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etherrreal · 4 years ago

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“when you pass out at practice”

Pairing: tsukishima x reader ; kyotani x reader ; aone x reader Genre: comfort-fluff ; drabbles & headcanons Summary: the reader hasn’t been taking care of herself which leads to her passing out at practice Word Count: 2295 Warnings: fainting, or passing out, from sleep deprivation/not eating/heat exhaustion, some explicit language because i’m an adult A/N: thanks for the fun request! i took a little bit of artistic liberties with the scenario to keep it from being so repetitive so I hope you don’t mind! -Luna

it was rare that you had a beautiful sunny day on a weekend with no chores to attend to or work to complete

so when your boyfriend Tsukishima texted you and asked you to come join him for casual volleyball practice outside, you decided to take him up on that opportunity

however, not even a cap and some cold water could stave off heat exhaustion

Despite it being 95°F and so humid that the air feels thick when you breathe, it is a beautiful day outside. The sky is completely clear of clouds; the sun is shining directly on you as you, your boyfriend, and Yamaguchi head out to practice at the open field nearby Karasuno. The change of scenery was refreshing and even with it feeling just as hot as it usually does inside the school gym, the occasional breeze and lack of sweaty stench was a huge welcomed change.

There’s very little shade provided by the trees, but you lay out a small blanket under the nearest one anyway. You become the bag and bottle keeper when Tsukishima and Yamaguchi hand you their items, your boyfriend dropping it haphazardly onto the blanket while Yamaguchi delicately places it down with a ‘thank you.’

You usually don’t get to see Tsukishima practice, seeing as his normal practices run until the dead of night, so it was fun watching them set and serve the ball back and forth. When the occasional ball lands by your feet, you get the chance to enjoy setting it back to them, even if it often falls short or misses the target completely.

“Thank god you’re not on our team,” Tsukishima teases, as he watches the ball you set fall 6 feet away from him.

“Yeah, because I’d kick your ass. I know I’m a threat, and you should fear me,” you retort sarcastically. Before he turns away to retrieve the ball, you see him crack a small smile at your tomfoolery.

However, after a few hours of getting up and down repeatedly to send the balls back under the beating sun, your head starts to pound. Your body is radiating so much heat it makes you want to remove your skin. You know it’s just a matter of time before you start feeling physically ill, as well. You loosen your cap and drink some cold water in hopes that it will relieve some of the tension, but you just feel the same.

You decide to lay down on the blanket, cap laid over your face to block out the sun. You don’t know if you passed out or if you simply tuned out everything around you for a bit, but you jump when you suddenly feel something wet and cold touching your neck.

You reach up to swat it away, thinking it was a bug when you hear Tsukishima’s voice. “Stop that. I’m trying to help you, dummy.”

Relief washed over you to know that it wasn’t a beetle crawling up your neck but instead your stoic boyfriend pressing his plastic water bottle there to cool you down.

“Yamaguchi thought you died,” he brought up suddenly. “He actually ran to the store to get some more water after I told him to stop overreacting.”

You chuckle, picturing Yamaguchi already mourning over your body just because you were lying down with a cap over your face. “It’s sweet that he cares though, in his own weird way.”

Suddenly, the sky and Tsukishima’s crouching figure are in full view as he flicks the hat off of your face, feeling annoyed that you praised his friend and not him. “What do you think I’m doing, huh?”

“Aww, do you want me to tell you how you’re the bestest, sweetest, most handsome boyfriend I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, and that I’m so grateful that you’ve graced me with your help?” you whine in a sarcastic tone, making grabby hands at the tall blond hovering over you.

He slaps your hands away, knowing that if you get your hands on him, you’d squeeze his cheeks and ruffle his hair like you always do. “Well, that’s the last time I ever take care of you.”

You know he doesn’t mean it and that, if you were ever in some form of peril, he would casually stroll rush to your rescue to make sure you’re okay. You hope that when you look up at him he can see how much you appreciate his efforts.

“Thank you, Kei,” you say sincerely.

“Yeah, whatever.” He sounds dismissive, but you can tell by the scrunched eyebrows and soft look in his eyes as he gazes down at you how much he worries about your well-being, and you’re genuinely grateful to have him be your unofficial nurse.

you heard from some classmates that your math teacher was seen printing out math quizzes

*cue studious panic*

you decided to completely skip lunch and use that time in the library to hit the books hard

your stomach was rumbling, your head was hurting, and your vision would become spotty if you stood up too quickly

you completed your quiz at the end of the day, but by then, you were starving and ready to get something to eat

in your panic, you forgot that you were supposed to meet kyotani after school so you could force him to go to practice that day (or else Iwaizumi would have your ass)

he heard your stomach make monstrous noises and when you let him know you hadn’t eaten, he looked more upset than usual to see you not taking care of yourself

“Let’s skip practice and get some food,” he suggests.

“What? So you can skip out on one of the few practices you go to? Absolutely not!” you reprimand.

“But you need to eat.”

“Look at you being a sweet boyfriend who cares,” you tease, watching him roll his eyes like he’s annoyed, but the pink hue dusting his cheeks says otherwise. “I’ll be fine. I should have an extra granola bar in my bag somewhere.”

"Whatever, if you say so." He turns his body diagonally, a gesture you know means 'walk with me.' Kyotani has never been keen on PDA, but one thing you have noticed is that he prefers for you to walk directly by his side at all times. To others, it may look like he’s uninterested in you, but you can tell by how often his arm brushes yours that it’s his way of showing affection.

You stroll across campus together, enjoying a quiet conversation with Kyotani about your day thus far. It doesn’t take long for you to reach the gym entrance, already hearing the balls slamming against the ground inside. You both switch out your shoes before walking in, him going to join his teammates and you finding a seat on the sidelines, seeing Iwaizumi give you a thumbs up for your job well done.

You take a moment to search through your bag for that granola bar you mentioned earlier. After sifting through books, loose notes, and forgotten pencils and pens, you realize you have no snack to tide you over until the end of practice.

The market is just down the road. I could probably go pick something up and be back quickly.

You wave Iwaizumi over, figuring you’ll tell him your plans while Kyotani is distracted so he won’t follow you out. You see his back turned to you as Oikawa speaks to the rest of the team, gesturing wildly with a volleyball in hand.

As Iwaizumi gets closer, you stand up and immediately begin to sway. Your vision grows spotted, and your head feels like it’s floating.

You hear Kyotani yell out your name before everything goes black.

When you wake up, the lights are beaming overhead as you lay in some sort of bed. Once you’re coherent enough, you sit up, looking around to see that you’re in the school nurse’s office. You pick up your hand to hold your still aching head when you notice a very angry Kyotani attached to it, already glaring at you.

Your mouth opens and closes repeatedly, not quite knowing what to say after you just passed out in the middle of practice.

"I told you that we should've gotten something to eat," he starts, growling out each word.

You shrink into yourself, feeling embarrassed that you've upset him and couldn’t even take care of yourself properly. "I'm sorry, Kentaro.”

He notices you plucking the lint off your shirt to avoid direct eye contact with him. His eyes close as he collects himself, realizing that now’s not the time to lecture you for something you couldn’t have predicted.

He sighs, standing up slightly to lean over your slumped figure, laying a kiss on your temple. He mumbles a quiet apology against your skin, feeling bad for snapping at you when he should’ve been more kind. He’s working on that, slowly but surely.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” he says, holding your hand while you stand slowly from the bed. You wobble slightly, Kyotani quickly wrapping his arm around your waist to stabilize you. You give him a nod when you’re firmly on your two feet.

“From now on, if you’re hungry, tell me.”

You agreed reluctantly, not exactly wanting him to worry so much but knowing he wouldn’t let you leave without your compliance.

From then on, he always makes sure to check on you to check if you've eaten or if you need one of the many granola bars he now carries, and while sometimes it's annoying to have him acting like a mother hen, it's also very heartwarming to know that he cares about you that much. Not to mention, he’s saved your ass many times when you have to study overtime for another intense math quiz.

the end of the semester was coming to a close and you were scrambling to get everything done on time

there weren't enough hours in the day to study for finals, finish projects, complete homework, and also take care of your human needs, like eating and sleeping

so, you just didn't sleep one night, opting to stay up with some caffeine to power through all of your work

at the beginning of the next day, you felt energetic and peppy, but as it went on, the sluggish feeling started to settle in

by the end, you were feeling absolutely exhausted and ready to drop at any moment

however, you still wanted to accompany Aone to practice that day, as it was your favorite part of your week

aone initially insisted that you head home without him, but he realized it might be safer to go with him after practice, just in case you fell asleep on the train

It feels like it takes ages, but eventually, practice begins to wind down, soreness seeping into each and every team member’s muscles after hours on their feet. A few of them are still practicing quick attacks with each other, but Aone is one more move away from passing out from exhaustion.

He walks over to you sitting on the sidelines, watching you take longer and longer between each blink. Yet, when he gets close enough, you still manage to give him a small smile that kicks his heart into overdrive, his face, no doubt, resembling a tomato because of the gesture.

He sits on the creaky folding chair beside you, taking gulps of his water to try to cool himself down. He almost chokes when he feels your head press up against his shoulder, hand resting on his forearm gently. Sitting still as a rock, he tries to take his mind off his cute partner cuddling up next to him.

"We should stop somewhere and pick up some food on the way to the train,” he suggests, doing his best to ignore the warmth filling his cheeks. “Do you want anything specific?"

You're silent beside him. At first, he thinks you're contemplating what to eat, seeing as you're very particular with your cravings. But when two minutes pass, and there's not even a peep from you, he looks down carefully to find you knocked out against his shoulder, face squished uncomfortably and mouth parting with each deep breath you take.

Aone never pictured this happening to him –mostly because he didn't think he'd ever have a partner who'd feel comfortable enough around him– so he didn't quite know where to go from here. He could wake you up to at least bring you home, but if this is the first time you've slept in over 24 hours, he didn't want to deprive you of more necessary sleep.

The only way Aone can think of bringing you home is to carry you all the way to the train station and... Well, that's as far as he manages to get, but future Aone will figure the rest out.

He asks Futakuchi to gather his things for him because he doesn't want to risk waking you. After some light teasing, he hands Aone his packed duffle and helps put on his jacket with minimal stirring from you.

Aone thanks his friend with a nod before turning to you and slipping his arms under you, one beneath your knees and the other behind your back. He freezes when you begin shifting around, but relaxes once you settle into him.

Aone waves at his team on the way out, with what movement he is allowed, and begins his trek to the train station nearby.

His arms are aching after hours of practice, but it doesn’t matter, because you nuzzling into his neck with an adorable sigh gives him enough strength to carry you halfway across the country if he needs to.

Written by: Luna

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actress4him · 4 years ago

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Overexposure - Tears

(Prompt #30 for Summer of Whump)

Taglist: @inky-whump , @michelleswhumpyreblogs

Previous | Next | Masterlist

Warnings: lady whumpee (male whumper), captivity, creepy/intimate whumper, broken ribs, referenced stress positions, referenced sensory deprivation, referenced kidnapping, restraints, gag, locked in a closet

Another gallery exhibition.

Another evening gown, another diamond necklace.

Another night of smiles and laughter and glasses of champagne and a possessive grip on her waist while her legs threaten to buckle beneath her.

She almost thought that the people attending this party, these that wanted ‘raw and primitive’ photos, would look a bit more primitive themselves. But no, they’re indistinguishable from the last group, all sharp tuxedos and beautiful gowns and elegant socializing. The thought that there are so many people out there who like this kind of thing, who will pay so much money just to see these messed-up photos of her, makes her dizzy.

Though perhaps that’s just the lack of good food and sleep. Her mind isn’t processing well enough to tell the difference.

It never helps that she’s finally faced with the product of her torment, all over the walls and impossible for her to ignore.

A close-up of her face, bruises painting her cheeks, pupils blown wide and metal glinting across her throat.

An artistically angled shot taken from the floor up at her bent, straining body, shoulders contorted backwards and on the verge of dislocation.

Her figure huddled in a tiny ball in the shadows, face half-covered by a black blindfold and red headphones...so, he was taking pictures while she waited in that corner.

Every direction she turns brings back another, unwanted memory. Ellery wants to scream, to cover her ears and shut her eyes and make it all disappear. She’d even be happy going back to her tiny basement cell if it meant not having to see or hear any more of this party.

Throughout the evening she hears so many people complimenting Lucas on how ‘realistic’ the photos are, quizzing him on how on earth he manages to create such effects. Others seem less naïve, approaching him with knowing smirks and gleams in their eye, casting obvious glances up and down her body as if they still haven’t been satiated.

At the first exhibition she had been blown away by how so many people could be so blind. Now she’s beginning to wonder how many of them actually are.

All of it - the stress, the pain, the sorrow, the hunger and exhaustion - just keeps building, an unending pressure behind her eyes and underneath her ribs. She’s on the verge of either bursting into tears or exploding into tiny pieces when another man approaches them.

His hands are empty of champagne, unlike most, and instead of immediately turning on all the charm for Lucas, his brown eyes lock onto her with the smallest of smiles.

“You’re quite the beautiful model. May I know the name of the lady who made these intriguing portraits?”

“This is Sarah,” Lucas answers for her. It’s the name he’s given anyone who’s asked, though there haven’t been many. “And you are?”

“Henry Longmire.” As pretentious a name as any she’s heard tonight. The man seems to have to drag his gaze away from her in order to focus on Lucas. “It’s an honor to be able to meet both of you in person. I have to admit, I knew of your work for a long time, but it was only when Miss Sarah here became your muse that it truly caught my attention.” His eyes go straight back to her, his smile growing into something that she could almost label kind if she didn’t know better.

“Yes, she’s been rather popular. Glad to know you found something that strikes your fancy.”

“If I may...I’ve read some quotes from him online about his process, but I’m curious about yours. Your expressions in the photos seem so...genuine. How do you go about getting into the headspace for this kind of thing?”

For a long moment Ellery just stares at him, uncomprehending of the fact that he’s actually asking her a direct question. No one ever speaks to her at these events, they only speak of her and at her. It’s only when Lucas’ hand moves from her back to her arm, squeezing threateningly in the very spot where he knows her one long sleeve is covering up the still-healing knife wound, that she realizes she has to answer. She has to lie. She’s not sure if she can even speak without her voice trembling, much less come up with a convincing response.

Her lips part, brain reeling, and she lets the words slip out, hoping against hope that whatever she’s about to say won’t get her a beating later.

“It just...comes naturally.”

Lucas’ grip eases, and she wants to crumple with relief. But Henry Longmire isn’t done yet.

“How did you decide to get into this particular kind of modeling?”

Her mind goes completely blank. The last response wasn’t even particularly a lie, but this...how is she supposed to come up with a story for this on the spot? Lying was never her strong suit to start with, and now she’s working on night after night of sleep interrupted by pain and not having eaten since yesterday morning because Lucas, as usual, was ‘in the zone’ and forgot to feed her.

“I...i-it…”

“It wasn’t her idea.” The tight grip on her arm has returned, sending throbs of pain up to her shoulder. “She had never even modeled before, actually, if you can believe that!” Lucas laughs aloud at his own joke. “I first saw Sarah at the restaurant where she was working as a waitress, and I thought to myself, ‘This is the girl I need for this idea of mine.’ Because I had had this image in my mind for ages, and I was just waiting for the perfect model to come along. So I approached her, and asked her about it, and she was interested, and, well…” He waves a hand around the room. “As you can see, she’s a natural.”

The restaurant. Of course, how had she not realized before? All this time, she had wondered why me? Why and how did he pick me, of all people? And perhaps she still didn’t know why, but at least she now knew how. Suddenly she could picture him, sitting at a booth a few tables down from hers, nursing a coffee and just...staring. She’d laughed with the other girls that night about what a creep he was, but had then promptly forgotten he existed. Creeps happened all the time. He wasn’t anything special, or so she had thought.

The story he had told just now seemed to be essentially the truth, only there had been no ‘approaching’ or ‘interest’. Only hands grabbing her in the darkness of a parking lot, then nothingness, and waking up in a cell.

“Hm.” Henry nods, but he almost seems...skeptical? Except a second later he’s flashing a smile and all traces of whatever she saw are gone. “That’s quite interesting. So Miss Sarah, what’s it like for you? Do you ever, I don’t know, get scared of him, when he’s getting you ready for these photos?”

Why is he asking her this? Is he...does he...care? Does he know something is up? She wouldn’t dare to hope, not after last time, except there’s just something off about him, something different than all the other people they’ve spoken to. Lucas, unfortunately, seems to sense it, too. Not only has he gone back to squeezing her arm, but he’s stiff beside her, not at all liking the direction of these questions.

Questions. Oh, no, she has to answer another one. Another lie. Does she get scared of him? Well, no. Not really. She doesn’t get scared of him, she lives in a constant state of fear of what he’ll do to her next.

“No.” It’s all she can manage, not even a fake smile to go with it. But in the mindset of it not actually being a lie, her voice is steady.

“Of course not,” Lucas adds on, and his voice is as stiff as his body. “She knows I’d never actually hurt her. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I believe there is another guest waiting.”

“Of course.” Henry Longmire gives a respectful nod and backs away, but she’s fairly certain she’s not imagining the way that his gaze lingers on her, brow furrowed in...thought? concern? She tries to push it from her mind, tries not to let hope build.

The exhibition drags on, and she loses track of the man in the never-ending stream of clinking glasses and twittering laughter. She’s so, so tired. Tired of pretending, tired of being stared at, tired of, in turn, staring at herself being tortured. But most of all just tired.

When Lucas drags her across the room toward yet another group that he wants to speak to, her legs finally decide they’ve had enough of supporting her weight. She stumbles, only saved from hitting the floor by his other hand coming up and catching her around the middle, uncaring of the ribs that still haven’t healed and probably won’t as long as they keep getting abused like this.

Several of the people in the vicinity gasp, as if they’re actually concerned, as if they actually care if she gets hurt.

And it’s finally too much. Ellery can’t stop the sob anymore than she can keep from dropping all of her weight into Lucas’ arms, forcing him to lower her to the floor. Tears flood her cheeks, desperate to escape after an entire evening of being held back, and a small part of her has the presence to hope that they’ll wash away the makeup hiding her bruises. Maybe then, maybe finally someone will actually, really see her.

A small crowd has gathered, hovering over her, and the claustrophobia of it only serves to intensify her sobs. She just wants this to be over, wants to go home, but she knows, beyond the hitching breaths that bend her in half and send stabs of pain through her chest, that she’s only made things worse for herself. She can’t look at Lucas right now. She knows he has to be incredibly angry.

“It’s alright, folks, just give her some space. It seems our lovely model here has twisted her ankle.” Because of course he would have a lie ready for this. “You know how women are with their shoes. Can’t pick something practical.” As he laughs he slips off her shoe, the gold stiletto that he had made her put on.

A few guests titter with laughter, some offer coos of sympathy. Lucas stands and shoos them away. “Everyone please, continue enjoying yourselves. I’m going to take Sarah to get some ice for her ankle and a bit of rest, and I’ll return shortly.”

She wishes he would get her some ice, it sounds heavenly for her ribs about now. Somehow she doubts whatever he’s taking her to will be nearly as pleasant.

Scooping her up in his arms like he’s her Prince Charming, Lucas parades her across the room to much admiration. Somewhere just before they reach the door that leads further into the building, Ellery spots Henry Longmire again, and their eyes meet. Once again, she’s struck with the thought that maybe, just maybe, he sees her. He sees, if not what’s going on, at least that something isn’t right.

She can’t speak to him. She can’t even give him some kind of signal, not without Lucas seeing. But she tries her best to send a message with her eyes - help me, please - before they disappear into the back hallway.

“I don’t know what came over you, but that was unacceptable,” Lucas hisses as soon as they’re alone. He drops her feet unceremoniously, and she struggles to regain her footing while still being carted down the hall by her arm.

This place is unfamiliar to her other than the actual gallery hall, so when they stop in front of an innocuous door she has no idea what’s inside. Lucas pulls a ring of keys out of his pocket, unlocking the door and revealing what seems to be a janitorial closet. Obviously he had stored some things here ahead of time, because the handcuffs that he reaches for don’t seem like they belong.

“You will stay right here,” he orders, wrenching her arms behind her back to cuff her, “and ‘ice your ankle’ until I come back for you.” He pulls something else off the same shelf, but she doesn’t get a glimpse of what it is before it’s pressing up against her lips. The angry look on his face warns her not to resist, to simply open her mouth and allow the knotted fabric to be slipped inside. He steps behind her, pulling the gag tight so that it cuts into her cheeks and yanking strands of her hair as he ties it.

Tears continue to slide down her cheeks, but they fall silently now.

“And if you kick, or scream, or generally make noise and try to get someone’s attention, your punishment tonight will be twice as bad.”

Shoving her forward, he slams the door shut and locks it again, leaving her to wait in the pitch darkness.

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thewench-and-thekingslayer · 4 years ago

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Michaela Coel, Gary Lineker, Olivia Colman, Kate Moss, Emma Thompson, Adrian Lester, ❤️Gwendoline Christie❤️, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Helen Mirren amongst 70 stars to sign letter urging PM to reunite refugee families

Celebrities call to make safe and legal routes available so that fewer people will feel compelled to make dangerous Channel crossings

Sir Patrick Stewart, Adwoa Aboah, Neil Gaiman, Richard Curtis and Joanna Lumley have also joined the call

‘I found the experience of living without a family to be unbearable’ - Merhawi Hagos, who came to the UK as a refugee from Eritrea when he was 14-years-old

70 high-profile celebrities, actors, singers, comedians, authors and artists have today written to the UK Prime Minister calling on him to reunite refugee families that are being kept apart by UK law.

The high-profile stars – including Anish Kapoor, Jessie Ware, Douglas Booth and Vanessa Redgrave – have signed an open letter in support of the Families Together coalition’s campaign to change the UK’s refugee family reunion rules currently keeping children in this country apart from their families.

Current UK rules allow adult refugees to sponsor their immediate family members to join them. Child refugees, however, are deprived of this right.

Merhawi Hagos, 18-year-old refugee from Eritrea, said:

“I was separated from my mother when I was 14 years old. I had an extremely difficult asylum journey to come to the UK and thankfully I was granted refugee status two years ago.

“But I found the experience of living without a family to be unbearable and a situation I would not wish upon anyone. I struggle to lead a normal life: cannot plan, cannot focus on my studies or work. I feel lonely, and depressed and do not sleep well.

“My family are in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, the camp is not secure and safe. I’m imploring the UK Government to change the Family Reunion Rules so that young refugees like myself can be together with their families in the UK.”

Gary Lineker, said:

“There are children in the UK right now who have fled war and persecution and have no hope of seeing their parents or siblings again. We should be offering them support and compassion. A simple change to the rules could be transformational.”

Laura Padoan, Co-Chair at the Families Together Coalition, said:

“Lockdown for many of us has meant separation from our loved ones. This is a heartbreak all too familiar for many refugee families who for too long have been kept apart due to overly restrictive UK rules. Today high-profile stars are sending a message loud in clear to the Prime Minister – families belong together.”

The household names join the Families Together coalition, in calling for a change to these rules, to make safe and legal routes available so that fewer people will feel compelled to make dangerous Channel crossings.

The coalition has launched a petition calling on the Prime Minister to change the rules.

Letter to the Prime Minister: You have the power to change lives

Dear Prime Minister,

Coronavirus has made us all acutely aware of how painful it is to be separated from our loved ones. But we know this separation is temporary. Sadly, this is not the case for everybody.

For some children in the UK, being kept apart from the parents they so desperately need is an everyday reality – pandemic or not.

These children are vulnerable. They have been recognised as refugees by our Government, having fled war or persecution - dangers and horrors most of us will never be able to imagine.

But the UK’s current refugee family reunion rules say that these vulnerable child refugees cannot be reunited with their family members.

After finally reaching safety, many must now grapple with a future of insecurity, knowing they might never see their family again. Tragically, at a time when children need their parents the most, our current rules mean that child refugees in this country will be left to live their lives alone.

Everyone should be given the chance to rebuild their lives so they can have a safe and happy future. That is why I am supporting the Families Together campaign in calling for a change to the UK’s refugee family reunion rules.

You have the power to change lives. With just the stroke of a pen you could fix the rules and help bring families back together.

Sincerely,

Adrian Lester

Adwoa Aboah

Alan Cumming

Alex Lawther

Anish Kapoor

Anita Asante

Anita Rani

Anoushka Shankar

Asma Khan

Axel Scheffler

Catherine Johnson

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Chris Riddell

Chris Martin - Coldplay

Colin Firth

David Morrissey

Deborah Frances-White

Douglas Booth

Emma Freud

Emma Mackey

Emma Thompson

Gary Lineker

Gugu Mbatha Raw

Guy Berryman - Coldplay

Gwendoline Christie ❤️

Hassan Akkad

Helen Mirren

Jason Isaacs

Jaz O’Hara

Jessie Ware

JJ Bola

Joanna Lumley

Jonny Buckland - Coldplay

Jordan Stephens

Julia Donaldson

Juliet Stevenson

Kaiser Chiefs

Kate Moss

Kwame Kwei-Armah

Livia Firth

Lolita Chakrabarti

Maggie O’Farrell

Martin Bell

Maya Ghazal

Michaela Coel

Nazanin Boniadi

Neil Gaiman

Nish Kumar

Nitin Sawhney

Olivia Colman

Sir Patrick Stewart

Phil Harvey – Coldplay

Sir Philip Pullman

Ramla Ali

Rebecca Front

Richard Curtis

Riz Ahmed

Rufus Hound

Rufus Jones

Sita Brahmachari

Stephen Daldry

Stephen Fry

Susie Dent

Tanya Burr

Theo James

Tracey Seaward

Vanessa Redgrave

Vick Hope

Will Champion – Coldplay

William Sutcliffe

ENDS

Families Together coalition

The Families Together coalition is made up of over 50 organisations including Amnesty International UK, British Red Cross, Oxfam GB, Refugee Council, Student Action for Refugees, UNHCR and Unicef UK.

The coalition is calling for:

Child refugees to be able to sponsor their parents and siblings under the age of 25;

Adult refugees to be able to sponsor their parents, their children under the age of 25, and their siblings under the age of 25;

The reintroduction of legal aid for refugee family reunion.

amnesty.org.uk

#gwendoline christie #brienne of tarth #game of thrones #star wars #captain phasma

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captainxsassafras · 4 years ago

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Angel Voice

Ok, so this is really the first piece of writing I've actually finished since I graduated from college. Haha, yeah. I've been a bit of an unproductive writer the past lil bit, BUT I'm here today and I finished this. Not gonna lie, I am hella nervous for this. It's nothing emotionally involved or really intense (ok, there’s not angst, but I get real emotionally involved in fluff, so maybe I’m a liar), but I read the idea of Shinsou doing ASMR from secondhand-trash and the anon over there and, ya know, magic happened! Haha, I kid. Just cuteness, a few saucy phrases here and there! Please be kind to me!

(Also, I’m so sorry. I will figure out how to put stuff under the cut. Please be patient with my tech illiterate ass!)

@queensynderella

@secondhand-trash

Angel Voice

Shinsou x Reader

Warning: lots of fluff?, attempted assault (not Shinsou!), suggestive comments, a hot mess of a reader!

Word Count: Just over 5000... I think.

~~~*~~~

Fucking fuckity fuck fuck. You had not slept at all. Not a single wink.

Sorry, kind sir. I have no spare winks to give. No winks here.

This had been going on for months. Months!

It was starting to affect you.

Hahahah… That was a lie. It had been affecting you. You were just adaptable and great at lying so nothing was really wrong!

…Ok, that was a lie too. Your sleep schedule was shot. Your brain was shot. Your work was… by some miracle still ok, but you weren’t about to keep betting on that.

So, here you were. Finally off work and almost falling asleep waiting for the train in the humid, afternoon heat.

This is probably what Hell feels like. Sleep-deprived, foggy, humid, and full of sweaty humans.

You jolted fully awake from a doze as the train arrived and people began crowding against you.

Yippee. A crowded train with strangers pressing in close on absolutely zero sleep.

Nevermind. This was Hell. Waiting for the train was just the appetizer.

Your phone buzzed.

It was your best friend. She knew that you'd been having trouble sleeping and had been your solid rock. She'd been your support when it started and had helped you brainstorm remedies when it had continued. So it wasn't really a surprise when she sent you a link to an asmr video with the message, 'he has the voice of an angel! 😇 if this doesn't help you sleep, nothing will! luv ya boo! good luck!!! ❤❤❤❤❤'

She was right.

His voice was deep, but soothing. He spoke in a soft, calm cadence that immediately put you at ease.

The video in question was a request from a viewer. It was a description of a calm hike through the woods on a nice day.

It was heaven.

You had your first night of decent sleep in months.

(And if you were being totally honest, you did actually cry a bit when you woke up feeling more rested and clear-headed than you could remember.)

From that point on, you fell asleep listening to 'Angel Voice' every night.

And quickly discovered that you couldn't listen to the more...exciting rp videos before bed! They sent your poor, stupid heart wild and kept you wide awake plus some tasty adrenaline! Definitely not the desired effect! Not unpleasant. Just kinda detrimental to the whole helping-you-sleep thing.

But his calm, descriptive videos and dulcet voice sent you straight to dreamland.

For a month straight you fell asleep to his tones and barely bothered to look at the voice artist's name.

Angel voice worked!

***

Ok, now you were tired.

A frantic call to work this afternoon had you covering your sick coworker’s shift. This meant you were both awake way later than you had recently been staying up and you were working with a double shift's worth of leftover energy.

Ok, you were dead. Running on empty. There was no leftover energy.

You dumb, tired feet trudged along the stupid, dark street and your dumb, heavy purse cut into your stupid, aching shoulder.

But despite your exhaustion, you still held a canister of pepper spray--safety off, thank you--clutched tightly in your hand.

The hackles on the back of your neck rose. The hair on your arms stood on end. Chills ran down your spine.

You could feel eyes on your back.

Someone was watching you.

It was a very unpleasant feeling this late at night all alone on a half lit street.

Ugh, this street was so different after dark!

You normally made your way home during rush hour when the street was busy with foot and vehicle traffic, well-lit by the sun, and full of chatter and life.

It was almost lifeless and eerily quiet now.

Creepy.

It needed more streetlamps.

Humming very quietly to yourself, you tried to keep your mind off of the intense foreboding grabbing at your chest.

That same shivering chill ran through your body right before a harsh hand clawed at your arm, jerking you back. You cried out as your sore shoulder twisted and adrenaline-fueled panic surged through your entire nervous system.

You whipped around, pepper spray at the ready and a fierce scowl on your face, to empty the canister straight into the guy's eyes.

You wrenched your aching shoulder out of his hand. Without conscious thought, your foot rose and met his groin in a beautifully placed front kick.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

We have a winner!

He fell.

A convenience store! There was a convenience store nearby!

Heart pounding, you fled to the little 24 hour convenience store across the street and, from the safety of the front counter, called the police.

Your frantic eyes scoured the area near the man, waiting to see if he would rise and run.

Although, you did get him pretty good. You hoped he wouldn't run away. That'd be a) frustrating because you didn't really have a way to identify him so he'd probably get away and b) scary because you kicked him in the nuts! Guys held grudges for things like that!

Was that movement?

It… didn't seem like the attacker was moving…

Oh! It was another guy and it looked like he was wearing a costume!

A hero?

Looked like it! He was tying the felled grabber up with… not sure, but it was incapacitating the guy who grabbed you, so yay!

You left the store and slowly approached the man.

"Um, hi," you said with a hesitant wave. "This was me." You bashfully gestured to the man still lying (now tied up) on the ground.

"Hey, there. Thanks for doing my job for me," he replied with a bit of a smirk. He had a deep, slightly rough voice and up close you could see dark, wildy messy hair.

Uh-oh. You needed to explain. This was absolutely self defense!

"He, uh, grabbed me from behind and I kind of panicked and, well…"

"Don't worry. I saw what happened. He started following you a few blocks back, but I couldn't do anything because he hadn't done anything yet."

Oh.

Oh, damn.

You felt sick. He had… he had been following you?

Your knees trembled.

The hero noticed and stepped forward to you.

"Hey, hey. Come here."

He led you to the curb and sat you down, a hand rubbing comforting circles on your upper back. "It's gonna be ok. You clearly know how to defend yourself, so I wouldn't worry about.."

His soothing voice soon began to pull you out of your fear and calm your racing brain. His hand continued rubbing your back in rhythmic motions and soon your shaking began to slow and finally stop. Your thoughts came back to the moment and you noticed something. Something very familiar...

"Holy shit. Angel voice!"

The hero stopped his rambling speech, one eyebrow raising in an amused arch. He didn't say anything else, just waited for you.

"Do you do asmr?"

"Uh… yeah?"

Boy, you wish you could've captured his face.

Befuddled?

Was that the right word?

Yeah. Pure befuddlement.

Then blushing.

Holy hell! He was blushing! It was really hard to see, but the slightest bit of red colored his cheeks in the dim light.

"Thank you so much!" you cried, maybe a bit loudly. He flinched just a little, looking surprised. "Ah, sorry. But seriously! You're the reason I've been able to sleep for the past month! I've been having sleep issues for almost a year and a friend sent me one of your videos and, well, tada. Sleep happened!" It was your turn to blush.

The look he was sending your way now was… hella cute. He looked delighted. Elated. Even in the dark, his eyes were shining and he had a goofy little half smile that lit his whole face with happiness.

The smile highlighted the bags under his eyes and you briefly wondered if that had something to do with his decision to make asmr videos. The thought fled when he raised a self-conscious hand to rub the back of his neck and started speaking.

"I'm glad they've been helping you!" The very corners of his eyes crinkled just a bit. "It makes my night to hear that!"

His deep voice wasn't loud or overtly excited, but it was warm and full of sincerity.

Your stomach did a stupid flip.

Nope. Not happening. You refused to be a hero groupie. Too much drama. Too many fans picking each other apart. Too much shade. You needed sunshine and most groupies you knew threw shade like confetti.

Also, he was a professional at work. This was his job. You needed to respect that.

A deep internal breath had you back where you should be. Thanking a professional hero for helping apprehend a man who had attacked you and thanking him for his generous work that helped you sleep well.

The two of you talked quietly for a few bit waiting for the police to arrive. It was nice. You asked about hero work. He asked about your job. You two chatted about a couple of random things and by the time the police arrived your chatter was comfortable and easy.

Everything after was a whirl. You had to give a statement. They needed to take you to a hospital just in case. The hero gave his witness statement and then had to leave to help out with a robbery in a different neighborhood.

You left for the hospital looking back and feeling little starbursts of melancholy disappointment needling your chest.

You'd probably never see him again.

Ah, well. Guess he'd stay Angel Voice.

***

Shit.

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap.

This was stupid.

You had barely talked to him for a half hour. And, yeah, he was sweet. Ok, he'd been crazy nice. And so fucking attractive. He'd been easy to talk to and the conversation between you two had been entertaining and full of wit.

But you had no way of directly contacting him. You'd looked him up, but hadn't gotten much info on him. It looked like he was an underground hero, so that made a lot of sense. It, however, did not make it any less frustrating.

You didn't know what you'd do if you managed to get ahold of him anyway!

"Hi! You sorta bagged a guy who tried to assault me (but I took down first) a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since then even though we had like a half hour conversation, half of which was you coaxing me out of a panic attack. Want to go on a date?"

Of course, you could always comment on one of Utube videos, but that had about a 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance of working and felt a little too…. Stalker-fan.

There was also the raging guilt and embarrassment you felt over crushing on a hero who had just been helping you as part of his professional work. He had been at work! It was part of his job to comfort you! He was literally in the business of saving people and making sure they were ok. And that was exactly he had done. He didn't need to be harrassed because your dumb brain said, 'Oo, shiny!' when he smiled. He had been at work. You shouldn't read anything into his behavior, because there really wasn't anything other than a pro hero doing his duty.

Nope! You needed to get over this.

A notification buzzed and you checked your phone.

Mind_kitty has posted a new video! Watch now!

With a defeated sigh, you deferred the notification for later. You could listen and relax on your way home from work.

A movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention and you snapped your head up as a coworker hustled over with a look of panic on their face.

Uh-oh.

***

And now, here you were, sitting wearily on the train and hurtling towards home.

Ugh, what a day.

After everything that could go wrong had miraculously (horrifically? Fiendishly? Miraculously seemed too positive…) gone up in flames at the same time, you had spent the rest of your work day running around like crazy putting out all the fires (only one of which was, in fact, a literal fire so not actually a terrible day).

Your feet were sore and a headache that had started with your coworker's news and grown from there threatened to overwhelm you.

There were still a few stops until yours, so you slipped your headphones out of your bag and opened your Utube app.

Thank you unlimited data!

You found Angel Voice's latest video and began to play.

(Ok, you now had actually figured out his Utube username and finally bothered to remember it, but he'd started as Angel Voice to you and it just worked in your mind!)

Ahhhhhh…

Why does he have such a great voice? It was perfect! Deep and smooth and perfectly made to whisper sweet (or not so sweet) nothings in your ear while you gently played with his wild purple hair. Fuck, his hair was so pretty! You'd bet your left buttcheek it was soft as clouds…

Ugggghhhhh... Fine.

You were crushing on a pro hero.

Are you happy, universe?

Your fated journey to become a groupie had begun. Might as well accept it and focus on more important things… like Angel Voice's hair.

Or, you know, his voice…

You fell into the sound of his speaking.

Hah, it was like an automatic reaction at this point. Your shoulders started to unknot and that stereotypical breath you didn't know you were holding in rushed out in a grateful sigh.

However, it didn't take you long to realize that he hadn't started into the asmr immediately as you were expecting. Paying more attention, you rewound the video to the beginning and actually listened to what he was saying.

"I'm not sure exactly how to do this." He let out a dry half chuckle. "I haven't completely convinced myself I should. But, um…"

He paused with a frustrated sigh, then seemed to take a deep breath.

"Ok, to hell with it. I'm doing this. Dear, girl I met the other night who took a guy out by kicking him in the nuts."

Was he talking about you? Was there another girl who kicked a guy in the nuts on his patrol? Damn, he met a lot of kickass girls on patrol! Good for her! She was getting a personal shoutout from Angel Voice!

"I know it might seem kind of weird to be doing this over Utube, but I missed my chance at first, then the police arrived and everything was crazy and I had to leave to help out another pro."

Wow, sounds intense. Bet that was stressful. Oh, wait. Hah. You knew it was stressful.

"So I blew my chance to ask for your number."

He wanted her number? Damn! Super lucky girl!

Wait, this wasn't an rp video was it?

You pulled out your phone to check, but the title and description didn't mention any kind of rp. Aww! This was real! And it was adorable!

A tiny piece of sad ripped itself free of the fuzzy feelings you were experiencing. He had been so kind and you'd had such a fun time conversing. It would have been really amazing if this were for you. You had really liked the piece of personality you'd been able to see.

"I'm really hoping you'll hear this video, and hear it in time, because I'd love to go get coffee with the girl who accidentally body-slammed her coworker on her birthday."

Holy.

Shit.

That…

THAT WAS YOU!

That had been you! Your stupid coworker had snuck up behind you at the end of the day in a semi-dark area of work and shouted in your ear to scare you.

It had worked.

You'd been so scared that you'd grabbed him, flipped him over your shoulder, and body-slammed him into the floor.

And… and you'd told Angel Voice that night as you sat talking about some of your more notorious takedowns.

This was for you.

This video was for you!

What the fuck?!

This video was for you!?

You had to rewind a hot second to hear what came next.

Then you had to pause and go back yet again, because your mind was in such a frenzy and your heart was beating so loudly in your ears you couldn’t concentrate on what was being said!

“So if you hear this and, um, you’re interested at all, girl who took down a fully grown man in five seconds, I’ll be waiting at the spot we first met at five pm today. I, uh, really hope I’ll see you there again.”

The video ended.

Your heart was still aiming for professional drummer in your chest.

You could see him raising his hand to rub at the back of his neck with that last statement. He’d done it that night and you could picture it in your mind.

Wait! What time was it?

4:50 pm.

No.

Nonononononono!

You were going to miss the meeting.

You were still six train stops away from yours and that alone would take you fifteen minutes! Not to mention the next fifteen minutes it’d take to get to the meeting place!

Of course, that was walking speed. You could run.

Frantic eyes looked down at your shoes. Not exactly running shoes.

Whatever, you’d make do.

You wanted to see him again.

You could just imagine the disappointment on his face if you didn’t show and that melancholy from earlier reared its weepy head and cried out in frustration because you didn’t want to hurt him!

And you really wanted to see him again!

The next fifteen minutes were the most agonizing you could remember enduring in recent history. This was worse than the time you spilled coffee on your favorite author and his manager had yelled at you for five minutes while they changed! I mean, that had been pretty bad, but the author had been incredibly nice about it after getting back and even mentioned it humorously in the book you had asked them to sign. It was still easily the most awful you'd ever felt and you’d really wanted nothing more than to run away.

This. Was. Worse.

So much worse because you couldn’t actively work towards your quickly approaching deadline and destination. You had to sit there… waiting.

Your leg was bouncing up and down and a few fellow train riders were giving you slightly concerned looks. You were too wound up to care.

Finally, finally!

You arrived at your stop, hurried off the train as quickly as you could without being the absolute worst human ever, and ran.

Your shoes remained on your feet until you almost killed yourself stumbling over them, then they were in your arms.

Decorum be damned!

This was a matter of life or date! (And preferably not death by shoe!)

You made it to the spot where you’d met him at exactly 5:12 pm.

You were sweaty.

Hell, that was an understatement.

You were pretty sure you’d left a trail of sweat behind you and you could feel it running in rivulets down your back. There was probably a stain back there… And on your armpits… and on… everywhere.

You knew your hair was an absolute mess.

But as bad as you knew you must look, you felt worse.

Your lungs were on fire. You had absolutely no breath left in your entire body. It felt like you had a knife in your side. In both sides actually. Your entire body was trying to imitate an oven with the level of heat radiating off your skin. Your legs were simultaneously wobbly and shaking and you weren’t sure you’d trust them taking another step at the moment.

And now you had sweat in your eye. Stinging.

But none of that even mattered.

All of that was stupid and trivial and inconsequential because he wasn’t there.

You’d taken too long.

He was gone.

No vibrant purple hair and sleep-deprived eyes.

No stupid half-smile.

That melancholy came back and instead of quietly tugging at your heart, it hit you square in the chest with an emotional cast-iron frying pan.

No.

No!

Damnit!

You’d really wanted this.

He was… he was so fucking witty and kind that night.

He’d been soft and understanding and hot. And fucking adorable.

And… and… he wasn’t there.

Fuck.

You slumped in place.

Every ounce of your physical exhaustion caught up to you in an instant and you felt the mortifying sting of tears trying to sneak their way out of your eyes.

Talk about adding insult to injury.

It wasn’t that bad. This wasn’t that bad.

So, you didn’t get to meet up with a cute hero for coffee. Big deal. Poor unfortunate soul. It was nothing to cry about.

But you’d really wanted to see him again.

Guess it didn’t matter anymore.

You turned, ready to march across the street to that convenience store and buy half of their ice cream, but something tickled your brain.

Something out of the corner of your eye.

Your head whipped around.

There!

It was a flash of purple down the street.

Your eyes snapped to that portion of the sidewalk.

It was purple hair.

Crazy, wild, tousled, purple hair!

You knew that hair!

But your stupid legs literally wouldn’t run anymore. And he was far enough away that you wouldn’t catch up if you could run.

You reacted without thinking.

You really acted without thinking.

“ANGEL VOICE!”

You shouted his name at the top of your lungs.

Sorry.

You shouted your own private, very personal nickname that you had only spoken out loud to your very best friend and, unfortunately, him.

In the middle of a crowded street.

During rush hour.

Your brain was an utter masterpiece of stupid.

You stood there, frozen with the realization of your own idiocy, as the head of purple hair stopped, looked to the side, looked to the other side, then tuuurrrnnned around.

Made eye contact with you through the busy crowd.

Then doubled over laughing.

You couldn’t hear him from where you stood, but you could feel him laughing.

You could see it in the way his bent shoulders shook and his torso convulsed, nearly spasming with the force of his laughter.

And there you stood, still stuck to your spot.

You’d called him Angel Voice out loud in a crowd out loud in front of a bunch of strangers out loud.

And as much as you wanted to run, you couldn’t even twitch.

Not as you watched him finally finish laughing and fully turn to face you. Not as you watched him begin to walk toward you through the throng of people (just beginning to turn back to their own business in the aftermath of your outburst). Not as he stopped directly in front of you, a delighted smile on his sleepy, stupidly attractive face and the corners of his eyes still just slightly crinkled with laughter.

“Hey there,” he said and it felt like the softest slap to the face you’d ever received.

Your frozen body finally remembered its fight or flight reflexes and, wouldn’t you know, you suddenly learned how to fly.

As you turned to bolt, Angel Voice reached out, calling to you.

“Hey, wait! You’re just gonna run after all of that?”

He didn’t grab you.

That detail broke through the panic.

Even though he reached out with his hand, he didn’t grab you.

You stopped.

“I wanna run because of all that!” you blurted.

His chuckles sent a wave of heat down your spine, both embarrassed and… otherwise. Ok, fine! He had a sexy voice! And it turned you on more than you liked to admit!

Who let him have a voice like that?

It was not freaking fair!

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

Fuck, he sounded sincere.

You slowly turned around, face still burning.

You two stared at each other for a minute.

A smile crooked your lips.

“So, uh, what’s a place like you doing in a voice like this.”

Silence.

“Fuck.”

Your hand came up to rub at your forehead as he began laughing again. A full, big laugh instead of a chuckle.

“I should probably just give up on the talking thing, shouldn't I?”

“I hope not. I could listen to you all day,” he said with a small grin.

And now your heart it was afluttering.

“I feel like that should be my line,” you mumbled, watching him catch his breath from all that big old laughing through the fingers splayed across your face.

There was a pause in the conversation. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it hadn’t really achieved comfortable silence.

“So, um.”

You looked up from your hand.

Good fuck, he was doing the rubbing the back of his neck thing again. Illegal. Freaking illegal is what that was. No man should possess that level of cute.

“I mentioned grabbing coffee in the video. I’d like to assume you being here means you’re interested?” The sentence ended with a slight upturn, indicating a question. He looked up at you, uncertainty in his gorgeous violet eyes.

Why the hell was he uncertain?

This mortherfucking hottie with a voice made for swooning (and spooning) was nervous about asking you to coffee (adateadateadateadate).

Without thinking, you voiced this exact thought out loud (sans the date portion... and the spooning. Spooning was for non-dumbasses).

Angel Voice looked absolutely floored.

“I’m sorry, but do you own a mirror?” he asked. There was a tension in his voice that almost had you shrinking into yourself.

Ouch.

Damn.

Ouch.

Well, at least he was blunt.

“You’re fucking gorgeous.”

You met him on the floor.

Dead. Ass.

He just called you gorgeous.

There was a set to his jaw now and a sort of light in his eyes. He looked very… determined. Set, was what you’d call it. He seemed very set on a decision.

"It was great talking to you the other night. I can't get out of my head how funny and smart you were. And you're so fucking cute I want to wrap you up in my jacket and stay there forever."

His face was blazing red now. His ears too. Ok, that was hella adorable. You felt your own self flush with happy bashful feelings. I mean, he himself had just supplied you with the sappiest, schmoopiest mental image you’d really ever conceived.

“I’d really like to go get some coffee together.” He went quiet for a minute, seeming to mull something over in his head, and that stupid hand came up to rub at his neck again.

Ugh, he was gonna kill you with that!

“Would you go on a date with me?”

If your heart was fluttering before, it was nearly palpitating now!

“Yes! Please! I mean, yes I want to go on a date with you!”

He smiled, a breathless, bewildered, almost (dare you think) dorky smile. It was fucking beautiful.

"Wow," he exhaled.

A snort escaped you. "Again, I feel like that should be my line."

But you smiled back.

And there you both stood, almost dazedly smiling, little happy thoughts buzzing through your minds.

“We should probably head to a cafe if we’re going to get coffee,” Angel Voice finally murmured.

You started.

The both of you were standing like idiots in the middle of the sidewalk, just staring at each other.

“Coffee, right. Anywhere in mind, Angel Voice?” The nickname slipped out almost by accident.

He held out his hand to you and you took it gently.

“Angel Voice, huh?” he laughed quietly. “I think I can go with that.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault! You still haven’t told me your name.” You sent a playful tug along the arm you held by the hand and felt a little thrill of joy when he returned it just as playfully. "You're officially Angel Voice until you enlighten me."

The two of you had started walking. He seemed to have a destination in mind. Man with a plan. Nice.

“I know a cafe nearby. Do you mind?” he asked, softly pulling you along in invitation while leaving enough slack for you to object if you wanted.

Man with a plan who asked nicely. Nice.

“Not at all, Angel Voice.” You had a point to make and a guy to tease!

He chuckled again.

“My name is Hitoshi. Hitoshi Shinsou.” That slightly devious grin crept back onto his face. “But Angel Voice works for me.” He snuggled in close to your cheek, the side of his body leaning comfortably into yours. Then he whispered in your ear and you nearly fell over. "Especially if you're screaming it as loud as you did earlier."

Good lord, your knees nearly collapsed.

His voice, his stupid voice, saying such a frisky thing so close did such a number on you that you couldn't respond for a moment. It was all you could do to keep breathing.

His voice was going to be the death of you! You couldn’t think. Should you respond? What did you say to that? Something equally as frisky! But his voice!

He tensed a bit at your lack of response.

"Was that too much? Did I cross a line?" he asked, still speaking low right in your ear.

"Son of a bitch, if you don't stop that right now, I'm gonna jump your fucking bones right in the middle of this street." Your voice was full of urgency, but if he didn't stop you really were liable to unleash every single ounce of wild attraction you felt towards him at that exact moment, street full of people be damned!

He stopped walking.

Oh, shit. You could hear the Cheshire grin.

"You mean, like this?"

You sagged against him, letting your knees tremble. Your hand, still tangled, clutched his tightly.

His chuckle this time was less… benevolent than before. "What? You called me Angel Voice." His thumb ran soothingly over your hand. "I had to see if I could tempt you."

You couldn't help it. You turned your face to bury it in his jacket. What a magnificent, teasing butthead you'd just gotten yourself tangled up with. It was amazing!

"That’s going to come back to bite me, isn't it?"

“All the time.”

A tiny little butterfly crept into your stomach. You didn’t want to read too much into it (although after his teasing, you didn't really feel like it was reading into things), but ‘all the time’ sounded like there was going to be, well, plenty of time. It was a very welcome, warm idea.

As soon as your legs de-noodled (Hitoshi making snarky comments like a brat the entire time), the two of you continued on in an easy silence, exchanging teases every so often. The sun was setting and the entire world was covered in golden tones. Rush hour was winding down and the foot traffic in the area was dissipating, leaving a much more comfortable number of people around.

Your brain focused on the soft, warm quality of the light, the muted shocks of excitement zipping through your lower back, and the soft weight of his calloused hand surrounding yours.

You gave a little, light squeeze.

"I'm so happy I ran, Angel Voice.”

He just chuckled and squeezed back.

#welp there you go #shinsou #hitoshi shinsou #shinsou hitoshi #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha shinsou #mha shinsou #shinsou fluff #hitoshi shinsou fluff

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rottmntquotes · 5 years ago

Text

Stars

Blue, or white bulbs? Purple accents, or an indigo moon? A swirly wormhole, or a dramatic supernova?

"It is but the constant struggle of an artist."

A quick scoff drew Leo out of his thoughts, and he turned to send a genuine smile to his genius twin. In response, Donnie sneered, eyes narrowing and accenting the bags that formed. This didn't throw off Leo's mood, though; if anything, the look drove Leo to work harder, walking up to Donnie and holding up two strands of lights. A happy, almost childish look was on Leo's face, and Donnie rose a brow despite his previous anger.

"Blue, or white?" Leo asked, holding the lights up respectively. "I want to hang up lights in the room."

"Leo, it's your room now. Why are you asking for my opinion?" Donnie retorted, rolling his eyes as the question was completely ignored.

"I just thought you'd like to help decorate the room." Leo hummed, moving to pick up a picture of a supernova. "What about this? Cool colored wormhole, or warm colored supernova?"

"Uh, neither. If anything, I'm more of a wintery planet sort of turtle. Studies show that many people find it easier to sleep in cold, snow colored environments. It causes the body to naturally search for heat, and when the heat is found, the body is more likely to be comfier than if it were in a hot environment."

"Okay."

Donnie paused mid-speech, watching his twin look through his phone casually. A minute or so passed before Leo shoved his phone into Donnie's face. "So, colors like this?"

"Uh... yes...?" This was weird. Why was Leo acting so... not Leo-ish? It was a question that plagued Donnie's mind, but he was quickly cut off before he could ask. Quick paced whistling filled the silence, and Donnie watched as his odd twin took hold of a few dark blue bulbs, holding them up in the air while squinting his eyes.

"Is this a good blue?" Leo asked, continuing to hold the bulbs up. "Or should we go with indigo?"

"Are... are you okay?" Donnie chose to voice his concerns instead of answering, placing a hand on the back of Leo's neck. The Slider snickered at the touch, dropping the lights and turning to kitten-slap Donnie's hand away.

"I'm fine. I just want to know how you want the room to look."

"Will you stop saying that?! This isn't my room anymore! It's yours! You were the one who hustled this room out of my hands!" Donnie shouted, his body stiffening as he curled his beak into a snarl. Leo smiled in response, shrugging and returning to the decorations.

"What do you think about having little star stickers on the wall?"

"That sounds like a great id- Hold on! NO! I don't care about anything you do to this room! You hustled it, so you can deal with what I had to deal with! And lemme tell ya, there are plenty of things wrong with this room! It's cramped, there's barely enough room to put your massive mountain of junk, and you can bet that it'll be ten times worse to crawl out of that poor excuse of a bed! You'd have been better off committing a crime and being sent to jail!"

"Then... why are you so upset?" Leo's question surprised Donnie, leaving the Softshell to do nothing more than attempt to answer. "Uh-huh, right. So, until you calm down, I'm just going to make the big decisions, and what you see is what you get."

Donnie sputtered, unable to formulate full sentences, especially as he was pushed out of his previous room. A quick yet gentle shove was all it took to get Donnie to leave, and Leo waved his brother off, turning around to continue his previous work.

__________

It was around 9:00 p.m. when the boys arrived from Run-of-the-Mill, each of them finishing up cheery stories before they all split up to do their own things. Raph went to lift weights, Mikey went to work a new project, Donnie retreated to his lab, and Leo... went back to decorating the room. A frustrated groan was let out, and Donnie was torn between staying in his lab and ignoring his petty feelings, or trying once again to confront Leo about the strange behaviour.

Then again, this would just show off that Leo was somehow managing to get underneath Donnie's battle shell. Something he was probably already doing to begin with. Happy whistling came from Donnie - Leo's room, effectively driving the Softshell crazy. A low growl came from Donnie's throat before he stood up suddenly, ignoring his body's reaction to the movement as he stormed into his - Leo's room.

"Alright, what gives?! Why are you spending so much time decorating this room?!" Donnie asked angrily, searching Leo's face for any sort of explanation. Leo simply smiled in response; a genuine look that served to drive away any of Donnie's previous negative emotions.

How did he manage to do that???

"Well, I noticed how you've been way more sleep deprived than usual, which is my fault entirely. So, I've decided that I'll let you come in here and sleep whenever you really feel yourself losing all sanity because of dad's snoring." Leo explained, briefly turning his back to Donnie so that he could retrieve a nearby screw. "I've been working on this for weeks, and I keep asking for your opinion because I want you to be able to be as comfortable as possible when you need somewhere to rest and relax."

"Wait, but where would that put you?"

"I'll just sleep in my old room whenever need be." Leo chimed, shrugging as he moved to pick up a picture of the family. "I've gotten used to dad's snoring, so it won't bother me as much."

"So... you're willing to give up your own comfort, just so I can get a good night's rest?"

"Yup! It's what twins are for, after all!" Leo's comment was met with silence, but he said nothing on it, taking this time to begin hammering a nail into the wall. Once the nail was deemed planted enough, Leo hung the picture up, humming happily, and stepping back. "And viola! Your new- OW!"

Donnie was snapped out of his confused haze by Leo's yelp of pain, searching everywhere possible for any type of source. After a minute or so, Donnie noticed that Leo was favoring one foot more than the other, and he instructed the blue clad Slider to sit down on the... nest? Yep. It was a nest.

"Hey, I'm fine Donnie, I swear. It's just a little nick." Leo assured, standing up and immediately sitting back down. With an unimpressed scoff, Donnie grabbed Leo's foot, gasping at the sight of the large nail that had lodged itself into the skin. "See? It's nothing!"

"Nardo, there is an entire nail lodged in your foot. That. Is not. Nothing!" Donnie exclaimed, lying Leo back so that they were both in a comfortable position. "Now, I'm gonna have to pull it out- BUT IT WON'T HURT! I'll do it on three so you know when to expect it. One... two... WHAT'S THAT?!"

"What?! OW!" Leo pulled his foot back, cradling it lightly and blowing on it rapidly. Donnie, in the meantime, was studying the nail for any signs of rust. None were found, but the Softshell decided that he would give Leo a Tetanus shot anyways, just to be on the safe side. "Hey, hey, I ain't gettin' no shot! That is not happening!"

"You "ain't getting no" shot, huh?" Donnie snickered, patting Leo's head. "Do you remember nothing about the double negative rule?"

"Screw that rule." Leo spat, grumbling as he received another head pat.

"Heheh..." Donnie paused his ministrations, thinking over what to say next. "Thank you, Leo."

"For?"

"This. The room. The decoration. Everything." Donnie clarified, leaning down and bumping foreheads with his twin brother. "You didn't have to do this."

"No, but I wanted to." Leo hummed, purring at the affectionate nuzzling his words earned him. "D'aw! You're making me blush!"

"Perfect, that means less blood to deal with when I give you the shot."

"Wait, what?"

"Oh please! Just because you did something nice doesn't mean I have to neglect your health. Now come on, I don't want to carry you all the way to the lab."

"Are you calling me fat?"

"You? Fat? Why, that's like calling a marshmallow spicy!"

"Okay, I get it... I love you man."

"I love you too, brother."

#RotTMNT #Rise of the TMNT #Fanfic #It's Been a While #Since My Last Fic #Here You Go #Some Writing From a Fan #This Is Way Past Lair Games #But I Felt Like Posting It Anyways

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fallinnflower · 5 years ago

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reaction: Day6 confessing

a/n: i’ve never done one of these before, but i received a request about day6 confessing and figured that meant you wanted a reaction. anon, if you’re out there, i hope this is what you were looking for...

JAE You and Jae have been friends ever since he moved it Korean to try his luck at becoming a musician. The two of you met via online gaming before eventually realizing you lived realistically close to one another, and the two of you decided to meet up. Jae’s rise to fame really didn’t make you view him any differently (except that it was a little more difficult to make it to his concerts now that tickets were pricier and in higher demand); he was still the same meme-loving boy you’d always known.

When you first met Jae, you’d been shocked at how attractive he was in person — the two of you had jokingly flirted online, but you hadn’t actually expected him to be funny and good-looking. However, knowing he wanted to be an idol, you decided to keep your feelings under wraps; you didn’t want to end up jeopardizing the career he’d left his home to pursue, after all. It would break your heart if Jae’s talents went to waste because of you.

Even though his rise to fame made him busier, he still made time to game with you online (or in person, if he had time). It was less than a week since they’d returned from their most recent tour circuit, and while you’d told Jae to take it easy you had trouble refusing his offer for you to come over for games. So, you donned low-key clothing and made your way to the dorm, where you were met at the door by a pajama-clad Jae.

“Did you even brush your hair today?” You asked, reaching out to try and brush the wild strands down. Jae shrugged.

“Nope.” You couldn’t help but laugh as you hung your jacket by the door. “I have everything set up, though.”

You followed him into the living room, dropping down onto the floor beside him and draping your legs across his lap before he could say anything. He shot you a look, but didn’t make any move to remove your legs — he just passed you your controller as you stuffed some chicken in your mouth, and gaming commenced.

It had been over half an hour of pure gaming banter before Jae decided to take a chicken break, and as the two of you leaned back and chatted about how your lives had been during Day6’s tour, Jae sighed.

“Touring is cool, MyDays are always lit,” he said, “But I missed this. I missed you.” You nudged him with your elbow.

“Are you sure you aren’t sleep deprived? You’re getting all soft.” Jae just laughed.

“Maybe.” Suddenly, he leaned in close, so that your noses were almost touching, “I like you even when I’m rested though.” After watching you turn shy, Jae leaned back and continued,

“Wanna go out sometime?” You smirked,

“Only if you can win the next game.”

He did, and the rest is history.

SUNGJIN

You’ve known Sungjin for a while, having worked at JYP around the time Day6 debuted. Although you had since switched jobs, you kept in contact with a handful of the idols you had met during your time there. At the time, you’d been shocked that Sungjin wanted to keep in contact with you — you’d assumed it was out of sheer politeness, but politeness wouldn’t require him to message you nearly everyday. Even as Day6’s schedules ramped up, he still managed to find the time to at least send you a ‘good morning’ and a ‘good night.’

Somehow, despite a greater physical distance growing between you, you found yourselves getting closer and closer.

You’d always thought Sungjin was attractive, ever since you’d first found him in a practice room. At the time, of course, you’d opted to do nothing about it for the sake of your job — and because he was an idol, so how would you even stand a chance? — but now it was becoming increasingly hard not to catch feelings for him.

When Day6’s first international tour was announced, you were one of the first people to know outside of JYP staff. You’d congratulated Sungjin, but at the same time your heart felt heavy. Surely he’d be too busy to message you every day when he was so far away, seeing so many new things and meeting so many new people. You tried to ignore that feeling, but in the day they were meant to leave the heavy feeling came back tenfold. You hadn’t even been able to see him between the time of the tour’s announcement and their departure, you’d been too busy at work.

Be sure to send pictures! You sent, and after a bit of hesitation followed it up with, Try not to forget about me on tour~

You expected it to take him a while to respond, but your phone pinged almost instantly.

I could never forget about you, Y/N. I like you too much, he wrote. And then, before you could reply, Let’s talk when I get back, okay? I want to tell you that in person.

Suddenly, you couldn’t wait for their tour to start — just so it could end.

YOUNG K

You met Brian in college. He wasn’t around often, because of his schedule as an idol, but the two of you had been assigned a project together early in your first year and since then had tried to partner up whenever possible. Since you were in the same degree program and shared multiple classes, it was usually just a matter of convincing the professor that it was easier for you and Brian to work around his schedule than it would be for any student. (It wasn’t really all that easy, but since it was for Brian you were willing to put up with it. You’d been smitten at first sight, as corny as it sounded — but how could you resist a smile like his?)

In exchange for your hard work, Brian usually got you tickets to their shows whenever possible, and you attended each one even if it meant rearranging your schedule to be hellish. You never passed on an opportunity to hear one of your favorite voices in the world, or to support one of your closest friends.

The two of you not only shared a degree and a passion for music, but also a love of food. The two of you were constantly sending each other links and Instagram posts, adding to an ever-growing list of restaurants to try out. Of course, you had to be discreet if you wanted to go together, but you’d managed to do it before — for as good-looking as he was, Brian was pretty good at blending into crowds.

After graduation, you’d worried you wouldn’t really be seeing as much of Brian — and while you should have been excited to graduate, it was hard to be when you thought you might be losing touch with someone you had come to care so deeply about. Even during the ceremony your feelings were mixed; however, as all the students went inside to change out of their robes, Brian gently pulled you aside.

“Since we’re both going to have more free time now, I figured it would be a good time to ask,” he started, smiling that adorable smile. “Y/N, will you go on a date with me?”

That very night, you checked another restaurant off your list — but this time, as a couple.

WONPIL

Wonpil was full of surprises. You’d known he was destined to do great things from the moment you met him — actually, you’d felt that way about every member of Day6 when you met them during the filming of “Congratulations,” but there was just something extra special about Wonpil. You understood immediately why people referred to him as a happy pill after their debut, and you’d felt honored that he wanted to stay in touch with you despite your relative unimportance in the industry.

As the both of you worked your way up in the entertainment business, with him in the spotlight and you behind the scenes, you actually managed to work together more often. Day6 liked you and your work, so they were able to request you from time to time. It was after a long day on set that Wonpil pulled you aside and handed you a pastel pink envelope.

“What—?”

“Don’t open it until you get home, okay?” He said, and despite your confusion (and honestly your concern, because he looked pretty red in the face) you agreed.

When you finally got home, you immediately opened the envelope and unfolded the note inside. Before you could start reading, you were distracted by a ticket falling into your lap — and not just any ticket, but one to a special exhibit opening gala at a museum you’d been raving to Wonpil about when it was first announced. You’d told him you were concerned you wouldn’t get a ticket to even see the exhibition, let alone go to the opening gala with the artist present, because the artist had had a recent spike in popularity. Already fighting back tears at his gesture, you looked down at the letter.

Dear Y/N, I’ll be waiting, if you’ll have me. Your (potential) Date, Wonpil

Despite the late hour, you immediately texted Wonpil to find out what color tie he was planning to wear. After all, if this was going to be your first date, you had to be sure you did it right.

DOWOON

You’ve been friends with Dowoon for as long as you can remember — long before he ever became a part of Day6, he was a part of your life. The two of you were stuck together like glue throughout most of your childhood, and even though you both had gotten significantly busier since then you still dedicated a large amount of time to each other. You were a regular at the dorms; since Dowoon spent most of his free time there, so did you.

Your relationship with Dowoon had never really advanced beyond friendship, though many people assumed it had. The two of you were really two peas in a pod, balancing each other pretty much perfectly. Jae and Brian took every opportunity to not only tease you about your relationship, but also hype you up about it — as far as you knew, they didn’t give Dowoon nearly as hard a time about it as they gave you. As much as you wanted them to stop, it was heartwarming to know that they thought you two were a good match, because you’d thought that for a long time. You were just… too scared to make a move.

So you let the boys tease you, with the promise that they wouldn’t breathe a word of your crush to Dowoon himself.

The new year rolled around, and you asked Jae about his resolution as you waited for Dowoon to bring snacks back to the living room.

“Go on a date,” Jae laughed. You snorted in reply and flopped back against the base of the couch.

“Right? Maybe we should both get on some dating apps or something. We could proofread each other’s profiles,” you snickered, and Jae shrugged.

“Who knows. You kids have fun.” You stuck your tongue out at him, only proving his point really, and as the door closed behind him Dowoon returned to the living room. However, whereas he’d been smiling when he left for snacks, he now had a deep crease between his brows.

“Hey,” you said, poking at his furrowed forehead to try and smooth it out. “Turn that frown upside down—”

“Are you really unhappy?” He asked, looking a bit like a kicked puppy. Now both your brows were furrowed, but it seemed to be different emotions you were portraying.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You said to Jae you were going to get on dating apps,” he clarified. “Are you that unhappy with me?” You blinked at Dowoon once, then twice, trying to make sense of his question. His expression didn’t change, his dark, earnest eyes gazing into yours.

“Dowoon, what...? We’re not dating,” you finally managed to say, feeling your face heating up. Dowoon’s expression went from angry and sad to pure confusion.

“We’re not?” He asked. You felt like you were having a stroke or something. Was this a dream?

“I mean, you never asked me out or anything,” you said, thoroughly confused. Suddenly, Dowoon’s cheeks began turning red, and he let out an awkward laugh as he ruffled his hair.

“Oh. I thought it was obvious I like you.” You feel as though someone has punched you in the stomach. You dropped your head into your hands.

“Dowoon, you’re so lucky I like you,” you groaned, feeling thoroughly exhausted by the whole situation. You moved to rest against Dowoon’s side, eyes closed — the need for a nap was suddenly very real. For a while, there was no sound but your breathing and the faint sound of videos playing on Dowoon’s phone as he gently stroked your hair. However, just as you were about to fall asleep—

“So, does this mean we’re dating now?”

“If you let me nap, yes,” you grumbled, muffled by the material of his sweatshirt.

He let you sleep.

#day6 imagines #day6 scenarios #day6 jae #day6 fanfiction #day6 sungjin #day6 reaction #kpop fanfiction #kpop texts #kpop scenarios #kpop writing #kpop imagines #My writing

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consilium-games · 6 years ago

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A Rambling and Brain-Fried Post on Hermeneutics

It's a godless and blighted hour (11AM) as I write this, and scheduling heartache has left me swirly-eyed and sleep-deprived. Lately I've absorbed a pretty specific combination of media that's led me to think dazedly about hermeneutics, basically "systems of interpretation of a work of media" such as stories. And in light of my past couple games, and a game whose premise I haven't finished chewing on, I think getting some thoughts down (and maybe even some discussion?!) might help someone. I don't know, maybe me?

Inciting Events

By now anyone reading this has heard of Undertale. Spoilers happen here. The creator of Undertale recently released a . . . possibly-related videogame called Deltarune. I say possibly related with good reason, and I don't intend to directly spoil the game as it just came out, but it gave me interesting questions about narrative interpretation--hermeneutics--more generally. I also will probably talk a bit about Doki Doki Literature Club! which you might not have encountered or played. Some high-level spoilers will occur. This post will contain zero 'fan theories', as that has nothing to do with my game-design beat--rather, academic theories on "how do people approach interpreting stories" has a lot to do with my pretentious narrativist game-design ethos!

Also of note, I've watched a playthrough of a videogame called Witch's House, and without spoiling that, it struck me that one of the puzzles will behave drastically differently, depending on whether the player reads one of the ubiquitous hints. Meaning, not only do the hints constitute a mechanic, but discerning how to trust hints becomes a game objective. And further, since "reading a hint" is an in-game action, but recalling a hint is not, the game may behave unpredictably to the player who reads a hint, doesn't save, dies, and reloads--and doesn't read the hint again.

Lastly, I've revisited some analyses of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, and it put me in mind of discussions about This House Has People In It and The Cry of Mann, and in particular: discussions about those discussions, arguments about how presenting interpretations can color people's formed interpretations. And last warning, I'm still pretty brain-fried, I'll blame that if I end up rambling incoherently.

Setting Out

There's a lot of literature about literature, and literature about literature about literature. Perhaps some day people will spill ink about ink than anything else. Fortunately, we haven't yet entered a boundless singularity of self-referentiality. So I can afford to stake out a couple terms I expect I'll mutter:

hermeneutic: a specific approach, strategy, or philosophy to understanding a work. This can be totally informal ("Christian songs are easy to write, just take a pop song and replace 'baby' with 'Jesus'") or very rigorous ("Derrida's analysis of identity puts it to blame for religious and nationalist fanaticism"), but just treat it as technical shorthand for "approach to understanding a thing".

auteur theory: mostly used in film analysis, in our backyard it means "the author of a work arbitrates its meaning". So, eg Stephen King can definitively and canonically say "Leland Gaunt is an extradimensional alien, not Satan, the Adversary and the Prince of Darkness, from orthodox Christianity". And if King says this, that makes it true and the audience should understand Needful Things in light of this fact King told us with his mouth but not with his story.

Death of the Author: by contrast, 'Death of the Author' means that once a work has an audience (the creator published it, or put it on Steam, or hit Send on Twitter, or just played a song on their porch), the audience has liberty to interpret it however they please, and the creator's word about What It Means has no more weight than the audience. Which would mean that if King tells us Leland Gaunt is an alien, and Needful Things is closer to Lovecraft than King James, that's cool--it's a neat theory, Steve, but I think it's about . . . (Note: I don't know if King has made this claim, but Needful Things does have a few weird neat textual indications that Gaunt is some kind of Cthulhu and not the Lightbringer.)

code-switching: technically from linguistics, borrowed into social sciences, in this post it means a creator of a work putting something into the work that implicitly or explicitly prompts the audience to consciously alter or monitor their interpretation. As a very simple example, suppose someone says with a straight face and deadpan delivery, "I'm a law-abiding citizen who supports truth, justice, and The American Way." Now, suppose they make air-quotes around 'law-abiding'--it rather changes the meaning, by prompting the audience to reinterpret the literal wording.

Okay, I . . . think that'll do. So hi, I'm consilium, and as a goth game designer it should come as no surprise that I like my authors with some degree of living-impairment. Interpreting a text has an element of creativity to it that the creator simply can't contribute on the audience's behalf. More than that though, there just seems something off about the idea that, say, a reader of Needful Things might read about Sheriff Alan Pangborn, and interpret the specific way he defeats Leland Gaunt as allegorical of how cultivating creativity, community, and empathy can help prevent the dehumanization of consumerism and capitalism--only for King to say "no, Alan was just a parallel-universe avatar of the Gunslinger and thus could defeat Gaunt, who was just an extradimensional eldritch predator". If King were to say such a thing after audiences have gotten to know and love Alan on the terms presented in the text, and King were to come back with "maybe that's what I said but that's not what I meant"--my response would have to be a cordial "interesting theory, but it doesn't seem supported by the text".

So, I generally like Death of the Author! But . . . but. I've taken to gnawing on this idea in this game-design blog because--of course--It's More Complicated Than That. Roleplaying games as a medium work about as differently from other media as, say, sculpture and songwriting. And despite essentially just putting bells and whistles and protocol on top of possibly the oldest human artistic medium--storytelling--RPGs have a lot of weirdness they introduce for analysis and critique.

For example, my reservations on Death of the Author! Specifically: taking "in-character, in-game events and narration" as the work of interest, and "the other players at the table" as the audience, what happens when you describe your character Doing Something Cool--based on a mistake? We need a teeny bit of "creator as arbitrator of meaning", so we can at least say, literally, "oh, no, that's not what I meant"! Otherwise, the other players' "freedom of interpretation" leads to your character doing something nonsensical and now they have to have their characters respond--they have a worse work to create within.

This gets at something pretty foundational in treating RPG stories as art: almost any other medium has a creator create a work as a finished thing, and only then does an audience ever interpret it. Whether plural creators collaborate or not, whether the work exists as apocryphal oral tradition and mutates through telling, whether some audience members take it up as their own with flourishes (such as with a joke), there still exists this two-stage process of "author creates" and then "audience interprets". Except in stories within roleplaying games as generally practiced.

In RPGs, the creators almost always constitute the entire audience (I'll ignore things like "RPG podcasts" and novelizations of someone's DnD campaign here, as they make up a vanishingly tiny minority). The audience of the work not only creates it though--they experience the work almost entirely before you could ever call the work 'completed'. Even if we falsely grant that every game concludes on purpose rather than just kinda petering out because people get bored, leave college, have other things to do, or whatever else killed your last game, players experience the story in installments that don't exist until the end of the session. So "interpretation" gets . . . weird.

Basic Hermeneutics

On a surface level, the story of an RPG usually doesn't demand a lot of depth and analysis: some protagonists, inciting incident, various conflicts, faffing about as the PCs fail to get the hint, some amusing or tense or infuriating whiffs and failures along the way, and charitably, some kind of resolution to the main conflict and dramatic and character arcs. Usually metaphors tend to be explained straight up ("my character's ability to 'blur' things reflects her own weak personal boundaries and over-empathization"), and motifs often even moreso ("guys, seriously, what happens every single time your characters see spiders?"). A lot of this comes from necessity of that very immediate, improvised, as-we-go nature of the medium! You have to make sure your audience gets what you intend them to get--because in mere seconds they'll create some more story that depends on the bit of story you just created. And back and forth.

But, quite without realizing it or meaning to, we can't really help but inject other chunks of meaning into stories we help create. Maybe even chunks of meaning that contradict others' contributions at the table. Spoiler alert: I do not have a theory or framework to address this. The Queen Smiles kind of digs into this, but this goes beyond my current depth. So, what can we conjecture or say, what scaffolding could we build, to build a more robust "literary theory of game stories"? I have some basics as I see them:

Auteur theory (creator arbitrates meaning)

This can only apply to one player's contributions, not across plural players.

Necessary, for both basic clarification and because perfectly conveying the ~*~intended meaning~*~ frankly just doesn't work as a thing you can do off the top of your head when your turn comes to say what your character does.

GMs (where applicable) shouldn't use this to defend poor description or ill-considered presentation of "cool things for PCs to care about and cool things to do about it"--just because the GM intended the cop to be sympathetic doesn't make him so, and if he's not sympathetic . . . the protagonists will not treat him so.

Dead authors (freedom of interpretation)

Players can try this out on their own characters, and should, but should ask other players about their characters if something seems odd, confusing, intriguing, or otherwise. "You keep making a point of meticulously describing your character's weird nervous tic. The exact same way every time. How come? What's it mean?"

Players of course can answer engagement like this any way they please, including stabbing themselves with the quill: "you figure it out, if your character were to ask mine, mine would supply her answer which I may or may not know".

GMs (where applicable) should really lean on this: improvise, throw ideas and themes at the wall, and frantically build on top of the audience's ideas, since those ideas clearly resonate with the audience.

Code-switching (deliberately modifying interpretation)

We all do this all the time: the dragon is not telling you to roll for your attack, after all. The GM is, by switching between narrating the world, and communicating with a player.

More subtly we do this when switching between "what our character believes" and "what we players reasonably expect". Your costumed superhero might think of herself as righteous vengeance incarnate, but you hope everyone at the table knows you think she's conceited and delusional at best, and a full-bore psychopath at worst. This hopefully doesn't mean you play your psychopath superhero any less sincerely, but it does require a bit of ironic detachment, you know something about her that she can't know about herself (beyond that she's a fictional character, of course).

Even more subtly, sometimes weird game interactions (of the rules, other PCs, other players) imply things we wish they wouldn't, but can't quite control, and often everyone knows this. "Why can't you muster up your courage one more time?!" "Because I ran out of Fate points," your character doesn't say. Instead, your fellow authors share a look over the table, and gingerly tiptoe around an obvious, character-appropriate thing, and seize on some other thing to say or do, hopefully just as obvious and character-appropriate. But, everyone switched codes, from "characters doing things for reasons" to "the rules inform our story, and we follow them because they help".

Prepaid analysis (game-specific themes or arcs)

A lot of games have some baked-in themes right off the shelf, and provide good starting points and directions of inqury for interpreting a story born out of playing them. Monsterhearts deals with teenage cruelty and queer sexuality. Succession deals with faith, one's place in the world, and how these relate to morality. Bliss Stage tumultuous coming-of-age and taking care of one another, or failing to. If you use eg Lovesick to tell a story that you can't approach or interpret in light of "dangerous, unstable, desperate romantics"--you probably picked the wrong game. You should pick a better game.

Besides these themes, many games also have more abstract ideas--arcs or processes--that they really enshrine. Exalted gives Solars (mythical heroes patterned after ancient folklore) a mechanic called "Limit Break" which mechanically funnels a Solar toward destroying themselves with their own virtue. Likewise, even if you somehow excise Monsterhearts' focus on teenage cruelty and sexuality, you really shouldn't play if you want to avoid social stigma as a theme, because most of the mechanics hinge on it.

We players often deliberately bring in some themes and ideas we'd like to play with, too. "I want to play a character whose determination will be her own undoing--and probably everyone else's." Or even just "I really like themes where physical strength is tragically and stupefyingly unhelpful". Those make for great starting points and prompt good questions to interpret stories!

I know someone with more literary theory and less sleep deprivation could add a few basic givens, but I think this at least goes to show we have ground to stand on and territory to explore. And probably more importantly, it points out some useful kinds of questions we can ask about the story of a game and how to interpret it. So, why did I ever bring up Undertale back there?

Audience Awareness

The following works have something in common: House of Leaves, Funny Games, This House Has People In It, The Cry of Mann, The Shape on the Ground, Undertale, and Deltarune. Besides "being very good", they all explicitly pose the audience as an entity within the story--but, they do it in a very unusual way.

See, the story of a Mario game is about Mario even if the player controls Mario--and though it's a subtle distinction, this also applies to eg Doom, where you play as an explicitly nameless faceless protagonist, intended to be your avatar. Even in the most plot-free abstract game, if we can salvage out a story (if perhaps an extremely degenerate and rudimentary one like 'how this game of chess played out'), the 'story' happily accommodates the audience within it.

That's not how the list I gave does things. Not at all.

Instead, the works I listed single out the audience as something else: in House of Leaves, unreliable narrators call out the unreliable interpreter reading the narrative. In Funny Games, the audience doesn't participate--but the audience watches, and the film knows this, and singles the audience out as complicit in the horrible events that unfold. This House Has People In It casts us as the prying NSA subcontractor watching hours of security footage and reading dozens of e-mails, and makes it clear that even our Panopticon of surveillance doesn't give us a complete account of reality. The Cry of Mann casts us as gibbering voices from an eldritch plane of cosmic horror. The Shape on the Ground poses as a disinterested and clinical psychological test, but it clearly has some ideas about what would lead us to take such a 'test'.

And then there's Undertale and Deltarune. Last warning, I'll say whatever I find convenient about Undertale and probably '''spoil''' something about Deltarune in the process. I do not care.

Hostility to the Audience

If Undertale itself had a personality, one could fairly describe it as "wary of the player": it plays jokes and tricks, but it knows the player is a player, of Undertale, which Undertale also knows is a videogame. It gives you ample chance to have a fun, funny, and sometimes disturbing game, with a lot of tempting and tantalizing unspoken-s hiding juuuust offscreen. But Undertale's point as a work involves giving you the chance to not do that while still, technically, engaging with the game.

Namely, the Genocide Run. By killing literally absolutely every single thing in the game that the game can possibly let you kill, the game very purposely unfolds entirely differently--and on multiple playthroughs, the game will outright take notice of multiple playthroughs, and challenge you for--in effect--torturing the narrative it can deliver by forcing it to deliver every narrative. Let's think about that for a moment:

Most videogames have some kind of excuse of a narrative, and lately, many have really good, nuanced stories to tell--and many of those even go to the (mindbendingly grueling) effort of delivering a plurality of good narratives that honor your agency as a player--maybe even a creator, as best a videogame can with its limitations.

But, what can you say about a story that has multiple endings? Or multiple routes to them? And what can you say about a story that, in some of its branches, simply goes to entirely different places as narratives? It strains the usual literary critical toolkit, to say the least.

Now, a game like Doki Doki Literature Club! approaches this exact same idea of addressing its story as manipulable by the player, of the player as an agent in the story, but in a pretty straightforward way as far as "a narrative that works this way": the narrative already describes "and then the player came along and messed everything up". All of the player's different routes serve this one overarching narrative: the game has an obsessive fixation on you and wants you to play it forever (which, given its nature as (roughly) a visual novel . . . perhaps asks quite a lot).

Undertale takes a step back from even this level of abstraction, though: the implicit and often hidden events of its world and narrative unfold / have unfolded / will unfold, and a given player's "story" consists of "what the player does to this multi-branched narrative-object". The game judges you to your face for contorting its weird timeline-multiple-universe meta-story . . . but lets you do it, to prove the point it wants to prove.

And without much controversy, we can conclude that point roughly summarizes to "playing games just for accomplishment and mastery doesn't give as rewarding an experience as immersing in the story and characters". The subtler point under that, though, comes out through multiple playthroughs: "immersing yourself in a story and cast of characters too much will harm your life and your enjoyment of other things". Undertale, were it a person, would probably look nervously at you after several 'completionist' playthroughs to "see all the content", and it explicitly describes this exact behavior to the player's face as something objectionable--even calling out people who watch someone else play on streams and video hosts.

"Just let it be a story"

Which brings us to Deltarune. I've no doubt dozens of cross-indexed internet-vetted analyses and fan-theories will arise in the next few months (and I look forward to them), but on a once-over the game seems to have one specific thing to say to the player's face: "you are intruding on a story that isn't about you". The game opens with an elaborate character-creator (well, for a retroclone computer RPG), then tells you "discarded, you can't choose who you are, and you can't choose who the character is either". It has fun with giving the player dialog options--then timing out and ignoring the input. It even tells the player in in-game narration that "your choices don't matter". The story itself doesn't even care very much about the player's character, instead hinging on the development and growth of an NPC, following her arc, without much concern for the player's thoughts on the matter. And at the very end, after playing mind-games with the player's familiarity and recognition of Undertale characters--the close does something both inexplicable and disturbing. This is not your story: it's not about you, your choices don't affect it, and it doesn't care what you think.

As an aside, it seems like quite a good game--but I think that comes in part because of this very drastic intent and the skill with which it executes that intent (ie, bluntly at first, subtly enough to almost forget, and then slapping hard enough to prompt a flashback).

And holding this alongside Undertale's stark (even literal) judgment of the player for 'forcing' the narrative to contort to accommodate the player's interaction with that narrative, it seems clear to me that where Doki Doki Literature Club! has fun with the idea of "player as complicit in something gross, and as motivating something cool", Undertale and Deltarune seem much more interested in making the player take an uncomfortable look at how they engage with narratives.

Defensive Hermeneutics

On one hand, Funny Games, The Cry of Mann, and Undertale and Deltarune stare back at the audience, judge them, treat them as an intruding, invading, even corrupting force from outside the work, criticize the audience for enjoying the work, and even call the audience out for engaging in detailed critique, like some kind of cognitive logic-bomb, or a cake laced with just enough ipecac to punish you for eating more than a slice.

But on the other, House of Leaves, This House Has People In It, The Shape on the Ground, and Doki Doki Literature Club all want the audience to participate, to scrutinize, to interact with the narrative and question it, as well as themselves. What does that first camp have in common besides wariness and hostility to the audience, and what does this second camp have in common besides treating the audience as creative of the work's meaning? I'll call it "a defensive hermeneutic".

Notionally, the audience has hermeneutics: ways of understanding a work. But, a creator can't help but have some understanding of the likely mental state and view of a(n imagined) audience, approaching the text in some way. A creator can thus bake in or favorably treat some approaches over others, and can even use this to guide criticism about their work.

That first group, which I'll call "defensive", has one striking common feature: the 'surface level' plots either don't matter, or have very simple outlines. Funny Games' plot is exactly as follows: two psychopaths terrorize, torture, and eventually murder an innocent family. The Cry of Mann shows us what looks a lot like a small child trying to mimic a melodramatic soap-opera, before Things Get Weird (and any extant 'surface level' plot goes under the waves). And Undertale and Deltarune give us the stock "hero appears in strange land, arbitrary puzzle-quests ensue, climactic final confrontation restores peace to the land". This serves as the set-dressing and vehicle for the actual plots--or sometimes simply cognitive messages--to get into the audience's minds:

"What, exactly, do you get out of slasher torture-porn movies? Why do you create the market for things like this?" "Are you sure about where your sense of empathy and identification points you? What makes you think you have a grip on reality enough to judge who's right and relatable, and who isn't?" "Don't just passively consume games like they were kernels of popcorn. But don't gorge yourself on the same dish, either--there's more out there, but you have to look for it."

In short: these works don't want you to nitpick the works themselves. Their entire message consists of second-or-higher-order interpretation. To put it another way, they want to make sure you don't pay attention to the handwriting, because the gaps between the words spell out a poem and the words themselves only create those gaps.

Participatory Hermeneutics

By this same token, I'll call the second camp "participatory": they treat the audience as a kind of creator in their own right--Borges did this a lot and with relish in his later years, and Doki Doki Literature Club! makes it a game mechanic. A creator using this "participatory" hermeneutic essentially doesn't consider their work 'finished' until the audience interprets it. This should sound familiar. The audience contributes meaning to the work, by interpreting it, and a "participatory" work counts on it. And, to contrast with the "defensive" camp: they use complex (sometimes even overcomplicated) plots, which matter and inform interpretation, and tie into the second-order meaning that the work attempts to convey. The "surface level" plots don't solely carry a tangled "interpret this" into the audience's brain. Instead, the surface plot has enough complexity to have a plot-hole, enough character depth to have problematic characters, and enough weight on its own merit to have unappealing implications. In other words: even without convoluted postmodern hoity-toity highfalutin' hermeneutic jibberjabber, a member the audience can find a story they can just enjoy on its merits.

Before anyone angrily starts defending the characters in Undertale or complaining about the directionlessness of This House Has People In It, I hope I've made it really clear, I lumped these works into these two categories based on an overall tendency and commonality, in approaching this one really abstract concept, and as with any work, any binary you can think of will have gradations if you look among "all works, ever". And, even more importantly:

I really love all these works, and I love what they do and how they do it. They all also have flaws, because flawed humans made them, and flawed humans enjoy them. That all said: the "participatory hermeneutic" has everything to offer for my purposes, while the "defensive hermeneutic" . . . might get a post of its own someday.

So What Now?

In aeons past, I wrote about feedback and criticism, and this seems like a good time to dust off that idea with a new application. In particular, that old post talks simply about players (and GMs where applicable) helping each other to contribute their best, and get the most enjoyment out of a game. Here, we'll look at some basic questions players can pose each other as creators of a work, rather than participants of a game or members of an audience.

So let's take that 'player survey' and repurpose it for Dark Humanities and getting a toehold on literary criticism:

Can you describe your approach to your character?

What do you want to convey about your character?

What was one thing you want to make sure we all understand?

How do you interpret my character so far?

What theme or motif do you think our characters express together?

What misconception or misunderstanding would you like to clear up or prevent?

What themes do you want to explore?

And just like the 'player character questionnaire', everyone should update and refine their survey every few sessions. As a given game goes on, for example, you might get to know one of the PCs so well that you never need to worry about "misconceptions or misunderstandings", regarding that character's motivations and personality and thematic implication. But, that character's connection with eg themes of parental abandonment might change, and when that topic comes up, you can devote a question or three just to asking things like "might your character be treating this person as a surrogate mother-figure?" Maybe the player never thought of it that way! Maybe the player thinks that would be a great idea! But neither of you will think about it without pausing a moment to consider things like this.

And once everyone has shared a bit about their characters' themes and clarified everyone else's, you can discuss deliberately pursuing an idea, through your characters. Obviously your characters have no motivation for this, but your characters don't even exist, so they don't have any say in the matter.

For example, cyberpunk naturally deals with corporate oppression, alienation, dehumanization, and technological obsolescence. But, when one PC regularly takes recreational drugs, and baits another into joining them, a third concocts elaborate revenge fantasies, and a fourth picks up broken people like stray cats and tries to parent them into being functional . . .

Maybe they all share a more specific theme of "dysfunctional coping mechanisms". The drug-user is nice and obvious--and their partner joining them in partaking perhaps has a need to belong. The vengeful obsessive might be compensating for feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability by hurting or preparing to hurt others. And the self-styled Good Samaritan and would-be Guardian Angel might be doing the opposite--just as unhealthily.

Importantly, everyone keeps playing their character, the character they made, the character they want to play. But, with some good chewy discussion about story, everyone can also look for spots where, indeed, their character might just so happen to--do something to further this sub-theme of "dysfunctional coping mechanisms", on top of the background of alienation, obsolescence, and dehumanization.

Academic, critical, literary discussion of roleplaying games as games seems like a sadly underexplored subject. But critical discussion of the stories themselves, the ones happening at each table, might as well be completely unknown--so here's hoping someone can build on this!

#deltarune #undertale #theory #game design #critique #analysis #postmodernism

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nancykali · 7 years ago

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Stranger Things Modern AU

It starts in 2016

Nancy (19 years old instead of 16) works at an IHOP and Jonathan and Steve are college kids vying for her attention, visiting at weird hours of the night just to see her, end up flirting with each other over their fifth cup of coffee while arguing over how big a tip to leave and whether they should risk leaving one phone number or two

I keep imagining how modern!Steve and modern!Jonathan meet and them arguing about how often the other has been at IHOP the last two weeks (“I’ve seen you here 6 out of the last 8 days Byers” “Is that supposed to make me feel bad? Im not the one who showed up before her shift even started”)

Nancy still lives at home but hates it, and is saving up to move out. She bikes to her job as a waitress at IHOP, working overnight shifts so she can work a second job at a tattoo parlor as a front desk receptionist during the day. She sleeps between 4:30am and 11am and barely has time off. Steve and Jonathan, two guys going to the community college nearby, start hanging around IHOP during her shifts, and she soon realizes they both have a crush on her.

they all have crushes on each other and Nancy is the only one who can play it cool convincingly while she’s laughing at both boys dancing around each other and refusing to admit they have feelings for each other as well as her and she’s playing matchmaker at the same time she’s trying to drop hints she’s in love with both of them until they have a smack down drag out session where it ends in the three of them making out over a plate of pancakes and their first kisses are sticky with syrup

I’ll set the scene.

SEPTEMBER 2016: Nancy has invited them both on a lunch date with her, but individually. She took the day off just for the occasion. Of course it’s at IHOP, the same one she works at. She doesn’t tell them she’s meeting both of them until both guys are there. She has the three of them meet in the parking lot, and when Steve and Jonathan see each other, they’re both more flustered than angry, and she lays down her feelings for both of them and is like, “If you want to give this a shot, you have to be upfront about your feelings for each other, not just me.” POLYAMOROUS SHENANIGANS ENSUE.

Will and El actually meet because Will gets kidnapped by the evil lab (cuz he, Joyce, and Jonathan all have powers similar to El’s but untapped) and that’s how Hopper busts the cold case on the evil lab wide open.

El still opens the gate but instead of the party discovering her in the woods, she rescues Will from the Upside Down and the Demogorgon and they escape the lab together.

Joyce keeps El in hiding and El and Will become really close. Will tells the rest of the party what happened and of course they all swear to keep El and the evil lab secret while they investigate how the Demogorgon is stealing people into the Upside Down.

Joyce finally confides in Hopper and they find out El’s true origins (Terry Ives).

They still make the sensory deprivation tank to try to find Nancy’s friend Barb. Instead of El finding Barb dead, she finds Barb still alive, but barely.

Instead of Hopper and Joyce going into the Upside Down, and Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve trapping the Demogorgon, it’s Nancy and Jonathan and Steve going into the Upside Down to rescue Barb, but they’re too late. Hopper and Joyce almost trap the Demogorgon at the middle school but it survives and goes after El, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will.

After El defeats the Demogorgon and publicly “disappears”, Hopper keeps her hidden in his cabin. For a few months El has to communicate to the party through Morse code (with Hopper serving as middle man) and secret messages until she can write letters of her own (and send text messages through burner phones sometimes, when Hopper can get them). Nearly a year later the adoption papers come through and she’s officially Hopper’s daughter.

Once El starts going to school with the rest of the party, she makes a habit of going to IHOP every Saturday to eat pancakes with Mike while Nancy works the lunch shift. They do their homework in the back of the restaurant, SnapChat with the rest of the party, and Nancy gives them a free dessert or two if they finish their homework before dinnertime.

In the fall of 2017 when shit with the Upside Down starts again, El, with the help of her aunt and her mother’s visions, has finally unearthed information on another child the evil lab kidnapped – Kali Prasad. Hopper forbids her from leaving Hawkins, so El decides to run away to find her “sister”, with only a picture of Kali to guide her, and a burner phone to contact Mike and the rest of the party in case of an emergency.

After El closes the gate, with Kali’s help, Kali stays in Hawkins and Hopper makes arrangements for Kali to “hide in plain sight” under an alias. Nancy helps her get a job at the tattoo parlor, and Kali starts apprenticing to be a tattoo artist. Nancy and Kali fall in love. Kali is completely cool with the polyamory, and she, Steve, Jonathan, and Nancy are all dating. In August 2018 they all plan to move to New York City after Jonathan gets a scholarship to go to NYU.

Pros of this Modern AU:

More time spent on Nancy and Barb, their friendship, Nancy’s loss

Nancy and El forge more of a bond on screen as El helps Nancy find Barb in the Upside Down

Joyce and El forge more of bond as Joyce shelters El after El has rescued her son from the lab that kidnapped him, as well as saving him from the Demogorgon in the Upside Down

El and Will forming a deep friendship immediately

The entire party being together from the beginning

El staying in contact with her entire found family after she defeats the Demogorgon, instead of being isolated

Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan being allowed to form a friendship months before the gate to the Upside Down is opened, making it plausible for them to want to go together into the Upside Down to find Barb

Hopper and Joyce confronting their feelings for each other while caring for the entire party, especially El and Will, and directly acting to protect the kids from the Demogorgon

Joyce being the driving force behind protecting El, so El gets to have a real parental figure in her life from nearly the moment she escapes the lab

The party accepting El as one of them from the start because she rescued Will

Will being the most understanding and insightful on El going nonverbal, unable to communicate clearly, and helping her communicate with the rest of the party, and the adults

Cons of this Modern AU:

I don’t have the time and energy to write this as a multi-chapter fic rn, but I do plan to write one-shots for it. If you have any specific requests for this au, please drop them in my inbox! If you would like to write for this au, please credit me and link me to whatever you write!

#stranger things 2 #stranger things au #mileven #jopper #stoncy #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #modern au #my writing #IHOP AU #im being serious please send me requests or headcanons or whatever ideas or musings you have on this au i want to share it with people

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archive-of-fics · 7 years ago

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Flustered - Uta

You walk into the lecture hall at exactly seven for class, quite deprived of sleep, as per usual. So, naturally, you don’t notice the impossibly beautiful man that stands beside your professor until he begins stripping. For the briefest moment, your under-oxygenated brain wonders why the hell was there a stripper in the fucking lecture hall. Then, your train of thought briefly wanders to what strippers do exactly, aside – of course – from stripping. Fan service? Lap dances? Are strippers even a thing anymore? But then you remember that you’re a fricking fine arts student, and that this is figure drawing class, and that seeing hot naked strangers isn’t that big of a deal. Nice. Trying to avoid the general vicinity of the model, you scurry right into your seat which is smack in the middle of the front row. Mother of shit. After a series of doing brief facepalms, you begin to set up your workspace. Only when your professor tells the class to begin do you feel your heart flutter in your chest. Nonetheless, you ignore your raging hormones, and attempt to begin. The moment you glance at the man’s porcelain white skin, though, you find yourself looking away almost immediately. The flutter in your chest is gone and is replaced by its violent trashing. Jesus Christ, what the everglubbing fuck is happening to you? You professor notices that you have yet to begin your sketch, as opposed to every single other person in the room. He sends you a soul-murdering glare that makes you realize that you’d rather get over yourself and your uncontrollable hormones than to displease this probably-spawn-of-satan-himself professor, so you stop asking Jesus what the crap is wrong with you and begin to make your rough sketch. Metaphorically flaming face notwithstanding, you manage to finish the outline of what was supposed to be the model. You think. Probably. Hopefully. Oh God, you’re fucked. With your frustration increasing with each passing second, you force yourself to actually take a look at the model more than two motherfucking seconds. As if on cue, though, his red orbs catch yours. The last thing you see before retreating back to the safety behind your canvas was how a hint of amusement plays across the features of his face before immediately shifting back to his previous deadpanned expression. Nope. Instantaneously, an explosion goes off in your head, and in a span of a second you find yourself all kinds of confused, flustered and terrified. Before you could register your own actions, you’re already standing up. Most of the class looks at you in mixed curiosity and surprise. Your professor, though, had obvious annoyance etched across his face. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. You have to think of something quick. Then, you make a ‘C’ shape with your hand, gesturing that you have to go to the comfort room. The moment your professor nods in reply, you’re already halfway out the room. For a long while, you pace around the hallway, cursing yourself for being such a bullshit shojo manga character. Out of all the feelings that bubbled in your chest, frustration was by far the strongest. Why couldn’t you do this? Aren’t you supposed to be some big-shot artist someday? How can you achieve that when you can’t even look at a naked man? Seriously, what the actual fuck, self? Without really thinking about it you slam your hear right into the vending machine, earning a shit ton of curious looks. “Pent up sexual frustration much?” you recognize the voice almost immediately. Your most ‘beloved’ seatmate smiles at you as she passes by. “Stfu.” You let your eyes trail back to the room, seeing everyone from your class walk through the double doors. “Break?” You ask her. “Yup. Are you gonna eat lunch or what?” “Nah.” You think for a moment. “I think I’ll try to save my output.” She narrows her eyes at you, “It looks great, okay? Let’s eat.” “I’m serious,” you say with finality. She lets it slide with a shrug, and in no time she’s gone in the mass of passing people. You head back to the room, only to find it completely deserted. Finally, you feel yourself relax, especially as you sat down on your chair. You adjust the canvas stand before resuming your work. Then, you pick up a HB pen from your pencil holder, and begin to refine the lines you’ve made. Given that the model was no longer there, you draw based from memory as well as you can. It is fifteen minutes later when you find yourself actually satisfied with your work, although you have yet to draw most of the model’s tattoos. He had ink all over his skin after all. How could you expect to remember each intricate detail? Not a moment longer, you proceed to do some shading – dark enough to guide you later on, but light enough to erase in case you’ve made a mistake. You take note of the weightlessness of your hand, as opposed to earlier that morning. A small smile finds its way across your lips. “You’re good.” You freeze almost immediately, as the foreign voice reaches your ears. It is as though the world’s cadence ceases only to make way for those two, short words spoken with an ethereal tone. You turn to find the model, making his way from behind the room towards where you are situated. Realizing that you have to actually reply to people when they compliment you, you bow slightly before thanking him. His face betrays no expression, but his eyes convey his amusement well enough. “I’m Uta,” he utters with an invisible smile. “It’s nice to meet you,” you manage to say without tripping on your words. “My name’s [Name].” “Don’t mind me. Just continue,” he says with a gentle tone that contrasts the expression of his face. You let your eyes trail briefly to the black characters tattooed across the white skin of his neck, before turning away completely. Not long after, an uncomfortable silence (mostly just for you) surrounds the both of you. Naturally, you struggle to break it. “Uta-san?” “Hn.” “Are you a friend of the professor?” you ask as casually as possible. You hear him scoff slightly from behind, as he takes the seat next to yours. The decreased proximity doesn’t help with your heart’s increasing pace. Dildo fucking shitfest, this is so goddamned weird. As if drawing a naked man wasn’t weird enough, but now the man in question was now watching you draw him and all his sweet, sweet nakedness. “I met Nishiki-kun years ago during one of my exhibits via an acquaintance. We’ve been quite familiar with each other since.” Pleasant nonchalance is present in his voice. You hum in response. Your brain briefly entertains the idea that Uta was the professor’s trophy husband just because it was hilarious to think that your cold-hearted professor could actually love something. “So you’re an artist too, Uta-san?” You try your best to minimize the shaking of your hand by shortening the strokes you made with the pencil. At one point, you try to shift your focus from your chagrin to the mixed traces of graphite and charcoal present all over your hand. “Yes. I make masks.” You pause briefly to turn to him. Something about his specialty fits him so well, you thought. A smile stretches across your lips as you say, “That seems very interesting.” “If you think so, then you should drop by my studio sometime, and maybe demonstrate your skill to me as I to you one-on-one?” he offers without a hint of effort. Did he just- A tsunami of words flood your mind, only to get stuck at the back of your throat. So there you sat still with your lips parted as though about to speak, and yet no sound escapes. But then, the door opens. Your classmates begin to enter consecutively, paying no mind to you and Uta. Wordlessly, he sends you a millisecond-smile before heading back to the pedestal. He strips once again. This time, though, the reason behind your blush is no longer because of his lack of clothes. Thankfully enough, you’re a lot calmer than earlier. You manage to finish most of the shading just as the professor says that everyone should just be adding the final touches.

So you did just that. You darken Uta’s tattoos, and you erase a few stray smudges. Then, you begin to blend the areas where it is sparse with chamois (for the larger areas) and a blending stump (for the smaller ones). You finish in the nick of time. "Pass your work one-by-one.” The professor sits on his table and glares at all of the students (as usual). You decide to let the crowd thin first before you even do as much as to stand.

Meanwhile, you begin to tidy up (and by tidy up, you mean to chuck all your pencils and other shit into your zip-lock case before throwing in in your bag as fast as you can.) Grabbing your bag, you also take your unnecessarily gigantic sketch pad and shove it to your seatmate. “I’m counting on you,” you salute to her, before speeding towards the door. Before you could reach the solitary exit, though, you bump against someone. Uta. For the briefest moment, you could have sworn his hand grazed yours. The piece of paper nestled between your fingers serves only to prove its occurrence. But when you look up, he’s already making his way back to the professor’s vicinity. Without another word you practically run out of the room, face ablaze, trying to steer your train of thought away from the series of numbers sprawled across the lightly crumpled piece of paper in your hand.

#Uta

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yusselah · 4 years ago

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Draw Well, Be Well

My Daughter’s Reminders

My daughter Jenny grew up falling down, with a fractured tibia here and a black eye there. Injuries stemming from a central nervous system disorder with a hard to pronounce name: Incontinentia Pigmenti. After 32 years, the words still freeze on my tongue.

I.P. is not a one-size-fits-all genetic disorder in the ways it affects the lives of the baby girls who are born with it. For Jenny, a woman with a girlish face and a small body, this rare neurocutaneous condition deprives her of many things: the balance to stand, walk, or enjoy the kind of grapho-motor control that enables her mother and brother, both formally trained artists, to draw with precision.

Precision can be very appealing in the right hands. But my daughter doesn’t draw for appeal, or approval. She draws to be well; to feel well; and for her, thank goodness, the very act of picture-making has for decades now afforded her a pleasurable way of breaking past the gravity of her immense motor and cognitive challenges. The story of Jenny’s love of picture-making and the goodness she’s drawn from pictures are perhaps best illustrated in the images she paraded through my old appointment book in a furious sprint over a cold winter’s night when she was 16. As they remind me, indeed I cannot forget them, she was quite ill in body and mind following a mind-shattering fall after becoming severely sleep deprived at a special summer camp. Had the staff been trained to detect and act on the signs of her obvious sleep deprivation, she might have been spared the half year she lost while living in the painful limbo in her shattered consciousness, where unrecoverable sleep falls. She might have avoided her hallucinations, and the dreadful fear of being swallowed back into the jaws of the seizure monsters that ripped entire pages from her school calendar while she was a little girl.

I refer to these images as my daughter’s reminders, in part because she made them in an old datebook of mine, drawing freely over pages containing handwritten reminders of my appointments and tasks to be completed. But even more so because her images like the fast-falling peanut shell and winged red horse she drew there remind me of the importance picture-making has played in our lives. They remind me how reliably Jenny Lily Gordon, now 32, has piloted herself through dark times on the tip of a pen. How she’s drawn genies back into fallen bottles. And created a hearth of warm friction when her off-kilter body ran a little too cold - as it often does when her neurological temperatures flowed in different directions. Warm on her left, frosty along her right. But “just right” — like a fairy tale porridge — when her busy left hand is working with her eyes to make a new picture.

From the moment she was able to pick up and hold onto a crayon at the age of three, which was not easy for her, drawing has given my daughter a trustworthy way to communicate when words failed her. You see, Jenny’s thoughts get stuck in the upper shelves of her fragile brain’s speech and language freezer. She finds it easier to produce certain kinds of ideas using ink and lead pigments which fly effortlessly from her drawing instruments without a lot of words weighing them down.

Making pictures offers her a profound well-spring of wellness because the activity also provides a fount of liberating physical release. For although she can’t ice-skate or play soccer, she can take great speed on the point of a No. 2 pencil. And the rhythmic sound the lead tip makes against a sheet of paper is music to her ears. “The paper is a mountain I can climb, where you and me can go up to anywhere, we can fly away,” she once told me as we drew beneath a star-studded August sky . To Jenny, the earth’s gravity can be supremely limiting while her paper universe is boundless.

Since her earliest years, our curly-headed, cognitively- and visually-impaired daughter, has been drawn to our home’s bright, white shelves. They’re packed with paper, old calendars, new and used sketchbooks, fat patches of fabric and pens and inkwells of tangy colors: raspberry, lemon, blueberry, carrot, eggplant and chocolate. She continues to reach for these colorful supplies to flavor her way over the bitter aftertaste of some pretty potent medicines.

These particular reminders of Jenny’s scratch deeply into my memories --and my wife’s -- of many of her hardest times. Times when she lost her appetite completely. Times when she couldn’t grip a spoon or hold a cup of milk; night times when repeated falls from her consciousness — sparked by uncontrollable seizures — ripped entire pages out of her school calendar. These are the kinds of drawn reminders I kept hidden in a desk drawer for years even though I cherished them as visual celebrations of Jenny’s remarkable tenacity and strong desire not to be counted out.

When the tornado side effects of her powerful anti-convulsants began to lighten, she immediately reached for her friction sticks to draw her way back to a steadier state of mind. Her pens and pencils were like a conductors’ baton with which to find the music to lift up and re-organize her disordered mind. The pictures were dance partners to her songs. Pictures went hand and hand with singing. They were dance partners that came together over many hours, across many days, until a new destination appeared. These pictures trigger my gratitude for the ancient red line of drawing - the pulsating, sanguine line which runs like the Hudson River through all of human time. Drawing has also given me a way to express gratitude everyday for a piece of chalk, for a circle, or those beautiful, swift lines that drive comic books.

But I have a special gratitude for these images she paraded across the grey pinstriped pages of my old 2007 appointment calendar. They remind me how drawing alongside her for over three decades has again and again restored our hope of finding some joy in the next five, ten or fifteen minutes. The hope that drawing provides is coming in very handy right now as we live through this vaccine-less pandemic.

It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but to me these pictures are worth a thousand pictures each. An entire year can be glanced in a solitary image: like that long stretch of time when Jenny’s leg was broken in a completely preventable fall. Thank goodness her hands weren’t hurt. She could still wield magic markers, whose bright, magical colors and pungent scents helped lessen her pain.

“My leg hurts, but the itching is worse,” she told me as we drew cats’ faces over the dense, white cast that stretched from her foot all the way up her thigh. She had injured her right leg during a fall from a rowing machine in a health club. The “trainer” had not remembered to fasten the seat belt, but left Jenny’s right foot tightly fastened to the binding in machine’s pedal; when she slid unattended from the seat and struck the floor, her bound leg twisted radically, resulting in what her orthopedist reassured us was “just a skier’s fracture.” But “just” to Jenny is not really any old just. The fracture healed fine, but the surrounding anatomy never quite restored.

I’m reminded how at night her swollen limb throbbed with blue pain - and that the little balance she had before, enabling her to stand up and pivot with our support, was gone. So we carried her.

One night as we drew more icons over the rock-hard plaster, she paused to say, “Joseph, did you know I am drawing-able? I am very, very able to draw. I can draw all day. I’m never afraid. I have zero paper fright.”

“So you have no ‘stage fright’ when you draw?,” I clarified.

“Zero!” she shot back. “It never hurts to draw, it’s never scary so don’t be scared, dad, ok?”

Ever since, I have tried to take her word for it. Not fearing how a picture might be seen or judged by others is a freedom few of us carry over from childhood.

“Jenny doesn’t draw for anyone’s sake but her own, does she?” an artist friend John asked me as they sat together at a tall window overlooking a row of massive trees outside our Bronx apartment.

She had been drawing at that sill for several hours, filling the pages of an old composition book that once belonged to her brother. Old sketchbooks, spiral notebooks or other semi-used booklets of paper held a special allure because they contained the appealing marks of people whose drawings she loved.

“What are you drawing?” John asked. “The birds, the squirrels?”

The animals were busy that afternoon, flying between branches which dropped red and yellow leafs

“I’m just drawing a picture, John,” she replied. “You want to make one?”

“I once just drew lots of pictures, too, Jenny. On the farm where we all grew up. I drew between my chores and homework.”

“You weren’t scared right?”

“Not a bit,” he replied, as he grabbed a pencil.

Picture-making’s reliability in shifting one’s vantage point is helpful when you’re perpetually sitting on the edge of your next fall. For eleven years she was besieged by seizures while transitioning into and out of sleep. I am reminded of those nights by her image of the hovering “seizure monster” who, she said, was like “crocodiles biting through her pillows.” They flew off with her voice. “I couldn’t speak when they came.” Examining her picture several years later, she told me “I’m glad that bitch is gone.”

Many of our hardest falls are lurking just around the corner, yet we don’t see them even as we’re heading towards them. Like that tree branch snaking beneath the cement sidewalk, opening up a crack that swallows the wheel of your wheelchair, sending you crashing. A collision with asphalt can mark up your porcelain face with alarming exclamation points. These shout out your extreme vulnerability to your neighbors when they see you in the lobby of the 14-story, red-brick high-rise you call home.

“The colors hurt a lot more than my face does” she once confided, referring to the attention that comes with every bloom of these dreaded color palettes. The hues of purple, crimson, curry yellow, and cloudy grey can take weeks to fade. These are times to stay clear of windows and mirrors, because the reflections really do hurt. Whenever she got slammed she reflexively turned to picture-making, selecting and blending soothing colors and picturing a reassuring and perhaps more stable landscape.

All of this is to remind me how I am deeply grateful for these particular pictures made in her fierce sprint to recover herself from the calamitous fall she took when she was 16. These are the book of pictures I hid away for years. I just couldn’t bare to look at them. They were too potent, too illustrative of that most shattering fall that I should have seen coming. I felt guilty for having placed my paternal trust in that Godforsaken sleep away camp; a sailing camp stationed in a former nunnery in picturesque Newport, Rhode Island. It was there that she fell unnoticed through her REM cycle into the depths of the most severe sleep deprivation. A clueless trio of camp nurses were simply too untrained to see what had happened to her, even though she was unable to speak, sit, eat or recognize her own parents. “Oh, she’ll be just fine,” the smiling nurse told us, having no idea that Jenny’s severe sleep loss had disorganized her brain so profoundly that she took a year to fully recover. She lingered in that place where unrecoverable sleep falls, alone and lonely, a lost soul in a song-less, picture-less limbo. She dwelled in that nowhere space from late August through late December.

It was a hellish period during which time I soon came tumbling down my own mental hill, like Jack following Jill. Which is why these images remain such vivid reminders of that night in late December as Jenny’s recovery began to take shape in this remarkable parade of pictures, which sprouted fruits, and birds, and rivers, and strange bits of self-portraiture, like that disembodied head rolling down August.

They are still dancing in my old datebook with the red ribbon place mark. Her quickly drawn bright plumes of birds feathers and her fast-falling orange peanut shell all poured forth one winter’s night and morning four months after her August fall. They flowed swiftly when just a few hours before she could barely lift a pencil. After so many painful days of passivity, depression, and sleep disturbed nights, they took form through her tired fingers onto the grey pinstriped pages of my old Lettes of London appointment book. And as she drew I knew as only a parent can know that our daughter was surely on her way back to her steadier self again.

I saw the sparkle return to her wan, brown eyes; and the red rouge come back to her pale cheeks. Should I ever forget what drawing can do for a human being I will look at these pictures once again.

When she first reached for the place-mark of that old appointment book, I was annoyed with her lingering illness and with myself for having held onto all these dozens of outdated appointment books - paper objects that had left me bound to the past, and clinging hopelessly to the idea that if I could just plan my days carefully enough that I might not be so fearful of the future. I had gritted my teeth as I began tossing the red- and black-covered journals into the trash. But when the red ribbon danced from the Lettes’ binding it lit Jenny up like a fuse. “Please give it to me, I want to draw in it,” she said as I handed the book over and helped her gather up her markers.

She quickly began charting her way across the meridian of reminders cluttered with notes of my old appointments. Several hours later, she was still going strong, but I insisted that she stop and try to get some sleep. As sound sleep cycle was still eluding us. She nonetheless awoke early the next morning to continue drawing.

“Look at all of these wonderful pictures you made. You draw so well,” I said as she moved her friction sticks swiftly over the pin-striped pages like a wind-filled sailboat cutting across Naragansett Bay.

“Well, dad, you know,” she replied, “Draw well, be well.” She lifted her head to survey the colors of her many pens that lay before her, picked out several reds and oranges, and drew on fearlessly for hours.

- Joe Gordon

#reminders #imagery

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ankyouweek · 8 years ago

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This link we share - Part 1

((Big Bang submission, who turned… way bigger than I imagined, so I’m dividing it into 3 parts. A big thank you at blazardragon and nidaimeshinigami for putting up with me promising them I would send the second part soon and ended up forgetting for months… You guys rocks !) Rating: General Audiences Characters: Sugaya Sosuke, Mimura Kouki ; mentions of other characters Relationship: Sugaya/Mimura

At 14 year old, Sugaya had a very specific vision of who would he be in the future. He couldn’t have conceived another career than being an artist : it always have been such a great part of his life, the skill for which he sacrificed so much and yet also gave him so much in return. He was made to create.

So, surely, his middle school self would be proud to see where his life was 10 years later.

…Excluding the impending deadline for the exhibition that was currently making him pull yet another all-nighter, because somehow, he still hadn’t learned to organize his schedule properly.

It have been so easy, during art school, to work hour after hour closed in a studio to draw, paint and sculpt without batting an eye, yet nowadays the lack of proper sleep made it tough to concentrate, his mind drifting to kinder places -notably his sweet, comfortable bed - a double size, he didn’t even have to worry about all the junk he accumulated on it, he could just lay among the sketches and notes and… No, no, he had to work, he only had a few days to complete his canvas to send it for the selection…

Sugaya had always been a fast worker, so it originally shouldn’t have been a problem. He still remember that summer, on a assassination school trip in an Island, how he had been able to produce a decent enough scarecrow in a few minutes ; he probably wouldn’t be able to reproduce this now, his way of working under pressure being different. Nevertheless, having never stopped improving his abilities, he should have been able to produce something he could be proud of in the imparted delay. Not sit still on the newspapers-covered floor mixing paint again and again to find a color he could finally be satisfied with.

…A break. He needed to take a break.

He stretched an instant, feeling sore in his back, before exiting the room he used as a workplace. Thanks to the money he kept from back when class E was rewarded for killing Korosensei, his art school expenses have been funded, and with a bit of help from his parents, plus some of his artwork selling relatively well, he have been able to buy a small apartment. In Tokyo, it wasn’t nothing ; he had been told to reconsider and wait a bit more to invest in an house, but he had wanted his independence quickly, finding the life alone more relaxing for his flexible schedule.

As soon as he was in view, a small, oddly colored figure appeared on the screen of his cellphone, left to charge on a messy coffee table.

“Good evening, Sugaya-san !” Ritsu never stopped using pronouns, even after all those years. “Mimura-san tried to join you some minutes ago - he’s on his way to drop off someone near there, he would like to stop here after that. -Hm ? Sure, tell him to come.” He could see it was already night outside, but on early November, that didn’t mean much. “What hour it is ? -Twenty-two hours past seven.” The joyous voice answered.

Oh, he didn’t see the time pass. Because he snacked a lot and ate an early dinner to concentrate on his work, he have been able to progress quite a bit, but now he understood why his mind wanted a break so much.

…Wasn’t this day a Saturday ? Was Mimura working today ? He normally only worked on weekdays, since working in large groups necessitated a good organisation, but a team still had deadlines.

…Guh, deadlines. He should stop thinking about it for the moment. Having a friend coming would be a nice distraction - due to his different life rhythm, his social life was a mess. A bit like his living room, to be honest. He… He should try to clean a bit before Mimura come. He had to admit he was much less zealous about the state of his apartment than he was with his art supplies.

Some minutes later, a ringing sound interrupted Sugaya in the middle of a precious cleaning technique of his, that is to say to take all the papers left on the coffee table and put them in a corner where they wouldn’t be too visible. He hastily finished to go open the door.

“Hello. -Ah… Good evening.”

The young man on the landing stared at him in that slightly hazy, disconcerted way proper to sleep deprived individuals.

“You look like you’re going to fall asleep as soon as you will close your eyes.” Sugaya noted. “Come in. -You might not be too far from reality with that one” admitted Mimura as he removed his shoes in the entrance. “Though you don’t look that fresh yourself. Another deadline ? -In three days, still missing two paintings. What about you ? -There’s a place we’re booking for filming and we needed it for a month, but we’ve been given only 3 weeks, so we’re shooting as much as possible for now. Everyone’s mood is a bit on the low side. -Sound tough.”

When Mimura hanged his vest on the coat rack, Sugaya had an instant of pondering on how little the man changed physically since junior high. Seeing him irregularly after high school ended meant he have been able to notice how his face became little by little a bit more adult, but else it was just all the same, the haircut he couldn’t be bothered to change because it was the easiest to maintain, the simple clothes all in hues of dark green or brown with the shirt tucked in… Technically, the man did grow up too, and during high school the height difference between them diminished by half, but somehow Sugaya had yet another growth spout and they ended up with almost the same gap as before.

“So, hm,” Mimura interrupted his thoughts, “it’s okay if I spend the night here ? I feel like I shouldn’t drive in that state… -Sure, I don’t mind. Ritsu talked about dropping someone near there, it’s for work too ? -Yes, some of the actors don’t have a driving licence and it’s faster to go take and drop them than making them use common transports. They need their sleep, too. -…Is that normal for you to do that ? -Hm ? Well, taking care of the actors is pretty much the third assistant’s job. It’s not like, you know, that time I told you when the set designer messed up.” He slumped into the couch. “I would really hate this job if I didn’t love it.”

Sugaya nodded silently. In the first place, one couldn’t survive in an artistic career if they weren’t driven by their passion. No, even with passion… months of switching between unemployment and small, unsatisfactory jobs could wear down even the most tenacious motivation. By now, the two of them were in better situations ; he was starting to live from what he created and not commissions that ended disastrously due to his personality, and Mimura’s circle of acquaintances in the filmmaking world was growing, something, according to him, that was very important to get more jobs. But it would still take a long time before they would be in a truly comfortable situation.

“Do you want something to drink ? I have beer and I can make tea.” He was almost tempted to suggest coffee. That probably wouldn’t even stop his friend from sleeping. “Hm… tea would be great, but there’s no need to make some just for me, water will be fi- -No, it’s okay, I was planning to make some for myself anyways.” While moving to the kitchen, Sugaya continued to talk, his voice a bit louder. “Doing a break before starting an all-nighter. By the way, you can use my bed instead of the couch if you want to, I’m probably not going to sleep tonight.”

Tea, tea… He really needed to go do some shopping… Oh, that’s right, there was this really nice tea Yada once gave him. ‘It’s important to have high-quality tea just in case, you never know when you will have important guests’. She… probably didn’t think of a case like this, but Mimura was an important friend and technically a guest, so…

“Is green tea alright ? I’m not sure I have anything else…”

Sugaya waited an instant, but he received no answer.

“…Mimura ?”

He took a peek in the living room from the entrance of the kitchen, slightly frowning. But his face immediately softened looking at the deeply asleep man, a pillow tightly hugged in his arms.

“Guess you choose the couch after all.”

–

Maybe it was seeing his friend so exhausted that made Sugaya aware that, maybe, he shouldn’t wait to be this tired to go to sleep, especially since the little progress he made, he erased it a few minutes later. Maybe it was the idea of waking up around the same time as Mimura and sharing a meal together before returning on his work. Either way, after a few hours struggling over a blank canvas, he didn’t fight much for his eyelids to remain open and soon drifted to his bed.

Sadly, if he dreamt he didn’t remember it. No old memory, no meaningful vision that he would feel compelled to paint as soon as he woke up or anything convenient like that. He felt a bit cheated out compared to the main characters of Fuwa’s stories.

Yet, somehow, when he put himself in front of his palette while his friend was still soundly asleep in the living room, everything seemed clearer. Twirls of vibrant yellow under touches of pink. He could conceive it. A picture with an oddly familiar vibe.

Quickly his fingers moved.

Sugaya was already starting to put little details on the rough forms when a figure moved in the corner of his field of vision.

“You can come in, I don’t mind the company. -Ah, thank you, I didn’t think you would notice me.” Mimura approached while talking. “You always seems so concentrated while you work, I would hate to interrupt you. Is… that tentacles you’re drawing ? -Yes, the idea came to me this morning.” Strong tentacles blossoming, full of life, among cherry petals. He liked the energy of it. “That’s inspired by this tanka poem Korosensei once wrote, isn’t it ? -I… Maybe ? I don’t really see what are you talking about. How do you even remember that ? -Easy, it’s in the guidebook.” Of course. He should have guessed it, what isn’t in that book ? “On the topic of ‘How to give a good impression during a conversation’, on the category of 'Poems and Quotes worth remembering’. Korosensei put this poem among popular works. -Yeah, that’s something he would have done.”

They both smiled remembering the octopus’s antics. It would have been painful, during their high school years, to have the presence of their beloved teacher so close to them, but still a shadow unable to replace the original. Now it only felt nostalgic. Nakamura have been the first to notice it : ‘Don’t you think that there are more jokes in the pages for the more mature subjects ? Like, the ones that would have mattered the most during our teenage years were more sober’. Did Korosensei thought of that, too, when he wrote those guides ? Did he predict how everything would unfold after his death, him who must have been familiar with it ? The more they grew up, the more the class E alumnus saw the actions of their former target in another light, gaining a new understanding of him.

Mimura stifled a yawn, bringing the artist out of his thoughts while his hands still moved on the painting.

“Not slept enough ? -Not quite, but I still feel far better than yesterday. Thank you for the night, by the way. -Don’t mention it, you needed it. How much time did you said you’ve been working like that ? Three weeks ? -Ah, no, that’s the time we got to rent a place, we’ve only been on it for one week. -…So you still have two weeks to go at that rhythm. -Unless we get at nasty surprise, yes.” Mimura used an almost fatalistic tone. “That’s the kind of things you should expect from this job. -…I’m glad to be an independent artist, then. -Hey, it’s not that bad. Sure, it’s exhausting, but you get to bond pretty closely with the crew. Sometimes it reminds me a bit of 3-E. -That much ?”

Those weren’t words that could be said thoughtlessly.

The link the class shared, it could hardly be described without experiencing it first. It wasn’t a matter of having spent lot of time together ; almost a year, even less for Ritsu and Itona. Since graduation, even if they tried to reunite now and them, those events weren’t a regularity. But the intensity of it - the warmth of finding a part of normalcy in this classroom, when both families and school turned their back to them, it brought them close. And the thrill and stress of assassination, it brought them closer. Running in the mountain, the feeling of recoil after firing, the weight of a knife, almost drowning in a vicious plan… A bond formed by killing intent, that’s how Korosensei mentioned it once. Sugaya couldn’t imagine forming such a tight relationship with someone else without living again those experiences.

“It’s… different, of course. Nobody can share what we experienced that year, but we have our lot of hardships when filming, too. And, well, it’s important having friends in the industry, too. Sometimes it’s how you get opportunities. -Oh, yeah, you already mentioned that. Is this that important ? I’ve been told the same thing about the art world, but I didn’t encounter many problems. -That’s because you’re too talented. Someone who can produce such a wide variety of art so fast, with a constant quality ? You’re pretty unique. -Haha, thanks. Well, I’m grateful for that, it’s already hard to stay in contact with everyone without having to make buddies here and there. -You’re just not willing to put the effort.”

Ah, here it came, that familiar acerbity Mimura only used against close ones. He might not be wrong, to be honest. Sugaya found maintaining contact with people to be pretty draining, but maybe he could get used to it if he tried a bit more.

Maybe.

“Speaking of friends.” Mimura continued. “ Will you be there for Isogai’s birthday party ? -…Maybe ? -…It’s next week. The 13th. -Oh. I guess ? I forgot it was coming up. Wasn’t there a birthday between his and mine ? -Okuda, yes, that was yesterday. Ritsu didn’t tell you ? -She doesn’t when I’m working hard. Crap, I will send her a message when I’m done. How come Isogai decided to make a birthday party, anyways ? He’s quieter than that usually. -Maehara insisted. Seems like they’re getting really closer after he broke up with Okano. -…He what ?” Sugaya turned his head away from his painting.

If there was a topic that have been talked over and over between the former students, it would be whether Okano and Maehara would end together.

A lot of it could be blamed on Korosensei. Or, really, just all of them being a bunch of gossiping sleazebags. The specific pair would have mattered little, as long as it would have directed everyone’s attention away from their own love stories, be they real or imagined by some teasing friends. Those two just happened to be the most entertaining.

Their personalities were tumultuous together, to the point it was hard to think they were attracted to each other, yet the two of them couldn’t help but pay attention to the other. When they seemed to make efforts toward a common understanding, some unfortunate incident would destroy everything. When it seemed to be over forever, somehow they got even closer. It was so ridiculous, almost everyone was kind of glad when they finally got together. Finally they could switch topics.

And yet they broke up ?!

“Come on, that was months ago, even you should know now. -I don’t, I really don’t.” Months ago… They haven’t been a couple for very long, in the end. “What did Maehara do for this ?” It had to be Maehara the problem. “As you can guess. Caught cheating. -…Okano really deserved better. -She did. For now she seems to spend lot of time with Kimura, but I’m not sure it’s… like that. Anyways, after this Maehara started to spend more time with Isogai. Well, more than usual, if that’s even possible. -So, basically they’re living together now ?” Mimura chuckled at the joke. “Not yet. I wouldn’t even be surprised if it’s the next step, but then, there’s the whole case with Itona too. -What about that ?” Sugaya knew he wanted to get independence from his father because their relationship was getting tough for him, was that linked ? “In a way. Don’t mention it in front of him, okay ? But he still have lot of issues living alone after… well, you know. Isogai suggested to him to come live with him, but since he still lives with his family… I guess he didn’t want to be a burden ? Anyways, he’s living with Terasaka for now. -Poor him. -Oh, he might complain a lot but I’m sure he’s enjoying it. -I was talking about Terasaka. -So was I. -Oh.” Sugaya went quiet an instant before asking. “Any other news I should be aware of ? Did Kanzaki and Sugino finally got together ? -No, I think no matter how much closed from the world you are, Sugino would make sure you know about that one. -Ha, true.” The baseball player had said so many times he got over it, yet he always seemed to fell back into his old crush at each sign of affection. “…It’s a bit sad, to be honest. -It’s scary. I’m glad I didn’t finish that way.”

As the conversation fell down, Sugaya concentrated back on his canvas.

He knew very well what that last sentence meant. Some years ago part of the boys reunited together over beer and talked about crushes of their past. It felt pretty weird to learn of Okajima’s old affections for Hayami in front of Chiba. And, of course, Mimura’s past infatuation for the former ‘Madonna of Class E’.

At that time, Mimura already had gotten a girlfriend.

Not someone from the class. A very nice, sweet girl, from what he remembered. He even felt a bit sad to learn about their break-up, but that wasn’t a first. Didn’t Mimura was with someone in high school, too ? For most of his comrades he would get confused, but he was pretty sure he saw that one. He remembered that feeling that took him from seeing even his close friends all trying to get into new relationships and experiencing romance. Loneliness.

Maybe it was his fault for expecting everyone to stay as they were. He had a hard time keeping up with what everyone was doing, even people as close as his own sister ; unconsciously, he hoped things wouldn’t change too much, that nobody would drift too far from the family that was Class E, and that even if he spent most of his days alone, there would always be a friend willing to stay by his side.

“…Hey. You know, if it’s too hard for you to drive so much when you’re tired, maybe you could stay here till you’re finished with your work. -…What ? -I just thought of it, with all those talk of who lives with with who. You drive less, we get to catch up and maybe do some things together… That would be nice, no ? -That… I don’t really want to intrude… Besides, I would come back really late, I would almost be never here… -You’re contradicting yourself. -…Am I ? Well. Uh. Personally, it would really help me, but… you’re sure you’re fine with that ? -In case you didn’t notice, I am the one who just asked. -Yes, but… You said that on impulse, right ? We need to speak about it. Over… I guess it’s too late for breakfast. Will you be finished soon ? -Almost. Counting the time to clean the brushes… Fifteen minutes ? -That seems quick.” Mimura frowned. “But then I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, coming from you. What do you say about eating outside ? -Fine by me.” He was used to it after all. He never have been one to cook much when he was by himself. “Any preference ? -Hmm, I think it would be better if you chose, you know the neighborhood better. -Alright, alright, just don’t complain if my choice doesn’t suit you.”

Sugaya took a break of an instant from painting to look more closely at his work, in search of the small details he wanted to add.

Funny. He didn’t remember last time he created a picture so lively.

#Fic #Main #submission #Ansatsu Kyoushitsu #Assassination Classroom

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splitshortsyeah · 4 years ago

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Flying Lotus 'Cosmogramma'

- Matt Duelka

I hate to admit that college taught me quite a lot. Each month I reach into my pockets in an attempt to reclaim my dignity one monthly payment at a time, but it was worth it. What I’m not afraid to admit is that the ACTUAL COLLEGE INSTITUTION probably only took part in about 15% of my acquired knowledge during that time. I had the opportunity of taking part in some uncredited extracurriculars that made up for the other 85% that allow me to know how to stand on my own 2 feet without a crutch to lean on.

One of those opportunities that helped me get to the “head of the class” was a brainchild of my breadthen Chris Winn, called NotDrugs.com. I would be doing an ill service of trying to give you all a proper derivation, but it was a way for some college kids with ambition, who were into some shit, to talk about that said shit, in a way all that you wanted to talk about the prior stated shit. That freedom, but also the acceptance of whatever was outputted onto the platform, to be without a “cage” of traditional format that kept you too close to the ground was, well, quite exhilarating. It was, though, completely trial by fire, and I learned to be able to take the pat on the backs just as easily as I was taking the punches in the gut. Some shit worked, other stuff didn’t. There was no hiding in the back of the classroom. Front and center, the best way to earn those calluses.

Equal to having the ability to learn to swim by diving into shark infested waters, I also was able to watch others do the same. Just taking a step back and absorbing from the small cohort we had was just as valuable at times. One folk in particular wrote something that introduced me to an artist – and an album – that 10 years later, altered my auditory acceptance valve moving forward. Julian Williams was that guy, a friend to this day, and man -- F THAT DUDE.

Not really. But you get it.

May 12th, 2010, Ju dropped a banger, a Ju-Banger if you will, and introduced me to Flying Lotus. ‘Cosmogramma’ was released about a month earlier (April-ish) and it was his third album (‘1983’ was his first in ’06, ‘Los Angeles’ was his second in ’08). It’s hard for me to put into words what it felt like listening to ‘Cosmogramma’ for the first time, because I don’t think I was that into it. Saying something like that in 2020 makes me want to go back and kidney punch myself until organ failure – but maybe that’s a little harsh.

Ju mentioned in his piece that FlyLo isn’t easy to take in immediately, or even after a few listens through. It’s jarring, and with ‘Cosmogramma’ specifically, arranged in a way that catches you off guard IMMEDIATELY if you aren’t ready. So even if you want to give it a chance, 30secs in most people might throw it away and not even try.

“They only thing I can describe it as is what Aliens would listen to while gliding through space.”

That was said 1 year ago, while at Danny George’s bachelor party. I had a few beverages and I thought everyone would collectively love to jam out to some ‘Cosmogramma’. I was very wrong.

Like I said, or like Ju said, it’s hard to declare it a gold medal winner off the bat if it’s a brand new sound for you. I didn’t give up on it though. I wasn’t sure why but there was something I wanted to like, and knew I could get into, but couldn’t figure out why it was so hard. So, I flipped back a few pages in the book of Flying Lotus and did my due diligence. I cued up ‘Los Angeles’ and checked myself into bootcamp.

‘Los Angeles’ is necessary in order to take in ‘Cosmogramma’. It’s still weird, still out there, but it comes at you with soft jabs and telegraphed body shots before the haymakers start to show up. It gives you time to warm up, like a mile or so jog, before the racing begins. It’s lovely, brings me smiles. I can lose myself in this album – walk from Battery park to the Cloisters, and not even remember if I had gotten dressed for the day yet.

The second half of ‘Los Angeles’ (probably by the time “GNG BNG” comes on, you should be lubed up and ready to go) is where things start to go off the rails (in a spectacular way) and you start to just fire away on all cylinders. And then by the time “RobertaFlack” hits – you can safely say to yourself “This shit SLAPS.”

That’s when you’re ready for ‘Cosmogramma’. When you are comfortable in the skin that ‘Los Angeles’ hardens around you, then it’s okay to press play and enjoy. Gimme Dat. And I received all of it. ‘Cosmogramma’ was a main stay in my arsenal. I had adapted my existence to welcome this unorthodox way of delivering deliciousness to my ear canals.

Before I dive deeper, I feel the need to be transparent and say if you’re looking for a track-by-track evaluation, I ain’t your guy. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to correctly identify specific tracks on any FlyLo album, because it’s too hard for me to step out of the zone while the record is revolving. I probably even recommend to never listen to a track out of context of the album. Just go ahead and take an hour out of your day, block it off in your calendar, and take a ride.

Okay.

Now fast forward with me for a scene, if you don’t mind. It’s 2011, and we, me PLUS 6 others, are driving a minivan overnight to Ashville, NC. We were going for a 3 day walkabout, visiting different music venues that were showcasing different artists, all with the overarching theme of banging on the Moog (Yes, MOOGFest 2011). After the 16 hour journey, and a decision to “dust off the sleep deprivation and drink through it instead,” the seven of us blitzed our way through the day and night. Until we got to (our) main event.

We were sitting in the bleachers of the UNC-Ashville Arts theater taking in the artistic stylings of Moby (he wasn’t the main event) counting down the minutes on our watches until Flying Lotus was set to go on. Moby could only satiate our appetites so much, so we found the next venue – and a few drinks later – There he was.

It was energy I had never experienced before. It easily could have been the alcohol numbing my surroundings, but I felt if I was in a bubble and I was vacuumed off from the rest of the crowd. My senses were on overload. Usually when you are at a show, you are anticipating each song, or waiting for those few that you know you are gonna POP for. With FlyLo, I don’t get that. I want the experience from start to finish without even stopping to think about what “track” he might play next. I just enjoy being set in a trace and letting FlyLo take me on whatever trip he has planned for that show. And this was only just year 1 of my Flying lotus experience, but having the year top off with that show made me know I was in for the long haul.

Tim will say ‘Cosmogramma’ was peak FlyLo and he hasn’t done better since. I’d say FlyLo reached A peak with ‘Cosmogramma’ but hasn’t descended since. Just kinda stayed up there, peak-hoppin’, enjoying the scenery.

My wife calls it “noise”. And, sure, but you can say that about any music you disagree with. If the sounds aren’t soothing, it’s noise. With FlyLo, calling it noise, though is an easy way out. Because without any interest in the artist, or WANTING to understand what’s going on, you can call it noise and move on. But ‘Cosmogramma’, specifically, isn’t just unheralded noise. It’s strategically placed nodes meant to instigate foot tapping and head nodding, hip swaying. You listen to those opening, rambunctious sounds on the album and for me, I can feel my body, NOW, start to fall into rhythm, because it KNOWS what’s coming. When I said earlier that I ‘Los Angeles’ had a nice warmup before we got into the race, that was because my body was ice cold. When I play ‘Cosmogramma’ today, my body is already at room temperature waiting for the gun to go off. It only needs those opening 11secs before the race can begin.

Here’s a weird way to describe this album. It’s like watching The Shawshank Redemption on AMC, or TNT, or A&E (those are cable channels for my cord-cutting fans). Anytime I used to channel surf and land on that movie, regardless of where the movie was, I could sit and watch the rest – knowing exactly what I had missed, and knowing exactly where the movie was headed. And I would enjoy it, every time. I can do the same with this album. If a track ever randomly comes up, or a Spotify algorithm sends me something it thinks I like, I can listen to the song, know exactly where I am in the album, and know exactly where we should be headed.

Since MOOGfest ’11, I’ve seen FlyLo pretty much anytime he came around. And my emotional and neurological connections to the music haven’t changed. My dopamine levels are always at all time highs and I get to leave the outside world for a bit. And hopefully, I know have the ability to introduce Flying Lotus to a new audience, as Ju did 10 years ago to me.

I think back to NotDrugs a lot. This little exercise we decided to do streamlined a lot of memories about all of the content we produced and the ambitions we had. It was meant to live the life it lived, but I always wondered if we were able to keep it on life support for the few humps after 2010, what it could have been like. Would we have been able to impact the culture outside of the college bubble like we always wanted? How would our perspectives have changed on what we wanted it to be, and would new perspectives have been added to keep our finger on the pulse?

It’s hard to speak for Chris, or any of the other cohorts, but to me, it seems like NotDrugs was never just NotDrugs. It could have always been anything we wanted it to be. We made it what it was, just as a new group of folks have come together, sifting through the ashes, and coming out with some shit that they want to do.

I guess MSSC is NotDrugs.

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jessestoddard · 8 years ago

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Welcome to Chapter 10 of my blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It (or) What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. This chapter is called Gift Registry. If you missed the last post, click here, otherwise, you can start at the beginning here.

September 6th, 2004, on her birthday, I married Mae del Puerto. I had proposed to her on the ferry-boat coming back into Anacortes from Shaw Island. She was mad about some screaming kid and I interrupted her and asked her to marry me. Talk about interrupting someone’s pattern! I have no idea if it was romantic or random or both, but it worked.

I went and asked her father’s permission. Being much older, he is not only from a previous generation (WWII), but also a different culture (the Philippines), and was not too happy with our new fangled way of living our lives (in sin), which he was showing by being very cold to me and giving me more of the silent treatment on top of the silent treatment he normally dished out.

I must admit now, that I don’t agree with our choices anymore either, proving once again that I am a crotchety old man before my time. The only thing he said to me that day was: “It’s about time.” I quickly got out my English-In-A-Visayan-Philippino-Dialect-With-Spanish-Accent Dictionary and translated it into: “Welcome to the family. Now, don’t screw it up.”

We were married at the lookout point in Washington park and just happened to have the best sunset in the history of man that evening. It was just her parents, mine, and her brother’s immediate family.

I should have kept it at that.

We felt we needed to do something for our extended family and friends (as two bright-eyed newlyweds are bound to do) and therefore threw a reception party on my birthday on September 13th. We thought that was cute and clever, and it’s easier to remember. The reception was great, except it cost me selling my Microsoft stock which I had been accumulating over the years since before the split, which would have turned into a lot more money if I had held it even longer.

The money is gone, we never even got to eat, and most of the people there don’t like us anyway.

Word to the wise: Stop caring about trying to please everyone, since you always end up looking like a jerk and people get jealous.

…

We did the whole registration thing, yet every single guest did the same exact thing! They all completely ignored our list.

“Honey, do you think we should get Mae and Jesse these highly utilitarian things that they might actually use on a regular basis?”

“Oh, they’re such a fun couple, let’s just get them that martini shaker.”

My wife and I don’t even drink!

Still, we end up with 4 plates and three thousand dollars worth of barware.

We could have opened our own tavern.

They either thought we were a bunch of lushes, or that we’d be divorced in a week.

“Those two are getting married? Good luck. Better get ‘em that set of shot glasses. They’re gonna need to start drinking right away.”

Before our wedding, we were still doing everything backward. Mae bought a timeshare and we went to Hawaii on our honeymoon… Did I mention it was before our wedding? After our wedding, we went to the Philippines to meet her family… After the fact.

We traveled a bit and also saw Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I was the only white guy on their island and it was not far from where only months after the news ran stories about the American that got beheaded by Muslim terrorists in their training camp. I was not uncomfortable at all. It was Meet The Parents meets Machetes.

I have thus far failed to mention that I continued to work in the fitness industry throughout the years. I worked around the clock during this period of my life and I did not sleep much.

As my grandpa always said, “You can sleep when you are dead.”

He’s dead, and I am tired, so I tend to try to avoid sleep deprivation now.

However, in my twenties, I had the need for money when I wasn’t working in the theater, and the gym job provided a good place to return to. I worked my way up to being assistant manager and personal trainer.

At one point, the owner offered me a chance to become a partner. I should have taken it, but I thought I might move away to New York or L.A. at a moments notice, so I turned it down. I probably should have taken the deal, as he was offering a chance to work my way into equity without having to come with cash of my own, which is extremely rare.

At one point, I worked for Pure Fitness, a chain of six clubs in Washington, run by an evil genius of an older used-car-lot style fitness mafia, era as their corporate sales manager.

I ran up and down the high rises of downtown Seattle and drove out to Bellevue and all around the area, trying to get entire companies to sign up for memberships all at once. The payoff was potentially very large for me, so I did hustle for a time. I landed a couple of huge accounts, namely Costco and Best Buy.

The commission check should have been on the order of sixty-thousand dollars, but right before that would happen, the managers above me decided to move me from one club to another and claimed that commissions I generated belonged to the former club and would not be transferred, so I was back to zero. I quit instead of fighting or suing. Unbeknownst to me, this started a string of negative business events that plagued me for years.

After Pure Fitness, I talked the powers that be at the 5th Avenue Theater (whom some affectionately called the gay mafia—their words not mine) into hiring me on in a business capacity, rather than as a performer. I explained all of my experience doing a variety of things in other fields, and they thought I would be a good fit to fill in as company manager for their new experimental launch of a show called Princesses.

The regular manager left the area to go work summer stock out-of-state, so they needed a fill-in. The 5th Avenue has a fine reputation for acting as an incubator for shows destined for Broadway, preparing and testing out a production in a lower-cost environment before sending it off to Broadway. It worked for Hairspray.

The problem for me was that I had no idea what I was doing.

I called the regular company manager, and after explaining my situation he was dumbfounded. He normally had to help out with travel arrangements for a small handful of people, while the rest of the ensemble and crew were locals. It was still tough to coordinate, but he had a simple system that worked. I explained to him that I was in charge of being the travel agent to a huge cast, and a huge crew and every single person needed to have separate arrangements at different times. He admitted he could not help, had no idea even what to recommend, and wished me luck.

To be fair, the men in charge did tell me they would get me help, which I did take them up on with an assistant, but I was at the time feeling guilty about not being able to handle it all myself on at least an organizational level, if not with all the details. The assistant I had would take some trips to the airport and handle a few things, but I was flying out to New York myself during some rehearsals and then back and working extra hours and getting very stressed out.

I felt the pay was abysmal, and I started questioning the entire arrangement, as more and more calls came in with greater and greater demands from all of these divas who fancied themselves important.

Finally, one night the choreographer called me up in the middle of the night ranting and cussing and telling me he would have my job because his taxi did not arrive. I worked to get him the ride, but he was so mad, that I was shaken up. It was the middle of the night and I had not had any free time in weeks, and I was on the edge of cracking.

I decided that night to craft a two-week notice letter. I offered to train someone to take my place and would not just leave them abruptly.

The next morning the artistic director called me and with rage cussed me out and told me to come back to work or he never wanted to see me again. It turned out it was an awkward end that would never be resolved. I tried to help out, but someone else was there to kind of tell me to go away.

Apparently, the director meant it and I have never seen him again.

Years later, I wrote him to apologize for my error of judgment. I feel I could have just asked for more help or perhaps just worked through it, and he did accept the apology. I am not sure who is at fault, but I am sorry either way. The Princesses show ended up being a flop and never went anywhere, and my career in local theater was destroyed.

I had just pissed off one of the most powerful people in the Seattle theater scene. Years passed before I ever did anything again, and by then I was much too old to be a chorus boy, which was my bread and butter.

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In the next post, I will continue with more interesting interviews.

Are you from Generation X? I want to hear what you think! Please comment below and participate in the conversation about What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. What do you wish someone told you when you were eighteen?

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Life After High School: Chapter 11 Gift Registry Welcome to Chapter 10 of my blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It

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