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adachimoe · 10 months

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Translation: Katsura Hashino's 2008 Persona 4 Developer Interview (Parts 1/3/4)

I paraphrased and summarized parts of this interview before, but now, here is an actual full text translation... This was translated by Alex Highsmith of Shmuplations, a professional who has translated a ton of video game developer interviews before. I asked him to do these 3 specific parts as I believe they are the juiciest parts of this interview and probably the most interesting to people who are fans of Persona. Full text below the read me cause of how long it is. (ﾟДﾟ*)ﾉ

You do not have permission to post anything from this interview on the god awful Fandom wiki.

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[[PART 1]]

--I understand the title "director" implies a range of different jobs, depending on the project in question, but would you mind explaining in detail what your role in Persona 4 entailed?

Hashino: Mainly, designing the systems and crafting the rules for the game. I also worked on the story outline and themes. I left the details up to the staff who were specifically in charge of the scenario and system design, but I would also make revisions and changes to the stuff they brought to me.

--That's actually a great transition for my next question: what is/are the theme(s) of Persona 4?

Hashino: The theme, um… it's a small-town murder mystery. (laughs) First and foremost, I wanted to make an RPG that would revolve around a murder mystery. After Persona 3, we worked on P3 FES, and we were developing P4 in tandem. I spent some time thinking about what the players who enjoyed P3 would find interesting in the next game--what would they like to see. From there, our ideas eventually took the shape you see today, of exploring a string of murders in a small country town.

--So, just to re-cap then: with P3 in mind, you decided to set this game in a completely different small town, then for the plot, you arrived at the idea of a serial murderer…? Is that about right?

Hashino: Well, not exactly--the "small country town" and "murders" ideas basically came together as a set in my mind. It's kind of a Kosuke Kindaichi vibe… I've always loved those kind of mysteries, where a person from the "big city" visits a small town, and during his stay he solves a mystery of some type.

--That reminds me of Kindaichi's works like Inugamike no ichizoku (The Inugami Clan) and Yatsuhakamura (The Village of Eight Graves). Do you like mystery novels, then?

Hashino: I'm not an expert or anything, but it's a genre I've enjoyed since I was younger.

--What are some of your favorite works?

Hashino: For older stuff, I like Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Also, he's a sci-fi author, but I also enjoy writers like Isaac Asimov. I love those classic older works, and when I was a kid that was all I read. You know there were those kids in elementary school, right? The ones for some reason would write all their book reports on mystery novels?

--Ah, yeah! There were some kids like that at my school too. (laughs) So then, why did you decide to add mystery elements to Persona 4?

Hashino: I think it should be obvious to players what's interesting about your game, and what kind of story it is, before they buy it. This is something I reflected on and realized after Persona 3, but for the earlier games, it was hard to know what they were about until you played them. So this time, the premise is simple and upfront: there is a murder incident in a small town, and the adults are oblivious to the truth of the situation. The protagonists then proceed to investigate--sort of like a Junior Detective League--and attempt to solve the mystery.

--You mentioned the earlier games and reflecting on them… am I right to assume you weren't only looking at P3, but were thinking about the whole flow of the series, all the way back to P1?

Hashino: No, in terms of being inspired to make the content of the game more obvious, I was talking about P3. The truth is, P2 and P2: Eternal Punishment were so long ago, I wasn't really thinking that far back. Plus the fans themselves consider P2: Eternal Punishment to have wrapped everything up. However, when the very first Persona came out, the developers then (my senior colleagues) were trying to make a new style of Megaten game, something that would appeal to more casual players. So for me personally, there was a sense of going back to the roots in wanting to do the same thing with P4.

--Would that include the basic question of "what are Personas…?"

Hashino: Yeah. We tried to depict these characters' struggle in a head-on, direct way, while at the same time returning to the fundamentals of the Persona series. That is, rather than thinking in terms of sequels and multi-part stories, we wanted to go back and once again ask ourselves, "OK, so what role were the personas really meant to occupy in this world…?" And what approach would be best to attract a new generation of users and show them the appeal of Atlus' RPGs…? We talked about what makes a Persona game a Persona game… were there necessary criteria? For example, with the progenitor of Persona, the Megami Tensei series, you've got the light side and the dark side, that contrast of exterior and interior (omote and ura)--if those are the foundations of Megaten, then what are Persona's…? Those were our questions as we began the development of P4, and to tell the truth, I was somewhat uneasy about the answers we would reach. When I look back at P3 now, it ended up being a big success, and ultimately that's the most important thing for any game.

--Did that anxiety stick with you until the reviews finally came in?

Hashino: I mean, there were people at Atlus saying stuff like, "Maybe we shouldn't have called it a Persona game…" and "This isn't Persona." (laughs) But the opinion of the players is the most important thing, so now I can say that I'm very satisfied.

--So do you know now precisely what makes something a Persona game?

Hashino: Hmm, well… one example, I guess, would be the "angsty" feeling of the games. When you're young, much of your life is managed for you by adults, but eventually everyone has to break out of that protective shell--and it's a bit like being on a train where the rails suddenly disappear, isn't it? Sooner or later, that time comes for everyone, but that de-railing provokes a keen sense of angst in many young people. Yet it's almost like we don't want to forget those times… there's a nostalgia for it, you could say. When you become an adult and are stressed out by your job, it's very difficult to find the time to re-discover yourself. I think it'd be cool if Persona can provide people a chance to re-experience that in game form, to go back to the beginning and reflect on it all once more. Of course, I don't think this is unique to Persona--there's a lot of works of art in the world that have a similar appeal.

[[PART III]]

--Going back a bit, I wanted to ask some more specific questions about the development process. What were some of the challenges you faced in creating a mystery?

Hashino: I'd say one big challenge was interweaving the real-world elements of the murders with this fantastic psychological world where you're battling with personas. I mean--OK, there's these murders, but then if all of a sudden a Shadow pops up out of nowhere, it would be like… "forget these murders, wtf is that!!" (laughs) Also, in P3 the dungeon fights were basically just for training, and in the beginning they don't have much connection to the story. We wanted to intertwine those more with the story, so for P4 we first came up with the idea of someone getting kidnapped, taken to this mysterious other world, and you have to go rescue them… and that led to us coming up with the serial kidnapping-murder part of the story.

--It sounds like rather than having a whole mystery story figured out from the get-go, you rather focused on how to artfully interweave the gameplay systems and main story.

Hashino: I often start from the end, so to speak, like coming up first with a catchphrase and working backwards from there. For this game, too, rather than working out the details of the story, I had more general situations in mind: a town is enveloped in fog and a person disappears -> the main character goes to rescue that person. Just that brief outline sounds exciting, right?

--That being the case, at what point did you come up with the character of the villain Adachi?

Hashino: Actually, this goes back to the discussions we had at the very beginning of the development when we were creating the plot, but one of the themes we hit upon was "how do we get our information." So initially, we wrote the true final villain as someone who mistakenly thought they were doing the right thing.

--Are you talking about Namatame?

Hashino: Yeah. And there was something manipulating him behind-the-scenes, and Adachi was not the villain then. However, as the development went on, we felt the story development was lacking in something, and it needed one more twist with regard to who the true culprit was. The first candidate for that role was Yukiko, actually. (laughs)

--What!!

Hashino: Yeah, I mean, when you think about "murders in a small town" stories like this, a Kindaichi story would have the killer be someone like the ryokan proprietress. (laughs)

--Oh yeah… I know what you mean.

Hashino: It was something I talked about Soejima with, only half-joking of course. The idea of Yosuke the villain also came up. He was a character with solid reasoning abilities and good judgement; it would be believable to players, we thought, that he could have plotted everything himself. We also discussed making the culprit a "likable villain". But we were hesitant about making one of your party members the killer.

--Being betrayed by a close friend like that would be quite painful indeed.

Hashino: But the biggest reason we thought Yukiko and Yosuke wouldn't work, was that we thought players would find it boring if we gave the killer a merely personal motivation for his crimes. That kind of simplistic motive belongs in the realm of Tuesday afternoon TV crime dramas. So we went back and re-examined our themes about information: and this links up with the notion of irresponsibility on the part of the person disseminating the info, but when you think about it, doesn't the responsibility for what happens with that information ultimately lie with the recipient? It's hard to explain, but yeah… we felt the connection between ill-intent and that kind of irresponsibility fit the game the best.

--And that's where Adachi comes in.

Hashino: Initially, Adachi was created as a character whose role is to facilitate the exchange of information between the protagonists and the police investigation. But he seemed a little out-of-place there amongst the other adult detectives, and personally, I started to worry that he would stand out to players as odd and it would be too obvious that he was the killer. So we switched gears midway through the development and took his character in a different direction.

[[Note: I spoke with Shmuplations about this particular part and he understands why this sounds confusing: Does Hashino's "initially" mean "Adachi's character existed before we needed a new culprit" or "we then proceeded to make the character of Adachi to be the new culprit"? While he believes the former is more likely, Hashino does not specify this within interview itself.

I believe this can be read in combination with what Soejima said about Adachi in the Design Works where he mentions Adachi used to be a red herring and then was re-designed after he became the culprit. This is further supported by the 2009 Gamasutra interview where Atlus talks about a villain character changing in development but their design being done before the change and the character's design not looking villain-like.]]

--That "something" manipulating Adachi was, of course, Izanami… was that also something that was revised midway through?

Hashino: Actually, Izanami was there from the very beginning. Even before we had the themes figured out for P4, in the previous games we'd used a lot of Greek gods, so we talked about how this time we wanted to focus on Japanese mythology. And so, around the time that we decided on the theme of uncertainty surrounding the truth and the rumors you're hearing in this small town, I thought these native gods and goddesses would be a force resisting that kind of social anxiety.

--I see. And the story of Izanami and Izanagi is one of the most well-known in Japanese mythology.

Hashino: As we worked out the plot, I took that story of Izanagi descending into the underworld (Yomi) and gave it my own expanded interpretation. In the myth, it is Izanagi's inability to accept Izanami's death that, ironically, nearly gets him killed by her: but I added my own interpretation, that the news and rumors we hear from all these sources == death (that is, it's an invitation for you to cease thinking).

--That's an unusual reading.

Hashino: At the time I thought to myself, "Nice, now this sounds like an idea that would be in a Persona game." (laughs) Izanami sees that humanity has stopped thinking critically for themselves and has surrendered to whatever they hear, and she thinks, "These unthinking people might as well be dead, so I will grant their wish. If I'm wrong, prove it to me." Then, when she happens to encounter certain humans that appear interesting to her, she bestows on them the power to change their reality, and that is how it all begins. But the protagonists are far stronger than she had thought, and though she had planned to merely be a spectator, they strike back in a way she hadn't expected. (laughs)

--Does the fact that she is defeated in the last battle mean that she had erred in her judgment?

Izanami: Yes, definitely. The ability Izanami uses in the battle, "Thousand Curses", I imagined it as a metaphor for all the lies the media tells. And likewise the ability the player uses, "Myriad Truths", that represents the trustworthy words of those people closest to you. I hope players get the message I was trying to convey, that no matter how much irresponsible, unverifiable information the world tries to deluge you with, you can always rely on the truths of your trusted friends to see you through.

--Whoa… that's deep!

Hashino: Also, the fact that there is a date and time that the world will end within the game--that day is meant to symbolize imported culture. There's a similar commentary with the native Japanese deities and a resistance to globalism. The way the Inaba shopping district resists the incursion of the Junes department store chain is part of that too.

[[PART IV]]

--I think the story of Persona 4 wraps up very neatly, but was it a smooth process, writing those scenarios?

Hashino: No, it took a lot of time and research to come up with plot twists, red herrings to throw players off the scent, and all the things you would expect to find in a proper mystery. There were a lot of additions and revisions too. As I mentioned above, in particular I wasn't satisfied with the plot development in the first draft, so aside from adding a "true villain" we also made a lot of changes. In the first draft, for example, we weren't originally planning to have Morooka die.

--What?!

Hashino: We had planned to include Mitsuo and the Void Quest, but we wanted to put a big surprise in there that would really betray player's expectations, and sadly for him, Morooka was sacrificed for that.

--It was kind of a shock.

Hashino: Many people told us that, yeah. It surprised us how popular Morooka was.

--He makes a bad impression on you on your first day at school, but there's many moments throughout the game where you realize he actually cares for the students' well-being.

Hashino: Hah, that's so funny, because I had no intention of making him that way.

--Oh, really?

Hashino: For me, Morooka was the kind of character you'd see in a typical school drama, basically just your typical unpopular homeroom teacher. But perhaps the staff in charge of that scenario had a lot of affection for Morooka, because they added all these extra details and episodes that gave depth to his character. So his popularity had nothing to do with me--it was all our staff.

--It really made that fight with Mitsuo intense. It was like, "THIS IS FOR MOROOKA!" (laughs)

Hashino: It got people fired up, didn't it? I'm glad his sacrifice was not in vain. (laughs)

--Speaking of unexpected stuff, the whole sequence when you're going to Yomotsu Hirasaka for the final fight with Izanami really took me by surprise. It was very difficult to find that route though.

Hashino: For the Normal Ending where you fight Adachi, we were hoping players would see that and feel a sense of closure: "ah, it's all over now." Then, say you still feel something isn't quite right, so you talk to a friend who saw the true ending, and when you go back and search and find the answer by yourself, it's like a fog has lifted from your own brain… I thought that would be cool, if your real-life gameplay experience sort of linked up with the game itself in that way.

--Ah, I can see that, definitely.

Hashino: Of course, partly I just wanted people to play to the very end of this game that we had put so much time into making… (laughs) In the beginning I was saying, "Let's keep it a secret for at least half a year."

--It seems like it must be tough to hide a true ending, or provide the right level of hints.

Hashino: Recently it feels like players are very sensitive to the dialogue, and can detect the slightest whiff of anything suspicious. That's why we put these hints at the very end, hidden in each party member's greetings. We made them say some things that just don't quite add up, hoping that players would suspect something is still hidden. Also, the fact that the Judgement Social Link isn't at MAX despite being so close to the ending is another hint that there might be something more.

[[Note: Judgement maxes after you clear Magatsu Inaba. This is not a translation error. It's an error that Hashino makes in the text.]]

--It sounds like a very tough balancing act. On the one hand, players will get bored if they know what's going to happen, but if things are too vague and opaque that's not good either.

Hashino: Exactly. To that end, when the final draft of the scenario is finished, we have the entire staff read through it to see if they spot anything weird. After reading it, one of our staff blurted out, "The Killer is Yasu!" (laughs)

[[Note: This is a reference to the Portopia Serial Murder Case.]]

--Ah, right, that famous spoiler from Portopia, where the detective's assistant Yasu is the killer. Now that you mention it, that does sort of match up with Adachi's position in P4. (laughs)

Hashino: It's a pretty old game though, so I figured there's no players today that would think that. Nevertheless, early on when we put Adachi's face in some of the magazine spots we did, there were apparently people who were saying "The Killer is Yasu!" in response to him… you see, actually, in the beginning, Adachi's first name used to be Tamotsu (保), which can also be read as "yasu", right? Maybe I'm overthinking it, I thought, but we were trying to really control the timing of the hints we fed to players about the killer, so we hurriedly changed his first name. Of course we'd already finished the voice recording, and there were lines like "Hello, I'm Tamotsu Adachi", so we had the sound staff re-edit those clips and cut the "Tamotsu" part off.

--Sounds like a lot of work.

Hashino: I never imagined "The Killer is Yasu!" was that well-known! (laughs)

[[PART 5]]

--Now that you mention it, because Adachi had a very famous voice actor, I bet that tipped off players to think, "Ah, Adachi must be the killer or someone important."

Hashino: Ah, yeah, that could be. I don't know a lot about voice actors, so I wasn't aware of that at all and merely chose the voice actor who I thought best fit the role. But many of the voice actors in Persona 4, not just Adachi's, received a lot of praise.

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You do not have permission to post anything from this interview on the god awful Fandom wiki.

#persona 4 #katsura hashino #persona club p4 #persona 4 golden #p4 #p4g

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reimenaashelyee · 2 years

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how did you get your comics seen? it's one thing to make them and a whole other thing to get people to lay eyes on them and read them and I have no idea how to do the second part

I think you'll have to at least make friends with some of your peer group (artists who are at the same stage in their career as you) so you can both share your audiences and if nothing else, have each other as readers. If you're really new, it's kinda a fact that your work will be tiny for a few years: there's a lot of stuff online.

I am not a spring chicken anymore so all my current advice for promotion wouldn't apply as the majority of it required years of presence and establishment with the comics industry... now that my peer group has matured and become successful creators (I know that my peers are casually aware of what I put out, they may or may not read it or even comment). Additionally, my way of promoting is as avoidant of playing the algorithm and virality and tailoring to the most amount of possible audience. If you want the opposite of that, you can ask @secondlina - who has done a lot of experimentation with social media and gaming the internet attention economy.

I'm not all that interest in gaming anything: I only want to serve the audience I have and always had - thoughtful, chill readers who are ok with slow reading, in the sense they don't ask me for constant content since they get what my vibe is. They are here for my lush visuals, original material and approach to topics/characters. It's this audience, and the academics + people who tend to be older and are equivalent/less levels of "online" to me. I personally find that gaming for views on purpose steals time and energy away, since a lot of the tactics tend to ask you to behave or post or draw a certain way that might feel unnatural with no guarantee whether the effort is worth it. For example, making memes of your characters, doing funny reels with music. If you are cool with doing all that though, again, @secondlina is your expert. I can see why those tactics are popular: that's how Big Tech dictates you get access to their "discovery" algorithm.

For me, in the early days what got new eyes onto my narrative work was making one-off illustrations (not necessarily of the comic - just some original character concepts) that somehow got popular. This was during the peak eras of Twitter and Tumblr though. The other thing was mostly talking about my comics: I document so much of my process. People love this apparently. It's the only guaranteed way for myself that gets people hype and aware of the comic's existence - though this might partly be caused by the aforementioned audience I always had. It's very low effort cos I mostly post screenshots of WIPs or developmental sketches and include a comment.

But like, with webcomics, I always operated on the assumption that people don't read my work. I am just here vibing. If there are readers (and I know who you are because of comments made across social media / my websites over the years) I appreciate them, but I don't want to ask much of them either. I put out the work I like, and whoever comes across it and likes it can stay, maybe comment, maybe get the print edition.

Yeah, this is not such a satisfactory answer for marketing if you're not subscribed to my brand of being an online artist: which is slow-growth, sustained working. My established methods now are: talking about my work, documenting it, connecting with peer group + older generations of professionals (established critics, journalists, editors), running a newsletter, going on interviews/podcasts, submitting my art to whatever I think would help promote it - pitch to Shortbox Fair, apply to Knife Beetle or the Cartoonist Cooperative, join a Discord.

And advanced methods, like applying for artist residencies.

In the end I cannot emphasise enough to get to know your peers who are at the same level of career as you are. Find creators who started at the same time you did and read their work (your choice); talk to them directly if the style/vibe matches. This is long-term mutual commitment - you won't see the effects until years later when you each find success in the paths you chose. And just to give you an idea of who my original peer group is - choo, Ariel Ries, Kay O'Neill, Bree Paulsen, Toril/Eden Orlensky, Kaeti V, Kevin Jay Stanton, Victoria Grace Elliot, Britt Sabo - we were all obscure mutuals/friends at more or less the same time. Then we each found our own way. Over time the circle grew to include other peer groups - ones that started slightly earlier or later, and new contacts of the same level. And that's how one gets established. As this is happening you will get eyes to your work naturally.

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eoinmcgonigal · 10 months

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So I saw a post about tumblr wanting to try this 'communities' thing, and I just gotta vent/say my piece. (the tl;dr is 'fuck that shit')

1. I really hate the current trend of fracturing and fragmenting things down into little pieces so they can be categorised into boxes. That's not natural. (Also, discord pushing threads, which I already detest for 1) making me feel like I'm gonna hurl from the violently dissonant, ugly layout, 2) the severely narrow topic problem, and 3) how neurodiverse-hostile they are.)

Like, naturally conversations meander. If you're only allowed to discuss one topic, it's gonna be stifling. You WILL run out of things to say. Making another little box isn't going to fix it, it'll just add to the clutter

2. Quite importantly, honestly, just stop fucking changing shit. It's unnecessary

3. It's not going to be neurodiverse-friendly. As if fandom hasn't changed enough to become increasingly unfriendly to people who are just here to enjoy their hyperfixation and/or special interest. I don't need another thing to learn to navigate. I don't need another place with different rules to carefully traverse. Yes, I'm fandom old and salty. I'm AuDHD and a spoonie with about half a spoon to spend on a good day. I do not have the energy to do all this switching about and jumping from thing to thing. It's exhausting. I want everything where I can find it, and where I can be passionate without having to perform tasks like it's some customer service job, or job interview

4. FOMO shit is toxic. This whole 'be a part of the thing!' necessity if you want to 'engage' or see the conversations and 'content'. Why? I guess it's a social media model that drives engagement, but the stress of it is going to fuck people up. What if you don't have the time, energy, health, spoons, social skills, etc? I have no idea how much interacting will be expected with other people in the 'community' but I can see it becoming a twitter-like circlejerk, and if you're not one of the 'in' crowd doing your required interaction/reblogging/commenting then you might as well not exist to that fandom/group

5. From the description, it looks like these things will be ripe for drama, toxicity, clique shit, becoming echo chambers, etc. because 'semi public' means you gotta opt in/join in some way and whatever's said isn't visible to any old user

Like, who is going to create and mod these things? Who decides what the rules are? What if your fave is 'problematic', or your kink is 'gross' (if nsfw is allowed at all), your take doesn't fit with fanon, or you are just a bit weird and people shun or turn on you for that?

I hope I'm wrong and either these things never happen or they're not as bad as I fear, but fuck sakes I have the above worries because it's shit I've seen happen time and time again, and I don't want to see given a place here

Also, genuinely, what the fuck is tumblr going to be like if you can't/don't want interact with these community things?

Quickly, 6. it creates an 'us' (in crowd) vs. 'them' (not part of our gang)

And then 7. who is going to be dominant in these 'communities'?

Yes, I'm upset right now, because tumblr was just fine (well, fine enough) until this point. I mean:

We have the ability to make sideblogs! (My Star Wars sideblog from... well a decade ago oops... is still out there, I don't touch it any more but I left it up for people to go through). Tumblr even made it so we can reply with sideblogs, which was a very neat update.

Tags!! I don't think it's as usual these days for people to go through tags to find new content, but that's how I do it, how I've always done it, and how I always intend to do it. I'm not following everyone who makes an SAS:RH post. I love you guys, but no. My dash would cause me to have a panic attack. It's already too much for me most days.

EFFORT!!!! I can be here every day full-time doing Stuff if I want! Or I can zone out for weeks if I want/need, materialise and contribute a silly meme, then drift off into the sunset again. If I 'miss' anything, I can go back through the tags, or scroll someone's blog. But honestly, who notices/cares on here if someone lurks or goes afk for a bit. It's super low pressure, because I'm doing what I can/want when I can/want

I want to opt in/out on my own time and terms. The thought of having to be part of a 'community' so I can see/not miss Content TM is freaking me out. I don't want there to be an 'appropriate' time window to interact with things like there is on other social media sites.

So, idk how the shit will look, but I don't agree with making things harder for people to access/find. I won't be posting stuff 'semi-privately'.

And you know what's super upsetting? The thought that I won't be able to see conversations and creations for things I love, because they're hidden away behind some complex new social thing I can't navigate. (Which is already an off-putting, ostracising problem on discord.) That's not how fandom communities should be.

The thought of there being less stuff 'out there' because it's in some 'community' somewhere... really not the direction I'd ever hope this site wold go in

I'm fuckin exhausted. Just lemme do my fandom whateverness without having to perform to some arbritary social interaction standard/requirements that I neither understand nor can do

#i want to murder discord threads because this feels like similar bullshit that's just gonna exclude people #JUST PUT SHIT WHERE PEOPLE CAN ACCESS IT EASILY #aim to be as inclusive as possible with as wide an audience and engagement as possible!#why is that so damn fucking hard?#also lol how long until they'd turn communities into a subscription thing or something #they keep changing shit and the newer people to things like discord and tumblr and fandom in general have no idea what it was like before #things have not always been this bad!#they were bad in other ways but nothing as exhausting as this social-media-model bullshit #yes i'm very fucked up over discord's update #i detest threads with a violent passion there's no fucking need to separate everything out until nothing is left in the channel #i can't even turn the ugly icon off in servers i own #i miss irc #i miss forums #i didn't like lj that much but goddamn #i miss pre-jumbled-up-tags tumblr #i miss pre-threads discord #we do not fucking need this change but it's being shoved down our throats because investors want to see new shit #i'm off to see if i can fix discord so i don't nearly throw up when i open it #the horrible thing is that it looks faintly passable in light mode but i can't read in light mode and you get light or dark and nothing els #personal #vent #just in case anyone hides those tags idk this has been a vent post #i'll go back to rogues soon

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fruitybashir · 6 months

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okay, gonna infodump about The Wiggles again for a second sorry this is so very long. (also sorry about the links not being clickable. I hope you can copy-paste them as tumblr didn't like linking them but I've also given you the title of each video if you want to look it up yourself. Also I hope they aren't region-locked.)

this is my fave song that I grew up with of theirs that I can so imagine Bojan singing to kids and also the music vid reminds me of Umazane Misli only cause they're like dancing in a studio and look like idiots which is great. This is one of their first songs/ music vids so they don't have their uniforms yet (they all get a specific colour that they wear and are identified with which really helps kids to go "I like the blue wiggle" or "I like the red wiggle").

(video title: Get Ready To Wiggle - Original Music Video, 1991 - The Wiggles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JItfH1PZAs

For the audience participation idea you mentioned like UM karaoke, The Wiggles actually did do this!! one of the members (named Jeff) had it as a character thing he was always sleepy/tired so he would 'fall asleep' during their shows and they would have to get all the kids to scream "Wake up Jeff!" to wake him up. They did it cause Jeff was I think the shyest out of them and they wanted to give him a way to interact with the kids more. Here's this interview where he talks about it a bit and the band in general that's just really good/sweet and shows the band more and Jeff specifically.

(video title: Why purple Wiggle Jeff Fatt handed over the reins | Throwback)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJNWA_aBVHY

this is their most iconic song called Fruit Salad which like everyone knows at least some of and you have to watch to get the idea of their music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYYGD56CxTw

and just as another thing of how iconic they are one of our big radio stations here is called Tripple J and they have a thing called Like a Version where people come and do live covers of songs. They have some really big and famous musicians do it and the covers are often really good.

Anyway The Wiggles have changed and added members a few times by now but they did have at least 3 og members (plus some new peeps) do a cover of a Tame Impala song and they incorporated Fruit Salad into the song which was just so iconic of them

(video title: The Wiggles cover Tame Impala 'Elephant' for Like A Version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a13WnqsRc5g

(that radio station also has a song contest thing called The Hottest 100 every year where everyone votes for their fave song. I believe that cover did really really well, like it either won or was in the top 10)

there's so much info about them if you're interested but something I think is really cute is they're called The Wiggles because "that's how children dance".

anyway their wikipedia page is good if you wanna read about their history and stuff in more detail. I think it's interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wiggles

anyway sorry for the super long post/rant/thing about something very random but they're a really important group here and they mean so much to me and many others and the idea of Bojan in your fic just fits so well with them. once again sorry for the wall of text/infodump but I hope you find it interesting maybe!

(also I love your fic a lot and daycare dad Bojan has wormed his way into my heart which is why I got so excited to talk about The Wiggles)

omg i loooove this little-not-so-little infodump <3333 i dont really have anything clever to add bc im with company so my thoughts keep getting interrupted by someone talking to me but OFC i know fruit salad and also that audience participation thing sounds so funny and cute fr 🥺🥺💖

i kinda fucked myself over with making bojan work in daycare in this fic bc now i cant stop thinking about himmmm goddd. maybe i DO have to write a short bonus scene of the band performing for the kids. or something. anything. i need more bojan with kids 😩💖💖💖💖

#inbox #hazzybat #sorry for the late reply but a friend has come home over easter two days ago and hes living with us rn and we're just #talking and talking and talking and hanging out and its FUN but also i have a dead limit on conversation per day so my texting and replying #to people has been cut a liiiiittle short #my writing as well but thats fine bc now i have a little extra time to write the next chapter so thats 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

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starbound-jupiter · 11 months

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ok! so i finally got around to watching the TMP trailer and ohh boy do i ever have thoughts

i’ll probably make a series of long rambling posts about it lol, but i’d like to just focus on this image for now:

so the latin on this post (i think) translates to ‘we will not falter,’ which definitely makes sense for an office of incident assessment and response.

but what could that be?

i have some ideas.

the first thing i’d like to point out is the lion and the unicorn, which bear resemblance to the UK coat of arms. so could this office be connected to the government in some way? a more official response to supernatural events similar to section 31?

an office that assesses and responds to ‘incidents’ is probably something immediate. a first responder of sorts.

my first thought is someone who scans through police files/911 calls/anything similar of the sort and tries to determine if there are any supernatural elements at play. obviously that stuff would be horrible to look at, as well as extremely time consuming and repetitive, so it which would make sense that it would be something the interviewer referred to as “monotonous and likely to cause depression”.

now, here’s what i find really interesting. in the very beginning of TMA, in the first episode actually- we get this quote:

‘i have been working as a researcher at the institute for four years now and am familiar with most of our more significant contracts and projects.

most reach dead ends, predictably enough, as incidents of the supernatural, such as they are – and i always emphasise there are very few genuine cases – tend to resist easy conclusions.

when an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the archives.’

analyzing this from what was just discussed- i have a two things to make note of.

‘i am familiar with most of our more significant contracts and projects.’

jon was able to make several contacts within in the police during TMA just as the archivist. imagine what kind of contacts that someone like jonah/elias has! there already has to be some kind of government involvement during that takes place- with the best example i can think of being the aftermath of jane prentiss’s attack.

who were they able to contact to get someone to clean up all those worms? what about removing her body? what did they do with it? you can’t call like- some random morgue or janitorial service for something like that, so who did that fall upon?

and!!

‘when an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the archives.’

transferred in from where? i doubt it’s by the police, since it’s clear that they want to keep everything so hush-hush. isn’t that why they come up with ‘official stories’? force officers into section 31? lie about a police officer who sacrificed his life trying to rescue an abducted child to cover for their own asses? (as seen in MAG 73- police lights)

so who’s really investigating them? who’s sending these supernatural cold cases to catalogued and recorded?

i think that TMP might be about what happens with supernatural instances before they get transferred into the archives. like- the whole investigation process, assessing the damage, maybe looking at the supernatural in this world more from the lenses of government and bureaucracy instead of from dead ends of the archive. and that’s where an incident assessment and response office could potentially come in.

anyways- i am just kicking my feet and giggling right now!! it would be so interesting to see all this from another perspective, especially one where all these things are actively being investigated. it could leave a lot of room to get more in up close and personal with the elements of this world, and we might be able to see the process of active research instead of just follow ups!!

i am. unreasonably excited for this

#got my red strings and conspiracy boards out #we ready to roll babey!!#the magnus protocol #tmp #tmp theory

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drawnaghht · 1 year

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a reply to @freakova's tags on this post

#this would be a really nice ending honestly#cause YEAH why happened to his parents what gives they’re Usagi’s too#and the fact that auntie adopts the kids it shows how family can be found#+Yuichi know got lil sisters#He’s all about family (miyamoto and auntie) they could have explored it even further

same! would like to know more!!!

we never really touched on Usagi's backstory besides that his parents entrusted auntie with taking care of him, so I often wonder, if the show had been given a longer episode run, like maybe 30, 40, maybe even 26 instead of 20 - could we have seen more character backstories in general? Cuz there's also Kitsune, who's backstory we don't know at all, and then Gen and Toshiko, who we see explain their story a bit in bits and pieces through-out the 2 seasons. The fact that Usagi immediately goes back to his auntie, because he knows Hana would be safe from the ninja there, says a lot about how much he trusts his auntie. like the show makes it feel like he might actually be the most fleshed-out of all the characters, but his story is hidden almost as much as Kitsune's. I sorta get the reasoning there - their personalities already serve to tell their story a lot, Usagi is a big fan of his own ancestor and idolizes him, while Kitsune is a street-thief and grifter before we see Usagi bump into her puppet-cart and ruin her evening plans. The audience can get a lot of info out of just context-clues, but Kitsune and Usagi are also characters who are most easy to read at first, so we don't get their backstories really explored or opened the same way as Chizu or Gen, because, I can only guess, those stories don't seem to directly tie into the two larger arcs shown during the 10+10 episodes. But lol, would still like to know more, where are the activity books and character pages? a little side novel maybe? why did the age of flash games with extra info have to end before this show aired lol, if only Netflix spent money on that sort of stuff too, maybe we'd have more info besides just the shows on their own 😂😂😅

More theories and rambling below :D

My theory about Usagi's parents is that they died in one of the wars mentioned by some of the older characters in the show :) Cliche, I know! but it seems to sorta make sense. Could have been many other reasons too of course! Maybe they went to the city to find or do something related to the family business or history, but found their end somehow. One of my other theories is that there were gang wars in Neo Edo, around 10-14 years before the series starts. Maybe they found their end there? We don't even know how old his parents would have been, but judging by auntie's look and how she speaks and acts, maybe she's like, around 60-ish? she has raised her nephew for 15 years, meaning since she was around 45, so maybe her sister/brother would have been around 35-40 something when they died. I personally headcanon that it's his mom, who is the Miyamoto family member here, so maybe his dad really was a farmer by birth and thus, the family did not have a name anymore (they've always preferred staying in hiding after Miyamoto died) and that's why they gave him the name Yuichi Usagi with meaning... related to that earlier Senso-connected theory I had ^^;

The "big" wars, mentioned by Lady Fuwa and Armiral Nochi, being recent makes sense tho. bc even though a 1000 years have gone past and Edo (our real-world Tokyo) in this world has been able to embrace some more advanced tech (courtesy of the Ki-stone), perhaps even alien tech, depending on how you view what happened with Miyamoto Usagi in the show's past, some of the culture and tech has sort of stayed in the Edo period. This is mainly because the show creators and staff wanted to keep both Edo sensibilities as well as modern tech and create an interesting fusion on an artistic and story level. One of the older interviews from last year mentions that the crew was inspired by Stan's 2015 story Senso - that what if Edo got to take all that alien tech and use it for themselves? From one of Stan's answers in this 2022 Popverse interview:

"They took one of my stories – Senso, a miniseries I did where Martians invade feudal Japan – and wondered what if they took some of the technology they got from those Martians, how would it affect their society generations down the line?

That was the premise, with the story taking place in a city called Neo-Edo; with Edo being the old name for Tokyo, the capital of Japan. It also takes a lot from Japanese culture, such as vending machines, pachinko parlors, karaoke bars, and things like that. It integrated everything, the old and the new, and I’m quite happy about that."

So the wars would make sense to be more recent because to me, it seems that maybe with this tech, from a story-world level, they should be further along the line than having just flying cars and airships, right? But wars are one of those things that always and if Edo didn't have those outside influences that we had, maybe they wouldn't have some things, i.e. we don't see phones or trains on the show vs the phone boom we had in the 1980s in the real world and the hi-speed train rails japan is known for now. So they probably would have also missed out on the 60s Space Race between the US and the Soviet Union, which popularized the 1960s "space age aesthetic" for example, which is what we might think of when trying to remember 60s tech and fashion. So the show creates its own retrofuturism in trying to consider all these different elements.

(images from Flickr, Lehza Vintage)

(from The Rake, The Olympians)

I wonder if they even considered some cultural things that stuck and became popular before and after the US occupation, such as baseball Harley Davidsons and jazz - what would those be like in the world they created around the city of Neo Edo?

(from AnotherDesignBlog, Eiko Hanamura on League of Extraordinary Cosplayers, Sally the Witch on Wikipedia, 60s Vintage MENKO on eBay)

We see some semblances of what we could call western influences in how Gen installs new kitchenware in episode 5, how Kitsune looks like she could be a 1970s Harajuku girl, how Admiral Nochi and the Bat Squadron dress etc. It's an interesting balance throughout the show and thinking about it more just makes me more curious about it haha.

Maybe what happened with the Makkine a 1000 years ago is that a few sentries arrived with Kagehito's ship. Because of the surprise Kagehito expresses about the makkine warbotto self-replicating in the present (the s2 warbotto ep), we can surmise that they didn't back then, so they didn't replicate. Did they leave any ships? In the first season, Kagehito's ship is underground and covered by hundreds of years of rubble and rock. The Mogura Gang helping him then, actually find gold before they find his ship. So if any ships did come through with him those 1000 years ago, it seems that they did not "park" into the same place, or, likely that whatever happened, they were used up by locals.

The show is also quite fast-paced in reality, as we can see from how each episode jumps from POV to POV, or topic to topic and we get a lot of info in a short time, so to me it seems that the story crew REALLY crunched every bit of important info, story or jokes into the episodes, but just, didn't have more time to show or do anything about Usagi's parents.

lol what I'm doing to avoid more brainworms like this is to.... I guess continue writing my fanfic where I try to solve this (the main storyline from the comic i posted haha), but I also realized while writing this... I am waiting to see if I can get one of the new books coming out this or next year that bridges the stories/worlds between Yokai Hunter and Space Usagi, to see if there might be some new connections to be from there about Space Usagi in general, but maybe there could be something there nodding back to SR as well? maybe the new character is inspired by that or somehow bridges those things? lol a fan can hope ;D

#freakova #aghhtreplies #usagi chronicles #srtuc #yuichi usagi #srtuc kitsune #srtuc gen #srtuc toshiko #fan analysis #sorta?#aghht srtuc analysis #srtuc fan theory #long post #srtuc bat squadron #srtuc mogura gang #k half of this is just. sleepless rambles. not v good. but look at my graphics in this post!

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royrockstone · 1 year

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heyy

not really a question, just wanted to give you some flowers

ive been reading your stuff for the past three weeks and im so glad i came across you cause i didnt think id find a writer in the succ sphere that can write roman in a way that won’t annoy me LOL (tbf i did find very few others since then but youre my fav) also it’s so hard to get a laugh out of me with writing and i totally belly laughed a few times, you’re fucking funny

idk i think youre pretty brilliant and get the characters so well its almost unbelievable at times

and jesus christ i love the way you write ed stuff, i was thinking about it watching the show but you just gave it a whole new dimension

i still didn’t read everything, don’t want to binge it and then be sad.

actually i do have a question, do you have any personal writing outside of fic realm? or ever considered writing whatever original stuff? well regardless i think you’re insanely good at imitation and a few dialogue moments feel like a memory of the canon show in my head

k that’s it :))

this was so SO kind (to the point where i kinda didnt want to answer just to keep it in my inbox ) thank you for taking the time to write out your thoughts and send them my way!!

beyond glad to hear you think im funny and a Roman Understander— that's everything i want to hear <33

re: the ed stuff, i tend to bring a “hm getting a lot of ed vibes from this” mindset to a lot of media 😭 (and we live in a disordered culture! most media with something to say about the world has something to say about food and bodies) but its ofc become clear over time that its incredibly intentional in succ! which is a win for me but also. a devastating loss emotionally. and it adds a ton of depth and dimension to its stance on wealth, gender, trauma, personal identity and family dynamics. im glad to hear that the way i write it hits the mark for you <3 (truly my biggest flex is that i was an ed!roman truther from before the esquire interview. i saw the dog pound scene and went “hm. rexie vibes.” and never looked back.)

i know there will be fewer eyeballs on it after the show ends/once the post-finale glow (or anger, but hopefully glow!) wears off, but i have a few more ideas i want to bash out abt these characters before i pack it up, so you’ll get more content even if you finish all thats currently out there!

SCREAMING that someone would like my fic enough to ask about my non-fanworks writing. actually screaming. dream come true! ok ok i Do have a personal writing practice. ive been published a few times in cultural criticism (and one poem lol. nothing earth-shaking, as its something im relatively new at and haven’t put a ton of effort into yet) id also be happy to dm you some critical writing ive done that deals with ed themes if thats of interest! like most mediocre prose writers, ive dreamed about writing a book. and im currently writing a screenplay (my la-era roman slay) but i don’t rlllly expect that to go anywhere since Everyone has written a screenplay (ive mentioned it obliquely on here before, but its thematically centered around dancers/theater/the political economy of the culture industry/the legacy of aids in the arts) but yes, if im talented at anything, its mimicry (thats why i tend to write in fandoms with rlly specific, imitable dialogue styles and tones- succ, veep, the secret history) so i understand if people would not be interested in my original writing.

ty for this ur very kind and i will treasure this ask foreverrrr <333

#and #not to Trawwma Dump on the internet #but im sure most people can surmise that i have not always (ahem) been the most Well guy in the world #and its actually very very meaningful to hear that ive turned my 10ish years of experience into something worthwhile #that other people want to read or even feel moved by or reflected in :’)#also my screenplay shockingly Doesnt have an ed subplot as of rn but maybe….

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call-of-ishmael · 3 months

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Mental Illness and Fictional Characters

Id like to make a post of general discussion on canonical or interpreted mental illness in fictional characters and why, well, its complicated!

Im the Ishmeal OCD poster, so i clearly like analysis on that sorta stuff

But one thing i want to mention too is

The most perfect of writing, the most accurate and made by a person with that condition writing even, is never gonna be perfect

What do i mean by this?

Well going back to the character im very interested in, ive seen a fair share of people, even some with OCD say they dont think she has it, to them they do not see any manifestations of it. And you know? Thats not a wrong position to have, they arent incorrect.

Cause mental illness is a varied and complicated thing

When it comes to saying a character has or doesnt have a certain disorder you cant treat it the same you would a real person, cause you cant sit down a character and interview them and do psychometric testing on them

In my own experience having OCD while me and someone else with the condition can relate to a lot of what we struggle with in a lot of ways, we will differ often times pretty drastically on HOW it affects us. Its why often times a trained professional is needed for evaluation, theres a lot of factors

Also even if something is canon it doesnt really mean its accurate, Toko in Danganronpa is stated to be DID but... shes not as far as i know a very good example of it and has a lot of negative common stereotypes attached to her.

And sometimes, it could even be outright been stated for a character to NOT have a condition and it still fits eerily uncannily well into how they act

I can talk about endlessly on why i find Ishmaels experiences deeply uncomfortably real and relatable and how she behaves in a way i feel is OCD and fits with my own lived experiences

And someone else can say how they think she doesnt at all fit their own lived experiences with OCD and with the experiences of others theyve met who have it

And neither of us are really wrong. Cause mental illness is more varied than youd think! To the point theres talk in the field of psychiatry on if our current diagnostic apporach and labels are even sufficient enough for it!

Not sure how to close this other than remember to be nice to other people, headcanons and character analysis are at the end of the day a thing we do for fun

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icharchivist · 7 months

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ICHA ICHA I HAVE A THEORY, the next boss seems to be tiamat but they say it's something from the creation myth, which doesn't make sense right? If the creation myth was 6000 years ago and primals were concepts and "gods" given form by the astrals 2000 years ago BUT WAIT what ifgods had a shape before? A lot of people have already been theorizing the there are two phoenixes around, the one of thedeck and the primal we defeated not being the same entity also cause lyria didn't sense it and here's where it gets interesting what if WHAT IT Primeval Gods were actually a thing and Lilith and Astraeus used the name to gain skydweller's faith cause they ALREADY believed in them? LIKE- where do we find Abramelin? somewhere within the Rafale Alliance meaning he was in Zegagrande where they still use the term primeval god so what if the tiamat we will fight and that most likely downed wilnas is not port breeze's tiamat but the original True Primeval God??

how on earth is the new boss supposed to be Tiamat DKLFJDLKFJDLKFJ unless they mentioned something i missed in interviews and stuff??? (but if it's because of leaks please i avoid those)

Also we know that some primals were created to take control over the realms of other forces, and that's what the Primarches especially were. When Lucilius created the Archangels to control the elements of the Skyrealms, the pull their control put the skyrealm too pushed the Wedges to be in deep slumber, which is why it's only when the Archangels let go of their powers and "let nature take care of the elements again" the 6 dragons actually woke up. (that's mentioned in the Lindwund quest)

So the whole things with primals is that they're created with purposes by the Astrals (Lucilius first, Cosmos's creator around the same time, and then there's a gap of about 1.5k years before the rest of the Astrals did the same). Some purposes were more specific and didn't need to pull on nature exactly (exemple: Noa as the primal beast of ships), but Primals that where created to represent an element were meant to show control over a natural phenomena.

In Created by the Stars, Loved by the Skies, we actually see that Tiamat wasn't originally made for Port Breeze though. It's Cosmos and Lucifer who encouraged her post-war to make a pact with Port Breeze because it would be a nice place for her to settle, and that if Skydwellers could see Primals as part of nature to respect then there wouldn't be a needless slaughter of the primals after they were left there after the war.

It's not impossible Tiamat was created to emulate an actual god/being that lived in the skyrealms before though. Again this is what the Primarches were created for, so we know it happened before, and then we have case like Sylph who's both supposed to look like the Astral's lover AND replace the Fairies of Feendrache who then went into slumber for a long time as well.

There is a major subtext in the primals' purpose as to how it's the Astrals colonial way to replace the way the world worked with their own creatures they controlled, erasing the traces of what was previously there.

I do actually believe that the Phoenix we fought in the first event is a primal that was made specifically to capture the essence of the Real Phoenix - i think i mentioned it when i was liveblogging this part of the story. It makes a lot of sense imo since we did see it happen.

As for Relink i would be careful about using it as a reference point due to the fact it's not canon to our current timeline (even if Phoenix does mention everything was real and all). The Rafale connection is a stretch, sorry, the Crew Alliance Rafale has been in the main game for about seven years since we're introduced to them via the co-op quests, it doesn't mean anything specific about Zegagrande ALHDLFKJDFLK. especially since in the mobage storyline people don't go from one skyrealm to the next easily because of the Grim Bassin, and that exploring Zegagrande has explicitly been written off in the main game.

In the Avia notes/Astareus' journal you get in post game in Relink, there is an explicit mention that yes they used the belief the Skydwellers had for the primeval gods and encouraged it to see the impact of faith on them. Astareus' journal mentions though that those were primals all along.

(honestly i'm a bit scratching my head over the Relink's timeline in term of the Astrals since Lilith mentions Lucilius was a project rival for her, because it would mean she started Avia stuff about 2k years ago, and it doesn't actually make a lot of sense that there were primals to even comment on at this point without the Astral invasion. Another thing to make Relink difficult to explore as a lore point.)

Personally i wouldn't really see Primeval Gods as anything more than another names for Primals since we already have more lore information on what the primals were meant to emulate to start with.

but yeah i do believe in the Primal Phoenix being an attempt at capturing the power of the Real Phoenix of myth, and that others primals may have been created to echos actual natural phenomena from the creations days.

I'm dubious about the whole Tiamat thing though. That'll be to see when we get there.

#ichareply #ichafantalks gbf #anonymous #ichablogging 10thanni #ichablogging gbfr

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dropintomanga · 3 years

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“Look Back” - 140 Pages of Raw Emotion

Koyoharu Gotoge gets all the attention right now, but the real manga superstar of the future (or soon-to-be) is Tatsuki Fujimoto. His previous known works, Fire Punch and Chainsaw Man, have developed passionate followings. But his one-shot about creativity and the bonds that form as a result, Look Back, solidifies Fujimoto as one of the very best in depicting real human emotions during terrible moments.

Look Back focuses on the artistic journey of Ayumu Fujino, a 4th grader who loves to draw manga. She draws comic strips for her school newspaper. However, Fujino sees that a fellow peer of hers, Kyomoto, draws even better than her. Fujino becomes more determined to be better than Kyomoto. However, family and peer pressure causes Fujino to change her priorities during 6th grade. It isn’t until she is asked by school staff to deliver Kyomoto’s elementary school graduation diploma to the latter’s house that she gets back into drawing manga again. Fujino draws something on a blank 4-panel strip she finds at Kyomoto’s place. Kyomoto, who’s a shut-in, sees the strip and tells Fujino that she’s been a fan of her art since 4th grade. Fujino becomes ecstatic in seeing her work recognized after constant criticism from her peers. Fujino and Kyomoto begin to work together on manga since then. Both got recognized by Shueisha multiple times over the years to the point of having one of their works becoming an anime series.

Shortly after the anime announcement of one of their works, a rift between the two starts to happen when Kyomoto tells Fujino that she wants to go to art school to get better at drawing. Fujino argues that Kyomoto’s social aloofness is too much for the rest of the world and that it’s better for Kyomoto to stick by her. Kyotomo still goes to art school regardless. Years after their separation, Fujino watches the news one day and finds out that someone attacked the art school Kyomoto attended with multiple dead victims. Kyomoto was one of them. Fujino begins to criticize herself for Kyomoto’s death, but after visiting Kyomoto’s drawing space and seeing how much Kyomoto loved her, Fujino continues to draw as a way to move forward.

I can’t speak on the creative process of a mangaka and mangaka relationships (though I know several mangaka have commented on Look Back for its honest take of being a creator), but I can definitely comment on Fujino blaming herself for Kyomoto’s death. “Drawing is useless,” she says. Fujino imagines a scenario where she saves Kyomoto from her attacker. Fujino was once told by her older sister to practice karate and she feels that maybe she should’ve taken it more seriously. What if she didn’t draw that strip back in 6th grade? What if Fujino and Kyomoto actually met during the art school incident instead of 6th grade?

Those “What ifs?” get shown in vivid detail. And it’s heart-wrenching. There’s always constant reminders to treasure those around you because you never know what will happen. It’s hard to do that sometimes when certain cultures always avoid issues like death and the inevitability of it all like they’re not worth talking about. Also, I think we’re always told that we can save someone if we tried hard enough. If they never get better, society will say that it’s our fault. No one wants to talk about how random life gets. That’s because no one wants to admit that they can’t control everything.

The most powerful moment was Fujino realizing that drawing isn’t useless. She notices a small strip at Kyomoto’s place while in grief. This panel says it all.

It’s nice to have someone with the same interests as you be your friend. But more importantly, it’s even nicer to have someone who literally gives a shit about you. Someone’s who willing to guide you, take in your pain, and be vulnerable with. Fujino exposed Kyomoto to the outside world during their early mangaka days and Kyomoto expressed her gratitude for that. It’s so hard to find people like that. I mean, if you know you’re about to die, it’s worth knowing that at the very least, you met someone that loved you and got you to feel life was worth it, right? I often hear there are many people who don’t feel they’re truly being heard among their relationship circles. Their connections aren’t as deep as they would like.

What this also says is that if you’re working on something that almost always feels undervalued, there’s always someone out there who will tell you that they are inspired by your work. Maybe I can speak on this a bit. I sometimes feel that blogging is a drag given all the mass attention is going to other outlets. Like why write? Especially on a platform that’s been crapped on the past few years. I realize that this isn’t the case. There’s people who dislike “hot takes/clickbait tiles/news promoting discourse.” I think about what Roland Kelts said about anime discussion in this interview.

“What sucks is that the discourse on social media is so coarse. When you go back and read exchanges between diehard anime fans on Usenet and old chatrooms and forums from the mid-2000s, they read like middlebrow literature compared to what you see on Twitter, Reddit, and Discord. So many social media posts are made just to get hits, not to communicate or share ideas, and the most provocative, cruel, or just plain daft stuff gets liked and retweeted a thousand times.”

I feel that there’s still a place for me and if I can still communicate ideas worth thinking about, I’ll keep going as long as I can. Plus, trying to appeal to everyone feels like a trap because it sometimes requires sacrificing certain core values that you might hold dear. When I look at Fujino and Kyomoto, they held on to their core values and found solace in one another. Just find “good enough” people who are willing to love and respect you. I’m glad Look Back got published because finding bonds with other like-minded folks and developing very close relationships with them is sadly a rarity during these times. You also can’t put monetary worth on creativity that inspires people to do what they want to do and/or find reasons for living. Hobbies and creative ventures aren’t “side hustles/distractions” - they’re part of a universal cry to be human.

I think it’s safe to to say that we will really look back on this one-shot for years to come.

#Look Back #Tatsuki Fujimoto #manga #mental health #friendship #psychology #coming of age #connection

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rumblelibrary · 3 years

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Hello, it's me again, your friendly neighborhood... Hungarian?!...👀❤️

Can I request a Sebastian Zöllner fic, where he is a coworker of Reader, and there's an obvious sexual tension, attraction in the office, they sit opposite each other, legs touching sometimes, hands touching... Idunno... Things like this 👀🔥 but nothing happened... Yet...🔥🔥

Never an Enemy [Sebastian Zöllner x Fem!Reader]

Word count: 5k

Warnings: A bad mouthed journalist with strong opinions about art and performance that might offend

Author’s note: Did I let this idea simmer in me for ages? Yes. Did I ever stopped thinking about it? NO.

You hummed softly while the music blasted in your headphones as you made your way up the stairs to the headquarters of the Art Tribune, the art focused magazine you worked for since over a year.

You liked the job even if to deal with artists was hard and the pay check could really deserve an improvement, it was stimulating and surely kept you on the edge. That morning in particular you needed to revise some background stories and just loads of reading to do to work on a new article for an upcoming exhibition. Just the usual fact checking, but you just couldn’t do it at home the day before so you decided to come early and enjoy some peace and quiet at the office.

You arrived at the top of the stairs of the fourth floor with a groan, you told yourself you had to do the stairs because you spent 70% of your life sitting in front of a computer, kind of self care, but brutal. You groaned lightly going straight toward the little kitchen installed for the team when you noticed something in the empty shared room full of desks. It was actually a really nice place with big industrial style windows that let lots of light inside, a very smart environment to work in, with areas where you could relax, free Wifi and loads of facilities. Usually people were put in big desks together, facing each other, trying to push a sort of ‘community feeling’.

Inevitably most of the people created barricades with books, and pictures of their dogs or even empty coffee cups. Yes, all cute and artistic, but do not talk to me.

That’s what also the attitude of the man you shared your desk with on your first day. He whined like a child for twenty minutes, complained he was happy to work alone, followed the assistant of the editor around the office and created a barricade of catalogues between the two of you so thick that you wondered if it was also bulletproof, only to rest his elbows over it half an hour asking if you had the change for the vending machine. Yes, that random man was you colleague and friend, Sebastian Zöllner.

The same that you are witnessing now asleep on the desk, head resting on his crossed arms while a stand of saliva went down on his shirt, wild hair and shoes taken off.

He could be considered an attractive man if he wasn’t a bloody nightmare of a person. You actually worked a lot with him and enjoyed his presence most of the days, your characters folded nicely and you would bounce off his attitude. He was strong on biographies and annoying the shit out of others, so he was always nagging at someone, you included.

You smirked slowly tracing his hair with your fingers, he never looked so innocent and you were always surprised to learn how those messy hair were so soft. It wasn’t the first time you did that gesture, sometimes he did lean his head like this only to be touched like an annoying mewling cat that needs attentions. “Kaffee” He mumbled making you chuckle, such a an annoying brat and he didn’t even open his eyes.

You carried on walking to the little kitchen room to prepare some coffee for you and your desk partner. You shook your head aimlessly as you started wondering why the man is here at this hour and if it was really a good idea to wake him up. To have him awake means to be able to do little to zero.

You watched the coffee get ready, the comforting tune of your morning playlist getting you still on the good side of your mood as you poured the coffee in your mug.

Then you saw it, an arm sneaking in front of you and taking the mug from your hand, you jump scared in a second almost pouring the rest of the coffee on the whole kitchen counter only to encounter Sebastian sleepy figure behind you bringing the mug close to his nose and inhaling deeply the aroma before having a gulp, you stared at him as his jaw clenched, his eyes got a bit teary. “Fucking hot” he whined making you chuckle, he deserved it for stealing it, luckily you were already doing some more for him so he stole your favourite mug but you had some coffee for you left.

You pulled off your headphones leaning them on your neck “No idea you’d be sleeping at the office, weren’t you off on some interview ?”

He shrugged “yeah, well me neither, but interviewing sculptors is always annoying as shit and those are always supersensitive” he said opening the freezer and pulling out some ice cubes from their box and putting them in the coffee mug. “Scheiße!” He cursed as the ice cube landing in the mug caused the coffee to spill onto his white shirt. You pressed your lips tight against each other not to laugh into his face, but he was already pissed off and it wasn’t even proper work time. You watched him lean over the sink trying to wash it off somehow without even bothering to take it off, just adding chaos on chaos.

“Y/N! Do not laugh and try to help me! Beside, the heck are you doing here at this hour?” You rolled your eyes at that comment, but you didn’t indulge him in that request.

“I was just looking for silence”

He nodded like he didn’t believe a single word of it, he was just an asshole and you had to deal with it like it or not. You almost hated how he was so freaking good at writing and that’s probably why many people indulged him. Even you knew his pieces on the magazine and didn’t expect to find out he was so…so Sebastian.

You let out a breathy chuckle taking your mug and making your way to your joined desk letting him wrestle his balance over the kitchen sink trying to get the stain wet and not shower himself in the meanwhile.

You sat down at your spot leaning the mug on side, hands covering your face trying to keep a clear mind letting out a big breath “okay, let’s do this”

You turned on the lamplight on your desk pulling out your laptop from your backpack. As the computer was ‘waking up’ you stared at Sebastian side of the desk compared to yours.

You had like a little citadel of books around you, but it was pretty neat, a little succulent gifted by your friend for your first day at work with the name tag ‘Danny’ on it sitting beside the lamp, lots of pencils and pens of different colours and notebooks to no end. If you had something in common with that beast of a man was that you both still relied on paper for sketching ideas and write down impressions in the moment, then onto the typing.

His side, however, was like a contemporary artwork in itself. Half empty cigarettes packages everywhere, the ashtray filled up, paper inside books and books filled with more papers. Notes everywhere, the damn king of neon yellow post-its, stains of coffee and crumbles of food invert corner, his red laptop showing off like a punch in the eye and his satchel bag always hang or thrown around.

You often wondered if the cleaning stuff just gave up on him. Your lucky guess was that he would probably throw a fit if anything was moved, so everyone just played the blind eye.

He was good at throwing fits.

You watched him come back sitting in front of you, half of his shirt soaked in the attempt to clean it up, he licked his lips picking one empty package of cigarettes looking in it and throwing it away until he found one with still something in it and he lighted his cigarette as he turned on his laptop. You sighed opening the window to let the fresh air not getting you intoxicated.

You went back to sip your coffee and stare at the screen quietly, every now and then your eyes falling onto the little cloud of smoke in front of you.

Sebastian was an attractive man, that was undeniable and you were sure that made him also a successful interviewer even though he was so random and chaotic, when he was silent and collected in thoughts he was indeed a sight to be seen. The dark hair framing his face like he was some cherub, his deep eyes staring into the void of his own words as he typed. He had a sort of decadent look on him.

Slowly the office begun to get filled, people coming here and there to tease Seb about coming early and he just waving his cigarette around asking for silence.

“Zöllner””

The chief editor shouted getting into his office without even turning around. Seb rolled his eyes looking at you as he pushed the cigarette in the ashtray waving his hand around to dissipate the smoke around him before standing up.

“I wonder how he managed to survive few days without shouting my name” he smirked.

You looked at him and mimicked his smirk.

What a chaotic man.

You had finished your reading by then and started to make a first draft of the article you were meant to work on.

“Y/N!!!” Sebastian voice rang through the office making you jump on your seat and he gestured at you to go with him with a big wave of his arm.

You looked at your screen with an helpless sigh, it seems like you will not write that article anytime soon, you’d better just have slept an hour more.

You stood up following that incessant wave as Seb put his hand on your back to get you in a bit quicker.

“Good morning”

You said as the chief editor nodded quietly “Look Y/N, it is a big favour I have to ask you” he begun frankly as you were beginning to get worried “you did your time with silly articles, so I thought it could be interesting to pair you up with Sebastian to go to tonight’s exhibition of Evita Schnecke”

Your eyes went wide as you looked at Sebastian shrug his shoulders.

“I need somebody to keep the horse with tight rains” Mr Megelbach continued gesturing with his pen at Sebastian and then at you “and you will dip your toes in those big time artists environment, but we really need to make sure Sebastian won’t hurt anyone’s sensibility, her interview has been obtained with lots of hard work”

“Yeah, we all know that hard work” Sebastian whispered in your ear earning a glare from Mr Megelbach who handed you a couple of catalogues from that artist and the invitation.

“So, put on hold your current article for today, make a plan with this train wreck and please make sure he doesn’t show up dressed like that”

“That was unneeded”

“All precautions are always needed with you, and now get out of my office the both of you”

You nodded moving out of the office, you were a bit anxious. Those artists were unpredictable just as Sebastian.

You made your way back to your desk with him as you sat down looking at the invitation. “So, it begins at 9 pm” you said almost understanding why Sebastian shouldn’t be allowed to go unescorted because the invitation on the dress code had: Wear something that talks about your soul. Only that could bring Sebastian to have an aneurism.

“I hate that bitch”

“Seb, that’s not a good start for an article”

He smirked as you said so but shrugged

“I mean it, this woman was born into privilege, she portrayed herself to be this underground rebel, but her simple black dress was a Chanel and her everyday boot Balenciaga, so I don’t trust her for a reason”

You smirked as you could agree with that and showed him the two catalogues the boss gave you

“Choose your fighter”

He groaned so loud he could have stabbed his toe and he leaned over his side of the desk picking one from your hand giving a light pinch on your side “teacher’s pet”. You chuckled softly as he always said that.

“Tell me if you read something that it is not about the performer’s way of life” he mumbled opening it in front of him.

You begun your reading and it was indeed the hell pit of a vey spoiled kid who was told to be the greatest since the first day of life, you picked your notebook and opened it taking notes on things that you could ask about.

Sebastian in the meanwhile lighted up another cigarette rolling it between his fingers mindlessly, his eyes looking above the paper at you every now and then among the little curses in German about the stupid things written there.

After some time it was becoming really a torture to read and you leaned your back on your chair stretching your legs forward for Seb to catch one of them among his.

You smirked as you often joked to him he was like some bear trap with those legs always catching yours.

He put his hand under the table bringing your leg up onto his thigh as you shifted even lower on your seat, his hand touching your ankle mindlessly as he had a talent for little massages like that. He did it the first time a while aback, a summer day where it was so hot and humid that you couldn’t feel your own legs.

So it became a little ritual among the two of you. You had many of those rituals, it was like an unspoken collection of attentions. Like you making the coffee in the morning because he was a grumpy ass. Or him always buying you some chewing gum or little treat when he went to buy cigarettes.

“I guess I am not the only one that needs a restyle”

He said bringing you away by the tenderness those little actions brought to you when he pushed his finger in your Vans shoe deepening a hole that you were trying to ignore from months.

“Seb, don’t do it, I wanted to make them last another season”

“Another season? These can’t last the end of the month, no doubt why your sex life is a train wreck”

You frowned at him taking your ankle off his hand to push on his chair making him roll back thanks to the little wheels underneath it, but he held on the desk and pulled himself closer again.

“What do you even know about it”

He looked at you, eyebrows raising up on his forehead

“Y/N, if I was your boyfriend I wouldn’t allow you to leave the bed that early in the morning to go to the office and that’s a fact”

“Oh, and how on heaven could you detain my passion for this job?” “Well, I can write you a list about it, you can consider it a to do list on your next date” His smirk was so wide, he enjoyed to tease you like that, the bastard, he knew to be an hottie and he always acted like half of the world was up to fuck with him.

“Oh please, do it, I want to see”

You teased him and he leaned in elbows on the table staring at you.

Oh the sexual tension with him was too much, you always went down on this hurricane of remarks, always him mentioning how you need more orgasms or implying it, or even implying how good he is at giving them.

“But be careful, because any act should be performed and not only lived”

You said quoting the artist you were reading about and he whined so hard like you really stomped your foot on his balls.

“Horrid witch”

“Me?” “No, that one”

He huffed and puffed picking another cigarette. Sometimes cigarettes just died on his fingers as he forgot to actually enjoy them more than waving them around.

The artist herself wasn’t remarkable, she used themes seen over and over before, she had a background as performer/dancer and she added painting to that, but more than talent she had an amazing marketing squad. You read her story and her commentaries about living like in a poem, which always sounds pretty easy with a big bank account.

You did all you could to stay neutral even if Seb was going down to massacre the woman, you two shared a bundle of two sandwiches (or better say, your brought a package of two and he was skipping his lunch so you just handed it to him) until you decided to get parted and go get ready at home.

That evening you were waiting for him in front of your apartment, when a taxi stopped in front of you and his figure appeared waving at you to come in on the back. His eyes widened in surprise “Well, well, well, look who got all fancy here”

He smirked as his eyes travelled on you shamelessly, the dress was actually one of those you brought ages ago and never used, also to wear heels felt like new, last time you went to a fancy event almost hard to recollect.

“Just move and let me in”

You said chuckling as you looked at him being so elegant when you noticed it, the price tag on his shirt.

“Seb, did you just buy this shirt?”

“Yes, and I am going to take it back tomorrow”

You looked at him puzzled

“What?” He groaned “I suck at ironing stuff”

You looked at him as a little laugh escaped your lips as he told you not to, but it was too late for that, you shifted closer to him anyway helping him to hide that price tag better behind his neck. Nevertheless the white shirt was really fancy and fitted him perfectly.

As you arrived in front of the gallery you sighed and made your way inside.

The place wasn’t crowded but few eyes turned as you got in.

“Would you like some champagne?” A waiter asked and Seb picked two flutes immediately downing one in a gulp on his own as the other was still in his other hand, he put the empty glass on the tray and then picked a third one handing it to you.

“Drink Y/N or you won’t make it to the end of the evening”

You smirked as he was always over dramatic, but indeed the evening seemed to be made for posh people to show off how cool they are.

You spotted the artist pretty quickly wearing a Valentino bright red dress, she surely had the dancer figure and gestures which gave her some kind of an edge.

"She is all yours"

You looked at Sebastian already half way through his drink, giving you that cheshire cat smirk.

"Are you sure?"

"You know I will insult her in a second if she names her dancing background one more time, I saw the videos, she looked like a three ready to collapse on the ground" he chuckled as you smirked shaking your head at his metaphor, but he is probably right, he is too much biased.

"I didn't notice the open back before" he said referring to your dress as he caressed over your skin with his fingertips making goosebumps raise up your spine.

"What? Am I too sexy for your own good?"

"Probably" he commented not losing a beat to answer you. You were taken aback from a moment, his eyes still down on his hand touching your back before raising up to find yours.

Then he took his hand away and pressed the cold champagne glass against it making you hiss "Now go, I'll check this bourgeois art"

You frowned but you just moved away from him. He always did it, he teased you and then made it a joke. You gave it back to him too, it was your relationship, that's how you balanced it.

"Good evening " you said to her with a smile holding your glass in your left hand before offering your right hand to her "I am Y/N, from the Art Tribune"

She went from neutral to smiling in a second

"Oh, I was waiting to meet you" she said leaning to kiss your cheek, surely she was a woman with charm, with a degree of boldness that made her charming and also, you noticed, extremely touchy-feely with everyone.

"We can define this a sort of retrospective of your previous works, I liked to see the evolution of it" you lied, because you just saw the catalogue.

But that was fair enough to have her go on about her, guess what? Past as a dancer, about how she needed to express herself, how she was her own muse and all the stuff you already read.

"What is next for you then?"

"I want to follow my dream, I have always wanted to found a space with my name where people could rent the rooms to perform dances and arts"

You stared at her. For real? Like there weren't other hundreds in the whole city?

"What will keep you apart from all the others that did this before you?"

"Nobody is me" she smirked like it was clear and obvious.

You asked few more questions, but you were sad to admit Sebastian was right. There wasn't art there, there was just profit, selling a name, a brand.

This saddened you because you met many artists that had less than a chance to make it but double the talent of Miss Valentino Dress.

"Y/N" Sebastian warm hand was on your back as you were downing the last bit of champagne "Come, come ,come quick" he said pushing you away as the artist clearly recognised him but he dismissed her with some insult or whatever he just mumbled.

"Seb, I was working, what the hell?"

"Elke is here"

You still didn't understand, you were puzzled as the reason of that anxiety was still unknown to you.

"Like your girlfriend Elke?"

"Put an ex in front of it" he said looking around frantically

"Oh, I am sorry, I didn't know"

"No, me neither, I thought she was just bashing around, she always did" his arm sneaked around your waist pulling you closer "please, act sexy for once"

You were one second from hitting his guts with your elbow when Elke herself approached.

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you here" she said waving her glass around

"Yeah, well I work for an important Art journal if you remember"

"How could I forget?" she groaned looking at you then as Sebastian's hand rested onto your hip. Really? Was he acting like you were his date?

"Hi, I am Y/N"

You said politely to her and she chuckled "Run when you can, this man is a leech and you don't even know it"

She mentioned it almost casually, but you could feel all the poison implied on your skin, Sebastian's hand giving you a soft squeeze, you had never seen him like this before. He looked like a dog that just got kicked, his back hunched over you lightly both trying to protect you and for protection.

"Well, thank you for your advice, I must be a real torment too because we actually have lot of fun together, I like his unpredictability"

You said it from your heart, you didn't want to insult her or anything, but you felt bad for him. Even if he probably deserved it, to be humiliated like this must be hard in any circumstance, in particular in a place where he is supposed to work and being known.

He looked at you a bit surprised, he leaned slowly pressing a kiss on your temple and you smiled because of that gesture so enveloped in that feeling of tenderness.

"Your shot" Elke said clearly a bit annoyed that you as she just moved along followed by a man that must be her date.

"Lets go out"

You suggested as Seb nodded and just followed for once, he held your hand as you guided him and for once he wasn't talking or commenting anything.

As you went out he sat down on the sidewalk pulling out his package of cigarettes taking out one immediately.

"Hey stand up" you said to him as he looked up at you and you snatched that cigarette off his lips "let's go away"

"Where? Don't we have to stay until she gets naked to dance?"

You smirked "No, we have all the material we need"

You took his cigarette away offering him your hand as he picked it and you guided him.

He was silent, which is rare, when he was silent it meant he was upset in some way, he always had a nice comeback line for everything usually.

His head leaned on side like a scolded child as he slowly laced your fingers together.

You walked across few streets, your heels clicking on the cement until you made it to your final location pulling him inside.

"Constatinopole?"

Seb asked looking at the sign, it was a kebab place, your favourite by the way.

"I am hungry" you just said making him lower his head and smile like a kid with cue breathy chuckles.

You ordered for the two of you as he went to sat down putting another cigarette between his lips when the man behind the counter glared at him and he just put it back in the package.

He sat down slouching as you did some small talks with the guys there, you clearly knew them. The soft music from the radio holding the place into a sort of magical aura as his eyes travelled over your naked back once more, the need for a cigarette becoming even more urgent.

You two dressed so elegantly really were so noticeable in the bright lightend place, he smiled to himself thinking it could be a nice painting by Hopper.

You came back offering him his kebab with a soft drink, very thoughtful because he was indeed already a bit high on champagne.

You ate quietly together, it wasn't uncomfortable, your silences were happening often at work and always filled with a sense of common understanding, you leaned your leg up like you always did at the office and rested it on his thigh as you sat sideways beside him. His hand flying naturally on your ankle to give his usual massage, his thumb tracing your skin with imaginary patterns as his other hand held the kebab close to his mouth.

The speaker at the radio announcing next song as Rocket Man by Elton John filled the room with a melancholic vibe. You couldn't help but think the song suited perfectly Sebastian, his being out of this word, out of control.

"Thank you" he said at some point as he tried his best not to ruin his shirt, you looked up at him as he was staring, his eyes telling you something on their own "You have been the best girlfriend I have ever had"

He added with a bitter smile diverting once more his gaze, you smiled back at him, he looked so resigned. Maybe it was the alcohol, but you have never seen him so fragile before.

"I could be"

His eyes darted up to you, his surprise evident as he put down the kebab, the soothing voice of the British singer still giving a dream edge to the moment as he moved closer. You slowly shifted your leg to give him room of movement as his right arm sneaked to rest on the back of your chair closing the space between the two of you.

His lips tasted still a bit of champagne as he pressed them against yours, you kissed him back slowly as his left hand travelled on your thigh pulling you closer to him probably staining your dress because of his greasy hand.

He pulled back almost immediately before leaning onto you again titling his head on the other side. This second time the kiss was more deep, more intense. Your hands slowly cradling his face before pulling back yourself.

He smiled against your lips and you smiled back.

Maybe tomorrow you will regret it like Elke said, maybe not.

Tagged @cazzyimagines @lieutenantn @handmaiden-of-mischief@thesunflowersutra @zemomybeloved@fictionlandslanddreams@charistory @greeneyedblondie44@apparrio @hb8301@whatawildone @rhymerhymerhyme @thehuiabird @lilith-blackrose @unbeatablecurlgirl@obsidianlaszlo@alindeluce@zemosimp05 @baronesszemo-blackwood @nocapesdahlingLet me know if you want to get tagged to my publications too <3

#sebastian zöllner x you #sebastian zollner x reader #sebastian zöllner headcanon #sebastian zöllner x reader #sebastian zollner #sebastian zöllner x y/n #sebastian zöllner #sebastian zollner x y/n

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jeontaehui · 4 years

Text

TAEHEE WITH OTHER IDOLS

twice’s chaeyoung

her bestie !!!!! chaeyoung’s like her mark but like outside the group.

they support each other whenever the other wins an award, always giving wide smiles that are too hard to hide.

their hangouts are referred to as ‘dates’ by the fans, considering how romantic their dinners are and how chaeyoung captions her instagram posts after going on said ‘date’.

chaeyoung is very clingy when she sees her. she clings onto taehee like a koala :(

in award shows, taehee would tend to walk slower than the rest of the neos just to talk to chaeyoung.

chaeyoung was once caught playfully flirting with taehee during an award show, causing the latter to laugh as the camera pans to another group.

iconic moment (seoul music awards 2019) taehee took mirror selfies as she waited for chaeyoung to finish up in the bathroom. when chaeyoung found out, she later posted these on instagram with the caption, “the one who i love 😍❤️”.

stray kid’s han

her other bestie since predebut !!!!!!!!

both are so powerful in the rap industry already, stayzens are just waiting for a collab.

they met in a convenience store. jisung wanted her to go to jyp with him, only to find out she’s been training in sm already (cue pouting from the both of them).

both are in Love with each other’s music, with jisung having some of nct’s songs in his playlist and taehee knowing the lyrics and the choreo to skz’s songs.

their reactions to each other’s performances are adorable !!!!!! and even funny at times. attending the same award shows means very cute interactions fans’ lenses would capture <3

(seoul music awards 2019) before the two groups walked by each other, taehee slowed down her pace and let herself stay behind the group to greet the main rapper of stray kids. once jisung was within arm’s reach from her, she raised her hand for a high-five, to which jisung pulled her into a bro-hug instead. he whispered something to her first and ruffled her hair, making the older girl hit his shoulder softly, laughing as he left.

jisung introduced taehee to chan and felix and she now has two new aussie buddies that remind her of home too !!!!!

iconic moment (isac 2019) stayzens went batshit crazy when skz had to pass by nct during the sports competition. seeing this as a chance to be playful with his best friend, jisung jumped over the first row of seats and proceeded to whisper something to taehee (who was seated very near to where the other members of skz were by the way), before jumping over to the third row. jisung must have said something really funny to taehee since it made the female idol to turn away laughing as she covered her mouth. later on, we see the two talk, inviting a very excited chan and a shy mark lee to the conversation.

red velvet’s yeri, april’s naeun, and weki meki’s doyeon

yeri and taehee were already close since trainee days (she’s close with the rest of red velvet too). taehee knew yeri was friends with naeun and she was Dying to meet her so yeri introduced them to each other, and since doyeon is friends with naeun, the latter later introduced all three of them to each other.

yeri and taehee always sat beside each other whenever nct is asked to share a table with red velvet. yeri would laugh a lot since taehee’s always so energetic when she dances to the other groups’ songs. she always hung out with red velvet during isac but would end up having yeri to herself anyways ,,, they teased each other a lot too.

taehee Loves naeun, literally. she’s always flirting with her and telling her how pretty and cute she is. naeun was flustered at first but now she’s used to it lol. taehee would literally just stare at naeun with a loving smile during pre-performance interviews in inkigayo ,, naeun does the same whenever it’s time for taehee to say her lines ^ ^ and whenever they would accidentally make eye contact, they crack up and try to hide their giggles.

taehee was kinda intimidated of doyeon at first ,,, but she thought she was a chill type of person. turns out doyeon had a lot of cute charms in her and taehee always finds herself calling her cute when she does so. they are literally a power duo. whenever the two are mentioned together, fans would gush about how good they would look in a photoshoot together.

iconic moment (yeri bang ep. 11-1) “doyeon’s and taehee’s styles are similar. right?” yeri asks as she picks out beads for the bracelet she’s putting together for taehee. “taehee would want something that goes well with her outfit. she mostly wears monotone or beige colors,” naeun points out.

“ahh naeun, you know me so well,” taehee cooes, and clearly, her eyes were in the shape of hearts. seeing as the she got ignored, yeri drops her mouth open feigning offense. “why didn’t you give me a reaction like that?” she whines, “i knew you before naeun!!!”

“she’s just really interested in naeun,” doyeon hums casually, making the other girls laugh as taehee stood up from her seat. “HEY!!! that’s making me sound like a bad friend and i’m not.”

“are you really?” yeri continues to tease her, causing the said girl to whine and hug her in embarrassment.

blackpink

they’ve met and exchanged numbers in a music show early in their debuts.

she’s the closest with rosé and lisa since their age gap is quite smaller compared to jennie and jisoo.

there have been fancams of taehee watching blackpink perform and once jisoo was on the monitor, we’d see taehee mutter, “ahh she’s really pretty.”

taehee visits blackpink’s table once every award show, and jennie would be so attentive and welcoming of her — fixing her hair, being genuinely interested in what she’s saying, and laughing at her jokes. she was seen clinging onto taehee’s waist at some point, jennie adores taehee :(

taehee’s og aussie buddy is rosé !!!! they talk and eat together a lot, mostly about australia. taehee mentioned her in a radio show talking about the time they both cried in a public restaurant, “we were talking about home and then rosé unnie just started talking about her parents and suddenly i’m tearing up and then she’s tearing up and so we ended up crying while we ate pasta,” she laughed.

lisa thinks of taehee as her little brother. she’s just as energetic as her and taehee’s jokes are what lisa finds so funny. she would join in on a few of rosé and taehee’s hangouts and take lots and lots of pictures of them (and jokingly get mad if one of the girls don’t give her credit when they post on instagram).

iconic moment (200718 rosé instagram live) “you are so hot, rosé,” taehee reads from the comments, making it a sound a little sexy for the effect, the latter widening her eyes at the implication. “how ‘bout me? how ‘bout me?” lisa cuts in, “guys. how ‘bout me?”

“i’m the hottest okay? i’m the hottest,” she presses, rosé repeating what she said in breathy laughter. meanwhile, taehee was looking at lisa with the most sincere eyes she could muster just to tease her, “you are,” she emphasized, “the hottest.”

rosé laughs for the nth time that day as she clutches her stomach before questioning the youngest’s words, “ya, are you a two-timer?”

“no, i just have the prettiest girls beside me.”

ateez’s wooyoung and txt’s yeonjun

more of taehee’s ‘99 liner friends !!!!

taehee met wooyoung when she bumped into ateez in a convenience store near music bank. the leader of ateez greeted her first and a few of the members who were with him became acquainted with taehee, but wooyoung became the closest to her !!!!

(ateez boatta cover dance) “HEY JEON TAEHEE LOOK!!!!” wooyoung shouted before dancing ‘kick it’.

taehee covered ‘say my name’ and ‘answer’ in two of her dance vlives.

then wooyoung introduced yeonjun to taehee when the latter guested as an mc for inkigayo.

(191115 vlive) “oh i really like this song (run away by txt), i listen to this before going to bed sometimes. i’m actually friends with one of the members, yeonjun. ateez’s wooyoung introduced us while i mc’d as a special guest for inkigayo and we exchanged numbers. i really like their songs, especially the vibe.”

taehee is known to be very open with her friendships with other idols, so fans were quite okay with seeing her hang out with the two, her manager trailing a few feet behind them.

iconic moment (191115 vlive) taehee’s laugh trails off once she saw a notification pop-up on her phone. unlocking her phone, she snorts once she checked the message. she proceeds to show the meme to the camera while covering the top part of her phone, “ateez’s wooyoung sent this to our gc with txt’s yeonjun.”

“aha!! d’you guys know? when i send stuff to the gc, sometimes they leave me on read or reply ‘....’ just to tease me,” she rolls her eyes playfully, “but i’m glad we’re comfortable enough to tease each other.”

itzy’s yuna

taehee wanted to make friends to go out of her shell more, and she thought asking her manager to get yuna’s number was the first step.

taehee’s like Really fond of yuna ,,, and she’s glad they got along well real quick so she took her out to eat.

earlier in the year, when superm was touring, yuna sang a snippet of taehee’s solo song and tried to dance all the points of the choreo she could remember.

the fans have yet to see more interactions (or crumbs) from these two — noticing how their age gap is just a year longer than taehee’s and jisung’s, midzyzens would LOVE to see taehee baby yuna :(

iconic moment (200922 yuna instagram live) “nct’s taehee video called me awhile ago. we’re good friends,” yuna shyly giggles in front of the camera. “it’s been a long time since we last talked to each other so she called me, and then told me how much she loved our new album. she told me she really likes ‘not shy’, but she loves ‘be in love’ the most,” she explains further, adding how the nct member loved it because of her ‘killing me, killing me’ verse.

“taehee unnie is very good to me,” she cutely smiles. “she’s very genuine with her words and she’s really supportive. i hope for us to eat again and become closer in the future.”

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accio-victuuri · 4 years

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Style Guide: Wang Yibo

His personal style through the years. from clothes, shoes and accessories. I will include “concept” styles from his UNIQ days and variety shows. As well as a few from awards show & fan meets he attended. I honestly just want to see how he changed so here it is. plus an excuse to look at his pretty pictures.

I. Early Years and Idol Life

Yibo’s initial style was pretty much divided into his idol life and his personal style. His clothes were leaning more into a blend hip-hop and Korean/contemporary style. He went through various style changes as an Idol with his group, UNIQ and really adapted the KPOP idol style. from changes to his hair color, make up on his performances and elaborate stage clothes. The transition from the innocent/delicate looking blonde to his EOEO look -- he just proves that he can represent any concept well.

II. Solo work as Wang Yibo

Things started to speed up with his popularity from late 2017 to 2018. Juggling his work as a Musician, Actor, Host, Model, Brand ambassador- everything else. Famous brands started to notice him and his magazine covers are coming one after the other. This is the time where you can see him move fully into the skateboard / streetwear brands as his go-to. Airport photos also show him in ripped skinny jeans and his shirt of choice with a matching cap. he went onto say that he choose the clothes carefully, knowing a lot of people are looking even at him even at the Airport.

It’s a stark contrast to how people see him in his Produce 101 mentorship stint. A common favorite among fans, every episode shows him in an interesting style. From the hair to his clothes and accessories -- He would always gain attention. You can ask any fan and they will definitely find it hard to rate all of his looks.

notable brands he loves to wear ( either personally or at events) : off white, stussy, supreme, evisu, wasted youth etc.

III. Rise to Fame

It’s 2019 and Yibo’s name is everywhere, not only in his home country but on international platforms. His transition to an Actor is finally complete. Keeping his other roles still intact but people noticed a few things missing. No earrings. Dark colored hair with no more highlights. However, his style during fan meets show him in very interesting pieces. Yibo’s airport style remains the same with his go-to streetwear brands but the slew of fans following him around definitely dampened the urge to stroll around the airport.

His clothes on red carpets and fan meets were always on point.

IV. The Black Panther

Wang Yibo established himself as a strong player in the entertainment industry with hard work an pure talent. At this point, everything he does and wears is going to be on display for everyone. There is little change to what he prefers to put on during his off time, predictably seen with his favorite brands. sometimes with loose pants on and signature hoodies. No more “instagram” style airport fashion photos as people gathering where he is became a security risk. He was sporting a military cut for his role in BAH most of the time but continued with his laid back style in TTXS episodes.

A real treat for everyone was when he decided to be a Captain in SDOC3. Every weekend, fans were anticipating what style he was gonna wear. Yibo-official also posts photoshoots for every look/episode. This brought us back the highlights, eyeliners and a combination of street and idol look.

Also he can forget this situation with his pants!

HIS STYLE QUIRKS

1. His love for personalized things- his love for one of a kind things is not a secret. from his limited edition Legos and shoes, him, wanting to put his names on things is not new. His collaboration with Evisu launched clothes that have his name on it and Audi even has special edition cars dedicated to him.

2. The earrings - He’s not been wearing one lately as he moved from the “idol” image to being an actor. However, it’s one of the most notable fashion accessory associated with him early on. In his Vogue Film cover last year he was wearing one for his role as a bartender. In an interview, he said he liked the earrings he was wearing.

3. Beekeeper hat - This actually went on trending as netizens did not get this type of style. In an interview, he explains that it is “hip hop style”. we don’t see him with this style anymore but it’s a notable one that gathered attention.

4. Wearing caps - Yibo’s signature accessory ever since, a combination of fashion and to keep his anonymity nowadays. What everyone really likes though is his 85 cap merchandise and hopefully, he release his own line soon.

5. Skateboard - If there is anyone who can make holding a skateboard and having it with you all the time a fashion statement - then it’s Yibo. He is often seen carrying it in airport photos and using it on his breaks. As CHN’s ambassador for it, he truly represents the culture. Yibo is also known to influence the people he works with with trying to skateboards.

BRANDS HE ABSOLUTELY LOVES.

1. Nike - The brand loves him and sends him stuff as their partner, but aside from the shoes--- he definitely influenced his fans in buying his white Nike bag that he always uses. More recently, he started using a black one instead. There is even a joke going around in weibo that people hate it when he wears a specific type of shoes they like, cause it ends up getting sold out.

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2. VLONE- He truly is a trendsetter as he is the first artist in CHN who started wearing this brand. You can see him using it on his personal time as well as in some appearances. It’s a brand by one his favorite artist, Asap Rocky. like him, Asap is a style icon and in an interview said he does not shy way from wearing what he wants even if it’s against the norm ( wearing jeremy scott’s adidas collabs at the time that it was considered not masculine to do so.). The brand stands for “You live alone, you die alone” from this quote 👇🏻

3. PeaceMinusOne - Yibo is a fan of G-dragon and like everyone else, is excited and waiting for what he brings out next. He famously posted this brand’s collab on his social media platform twice. He was seen with a phone case from them. G-dragon goes onto say that this project is an extension of himself ; A utopia that we have not reached. He wants peace, but we are not there yet. These pairs of shoes are very hard to get especially since the competition are from celebrities, collectors and fans.

4. Chanel - Do I even need to explain this? He’s been wearing this brand on numerous events. not to mention his love for his chanel coco crush rings. His recent photoshoot for his single had him decked out in Chanel accessories. He started wearing the Chanel women’s blazers around 2019 and has been rocking it ever since. This just goes to show his unconventional approach in fashion & this is why the brand loves to work with him too.

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5. Palace - This is a London based skateboard and clothes shop that he frequently wears during his off days. Yibo is very into the skateboard culture & it’s a perfect fit for him. I cannot count the number of times I saw him wear this.

6. Rolex - I have a whole collection post about this but what he’s been sporting this from very early on. limited editions mostly.

That’s it for now. This boy’s evolution in his style will continue. He will have more great fashion moments. More brands to collaborate with/ He is sure to bring something interesting every time and his one of a kind choices are always a hit. ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

#wang yibo #bjyx

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rainbowsky · 3 years

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To the person who sent me the thousand word essay, if you check out my ask policy I don't publish these kinds of long asks. I used to get tons of them and it got to be too much. Also, a lot of your comments contain anti talking points that I will not publish on my blog. But I can respond to some of the issues you raised.

TW/CW - brief mention of homophobia and suicide.

Basically your message was a sort of cataloguing of your doubts about BJYXSZD. To quote your closing paragraph, "Ah....i am just desperate for them to be a couple after all these months and the bts videos and inteviews, but it just doesn't add up anymore. So, as a confused fan, i thought about seeking reassurance to you."

I don't think it's my place, nor is it really anyone's place, to try to convince you or reassure you that GGDD is real. You will either believe or you won't believe. In my experience, people who are filled with doubts and in need of a steady stream of candies and clues to keep them satisfied are going to find themselves on a constant emotional roller-coaster of euphoria and misery.

Let go of your need for certainty.

As I've said in the past, when you let go of your need for certainty you will find that certainty comes a lot more easily. People who need certainty approach GGDD like a detective agency or a hungry ghost, focusing on their craving for proofs and candies that never quite seem to satiate them, and they miss out on the real joy of just being a fan.

A lot of the doubts you listed are things that don't really fit with why BXG believe BJYXSZD. We don't base our belief on the fact that they did a BL show together. We don't base our belief on the fact that they get along well together. We don't base our belief on candies. We base our belief on the insight we accumulate over a period of time, and that's not something that can be passed on to someone else. It's something everyone has to discover for themselves.

GGDD have nothing to prove. BXG have nothing to prove. We are all just here to enjoy them, love them and support them.

My advice: just relax, let go of your need for certainty, and enjoy GG and DD. Certainty will come or it won't, so there's no need to fret over it.

A couple things I felt the need to respond to:

Hidden relationships

Hidden relationships are totally a Thing in the entertainment industry, of course. Andy Lau with his 24 year hidden relationship is a great example. But you seem fixated on the idea that if GG or DD were hiding a relationship, it must be a heterosexual one.

Heteronormativity is a huge part of why so many fans have a hard time believing that GG and DD could ever be a real couple. There can be endless signs that a man is in a gay relationship and the fans will just dismiss it all, but if that man so much as smiles at a woman, fans are immediately ready to believe he's in love with her. Heterosexuality is seen as the default, and that makes homosexuality invisible to a lot of straight people.

You mentioned Leslie Cheung. I recommend this excellent post if you want to see why the world wasn't ready for him. He was an inspiration to LGBTQ people, without any doubt. I think he was equally a cautionary tale for a lot of people, even if the tragedy of his death wasn't necessarily directly related to his queerness or how he was being treated by the public.

There's a trope in society and in media and entertainment, that queer people are tragic figures. Queer characters are often presented as emotionally and psychologically turbulent people who meet untimely, tragic ends. Queer stories tend to be focused around "the struggle of being queer" and the rejection, fear and bigotry queer people face. The violence, the death, the suicides.

How could this not feed into the fears we have as queer people growing up in an often hostile world? How could a story like Leslie's fail to scare as many people as it inspires?

And besides, there are closeted gay couples in the entertainment industry in China.

I have talked about the whole hidden relationship thing, the whole 'needing to appear single' thing, in the past. You can find some of those posts linked at the end of this one. I've also talked about the pressure to appear single (along with the pressure to enter a straight marriage) previously here.

DD and the anti bullshit you've read

I can tell you've read a lot of anti lies in your travels. You're carrying a lot of the toxic ideas that antis spread online. I'm going to take a wild guess and say you spend most of your time on Twitter and YouTube, where these lies are part of the air people breathe on those platforms.

The rumors of DD being in a relationship with that heiress are nothing but harassment and bullshit. She is a known celebrity stalker who has caused scandals with multiple celebrities. Antis spread those lies because they are harmful to DD, not because they're true. DD denies them because they are false, not because he's got something to hide.

DD has never once been spotted with her. He's never once been photographed with her. There exists in the world exactly zero evidence of any common thread between her and DD. Zero evidence that they've ever even been in the same room together. Zero. There's no candy, nothing.

Meanwhile the candy connecting DD and GG together is so abundant it would put Willy Wonka out of business. There are constant reports of them being seen together, evidence of them being together, etc. Some of that stuff is stalker material that I won't share on my blog - such as DD's suitcase being spotted in GG's car a few days ago - but yeah, if you believe in the stalker heiress BS but not GGDD, that only speaks to your ignorance of the situation.

One of the things I find most frustrating about being a BJYXSZD BXG is that we are constantly characterized as spectacularly naive and deluded, meanwhile it's our most vocal critics - the antis, toxic solos and insecure turtles - who unquestioningly believe anything they read.

As for 22*7, you can always tell a DD anti by their willingness to claim DD should have spoken openly about GG during the whole scandal last year. No one who knows anything about GG and DD or about the situation could say in good faith that DD should have spoken up. I view that whole attitude as a litmus test for who knows and understands and truly supports GGDD, and who is either uninformed or an anti.

You can read more about that here and here.

And no, GG has never issued any statement denying BJYXSZD. Neither of them has.

BJYXSZD is not based on old BTS and interviews

I sometimes get sick of seeing clips and photos and metas about the Untamed, I sometimes get tired of talking about the same old interview clips and BTS. I see these things as ancient history - something fun to visit every now and then, but not where I want to live. I don't base my present belief on any of that. All that stuff can ever really do now is give us background on how things started and give us a bit of insight into how they get along and interact.

No BXGSZD that I know of bases their belief on "old BTS and interviews."

Both GG and DD have interesting new projects and endorsements. There's a ton of new content coming out all the time. We still regularly see new evidence that they're together. The past stuff is just for context.

Wrapping this all up, I'll just reiterate what I said before. No one can, or even should, convince you that GGDD is real. That's something you'll have to make peace with for yourself. If you want to get there faster, just relax and enjoy being a fan, and take some time to learn more about GGDD. Certainty may come in time. If it doesn't, well at least you had fun!

Since you are a newer fan I recommend checking out my BXG glossary, along with my masterlist post for some of the things I've talked about in the past.

#ggdd in the public eye #antis go home #lgbtpride #ask

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