly more.”

“Not a chance. I love you more.”

“Stop it or I will kiss you.”

“I dare you.”

“I told you I’m not gonna fall on the same hole.”

“Smart, very smart,” Jinki opened his eyes only to find Jonghyun sticking his tongue out, “Okay, so at first, I don’t like the idea already. You know I hate any type of match making method. Even the online one. But being there, I realized that my current focus doesn’t involved other party besides me, my business, and—“

“And your grandfather?”

Jinki looks annoyed, “Remind me to add ‘always-cutting-people-sentence’ on the list of reasons why I broke up with you when I’m writing my journal tonight.”

“It’s true. I think he was also the cock blocker during our relationship back then.”

“Dude, we’re talking about my gramps. And to put him on the same category with Minho is beyond weird.”

“We already broke up when Minho made his move, for Pete’s sake!”

“Okay, okay! No need to raise your voice, you’re so scary when you’re angry.”

“Then don’t make me! Now, now, can you please be a normal human being so we can talk like adults for once?”

Jinki pulled himself from the couch to the pantry, snatching a pack of cigarette on the tea table before slipped one on the corner of his mouth.

“Can you not smoking inside?”

He snorted and padded to the direction of his balcony. It’s in the middle of winter but he doesn’t care a bit to the wind ready to slaughter his bones. If tomorrow the cold prevented him to leave the bed, then let it be. For once, he just wants to free his mind from the business.

“You need to remember that I can only treat patient on certain age,” Jonghyun followed few minutes after with a blanket he spread as wide as possible to cover both of them without feeling suffocated for standing too close.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends people be under pediatric care up to the age of 21, though.”

“Did you just quote Wikipedia? And we’re not in fucking States! Above and beyond, shame on your wrinkles!”

“Rude.”

“You’re the rude one to your lungs!”

“Then tell me how to ease my mind without nicotine! Tell me how to forget all those troubled night and just sleep! Do you think it’s easy taking care of worrisome business and messy family without distraction?! Stop talking non sense if you do know how to save my days!”

Any word seems taboo once Jinki exploded. Both man just staring into the dark evening below Jinki’s unit. People paraded as quickly as possible on the street to fight the harsh weather. It’s not that late, but only few cars passed by. The dim light of the street lamp’s soothing the tense atmosphere in a way.

Jonghyun leaned closer to Jinki’s arm and rested his head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you with that.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” 

“You know that you can always talk to me right?”

“I’m tired bothering you. You already have a lot in your hands.”

“Besides my patients and Roo, there’s nothing really confiscated my time.”

Having someone like Jonghyun who would stand next to him, scold him then hug him right after, no matter how awful he behaved and treated the other man, Jinki every so often thinking what kind of good deeds he did in his previous life.

Jinki cocked his head, inhaling the trace of scent of Jonghyun’s favorite shampoo. Initially, he was about to kiss the top of his head, like he used to do when the other man leaned on him for whatever reason it was. He remember, though, the earlier period after their broke up – after settling their feelings for few months of course – the shorter man told him not to do that anymore because it was the doctor’s Achilles heel. So instead, he rubs his cheek over the thick hair, silently telling Jonghyun he’s sorry.

Some nights – especially right after that dinner date – he had thought, maybe one of the reason he reprimands Minho’s idea is just because he still has tiny hope that Jonghyun and him might had another chance in the future.

“From time to time, I was thinking that the more day passed, we’re closer to the image of friends with benefit.”

“Friends with benefit? Tsk,” Jonghyun slapped his forearm, “The only benefit I got from you is you’re the only perfect nanny for Roo when I’m away.”

“Those cups of coffee every single time you stopped by my shop?”

“Pfft. How stingy. I’m leaving.”

“Heartless.”

Jonghyun didn’t say anything more and returned inside to gather his things and called Roo. He desperately needs some hot shower. Somewhere inside him, he was expecting Jinki offering him to stay the night knowing how caring the man and the fact Jinki knows he bolted to the other’s apartment right away after landed.  

When Jinki handed him the leash, that hope vanished in second.

“What if later I really considered this person? Or any other person collided with me on the future?”

Jonghyun smiled, he looks tired, but very sincere, “Then good.”

“Because I’m not gonna bother you anymore?”

“No. Because you’ll have someone to share the happiness with.”

***

cross-posted in my AFF

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: I Was in a D.C. Jail as Coronavirus Hit. Anytime Someone Coughed, You Were Concerned

Brent Jaffe, 33, was released from the Washington D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC) at the end of March after filing a motion citing concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus. Jaffe was most recently housed in the Central Treatment Facility (CTF), one of three D.C. correctional facilities, where he witnessed the DOC’s initial response to the pandemic, and the CTF’s first confirmed case.

While he remains under house arrest, Jaffe has maintained relationships with people still incarcerated and hopes to raise awareness of their concerns. There are now 180 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the D.C. DOC.

Caroline Brehman—CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

Every morning the news was on the TV in our cellblock. We were watching, but there was a sense of disconnect from the virus at first — like it wasn’t real or wasn’t really going on.

The first thing that made us take notice was when colleges sent all their kids home from campuses, and said they weren’t [reopening] after spring break. That’s when everyone was saying, dang, this corona thing’s real.

In my cellblock we’re pretty much out all day. [Corrections officers] unlock our cells at 9 o’clock in the morning and then, other than a period between 2:30 and 5 in the afternoon for count, we’re out until 10 p.m.. There’s about 50-plus people living in our unit — there’s no legitimate way to practice social distancing. So after the shock of what was going on started to wear off, there was a sense of fear. Anytime someone coughed, you were concerned about it.

The D.C. DOC did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment, though a “coronavirus prevention” page on the DOC’s website states that “the DOC is following guidance from DC Health and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to make health and safety decisions with regard preventing the spread of COVID-19 among staff and residents in its facilities”.

The page lists measures undertaken to prevent COVID-19 transmission, including screenings and quarantines, a cleaning regime, PPE provided for prison workers, and “a new bar of soap [provided to each inmate] every week, free of charge.”

I asked my lawyer to file a motion for my release on COVID-19 grounds. The judge was actually very receptive — it was very clear, in my opinion, [that he] was trying to get the government to agree to any options to get me out of jail. But the prosecutor said, “As soon as there’s a first case, we’ll be more inclined to let people out… As of right now, DOC has been doing an amazing job.”

Keep up to date on the growing threat to global health by signing up for our daily coronavirus newsletter.

Now at that point, it’s true there were no positive tests in the D.C. DOC. Of course, it’s also questionable how many people had been tested. And what were the incentives to tell someone you [were feeling sick]? So you can get locked in a cell 24 hours a day by yourself? You’d get put in confinement, basically in lockdown like you broke some sort of rule. That’s a disincentive to letting personnel know that you’re experiencing symptoms.

J. Lawler Duggan—The Washington Post/Getty ImagesMembers of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s entourage walk past an inmate’s cell as she tours D.C. Central Jail on September 14, 2015.

A few days after my hearing, a kitchen worker in my cell block came back from his shift early — he’d refused to work because he’d heard one of the other people in the kitchen had tested positive. He said that correctional officers had found out at roll call and told him that morning.

That same day, the judge issued an order releasing me on house arrest. So the D.C. DOC complied with reporting when the first case was confirmed, but the government was sitting there so adamantly arguing about what a great job they had done [at my hearing] when those people that tested positive three days later were probably already [infected]. And the judge was like, “There’s a 14-day incubation period. By the time the first person gets tested positive, it’s going to be a little bit too late.” But then, of course, he ended up not making his ruling that day either.

Now I hear friends and family complaining about being stuck inside, and I’m like, ‘O.K., I have the solution to your problem: Go get yourself a workout mat. Go lay it in your bathtub and live there for a couple of days, then let me know how nice it is to [move around] the rest of your house.’ And that’s not to mention the phone and the Internet and the comfortable bed.

At first, the only thing that DOC officials had done was implement a policy where they’d come over the loudspeaker every two hours and say, “It’s time to start your sanitation process.” But the sanitation process was a joke. There wasn’t access to proper chemicals.

When I was released, on March 26, nothing else had changed. At the beginning of the next week though, DOC officials started doing what they called a modified lockdown. Inmates are not on real lockdown, but for all purposes, they’re still spending 23 hours a day in their cell now.

Scott Olson—Getty ImagesA sign pleading for help hangs in a window at the Cook County jail complex in Chicago, Illinois on April 9, 2020.

I know of multiple people who have tested positive; I’ve talked with friends still inside and they say things are getting worse by the day. One told me that four people have been infected in their unit alone, and [that guards] brought one inmate back from quarantine without a mask and they still allowed her to rec with others. Some guards have apparently not been wearing masks either.

Another friend said [their unit] has been quarantined for two weeks due to an outbreak of the virus on the block — and that officers are afraid to work because people have been hospitalized. [They said] that it’s scary to be living in such close proximity to the virus.

I can only imagine how it feels being in there as things get worse and worse. It’s crazy to me that governors and prison officials who have the authority to release individuals under whatever laws are permitted aren’t [freeing more] at-risk people. You’ve got people dying.

I’m hoping that this pandemic will increase the speed of the criminal justice reform movement in the U.S. — the number of people that we incarcerate compared to other countries just doesn’t make sense. I think it will serve as a good way to humanize prisoners; compassionate releases, or older people that have long sentences, getting all these people out. I hope there will be a lot more positive attention as opposed to the negative connotations that usually go with [incarcerated people].

—As told to Josiah Bates.

Please send tips, leads, and stories from the frontlines to virus@time.com.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[margaretbeagle]

The Best Instagram Stories of 2019

Instagram Stories was one of the most dynamic social media channels in 2019. So much happened with Stories — from new developments with the product to strong returns on Stories ads and organic reach.

Over 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day.

I’m definitely among that group.

And at Buffer, Stories has been a major focus in 2019 as well. Within the Buffer product, we debuted Stories scheduling to help you plan and manage your Stories content, and we released advanced Stories analytics to help you know what’s working.

Not to mention, we had a ton of Stories podcast episodes in 2019, which you can find in our archives. 

So when it comes to picking some of the best Stories campaigns of 2019, we really have a lot of options. And it’s hard to choose. 

The Best Instagram Stories of 2019

We’ll run through a list of our favorites. If there are any favorites of yours that we missed, please do let us know by using #bufferpodcast on any social media channel.

Let’s get right to it then. 

1. Tastemade

Some of the best Instagram content is food content. And Stories is no exception! Especially the folks at Tastemade. 

Tastemade is a community of food, travel, and design lovers. Their website is chock full of beautiful food videos and shows. They do a great job translating it to their Instagram Stories. 

In particular, their “tap fast” format has been so fun to watch. 

That’s right. Many of the stories on the @tastemadeuk handle use “tap fast.” These Stories piece together dozens of photos in stop-motion fashion — each photo just a slight movement ahead of the previous. And then you are the one who animates all the images into a moving picture by tapping quickly from one Story to the next. 

Collectively, it makes a self-propelled stop-motion video of a biscuit baking or a cooking dunking. It’s awesome.   And it’s good for your Stories stats, too. There’s a ton of incentive to tap all the way through to see how the Story ends up.

2. Brooklinen

Along with food content, music is another big theme for the year. You’ve probably seen your friends and colleagues sharing what they’re listening to on Spotify. You can share your songs straight to Instagram Stories from your Spotify mobile app. 

Another way that brands have taken advantage of this is sharing playlists through Instagram Stories. 

Brooklinen, for instance, has a great series of playlists. They’ve even branded them with their own name: Brooklinen Beats. Each time Brooklinen shares a a playlist on Stories, they add a swipe up link that sends people to Spotify to listen. Brooklinen debuted a new playlist every week at the start of 2019, and they’ve saved all their playlists to their Stories highlights for people to check out anytime.

3. Burrow

Next up, one of the most creative Stories we saw this year came from the furniture brand Burrow. 

They basically created a coloring page for their audience to fill in.

Yeah, the set of Stories was called Dream Sofa. Burrow asked its followers to describe their dream sofa — it could be as wild and imaginative as they liked. Then Burrow provided the sofa template. Burrow shared a drawing of a couch — just the outline in black, on a white background. They posted this to the Burrow Stories, along with instructions on how their community could download the picture and add to it. Then people grabbed the template, added their own stickers and colors, and shared to their personal accounts. Burrow was able to re-share the Dream Sofa Stories back to the Burrow account.Talk about great community engagement and incredible user-generated content!

4. Potluck 

For our next top Instagram Story, we’re going back to the world of food. Cookware brand Potluck had a great campaign based on one of the neatest — albeit underutilized — features of Instagram Stories: custom AR filters. 

Potluck created its very own Instagram Stories filter called Yes Chef. The filter adds a chef hat and mustache to any faces in the photo. 

Many people in their community ended up using the filter on their photos and tagging Potluck in the Stories. The Potluck team was then able to reshare and collect these photos into their own Stories collection, which remains on their profile in their Stories highlights. 

Each time Potluck shares a new Yes Chef pic, they give a shout out and an @mention to the person who originally made the photo, another great way to build community support for the brand.

I thought it was also really neat how Potluck did a Story educating people on where to find the filter. Worked great for getting the word out about it!

5. Pattern Brands

Cookware brands really had some awesome Stories this year. Our next pick is from another cookware brand, or rather, from its parent company. 

Pattern Brands, which release Equal Parts cookware products this year, had a fantastic series of Stories content that told a really compelling brand story.

(Pattern is the brand featured in our new podcast series that follows the introduction of Pattern, going from nothing to a new product over the course of a few months. You can listen to this series by searching for Breaking Brand wherever you listen to podcasts.)

Pattern’s Instagram Stories campaign is quite simple in concept. They created wallpapers that their audience could download and use as phone backgrounds. We’ll share a couple examples in our show notes. They’re beautiful. 

And what’s particularly compelling about how they approached this is that they told a larger story: the backgrounds are watercolors in a soft, calming palette, designed to promote a sense of peace when you’re spending time on your phone. This is right in line with the brand story that Pattern is telling.

6. Allbirds

Allbirds does a great job of bridging the gap between product promotion and customer service. Allbirds uses some of its Stories to share answers to frequently asked questions about its products. 

This strategy is such a wonderful display of customer service and value. Allbirds takes these FAQ Stories and adds them to their Stories Highlights so the FAQ is always visible from their Instagram profile. This gives potential customers the chance to find answers to their questions quickly and easily, right from the profile page, without having to wait any time at all to hear back from an Allbirds person. 

7. Monica + Andy

Speaking of making great use of Stories highlights, Another Stories campaign we love is the way that brands have built out almost an entire library of content within their Stories. 

Take Monica + Andy, for instance. The kidswear brand runs its own podcast, and each podcast episode gets a shoutout on the brand’s Instagram Stories.

What’s particularly great is that each Story shoutout follows a similar template. There’s a photo of the podcast guest plus some nice typography and titles. What Monica + Andy do then is take these Stories and put them all into a Stories Highlights. When you tap on the Highlights, you can thumb through the entire podcast archive, one after the other, and all the images look great and on-brand.

8. Its Nice That

The online design magazine puts together a weekly newsletter to share on their Stories at the end of every week.

It’s a ton of great content, packaged perfectly for Instagram. Each story is its own slide, designed with a unique background and with strong headline copy. You swipe up to go to the Its Nice That website to read more. They’ll share about five to ten articles each week this way — the top content and news from the past few days in a very digestible format. 

9. Instagram Story templates

And then one final Stories trend that we really loved seeing this year was the rise of Instagram Story templates. We referenced this a bit earlier with Burrow’s cool example of the Dream Sofa.  2019 introduced a whole cottage industry of Story templates for brands. 

A Story template is simply an image with graphics and text that includes a number of blank spaces for people to fill in their answers. Picture a questionnaire or a mad lib. 

The Hopper blog listed a huge number of different options of ways to use these templates, many of which we saw on several brand accounts in 2019.The list includes: 

Trending topics, like a “follow Friday” template or a “Five Women who inspire me” on International Women’s Day

Current affairs, like sporting events, where you can run a guess the score template

and a personal favorite of mine — Fill-in-the blank emoji templates where you pick an emoji that describes, say, your current mood or the weather or what you did today

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Heather-Mae on Twitter

Dave on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

The Best Instagram Stories of 2019 published first on https://improfitninja.weebly.com/

[mariemary1]

The Best Instagram Stories of 2019

Instagram Stories was one of the most dynamic social media channels in 2019. So much happened with Stories — from new developments with the product to strong returns on Stories ads and organic reach.

Over 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day.

I’m definitely among that group.

And at Buffer, Stories has been a major focus in 2019 as well. Within the Buffer product, we debuted Stories scheduling to help you plan and manage your Stories content, and we released advanced Stories analytics to help you know what’s working.

Not to mention, we had a ton of Stories podcast episodes in 2019, which you can find in our archives. 

So when it comes to picking some of the best Stories campaigns of 2019, we really have a lot of options. And it’s hard to choose. 

The Best Instagram Stories of 2019

We’ll run through a list of our favorites. If there are any favorites of yours that we missed, please do let us know by using #bufferpodcast on any social media channel.

Let’s get right to it then. 

1. Tastemade

Some of the best Instagram content is food content. And Stories is no exception! Especially the folks at Tastemade. 

Tastemade is a community of food, travel, and design lovers. Their website is chock full of beautiful food videos and shows. They do a great job translating it to their Instagram Stories. 

In particular, their “tap fast” format has been so fun to watch. 

That’s right. Many of the stories on the @tastemadeuk handle use “tap fast.” These Stories piece together dozens of photos in stop-motion fashion — each photo just a slight movement ahead of the previous. And then you are the one who animates all the images into a moving picture by tapping quickly from one Story to the next. 

Collectively, it makes a self-propelled stop-motion video of a biscuit baking or a cooking dunking. It’s awesome.   And it’s good for your Stories stats, too. There’s a ton of incentive to tap all the way through to see how the Story ends up.

2. Brooklinen

Along with food content, music is another big theme for the year. You’ve probably seen your friends and colleagues sharing what they’re listening to on Spotify. You can share your songs straight to Instagram Stories from your Spotify mobile app. 

Another way that brands have taken advantage of this is sharing playlists through Instagram Stories. 

Brooklinen, for instance, has a great series of playlists. They’ve even branded them with their own name: Brooklinen Beats. Each time Brooklinen shares a a playlist on Stories, they add a swipe up link that sends people to Spotify to listen. Brooklinen debuted a new playlist every week at the start of 2019, and they’ve saved all their playlists to their Stories highlights for people to check out anytime.

3. Burrow

Next up, one of the most creative Stories we saw this year came from the furniture brand Burrow. 

They basically created a coloring page for their audience to fill in.

Yeah, the set of Stories was called Dream Sofa. Burrow asked its followers to describe their dream sofa — it could be as wild and imaginative as they liked. Then Burrow provided the sofa template. Burrow shared a drawing of a couch — just the outline in black, on a white background. They posted this to the Burrow Stories, along with instructions on how their community could download the picture and add to it. Then people grabbed the template, added their own stickers and colors, and shared to their personal accounts. Burrow was able to re-share the Dream Sofa Stories back to the Burrow account.Talk about great community engagement and incredible user-generated content!

4. Potluck 

For our next top Instagram Story, we’re going back to the world of food. Cookware brand Potluck had a great campaign based on one of the neatest — albeit underutilized — features of Instagram Stories: custom AR filters. 

Potluck created its very own Instagram Stories filter called Yes Chef. The filter adds a chef hat and mustache to any faces in the photo. 

Many people in their community ended up using the filter on their photos and tagging Potluck in the Stories. The Potluck team was then able to reshare and collect these photos into their own Stories collection, which remains on their profile in their Stories highlights. 

Each time Potluck shares a new Yes Chef pic, they give a shout out and an @mention to the person who originally made the photo, another great way to build community support for the brand.

I thought it was also really neat how Potluck did a Story educating people on where to find the filter. Worked great for getting the word out about it!

5. Pattern Brands

Cookware brands really had some awesome Stories this year. Our next pick is from another cookware brand, or rather, from its parent company. 

Pattern Brands, which release Equal Parts cookware products this year, had a fantastic series of Stories content that told a really compelling brand story.

(Pattern is the brand featured in our new podcast series that follows the introduction of Pattern, going from nothing to a new product over the course of a few months. You can listen to this series by searching for Breaking Brand wherever you listen to podcasts.)

Pattern’s Instagram Stories campaign is quite simple in concept. They created wallpapers that their audience could download and use as phone backgrounds. We’ll share a couple examples in our show notes. They’re beautiful. 

And what’s particularly compelling about how they approached this is that they told a larger story: the backgrounds are watercolors in a soft, calming palette, designed to promote a sense of peace when you’re spending time on your phone. This is right in line with the brand story that Pattern is telling.

6. Allbirds

Allbirds does a great job of bridging the gap between product promotion and customer service. Allbirds uses some of its Stories to share answers to frequently asked questions about its products. 

This strategy is such a wonderful display of customer service and value. Allbirds takes these FAQ Stories and adds them to their Stories Highlights so the FAQ is always visible from their Instagram profile. This gives potential customers the chance to find answers to their questions quickly and easily, right from the profile page, without having to wait any time at all to hear back from an Allbirds person. 

7. Monica + Andy

Speaking of making great use of Stories highlights, Another Stories campaign we love is the way that brands have built out almost an entire library of content within their Stories. 

Take Monica + Andy, for instance. The kidswear brand runs its own podcast, and each podcast episode gets a shoutout on the brand’s Instagram Stories.

What’s particularly great is that each Story shoutout follows a similar template. There’s a photo of the podcast guest plus some nice typography and titles. What Monica + Andy do then is take these Stories and put them all into a Stories Highlights. When you tap on the Highlights, you can thumb through the entire podcast archive, one after the other, and all the images look great and on-brand.

8. Its Nice That

The online design magazine puts together a weekly newsletter to share on their Stories at the end of every week.

It’s a ton of great content, packaged perfectly for Instagram. Each story is its own slide, designed with a unique background and with strong headline copy. You swipe up to go to the Its Nice That website to read more. They’ll share about five to ten articles each week this way — the top content and news from the past few days in a very digestible format. 

9. Instagram Story templates

And then one final Stories trend that we really loved seeing this year was the rise of Instagram Story templates. We referenced this a bit earlier with Burrow’s cool example of the Dream Sofa.  2019 introduced a whole cottage industry of Story templates for brands. 

A Story template is simply an image with graphics and text that includes a number of blank spaces for people to fill in their answers. Picture a questionnaire or a mad lib. 

The Hopper blog listed a huge number of different options of ways to use these templates, many of which we saw on several brand accounts in 2019.The list includes: 

Trending topics, like a “follow Friday” template or a “Five Women who inspire me” on International Women’s Day

Current affairs, like sporting events, where you can run a guess the score template

and a personal favorite of mine — Fill-in-the blank emoji templates where you pick an emoji that describes, say, your current mood or the weather or what you did today

How to say hello to us

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Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Thank The Best Instagram Stories of 2019 for first publishing this post.

[comicteaparty]

April 4th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on April 4th, 2019, from 5PM - 7PM PDT.  The chat focused on Kamikaze by Alan Tupper, Havana Nguyen, and Carrie Tupper; Edited by Rachelle Udell and D'Andrea Seabrook.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB START!

Good evening, everyone~! This week’s Thursday Book Club is officially beginning! Today we are discussing Kamikaze by lan Tupper, Havana Nguyen, and Carrie Tupper; Edited by Rachelle Udell and D'Andrea Seabrook~! (https://kamikazeanimated.com/comic/)

Remember that Thursday discussions are completely freeform! However, every 30 minutes I will drop in OPTIONAL discussion questions in case you’d like a bit of a prompt. If you miss out on one of these prompts, you can find them pinned for the chat’s duration. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is fun and respectfully appreciating the comic. All that said, let’s begin!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

my favorite scene so far is probably the huge long sequence that follows the bomb explosion and markesha is running away. i love just how real and down to earth that scene is. like markesha doesnt magically come to her destiny or just treat what happened is nbd after suddenly becoming a ninja. nope, shes runs, like a normal person would do regardless if they were a runner or not, and is pursued. everthing about this sequence really carried this tension. cause in this moment she was not some future superheroine. she was a young woman terrified for her life. and it just felt so relateable.

keii4ii

I have several favorite scenes. One of them is Markesha's confrontation with Franco. The intro to that scene is thick with tension; I love the juxtaposition with the radio/music and could see it play like a movie in my head! http://kamikazeanimated.com/comic/kamikaze/pg-2-gatekeeper/ Not to mention how it ends. It's the first time something works out right(ish) between Markesha and Orson. Due to the circumstances, the scene leaves a lot of distrust to be resolved, but it was nice to see that first step of working together. It struck a good balance of tension and a truce.

RebelVampire

another scene im particular to is that scene where markesha is standing on the rooftops debating whether she should work with orson or not. not only is it beautifully illustrated, but i really like the juxtaposition in the story. like showing her other opportunity leaving the city without her. cause once that caravan leaves, its really a no way out declaration. markesha is trapped whether she wants to or not.

i do love the franco scene for how it painted the world. cause in the opening sequence i was like, "come on this is the post apocalypse he seems the type to be packing a gun." and then boop, he pulled out a gun and i felt vindicated XD

but i just really appreciated how the character really acted in the worst way possible per expectation of the world

Carrie Tupper

I think this is the first time I've EVER heard any compliments toward Franco, period. xD

RebelVampire

i mean the dudes dead. so umm, no sense on spitting on his grave

Carrie Tupper

Fair enough, but I'm sure Markesha wouldn't mind.

RebelVampire

nobody should mind hes dead. especially the runner who originally was supposed to take the package. now theres a person who lucked the heck out.

Carrie Tupper

Ha, as Orson would say: "Indeed."

keii4ii

Also not exactly a scene, but one detail I really liked was the "fresh wild meat" store with the live rabbits. It's a nice nod to the rabbit... metaphor...? thingie, but I loved it for the little mundane worldbuilding bit it was.

Carrie Tupper

OMG YAY

I'm so glad you notices that Keii4ii!

noticed*

keii4ii

It helped that I saw such stores near me when I was growing up

Fried chicken places with live chickens in cages

Carrie Tupper

That whole bit was thrown is as a bit of a metaphoric way of saying, "Markesha's releasing the story into the world herself whether she realizes it or not."

RebelVampire

i appreciated too the subtle world building it did too. cause it both demonstrates in a small way how desperate everyone is for food while at the same time showing how theyve made everything work and are still able to operate somewhat the same as before

Carrie Tupper

I think it's interesting that y'all zeroed in on the tension/action bits. Most people tell me the parts they remember the most are those between Markesha and Toshi.

RebelVampire

i like seeing markesha and toshi interact, but at the same time theyre father and daughter. so at the end of the day theres probably gonna be love and hugs and theres kind of a safety net there where their relationship is concerned.

meanwhile everyone else is ready to put a bullet in markesha's head

minus like 3 people

keii4ii

I'm partial to child-parent conflicts so I've been more interested in Markesha's situation with her missing mom than with her dad.

RebelVampire

and one of those whose name is orson i dont trust

yeah i do like the tension between them regarding the mom. that definitely is a highlight since theyre both handled it so differently

keii4ii

Speaking of her mom.... that little problem they ran into with her DNA clearance thing (forgot what it's called/ what page it was on) is totally not suspicious at all, no sir.

RebelVampire

ill be more keen on their interactions later cause toshi was the one who really wanted markesha to take orson's job. but he also seems the most likely to go "wait shes doing what i didnt approve of that"

Carrie Tupper

Hahah "blacklisted bloodline"

RebelVampire

so that seems like a potential argument later

nah nobody did nothing at all

just a typo

never heard of the nin family

QUESTION 2. After avoiding it for a while, Markesha does agree to help Orson’s group. Do you think Markesha is finally settled on helping the group, or will she continue to panic and try to run for it? How do you think her first mission will go? Do you believe the first mission will help cement her motivations for helping Orson, or will it scare her away again? What do you think will happen when Markesha’s father finds out exactly what she’s doing for Orson? Further, do you think the Razors will figure out Orson covered for Markesha and was actually the one to deliver the bomb? If they do, what will they do to both Orson and Markesha? Finally, how do you think Markesha will mature and grow over the course of the story?

mathtans

I'll be here to comment shortly...

RebelVampire

hi math! take your time~!

Carrie Tupper

I think my personal fave scene is the one where Audrey and Orson butt heads in the 2nd episode. She's totally not down for this, thinks it's a bad idea, and I think it says a lot about Orson that he'll take that kind of talk around him. Like...he's not so iron fisted he won't hear someone drag his ideas for the desperate moves they are.

Hi, hi, Math!

keii4ii

Yeah, Orson never struck me as controlling, just really adamant

RebelVampire

orson is one of those characters where i dont know if i should love them or hate them. but like in the good tense way that keeps me on edge. hes this perfect blend of being a cool dude while at the same time kind of being a jerk.

mathtans

Only made it through the first two episodes, but of those, I think my fave scene is actually when Markesha rubs the rabbit talisman and leaves, and beat panel, and then Toshi does after she's gone. The sort of thing that you could have totally skipped over, but gave much more weight to his character early on, in my mind.(edited)

RebelVampire

yeah that was a beautiful pause

cause it really said so much about toshi in that moment

and just non verbally explained why he was so insistent she rub it

cause its more a thing for him and his heart

than it is for her

i want to believe that markesha's panicking is kind of done in the sense shes just gonna run forever. i think though in that first mission she's going to be moving forward on adrenaline and saying shit a lot to get through it. however, i think once orson is back he can explain things better, and that will cement in her desires more. that and i think shell see the opportunity as a way to improve toshi's life at the end and stick with it for that reason.

i 100% think when toshi finds out he wont be happy tho

and then theyll have that argument

where toshi is like how could you

and markesha is like "hey you pushed me into accepting his deal"

mathtans

Okay, more or less here, catching up on the start. I guess I went for the more traditional. Though the bit with the mother is kind of heartbreaking. Though at the same time inspirational what with how close Markesha's become with her dad. And I totally missed the metaphor of releasing the rabbits.

A couple runner-up scenes... right at the beginning, where the elevator opens and it's full of security guys by accident. I thought that was funny. Also, well played, setting up this guy as the main character and it's actually his team that are the key ones moving on.

Second runner up scene... welp, if you know me, you KNOW I'm shipping Kamikaze and Flare, so yeah.

Carrie Tupper

Yeah... I may or may not get a lot of people mad at me about Jackal...

Shipping already? Wow xD

mathtans

Mad at you? I thought it was clever. A way of showing no one's safe, in a way.

I go for all the yuri ships, hinted or not.

RebelVampire

i do miss jackal. the character well never really get to know. but nah, not mad. i mean this is the post apocalypse and you cant have post apocalypse without showing the world can be...unforgiving

plus it raises the stakes for orson

cause now everything is riding on markesha

but like

no pressure or anything there markesha

mathtans

As to Orson, here's a crazy theory. His "trial run" was actually to see if a bomb could be delivered fast enough to not explode in transit. He's in league with the bomber, presumably indirectly.

(Did we ever find out what that trial was about?)

Carrie Tupper

Hmmm, there's a flavor of that theory I haven't seen.

The trial run in the beginning?

mathtans

I prefer chocolate over vanilla. Right, that one, the one Markesha was 27 seconds late for.

Carrie Tupper

Yeah, there's a page where Link asks Orson how the "courier angle" went

RebelVampire

see, the way i feel about orson, i cant say no to that theory. orson is a shady dude even when im cheering for him.

Carrie Tupper

The idea there was that Orson was throwing a hail mary that a courier could be hired to do the job, but her parameters were a little high for untrained runners.

mathtans

But what was he couriering, eh? Secret bombs, maybe?

Rebel: It's true. The guy removed the evidence of his gun and everything.

Carrie Tupper

Orson's a professional, he's not perfect, but he's defintely been in the game for a loooong time.

mathtans

As to Rebel's questions, I think Markesha's instinct is to run. I was honestly inclined to smack her upside the head for disobeying her father the way she did, when he was making sense. Can kinda see her point of view, mind.

keii4ii

He knows his priorities. Gotta respect that even if I may not agree with him sometimes

Carrie Tupper

One of the hard realities Orson has to constantly deal with is the fact that he can't control everything in the outer city. Doing his jobs a lot easier when you can leverage everyone, but the chaos of Outer Trinity is almost a force of nature that he's just kinda...gotta make the best of.

mathtans

I think she's destined to grow though, from what we've seen in the special later storyline bits. (cough Shipping cough )

RebelVampire

i like that mix where orson cnt control everything yet gives off this attitude that sure he can, hes orson. gotta admire that confidence.

mathtans

Incidentally, real interesting format, what with giving some tidbits about the city or characters underneath the page. I didn't get a chance to read them all.

Carrie Tupper

Charisma seen from outer space

mathtans

Orson seems very sure of himself - and his coworkers. Probably why, as Carrie said, he can tolerate things like Audrey's challenges.

Handy trait given the position he's in.

RebelVampire

tbf its not like audrey's points are invalid anyway. shes making good points even if she chooses to express them very aggressively.

though between the three i like link the best cause hes a breathe of fresh air who brings sunshine and comedy to the bleak and serious world.

mathtans

She is. Though given she seems to be the one who needs to activate the kill switch, she's got a more personal stake.

Link spies on young girls though.

Carrie Tupper

That's a unique viewpoint, Rebel! We don't have many Link fans.

Are there any moments in particular you like with Link?

mathtans

If I had to pick a favourite character, it might be Toshi. Not just because he's a writer, but because he's doing his best under crazy circumstances. And doesn't let his blindness stop him. (Also, my God, all the pathos for the issue with his wife.)

biab, little one's fussing.

RebelVampire

i dont know whether to applaud toshi's dedication to his wife or not. cause i mean loyalty is an admirable quality, but theres also a point i agree with markesha and its time to smack him into realizing she probably isnt coming back.

as for favorite link moments, probably the scenes at markesha's house. especially where he critiques audrey for how strong shes coming on...and then proceeds to come on very strong. besides being funny, i think its a good moment that shows he does basically just kind of his own moral compass for better or for worse.

but i also really liked the dialogue sequence between him and audrey that markesha could here

cause it really showed the vulnerability everyone is in atm

QUESTION 3. Despite having to work for Orson, there are many questions surrounding Orson’s work. Who exactly are Audrey and Link, and how do you think they wound up working with Orson? Who exactly is Orson? What are Orson’s personal motivations for participating in the project? For that matter, why is Orson so hated and blamed for what happened to the Cornerstone family? What do you think happened to the Cornerstone family exactly, and how might it tie in to the story? Also, who is Orson’s boss? What are they trying to accomplish as far as changing the balance of power goes? How are they trying to accomplish it? Lastly, what do you think was in the canister seen at the beginning of the comic?

ShaRose49

Idk what to think about Orson, I can’t tell if he’s good or bad. Leaning more towards good though. My fav thing about this is that it looks like an animated series and the father-daughter relationship is a pretty good one and I feel like I don’t see that very often so kudos to you guys for that

Carrie Tupper

Thanks @ShaRose49

ShaRose49

No prob!

mathtans

Back briefly. I feel like Toshi not wanting to leave isn't simply due to his wife though. When you're blind, and living in a place, you kinda know where everything is. Having to leave would suuuck.

ShaRose49

It’s inspiring to me cause I’d like to be involved in animation as well someday

@mathtans I agree

RebelVampire

but not wanting to leave when your daughter is being hunted by the local gang is borderline insanity XD

ShaRose49

Oh yeah

mathtans

(I'm not at the bit where Link/Audrey go to Markesha yet, so no comment on that.)

Except dude was providing an alternative to that. Just saying.

Carrie Tupper

@mathtans You're quite right. It's complicated for Toshi. There's most DEFINITELY an edge of "I won't leave her," but there's also the complications of leaving in both a mental and physical way. He's lived there forever, had memories built with his family, and leaving means he'd have to re-learn layouts all over again. That can be stressful and painful for someone who can't see.

mathtans

As to the latest question, maybe Orson's boss is one of those people vying to fill the vacant seat at the council chambers.

RebelVampire

but toshi wouldnt even consider leaving till markesha super forced his hand. and to me thats the point where it reaches obsession cause hes willing to trust is some rando stranger and risk his daughters safety just on the .000001% chance his wife is coming back and because eww change. and while i empathize with toshi, that is a moment where i felt hes just being a bad dad. cause his own pain is more important than the life of his daughter

mathtans

And as to the canister, I'd say it had seeds or something, but it was apparently super heavy without the suit, so that doesn't jibe.

Rebel: Fair point about the stranger trust thing. But there were some logical arguments in there too. I guess there's layers of opinion.

biab again

keii4ii

I like Orson. He seems like he genuinely believes what he's doing is the best option for many in a crappy world, and accepts the shady aspects of it as a necessary price. There's a lot about him that's yet to be revealed, so maybe I won't agree with his endgame, but I still see an inherent value in that... belief in a non-self-centered goal.

ShaRose49

@Respheal yeah he’s definitely not perfect

Got some issues

RebelVampire

i definitely think hes a good guy and has a non-self centered goal. that being said, bending the rules can...corrupt your moral compass. so if at the end hes an antagonist, i would not be surprised

also wrong tag there @ShaRose49

XD

ShaRose49

Whoops!!

I musta slipped

My bad

Respheal

o_o

lol, s'ok

ShaRose49

Oh heeey, we were just talking about you!

Carrie Tupper

xD

ShaRose49

Accidentally!!

RebelVampire

seeds would make the most sense there where the cannister is concerned. as for the heaviness, well that couldve been more from the cannister itself than whats in the cannister.

keii4ii

I am very sorry because this is a terrible, terrible idea, but "if at the end he's an antagonist" just made me imagine him becoming a Final Boss a la that nanomachine boss from the Metal Gear Solid series.

Carrie Tupper

Oof. I gotta keep my mouth shut here, but y'all got some interesting ideas about Orson. xD

RebelVampire

maybe whats in the cannister are the secrets to weather control cause you never have to worry about the crops again if you can control the weather

mathtans

Back, mostly. That's a good take on Orson, keii4ii.

Incidentally, I notice we're only, like, 15 years from the "end of the world" as far as the story chronology seems to go. Yikes?

Carrie Tupper

15?

RebelVampire

its okay keii i pictured him in about 20 different video game boss forms when i said that XD

keii4ii

omg

Carrie Tupper

Just put glasses and a half vest on EVERY boss xD

mathtans

The tag line says "what happens when the world's first superheroine shows up two hundred years after the end of the world"... and I thought I saw a date marker of, like, 2227 somewhere.

(Someone's birth year? Mirage? I dunno.)

Carrie Tupper

Year is 2235

2235 - 200 years is 2035

mathtans

Okay, so wasn't totally imagining it. That means 200 years ago was, like, shortly in our future.

Carrie Tupper

Da

mathtans

We're in trouble.

Carrie Tupper

....Da

mathtans

Da da da daaaaa.

RebelVampire

tbf this is not the worst of post apocalypses

i mean there is some semblance of order

and cities

mathtans

There's still bureauocratic jerks too. That whole "you're blacklisted but hey, keep applying and giving us money" shakedown annoyed me. In the good way of clever writing because I can see it happening and they're jerks.

RebelVampire

yeah i really like in general political bs hasnt gone away. cause thats very true to life.

mathtans

Related, kudos on establishing that Logan guy in the council as a total waste of oxygen within, like, two panels (as he went off about girls asking for it). Get bent.

Carrie Tupper

Logan is basically every jerk I've ever known brought to life.

It's cathartic in a way.

RebelVampire

im gonna take a stab in the dark at orson's motivations. i think the cornerstones essentially got murdered in a mysterious raid that im sure no other high ranking family had anything to do with. and that for better or for worse, orson got blamed because someone always needs to be blamed. and orson blames himself but he also recognizes how the system is flawed. so he wants to change the power dynamics by changing hte food system or something. cause food does seem to be the controlling factor here.

mathtans

It's nice to have a clear villain character somewhere. The kind that's too moronic to actually take over the world though.

RebelVampire

maybe thats what logan wants you to think. that hes too dumb to do anything. when really he is the shadow puppet master

Carrie Tupper

Hmmm! All interesting ideas

mathtans

Rebel: That's a good theory. Maybe being the scapegoat also twisted his morals a bit, he figured I might as well do some of the shadier things like killing people.

Rebel: Logan could be a puppet, that's for sure. But not a master, unless the real master wants him to think so.

RebelVampire

you know who i dont trust? lionness heritage. if i had to pick anybody who ruined the cornerstones, itd be her.

Carrie Tupper

Oh? How come?

mathtans

Rebel: The fact that the world ended with "the Withering" implies to me that food is definitely a key element.

Carrie Tupper

Quite right, @mathtans

mathtans

Hm, don't think I've got to the lionness yet.

Carrie Tupper

She's a trip.

RebelVampire

because she seems smart enough to know how to politics and is so far the one most interested in changing the power structure. and just the way she offered the crop things in a backhanded blackmail way makes her rub me in all the wrong ways. like, she kind of gives me the same impression orson does. where shes doing good while also being shady af. but in her case her motives are way more self-interested, so the self-interested plus the shady are a dangerous combonation(edited)

Carrie Tupper

Makes sense.

RebelVampire

tbh i would not be surprised if she was orson's boss, but actually fooled orson into thinking she wanted to do good things for everyone.

mathtans

Oooh, interesting theory.

Carrie Tupper

She's not a person to trifle with

Constance will have to be careful.

RebelVampire

but i do like constance. i hope she and markesha meet and become the ultimate duo. the one who politics and the one who works in the shadows.

QUESTION 4. Besides the major plot points, there are quite a number of politics and world issues about. Who are the Outlanders, and why are they disliked? Assuming Markesha’s mother was an Outlander, how did she wind up with Markesha’s father? What do you think ultimately happened to Markesha’s mother? Do you think Markesha and her father will find out during the story? How might it affect them? Less personally tied to Markesha is what’s going on in Halo. Do you think Orson will get out of his captivity? If so, how will it come about? Will Lionness Wright take Cornerstone’s seat High House seat? What is Lionness’ Heritage interest in Lionness Wright taking it? At last, do you think there is a chance one of the Cornerstone’s lived?

Carrie Tupper

@mathtans I have to admit I hope you'll comment through the next bit of story. The team and I would very much enjoy seeing yours or anyone else's reactions in realtime

mathtans

(Is there more Kamikaze and Flare? )

Carrie Tupper

(It's coming I promise, but it'll be a bit!)

All very good questions you've posed @RebelVampire

RebelVampire

im hoping we get to learn more about the outlanders. cause i mean namewise, obviously they are ppl who live outside the city. but at the same time, they mention that yellow eyes are a trait. and you dont have a shared trait if youre just ppl outside the walls.

mathtans

I admit, I'm real bad with geography in real life. It's worse in fantasy novels and comics for me. I remember there were three gates. That's... kind of all I got.

Oh yeah, the eyes. Though not all Outlanders.

RebelVampire

i didnt study the geography that hard this time, admittedly.

maybe toshi met his wife via some writing work? like doing some journalistic investigation on the lives of outlanders

mathtans

Started looking at Episode 3. Clever way of having the storm info playing in the background. Reminds me of how Toshi was looking at the news to give us backstory in an earlier bit.

Carrie Tupper

The geography of the city is pretty basic, but for reference...

RebelVampire

oh thats nice they have a river

very smart

Carrie Tupper

For reference Markesha's mom = Cassie

mathtans

Markesha really likes jumping to conclusions, doesn't she. Also, selective memory.

RebelVampire

ok cassie. i knew shed been named but i couldnt remember it

Carrie Tupper

Hey many she just got kinda blown up give her a break xD

RebelVampire

to be fair markesha is i think 19? thats basically still a kid and that is kid-like behavior

Carrie Tupper

Yep, in the scene with Rio she said she turned 20 in a week.

Happy birthday~ Markesha

mathtans

Oh, I'm not faulting it. Just, perhaps especially as a teacher, I roll my eyes.

Carrie Tupper

One of the things I have to catch myself in a lot when reading anything is the memory of the character doesn't always match our own, especially if said character wasn't present at or had certain information communicated to them

mathtans

Also kind of impressive how every page has it's own title. That's attention to detail. (I do it, but that's only because they're all 4-panels.)

Carrie: Truth.

RebelVampire

maybe cassie was involved in some espionage. like maybe she married toshi just to have a cover so she could spy for outlanders. and then when her mission was done she left. or ya know, was viciously murdered. which i would be amazingly surprised if she was alive. i dont buy into the characters' hopes. i feel shes just been gone too long for it to have been anything else.

Carrie Tupper

lol, Alan and I beat our heads against the wall EVERY WEEK to make sure we haven't reused those titles. xD

mathtans

biab, little one fussing.

Carrie Tupper

Cassie's fate is at this point unknown to everyone, but I definitely know her fate and do my best to sprinkle it in

In fact there's a lot of things I sprinkle in through the series. Like the fact Julain shows up WAAAAAY before book 3.

RebelVampire

interesting

Carrie Tupper

https://i0.wp.com/kamikazeanimated.com/comic/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pg_05.jpg?w=900

mathtans

Back. Yeah, I have a text file of titles. If I think of one I'm not sure of, I simply do a search.

RebelVampire

omg thats such a sneaky appearance too

mathtans

Cassie was actually a time traveller!

Carrie Tupper

hahaha xD

RebelVampire

but also makes me picture on one page somewhere theres a hidden newspaper article that readers "many year long cold case of murdered woman in alley still not solved! read the story on page 4!"

mathtans

Damn. Nice foreshadow.

Carrie Tupper

Mmmmmaaaybe

One of my goals when writing this is to leave little things for return readers to find and enjoy

that way when they re-read they notice new things, and the experience is fresh in a different way

RebelVampire

thats always a good thing to have. especially when it things like that where you smack yourself in the forehead cause you didnt realize a character had already appeared before

mathtans

Yeah, that's awesome.

RebelVampire

off topic to that but like http://kamikazeanimated.com/comic/kamikaze/pg-1-moving-day/ how can anybody not like link after looking at this page? look at those beautiful and jovial expressions minus the adorable pout

Carrie Tupper

Orson's little sneer at the tablet being waved in his face always makes me smile

mathtans

Interesting about a panic switch, didn't expect that arrest. They didn't even read his rights.

Carrie Tupper

...y'all have a really positive view of the Trinity justice system

mathtans

I live in hope. The romantic in me.

RebelVampire

yeah i think thats math there. im even surprised they didnt just gun them down and go "whoops they slipped into my bullets"

mika

oh we're talking about something that i do not know

mathtans

Markesha staying in one place for calibration? Yeah, good luck with that.

Rebel: Point.

Carrie Tupper

Hiya mika!

RebelVampire

this is the channel for our thursday book club chat. were talking about kamikaze http://kamikazeanimated.com/comic/ @mika

especially orson. i for sure orson would get shot cause man is there a lot of hate for orson.

so really insofar

their treatment has been better than i expected

Carrie Tupper

That's fair

mika

oooo

mathtans

Orson looks really different without his glasses.

Carrie Tupper

I guess ultimately the HSF knows if they do anything to hurt Orson they'llhave to answer to the High House LEOs and...well

mathtans

He's got some pull still.

Carrie Tupper

I'm not sure who I'd want to answer to less in that situation

Fun note: The shot where we see the other inmates via Orson's view is directly related to how blurry people look w/o my glasses on.

mathtans

Okay, one last theory... the canister at the start held some of the "Withering" disease in storage, that people were studying. They want it in order to create a vaccine/cure, but others are fine with the world the way it is.

I am very with you on that. My prescription is high.

mika

im going to try reading it! im always looking for more webcomics to snatch

Carrie Tupper

I hope you'll enjoy it @mika and feel free to comment on the pages! The team loves chatting with our readers

mathtans

(Made it to the end of Act 1 atleast.)

Carrie Tupper

haha xD

mika

oof im guilty of not commenting enough

Carrie Tupper

Act 2 is insanely long, so I'm sure it won't take any time for you

RebelVampire

i really loved that blurry shot. as a glasses wearer, that is a detail so many comics do not capture. that yeah, without glasses, ppl cant bloody see that well.

Carrie Tupper

Yep. I also needed to establish that for later shenanigans

mathtans

(I'm actually a pretty slow reader. I'm also bad at keeping up with things. Even my own websites.)

RebelVampire

and the cannister containing a copy of the disease is interesting, math. although sounds extremely dangerous. like...jackal did not treat that cannister with enough care if thats whats in it XD

mathtans

I wonder if we'll get much from Toshi's point of view then. Could save the artist some time.

Carrie Tupper

omg right?

I have thought about having a dream sequence for Toshi

where all wee see are the 'sounds' he hears

mathtans

Jackal seemed pretty sure of himself and not inclined to listen to advice though.

(I wonder if that was a code name, like "Rabbit"?)

Carrie Tupper

It was.

mathtans

Well played.

Carrie Tupper

If you look at the "list of affiliations" on Orson's file that we did, you may find him hidden in the list

mathtans

Good job all around, as far as final words go. The amount of worldbuilding behind the scenes is damn impressive, you get the impression that it's only the tip of the iceberg being shown.

RebelVampire

that would definitely be an interesting experience. to see the world as toshi sees it, metaphorically speaking.

mathtans

(I'm baffled about how it could have been goofy in the conception, it's pretty serious now, I think.)

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB END!

Sadly, this wraps up this week’s Thursday Book Club chat for now. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and joining us! We want to give a special thank you to lan Tupper, Havana Nguyen, and Carrie Tupper; Edited by Rachelle Udell and D'Andrea Seabrook, as well, for making Kamikaze. If you liked the comic, make sure to support everyone’s efforts however you’re able to~!

Read and Comment: https://kamikazeanimated.com/comic/

Kamikaze’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamkamikaze%3E

Kamikaze’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/KamikazeComic/

Carrie's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mermaidshells

[carbonjen]

you are a fantastic author and I always love it when you open up your prompts! and if you're still taking them: dick is the author of a popular book (under a pen name, of course) and Jason is the book store clerk who unknowingly recommends dick's own book to him

I’ll admit, I feel like I’ve been depriving you guys of the JayDick prompt fills you really deserve so today, I decided to write something on the longer side. This was a really fun prompt and could easily become a 10k plus fic. 

Between the Lines

One of the best things about working at a bookstore was that sometimes, if Jason’s boss was feeling really nice that day, he would be able to read the new releases for his favorite series early. Selina, the owner, would close up shop and put Jason in charge of putting out the new books, and as soon as the displays were out, Jason would be curled up in his favorite chair in the break room reading the newest books before anyone else could. 

Selina was especially nice and let Jason read the next book in what was Jason, and apparently the rest of the world’s, new favorite series The Nightwing. Jason didn’t know how John Robins put out so many good books in a row. A series usually lost its steam, and if the series didn’t lose its steam, the author did. Somehow, John Robins knew exactly when to end the series and go on new adventures and the world ate it up. 

So many people, including Jason, wanted to know more about the man, but he was anonymous, only making the occasional post to his social media accounts. The closest thing he’d done to an interview was an AMA on a popular website, and the book world had practically exploded. John Robins behind a keyboard on social media was just as verbose, but he made puns, and jokes! Jason had read over the interview more times than he’d like to admit. 

It was a quiet day in Selina’s shop, there had been a little buzz over the past week when the new Nightwing book had come out. They’d had a small release party and had sold out of all their copies within a few days. The new stock had come in quickly and from what Jason knew, the publishers were working on printing a second edition of the book already. 

Jason was sitting behind the counter sipping tea and reading through one of the week’s new releases. The staff in the shop read through the new books that came out and liked posting little reviews of them on the shelves for the clients in the shop. While The Watermelon Killer was an interesting read, it wasn’t Jason’s favorite. 

“Is that one any good?” A smooth tenor voice asked. 

Jason startled and looked up. In front of him was a handsome stranger. They got attractive people in the shop pretty frequently and Jason had gotten his fair share of phone numbers, but this guy was something else. He had golden tanned skin and bright blue eyes framed by wavy black hair. His features were complimented by a fitted black peacoat and a blue scarf. 

“Uh,” Jason looked at the book. “It’s an interesting concept,” Jason said as he saved his page and set the book down. “But the execution proves that killing people with watermelons isn’t really all that practical.” 

“I haven’t read it yet,” the stranger said. “Does the killer use frozen watermelons at all or just fresh?”

Jason smiled. “You think he would use frozen if he was dropping them on people with the intent to kill them, but they’re all fresh so far.” Jason said. “If you’re looking for a good murder mystery, John Robins took a break between the Birds and Bats series and the Nightwing series and wrote a pretty good mystery novel. It’s probably one of the more popular ones in the shop. 

“Oh really,” the stranger smiled at him and Jason felt like he was missing out on something. “I’ll have to check it out then. What other recommendations do you have?” 

Jason hopped off the stool he was sitting on. “I can show you,” he offered, gesturing to the shop. Normally he wouldn’t do this, but Jason was willing to make an exception today. “We read and write recommendations a couple of times a week,” Jason said as he pointed to the piece of paper on the shelf with the hand written note. There were small notes with reviews from the staff all over the shelves. “What genre are you looking for?”

“Hmm,” the stranger put a hand on his chin. “Fiction.”

“What type of fiction?”

“How about your favorites,” the stranger suggested. 

Jason led the man on a tour of the shop, pointing out his favorite books along with some of the worse ones he’d read. The guy had read a few of the things Jason pointed to, but he also started collecting a small pile in his arms.

“Okay,” the stranger said. “Last question, I promise. What’s your favorite release this month?”

“The new John Robins book,” Jason said. “Hands down. The guy consistently writes really fresh, new stuff, without it being bad. He knows how to write a story, and he knows how to write books,” Jason said. “Which believe me, they’re two different things.” 

“Okay,” the stranger said as he picked up one of the copies that was on display near the register. He put it on top and Jason started scanning the books. “What was your name again?”

“Jason,” he said with a smile. “Jason Todd.”

“Nice to meet you, Jason Todd,” the stranger said. “I’m Dick Grayson.” 

They stood in comfortable silence while Jason finished scanning the books that Dick was burying.

“So,” Dick said when he swiped his credit card. “Would you want to go out sometime?”

Jason looked up and he couldn’t help the smile on his face. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Dick slid his phone across the counter and Jason put his contact information in while the credit card machine processed the purchase. Dick sent Jason a text and he smiled when he heard his phone buzz under the counter.

“I’ll text you!” Dick said as he took his bag and walked out of the store. Jason watched him as he left. Dick had long legs, clad in dark blue denim, and he looked almost as good from behind as he did from the front. 

-

“You were right about the whole cat motif,” Dick said as he sipped at his coffee. It was their second time meeting up to talk about books. The first time, they’d gone to lunch and their discussion had gone on for so long that the manager had politely asked them to leave while they prepared for dinner. Jason and Dick had laughed and gone out for coffee immediately after. 

“I know,” Jason said. “Sometimes it’s a bit much with the cat meowing, but I think it was an interesting way to show that someone was about to die. I wish it had been more subtle though.”

“I actually read something once,” Dick said. “Where characters drank water right before they died. It was a more aquatic themed novel though so everything water related was a symbol for something.”

“Wait,” Jason asked. “Was it Flow?” 

“Yeah!” Dick smiled. “I probably read that one three times and I found something new every time. I don’t know how the author packed so much imagery into one book without it feeling overloaded.”

Jason liked his dates with Dick, they talked about everything under the sun, but the book discussions they had were always great. Dick was so expressive when he got excited about something he’d read. Sometimes they went in depth about their favorite parts of a book, and other times, they both laughed over the terrible things they’d both read too. 

“Okay,” Dick said after a few hours. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Want continue this and get some dinner?”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “That sounds great.” 

They decided to go to a local place that bragged they had the best burgers in Gotham. While they walked, Dick’s fingers brushed Jason’s on occasion and Jason took Dick’s hand in his own. Throughout the rest of the night, the casual touches continued, Dick’s fingers brushing his, an ankle brushing under the table, and Dick was looking at him with softer glances than before. 

They left the restaurant and started walking down the street. “This was fun,” Jason said. 

“Yeah,” Dick agreed. “I almost don’t want it to end.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Jason replied, voice soft. Dick looked up at him. 

“Can I try something?” Dick asked. 

“Yeah,” Jason replied as they stopped walking. Dick cupped Jason’s face with his hands and closed the distance between them. Jason’s eyes slipped shut as their mouths slotted together, one kiss turning into two, which turned into three and then blurred into something else before they both pulled away. 

“My place is just a few blocks from here,” Dick offered. 

Dick was just as expressive and passionate in bed as he was about the books he and Jason talked about. His body was tight and beautiful and they whispered sweet compliments to each other as their bodies connected. Jason had fucked people before, but with Dick it felt like something else entirely. 

“That was amazing,” Dick said. His body had a sheen of sweat that made him glow in the faint lighting in the room. 

“Yeah,” Jason agreed. “The thing you did with your…that was incredible, Dick.”

Dick laughed. “Thanks,” he said with a smile on his face. He pressed a kiss to Jason’s lips and they got lost in their bodies again.  

The next morning, Jason woke up and he smiled when he saw the warm body next to him. Dick’s face was slack with sleep, still beautiful even though his hair was sticking up and his mouth was open. Jason pressed a kiss to his forehead and made his way to the bookshelf that lined one of the walls of Dick’s bedroom. He looked over it and he saw a box in the corner that was partially open. Jason knew better than to snoop, he really did. 

He looked over his shoulder and nudged the cardboard over a bit to look inside. He was met with several new copies of the new John Robins novel, all in different languages. On top of the pile was a note that said, “world famous!” and Jason looked back over his shoulder. 

This didn’t mean. Did it? Jason got back in bed, pulling Dick into his arms and going back to sleep for a few more hours. 

Later, while he was making them breakfast and Dick was checking the news on his tablet, Jason couldn’t bear the weight of what he’d seen any longer. 

“Hey Dick?” He asked as he turned around. 

“Yeah?” Dick asked without looking up from the tablet. 

“This is going to sound weird, but why do you have a box full of international copies of the new John Robins novel?”

Dick looked up at him with wide eyes. “I uh..I was…”

“Oh my god,” Jason said. “You’re John Robins, aren’t you?”

Dick smiled awkwardly, shifting in his chair. “Guilty?”

“When were you going to tell me?” Jason asked. 

Dick shrugged. “I wanted to make sure we were serious first,” Dick told him. “I can’t tell every person I date I’m John Robins otherwise the whole anonymity thing will be ruined.”

“So are we?” Jason asked. 

“Serious?” Dick asked. He pushed his tablet aside. “I’d like us to be if that’s what you want, but I don’t want to put any pressure on you. And because you know about John Robins, you’ll have to sign and NDA and I didn’t want you to think I was being an asshole about it because I trust you, but the publisher is-”

Jason cut Dick off with a kiss, smiling when he heard the little yelp Dick made. They kissed until the smell of burning pancakes caused Jason to jump and run over to the stove, scraping the burnt one into the trash. 

“You know I was always wondering why you never talked about the John Robins novels with me,” Jason said as he plated the pancakes. 

“Really?” Dick asked.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “I thought you didn’t like them but you were afraid to tell me.” 

“It feels a bit weird talking about your own book like that.” Dick said. “Trust me, it’s so…odd.”

Jason put the dishes in the sink and sipped at his tea. 

“So,” Jason asked as he put a plate in front of Dick. “Does Brendan Cross make it out of the jungle alive?”

Dick grinned. “I don’t know. I guess, you’ll have to wait and see.”

“Tease,” Jason said as he sat down next to Dick and put syrup on his own pancakes. 

“That’s what writers do best you know.” 

“Oh yeah,” Jason said with a grin. “I noticed last night.”

Dick blushed and slapped his arm, but the smile on his face said it all. 

A few months later, John Robins released a romance novel that shot to the top of the best seller list. 

[buckygirl-fanfiction]

Sparks Chapter 5

Pairing: Bucky(POV) X Reader(POV) ft. other members of the avengers team

Word Count: 3.6K 

Summary: y/n goes clubbing with the girls and after viewing her snapchat story Bucky spots Hydra agents lurking. Bucky goes to y/n’s apartment to warn her. He brings her back to the tower and she spends the night at his apartment. They casually share a bed and Bucky has a night terror episode which he is embarrassed/ashamed about. y/n on the other hand isn’t scared or disgusted by her friends night terror. Their friendship gets stronger and Bucky starts to face new feelings about y/n.

A/N: This is a story about two people building a great friendship and then slowly falling in love. y/n is a strong, independent, and smart scientist. She meets Bucky when she wakes him up from cryo sleep and they become friends. This is going to have all the angst / best friends falling in love / fluff / drama / & eventual smut ;) that I can possibly fit in it. This fic is going to be looong! So far my document is like 66 pages. So editing is hard If you catch any grammatical or formatting errors let me know.

August 28, 2015

Bucky’s POV

It’s been almost 2 months since the incident and y/n told me she’s finally healed up enough to take me up on my offer to spar. We have been going out on morning runs for about three weeks now all orchestrated by Steve who is now my ex-running partner. I think the man is secretly very happy that i’m being more outgoing than I was 3 months ago when I first woke up. y/n is good for the soul. I think everyone could use a friend like her. She’s genuinely kind-hearted to everyone and never boring. Despite her kindness, the girl is surprisingly strong. She wasn’t kidding when she said she could kick ass. Which she is proving to me right now. We are at the gym in the tower on a mat. Her leg comes around and before I can move she knocks me to the ground. I do have to admit even though i’m going easy on her she’s knocked me down a couple more times than i’d like to admit to. She stands over me offering me a hand.

“Not bad y/n,” I say.

“Not bad? I was awesome,” she replies. She’s quick i’ve got to give her that.

“Again?” I ask.

“Eh, I’m getting kind of tired,” plus I have to be in the lab in like 20 minutes. She says checking her watch.

“Alright, we still on for our run tomorrow?” I ask.

“Yeah, but it’s saturday and I may be hung over so can we go at like 12 instead of 10?” She asks.

“Hung over?” I ask curiously?

“Yeah i’m going clubbing with some of the girls,” she says. “I would invite you but it’s strictly a girls night and I don’t think I can sneak you in. Well maybe if you curled your hair and I did your makeup” She says jokingly.

“As fun as that sounds, i’ll pass.” I say. We say our goodbyes and part ways as I watch y/n walk to the locker rooms to shower before going up to work. We’ve gotten a lot closer during our time together and i’m really starting to consider her a close friend.

…

Its around 1am and i’m in my room looking through my phone. I open the snapchat app that y/n introduced me to and go through her story. It’s a bunch of selfies of her, Wanda, Nat, Cho and a couple other girls I don’t know. y/n seems lively as ever and about 10 times drunker than usual. She also posted videos of her in the club dancing with flashing lights going off around her. I watch her entire story when I spot something out of place. I almost didn’t see it. It was just a glimpse and I had to replay her entire story again just to make sure. She’s in a crowded club surrounded by people sitting on a bar stool taking shots. Behind her in the distance in a very grainy video clip is a man. A very familiar looking man that I recognize. At first glance he seems like any other guy at a club wearing a blazer. But I knew him very well during my days at hydra, or at least I knew of him. I crossed paths with him in the late 90s. He was a headhunter of sorts. Hydra used to contract him out on recon missions to gather intel from high level government agents. His information gathering techniques weren’t as nice as simple question and answer time. It doesn’t take long to fill in the blanks. Wanda and Nat are high level field agents no way he’d go after them, plus going after them would involve infiltrating the tower which he can’t do. The other girls in the group are civilians, he wouldn’t care about them. Cho and y/n are the most likely targets. Working in the labs they would be the ones with the most information. I check the timestamp on the video and it was posted an hour ago. I quickly put out a SOS and the first person to arrive back at the tower is Tony. I explain the situation Tony does his usual tech stuff to run through video camera footage at and around the area of the club. I try to get any of the girls on their phones and fail. y/n’s phone keeps going to voicemail and so does Wanda’s while Nat and Cho don’t answer. y/n can take care of herself I know that, but Cho. Not to mention y/n’s probably off her game from the drinking which leads me to run through some scary possibilities facing both of them. Tony is tapping away at a keyboard along with two other agents on call tonight. After about twenty minutes of failure to contact them, Steve walks into the large security room with Nat and Wanda and says, “I found them, they just got back.”

“Whats going on?” Nat says.

“You had a tail tonight,” Tony says explaining the entire situation to them.

“Where is Cho and y/n?” I ask.

“Uh, they both got in an uber to go home,” Wanda says. “y/n’s phone died she caught a ride with Cho.”

Steve and I looked at each other, “You get y/n, i’ll get Cho,” Steve says. I run out to the garage and get on my motorbike speeding through the streets to y/n’s apartment. I’ve been there bored twice it’s not far just a 3 minute ride. I don’t want to draw attention to myself so I park a couple buildings away and check my surroundings. If he’s going after y/n I don’t want to spook him away. I want to catch him now and take him in. I stealthly make my way up y/n’s fire escape, she’s on the 7th floor. I slowly and quietly open a window and go through it. I’m in her bedroom it’s empty. Maybe she’s not home yet. Then I hear someone walking towards the room. It’s a woman’s steps, I hear the clicking of her heels. It’s dark in her room and i’m still standing by the window right next to the door.

y/n’s POV

I’m really tipsy and i’m praying I make it to my bed without falling. I throw the key on the table by the door and lock my door. I wobble towards my bedroom. Unzipping the back of my dress as I walk. Its tight and uncomfortable but man did I look good tonight. But i’m too lazy to take it off now. So, I settle for just unzipping the back. I walk into my bedroom and make my way to the bed. Wait something’s not right. Then I realize there’s a figure standing next to my window blocking some of the moonlight.

Bucky’s POV

y/n doesn’t see me at first but then she does and she’s quick even when she’s drunk and she turns around throwing a hard blow to my neck. Ouch. I reach back around her grabbing her arm and shoulder. I wrap my arm around her pulling her back towards me. I quickly cover her mouth with my hand. Her back is pressed to my front and I can feel that the back of her dress is unzipped. I whisper, “it’s me, Bucky.” Before she can say anything we hear another noise coming from the kitchen a clang, someone’s knocked something over. She stops moving for a second. “I think someone's in here with you, we think he followed you.” My hand is still over y/n’s mouth and she mumbles against it. “Shh” I say in response. I see a shadow moving towards the door and I get ready to attack. y/n paws at my hand and the entirely dramatic moment ends in a white cat walking through the bedroom door looking up at us with a meow and then proceeding to walk past us towards y/n’s bed. y/n pushes off me and I release the hand over her mouth.

“What the fuck Bucky the only person who's in here is you,” she says glaring at me in the dark. I walk over and turn the lights on. I walk through the apartment double checking to make sure no one else is in here. “Bucky!” she says following me.

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” I say the only two times i’d come around here I didn’t notice a cat.

“I don’t it’s my neighbors she visits sometimes,” y/n says still glaring at me. “Why the fuck are you here? You scared the daylights out of me.”

y/n’s POV

“Cho,” he says before pulling out his phone and dialing someone. “He’s not here, did you get to Cho’s?” I walk over to him and rest my head along side his to hear who he was talking to on the phone. In heels i’m almost as tall as he is. I can faintly hear what sounds like Steve’s voice on the other side of the line.

“We intercepted her Uber before she got home, I picked her up right now. She’s safe.” Something happened to Cho? No, I think to myself. Well she’s with Steve now. What was going on? My brain felt fuzzy and my eyes were tired. I was leaning my head against Bucky’s right hand where he was holding the phone to his ear. I was trying to better hear what was going on, on the other side of the line.

“Okay, good i’m with y/n now. I’ll meet you back at the tower.” Bucky says before hanging up. He turns towards me and our faces are millimeters apart, I look up at him and he says, “you smell like vodka.” I smack him right on the back of his head with my palm. “Ouch, what was that for?” he says with puppy dog eyes.

“Of course I smell like vodka I’ve been drinking it all night. Now tell me what’s going on.” I say.

“I promise I’ll tell you everything once we are back at the tower,” he says looking around. “No first go pack a bag you’re going to need it.”

“No,” I say taking a stand, well a metaphorical stand because I don’t think my legs can hold out any longer so I take a seat on the sofa. “tell me whats going on,” I demand.

“Fine I’ll do it for you,” he says making his way to the bedroom. I’m way to out of it to follow him and try to stop him. So I narrow my eyes at him and steadily hold my position on the sofa.

Bucky’s POV

I walk into her bedroom, the white cat is still comfortably situated on her bedspread. I open her closet and find a tan backpack and grab it. I grab along with it some jeans and a couple t-shirts. I walk to her dresser and find her interesting lingerie collection. No time for comments, I chide my thoughts and shove some undies into the bag along with a couple bras. I walk over to her bathroom grab her toothbrush. I walk back out to the living room put her laptop into the bag and her chargers and zip it up. Her eyes on burning holes into me as I toss her the bag. “Come on let’s go,” I say.

“I’m not moving till you tell me what’s going on. What happened to Cho?” She says. She looks tired but still amazing, I haven’t seen her this dolled up since… well ever. She looks a lot different than the y/n I see everyday.

“You’re stubborn when you’re drunk,” I say. She answers me with silence. I sit down across from her on the wooden coffee table and put my hands on the side of her knees. “We, the team and I, think someone followed you to the club. Some I know from my Hydra days. It was only reasonable to assume he was after either you or Cho. Now come with me back to the tower before we have a nasty run in with a superspy headhunter and i’ll explain everything to you in detail.”

She gets up and turns around, “zip me up.” I zip up her dress and she turns back around facing me, “thanks.” She sighs and then leans over grabs the backpack and puts it on. She walks over to the door slipping her heels off and slipping on a pair of sneakers. “Let’s go,” she says grabbing her keys and phone off the table. I follow her out. Down the stairs and out to my bike. Crap my bike, I realize I should have brought my car. A motorcycle ride with a drunk girl not a good idea. Almost as if she can read my mind she says, “I’ll be fine, i’ll just… I don’t know close my eyes.” I get on and she gets on behind me wrapping her arms around my chest tightly. It’s only a short 3 minutes ride and we are in the garage.

y/n’s POV

It’s a short ride but it still scrambled my brain about 10 times more on top of the being woozy already from drinking. The bike slowly comes to a stop and my body is still pressed flush against Bucky and i’m fighting the urge to throw up. My cheek feels cool resting against his leather jacket. We sit there in silence for about 2 more minutes like this.

“y/n,” he says. “Are you okay?”

“Mmmmm,” I moan slowly peeling myself off his back and getting off the bike. The urge to barf has subsided but my head's still spinning.

“Want me to carry you?” he says. I can’t tell if he is teasing or genuinely concerned.

Either way I say, “No, I am perfectly capable of walking thank you,” and make my way towards the elevators slowly. We ride up to the security floor and find Nat, Wanda, Steve and Tony all scanning through security footage and a equally hungover Cho sitting on a chair staring up at the ceiling. I walk towards her and take a seat next to her. “You okay?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says weakly. Tony explains the situation so far. Agents are out at both our appartments keeping an eye out to see if any sketchy figures show and Tony is trying to trace the Hydra agents footsteps from the club through security footage. I honestly stopped caring what was happening after I saw Cho was okay but I do my best to listen to the progress reports. About a hour later Wanda and Cho leave to go to crash in her room. Whilst Steve is hot on the trail of the Hydra agent with Nat. Somehow no matter how much Nat drinks she’s still at the top of her game. Tony’s facial recognition program picked up the Hydra agent, known as Maddox, running a red light about 20 minutes away from here. Nat and Steve went to investigate while Tony runs point from the security room. I want to know what’s happening so despite Wanda’s offer to stay with her I volunteer to stay in the security room to keep myself updated. Around 40 minutes in I’m sound asleep, my head against a desk.

Bucky’s POV

It’s almost 4am and Steve and Nat just called it quits on tracking Maddox the man was good, definitely good enough to avoid security cameras. y/n was sound asleep on a security desk when Tony called Steve and Nat back in from the field.

“Looks like she’s out,” Tony said pointing to y/n.

“Yeah, i’ll get her to bed,” I say. I grab the backpack she dropped and put it over my shoulder. I walk over to y/n and slowly and carefully lift her up from the chair she’s on. I walk towards the elevator and make sure not to wake her as I carry her. But halfway through the ride wakes up and squints her eyes at me.

“Put me down,” she says in a dry voice. She strong and she's stubborn and in the couple weeks i’ve known her i’ve come to realize she hates looking weak. Even if that means accepting help from others.

“No, sometimes you have to accept the fact that you need help y/n. You can’t do everything alone.” I say.

“You’re one to talk,” she mumbles back. I walk to my apartment and sit her down on my bed.

“I’ll take the sofa,” I say making my way to the door.

“Don’t be such a baby, we are two grown adults. We can share a bed Buck,” she says. If it wasn’t so dark i’d say she was rolling her eyes. She slips off her shoes and digs through her backpack. “You forgot to pack pajamas,” she says.

“Would this work?” I say walking over to my nightstand and tossing her one of my grey t-shirts.

She grabs it and says, “turn around,” I hear the distinct sound of her unzipping her dress and tossing it on the floor. Then I hear the sound of my covers. “Okay you’re good,” she says. She’s cuddled up on the right side of my bed and I don’t have the heart to tell her that the right side is usually where I sleep so I just take the left. She drifts off before me and i’m left facing new emotions that I don’t think I’m ready to face. So I put them away and bury them deep down.

y/n’s POV

I hear a pained moan that pulls me out of my sleep. I look at the bedside clock but it’s not there. What? Wait i’m not in my bed. The events of last night come back to me and then I turn to see Bucky covered in sweat tossing in his sleep mumbling something. I rub my eyes and reach over to shake him awake. I barely touch him before he grabs my wrist and pins it down above my head. He is awake, or not I don’t know. But his eyes are open and they are frantically staring down at me filled with fear. He’s half on top of me and he’s heavy. I almost knee him but then I stop myself and realize he is probably having some sort of night terror. Instead I talk him out of it, “Bucky, wake up” I whisper. “It’s me y/n,” slowly he snaps out of his episode and recognition fills his eyes. Then what can only be described as once again fear.

“Shit, i’m so sorry y/n,” he begins what I can tell is going to be a very long winded apology and I’m just way to sleepy to hear it.

Instead I say, “Can you get me some water?” He jumps up and in a few seconds he is back with a glass of water, which i’m very grateful for. I drink the entire thing and set the glass on the nightstand. I look across the room to find a clock which reads 6.54am. I look back up in the dark to find Bucky still standing in front of me at the side of the bed. I can already tell what he’s feeling. And as much as I’d like to have a long conversation at 7am in the morning about insecurities. I’m hungover and tired so I simply just say, “you can lie back down. I don’t bite.” To which I get no response. There only one way i’m going to get him back in bed so I just say it. I say it even if I don’t mean it because I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable or bad about the episode he had just had. “Bucky, i’m hungover and sleepy and i’m going to be honest i’m a little scared because some Hydra maniac is after me. So can you just get back in bed because I really don’t want to be alone right now.” I move over to the left side of the bed and stare at him. He doesn’t say anything instead he just slips back in under the covers and I drift back asleep.

Bucky’s POV

That’s when I knew I was in trouble. When she sleepily uttered those words. I recall them while staring at the ceiling it’s 7.03am and her breathing has slowed back down indicating that she was fast asleep: “I’m a little scared because some hydra maniac is after me. So can you just get back in bed because I really don’t want to be alone right now.” I remember it word for word. And I knew it was all a lie when they came out of her. I’ve know y/n long enough to know she isn’t scared of many things and even if she was she doesn’t like to admit it. And she definitely isn’t scared of Maddox attacking her while she’s in a secure tower. She said it because she wanted me to feel comfortable, she said those words to let me know that my little episode earlier hadn’t bothered her. And that’s when I knew I was in trouble. All those feelings I buried only a couple hours earlier came bubbling up to the surface. And boy was I in trouble. This girl who sleeps peacefully next to me this very second. This girl who hates asking for help or admitting to fear. Just lied to spare my feelings then proceeded to fall asleep peacefully, she wasn’t scared or disgusted, and that was beautiful. She turned in her sleep, her back was to me now. She was on the other end of the bed and I was so tempted to reach out and touch her. Just to make sure she was real and not some grand illusion. I had to make sure. I reached out and poked her shoulder very gently to feel the soft material of my t-shirt and pulled my finger back immediately.  

[bedlamgames]

Q&A #21

Lots of questions answered under the break. Also check out the last post with the commission as I really like it. There will probably be a stream at the usual time later. 

xcomcommander12: Do the Percents go into the . System? I have 0% disaster ratings on some assignments and no matter what I always see disaster, and I lose some of my most experienced slavers. Oh and also, I'm trying to break a slaver but no matter what I send them to do they always accept (I learned they were sub, does that have anything to do with it?) And will there be a developer mode? (Sorry if this has been asked before, I've been off tumblr for a long, long, long time.) Also love the game! \○~○/ woo!

First I am far too amused that someone called xcomcommander is digging this game given some very similar complaints I get every so often :D 

That sounds like a bug as the only assignment that should hit 0% is recapturing slaves. Any in particular it’s happening on?

Only assignments slavers have a chance to turn down for now based on traits is pillow talk though that’s being expanded on to others where it makes sense. 

No developer mode for now. I need feedback from people playing the game not cheesing their way through all the content. Sorry, but yeah. Still glad you’re digging it!

Anonymous: Re: Basic Dominance Training et al issue attempt to recreate; ...

Thank you, I worked out the issue based on that.

Anonymous: a question from my last run on 0.703 : the basic bj and les training got minor effects in the examination of a slave and for ongoing training, standard ob pushes the trait you get via advanced ob training, now: whats the crit effect of advanced bj and les training? so far i ve only seen slt gain and rvd remove, also cslut crit looks different in the end but doesnt feel like a %-improvement

That’s it on advanced BJ along with increasing slave value and unlocking Expert Cumslut Training. Advanced Les does the same, though that also makes them less likely they’ll be abused so much by your male slavers. An equivalent expert lesbian training will be coming down the line.

Anonymous: any hints on the next new race you introduce? seen the kreen and thought about some egypt/pharao look a likes. but in the end i think humans actually got enough sub species xX how about an encampmentjob that uses the guard mechanic to seperate a slave from the rooster and do some "daily training" so the slaver pushes the will and condition of his "plaything" down to a certain spot so its easier to handle the status of slaves? in lategame it just gets difficult to manage them on 90/30

Kreen I’d say already cover that niche, like Cathayans cover pretty much all fantasy asians. If you want hints read the lore pages as there’s some races in there who will be in the game who aren’t in there yet. Yeah I think I can do something with that. Good idea!

Anonymous: on 0.703: had a disaster run on scour the taverns, general orders on only accept the best: game completely ignored the result, stated the text of a critical success and let my slaver return unharmed.

Cheers I’ll check it out.

Anonymous: so sometimes you get a bonus via corruption or via some of your slaver jobs or PC events, do these actually pus down your critical% for more success%? in lategame it feels like you have to try to avoid them because they mess with the % you got without them, also it feels strange to have slavers/slaves to pick just because you are not looking for success and crit % but for crit and failure % to push down success and max crit%? is this intentional or was it fixed for the newer builds?(running0703)

The corruption one is extra crit though yeah some of them are extra successes. Success should be pushing fail down first then disaster but yeah if you’re doing super well then yes it would then bring down success. I can see a case for them not applying if you’re already past a certain odds threshold will look at it.

Anonymous: so you mentioned vampires as potential race in the future, are they going to be a high tier species like legion? any hints on their race inherent traits? some possible race related trait like bloodkiss to improve some slave or slaver at the cost of some side effects? possible playable race? affinity to corruption or a different magic/element?

Higher than legion I’d say. I want to do them justice so even recruiting one is going to be entirely different than for most other slavers. Main thing I need to do first is the events system so once that is done I can look into adding them so don’t want to talk about them too much yet. I’ll just say I’m looking to put a spin on them while keeping their need to feed along with the enthralling of others to serve their whims.

aoifster: Thank you for all of the work you've put into this fantastic little game! I'm rather a fan, and I'm excited to see future releases (and of course, more subby slaver stuff!) Also, if it's worth chiming in, I wholeheartedly agree with the person who was asking about being forced to wear outfits. I'm just curious - does having an outfit on your slaver affect anything (rolls, etc), or is it just flavour? Either way, I do like the idea of my slaver trying to do her job in maid attire, so I'm happy!

Thank you! More subby stuff is coming along with more dom stuff too so hopefully everyone will be happy. Being forced to wear outfits is definitely going to be a thing. They have a couple of effects currently. Clothing and armour more so of certain quality helps protect against wounding/removal. It increases slave value and a couple of assignments check against them for odds of success. More content as well is coming later like for example trying to intimidate someone while wearing a maid outfit.

Anonymous: In reference to the recent mention of mounts; they seem to me more like equipment than a trait, so you should be able to buy, steal, and reassign them. I'd like to see an assignment that lets you buy specific mounts (for a suitably hefty price), plus a few assignments where you have a chance of stealing a random mount from someone that has one. In terms of distinctiveness, I envision a range between strong mounts (loot bonus), fast mounts (scout bonus), and aggressive mounts (combat bonus).

Agreed they will not be traits outside of fleet/flying and would instead provide bonuses. I don’t want them to be completely interchangeable to represent that some will have bonded with their previous owner and run away or need a real knack to ride. Definite next update though there will be an assignment with the chance of unlocking a mount for you or one of your slavers.

Anonymous: on 0.7032: slave status on bottom of the screen says 6/10 slaves, but after counting all slaves and having not a single assignment its only 5 slaves. one slave escaped earlier, not sure if its just a bug on the screen or if the game really counts my slaves as 6 instead of 5.

Was that still within the three days? As until then they’re not fully gone from the encampment.

Anonymous: Hey! Great job fixing those bugs:) Thank you for your hard work

Thank you, that’s really appreciated!

Anonymous: Slave escaped! I've captured it with my main character but assignment to recaptured the slave still there.

Which version was that on? The 8 hours, two days, or three days version?

Anonymous: Ladies are still recommended for supervising Advance Blow Job training

Dang really? I put a really major, major minus on their calculation rating for the recommendation for that one. Will check it out.

Anonymous: Game text: "You spent some time watching Candi writhe hard against against their bonds which made quite the sight." But I've untied Candi. Does it suppose to be like that?

...I honnestly never thought of correcting that bit of text re: the new bondage changing options. That’s quite the oversight and thanks for pointing it out to me.

Anonymous: Not really a bug so much as an odd pairing of traits. Got a female Nethemir 2IC with both Reserved and Seductive. So avoids having sex, but suggests she's up for it? Kind of a tease maybe?

Pretty much, exactly that. Happy to exploit others, but not planning to ever follow through.

Anonymous: Forage for Supplies under Encampment Missions cannot be started. You click on it and it simply displays the relevant picture but nothing else

Is that just on day one or in general?

evelelf: Hello there! Great game so far! Really excited about it! And I want to ask your permission to share its public builds with russian community. With all links to your pages, offcource (both patreon and tumblr) Hope it will encrease your auditory and, who knows, maybe add patrons to your сreation? )) W8ing 4 yr answer. Best wishes!

Thank you for both your kind words and your offer! If you’re talking about the version that’s currently uploaded to my tumblr here then sure go right on ahead. I’m always happy for people to mention my work in places where others may not have heard of them as long as they’re not spammy about it and do so in a reasonable manner.

Admittedly I may not read the comments in certain specific places due to some very hard lessons about why not to in the past, but I really wouldn’t want to ever stop other people talking about my work.

[floridamalamuterescuelhqc51-blog]

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[recentanimenews]

Defining Moments In Anime: Goku Goes Super Saiyan

  Defining Moments In Anime is a new series from Crunchyroll that looks at various scenes in anime across all genres to showcase why they are special, fondly remembered, have become popular due to memes, or are just fun. We'll break down the moment itself, provide the context leading up to it, discuss the aftermath of what this moment did for the show and its fans, and figure out why exactly its worthy of being a Defining Moment In Anime!

  A terrifying, golden aura has enlightened Planet Namek as Goku's rage has boiled over and he's on the verge of an astonishing transformation. On June 19, 1991, fans of Dragon Ball Z were able to witness a turning point for the series with episode 95, "Transformed At Last!! The Legendary Super Saiyan, Son Goku." At the time, people probably didn’t have a clue as to how this episode would change the course of the Dragon Ball Z series, much less how it would become an iconic part of popular culture for the next three decades. While that moment became one of the first things people think of when it comes to Dragon Ball Z, how did we get to this point in the series? To find out, we need to explore the context of this scene, its generational grip on anime and media with more parodies and references than you can count, the trend of athletes and celebrities themselves becoming Super Saiyans, and why it’s been so fondly remembered.

  So, how do we get to this point? What led up to Frieza pushing Goku to his limits emotionally, which causes the transformation? A significant amount of time has been spent on Planet Namek as Krillin, Gohan, Bulma, Piccolo, Vegeta, and now Goku attempted to track down a new set of Dragon Balls. The Ginyu Squad has been disposed of, and all that stands between Earth’s mightiest warriors and the Namekian Dragon Balls is the one person who destroyed the Saiyan home planet: Frieza. By this point, Frieza has transformed into his final form and wreaked havoc on everyone. Goku has even managed to pull out a Spirit Bomb, but that wasn’t enough to take Frieza out. Instead, Frieza gets really mad and tries to finish off Goku once and for all, only for Piccolo to sacrifice himself to save Goku. In order to really show Goku who’s the boss in this fight, Frieza lifts Krillin, blows him up, and threatens to do the same to Gohan. This is the ultimate catalyst for Goku’s forthcoming transformation.

    The episode makes this moment into a big deal, as it should, although it's unlikely that anyone knew how big of a moment this would end up becoming. The change in demeanor that Goku has, the (literal) electricity in the air, and how emotional everyone is within the episode makes it seem so memorable. None of the other initial Super Saiyan transformations match this in terms of intensity and how they’re remembered. Vegeta’s transformation (which happened thanks to nearly dying from a giant meteor) is almost an afterthought in the Androids Saga. Even when Gohan is able to do it, it’s more of a given that he would be able to pull it off, and it’s not seen as a show-stealing moment that will shock fans.

  Despite the fact that this episode took eight years to come out overseas, the concept of Super Saiyans is something that is still talked about to this day and is a moment that really took Dragon Ball Z on a different trajectory from the original Dragon Ball. The series became, in a sense, an arms race for power as each new villain would be more powerful than the next, which would cause our heroes to find some new way to match that via more elaborate Super Saiyan transformations or through the help of fusions. Essentially, power levels weren’t quantifiable by numbers (but more on that later) and instead were just feelings that people had that made them know if someone was truly dangerous or not. The idea of Super Saiyans has continued to grow exponentially through Dragon Ball Super and will keep going if the series moves forward.

    I don’t know if many of you were around when Dragon Ball Z was huge in the late 90s/early 00s and could have predicted that Super Saiyans would still have this much staying power to this day. There were so many people during that time that had “SSJ_(insert user name here)” instant messenger IDs, emails, message board handles, you name it (myself included). You’d read about these fabled Super Saiyan 5 transformations and a post- Dragon Ball GT story called Dragon Ball AF because people needed more. Years later Super Saiyans would still be parodied in shows such as YuruYuri or the moment itself would just be referenced, such as in NARUTO Spin-Off: Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals. Or, in some cases, you'll just see edited gifs of celebrities going Super Saiyan like Michael Phelps, Miguel Herrera, and John Cena (with subreddits and meme pages archiving and creating even more). Jaden Smith practically had a whole song about it. 

   Source: "Jaden - GOKU"

  When I first watched this episode, there was such a fever pitch of excitement for where the series would go next. It's strange to think that the idea of spoiler culture really wasn't a thing, so my friends and I would try to devour any information we could get for the arcs that hadn't been dubbed into English yet. What would you do with all of that time where you're stuck with re-runs? Find Dragon Ball Z fan sites, of course, read about the Androids, Cell, and Buu sagas and have your mind blown. Plus, you could also find some strange fan-subbed images of Goku cursing up a storm and totally believe that's what the dialogue actually was. I can vividly remember reading up about The Great Saiyaman before it aired in America and rushing to school the next day to tell my cousin about it. Knowing about these new levels of Super Saiyan didn't diminish their magnitude when the series finally got to them. In contrast, when Dragon Ball finally aired in America, seeing Goku change into a Great Ape didn't feel as impressive. On the other hand, you could come up with your own original Dragon Ball characters to placate the downtime. There's certainly something nostalgic about this time period where I wanted to know everything I could about new Super Saiyan levels, new characters, new stories, and anything new that pertained to Dragon Ball Z.

    I can't exactly remember if I saw it when it premiered or caught a reairing of the episode later on. Regardless, the episode really felt like a turning point for the series when watching this moment for the first time. Sure, Super Saiyans were hinted at, but this was still a huge deal to witness. When I reflect back on Dragon Ball Z, this is easily on the shortlist of top/best moments from the entire series and something I will always want to go back and watch. Back then, home video releases were inconsistent and then you'd have to wait an additional couple of months to see them on TV. It was excruciating. But despite that, this moment is probably the catalyst for me wanting to just find out everything about the series as soon as possible, rather than wait another six months for the next set of episodes to come out. If I somehow could travel back to when I first watched this episode, I'm sure 9- or 10-year-old-me is just sitting there in awe with what transpired and mentally saying "holy crap" a lot.

  What makes this moment so fondly remembered by fans and makes it such an iconic moment in anime? One easy answer is that big transformation sequences are, to put it plainly, really cool. It’s one of the reasons why the magical girl genre has thrived for nearly 60 years. It’s also an extension of the power fantasy where you want to believe you have something that’s untapped and hidden within you that can help you out of bad situations.

  The Saiyan's distinct look also stands out from anything else that was happening in Dragon Ball Z as super spikey blonde hair and blue-green eyes makes more of an immediate impact. You might think that was a choice to make these characters truly look different, but in reality, Akira Toriyama just wanted to cut back on coloring Goku's hair black in the manga, so he decided on something that could be represented in an uncolored way. And even though Toriyama would also try to quantify Saiyan power levels with S-Cells almost 21 years after the debut of Goku's transformation in the manga, the feeling and emotion behind turning Super Saiyan is still in the forefront of the cultural memory, as opposed to some other Sci-Fi series.

    There’s also a distinct shift in Goku's demeanor when he first transforms where he takes on an even more serious approach that borders on cockiness at times. Something that might not be as well remembered from this part of Dragon Ball Z is that Goku’s hubris nearly comes back to bite him after not being prepared for Frieza's full power. Goku had to learn quickly that having a higher level of power doesn’t always mean you can take it easy. Goku was serious in big time fights before in both Dragon Ball and Z, but here he was bringing a different level of intensity that fit more in line with an edgier culture that was beginning to take hold during that time. 

  As Goku’s rage begins to envelop him after the death of Krillin, lightning strikes and his power starts to terraform the ground around him. His hair stands up in a way it hasn’t before and begins to flash with a golden radiance. Soon afterward, his power skyrockets as he’s enveloped in a yellow light that transforms him into what many thought was just a legend, a Super Saiyan—a defining moment in anime that won’t soon be forgotten.

  What do you remember most about the first time you saw Goku become a Super Saiyan? Is it something that's stuck with you? Let us know down in the comments below, along with any other moments in anime you'd like to see featured!

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Jared Clemons is a writer and podcaster for Seasonal Anime Checkup where he can be found always wanting to talk about Love Live! Sunshine!! or whatever else he's into at the moment. He can be found on Twitter @ragbag.

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