#the flashback scenes were drawn so well though like i remember it was longer and fleshed out in the anime but you like didnt need it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fukurodianthus · 4 years ago

Text

Cotton Candy Kisses

Synopsis: Let’s get one thing straight, confessions aren’t Ushijima Wakatoshi’s cup of tea, and the same goes for you when it comes to dealing with rejections. But then, your crackhead friends (who are done with watching two emotionally constipated fools pine for each other for two years) decide to take matters into their own hands.

Its a recipe for disaster, topped off with cherry coke and cotton candy.

Genre: Fluff, (a light sprinkle of angst thrown in), friends to lovers AU, mutual pining

Trigger warnings: Just a smol makeout scene lmao (not explicit), swearing(meanwhile, my mom: *disappointed brown parent noises*)

Pairing: Ushijima Wakatoshi x fem! reader

Word count: 3k+

Author’s note: I planned to release this on valentine’s day, but my exam schedule said “no❤️”. N E ways, didnt get time to proofread it, so excuse the painful amount of errors it may have. (More unnecessary rambles notes at the end!)

𝐈

“Toshi, Terushima asked me out on a date.”

“Terushima as in Terushima Yuuiji from Johzenji? The one with piercings?” Ushijima sat on the gym floor, busy tying his shoelaces.

“Yeah.”

He sat facing away from you, so you had no way of telling how well he was taking this news.

Not like it mattered anyway.

For the last two-years, you had kept dropping subtle hints that you liked him. Hell, if baking heart-shaped red-velvet cookies for him every valentine’s day hadn’t given him the slightest hint that your feelings for him weren’t exactly platonic, probably nothing could make the stoic ace aware of your feelings.

Unless you directly said it to his face.

Wakatoshi, I like you.

Four words. There were just these four words standing between Wakatoshi and your undeclared feelings. Four words could free you from the shackles of this unrequited love that had been weighing you down for the past two years.

But what was the point anyway? He’d reject you, just like he rejected Ririka. The Ririka Hirai, captain of the girls’ volleyball team, the ace who wielded magic in her hands. Let alone the guys from Shiratorizawa, even boys from other prefectures were totally whipped for her. He didn’t even bat an eyelid before a firm ‘No’ rolled off his lips. She hated crying in front of others, but the redness in her eyes and her swollen eyelids made it obvious that her spirit had been crushed by the rejection. Her previous outgoing, warm and friendly nature had vanished within a few seconds as she withdrew herself into her shell.

If this is what rejections did to people, then you were fine with being crushed under the weight of unrequited love. And you didn’t have a Semi Eita in your life like she had, so there wouldn’t be anybody to help you out of your wallowing self-pity.

Your mind wandered back to your interaction with her yesterday, how she had pulled you into the locker room, firm hands wrapped around your wrists with no intention of letting go. You were reminded of her disastrous plan, and how you’d stupidly agreed to go along with it.

𝐈𝐈

(𝟐 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨)

“You love him, don’t you Y/N?” she asked you, cocking her head to her side as she twirled the green roots of het bubblegum colored hair. Why was she so oddly insistent on dying her hair like a meth-addicted oompa loompa? And the bigger question was, how the fuck did she look so good?

“I don’t know, Riri.” What did she expect to hear? How could you say that you weren’t half as brave as she’d been? You’d rather tend to the wounds that unrequited love caused than deal with the empty-black void of self-loathing, insecurities and embarrassment that rejection left behind.

“Y/N, I’m not a fool. I can see the way your eyes light up when he’s around.”

“So what? What the fuck should I do? Confess my feelings and get rejected? I’d rather wither under the weight of my undeclared feelings than have my soul crushed by a rejection from my best friend, thanks.” You knew you were wrong; you knew you should let go of these useless, painful feelings by confessing. Hearing him reject you would put the nail in the coffin of your one-sided love and you’d finally be free.

But you didn’t want to be free. Cowardice had this odd feeling of comfort attached to it, and you’d gotten used to it.

“Y/N, I’m not here to fight with you over a stupid himbo of a guy. It just hurts me to see you go through the same pain I had gone through. I’m just here to look out for you. I’ll give you my advice whether you want it or not, and its up to you if you’ll take it.”

You looked away. You knew that whatever she was going to say would probably make sense, she was such a smartass after all. She was never wrong, as much as you hated admitting it. Why was she such a good friend, why did she have to be so nice? It pissed you off.

“Ushijima is bad at this entire thing of love and friendships, its probably not big news to you, is it? His parents’ divorce ruined his faith in love.” She cleared her throat, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. “He doesn’t know how this entire thing of love and feelings work. Loving him is difficult, it’s like expecting an iceberg to provide you with warmth. But…” her voice trailed off.

“But what?”

“I think he likes you. He’s never looked at anyone the way he looks at you. He never saved a seat for me at lunch the way he does for you. He acts...weird around you.”

“That’s bullshit Riri, he does that stuff for me because I’m his team's manager, you know?”

“You’re just as dense as him. Perfect! You’d make a great couple” she giggled, fluttering her long, black lashes.

“Why did you confess to him if you thought he liked me?”

“Oh, I was coming to that. You see, I was a hundred percent sure he wouldn’t like me back, so I thought I might as well get these stupid feelings of my chest and move on, you know? It still hurt a lot for a few days, though. Rejections sucks, that’s nothing new. And I kind of liked Semi, so it felt like I was emotionally cheating on him if I still liked Ushijima. So, I finally confessed to him after getting rid of my feelings for Ushiwaka.” She pressed her lips together and looked away, a faint blush blossoming on her cheeks.

“You and Semi are…”

“We’re a thing now, yeah.”

“I’m so happy for you Ririka!” you practically squealed, squishing her reddened cheeks.

“We had a talk yesterday and we decided that we can no longer bear to see you two emotionally constipated dummies pining for each other anymore, so we’re taking matters into our own hands.”

“What?” Your stared at her with widened eyes, praying she didn’t come up with any stupid plans to make the situation worse.

“Do you know Terushima from Johzenji?”

“Yeah, kinda, that tongue-piercing dude with an undercut, right?”

“He’s my friend and he has agreed to helping us.”

“Oh hell no.”

“I don’t take no for an answer, I’m sorry. Babe, you can come out now.”

You choked on your own spit as you saw Semi climbing out of Ririka’s locker.

“How the fuck did you even fit him in there? Was he there the whole time? What made you think sneaking your boyfriend into the girl’s locker room was a good idea?”

“Honey, that’s too many unnecessary questions, I ain’t answering them. And there’s nobody around. So, I don’t think we’ll get in any trouble as long as you don’t snitch.”

“I’m not going to snitch.”

“That’s what I thought. Now babe, tell her about our plan.”

Semi went over with the details of their plan.

Needless to say, it was a recipe for disaster, you were sure of it.

Having an affinity for all things disastrous, you agreed to their plan.

*flashback ends*

𝐈𝐈𝐈

(𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭)

“Y/N, you there?” Ushijima was done with tying his shoelaces a while ago and now stood in front of you, his tall frame cowering over you.

You snapped out of your trance.

“Yeah, I was j-just busy thinking about some stuff.” You smoothed out your skirt and gripped your bag tightly, and looking down at your feet. You could feel his gaze on your face, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look him in the eye.

“Stuff as in…Terushima? Were you thinking about him?”

You were taken aback by his uncharacteristically direct question and looked into his eyes. His gaze flickered between your eyes and your lips; his brows furrowed together in…concern?

Your imagination must be getting better of you.

“Yeah, I was thinking about our date, tomorrow.”

His eyes seemed duller than usual, lacking its usual lustre.

“He doesn’t have a reputation for being loyal, you know.” His words seemed long-drawn, forced, painful. As if it physically hurt him to get these words to roll of his tongue.

He ran his fingers through his greasy olive-brown hair, his gaze still fixed on you. You became painfully aware of the silence in the empty gym room. Why was your heart beating so loudly? Was his heart beating just as loud?

His breath hitched as you stepped closer to him. You noticed the way his sweat-drenched shirt clung to his body, highlighting his well-built frame, the way his lips glistened when he licked his lips, the way his tousled hair stuck to his forehead. You almost brushed those stray strands off his face. Almost.

You spoke in a low tone, almost in a whisper. This moment seemed fragile, like treading on thin ice. It felt as if you both were in a trance and any loud noise would snap you back to reality. You wouldn’t mind being stuck in this trance for a few eternities. “Terushima is a player, a heartbreaker. You think I don’t know that? Maybe I just want to have my heart broken, Toshi. Isn't it better than loving someone who will never love me back?”

He stared at you with a blank, unreadable expression. You noticed how his adam’s apple bobbed up and down when he gulped, his neck and collarbones glistening with sweat.

He had no business being this hot, godamnit.

“I just remembered, Coach Washijo wanted to have a talk with me-“ he took a step back, breaking eye contact with you.

“Coach Washijo is on a sick-leave for a week, Toshi.”

“Ah okay, right.” He turned on his heels and stormed out of the gym, the tips of his ears covered in a faint red glow.

How long will you keep running away Wakatoshi?

𝐈𝐕

(𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐲)

“Yeah, chocolate will be fine.”

Terushima handed you the ice-cream cone, flashing his iconic toothy grin at you.

This park of the amusement park was quieter and calmer than the other parts. You were seated on a bench beside a mermaid shaped fountain. Behind you, far off in the distance was a Ferris wheel, lit up in pink and red neon lights, a classic decoration that was put up in this park every valentine’s day.

“Want anything else, babe?” He sat down beside you on the bench, wrapping his arms around your shoulders.

“Dude, you don’t have to put on such a show, you know? You don’t have to make it so realistic.”

He threw his head back and let out another one of his irritating laughs. It was pretty cute, even though you’d never admit it aloud.

“Y/N who said I’m pretending? When Riri asked me to take you out on a fake date to make lover boy Toshi jealous, I thought this would be a pretty good opportunity to score a date with a cute girl, it doesn’t matter if the date is fake or not.”

“You even bought a couple’s ticket, huh?”

“This amusement park has a special valentine’s day offer for couples, fifty percent off for each ride, aint that crazy? I was just saving my coins princess.”

“I swear to god, call me that one more time and you’ll find my foot up your ass-“

“Ooh, kinky!”

It physically hurt you to not punch him and wipe that cheesy grin off his face. “I can’t handle you Terushima-” You hungrily bit down on the ice-cream, gobbling it up in a matter of a few seconds.

Terushima's nose scrunched up in disgust. “The fuck Y/N, who bites ice-cream like that! Are you a caveman or something?"

“Aw babe, didn’t you know? I’m not like other girls.” You dramatically flicked a stand of your hair, as your pretentious, catty tone drew a chuckle from him.

“C’mon now, fake date or not lets a have a good time! I’m done sitting around on this bench, we’re in an amusement park for fuck’s sake Y/N!” He took his black leather jacket off, flinging it around his shoulders, his white shirt clung to his skin. He looked like a stereotypical bad boy out of a wattpad book written by a 16-year-old. You bit down the urge to make a sarcastic comment about his appearance.

“Get up now, you lazy butt.” He offered you a hand.

You slapped his hand away and stood up, brushing the small remnants of the ice-cream cone off your plaid yellow dress.

“Damn, you feisty.”

“Serves you right, pisshead.”

He was about to make a snarky retort when his eyes suddenly landed on someone standing in the crowd beside the ferris wheel. “Looks like lover boy is here.”

“You sure its him?”

“A hundred and twenty percent ma’am! Now go get your man!” He pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead before winking at you. “That’ll get him riled up enough.”

“You’re such a little shit-”

“Shut up, he’s coming here, go talk to him.”

You turned around on your heels to see Ushijima making his way towards you.

“Hey! What you doing here Toshi?” You tried putting on a surprised expression, but after seeing how Terushima snickered at you, you understood that you probably overdid it.

“Uhm, did I interrupt your d-date?” Ushijima looked painfully flustered. His eyes searched your face, looking for signs of annoyance or anger.

He was surprised at how happy you looked. Didn’t girls get annoyed when someone interrupted their dates? Ah, women, such complex creatures, all mysteries of the world seem irrelevant when compared to the mystery of a woman’s psyche.

“No, not at all! Do you want to tell me something?” You cocked you head and batted your eyelashes at him playfully.

But he remained silent, lips tightly pressed together as his eyes kept flickering between Terushima and you.

“Hey Yuuji, I’d like to talk to Toshi in private, maybe you could…you know-“

“Ah that was stupid of me! I’ll leave you two to yourselves. I’ll be at the Haunted Mansion if you need me, a friend of mine works there as a part time zombie.” He pointed finger guns at you and winked. "See ya later sweet cheeks!" You saw his silhouette fade into the distance.

It was only you and Ushijima now.

The golden glow from the setting sun and the faint pink lights from the faraway Ferris wheel illuminated his face in a rose-gold glow. He sported a red flannel shirt, more specifically the one you had bought for him while shopping with Tendou last summer.

He looked ethereal.

You cleared you throat. “Toshi? You wanted to tell me something, right?”

He looked started, unsure of himself. You looked at him with anticipation, your heart almost leaping out of your ribcage.

“Y/N, for the next match Yamagata will replace Akakura as the libero because he twisted his ankle in in the hallway today.”

Unbeknowst to you, Ririka and Semi hid behind an ice-cream truck in the distance, keeping an eye on you both. They could hear small excerpts of your conversation. So, when they heard Ushijima saying something about ‘match’ and ‘libero’, they let out frustrated groans. “That dense fucker messed up yet again.” they whispered under their breaths in unison.

Disappointment flashed across your face. Was he serious? How dense could a guy possibly be?

“You came this far, interrupted my date to tell me this, Toshi? You could just have messaged me, you know?” Your voice trembled, vision blurring with tears.

So much for love.

You felt stupid, you wanted to slap yourself across your face for being naïve enough to believe that Ushijima Wakatoshi could ever reciprocate your feelings.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

You started to walk away, wiping your eyes with the sleeves of your dress, when you felt a strong arm coil across you waist.

Wakatoshi pulled you close, and in an instant his lips were on yours. You didn’t spare a second thought before kissing him back, your lips hungrily melting into his. You grazed your tongue across his lower lip as he pushed you against the fountain, one hand placed on the small of your back pulling your body closer and the other under your dress, grazing your thigh. Your fingers aimlessly hovered over his chest before gently tugging him by the collar of his shirt.

When he finally pulled away, you both stared at each other, panting breathlessly, hair drenched from the light spray of water cascading down the fountain. The warmth of his lips still lingered on your mouth.

The sound of his voice snapped you out of your dreamlike trance. “Tendou and Semi told me that I wasn’t worthy enough of being Shiratorizawa’s ace if I chickened out of professing my feelings to the girl I’ve liked for two years. How could I sit back and watch that guy from Johzenji steal you away? I like you Y/N, and I'm tired of pretending that I don't."

You were about to respond when Semi’s voice rang out from behind the ice-cream truck.

“Oh my god Riri! Did you see that? They kissed! I’m so proud of my miracle boy-”

“Keep it down you dimwit, or they’ll hear us-“

You let out a soft chuckle and took Ushijima’s hand in yours. “Wouldn't it be very surprising if Semi and Riri suddenly popped out from behind that ice-cream truck, Toshi? But that's totally impossible right? Not like they'd ever eavesdrop on us-"

Semi and Ririka slowly made their way towards you, eyes downcast with guilt.

“We didn’t mean to intrude-” Semi started to explain.

“Shut your trap, you shitheads, we wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for you.” You chirped, drawing them into a tight embrace.

“What do you mean Y/N?” Ushijima stared at you, confused. You stifled a chuckle.

“Well, we actually made a plan…” Ririka started explaining.

After Semi, Ririka and you explained your entire scheme to him, he stared at you, confused, open mouthed.

“You could just have told me, you know? All this to get me jealous?”

“I was scared of getting rejected, Toshi.”

“I’d never reject you!”

“And how the fuck was I supposed to know that? You never showed any signs of recognition at my hints, how was I supposed to know you liked me? You huffed.

“Well, I suppose I…nevermind.”

“No, finish your sentence!”

“Would you like to ride the Ferris Wheel, Y/N?”

“Thought you’d never ask. But first, buy some cotton candy for your lady love.” He took his hand in yours, interlacing your fingers with his. "Anything for my girl."

𝐕

Ushijima’s lips softly grazed you neck, his hot breath fanning across your collarbones.

The soft pink light from the Ferris Wheel lit his face up.

Wiping a piece of leftover cotton candy from your lips, he suddenly asked, “Why do you love me, Y/N?”

You thought of the times he saved extra bento boxes for you after lunch when you refused to eat properly, how he’d stayed awake, sitting in your bedside chair, taking care of you as your body burned in fever, how he’d laugh at your stupid jokes even though they weren’t anything close to being funny, or how he’d show up at your door with cotton candy and cherry coke whenever you were under the weather.

You pressed your lips against his before whispering,

“What’s there to not love, Toshi?”

Author’s rambles notes pt. 2: Ririka Hirai isn’t a very well-known character, but I decided to add her anyways because the girl’s volleyball team characters deserve some love too! You can find more about her here (if it very isnt obvious already, I find her character absolutely adorable!)

N E ways, I hope you enjoyed reading this fic(which has absolutely 0 grammatical errors and i totally didnt write this while overdosing on an unhealthy amount of coffee at three in the morning)

Reblogs would be highly appreciated!

241 notes · View notes

becomewings · 4 years ago

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The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’M FINE>

BTS Universe Story Highlights, pt. 2 / 4

« pt. 1 | » pt. 3

Introduction

JungKook’s and YoonGi’s stories are the first of the paid content in BTS Universe Story and are substantially more detailed than the episodes covered in part 1. As this led to longer summaries (4.2k and 3k), I have added “tl;dr commentary” at the bottom of the post after a section of additional thoughts. This commentary summarizes the parenthetical asides I made throughout the summaries and may be of interest as standalone reading to those who have already played the game yet would like to review its connections to the BU texts and MVs.

Content warning: contains references to death, suicide, suicidal ideation, child abuse, domestic violence, blood, homicide, depression, trauma, PTSD

This guide contains major spoilers and includes references to other BU media

Do not repost, copy, or quote without permission

The Boy on the Threshold

In this story, SeokJin works to uncover the motivations behind JungKook’s nightly street wandering, instigation of fights with thugs, and decision to jump from the roof of a construction site. He was aware of the “darkness” within JungKook but never thought that he would give up on himself. SeokJin is determined to find a way to make JungKook think “I want to live” on his own.

In the afternoon on 11 April Year 22, SeokJin drives by the crosswalk outside Songju Jeil High School. Spotting a grim-faced JungKook, he gets out to greet him. JungKook visibly brightens and pelts him with question after question, finally finishing with, “But how come you’re here at school?” If the player chooses the response “I came to see you” rather than “I was in the neighborhood,” JungKook seems a little disbelieving due to the coincidental timing but nevertheless pleased. SeokJin offers him a ride, thinking that JungKook will not carry out that night’s actions from previous loops if he gets home right away. In the car, SeokJin reminisces aloud about the day they all met. On 3 March Year 19, all seven boys arrived late on the first day at Songju Jeil High School and were scolded outside by the Dean. (Aside from the absence of extra students, this scene looks very similar to the BTS Begins Middle Scene VCR, including the detail of YoonGi arriving last. This VCR predates official BU content.) When the Dean spotted SeokJin in their lineup, he reduced their punishment of community service for one month to just that afternoon. After classes, the boys cleaned the annex. The old classroom-turned-storage room became their secret hideout where they enjoyed various activities like dancing, playing the piano, and spending time with one another. JungKook appears happy as they chat about their school days, although in one path, his face falls after he remembers when he and YoonGi were caught in the annex. SeokJin is concerned, but JungKook insists, “It’s nothing.”

They say goodbye outside JungKook’s house, but SeokJin watches to make sure he goes inside. JungKook hesitates before ringing the bell at the gate. His mom answers, surprised and at a loss by his unexpected arrival. She asks him to come back later because his father’s relatives stopped by, and the intercom cuts off before he can answer. (His mother remarried, so this is really his step-father and family.) SeokJin wonders if JungKook has no one to lean on at school or at home and if this is why he wanders the streets at night. He asks JungKook where he wants to go now. “The beach… the one I went to with you guys,” JungKook answers, then says he’s kidding when SeokJin hesitates, thinking about the night ahead. SeokJin invites JungKook home instead, hoping to keep an eye on him before he needs to save NamJoon at the gas station.

In his bedroom, SeokJin hastily takes down the map and notes pinned on the wall of the boys’ incidents around the city. After letting JungKook inside, he shows him a box of photos from their time together in school. While JungKook browses, a notification on SeokJin’s phone reminds him of Songho Foundation’s inaugural ceremony that evening. Songho Foundation is a scholarship foundation funded by his maternal grandmother’s estate, and his father formally introduces him on this occasion. SeokJin also receives a call from his father’s long-time aide, a man he refers to as Uncle JunHo, who instructs him not to be late to the ceremony. Claiming it won’t take him long, SeokJin asks JungKook to stay there and wait for him to return. He is worried about leaving JungKook alone but also concerned that bringing him to the gas station after the ceremony will make him late to intervening in NamJoon’s incident.

In the lobby of the hotel hosting the Songho Foundation Inauguration Ceremony, SeokJin recognizes many important faces from around the city: Song JunHo, his father’s aide; Seo HyunJung, the city’s deputy mayor; the CEO of Youngjin Engineering & Construction Company; a professor from Munhyeon University; and the Jeil High School principal, Jo JinMyung. SeokJin doesn’t want to cross paths with the principal but is drawn into a conversation with him, the mayor, and his father, Kim ChangJun. “Assemblyman! Congratulations on the launch of the scholarship foundation,” Deputy Mayor Seo says to Kim ChangJun. “I hear that your son has been accepted to Munhyeon University? You must be happy that he’s attending your alma mater.” Kim ChangJun shakes his head. “He still has a lot to learn.” She remarks that everyone knows how well SeokJin has grown up and inquires about his career plans. The player is presented with three choices: “I haven’t decided yet,” “I want to become a good person,” and “I want to become someone like my father.” SeokJin’s father continues to look grim while the others chuckle in response to the first two answers, but his expression softens at the third, which SeokJin knew would not rub him the wrong way. Deputy Mayor Seo proposes to Assemblyman Kim that they establish a regular meeting to discuss community development, mentioning that it would be better if he could invite the city’s prominent citizens and give a speech. Assemblyman Kim agrees, telling his assistant Song JunHo to make note of it. The ceremony concludes, and the guests head towards the hotel’s restaurant. SeokJin is wary of his father’s watchful gaze but impatient to carry out the rest of the night’s plans. While his father is surrounded by other people, he informs Uncle JunHo that he has to leave to work on a group project. SeokJin slips out of the hotel and heads to NamJoon’s gas station.

While SeokJin is gone, one of the photos in the box catches JungKook’s eye. It shows the seven boys sitting on a wall with the ocean behind them. (This photo resembles the shot in Euphoria at 5’32” except that they appear to be wearing school uniform shirts and slacks.) A flashback retells the afternoon of 12 June Year 19 when the boys cut school early and visited the sea, trudging over 3 kilometers under the scorching sun to find a boulder that is rumored to make your dreams come true. (The date is not specified in the game, but the memory closely follows this set of entries in The Notes 1.) Everyone collapses in disappointment when they can’t find the rock at its designated location. JungKook is tired but not as disappointed as the others—just walking there with them is enough for him, even though he often feels uncertain of his place among the group. He gets up on the pier railing, reflecting: “I’ve always liked walking on the edge of walls or on top of lines. Focusing on centering my gravity means that I don’t really think of anything else, and the boundary—not quite a part of either place—always felt like where I should be.” Balancing precariously, JungKook walks until someone grabs his arm. YoonGi scolds him not to do this. JungKook assures him that he will not fall but privately thinks: “YoonGi would often grab my arm when I walked on railings. The others would look after me, too, after seeing him do that. I liked their helping hands. It felt like they were telling me that I should go to them. That this wasn’t my place. Maybe their hands were why I walked on the railings.”

The story returns to the present in SeokJin’s perspective. He rushes back to his room after saving NamJoon and finds JungKook asleep, leaning against the bed with the photos still scattered around him. Feeling both relief and regret, SeokJin quietly coaxes JungKook to lay down and sleep more comfortably. JungKook wakes up and says he should go home after hearing that it’s past ten o’clock. The game cuts briefly to SeokJin’s father in his study with his aide. Kim ChangJun asks Song JunHo to fetch SeokJin, as he needs to know what goes on for the foundation. JunHo says that SeokJin must be entertaining a guest for the group project because he spotted an unfamiliar pair of shoes in the entryway.

Back in his bedroom, SeokJin is startled when his father knocks on the door. It’s rare for his father to visit the second floor of their home, so he let his guard down while chatting with JungKook. “F-Father.” Stammering, SeokJin flinches and gathers up the scattered photos. “Did you leave the ceremony early to waste time like this? Even lying to say you were doing a school project?” asks Kim ChangJun. His cold and reproachful stare suffocates SeokJin. When his father’s eyes scan to JungKook standing awkwardly at the side, SeokJin is plunged into a childhood memory. On 10 October Year 9, 9-year-old SeokJin hid a school friend who was being chased by scary men in his bedroom. His father arrived and asked if the boy was Mr. Choi’s son, saying people had come to take him. When Kim ChangJun ordered him to “be a good boy,” SeokJin froze and was powerless to stop his friend from being handed over. The following day, SeokJin was told his friend transferred schools. (This event is also depicted as the first entry of The Notes 1.) In the present, SeokJin struggles to think of an explanation, smothered by that memory and his father’s pressuring stare. JungKook timidly speaks up. “I was only here to visit for a short while. I was actually about to head home. Hey, I’ll go now.” SeokJin knows he can’t leave him alone yet and finally forces himself to move. “Father, I… I’m going to go out for a little while.” He runs outside, but JungKook is already gone.

The story cuts to JungKook’s perspective as he arrives in a familiar alleyway. He is thankful that SeokJin was so considerate to him but feels that he shouldn’t have gone to his home since it made things more complicated for his friend. “YoonGi even got expelled because of me… Why do I always mess things up for the people around me?” JungKook thinks. The player is presented the choice to either text SeokJin or call YoonGi. In the first path, SeokJin calls JungKook while he is mid-text and says that he’ll come pick him up, but JungKook declines, thanks him, and hangs up. In the second path, JungKook fiddles with his phone, wondering if YoonGi will be annoyed or even answer. He remembers when they crossed paths a few days earlier. On 7 April Year 22, JungKook heard a familiar tune while roaming the dark streets and saw YoonGi playing piano through a broken window of a music shop. YoonGi stopped and eventually staggered out of the shop without noticing JungKook reaching out to him. JungKook tried to play the music by memory, and suddenly YoonGi returned—just like their days at the classroom. (Note: In his 7 April Year 22 entry of The Notes 1, YoonGi is drunk and stumbling by an empty construction site when he recognizes a clumsy piano tune that he’d been playing “not long ago.” But when he runs to the music shop and finds JungKook, the text does not indicate that he remembers this is his second visit to the shop this evening. Additionally, the Wings short film First Love seems to reference some of the events of this night—or evokes YoonGi’s distorted memories of it, mingled with a representation of JungKook’s later accident.)

In the present (11 April), JungKook wonders if YoonGi is doing well. He has thought about him since their chance encounter but doesn’t have the courage to call him first. (The narrative paths rejoin here.) JungKook wonders where he should go now yet doesn’t want to think about anything. He stops in the middle of the road, and a passing car’s headlights make him dizzy. SeokJin arrives in the distance and shouts his name, but JungKook just thinks, “One more step from here. Just one more step, and everything ends.” He steps in front of the honking car. SeokJin calls him in the distance, and JungKook feels everything slip farther away. The glass shatters and the loop resets.

Awakening once more on the morning of 11 April, SeokJin vows to protect JungKook until the end. The memory of arriving too late as JungKook threw himself in front of the car reminds him of how he was also unable to protect his childhood friend when he was 9. He needs to devise a new plan, since JungKook practically ran out of the house when confronted by Kim ChangJun. The story cuts to that evening, with JungKook looking at the photo in SeokJin’s bedroom. This time, SeokJin ignores his phone’s buzzing reminder about Songho Foundation’s inaugural ceremony. He asks JungKook where he’d like to get next and, when he doesn’t have any ideas, offers him a tour of the university campus.

JungKook seems happier looking around the campus, the cherry blossoms in full bloom. SeokJin uses this opportunity to ask him if anything is on his mind and if school is going well. JungKook answers nonchalantly, but SeokJin remembers how grim he looked at the school crosswalk that afternoon. He asks if JungKook still hangs out with the other guys. “HoSeok and TaeHyung are working part-time jobs. The others… I’m not sure,” JungKook answers, expression darkening. SeokJin wonders if he shouldn’t have brought it up but still presses him. “How come? You should talk to them from time to time.” “But it’s because of me,” says JungKook. “The reason why YoonGi was expelled… It was because he was trying to protect me.”

SeokJin either responds “It’s not your fault” or “Don’t think that way.” Following the first choice, JungKook insists, “No, it’s my fault. YoonGi wouldn’t have talked back to the teacher if I wasn’t there.” SeokJin shakes his head. “No, you couldn’t really do anything given the situation.” JungKook replies that he should have at least apologized and that he never had the chance to tell YoonGi he was sorry. “That’s how you felt, huh… I should’ve done more. I’m sorry,” SeokJin apologizes. JungKook shakes his head with a smile, but SeokJin knows that he doesn’t understand what he really meant. (Per events in The Notes 1, it is technically SeokJin’s fault that the teacher found them in the classroom.) If the second dialogue choice, “Don’t think that way,” is chosen, JungKook questions, “How could I? When it was because of me.” “No…” SeokJin is not brave enough to say that he’s the one to blame. The camera (i.e. the animation) starts wobbling as though SeokJin’s vision is swimming. “SeokJin?” asks JungKook in concern. “I should’ve done more. I’m sorry.” The episode ends with the same dialogue and animation of JungKook shaking his head with a smile, except that in the second path the camera is still wobbling from SeokJin’s perspective. (This is the only episode I noted in the game that has a slight difference in endings based on the player’s final choice, although it is essentially cosmetic.)

Episode 5 opens with a more detailed memory of 11 June Year 20 from JungKook’s perspective. The high school was holding an open house for parents. Not wanting to stay in a classroom, he wandered off and heard piano music drifting from the annex. JungKook slipped into their classroom hideout and settled down to listen. YoonGi continued to play without acknowledging him. The music helped calm JungKook—it seemed as though YoonGi understood how he felt and was trying to console him. The sound cut off abruptly as the door slammed open. “You rascals! What are you doing here?!” the Dean of Students demanded. He slapped JungKook, knocking him down. A flurry of verbal abuse poured over his crumpled form. YoonGi shoved the teacher’s shoulder and stepped in front of JungKook. “Wow, look at this kid… You put your hands on a teacher? You better be prepared, Min YoonGi.” With that ominous threat, the Dean departed. JungKook spoke from the floor. “Hey, sorry for making you—” “It’s nothing,” YoonGi cut in. JungKook wondered why he helped him. It was the first time someone had protected him, and he believed that he would never forget the view of YoonGi’s back. YoonGi asked why JungKook was smiling. “I don’t know.” Still smiling, JungKook touched his throbbing cheek. YoonGi stared at him before breaking into his own smile and sitting down next to him. They sat there wordlessly for some time. The feeling of growing closer to YoonGi made JungKook feel giddy the rest of the day. But YoonGi did not come to school the following day, and two weeks later, he was formally expelled. (The encounter with the teacher and YoonGi’s subsequent expulsion are also referenced in JungKook and YoonGi’s 25 June Year 20 entries in The Notes 1.)

In a brief interlude in the present (11 April at the university campus), SeokJin reflects again that he does not have the courage to confess to JungKook the real reason why they drifted apart. He walks with his eyes trained on the ground until JungKook calls for him to look at the cherry blossoms floating in the wind. The scene cuts to 30 September Year 20 for another of JungKook’s school memories. He stood outside the school’s annex, reflecting that his friends probably didn’t know that he went there every day. Although school was a place he found awkward and unfamiliar, their hideout was a space for him that put him at ease. On that day however, only HoSeok was inside the classroom, gathering up the items they’d left behind. JungKook realized that the time they spent together was now a memory and would never return again. (This is also an entry in The Notes 1.) Back in the present, SeokJin notices that JungKook looks grim once more and tries to improve his mood by asking if they should go to the beach. JungKook privately wonders: “Do you think YoonGi would go? And no one knows what’s going on with JiMin. Will we really be able to go together like we did then?” Holding up his pink camera, SeokJin says they should take a picture to commemorate the evening. They’re both smiling in the photo, and he hopes that they’ll all smile together again one day. After their campus tour, SeokJin walks JungKook home, ignoring the many calls he receives from his father’s assistant JunHo.

At the crosswalk outside the high school the next day (12 April), SeokJin reflects that staying with JungKook instead of attending the inauguration ceremony seemed like a good choice. He prevented JungKook from jumping off the building and stopped NamJoon’s incident too. But SeokJin wants to keep an eye on JungKook for a few days. While he’s waiting, the principal Jo JinMyung approaches and greets him, asking what brings him to the school. SeokJin tries to excuse himself, but the principal brings up the ceremony. “I thought you’d be there, but you weren’t. Did something happen? Why weren’t you there?” Caught off guard, SeokJin either answers vaguely (“I had something important to do”) or honestly (“A friend had an emergency and I couldn’t attend”). JungKook joins them slowly during the exchange, and the principal seems a little suspicious regardless of the player’s choice. In the “honest” path, he adds, “Next time, think about what's truly important before acting.” The paths rejoin when the principal smiles pointedly and mentions that he should call the Assemblyman soon. SeokJin wonders if Jo JinMyung intends to tell his father that he was with JungKook. Kim ChangJun did not approve of the time SeokJin spent with his friends even in school. “Father thinks it’s useless to have human relationships that don’t help you succeed.” When he and JungKook are in his car, SeokJin notices that the principal ominously watches them pull away.

Later that day, SeokJin meets with his father in his office. Kim ChangJun looks exhausted. Though they’re similar heights, to his son he seems like a massive grey wall. “Why didn’t you attend the inauguration ceremony yesterday?” he asks. SeokJin either lies (“A professor asked me to do something last minute”) or answers honestly (“A friend had an emergency and I couldn’t attend”). The ultimate result is the same: Kim ChangJun speaks after a long moment of silence. “The one thing I want from you is for you to be a good son.” “Yes,” says SeokJin. “I don’t think it’s a difficult task. You may leave.” As he exits, SeokJin hears him call Song JunHo and worries that his flimsy excuse will fall apart. Running into the principal may have made matters worse too. Despite his uneasiness, SeokJin has no choice but to keep going and trust that everything will work out. While NamJoon and JungKook are safe for now, he wonders if he can be a person for JungKook to lean on for comfort whenever he needs it so that he will not resort to such an extreme decision again.

SeokJin visits JungKook after school every afternoon the following days. On 15 April, JungKook asks if it’s okay for him to come like this every day. SeokJin assures him, “Yeah. I come to see you because I want to.” He observes that JungKook still seems to take social cues from him rather than acting comfortably, so he encourages him to either pick what they do next or where they should go eat. On 19 April, however, JungKook does not appear at the school gates. SeokJin tries calling him, only to learn that the number isn’t in service. Someone shouts his name, and HoSeok emerges from the Twostar Burger across from the school. “I had heard you were back, but I didn’t think I’d see you here in front of the school.” HoSeok digs a piece of paper out of his pocket, explaining that JungKook stopped by earlier. “He said he’s switching schools.” SeokJin asks where, but HoSeok doesn’t know. This has never happened before in a loop, and SeokJin wonders if he caused it. HoSeok hands over the paper, which JungKook requested be given to SeokJin. It’s a drawing of the cherry blossom tree they saw together, with a thank you note written at the bottom. SeokJin hopes that his suspicions aren’t correct.

Hunting for clues to JungKook’s whereabouts, SeokJin visits Jeil High School’s administrative office the next day (20 April). He receives slightly more information if he acts like he knows the Director of Administration, but as the student records are confidential, the man only reveals that JungKook transferred to a boarding school. On 30 April, SeokJin is summoned to his father’s office. Kim ChangJun asks him to sit down and continues speaking with his aide, Song JunHo. He confirms an upcoming appointment with the Deputy Mayor before asking, “Oh, did you take care of that incident?” “Yes. Do you mean the one concerning the Jeil High student?” JunHo responds. “I’ve taken care of the issue with the student.” Heart racing, SeokJin realizes that his father was behind JungKook’s transfer and deliberately let it slip as a warning to him. On their way out, Uncle JunHo adds, “SeokJin. You do know how difficult it was because you didn’t attend the inauguration, right?” SeokJin promises that he’ll be at the next meeting. Back in his bedroom, he decides that he made the wrong choice in this loop. He wanted to be someone JungKook could always come to, but instead he pushed him farther away. HoSeok calls him at that moment. Voice wavering, he relays that JungKook has disappeared. Some of his classmates stopped by the restaurant that day, inquiring if anyone talks to him often.

The story cuts back to 25 April with JungKook in class at his new school. His mom likes the dormitory here, and he suspects that she feels more comfortable without him at home. School, home, the dorms—he doesn’t belong in any of those places. While pairing up the students, the teacher notices that they have an odd number now and asks JungKook where he wants to go. He closes his eyes and remembers a voice: “JungKook, let’s all go to the ocean.” He thinks, “I want to go…” The scene jumps to JungKook walking towards the ocean shore. The glass shatters.

SeokJin opens his eyes on the morning of 11 April. He wonders what caused the loop to reset and assumes something must have happened to JungKook after he transferred schools. Again, he could not keep his promise of getting them all to the ocean. The episode ends with SeokJin sitting atop the seaside observatory at sunset. (This is a key location on 22 May Year 22, recurring in The Notes and depicted in the HYYH On Stage: Prologue short film and Euphoria MV. It looks the same in the game.) SeokJin ruminates on what may have happened to JungKook and where events started going wrong. He thought he could be the person JungKook needed to lean on, but he failed. This arc concludes with him wondering: “Was my method wrong? Or is it not supposed to be me? Maybe… If the person who’s supposed to console JungKook’s scars and be there for him isn’t me… Then, who can save JungKook?”

The End of His Gaze

SeokJin’s main challenge in saving YoonGi is the unpredictability of his actions between loops. The opening of this story is no different. On 2 May Year 22, SeokJin chases YoonGi after he leaves his workroom with a heavy bag but loses sight of him in the streets. As soon as he picks the nearest motel, black smoke pours from one of its windows. (The sign matches the motel in YoonGi’s scenes of the I Need U MV.) YoonGi ignores the commotion outside the room’s locked door. Once again, SeokJin is too late, and the glass shatters, resetting the loop.

Waking in his bedroom on 11 April, SeokJin considers how YoonGi backs himself into a corner no matter how or when he tries to intervene. It’s different from the incident with NamJoon because no outside person or situation is involved. SeokJin realizes that if YoonGi’s struggle and variables that make his decision so unpredictable are within him, then the only way he can stop YoonGi is by truly understanding him. He takes out his old camcorder from high school, hoping its footage may reveal some clues. In the first video clip he plays, YoonGi is off in the corner of their classroom hideout drawing music staves but speaks up to tell HoSeok and TaeHyung not to play a prank on JiMin. SeokJin wonders if YoonGi still writes music and remembers the piano in his workroom. In the second video, TaeHyung quibbles with NamJoon, who is tired yet refuses to take a nap until YoonGi pushes some desks together and tells him to lie down. SeokJin focuses on YoonGi for the rest of the video, but he is either motionless or off camera. He finds a similar challenge within his photographs: he has less than ten solo photos of YoonGi, and though his face is visible in group pictures, he is never looking at the camera. Still perusing the photos, SeokJin overhears voices from the camcorder. “It being here is a secret. Okay?” TaeHyung whispers to YoonGi. “What’s a secret?” SeokJin in the recording asks. TaeHyung and YoonGi, standing by the piano, both whip around. TaeHyung dismisses it as nothing and shushes YoonGi when he asks, “Why are you hiding something like that?” In the present, SeokJin wonders what they hid in the classroom and decides that it’s worth investigating in case it can help him save YoonGi.

On 15 April, SeokJin visits their old classroom hideout at Jeil High School, which is still being used as a storage room. The player can choose from a total of four locations to explore, provided they select the piano last. SeokJin identifies his father’s name alongside the message “Everything started from here” on the graffitied wall (he first saw this note in his 25 June Year 19 entry from The Notes 1). Even after thoroughly examining the piano, he does not find YoonGi and TaeHyung’s secret or anything else useful. Uneasy at leaving YoonGi alone for so long, SeokJin leaves the school and parks in front of his friend’s workroom. YoonGi appears to be safely inside, so SeokJin browses through the old video files on his camcorder and finds one that continued recording after he thought he had pressed the stop button. Listening to his and YoonGi’s voices, he recalls a forgotten memory of the day they walked out of school together.

The majority of episode 3 plays through a memory of an afternoon that SeokJin and YoonGi walked out of school together (date unspecified; this event is also referenced in YoonGi’s 2 August Year 22 entry from The Notes 2 and the similar Note accompanying Map of the Soul: 7). SeokJin receives a text summoning him to the principal’s office. The office is empty yet suffocating when he arrives. Principal Jo JinMyung arrives and apologizes for making SeokJin wait. SeokJin looks down, heart suddenly heavy. The scene cuts to YoonGi entering the storage classroom as he thinks about all the days he doesn’t feel like going home. It’s not a comfortable place for him, yet there’s nothing for him at the school either, except for the group’s hideout. He feels awkward in the oddly quiet room and puts some sheet music on the piano’s rack. But when he thinks about how no one is there requesting songs from him, he can’t bring his hands up to the keys. The flashback transitions back to SeokJin’s perspective following his meeting with the principal. As expected, the principal wanted him to report on YoonGi’s behavior. SeokJin spoke carefully so as not to tip him off about anything, but he hears internal whispers calling himself a hypocrite even when he’s laughing with his friends. Fretting over how much longer he can protect YoonGi, SeokJin runs into him at the classroom hideout’s door. He hopes YoonGi doesn’t notice how flustered he is, but YoonGi doesn’t say anything beyond confirming that he’s heading home. SeokJin tries to strike up a conversation as they walk out together, but the conversation awkwardly fizzles out whether he brings up food or the weather. YoonGi points out that his phone is buzzing, and SeokJin’s camcorder falls from his bag as he looks for it. YoonGi waves him off when SeokJin films him to test that it still works. He sheepishly lowers the camcorder and forgets to turn it off. YoonGi breaks the uncomfortable silence when they are almost across the field. “Is something up? You didn’t look very happy earlier.” Heart pounding, SeokJin tries to laugh off this sharp question with an excuse, but YoonGi stares straight at him. “You’re awkward too, SeokJin.” “What is?” “Your laugh.” YoonGi pauses before continuing, “When was the last time you genuinely laughed?”

The scene fades back to the present in SeokJin’s car (15 April). He can’t make out the rest of their conversation in the recording or remember what he answered. He wonders why YoonGi asked him that. SeokJin was always tense then, afraid that his friends would learn of his meetings with the principal. Did the others notice, too? While he’s lost in these thoughts, someone outside shouts, “Fire!” Flames erupt from YoonGi’s workroom. Realizing he should have focused on YoonGi and not the video, SeokJin runs into the building. As he tries to open the locked door, he hears the glass shatter.

The fourth episode opens on the night of 11 April with SeokJin watching JungKook and YoonGi walk away from the construction site and towards NamJoon’s container. A few days later, SeokJin spots JungKook on the sidewalk on his way to YoonGi’s workroom. When asked where he’s going, JungKook avoids his gaze and replies, “I was just… walking around.” SeokJin knows this is because he has nowhere to go. Not wanting JungKook to keep wandering and remembering that he was once close with YoonGi, SeokJin invites him along. The perspective switches to JungKook as they enter the workroom. It reeks of alcohol, and YoonGi is fast asleep among empty bottles. “YoonGi… will be okay, right?” he asks. SeokJin picks up the bottles without responding. A memory from their school days occurs to JungKook. TaeHyung chased him around their classroom hideout, trying to snatch his sketchbook and succeeding when JungKook found his escape unintentionally blocked by YoonGi standing in the doorway. JungKook was dismayed when YoonGi called TaeHyung over to the piano so they could look at it together, but then YoonGi deceived TaeHyung and threw the sketchbook to JungKook. In the present, SeokJin doesn’t want to waste time while YoonGi sleeps. He taps a lost-in-thought JungKook on the shoulder and says they should leave, but JungKook responds that he will stay until YoonGi wakes.

Back again at the classroom hideout, SeokJin hunts further around the piano. He uses an old mop handle to fish out a piece of paper from underneath it. The hidden secret turns out to be TaeHyung’s abysmal math test. Dejected, SeokJin slumps to the floor. On this level, he notices a small handle on the piano’s lower panel and uses it to pop off the cover. Faded music sheets are wedged into the piano’s frame. A phrase on one of them catches SeokJin’s eye. (함께 라면 웃을 수 있다 : The Korean is not translated in game, but Google translates it as “if we are together, we can laugh.” This recurring phrase is instead translated as “we can laugh when we’re together” in The Notes 2. In YoonGi’s 2 August Year 22 entry, he also reflects on finding the note written in the margins of the music scores he took from the classroom. The handwriting isn’t his own. Additionally, a similar sentiment is expressed in a line of You Never Walk Alone, which is the basis for one of the BU-inspired Graphic Lyrics books.)

This message reminds SeokJin of YoonGi’s question: “When was the last time you genuinely laughed?” “This moment is the answer to that question,” he thinks, initiating a flashback to 20 March Year 19. The boys gathered around HoSeok in the classroom, chattering excitedly about the new club he’s leading. TaeHyung jokingly called him “Mr. President.” HoSeok told him only members could call him that before asking YoonGi if he wanted to join. “I’ll allow you to join without an audition, but only you.” TaeHyung exclaimed that he was just trying to get YoonGi to call him president. “Oh, it was obvious?” HoSeok chuckled. “Acting up again, huh?” YoonGi spoke up from the corner. The memory fades, returning to a pensieve SeokJin. He clearly remembers YoonGi’s face as he laughed with the others. “When did we stop laughing? Did it start that day, when I ruined everything?” SeokJin wonders. “It’s my fault,” he says aloud, standing there with the sheet music in hand until the sun begins to set. (Note: the date of the memory may be a typo. On 20 March Year 20 in The Notes 1, TaeHyung overheard SeokJin in the classroom informing the principal of the trouble he and YoonGi had gotten into. SeokJin realized that NamJoon heard it but not TaeHyung, who remained hidden out of sight and then pretended not to know. It’s not impossible that this memory really occurred in March Year 19, but most of them had only met at the beginning of that month.)

On the night of 15 April, SeokJin follows YoonGi at a distance from his workroom to an alleyway bar. (It is possible but not entirely clear that this is the same day SeokJin found the sheet music at the classroom, which is why I did not specify the date earlier.) It appears that YoonGi visits this bar often since the owner asks him if he has money today. SeokJin sits at a table behind YoonGi and watches him knock back shot after shot. Deciding that he shouldn’t leave him alone any longer, SeokJin musters up the courage to join him. YoonGi doesn’t look surprised to see him. He smiles before looking down again. SeokJin attempts a natural conversation to catch up. YoonGi asks why he didn’t come along the night when everyone got together at NamJoon’s container. “It’s been awhile since we’ve all seen each other, and JungKook… Never mind. You were probably busy.” SeokJin apologizes and inquires how JungKook is doing, then turns the same question on YoonGi when he replies that he doesn’t know. “Anything new with you?” SeokJin presses when YoonGi avoids his gaze. “Well, as you can see.” YoonGi dodges a direct answer.

The restaurant owner brings them a second glass. They are quiet in a restaurant full of chatter. SeokJin brings up the past to break the awkward silence, asking if YoonGi remembers the day they walked out of high school together. “Why do you ask?” says YoonGi. SeokJin explains that he remembered what YoonGi said to him that afternoon. “I want to ask you the same thing you asked me then.” SeokJin is nervous but continues, not wanting to waste this opportunity. “When was the last time you genuinely laughed?” YoonGi is silent for a moment. “Who knows.” SeokJin encourages him to think about it. “What good is it whether I remember or not? It wouldn’t change things now, even if I remembered.” YoonGi’s refusal to express his feelings upsets SeokJin more than his indifferent tone. “I just wish he would open up to me so I could figure out… anything. If only I could tell him,” SeokJin thinks. His internal narration continues over a shot of him in high school looking at his phone: “Or maybe… If I went back further in time, mustering up the courage to protect my friends, and prevented YoonGi from being expelled. If I did, maybe now we’d be…” “What’s with that expression?” YoonGi’s voice snaps him into the present, and he stares at SeokJin the way he had when they walked home from school. “Nothing, just… I feel like it’s been a while since I last saw you and I’m wasting time with useless subjects. It’s nothing—” SeokJin tries to laugh it off, but YoonGi interrupts. “You’re the same as always… There’s something there in your expression, but you say that it’s nothing.” This remark hits hard, rendering SeokJin speechless.

YoonGi’s words echo in SeokJin’s head even after he arrives home later that night. How did YoonGi notice what SeokJin thought he kept well-hidden? He once viewed YoonGi as someone who was indifferent to the world and trying to distance himself from everything. It dawns on SeokJin that he is mistaken. He opens his camcorder, hoping to see something new with this changed perspective. A recording plays in which he, YoonGi, and JungKook are the only ones present in the classroom hideout. When YoonGi starts playing piano, JungKook gets up from the desk and carefully stands by him. YoonGi doesn’t seem bothered and continues to play. Suddenly, he stops. “You wanna try?” In the present, SeokJin wonders why he asks JungKook that out of the blue and replays the footage, feeling like he missed something. This time, he notices that JungKook begins chewing his nails before YoonGi asks him. “Can I?” says JungKook. “Why not? It’s not my piano or anything. You can play if you want to.” At YoonGi’s words, the color returns to JungKook’s face and his hands drop from his mouth. SeokJin watches a little more of the video. As the recorded YoonGi patiently corrects JungKook’s wrong notes, he realizes that YoonGi doesn’t merely ask JungKook to play on a whim but out of respect for him.

SeokJin turns his attention to his box of photos. The player can choose up to three to examine. SeokJin realizes that YoonGi is a little further behind the group and not looking at the camera not because he feels left out or is avoiding attention, but because he is always watching how they are all together. YoonGi knows us very well, he thinks. He stopped JungKook from biting his nails by asking him to play the piano rather than acknowledging it directly. He saw through SeokJin and recognized when his laughter wasn’t genuine, even after several years apart. SeokJin thought that YoonGi wanted to give up everything, would never open up to anyone, and experienced feelings that were impossible for him to understand. “But if we were the ones to make YoonGi laugh… It may be possible to save YoonGi,” SeokJin reflects. With more determination, he vows to save him. “I’ll save him no matter what, because we can laugh when we’re together.”

SeokJin visits YoonGi every day after their meeting at the bar, responding that he’s making time to see him when asked if all university students have this much free time. They grow more accustomed to each other’s company, but SeokJin’s glimmer of hope fades as alcohol and aimless wandering continues to fill YoonGi’s life. Since just visiting YoonGi’s workroom seems meaningless, on 24 April SeokJin decides to show him the sheet music he found in the hideout, hoping it will encourage him to resume songwriting. Upon seeing the music, YoonGi has a flashback to 25 June Year 20, the day he received the school expulsion notice. He ran immediately to the classroom and played the piano as though possessed. The anger refused to settle. He shoved all of his sheet music into the piano and vowed to never play the piano again. In the present, YoonGi asks, “Where’d you find this?” At his cold expression, SeokJin wonders what he’s done wrong and explains aloud that he just happened to find it in the hideout’s piano. The papers fall from YoonGi’s hand, scattering across the floor. “Leave,” he spits. “What? Min YoonGi, what’s going on?” SeokJin asks. YoonGi shoves him. “Just leave.” “Don’t do this, let’s talk for a moment,” SeokJin tries again. But YoonGi replies, “I have nothing to say to you.”

YoonGi avoids him after that. On 25 April, SeokJin calls him numerous times without any answer and finds only torn sheet music and empty bottles in his workroom. He remembers YoonGi’s last words to him and says aloud, “It can’t be. No way.” An ominous thought crosses his mind, but he forces it out to focus on recalling something from memory. The story cuts to him running down a street, trying to figure out where YoonGi went to set the fire in the last loop. (It is never clarified what SeokJin’s “ominous thought” is—it may refer to YoonGi setting a fire or possibly even a suspicion that YoonGi figured out SeokJin was involved in his expulsion.) SeokJin finds the same motel (the one with the sign like in the I Need U MV) and rushes upstairs in a cold sweat. Faced with a hallway of identical doors, he doesn’t know how to locate YoonGi’s room. Whether the player chooses for him to call out to YoonGi or “think of something else” (which results in him pulling the fire alarm), the result is ultimately the same. SeokJin forces open the last closed door with a fire extinguisher, but the room is empty. Filled with regret, SeokJin wonders what he has done wrong. “Like an idiot, I… I knew that the location and method of YoonGi’s attempt could change, and yet…”

“Fire!” someone yells. The motel across the street erupts in flames. “No! Please…” SeokJin begs, falling to his knees. “How can I stop this tragedy? … Am I not enough to stop it?” The story ends as he hears the glass shatter once again.

Additional Thoughts

For me, JungKook’s arc really draws back the curtain on SeokJin’s private life. It demonstrates SeokJin’s challenge to balance saving his friends and maintaining his own daily life, particularly fulfilling the duties that fall to him as a prominent assemblyman’s son. We see little of this side of him until The Notes 2, when his perspective has already drastically changed.

JungKook’s reflection about his habit of walking along the edges of walls is an interesting moment of self-awareness. This “tightrope-walking” is depicted frequently in the MVs.

The car accident and loop reset at the beginning of JungKook’s 4th episode suggests the possibility that the I Need U MV depicts JungKook deliberately stepping in front of the oncoming car rather than accidentally. (Maybe people have already interpreted it this way, but personally the thought had never occured to me due to how it’s shot and acted.) The car accident is a recurring theme in the loops for JungKook, particularly as he is struck the night of 22 May and comes to believe that it was SeokJin who hit him.

This internal dialogue of SeokJin’s from YoonGi’s arc gives me a lot to think about: “If I went back further in time, mustering up the courage to protect my friends, and prevented YoonGi from being expelled. If I did, maybe now we’d be…” SeokJin’s first experiences of the time loops are depicted in the Save Me Webtoon. At that time, he believes that 11 April is the date that he can begin fixing things, but it’s not clear if this ability granted by the cat-like creature truly gives him control over to which date the loop resets. (It is more obvious that he cannot control what triggers the reset itself.) Does he ever go back earlier? Only *ahem* time will tell, but if you want some more food for thought, please check out these interesting quotes that occur before 11 April Year 22.

As mentioned above, the following “tl;dr” commentary summarizes the parenthetical notes I provided in the summaries in case you want to review them on their own.

The Boy on the Threshold — tl;dr commentary

SeokJin’s flashback to 3 March Year 19, when all seven boys arrived late on the first day at Songju Jeil High School and were scolded outside by the Dean, looks very similar to the BTS Begins Middle Scene VCR (aside from the absence of extra students), including the detail of YoonGi arriving last. This VCR predates official BU content.

The photo in SeokJin’s collection that catches JungKook’s eye resembles the shot in the Euphoria MV at 5’32” (the seven boys sitting on a wall with the ocean behind them) except that they appear to be wearing school uniform shirts and slacks.

JungKook’s flashback to the night of 7 April Year 22 expands the context of his reunion with YoonGi, adding that he is drawn to the music shop by a familiar tune and through its broken window sees YoonGi playing piano. YoonGi doesn’t notice him when he staggers outside, and JungKook tries to play the music by memory. In his 7 April Year 22 entry of The Notes 1, YoonGi is drunk and stumbling by an empty construction site when he recognizes a clumsy piano tune that he’d been playing “not long ago.” But when he runs to the music shop and finds JungKook, the text does not indicate that he remembers this is his second visit to the shop this evening. Additionally, the Wings short film First Love seems to reference some of the events of this night—or evokes YoonGi’s distorted memories of it, mingled with a representation of JungKook’s later accident.

I mentioned in part 1’s introduction that every episode’s ending is identical regardless of the decisions made by the player, but the end of episode 4 is actually cosmetically different (a wobbling camera/animation effect) if the second path is selected for the last choice. The dialogue is the same.

The end of episode 7 depicts the seaside observatory. This is a key location on 22 May Year 22, recurring in The Notes and depicted in the HYYH On Stage: Prologue short film and Euphoria MV. It looks the same in the game.

The End of His Gaze — tl;dr commentary

The motel sign at the beginning and end of the story matches the one visible in YoonGi’s shots of the I Need U MV.

When searching the classroom hideout for clues on 15 April, SeokJin identifies his father's name alongside the message “Everything started from here” on the graffitied wall. He first saw this note in his 25 June Year 19 entry from The Notes 1.

Episode 3 presents a memory from both SeokJin’s and YoonGi’s perspectives of the afternoon that they walked out of school together. Although the date is unspecified, this event is also referenced in YoonGi’s 2 August Year 22 entry from The Notes 2 and the similar Note accompanying Map of the Soul: 7.

On his second attempt at searching the classroom, SeokJin finds sheet music that was hidden inside the piano. A phrase written in the corner of one paper catches his eye: 함께 라면 웃을 수 있다. The Korean is not translated in game, but Google translates it as “if we are together, we can laugh.” This recurring phrase is instead translated as “we can laugh when we’re together” in The Notes 2. In YoonGi’s 2 August Year 22 entry, he also reflects on finding the note written in the margins of the music scores he took from the classroom. The handwriting isn’t his own. Additionally, a similar sentiment is expressed in a line of You Never Walk Alone, which is the basis for one of the BU-inspired Graphic Lyrics books.

SeokJin has a flashback of 20 March Year 19 in which the boys are excitedly chattering about HoSeok’s new club. However, given the larger context of this moment (both in the past and what prompts it in the present), the date of the memory may be a typo. On 20 March Year 20 in The Notes 1, TaeHyung overheard SeokJin in the classroom informing the principal of the trouble he and YoonGi had gotten into. SeokJin realized that NamJoon heard it but not TaeHyung, who remained hidden out of sight and then pretended not to know. It’s not impossible that this memory really occurred in March Year 19, but most of them had only met at the beginning of that month.

Did you learn anything new from these stories that I did not specifically mention? Let me know in the replies or tags! Please stay tuned for part 3, featuring JiMin and HoSeok’s stories.

#armiesnet #bangtanarmynet #networkbangtan #armysource #dailybangtan #bts universe #hyyh #bangtan universe #bts universe story #bts universe story highlights #seokjin #jungkook #yoongi #jinkook #yoonkook #yoonjin #bts theories

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secondhand-trash · 4 years ago

Text

“I love you.” “It’ll pass.”

Season 2 ep 6, Fleabag

(more lines I like from things I like as prompts for people I like)

A/N: I reserved this one for Dabi when I was making the list but fuck Dabi It’s Getou time😌✨this scene impacted me so hard when I was watching the show and I knew right then that I had to write something off of it one day

Pairing: Getou Suguru x reader

Description: He left without saying goodbye.

Warning: major manga spoilers (set after the hs flashback arc and connecting to the prequel)

Word count: 3007

Playlist:

Cigarette Daydreams//Cage The Elephant

You Say I’m in Love//Banes World

The Killing Moon//Echo & the Bunnymen

It wasn’t until the report came out that you realised Getou was never coming back.

All 112 villagers of the prev. ** village deceased.

The letters printed on the white paper was staring right at your face, but somehow it still felt like it was miles away, like everything you read fell through your ears as an echo.

Residues at the scene could determine that it was Getou Suguru’s curse manipulation.

No one said anything when they saw you staring blankly at the still screen of your phone. The last few messages were still there, sitting there and waiting to be read.

You weren’t sure if you were hoping or detesting a response. He probably never would, like he probably wasn’t your boyfriend anymore.

“Do you know when you are getting back?”

Getou Suguru escaped.

“This is taking longer than your usual missions, is everything alright?”

According to item 9 of the Jujutsu Regulations, he is to be classified as a curse user-

“Suguru?”

-and is to be executed.

The other two saw him again after that, which they had the mercy of not telling you explicitly, but anyone could tell from the heaviness lingering in the air.

Shoko smoked more than usual.

Gojo got quiet, and sometimes you would catch him fidgeting with the candy paper in his hand underneath his table.

Getou’s table was still there, an empty space starkly standing in the middle of the already sparsely occupied room. You had assumed that they would remove all traces of him immediately, but you could understand why they didn’t when you realised that your gaze still paused at where he once sat whenever it wandered.

The same way crimes scenes were always kept as it was, only the supposed corpse was still out there somewhere.

It was a silence bonding, the unbreakable chain of experiencing the same loss at the same time, but somehow your remaining friends were already there when you pushed open the door to the rooftop where no one usually went to.

That was the first day when he was gone. You had felt an impulse to go somewhere where you were not trapped inside, where you could feel the air entering your lungs as you inhale and it seemed like you were not the only one with that thought.

Gojo was already there, with his back bent forward as he leaned on the rail. He had one foot on the iron bar of the railing, casting a glance to your side when you silently joined him in looking down.

There was no one visible in your sight, but still you looked, and looked. The quiet footsteps getting closer let you know that the third (and last) classmate was here, a soft sigh ringing before there was a click and the smell of smoke made you furrow your eyebrows together.

You remembered that he used to smoke rather often, but somehow always put the cigarette off when you neared. He stopped smoking around you entirely after you got together, because you would push him away if you smelt the tell-tale scent of tobacco on him. But if you caught him at the corner with one between his fingers, he would always pull you close with his eyes curling into two thin strands, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as his other hand fumbled for the mints he kept in his jacket pocket.

You wanted to be mad at him, but the chill tickling your tongue when his breath fanned against your lips always had you weak.

“If he had come back for you,” Gojo’s voice was void of emotions, without the usual certainty or cockiness that always dripped from his words, “would you have followed?”

You shrugged.

“I don’t know,” you shook your head slightly, your eyes not once shifting away from the empty courts below.

The reality was that it still took you some time to process that fact that he killed a whole village of people, even longer when you eventually remembered that he did the same to his own parents. It didn’t feel real, like a bad dream that you could wake up from if you beat the thought into your head enough, like you could just close your eyes and see him walking up to you with his usual smile, asking you if you really fell for it.

But the feeling of being left behind, of conflict at the sentiments in your heart that you couldn’t brush away, of doubting if everything you once had was ever truly yours, of anger at how you were supposed to be the closest to him but knew nothing, of not being told anything, of not receiving a proper goodbye, of him running away without even telling you straight up that he was leaving you behind, were all very, very real.

There was a dull ache budding at the back of your throat over the fact that your last image of him was still the way he looked at you with so much tenderness made you sick to the stomach, and twisted even more at the knowing that to you, that was his one biggest crime.

Perhaps that was what love was. You could look past the fucked up morals or even the murder, but there was no ignoring that you were left behind, and that meant that there was where it all ended.

You chuckled at the conclusion you had drawn, earning you a questioning stare from the boy who raised the question.

Hell, then he might just be the love of your life.

“I don’t know,” you repeated, bitterness lingering on your tongue when you smiled.

Sick, just sick.

They were both looking at you, but you didn’t turn to see what expression they were wearing as you dropped your head. The metal pressing against your forehead growing warm under the heat of your skin as you muttered, this time to yourself and no one else.

“I really don’t.”

Time sped up from there.

Life went on. Eat, sleep, going out on missions before collapsing on your bed when you came back alone and tired, repeat. Gojo and Shoko stayed after graduation season hit, you didn’t. You spent so many years there already, you clicked your tongue as you said, it is time to move on.

You were not really talking about High school, both of them knew it but neither said a thing. The empty table remained as it was until a new batch of students poured into the classroom that was once yours, before they left and another group filled in.

Occasionally you met young sorcerers on the field who wore the same button that once adorned your collar, and wondered if it was them who sat at that table now.

You did not think about Getou Suguru for years.

Yet, you were not surprised to find the exact same man that once plagued your thoughts late at night standing in the middle of your living room uninvited, without a single hint just as when he left.

“It has been long.”

You had a gut feeling that he got taller since you last saw him, even though you were probably standing too far away from him to truly measure. The edges and corners of his face were more prominant, his hair running down his back in a way that used to happen only when he was at his most relaxed.

“You should try to let it grow,” you mumbled as you ran your hand through one lock of his hair, letting the black silk fell from your hand onto his chest, “it would look good on you.”

He chuckled, and the vibration seeped into your skin from the way he laid on your lap. The weight lifted from your legs when he sat up, his face right in front of yours as he grinned.

“When my hair reaches my waist, will you marry me?”

You laughed, and the smile on him only grew.

“Where did you get that from?” you hid your smile behind the back of your hand.

“It’s from a poem,” he replied with a tilt of his head, “Never heard of it?”

“No,” you still sounded breathy from the laughter, “but did people teach you not to make promises so easily?”

The one long piece of his bangs had fallen onto his face, covering his eyes just slightly. He huffed as he pushed it away from his view, placing his head on your shoulder.

“Who told you it was easy?”

Ah, your jaw clenched at the waterfall of black that stopped just above his waist, so he did grow it out in the end.

You did not move from your position at the door, standing with your back straight and your keys still gripping tightly in your hand. “What are you doing here?”

You were just about to head back from a mission when you got the call. “He showed up at Kousen just then,” Gojo did not bother with formalities, or give you any context as to who “he” was but still you froze, knowing exactly what he was talking about right away, “he might go see you.”

(You were sure that he wouldn’t, but it seemed like you truly didn’t know him well at all.)

He chuckled, a soft sound that made your nails dig into the middle of your palm, “Am I not allowed to check up on you because I want to?”

He sounded familiar, exactly the way you remembered him to sound like. The corners of his lips were lifted up in a calculated angle, smiling at ease but not from heart. You suppressed the heat that was near pouring out your throat, swallowing the discomfort back into the pit of your core.

Was it true that this wasn’t how he smiled, or did you only notice the way his eyes were lifeless now?

You replied with a smile of your own, not willing to lose your footing, “Oh please.”

You never bothered to check on me before.

He was not bothered by the dryness in your voice, and if he was then he did a great job at not appearing so.

“When I left,” he asked, “were you mad at me?”

“No,” But I spent nights crying over you. “is that supposed to come out as a mock?”

“No.”

You searched for a hint of wavering in his eyes, any sign that he was experiencing even a bit of the turmoil that was boiling and burning in your chest as you tried to keep your voice still.

You wondered what you had hoped to find.

“What do you want?” you said, and forced yourself to look right into his eyes. You imagined that you could see your own reflection staring back at you if you were any closer to him and the hint of soreness shooting right up to your nasal until it the sting that left almost resembled longing.

If you were to fight, you probably couldn’t win him no matter how hard you try.

“If I say I miss you, would you believe me?”

There was a ring in your ear as you shut your eyes tight, forcing the corner of your lips to hold back from twitching.

God damn it.

“Does it matter?” I wish I don’t.

“Perhaps.”

He was looking at you, and you could taste the blood at the tip of your tongue. You wished there wasn’t some part of you that was near breaking down inside of you, or that you didn’t feel such an urge to let the tears run free.

But you wouldn’t, your pride wouldn’t allow it.

His arms crossed loosely in front of his chest, the fabric of his cassock bunching up around his elbows. You had pondered why the cloak seemed so out of place, and then you remembered that he wasn’t even religious in the slightest.

It was all for show.

“Leave.”

There was a hint of relief when you heard your own voice landing back on your ear and there wasn’t the shakiness you had so dreaded to hear. You knew you had lost the moment you even cared, but still, on the front you refused to show there sometimes, during the many years after he left, you would still see his face when you couldn’t sleep and all you could do was stare at the ceiling. You hoped the iciness in your expression was enough to cover up the fact that you had no erased all traces of what you once had with him completely, and there was still a photograph or two that you hid away so that no one would know you still hadn’t let go of him, a traitor.

He glanced down at your command, before nodding slightly to himself. Getou Suguru turned around until he was facing your window and his shadow slanted on the opposing wall from the cold hue of the moon.

The pale light blurred his figure, like smoke, like the mint tingling your senses.

“You ruined my life.”

I love you.

He paused briefly, before turning to look at you once again. You were taken back when you see the look in his eyes, and the downward tug at his mouth.

With the moon and the cassock and the unexplainable depth in his eyes, he did look the part of feeling sorrow for the world and pity for the masses.

Oh, how ironic.

Getou parted his lips slightly, and you could see the shudder but heard no sound, until they pursed, before he finally spoke again.

I love you too.

“It’ll pass.”

You did not realise that you were staring out the window, not moving a step until you saw the dots of snow slowly landing on the glass. Your steps stumbled as you walked towards where he jumped out, your hand touching the chilled glass while the world outside was a scene of white.

He probably came and left on the back of some curse he had, not leaving even a trace.

You stared and stared, and wondered what it would feel like to be buried under the snow that was starting to pile up.

Gojo asked you if you want to see him for one last time.

You refused.

Your bones were cracking with each twist of your joints as you finally got back to your own space after the whole fiasco that went down had you drained.

Of all the days he had to plan an uprising, it had to be Christmas Eve. A heavy sigh slipped from your lips when the door locked behind you, the lights flicking on to show the red number on the calendar hanging on the wall.

It was quiet, the handle of the clock ticking was all you could hear. It matched the pounding in your ear, drumming and drumming as you stared upwards at the ceiling, sucking in a deep breath as the cold air filled your lungs.

So he really was gone now.

“He said he couldn’t manage to laugh happily from the bottom of his heart in this world,” Gojo called you again a moment later after the initial one, and you had to swallow the want to tell him that there was no need to tell you what he said when the other end fell into silence when you didn’t response.

Only there was. You knew there was.

At the back of your head, you had a faint memory of where you had put the old things that you couldn’t find somewhere to store when you moved out of your dorm room. It was hidden under the piles and piles of clothes and blankets that you never used, much like how you had not touched that box since you first put it there.

You sucked in a deep breath when your fingertip touched the rough corner of the cardboard, reaching in deeper to pull it out. It was covered in dust and slightly crooked from all the things you had stacked on it, but still exactly the same as how it looked when you sealed everything inside with the cover and shoved it in your closet.

There was still an innocent sense of glee when you opened it and saw all the things that reminded you of your youth.

The student handbook, and your student card that was stuck in there like a bookmark. The gold button in which some of the gold pain had already come off from years of wear and tear. Your graduation picture, which showed the three of you sitting side by side properly in all its rarity.

The familiar ache in your throat returned when you got to the bottom, where you found the sole reason why you dug this out. You smiled, your hand gingerly picking the thin film laying flatly there without a single crease on it.

He was looking at you, who had your face on his shoulder with an arm thrown around your frame. Your hand was on his neck, pulling him down towards you as you laughed and he laughed back at you. You did not remember who took it, or when it happened, but the rush of warmth in your chest as you held the picture in your hand must be the proof that you were happy.

You should have thrown this away the moment you knew he was not coming back, but you didn’t have the heart to.

How could you when he looked so happy too?

Your thumb traced over the smooth surface of the film, over where his lips were nearly touching your hair, over his eyes that were fixed on you.

Couldn’t manage to laugh happily from the bottom of his heart... huh?

You laughed, at him, at yourself, before the droplet of tear finally fell.

Like there was smoke in your eyes.

Like the chill on your arm was not from the snow outside but from the taste of peppermint on your tongue.

#jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujutsu kaisen imagine #jujutsu kaisen x reader #getou x reader #getou imagine #getou imagines

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katie-writes24 · 4 years ago

Text

Another Life, Another Adventure

Pairing: Lee Scoresby x reader

Warnings: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2!!!! Language, angst, violence, too many flashbacks, suggestive material, fluff (shockingly) hurt/sad shit, and buckle your seatbelts because this shit is a rollercoaster that just goes DOWN!

Ahaha, we are coping this way, 3.2k words baby. I’ve never written a story so fast! But yeah, lemme know if you want to be tagged! PLEASE give feedback, it’s greatly appreciated and I need assurance that my writing isn’t shit because I’m desperate. So....anyway, good luck? Because yall already know where this is heading, but I’m not going to put it in the warnings because ya know, SPOILERS?

There was no point in arguing, not with the magisterium on their tail, not with Lee’s injured foot, and not with Lyra in need of safety. Jopari even tried countering, insisting that there had to be another way. Y/N couldn’t say that she disagreed. After all the blinding chaos they’ve escaped, there had to be another way around this.

“I’ve made my choice,” Lee huffed, giving a stern look at Jopari. “You’re it. Now find the bearer.”

Y/N and the shaman shared a look. They both knew of the promise he made with Lee, and they both knew how important it was for Lyra to be protected.

“You’re a good man.”

“Just remember your promise. I love that little girl like a daughter.” Lee fumbled with his shotgun, loading the bullets and talking fast.

“I remember. You have my word. I’ll make sure she’s protected by the knife.”

“That’s all I need to know…” He stuck his hand out and firmly shook Jopari’s hand, both nodding, both knowing of the rough journey ahead. As the shaman stood up, he hesitated and it caused Lee to look up at him before looking at her with a raised brow.

Y/N took a deep inhale before nodding for him to go along.

“Y/N-”

“You’re out of your mind if you think-”

“Y/N, go!” He gripped her arm and it only made her push back.

“No, no! You listen to me!” Soft hands held his face in a firm grip. Y/N was close and made sure to hold eye contact. “You forget what I said at the start of this? We’re a package, which means I go where you go. I didn’t leave my home in Texas just to get all the way here and leave you, Lee!”

The day he approached her with the proposition of going back to find Iroek was still fresh in her mind. Y/N had seen the aeronaut be ambitious before, but the determination in his eyes was unstoppable that day. Since then they were up in that balloon for weeks, months with each other.

“You want me to come along?”

“I could use the company.”

“And what will people say when they see you with a leash on a so-called ‘townswhore,’ hmm?”

“Darling, since when have I ever cared what others think? I ain’t a Prince Charming myself.”

Though neither of them could predict that that small journey would lead to something much bigger and more complicated than expected, they still didn’t leave each other’s side. Not when Iroek refused to talk, not when Lord Faa made snarky comments on how helpful someone with Y/N’s type of occupation could actually be, and not when they were separated from Lyra.

Lee squeezed her wrist and bowed his head. Y/N took that as he had given up arguing, and she turned to look at Jopari staring in discomfort. Hester and Owen hunched over each other, having their own way to keep each other safe. They all probably made quite the scene.

“Don’t worry about us. Just...go protect Lyra, please?” Y/N waved him away with a nod, and soon Jopari was out of sight, leaving them with a soft goodbye.

How they caught up so quickly, they’ll never figure out, but bullets kept flying back and forth. Only minutes later Lee turned back to Y/N, holding up his pistol and sighing, “I’m out.”

“Let’s move, then, c’mon.” She held out her hand and pulled him up, watching Lee set down his hat and leave behind yet another meaningful piece to him.

Guards were still yelling, voices getting only closer. They trudged through the forest, Hester and Owen leading the way. However it was only a matter of time before Lee couldn’t bear to walk on his damaged bone any longer. Y/N felt her entire body shaking, loading up her gun with her last round of ammo before listening to what Lee was saying.

“Remember the games we used to play when we were little?” He glanced at Hester as he shifted.

“The Alamo.”

Feeling her stare on him, Lee turned to Y/N, chuckling, “The Alamo. Taking turns being Danes in French.”

“They’re still coming,” Owen stepped down from his perched stance on the rock, burrowing into Y/N’s side.

“How many bullets do we have left?” He was breathing harder, and it did nothing to help Y/N’s nerves. It was like a clock ticking in her head. It was a gut feeling, this was all so much different then when they would get into a natural bar fight, or even when she had to watch Lee get abused from the magisterium and Coulter. When she looked at Owen, she knew he felt it, too.

“About thirty,” Hester drew her ears back in fear, while Lee only nodded determinedly. His eyes met Y/N’s and she cleared her throat.

“I got one round left,” She whispered. Lee reached down and squeezed her hand before sighing.

“Well, let’s make every single last one count then,” With that he cocked his gun and turned to shoot, Y/N doing the same.

On each side of the stump they took their stance, like a routine, both shooting at their respective sides. Hester helped by calling out where to aim, and Owen did his best to do the same.

“I’m running out!” Y/N hated to admit it, but when she ran out that only meant for one shooter, and who knows how good that could go.

“Me too,” Lee kept firing.

“Don’t think about that!” Owen chirped.

“What should we think about?” She almost missed one, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Think about anything. Think about bacon. Just keep shooting!” Hester spoke before returning to yell where to shoot at next.

“And who are you?”

“Y/N L/N, we’re sort of a package. I go where he goes.”

“And what, exactly, do you bring to the table Miss L/N?”

“I might not be able to fly, but I’m a pretty good shot.”

Y/N was overwhelmed, between the gunfire and the yelling and her heart beating fast and the dangerous thoughts in her head, she wasn’t going fast enough. Even with her limited count, she was going slower than Lee. One guard was on the top, and just as she was about to shoot, he fired to her left.

“Y/N, go high!” Owen called, yet it was a little late.

The sharp clip shot right next to her, and with Lee doubling over only meant one thing.

“Lee!” Y/N yelled all while shooting at the man behind the boulder. She crouched behind the stump and felt her eyes grow.

“It’s nothing big! A bullet clipped your scalp, but no great damage!” Hester urged, voice shaky. He held onto the top of his head as blood ran down the side. There was no sugar coating how bad this was getting. Y/N only had one bullet left, using it to shoot the guy who was only coming closer.

“Did you count how many fell?” He was taking his time, why was he taking his time? Tears welled up in Y/N’s eyes as she listened to shots fire all around her, watching Owen tremble at each round.

“This is my fault isn’t it?” Hester whined.

“How’d ya figure?”

“I’ve always stopped you both before.”

“You always pushed us,” Lee locked the gun and looked at his daemon with concern. It made Owen flap his wings in a protective manner, even though he stopped being able to fly straight a while ago.

“Only when there’s an adventure on the way-”

“Hester,” Lee huffed softly. “There were always adventures.”

Y/N bit down on her lip as she agreed; there always was an adventure.

“You know, if you were going to start trouble, you could’ve at least finished it!”

“Well who said I haven’t yet? You know I love a good chase, doll.”

It was like a film before her eyes; from the moment the two first met there was always a thrill, whether it be them on the run or her own feelings for the aeronaut. Her mother once told her that Y/N would find a good husband in a local bookkeeper, that way she would live a simple life, stay far from any danger. It was almost laughable how much danger she had been put through since meeting Lee.

“I totally understand now,” Y/N shook her head in admiration. “Living this life up in the stars...it’s beautiful.”

“You’d think it would grow old, but it’s a different picture every night.”

She looked back at Lee, smirking. “I’d love to see it.”

“So stay.”

From her first steps into the balloon, Y/N found it comforting. The small home Lee had made for himself up in the sky had quickly grown on her, just like the man himself.

“You’ll find a change of mind sooner or later.”

“What little faith you have of me. And how dare you try to insinuate how I should feel-”

“I’m not insinuating anything, I’m just...I’ve got jobs, I’ve got places to go and I can’t settle just yet.”

“Then I’ll follow you.”

“Now why would you want to do that?”

“If you want me to leave so badly, then say so. But I finally found a life that excites me and I don’t plan on giving that up.”

And even after the years of knowing one another, and the months of traveling together, those feelings were never labeled. Although two beds turned to one, and outsiders' judgment was unique, neither Lee or Y/N dared fixed it. Lyra even asked about the travelers status, and while being one rambunctious and curious girl, she luckily got distracted easily as Y/N pushed the subject away.

The two have been through hell and back, each seeing the other at their weakest while never being one to judge. They both had too many faults, there was no judgement to be made to the other. Maybe that’s what made them so similar. Maybe that’s why they were so drawn to each other.

Her dangerous acts she was thinking of were as equally dangerous as losing focus, as she felt a sudden pain strike her right below her collarbone. Owen cried out and they both fell to the ground. It took her a moment to recover from the shock, but she eventually reached down to feel the damage, a knowing liquid already flooding out slowly.

“Lee…”

The aeronaut swallowed at her broken voice, watching the blood escape from her wound. The distraction only caused him to lose aim, and he lost his balance as a bullet hit his shoulder. He fell onto his back, letting out pants and huffs.

“C’mon, tough guy, too old for a fight?”

“Let me catch my breath, will ya?”

“You can tap out. I won’t hold it against you.”

“Maybe, I was just thinking of other activities,” He towered over her as his eyes grew dark. Y/N swallowed before chuckling.

“Like what?”

Lee pushed a strand of hair behind her ear before leaning down and taking the lobe into his mouth. She rested her hands on his chest as her head fell onto his shoulder. As his lips dragged up the shell of her ear, his hands took her own and slowly brought them down to his belt. Just as Y/N was about to unbuckle the fabric, her arm was twisted behind her. Her chest fell down onto the railing before her and she winced.

“Word of advice: never get distracted when it comes to your life.”

Call it the wrong time and place, but as Y/N stared into his brown eyes, she found herself reminiscing. She was always bad at holding eye contact, it made her feel so small. Yet, every time she looked into these orbs she felt safe, she felt warm. She wished she looked into his eyes more....

But the look he was giving her now...it was endearing.

It was almost like he was doing the same as her, taking it all in one last time.

“Lee,” Hester gasped out. “The clout pine. Maybe you could call her to this world.”

Of course, Serafina said that she would help, that she would be here. As Lee struggled with removing it from his pocket, Y/N let out a whimper as the pain moved to her shoulder. The aeronaut glanced at the noise and frowned.

“Serafina Pekkala, I beg you,” A bullet rang from behind them as Lee raised his hand to the sky. “Come help us.”

Owen moved into her chest and Y/N wrapped him up into her arms as she found his soft feathers comforting.

“Think that’s enough?”

“Let’s hope it is…” Y/N coughed. She tried moving into a seated position, but only managed to scoot up a couple inches. Lee stared at her carefully, wanting to reach out and help her, do anything he could to stop the bleeding, to make her comfortable, make her feel safe. But he wasn’t doing so good himself, having three bullets already break his flesh. He scooted back and took hold of his gun. Just as he was raising it up, another fire went off, Lee falling back again, this time with a bullet into his chest.

Y/N had seen lots of things in her life; she was fortunate enough to travel the world, she’d seen great sights she could’ve never dreamed of seeing before. She watched her mother slowly become sicker and sicker, saw her friends be dragged away from her, watched someone she cared for greatly fall right out of her arms to the ground below.

Despite all the crazy, disastrous things she’d seen before, nothing could compare to this. Nothing could compare to her seeing her lover in agony, so helpless. He lost all the light in his eyes, his brow was furrowed, and for once in his life his guard was down.

“Lee, it’s okay.” But he kept resisting, he kept denying that there was no more fight left in him.

“I have to do it for Lyra-”

“Jopari made his promise, Lee,” Y/N reached out her hand, lowering his gun. “We did what we could.”

He shook his head, releasing a shaky breath and taking her hand in his.

Whether he liked it or not, they reached the point of no return.

“Y’know ever since I met you I’ve lived on the edge?” Y/N let out a wet chuckle.

“Is it really necessary?”

“Can’t run around these parts without learning how to shoot, kid.”

“Well, that could only mean that there’s danger ahead.”

“What? You scared of a little danger? Where’s the fun in that?”

“It’s...it’s not bad, I actually grew to love it. All those times we shared together, all those times I had to save your ass, all the times you saved mine.”

“You’re gonna end up dead one day if you keep runnin’ around so recklessly, dumbass.”

“Ah, that’s why I keep you around, ain’t it?”

“What I said before,” She winced as she leaned closer to him. “About leaving my home in Texas. Turns out i never left my home...I found it.”

“I was worried about you.”

“I was just out for a walk, Lee, nothing to worry about. I’m a big girl, I can handle myself.”

“No, Y/N, not around here. Just...if I lose you, I’ll never forgive myself, alright? Like you said, we’re a package now.”

“You changed me for the better...look at all the shit we did, you let me touch the sky, Lee,” A tear ran down her cheek. She could see Hester moving closer to Owen out of the corner of her eye.

“How hard could being an aeronaut be, anyways?”

“Ha, it’s cute that you think it’s an easy job.”

“All I ever see ya do is fiddle with knobs.”

“Those knobs get us safely to land. Would you rather we just keep floating all day and night?”

“I wouldn’t mind it...it’s lovely up here.”

“How far we flew…” Lee cupped her face, his own eyes growing wet. There were so many emotions running through his mind that he couldn’t put into words, and that scared him. He could literally feel his last breaths coming and he wouldn’t be able to tell Y/N how he felt.

“Why don’t you care?”

“Why should I? Does it look like I have such a high reputation? Y/N, I would never leave you. And screw what anyone else thinks.”

“I’ve...never had anyone push it away like it doesn’t matter before?”

“People could think we were swingers for all I care. Not going to change what I think about you, darling.”

“Exactly, look at us,” Her hands stopped shaking, gripping his wrists with one hand. “Lee, I wouldn’t replace this for the world, good and bad.”

“S’not enough though, is it? Love? Doesn’t mean you won’t hurt her? Doesn’t mean she’s safe with you, it doesn’t work that way.”

“What could you possibly know about love, Mr. Scoresby? You don’t have children, no wife, just a narrow-minded whore, yearning for an escape.” Ms. Coulter crept towards him like a predator. All Y/N could do was helplessly watch from the corner of the room.

“You’re wrong...because I love Lyra.”

Lee mustered all the strength he could to move forward to capture her lips.

They both put everything they could into that one kiss, their final kiss.

“I’ve never felt so safe before…”

“Well, I’m glad I make you feel safe, sweetheart.”

“Do you...does this change anything for us? What does this mean, exactly?”

“...It doesn’t have to change anything, really.” Lee wrapped his arms around her naked body and kissed her forehead. Y/N wasn’t ready for things to change then.

Lee pushed and pushed, hoping whatever God was out there that he was able to mold his feelings into Y/N. She deserved to know, she deserved to be loved. She was loved. He felt her pressing her lips harder, and warm air traveled into his mouth, making him pull back gasping.

“Don’t do that, don’t you go before I do!” He sobbed, reaching out for her one last time and instead feeling his demon nuzzle into his free hand.

“I love you…” She whispered, giving him a small smile as she pulled Owen closer to her body.

“We did good,” Owen interrupted before closing his eyes.

“We’re a-helping Lyra…” Hester whimpered, looking at Lee for a response, a confirmation, anything. Instead all she saw were tears coming out of his eyes, blood seeping from his head and taking a deep breath.

His mouth wouldn’t move, it felt like his lungs were shattering. His body was shrinking and everything inside him felt tighter. His final cue was here, yet nothing was escaping. His brain was vibrating, ironically. His entire being was going into panic mode and the last final seconds were starting to count down. His mind was screaming at him to say the words, say something to her, something meaningful. Something that would make her know that she wasn’t just traveling with a known theft, that he wanted her to come along for a reason. That he wanted to build a home with her, build a family with her. Wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her until she knew that everyone who crossed their path was wrong about them. They weren’t just a thieving aeronaut and a townswhore, but two people in love.

His eyes started to droop shut, and when he opened them again, Owen was gone, just flurries of white particles floating before him.

Lee stared into lifeless orbs in front of him, feeling Hester’s cold body drift away from his own.

“Y/N?”

“Yes, Lyra?”

“You travel with Mr. Scoresby?”

“I do, yes.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s...typical, really. At least for me. But he knows what he’s doing. He’s full of determination, though he might come off as a self-righteous smartass when you first meet him. But he’s a good man. So devoted, and surprisingly, he’s pretty funny. But don’t tell him I said that! Lee takes risks, and is so....he’s open. He may not let it show often, but he really does care for you. Just like he cares about what happens to these missing children, and what happens after this. In the mornings, he sings these songs, and I know he does it to annoy me. But it’s actually...it’s nice waking up like that. He keeps me on my toes when I’m down, or stressed. He’s strong, and I’ve never met anyone like him before. You know, he actually took me out of my shell? Because he could see right through me, and knew that I had this desire to get out of Texas and have...a story to tell, you know? One worth the time. I’ll never understand it, but Lee can read me better than anyone I know…”

“Do you love Mr.Scoresby?”

“Love..love is a strong word, Lyra.”

“He loves you. I can tell.”

Y/N looked to see the aeronaut talking to Hester, small smile on his face, eyes wide as he spoke. He matched her stare eventually, and waved a hand. She chuckled and waved back.

“No, no it’s not like that, Lyra. He doesn’t love me…”

Let me know if you want to be tagged!! :’)

#lee scoresby x reader #lee scoresby fic #lee scoresby #lee scoresby imagine #his dark materials fic #his dark materials spoilers #my writings #hdm spoilers #lee scoresby fanfic #lee scoresby x oc #bahaha i'm in pain #but you know what #i might write like a prequal maybe?#one that's happier ig?#but anyways #ima grab a tissue

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goldenkamuyhunting · 3 years ago

Note

Hii! I just read ch313 and came straight to your blog. I love reading your thoughts on the manga ^^

One thing i'd like to note about this chapter is, there's no ..err... sound effects(?), Idk what they're called, at all in this chapter.

It's most likely because they just forgot about it and will add it later in the vol version, but while reading the chapter, it reminds me of scenes in movies where a character is overwhelmed with grief and is having a ringing in their ears. They cannot hear anything and let their grief/anger influence their actions, and movies convey that to their audiences mostly by the sound (hear nothing of the surroundings) and sometimes jumps between actions. In the manga he might not have shown his grief to Sugimoto or Asirupa, but the manga might be drawn this way to show that grief to the readers.

This would fit with what Tsurumi had said, if i remember correctly, that he can't control himself because his frontal lope was blown to bits. It was associated with violent tendency then, but what if it's also about sometime he cannot hide all his emotions. Exposing the wound and have him show his grief is quite fitting imo.

Since i associate the lack of noise with that it makes the fight in this chapter my favourite fight scene from the final arc. Because this makes the fight emotional without using any flashbacks or words. This is the most emotional chapter from this manga for me.

I just hope the lack of noises was intentional and they will keep it in the vol release, but that's just me and it's not very probable anyway.

(Wow this is a lot longer than i anticipated O.O probably cus it's 3am and i need to go to sleep)

Thank you for enjoying my thoughts on this story!

Yes, nice catch, Noda didn’t use sounds effects in chap 313 and there’s hardly any dialogue. It’s not necessarily a bad choice, as far as I’m involved it helped me to focus more on the visual, which in this chapter is pretty beautiful and gives it a certain atmosphere, as if everything were in slow motion... though maybe it’s just me.

Of course it can be in truth Noda just forgot them and he was in a rush... but as I said I like the chapter even without them because I interpret the lack of it more or less in the same way you’re doing.

This is special moment in which Tsurumi ‘exposes’ himself, his ugly side (his greed and his anger toward Wilk) but also his wounded side (the unealed grief for the loss of his wife and child).

It’s true Tsurumi said the damage at his frontal lobe gives him troubles to control his temper... and we know his brain leak fluid when he’s prey of a strong emotion and, in a way, in Tsurumi his pain for his loss and his anger conflated so yeah, all this is pretty meaningful and yeah, although I complained for most of the ending, this chapter was overall very well done.

It was emotional, meaningful, visually good, in character and fitting with the themes so is a good one.

We’ll have to wait and see if the volume version will add sounds or not. I join you in hoping it won’t.

Thank you for your ask! rise-and-shine-my-wayward-sun

#Tsurumi Tokushirou #Ask #rise and shine my wayward sun #Other people's posts

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crimsonandcloverwrites · 3 years ago

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bhah ch3 reread u know the drill

what is Jamie doing with all this oil I am concerned

god the tension of knowing Jamie is there but not talking to her but Dani probably secretly hoping she will

aww is she picking up more wonder woman comics for mikey?? cute

gah I love that they slip back into playful banter so easily despite everything going on

also 10/10 that the gays in town would be trying on the tackiest sunglasses in the service station (and 12/10 that Jamie actually brought them)

Dani Carson car adventures!! i would read a whole 20k word chapter just on that

sdfkjdshjfhd Dani throwing herself to the ground when she sees Jamie in the supermarket I’m losing it

“Yeah and then she left” ouch

THREE GAYS IN A SUPERMARKET WHAT WILL HAPPEN

aww Jamie Carson reunion tooooo cute

oh my god the tension of them standing back to back trying not to touch lmao

Jamie rly is the teeniest in town huh

Dani getting all protective and mad over Mikey having to sit outside school is v sweet

Jamie to the rescue how cute

Jamie’s collarbone: hello. Dani’s gay panic: LOOK AWAY

also sdkjfhdkjhg Jamie working w her hands is so hot we need more fics just talking about her getting dirty. for the good of the nation

there is so much going on here the cute teasing Dani feeling all weird abt their whole dynamic jamie giving her looks the engagement ring I am not equipped to process all of it

“you think there are secrets in this town?” just ur burning love for each other ladies!

once again mechanic!jamie... i am compromised

aww Dani bby literally does not know what to do with herself. the juxtaposition of the depth of their relationship and the little moments of familiarity with the awkwardness of people who don’t really know each other properly anymore is so fucking well done here

Eddie’s “honey I’m home” moment carrying her over the threshold afkjhsdkjf good for him

Dani and this house got beef huh

Dani: sometimes things with Eddie just don’t feel right but I’m sure that’s fine. Dani when she loses a tiny piece of her relationship w Jamie: level 5 meltdown. Literally the theme of this fic is “honey you got a big storm comin” and I love it

this dig at pineapple on pizza........ offensive

“Instead, she reset her mask, pulled the rope to part the stage curtains, and tied the other end around her neck.” Jesus.

“the other part of Dani, the part that never knew how to stop missing Jamie” i will cryyyy

starting a gofundme for Dani’s car asap

Eddie putting the moves on I can’t look. but lmao when he finds a girl that’s actually into him and wants this kind of attention his whole world is gonne be rocked

can we get Dani some therapy pls this is not how u should feel abt the person ur gonna marry. or about yourself

*gasp* the wontons mixtape

hmmmm I’m Not in Love and A Case Of You really are a one-two punch huh

lol I just went to play them and I was apparently in the middle of listening to Stop Making This Hurt by The Bleachers which feels... apt

fuck. making a mixtape for someone truly is peak romance huh? music my beloved

hmmm i just realised that this timeline parallels the flashback chapters w a new Taylor in school in each how cool. and also Nan vs Jamie taking on responsibilities w these kids and stepping up for them in their own way pls my emotions

aahh the coffee date I kinda forgot how fast Dani made this relationship rekindle bless her

wait clara and horace does that mean abigail is in Dani’s class too??? she lives??

a reserved sign pls that’s so cute

OWEN! god I love the levity and banter w Jamie he brings to fics

there is just so much fondness between them it always shines through no matter what they’re talking about I love it

this backpacking chat... envisioning Dani n Jamie once Mikey is grown up going on a big tour of europe together n fufilling Dani’s dreams

the fact that Jamie was drawn back to this place... by what hmmmm ms taylor. by what

oof this really is a painful rehashing of the past huh.

“star hike” lmao

"I can fix it." "You can't." OUCH

ooft just rip the bandaid right off. “I missed you. Everyday.” god my heart

arguing in an alley behind the pharmacy that’s gay rights

"Because if it was going to end, then I wanted it over quickly!” jamie ‘everyone always leaves so I cut them off before they can hurt me‘ taylor everyone. I am not doing well

ok with the context of like... everything from the future chapters this scene hits even harder than the first time i read it jesus

still can’t get over Dani ‘trying not to recall the memories of the last time they were in this room together’ was Jamie absolutely falling to pieces in her arms *screams forever* i remember reading that line and imagning so many things it could have been and yet yall went for the ultimate stab to the heart bravo

god I’m just thinking about how much they’ve both changed in those 10 years and how much they’ve stayed the same and just. god the way they’re so drawn to each other still!!!! i can’t even comprehend

blue schrunchie cherished friend

i feel like there is a significance to the red door I cant place and all my brain will provide is “you, me, her” but polyamory adventures is probably not the direction this is going

Jamie like “want a tour of ur future home babe? lets go” (I do love how enchanted Dani is by all of it though)

gah I love Jamie and Mikey together soooo much

find u a person that eats all the foods u don’t like. pickle soulmates

heh “Miss Dani” poor Mikey is goin through it lolol

they are all so cute together i love this lil sunday afternoon family

“Dani kept her gaze fixed on Jamie for just a second longer, studying her profile” gay

there has been several mentions of Jamie’s unreadable/blank expressions this chapter and I can’t stop laughing at her losing her mind over how much she loves Dani and trying to keep it in check every time

THEY’RE FRIENDS AGAIN

AND THEY’RE HUGGING OH HAPPY DAYS

oooh the sandalwood cologne

idk why this Jamie Eddie handshake is making me laugh so much but I love them

Eddie pulling Dani in closer to himself when Jamie’s there..... he knows

staying awake until 2am to finish rereading gay fanfiction... clownery (but fun!) goodnight

#bhah #silly time

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nnnnoooooooooooo · 3 years ago

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My Ballot for They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s 25 Favourite Films Poll

The following is my ballot for They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s poll for their readers’ 25 favourite films of all-time. It contains a dozen or so favourites, several compromises, and a handful of personally foundational texts.

Seven Chances (1925, Buster Keaton): It ain’t easy to only choose one Keaton. This is one of Keaton’s films with a racist blackface character, which gave me some reservations. Still, this is a solid contender as his funniest picture, and, more importantly, this is Buster as I love him the most. Keaton’s characters were always the most cerebral and lost, keen observers with no understanding. An inability to communicate one’s emotions drives the need to convert it into a physical experience; Keaton inevitably becomes the object that cannot be stopped. His full forced desperation and athleticism, he is a master of locomotion. Featuring the finalization of the chase gag, along with a generous serving of his brand of surreal.

City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin): Comedically and emotionally devastating.

Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch): Lubtisch’s portrayal of Continental aristocracy on the cusp. Containing love, melancholy, desire, rivalry, loyalty, betrayal, criminals, and thieves-- all saved by his grace alone, achieving a rare bliss of comedy and romance. Normally, I’d say that, in a temporal world, perfection exists only as a process, but then how would I explain this?

La grande illusion (1937, Jean Renoir): In the best of Renoir’s films, I find a type of harmony I find lacking in the rest of the world.

La règle du jeu (1939, Jean Renoir): In making this list, I never doubted either of these Renoir films having a place. Now, trying to write about my list, I find myself becoming frustrated at not finding the words to explain why I chose them. I’ve never been a great communicator, and I doubt that’s Renoir’s fault. I think it’s best for me to move on before I start misplacing my frustrations with my inability to write onto the film itself.

How Green Was My Valley? (1941, John Ford): Possibly the greatest movie ever made under Hollywood’s Studio System, and perhaps the closest we’ll ever get to seeing what Hedy Lamarr might have seen in John Loder. More than any other actor, Sara Allgood carries this film, in her role as the matriarch of the Morgan household. This is chock full of great character actors and moments as you’d expect from Ford. It’s the magic of childhood, the safety of the womb, the cyclical nature of a town where nothing ever seems to change, and the devastation of entropy. I lost track of how many times I cried.

To Be or Not to Be (1942, Ernst Lubitsch): This is my choice for a comedy from the 1940s, despite stiff competition from Hellzapoppin’, and the 11 movies Preston Sturges released over the decade. I had the privilege of seeing this at my local Cinemateque with an introduction by Kevin McDonald. I was late, and the audience had already begun to talk back. He rolled, and we were soon laughing before the “projectionist” could hit ‘play’ on the Blu-Ray. My friend came later. It was a packed house, so we weren’t able to sit together. I enjoyed hearing the variances in people’s response*, and the timing of their laughter. Trying to pinpoint my friend’s laughter from the crowd, I couldn’t help but hear our host’s generous laughter throughout the film. What a joy it was for all of us to experience this film together. I guess I haven’t had a chance to share those other movies the way that I was with this one. *A nice change of pace, as this usually makes me self-conscious

Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock): I find Hitchcock’s women’s pictures to be some of his richest texts. Besides which, any film asking me to sympathize with Theresa Wright already has a lot going for it. Alongside The Wrong Man as Hitchcock’s most tragic film.

Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean): My favourite romance, whatever that says about me. A passionate extramarital affair between Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), told in flashback. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this placed among noirs, but I think this could be an example of a women’s film noir. There’s a thick sense of transgression and fatalistic mise-en-scene, along with an inability to escape, which ends the film on an unconvincing return to safety. After the two lovers part for the final time, Johnson returns home. Her husband, Stanley Holloway, asks for nothing, and expresses gratitude for her return. However, for all of that loveliness, Johnson has learned that the world is far more fragile than she ever dreamt. The husband is portrayed as a bit childlike, and, coupled with the affably stiff upper-lipped nature of their marriage, Johnson is unable to confess what’s occurred, which only preserves her turmoil. Unable to consummate, sustain, or forsake her romance with Howard, she may find some refuge with her husband, but salvation eludes her.

Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur): RKO Pictures, film noir, Jacques Tourneur, and Robert Mitchum– These are a few of my favourite things. As a prude, I don’t care to admit that I love cigarette smoke in B&W pictures as much as I do, and it’s deployed here to its zenith, courtesy of Nicholas Musuraca’s cinematography. Daniel Mainwaring’s script, along with Tourneur and Mitchum, use underplay in order to create a heightened effect. Mitchum’s somnambulism grants his portrayal of Jeff Bailey an omniscient cool, which extends to his character’s bisexuality. There’s such delight in hearing Mitchum, one of the best voices in movies, deliver the film’s lyrical dialogue in his disaffected baritone.

The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang): Perhaps Lang’s most cynical film? The culmination of all his conspiracies. The law vs. criminals, no longer as separate from one another, but as sides of the same coin: the establishment. Sergeant Bannion (Glenn Ford) engages in total war against Lagana’s (Alexander Scourby) crime syndicate. Those caught in between end up as collateral damage, pawns in their game. Each dismantles the family unit, Lagana disposes of Bannion’s wife (Jocelyn Brando), and Bannion displaces his child, so that both sides can carry on unfettered. The happy ending finds Bannion happily back at work in the homicide department, where they’re informed of a grisly murder. Oh boy, here we go again! Gloria Grahame, a sister under the mink, reigns as my favourite actress in all of film noir.

The Sun Shines Bright (1953, John Ford): It’s not easy to film a miracle, a feat for which I’d pair this with Carl Th. Dreyer’s penultimate film, Ordet. Speaking of Dreyer, if you have 15 minutes to spare, here’s a great video of Jonathan Rosenbaum discussing this movie alongside Dreyer’s final film, Gertrud. The responsibilities and limitations of society. Communities are built through sacrifice, as we give of ourselves, which accounts for the film’s sometimes funereal tone. One’s resting spot as the place to make a stand, but what good is taking a stand if it doesn’t lead anywhere? Our redemption lies not in preserving ourselves, but in guiding the world to a place that no longer needs us. Thus, not a dying world to save, but an understanding that we must pass in order to bring about renewal. Funerals become parades, and parades become funerals, as we walk the strait and narrow path between tradition and progress. Don’t take a stand while the world marches on, but lead us into thy rest.

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953, Roy Rowland): This is a musical written and designed by Dr. Seuss, which is to say that I think you oughta see it. Still, it’s hard to justify why I chose this over The Band Wagon. I’d probably better enjoy watching The Band Wagon, which I’d wager is Hollywood’s greatest musical, but there’s something about The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T that gets under my skin. I saw it on television when I was very young. Old enough to remember seeing it, but too young to remember more than three details: twins joined at the beard, the nightmare-inducing elevator operator, and a large piano requiring an exponential amount of fingers. This forgotten foundation, along with its Seussian imagery, grants the film a dreamlike feeling. Just as every good boy deserves fudge, every Hans Conried deserves a role like the one he has here, playing the titular Dr. T.

The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton): A kid’s film featuring the personification of evil, not in Mitchum’s portrayal of the preacher Harry Powell, but in Evelyn Varden’s Icey Spoon. This movie is so full of indelible images that I sometimes forget LOVE/HATE tattooed on Powell’s knuckles. There’s a dreadful unease from the inability to fully save or preserve Ben & Pearl within a society whose systems turn on them so easily. Their safety is drawn and quartered at every turn, and so Ben & Pearl flee society, finding a guardian out yonder. Still, there’s a limitation to their newfound guardian’s protection. Their angel and their demon sing in harmony; evil becomes instructive to the children’s growth. It’s a hard world for little things, but there is hope. Mrs. Cooper (Lillian Gish) manages to find her redemption in protecting these children while she can. Perhaps we need them as much as they need us. This was Charles Laughton’s only film as a director, as well as the final of James Agee’s two films as a screenwriter. It isn’t right.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander Mackendrick): This is my favourite film noir, possibly the nastiest as well. Of course, I cackle throughout the entire picture. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis at their bests; the tension between a malevolent god and his jester/would-be pretender played as flirtation, conducting assassinations as though they were composing poetry. Shot on location in New York by James Wong Howe, giving us a view of Babel from the gutters up. Also, I’m just a big ol’ softy for Emile Meyer, who plays Lt. Kello.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957, Frank Tashlin): As I see it, this is the best sex comedy of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Tashlin previously worked at Termite Terrace, making Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and did a brief stop making Screen Gem cartoons over at Columbia in the middle. After having brought feature film techniques to his cartoons, he brought cartoon imagery into his live-action films. This is a vehicle for Jayne Mansfield, who may have been the most cartoonish of the era’s blonde bombshells, and so it is a happy marriage indeed.

Playtime (1967, Jacques Tati): This is cinema. Ah! Tati, Ah! Modernity

Out 1: noli me tangere (1971, Jacques Rivette & Suzanne Schiffman): Rivette’s movies feel alive in a way that I haven’t found anywhere else. The films I’ve seen are about conspiracy, games, and the development of theatre troupes: things that exist only in our minds, and are dependant on our cooperation with others. Things get so twisted that you wonder how they’ll ever untie it all, only for the shared illusions to be revealed as a complex series of false knots. I broke my rule with this film, in choosing a film that I’ve only seen once. I didn’t make the time to revisit this or Céline et Julie vont en bateau, my other favourite Rivette film, so I went with the larger labyrinth to lose myself in.

F for Fake (1973, Orson Welles): This is Orson Welles’s most playful film. I love Welles, the personality, almost as much as I love Welles, the director, so I chose a movie that features both.

Mikey and Nicky (1976, Elaine May): Perhaps the most tense and dark comedy I’ve ever seen. May reaches her highest levels of drama here, and does so without any cost to her usual standards for humour.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra): I wasn’t sure about including this, given that it’s not even my favourite James Stewart Christmas movie, but what can I do? It’s a Wonderful Life is an institution in my family, we’ve watched this every Christmas Eve since I was grade 6. There was a year or two in the early ‘10s where we might have missed it, but, otherwise, we’ve been devout. This is also one of four sources that laid the foundation for my love of movies, and, in particular, older movies. I hope to continue to watch this every year. It just wouldn’t be Christmas. Growing up, my brothers and I used to be allowed to open one gift the night of Christmas Eve, which evolved into my brothers and I exchanging our gifts for each other. The first year my brother’s and I exchanged gifts, we happened upon CBC playing It’s a Wonderful Life in a 3-hour timeslot. Filling in the gaps of my memory with ego, I’d say that I instigated our watching it. I was always the biggest sucker for holiday specials, as well as being the most drawn to B&W. It was an instant hit with all of us, and so two traditions were born that night. For those curious as to what year this took place, I gave my oldest brother a 3 Doors Down CD. My older brother got me the Beast Wars transmetal Terrosaur figure. And. It. Freakin’. Ruled. CBC continued to air It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve, and we continued to tune in. My brothers and I continued to exchange gifts on Christmas Eve for about another decade, but now my family has a better Christmas Eve tradition to pair with our holiday movie: Chinese food, and, less dogmatically, vegetable samosas. Leftovers become brunch. We’ve watched the movie, I think, twenty times now, which includes one viewing of the unfortunate colourized version, and once in theatres. It’s a great movie to come back to each year. There are lots of little moments, lines, and details to zero in on, and each year I get to internally test and brag to myself about naming and recognizing the various character actors and bit players that pop up. Still, I sometimes find myself resisting its charms. A couple of years ago, my view of Frank Capra changed. I no longer saw him as the director I had previously thought him to be*. I wondered whether this movie stood on its own merits, or if I was holding onto it for sentimental reasons. I have since settled on this film being a genuine classic. Another source of resistance is that I’ve never watched this on its own, there’s a lack of an individual foundation to my relationship with the film. I’m so accustomed to viewing films on my own, I think there’s a relief in a taking a private experience, and having it succeed in a public forum. The two support each other, which is part of why a couple of films ended up on this list. However, when it’s a film I’ve only seen in the company of others, I become suspicious of my experience. I believe in the power of cinema when it’s to my benefit, only to doubt it when I fear that it has the power betray me. I guess that I lack faith. *The director I once thought Frank Capra was, I now find Leo McCarey to be.

Doctor Who: The Lost in Time Collection (1963-69, various): This was a last minute decision that ended on a mistake. I ought to have chosen Daleks: The Early Years instead, which has the proper framing of a retrospective documentary. Daleks: The Early Years is a VHS release hosted by Peter Davison, featuring interviews with key people from ‘60s Dalek stories, cannibalizing clips from Dalekmania (another documentary on Daleks in the ‘60s), and orphan episodes and snippets from otherwise lost ‘60s Dalek serials. It’s also one of the VHS tapes that I grew up with, and my introduction to the fact that, at the time, over 100 episodes of ‘60s Doctor Who were missing and presumed lost. This was my introduction to the concept of lost media. Since then, a further 12 episodes have been found, and the number of missing episodes has dropped to 97. Instead, I chose The Lost in Time Collection, which is a 3-disc collection of orphan episodes and surviving clips from otherwise missing ‘60s serials, not actually a feature in itself. It’s a really nice sampling of the Doctor Who’s best era, and the episodes and clips are sometimes more interesting without the rest of their serial for context. While I didn’t get this collection until I was an adult, I had managed to see most or all of its contents growing up, mostly on various VHS compilations, as well as some clips online. As the deadline for submissions approached, I chose the one I enjoy more, rather than the one that first changed me. I suspect that Doctor Who was the first work of science-fiction that I got into, as it predates me in our household. My brothers and my getting into Transformers predates my memory, but it does not predate my being around. Doctor Who also served as my first exposure to B&W viewing. I was really into science-fiction growing up, and the genre was really my first interest in older films. The interest didn’t really bridge its way from my youth into my present. Heck, I wasn’t even particularly a movie person until into my twenties. In early adulthood, after fading for a bit, my fondness for science-fiction was more directed towards video games and books. So while it didn’t lead into my love of film and B&W, it laid a lot of the groundwork for what I’d eventually come to love. My oldest brother remembers staying up late with our parents to watch Doctor Who, and my older brother has memories of trying to stay up with them, but it was no longer airing on any of the stations we had by the time I was kicking. Loved, but unseen, it developed a sort of mythic reputation in my young mind. Over the years, we managed to see a bunch of serials on VHS through our local library system, and we eventually got 5 VHS releases of our own before the decade ended. We got a book, The Doctor Who Yearbook, which had listings and synopsises of every serial ever made. The classic Doctor Who series lasted 26 seasons, consisting of 153 serials, and just shy of 700 episodes. No matter how many episodes of Doctor Who I managed to see when I was growing up, it was only ever the tip of the iceberg. My younger self liked daydreaming about all of the adventures, planets, aliens, robots, and monsters, but that would begin to dissipate with age. While I loved Star Wars for the many of the same reasons as I did Doctor Who, the advent of more Star Wars wasn’t all that fulfilling, with Episode I: Racer for the N64 PC as a noted exception. More than the fact that I was caught up in the cultural backlash against George Lucas, the lack of a well defined characters and society in the original trilogy was a virtue. The toys and books really capitalized on this. I was the kid that wanted to know every weirdo and background character’s life story. I was such a mark. The more movies they made that added to the lore, the smaller their galaxy seemed to be, in opposition to an expanded universe. Each piece promising to add to the larger picture only seemed to reveal a smaller whole. More movies telling the same stories with different versions of the same characters. A galaxy that once seemed so vast now revealed to be comprised of maybe two dozen people, many of which are related or connected to each other in some tired and unnecessary way. Eventually, I got really into Jonathan Rosenbaum, and began to project my ego all over his preferences, to which Star Wars became a victim. I gave up on the series after sitting through a showing of Episode VII. Fires subside, and, these days, I’m mostly indifferent towards the series. Undergraduates can be a bit much, y’know? While the new Doctor Who series also fell out of favour with me, it was easier for me to divorce it from the original series. Having seen the series only in disparate pieces, rather than a linear narrative may have helped. I have no illusions that the original series is anything more than a silly kid’s show that mostly takes place in corridors, which is a fine thing to be. It’s enough to be a delight. The deceit of nostalgia is that I can return to these works I once loved with the same feelings and wonder that I had as a child. While I remain fond of Doctor Who, the whole of a serial is often less than the sum of its parts. After all, being a serial, half of the adventure is meant to take place in your head during the week between episodes. It’s the opposite of binge-watch material. It’s hard to commit to working your way through such a bulky series at a deliberately slow pace. Besides, even spacing the episodes out some, it’s still not going to capture my mind the way it would when I was a child. The virtue of the Lost in Time Collection is that you’re never seeing a serial as a whole, only as individual pieces. The collection consists of 18 complete episodes from 12 serials, with clips and bits from an additional 10 serials. Only one serial has more than two episodes featured, The Daleks’ Master Plan, a 12-part epic, which has its 3 known surviving episodes on the set. Freed from the responsibilities of being part of a larger story, you get to enjoy the pleasures of each episode as its own entity. Charm exists outside of context, and what may have been stretched and strained over half a dozen episodes can easily be sustained in the single episode or two that remains. A piece of Starburst may not keep its flavour any longer than a piece of Hubba Bubba, but at least it has the decency not to overstay its welcome. The less that remains of a serial, the more interesting it becomes. For some serials, the only surviving clips are the scenes that were cut by censors, and so you’re only seeing the juiciest bits. Protected by obscurity, just as recording in B&W protected this era of the series against its lack of budget, the childlike sense of wonder remains. Any missing serial could have been great. We lack evidence to prove otherwise. What little remains from these serials is enough to imagine what may have been, and it’s easy to give the benefit of the doubt to an old friend. No longer just a science-fiction adventure, the series has grown into a larger and more engaging adventure in film & television preservation. Thanks to its cultural status and following, questions as to how these stories were lost, why years of episodes were junked, how they were returned, in which disparate places were episodes found, who has been hunting for them, what were their methods, to what lengths did they go, what places remain to be searched, what remains to be found, what’s trapped in the hands of private collectors, and what has been lost forever have all been thoroughly explored, though some answers continue to elude us. For those interested, Youtuber Josh Snares has an extensive series of videos that breaks down many of these questions as best as one can with what’s publicly known, and, despite being on yotube, I don’t think he’s annoying. Doctor Who best represents my film lover’s sense of discovery, combining the joys of hearing about a film that piques my interest, trying to track a film down, discovering or rediscovering a new favourite, learning about film history, and the efforts of film preservation. Hearing about films I’d like to see can be nearly as rewarding as actually watching the films themselves. The more that I see, the more there is that I’d like to see. The harder something is to find, the more interesting it can become. Film is a physical object, so there is a battle against time for us to discover, recover, restore, and preserve works before they’re lost to time. The good news is that many efforts are being undertaken, both by professionals and by amateurs. The advent of crowdfunding has really helped to create more opportunities for completing these endeavours. Following an Indiegogo campaign, Netflix stepped in and completed Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind. Many of Marion Davies’s silent films have been restored in recent years. Thanks to the efforts of Ben Model and his team, I will soon have the pleasure of seeing eight Edward Everett Horton shorts that haven’t been in circulation since the silent era. Steve Stanchfield (Thunderbean), Jerry Beck (Cartoon Research), Tommy Stathes (Cartoons On Film), and their cohorts are doing God’s work in finding and restoring old cartoons, and giving them an audience once more. I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to be so out of touch.

The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley): The Muppets’ movies were a staple of our household growing up, and this ranks alongside The Great Muppet Caper as the best of them. This movie has a very self-aware humour to it, exemplified by the introduction. The camera wanders through a studio backlot, following a car carrying Statler & Waldorf, who provide us with the first dialogue of the film, announcing their intent to heckle the film. Inside, the Muppets are waiting for a private screening of The Muppet Movie to begin. It’s a disaster. A monster tears out one of the seats, the visibly deranged Crazy Harry blows up another, people are dancing in the aisles, and chickens are flying about. Objects being thrown include, but are not limited to, popcorn, Lew Zealand’s boomerang fish, and paper airplanes. A full-sized Muppet looms in the background, a giant colourful bird with enormous unblinking eyes, leaning a bit from side to side. An acknowledgement that somebody has let the animals in charge of the zoo. Still, a coziness remains amidst all of the chaos. Kermit attempts to introduce the movie to his peers, the lights go down, and he takes his seat. The movie opens in the heavens, where the credits and a rainbow appear. It clears onto a long, long shot of a swamp, slowly zooming in to reveal a frog on a log, playing a banjo, singing Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher’s The Rainbow Connection. We’re taken away. One of the most vital aspects of the Muppets is that they exist in our world, something that gets lost in their 90’s trend of literary adaptations. An entire world of Muppets isn’t much of a utopian vision, but the idea that these animals, monsters, and whatevers belong in society alongside ‘real’ people is. This trend was part of a larger regression throughout the years with the Muppets. What began as a self-aware humour turned into a self-depreciating humour, and, eventually, a self-loathing humour. The Muppets used to take on the world, but, in later years, they seemed unable to dream of anything more than getting back together once more, so that they could reaffirm their lack of success. Bring them back to life so they can take one more dying breath. This Muppet movie is filled with celebrity cameos, in part a tribute to their variety show, as well as to the vaudevillian origins of most of their shtick. Here, the cameos serve the Muppets. Later, the Muppets would take a backseat, and become vehicles for others, not even allowed to star in their own movies. I wish they were given better opportunities to shine. As good as this film is, I have to admit that this film’s treatment of Miss Piggy is embarrassingly sexist. While they don’t look like Presbyterians to me, at their best, I think the Muppets have almost as much hope to offer as any religion.

Transformers: The Movie (1986, Nelson Shin): Watching this movie gives me the feeling I always hope that I’ll feel whenever I’ve bought concert tickets. I don’t watch this so much as I sing along to it. I even knew Vince DiCola’s score down to a ‘T’. With all due respect to Storefront Hitchcock, this is my personal Stop Making Sense.

Air Alert V. 4 (late 2000’s, TMT Sports): First, and most importantly, I do not recommend Air Alert nor any other paid for vertical jump program. I cannot stress that enough. They’re not designed by people who really know what they’re doing, the marketing is predatory, they’re unjustly hard on your joints, and they’re methods are not in conjunction with their promises of wild vertical gains. While I hope to stop finding that people have also done Air Alert, I immediately feel a strong kinship with those I learn have also been misled. Air Alert is a 15-week vertical jump program that makes the dubious promises of adding 8-14 inches to yer vertical leap to everyone, regardless of their current physical condition. It promises to add explosiveness to yer hops, but its means are an exponentially increasing amount of jump exercise repetitions. This is to say that, in practice, Air Alert actually builds jumping endurance, which teaches yer muscles to conserve energy, rather than to expend it in an explosive manner. Like all jump programs, it also fails to address that much of your jumping’s height comes from a combination of your core and upper body strength, as well as technique. The version I got also came with an advertised-as-new Air Alert Advanced, a further 6 weeks of yet more intensive exercise routine to add another 3-6 inches to yer leap. I did the 15 weeks of Air Alert, and, like everybody else I’ve known, I got 2-3 inches added to my vertical. After the recovery week suggested following completion of the program, I tried dunking at the church. You had better believe that I told my dad to bring his digital camera, ’cause this was gonna be a big deal. Being able to dunk was surely going to usher in a whole new era in my life. Now, I had been wrong about these sorts of things before. I had become skinny, I got a couple of nice shirts, I listened to what I though was the right unpopular music, and I had stolen some jokes, but my life largely remained the same. It seemed as though my life couldn’t be redeemed by vanity and trivialities, J still wasn’t dating me, but this would be so much more. This was dunking. This was going to be different. We went to the church, and I had the same problems as before. I could get high enough, but I couldn’t throw down. The further you extend a limb from your core, the less strength it has at its disposal. I had little upper-body strength to begin with, and, fully extended, my hand is pretty far from my body. I’d always lose the ball on the way up, or lose height putting more of my strength onto the ball. Legs can only take you so far. At my best, I’ve brought the ball to the rim, lost it, and, thanks to momentum, had the ball go off of the backboard and in. A lay-up isn’t a dunk. My knees have been crunchy ever since. After a further month of letting my joints recover, I tried my hand at Air Alert Advanced. After the first week, which consisted of 3 days of 2000 individual jumps, some of my friends reunited to play soccer at our old high school. I was proud to see that the goals we had rescued were still on the field. However, I found that my joints were so worn down that I could only run at a steady pace in a straight line. Turning, accelerating, and decelerating were all, sadly, out of the picture. I decided not to continue onto the subsequent weeks. I was still a fatuous pauper, single, and working at a shoe store while friends had gone on to do other things, so what did I manage to accomplish? Well, for starters, I gained some athletic ability for the first time in my life, which was neat. I gained a lot of leg strength, endurance, and quickness, as well as the previously mentioned 2-3 inches to my vert, all of which I treasured. Despite being the skinniest guy on the court, my legs were strong enough to anchor me in the key, and contend with guys up to double my weight. I went from being a guy who showed up to Dunkball, to becoming a guy that people wanted on their team. While others got tired throughout the night, slowly losing their vertical, I managed to jump just as frequently and just as high in my last game of the night as I could during my first. As both the tallest and the lankiest guy at Dunkball, my height advantage now increased in the air. I’d let people box me out, only to jump and reach over them. I felt so free. I was, and remain, Dunkball’s most improved player. Of course, it helps to have the advantage of having started out lower than everybody else. Once, somebody brought a friend who was taller than me. It was awful. As for dunking? Well, I could dunk small balls at the church, if I could close my hand on them. I managed to dunk a flat soccer ball on an outdoor net at a school yard once, but I never verified its height. I could dunk at the Academy chapel with the rim fully raised, though that rim sags in the front, so I’m guessing that rim was about 9’10”. Still, that won me a game of H-O-R-S-E or two. Sometimes, when warming up for Dunkball, someone would instigate a dunk competition, and I managed to develop a trademark dunk which nobody could replicate or stomach: the underhanded dunk. Norm was the only person not to loathe it, bless his heart. While I never managed to dunk on a proper 10’ net, I was able to goaltend, which has no use outside of being a dick to a friend. I was smarmy enough to do it once. Even at Dunkball, I never became much of a dunker, except on turnovers or tip-ins, or unless I had a guard who could do the work of setting me up. I’m more opportunistic than aggressive, besides, who am I going to beat off of the dribble? On my worst nights, I was still a tall guy who could jump, so I always drew the interest of a defender. I’ve always preferred defence to offence, and my favourite offensive play is to box out their post-player, either to be in a better position to rebound, or in order to prevent them from goaltending. Defence is where Air Alert made the most difference for me. They either had to box me out in order to stop me from goaltending, or try banking it in. I could sit low enough to the ground to defend outside players without losing speed. With a lower net, some players didn’t arc their shots as much, allowing me to swat them away with ease. There was nothing better than blocking a dunk. Some people took it personally, and would try coming at you on the next play; we all loved blocking Joseph. Still, the best was blocking Norm’s dunks, even if it meant landing on my back. It was summertime, the final game of the night, with uneven teams and lopsided match-ups, but, somehow, it’s neck and neck. Not only are we still in it, we’ve had the lead. Will is shooting, Nathan is hustling, and I’m blocking everything. My greatest defensive game ends prematurely after I block one of Norm’s dunks, landing horizontally, with all of my weight squarely on my tailbone and elbows. I call it a night, and, in the morning, learned that we had lost immediately after I left. At this point, I had memorized Air Alert’s number of sets and routines, and so I lent the DVD to Graham. He promised to return it soon. This was in 2010. I learned how to juggle that August, but that didn’t save me either. I kept up my jumping exercises, doing week 4 as maintenance, losing consistency once I started university that fall. Dunkball slowly lost consistency, too, and so I eventually took up the reigns of organizing it. People changed wards, got married, moved, and started families. It was hard to motivate people to come out without a guarantee. At some point, I became one of the veterans. As Dunkball continued to lose consistency, and as I went through occasional bouts of burn-out withorganizing things, Dunkball changed from being year-round into seasons, and, later, patches, of activity. The benefit of being the one to organize Dunkball is that it allowed me to filter out the jerks between patches of activity. There aren’t a ton of rules, you can make a pass off the wall, you can charge, you can play it in the hall, and goaltending is a way of life, but life is too long to spend it with people who can’t play sports without yelling. We weren’t as athletic as we once were, but the new players were generally pretty skinny, so we were still able to push them around. I stopped buying bus passes after my first year of university, which helped me to maintain most of my leg strength. While I was in university, I managed to keep most of my vertical, but my confidence became precarious, which affected my intensity. I wasn’t soaking through my shirts anymore, I started to let people push me around. After I dropped out of university, I grew into a much more sedentary lifestyle. The leg strength I had used to define myself diminished. I’ve had a really hard coping with that. At times, the prospect of playing Dunkball felt more embarrassing than motivating. I felt lost out on the court. I didn’t feel strong enough to bump around in the key, and I felt sluggish trying to play on the outside. Still, I had now been around long enough that I was able to lead a team, if necessary. I’d hide from my refuge until I felt strong enough to return. Volunteering and winter each got me walking again. Collin organized a soccer team the summer before the pandemic, which got me running and jumping again. I felt more determined, and began to feel better. No longer trapped by where I was, or where I felt I should have been, I was content with making progress. I think that I handled the early months of the pandemic better than most people. With our usual routines in disarray, I stumbled out of the feedback loop I was caught in. Finding some self-compassion and focus, I created structure to my quarantine in order to work on some goals. I was going to come out of the quarantine dunking. I was joking this time, but I need to dream about something while exercising. Otherwise, I’m just jumping in place, staring at the door. I went through weeks 1-7 of Air Alert, ending with the rest week that marks the halfway point. After which, I returned to doing week 4 to maintain strength. With churches closed, activities cancelled, and others on lockdown, I started secretly meeting Nik on Saturdays to shoot the ball around. This was back when we were allowed to keep small circles of contacts. The benefit of having keys. The only downside was that the building didn’t have any air circulation outside of facilities management’s offices. Regarding the pandemic, our city still didn’t have any cases of community transmission. Two of us shooting the ball around became three, and soon we were playing 2-on-2. Dunkball was back, baby! Sans the titular Dunkball, which had gone missing, stolen by missionaries. I knew that it was only a matter of time before they got rid of the Academy chapel, so I was really motivated to play as much as we could while it was still safe. It took us a little bit before we managed to get six players out on the same day, and we still ended up playing 2’s some nights. We weren’t getting many guys out, but we always had good games. Everyone who came out hustled and was a solid atmosphere guy. We’d mostly play best-of-5 or 7 game series, maybe switching teams up for a final game or two. The series managed to stay pretty tight, with nobody ever reaching a dynasty. Facilities management leaves the building at 5:30, and, with nobody else around, our secret combination was free to schedule Dunkball whenever we pleased. We were playing twice some weeks. We were able to accommodate people’s schedule. Marvin, my favourite teammate, was able to come out. I hadn’t been able to play with him in years. A high percentage of our small group of players were relatively new to the game. It was really exciting to see them develop, even if Jason blocked me that one time. I had found my place again, having regained some of my leg strength and quickness. My core and upper-body strength, elusive at the best of times, had become memories, but I worked around that. My game is mostly designed with those absences in mind anyways. Consequently, my play became much more lateral, rather than vertical, after the 4th and, later, 5th game, as Collin noted. I also managed a new trick or two, like learning to bait people into banking their shot, and then blocking it off of the backboard for a quick turnover. My intensity was up, or at least the A/C was down. I was soaking through my shirts again, and I was happy. It was a hot and humid summer. I missed Jason’s birthday, so I brought some blackout chocolate banana bread to celebrate. As it turns out, a thick moist cake is not refreshing when you’re exhausted and sitting around in a hot and stuffy room you’ve spent the past 2-3 hours further heating up with yer friends. Collin became the MVP the following week when he brought a box of freezies with him. All my life, I had never seen their true worth or potential. I took them for granted in my youth, and turned my nose up at them as I grew older. Now I understood. I had Dunkball, I had friendly players who responded when I tried organizing things, we had freezies, and, as the Ward Clerk, I had convinced my Bishop that we should buy a new ball (despite the fact that playing at the Church was still verboten.) I was grateful, but I still longed for a day where we had more than 4-6 players, so that we could have subs between games. It’s nice to be able to switch up teams between games, rather than trying to push Arles all night. It’s even nicer to sit down every once in a while, especially after failing to push Arles around. Our province was still fairly safe, but that was beginning to change. Two regulars had at risk family members, and we began seeing community transmission. I planned to end what was to be the penultimate season of Dunkball after Labour Day. I was concerned what would happen once the school year started. Before then, we had eight* people come out to Dunkball one morning. Four pairs of family members, in fact. This gave us rotations between games, and a variety of playing styles, leading to more interesting match-ups and dynamics. Whoever loses would get to take a break; excitement was in the air! I questioned Collin’s choice of shoes. He reminded me that I’m solely responsible for their condition. I lend Collin my shoes. He likes the shoes, and I like his freezies. *the ideal amount is 8-9 people Shoot for teams: Graham, Collin, and I hit our shots. Collin has speed, Graham has range and strength, I have the height, and we all rebound. We win the first game easily, manage to survive the second, and win our third. Dynasty! Shoot for teams again, and I’m back on the floor with David and Marvin. David anchors the key, allowing me to cheat on defence, while Marvin generates offence and creates mismatches. We all defend. Three more wins, and it’s another dynasty! Marvin and I sit this time, and watch as Jacob (handles), Graham, and Jason (positioning) steal the game. Marvin and I go back on with Limhi, a guard heavy team playing an post-player’s game. They shoot and pass, drawing out the defence, while I set picks, prevent goaltending, and try to clean up on the boards. They cover the outside, while I guard the inside. When the other team goes to the inside, I make their post-player turn away from the net, where either Marvin or Limhi, cheating off of their man, are waiting to strip them of the ball. We win the first game, taking back the floor. They carry me through the second. Last game of the day, and the other team starts to fall apart. As per tradition, we extend the game, but only to to 15, because only Graham and I want to play to 21. We stumble as they regroup, but Jacob gets frustrated, and their chemistry falters. I assume that I’m to blame, become self-conscious, and begin calling fouls on myself whenever I make any contact with the other team. Of course, this happens on every play, because I’m trying to box out my brother. I get some weird looks as David sighs, he just wants it to be over. I get a clean stop, Limhi scores, and the day ends on a third dynasty. I remain undefeated. Freezies for everyone! That was the third to last time we played Dunkball. We had another night with six players, and ended the season with a morning of playing 2-on-2, after which we ran out of freezies. I was optimistic that we’d be back playing sometime in the New Year. We barely registered a first wave of the pandemic, but restrictions ended prematurely, and school started back up. Cases kept climbing. I was scared in October, but that was only the beginning. When we first started playing Dunkball that summer, our province was first in the country. By Christmas, we had become the worst. We began to curb the number of new cases, but restrictions were eased before hospitals finished dealing with the second wave. In May, we began transferring patients to other provinces. For some reason, the plan is to reopen in July. For some reason, a duo tried organizing ball in March. I declined. Our congregation was changing buildings, so Nik and I went over to grab some stuff. I found that our Dunkball had gone missing again, but I found the original Dunkball, which hasn’t held air since 2015, and brought it home. In April, facilities management began clearing out the Academy chapel, in anticipation of listing the building for sale. They didn’t inform our Bishop until later that week. He went over to pack anything worth keeping, only to have found that they had already junked everything belonging to our congregation, as well everything belonging to the Yazidi community group that had been meeting there prior to the pandemic. I don’t know the building’s current status. Nik and I kept our keys in the hopes of playing again, but it’s unlikely that things will be safe to go back to normal in time. Dunkball exists as a time and a place: Thursday nights after Institute class at Academy. Last fall, they moved institute classes over to the stake centre. The Academy building is being sold now, and Dunkball is over as we know it. As I previously mentioned, I lent Graham, the Gordie Howe of Dunkball, my Air Alert DVD and booklet back in 2010. For the past ten years now, he has meant to return it, only for it to slip his mind. I usually forget about it, myself, only for him to remind me when he apologizes. In the moment, I sorta feel guilty that he worries about it. I mean, it’s fine, I don’t need it. He’s put it on his desk, he’s placed it by the door, and though he’s either seen me or a member of my family at least once a week for the past decade, my copy of Air Alert still hasn’t made its way back to me. I’m not even sure that I want it back, but I appreciate his sincerity. It’s become tradition for him to maintain this false tension between us. At this point, I’d hate to see it go. What if this tension is what’s sustained our friendship throughout all these years? What if Graham’s only been coming out to Dunkball because he feels guilty? I won’t see him at Dunkball anymore, and, as of this week, he won’t be seeing me at church anymore. It’s things like this that keep us alive. I hope that Graham never returns my copy of Air Alert, but I hope that he always tries. ”There is no end to matter, There is no end to space, There is no end to Dunkball, There is no end to race.” - If You Could Hie to Kolob Dunkball, by W.W. Phelps.

I could have gone on about my legs, honestly. Now, I only included those formative texts that I’m willing to admit are still a part of me. I did not include those works whose influences I feel that I have repented of, which is why the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage of Bigfoot from Bluff Creek, California, The Weezer Video Capture Device, Newsies, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, nor anything related to Dorm Life or MST3K are not included on my ballot. In any case, I’m sorry not to have found room for Johnny Guitar.

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phukao · 4 years ago

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roasting my faves part one: my gear and your gown

I’ve been contemplating doing something like this for a while but considering I have a lot of Thoughts™ after the recent eps of my two favorite currently airing series (Oxygen and MGYG), I’m going to make two posts roasting them.

All thoughts are under a cut because these are negative thoughts and not everyone wants to see negativity on their feed/in the tags even if it is only joking/out of fondness. Also, please remember I love these shows a lot. That does not put them above criticism.

SO LET’S START WITH MY GEAR AND YOUR GOWN.

Please feel free to hit up my Ask/reply to this with your thoughts, including if you disagree!

The pacing is a MESS. There is not enough time for them to do anything properly during the university part of the story because they’re only going to get to it in episode eight. GET READY FOR A RIDE.

If they wanted to add so much to the high school flashback, they should have made longer episodes. Seriously, why are they so damn short? Six minutes are taken up by the intro/outro alone so we only get 32 minutes an episode of content. AND ALL OF THE SCENES ARE SO FUCKING DRAWN OUT AND UNNECESSARILY LONG? What is this editing? If they are going for a ~vibe~ they’ve missed in in episodes five, six and seven. If the episodes were as long as any other series and properly edited, the events of the past THREE DAMN EPISODES could have been done in ONE, and then we’d be in uni in episode six and the pacing would make sense.

Itt and Pai/Bai are not it. Marc and Win actually have good chemistry, but their characters are infuriating. This is true in the novel as well, but as mentioned above, everything is being drawn out so damn much that it’s accidentally emphasizing how weak the main pairing are. The intent seems to be to get the audience more invested in them before uni/explain their motivations in uni, but it’s not being done well. Pai is robotic and Itt is irrational/inconsistent. I also hate to say it but Win and Marc are the weaker of the actors (even Un does a better job in the few minutes we see him in episode seven). If they were going to rewrite the original story this much, I wish they had given better insight to them. There have been some really great moments, but I do not feel personally that by the end of episode seven we are set up for seeing them get together later.

The side, or rather non main pairing, characters steal the show. This is not really a problem, but I don’t think any series actually wants this to happen. There’s a clip of the first photoshoot the actors did for this series where Fiat jokingly says, “This is my show,” and I mean... he’s not wrong. The fans I see posting the most are more invested in Pure and Waan than they are in Itt and Pai. This, again, is due to the rewriting and not necessarily bad. In the novel Waan and Pure are flat and honestly not likable characters. All Waan talks about is girls/sex and he actually makes a really bad AIDS joke that likely resulted in Pure’s little side story. Pure is a fuckboy to the end. Developing them more in the flashback was a great idea, but the new material completely overshadows the original story. Also, because they added so much but couldn’t affect the main story, anything they added for Pure and Waan had to involve only them, hence WaanPure being everyone’s main ship even though it’s not going to happen. There’s a whole separate conversation to have there about how friendships are portrayed in BL and what good, supportive friends actually should be, but that’s not this particular’s show fault so I’ll leave it for now.

Hello, welcome to my essay? I don’t know, I adore this show and think the creators put real love and effort into it, but their priorities at this point feel off and unbalanced. I am still very, very excited for episodes 9-12 (PUREFOLK IS COMING, Y’ALL 💘) but I wanted to try and articulate my thoughts now that we are more than halfway through.

#my gear and your gown #my nonsense

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ichika27 · 4 years ago

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Thoughts about Yashahime pt2

Because I have more stuff in my mind and I have to ramble or else I’ll lose it. This is supposed to be a part of the overall post I did after watching season 1 but it was longer than expected so I made a second post. I wanted to post my thoughts on sessrin but that would make this more unbearably longer than it already is jfc.

This is my “additional thoughts on season 1 stuff and what I wish to see in season 2″ filled with spoilers and actually have more screenshots.

Thoughts on Moroha:

I know you’ve probably heard of it from everyone else but I’ll say my piece, too: they wasted Moroha’s character. I know the main protag is Towa and Setsuna (as seen by the summary) but it’s not an excuse to just... not give Moroha anything. Inuyasha’s main characters are Kagome and Inuyasha but they also gave their companions (Sango, Miroku, and Shippo) the spotlight with episodes dedicated to them and their issues and in battle, they do get to shine. Moroha keeps getting thrown off, injured, or passed out and the twins (esp. Towa) gets to finish off the bad guys (sometimes the buildup to it is too much but how she beat up the bad guy is anti-climatic). It’s a waste cause she’s a bounty hunter who is not only trained but also has a lot more experience than Towa does. She doesn’t even have to land the finishing blow but at least don’t make her lame.

I do understand why the battle in both Inuyasha and Yashahime is different though. The Shikon Jewel is powerful even when it’s in pieces. Even a shard could give an advantage to anyone who has it and so many demons are drawn to it and to the person who has it. The more Kagome and the gang get, the more enemies they would attract especially Naraku and his minions whose goal is similar to the protagonists that they also want the entire jewel. As such, there are many enemies to fight with and so even if Inuyasha and Kagome are fighting the boss, there are other enemies for their companions to fight with showing us what they’re capable of.

Yashahime has the seven rainbow pearls which not everyone knows about and while powerful, it’s not as great as the Shikon Jewel that helped create it. There’s also just one main bad guy group - Kirinmaru, his sister Zero, and the four perils (one of them is dead before the story starts, too so 3 perils). Not all of them have minions or bring a horde of demons in battle so in a fight with the trio, there’s a lack of enemy. Some episodes at least have 2-3 or so but the later boss fights are like, 1 or 2... and Moroha gets thrown off and the twins get the spotlight and there’s no other enemy they can give Moroha who ends up being used as comic relief.

I hope this changes in the second season at least. Let Moroha show off more of her badass abilities. Even if she's a quarter-demon, she is also the daughter of Kagome and have sacred abilities which can actually fight off demons and make her immune to some debilitating stuff for demons like her as shown in one of the episodes. There's so much potential there!

Also, I wish they let Hisui be a part of the team. Like, he’s Miroku and Sango’s kid. Can’t he be a part of the main cast, too? It’s a waste cause he is close with Setsuna having worked with her as a Demon Slayer. He could be incorporated in the story and could even give us insights as to what's happened with his family in the time when Inuyasha and Kagome disappeared and all that and even give a reason to have Miroku and Sango appearances from time to time.

Thoughts on Yawaragi and the wolves:

Another thing wasted. She helped raise Moroha who is a main character so she should've gotten a bit more screentime rather than everything about her shoved in one episode and is barely talked about after. If they just didn't do the whole mystery thing with Moroha's backstory they could've put more flashbacks with her time with Moroha earlier in the show. You can't tell me they weren't trying to make Moroha's past mysterious when she barely talked about her Master or her childhood with not even a single second of flashback showing up before the episode with Yawaragi. There's also that time when Towa asked why Moroha is trying so hard to get money from bounty hunting and then Moroha dodged answering. So many theories came out of that interaction! People thought her bounty hunting and debt is connected to her real parents even.

If they didn't go with this route we could've gotten attached to the idea that even if Moroha didn't have her real parents around, she's got someone else that care about her and their reunion and battle against each other would've felt more dramatic. I personally would've felt "No! She could've been here longer to see Moroha grow as a fighter and even talk to her parents once they're back!" but due to how it was done, I couldn't feel that. Moroha is already independent when she's introduced and again, we barely hear anything about Yawaragi. It would've also helped develop Moroha as a character cause we'd know more about her and how she became who she is now.

Also, Moroha is given to the wolf tribe led by Koga. Imagine if they showed that in flashbacks and expanded on it! Koga's a supporting character in Inuyasha and was even in a love triangle with him wanting to get Kagome. It would've been interesting to see the characters we knew from back then while also showing us Moroha's childhood.

Like, one of the things I mentioned that I wanted to see when I found out the sequel is about the next gen kids is seeing how the now grown up cast of Inuyasha interact with the kids and how they are as parents. With the kids' actual parents not around for reasons (depriving us of seeing how they'd handle being first time parents which is a shame), the kids' interaction with their foster family is the next best thing. They gave us a couple of episodes about Towa and her life with the Higurashi's (specifically, Kagome's now adult younger brother Souta and his family) and later Setsuna living in the hanyou village under Shiori - also a supporting character like Koga but appears only for a few episodes. Again, something for the twins but not much for Moroha. It could've been something!

Thoughts on Takechiyo:

He's kind of like the Shippo of the show but isn't treated like he is. I like it actually cause seeing the promotional materials made me think he'd be Shippo 2.0 but just like the other characters, he didn't become an actual copy-paste.

Takechiyo works for Jyubei just like Moroha does but he's more of Moroha's supervisor (could order her around and would send Jyubei reports of what Moroha is doing on the job) while also acting as transportation for Moroha (or Towa if bribed) towards where the demon they need to fight are. He's not a part of the main cast but shows up a lot due to the transportation thing.

He does seem to have a deeper backstory but it is barely touched upon at all. I do hope they do something about it in s2.

Thoughts on Riku x Towa:

From the episode where Riku is first introduced, many fans already wanted to ship Riku with Towa. They do have that feel to it with their interaction at the beginning - it's cute! It does get the spotlight and the fans do get an episode which is really shippy but as I pointed out in the main Yashahime post, it felt rushed.

The first time Riku appeared, they had a bit of moment and then Riku has Towa framed up for stealing a sword he probably took himself for entertainment, probably as there seem to have not been any important reason for this. It gets settled as we saw from episode 1 but it's never brought up again. When he shows up in front of the trio later on, he gets greeted like the issue never happened.

Anyways, Riku does get scenes for himself but it's either him being mysterious or interacting with the enemies (which made it hard for fans to pinpoint exactly where his loyalties lie and it was hard to know how exactly to feel about him). He doesn't have much interaction with the trio either only showing up from time to time and there didn't seem to be any personal talks either.. you know, bonding moment that isn't just going into battle?

I'm bringing all of this up because the shippy episode is, as I said, felt rushed. Riku suddenly feels something for Towa but it felt like it came out of nowhere due to the lack of meaningful scenes together. He's not human nor a normal being (he's a doll, apparently?) and don't understand emotions that well and the buildup to him suddenly having feelings for Towa felt unrealistic. Emotionless or stoic characters gaining an understanding of feelings, especially their own, is a big deal. Sesshoumaru himself, Towa's father, went through this and his character development from always annoyed and angry villain to actually-starting-to-care anti-hero is really fun to watch and it was something I looked forward to seeing in the original series. Riku's development didn't really have give the same satisfying feeling due to how it was handled. There was a lack of gradual buildup.

Upon revisiting past episodes and remembering that he doesn't think very well of half-demons and humans (probably cause of what happened to his mistress, Zero with the whole heartbreak thing) it makes the thing even weirder. I could maybe think that he might be lying to Towa but a couple of his actions later on like lying to Zero about Towa, it seems he does honestly care about her.

There's still a chance in s2 though since the two didn't really get together and were more "I don't get it but maybe I do feel something." in that episode. It's not fully romantic yet but could actually get there. With Riku being connected to Kirinmaru and Zero though, I'm kind of scared for how his character would develop outside of ships (like he could end up becoming a bad guy firmly on Zero's side with no hesitation anymore to uh... I do hope they don't kill him in the end).

His role of being in the enemy side but slowly cares for the heroes have so much potential for a fun story development!

Finally, thoughts on Kirinmaru:

He’s been kinda weird from the start. He could’ve killed the girls himself when he found out about them but he didn’t even though there’s this prophecy thing which is strange. I mean it was talked about like it was urgent but then again, most of it seem to be fueled by Zero and her personal issues at being heartbroken lol.

Kirinmaru is as confusing as Riku when it comes to understanding what he’s on about and where his character is gonna go. A bad guy who doesn’t really act like it and have mysterious plans. I guess this’ll be focused on in season 2. Hopefully. Please don’t drag this out longer than it should be.

On the other hand, a minor thing: final battle between the girls and Kirinmaru at the first season’s climax: Setsuna is probably dead and her sister and cousin are enraged. Moroha goes Beniyasha-mode and Towa finally goes demon-mode and both unleash their most powerful attacks onto Kirinmaru. They got beaten which isn’t as surprise at all cause Kirinmaru is supposed to be as powerful as the girls’ grandfather who is a Daiyoukai and there’s no way in hell a bunch of kids (with one lacking in a lot of battle experience) could suddenly beat him just like that.

Anyways, Moroha uses her most powerful attack which is something her grandpa, the Daiyoukai Toga created but had evolved into something more her own. Towa is similar with her using her most powerful attack that came from her father but this time, changed into something of her own. Kirinmaru notices and while blocking off their attacks actually talks to them basically saying “These techniques you’re using that originally came from your grandfather and father respectively have been changed into something else by yourselves so you guys should rename them appropriately.”

He said it so calmly before defeating them afterwards. I thought “lol this guy sounds like a teacher.”

Hehehe

#yashahime #hanyou no yashahime #yashahime: princess half demon #inuyasha #anime #sana_post

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blastoisemonster · 4 years ago

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Kodomo No Omocha’s Sticker Album Highlights (Merlin, 2001, Italian)

Let's keep talking about retro japanese cartoons, shall we? I've done some posts lately in which I reviewed Game Boy games based on comics or animations from Japan, with the intention of covering series that I either used to watch as a kid or recall being popular during the GB and GBC eras. A lot of these games have never been released outside Japan, so it's also an occasion to gather up some imports and see what Italy has missed on. There's actually a particular cartoon I wanted to talk about since the start of this research, but unfortunately it seems it has never recieved any videogame adaptation. But hey, this is my blog, and I can talk about whatever I want! >:C Also I suddenly remembered my Fandom tag has been created purposely for non-gaming objects. >.> So, let's look at some stickers while I tell you the tale of Rossana.

Rossana can be best described as the soap opera that spawned a second wave of nipponic hysteria among every single italian person under 20 during the very last period of the 90s. It's like The Bold And The Beautiful looked at Pokèmon and said "yeah, I want something like that.". Its popularity hit even harder my personal view of the world as the plot starts with the protagonists attending the last year of elementary school... which is exactly what me and my friends were doing, multiplying the relatable factor tenfold. This cartoon took everyone by their necks since its first episode: it was broadcasted on what was, at the time, the best and most popular italian channel for children entertainment, and heavily advertised before starting, so we knew exactly when to tune in to catch it. The day after the first episode, school looked like a different place. Everyone in class was chanting the opening at the top of their lungs; boys were acting like the male protagonists, all girls mimicked the main role Rossana, the more artisticly inclined ones started doodling the characters anywhere possible, including textbooks and homework. Teachers were in tears. I had watched the first episode and found it amusing enough to keep me entertained, so for some period I fully partecipated in the general enjoyment of the cartoon. Then, I started missing episodes (when you missed something on TV during the 90s... it was gone!) and upon returning to it, I found the plot had become much more complex and centered on sentimental intrigues, of which I never gave a toss about, so I jumped off the hype train while others still followed it until the end.

As it is usual for these productions, Rossana was another anime based on a manga series; the original work is titled "Kodomo No Omocha" (which literally means "Children's Plaything"... yeah, I too find it a tad creepy), drawn by mangaka Miho Obana and serialized by Ribon from 1994 to 1998. It tells the story of Rossana Kurata, a child actress (an idol in the original story) trying to balance her career with a normal kid's life by going to school and having normal friends: however, her class is anything but normal and she finds herself often fighting against the biggest bully of the school group, Hayama (translated as Heric in italian). As the story progresses, though, Sana understands Heric's complex and at times completely inappropriate attitude is a result of a troubled childhood, having lost his mother at birth and being bullied by his older sister and completely ignored by his father. Willing to help him out, Sana befriends him and starts to develop even deeper feelings, also sharing her own troubled past: she had been actually abandoned as a newborn and adopted by Misako, a famous writer. New characters are introduced along the way, among which the child actor Charles, Sana's schoolmate but also colleague which the girl will work alongside during a trip to the States, and Funny, an extremely extroverted kid that will at first become close friends with Sana, but that will, at some point, steal Heric's heart, leaving Sana to deal with heartbreak and jealousy. Despite the story being drawn in an energetic shojo style and the episodes showing many hysterical/demential jokes along the way, Kodomo No Omocha is a dramatic story centered on overcoming past secrets, venomous feelings, and describing the difficult shift from childhood to adolescence.

The original 10 manga volumes got adapted for animation in 102 episodes, which broadcasted on TV Tokyo from 1996 to 1998. In Italy, the anime got imported first with the direct title "Rossana": it was aired in its entirety during all of the year 2000, and yes, all the 102 episodes got translated! Unfortunately, the channel wanted to make Rossana completely targetable to little kids, which meant that many plot elements had to undergo heavy censorship. The result was a comedy/demential series that at times showed a sentimental route, and for the rest felt very cut, like it was hiding something. This was no Chou Gals!-styled localizaion effort: scenes were edited or completely deleted, names and terms translated losing all context, graphics and objects concerning japanese culture got zoomed out, some episodes even aired randomly without following the original order, and finally the ending got cut, leaving it as an open cliffhanger. Kodomo No Omocha is, originally, marketed towards an adolescent audience, but kids are a much more profitable target, so a lot of the original plot points went away: Sana no longer thinks of Rei (her adult manager, called Robby in italian) as his boyfriend; it's never mentioned that her actual mother abandoned her in a park after giving birth at only 14 years old; and many instances in which some kids (Heric, but also Komori in later eps) practice self-harm or have suicidal thoughts are cut in their entirety. And yet, despite this general mangling, the story managed to become popular anyway, gaining three reruns, some video distribution on VHS and DVD (both cut, for unknown reasons, after the 20th episode), and an opening with lyrics that will never leave the minds of an entire generation. The manga got translated only after 2002, getting marketed instead for its actual audience and going for a literal translation of its original title: "Il giocattolo dei bambini - Rossana" got published by Dynit in its entirety, however I'm not sure wether it underwent the same censorship measures of the cartoon or it was left to a more faithful state.

The hype about Rossana was interestingly lacking of any substantial, original merchandise imported from their origin country; instead, every gadget we had about the anime was produced by italian companies and it consisted in the usual cheapish stuff sold in order to cash a quick buck on popular media. We had school supplies such as bags, pencil cases and diaries, decorated stationary, and the never-missing sticker album. This last merchandise, aptly featured in this post, is what I remember most since everyone was trading doubles at school; the blindingly hot pink package has also burned a permanent image in my mind. Published by Merlin in 2001, Rossana's abundantly pink album could contain 204 stickers; be them glossy, holographic, single or combined, it adds up as quite a large selection considering that all images shown were nothing more than screenshots of the cartoon, with album pages filling up a description of episodes shown, or giving a little more insight on the general plot. At least my previously reviewed Pokèmon album showed interesting action poses by Sugimori and doubled up as a Pokèdex, but I do recognize the latter can count on a much more substantial franchise. What Rossana's album excels in, though, is its value; remember when I said a completed Pokèmon album was only worth a few bucks? Well, a completed Rossana album goes instead for nothing less than a hundred euros on secondhand markets. Even the single stickers, if sold in lots, can become a pretty penny, and still sealed booster packs can range from 30 to 70 euros depending on how many you're selling. I can already picture italian readers going through their cupboards to see if they still have this relic intact! As for me, I was too focused on Pokèmon during that period to care about filling up another sticker album, so I had completely skipped that. And no, I'm not gonna spend 100+ euros on an album just to make a Fandom post: what you're seeing here are all images collectors have shown to the net.

It's interesting to notice that Merlin tried to cash in on the anime's popularity even beyond the sticker album itself, by advertising even among the album pages an upcoming periodical (monthly I suppose?) magazine almost all centered on the cartoon, but trying to double up as a typical girls' magazine with pictures of boybands, various articles, and the always present and equally emberassing mail section. For some reason I have very vivid flashbacks of me going through the pages of the first volume: probably some friend brought it at school, they had it lying about at their house, or I may have bought it along with other girls then left it to them. This mag was nothing particular and doomed to be shortlived: you can't keep a single anime series relevant forever, and it was apparent that arguments tried to always pull Rossana into context when in reality it had nothing to do with the articles. It seemingly disappeared after its second issue, and got buried under the sheer abundance of more relevant girly mags, among which the legendary Cioè.

All in all, Rossana’s shout of livelyhood was probably short, but loud enough to have shook the heart and soul of many of us, especially in this country. It’s apparent that companies wanted to keep the profit margin as high as possible by not importing any substantial japanese gadget about Sana and opting instead for printed publications or cheapy stationery; however, apart from dolls, plushes and general toys, even Japan didn’t seem too keen on releasing actually peculiar stuff dedicated to the franchise. The most technological gimmick I found is a toy audio recorder, of which I can only find a few images online and not even one single listing so I can get and review it. Maybe I’m just sour no one ever thought about doing a Game Boy adaptation, because I’m sure it would’ve been a major hit among girls here. Oh well, can’t change the past... but surely you can remember it. :)

#Fandom

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fauzhee10069 · 4 years ago

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The Rock-Women, extinct or exist? (JoJolion)

This post is related to these posts:

JJBA Youthful Moms

The Biology of Rock-Humans

With the rise of youthful looking moms in JJBA, has Araki lost his ability in drawing 'old people'?

Araki’s evolving art-style

First, let's review his art-style and art-revolution in previous parts:

Part 1: Phantom Blood

I don’t really remember any significant old people here, so I’ll give it a pass.

Part 2: Battle Tendency

There was grandma Erina and Speedwagon in their 70s, both really looked their age.

There were also Straizo in his 70s and a 50 years old Lisa Lisa, as hamon users, they appeared younger than their age. Initially, Straizo looked like in his 50s and then in his 20s after he turned into vampire. Lisa Lisa looked like in her 20s, her youthful look had a purpose in-story and also got in-world recognition.

Then, there was also Erina in her 50s when she was holding baby Joseph, she really looked her age.

Part 3: Stardust Crusaders

There was this villainous villain named Enya Geil and she really looked old.

Then, a 69 years old grandpa Joseph really looked a granpa, despite being a hamon user. Readers believe that he rarely practices because he was lazy, but there is also wholesome speculation that he wanted to age together with his wife.

And Joseph’s wife, Suzy Q who is also a grandma looked old according to her age.

There was DIO who should be +100 years old, but just like Lisa Lisa and Straizo, as a vampire, he looked much younger than his actual age. Therefore, his youthful look had a purpose in-story.

Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable

In part 4, there was Josuke’s grandpa, Higashikata Ryohei at 55 years old. He did look like a grandpa.

Then, a 79 years old Joseph who looked very old and frail.

There were also Kira’s parents who were in their old age.

Part 5: Vento Aureo/Golden Wind

Just like in part 1, I don’t recall any significant old people in this story, but there was a Stand named 「The Grateful Dead」 with its terrifying ability to forcefully age people over a large area. Araki had drawn the aging too well.

Part 6: Stone Ocean

I don’t really remember significant old character but I know about the user of 「Dragon’s Dream」, a 78 years old elderly prisoner named Kenzo. He looked bizarrely old like Enya Geil. But I think this part could be the beginning of the aging problem for certain parent characters.

First, Jolyne's mom (whom sadly never named) didn't really look like a middle-aged woman. Although her age was never mentioned, I believe that she should be in her 40s or at least late 30s which should be her youngest estimated age.

Then there was Mrs. Bluemarine, left panel is when her son was still a baby then the right panel is around 15 years later when she confessed her sin. Not only her face remained unchanged (with no apparent aging), the hairstyle and dress are hilariously not changed.

And the meme of Jotaro ages backwards is not without reason.

Part 7: Steel Ball Run

This part also has a similar problem with the previous, the main villain of part 7, Funny Valentine (43/48) in his sexy form (late appearance) didn’t look much older than Johnny (19) and Diego (20), when he should have been more than twice their age, old enough to be their dads. Can you see their age difference on these panels?

But interestingly, Araki was also able to draw the differences in age and facial features of the two females (Lucy and Scarlet), as the former (the 14 years old girl) eventually had to impersonate the later. I also believe that the first lady Scarlet was in late 30s or in her 40s.

Then, there was also Stephen Steel who was around 51-53 years old and he looked his age.

Perhaps in this case, Araki just wanted to tell that Funny Valentine was older than he looked.

And now, we reached JoJolion (part 8) that likely suffers from the ‘youthful moms’ syndrome. So how did this begin?

The Middle-Aged Moms and their looks in JoJolion

Kira Holy Joestar

The first middle-aged woman to be introduced in JJL was Kira Holy Joestar, a 52 years old woman. Interestingly, she really looked her age, a middle-aged woman.

This early Holy also has similar facial feature with Scarlet Valentine

In fact, I think Araki did really well when he drew her as we can see the age difference between Holy (52) and Yasuho (19) clearly, a thing I highly praise because Araki did not rely using the frown lines on the sides of the mouth to illustrate the aging.

Hirose Suzuyo

Another woman that we can consider as a middle-aged woman is Yasuho’s mom, Hirose Suzuyo. Even though she is younger than Holy, being 44 years old can already be considered a middle-aged.

But together with Yasuho on the same panel, she doesn't look much older than her daughter. She basically looks like Yasuho’s older sister than her mom.

And if you prefer '43' to be the correct age of Funny Valentine, then it would make Suzuyo a year older than the president (in their respective timeline).

(Higashikata) Caato

Then this infamous gilf who rocked readers in her early debut and still being hyped by her supporters, (Higashikata) Caato:

Being 52 years old, she is the same age as Kira Holy Joestar, but her appearances and the fact that she already had a grandson makes the readers thought that her youthful look must have ‘a reason’:

Is she secretly a rock woman?

Is she a fusion of two people by Rokakaka fruit that caused her stop aging (an outdated theory from redditors due to her strange eyes)?

Will her attractive look signify that she will be the main villain (like Funny Valentine)?

Besides, during her family reunion, it seemed that Araki no longer bothered to make her distinguishable and significantly belong to different generation from her daughter Hato.

Though I think, there was a moment when Caato kinda look her age just like Holy in her early debut:

What is behind their youthful looks?

I think it is kinda unfair to think that only Caato who purposely looks youthful while disregarding the other moms’ look. Holy's first debut with her middle-aged look was in chapter 14, then Yasuho’s mom, Suzuyo even debuted earlier back in chapter 8 and she already looked attractive and youthful there. Only then did Caato made her debut in chapter 55.

Many readers also don't consider Holy's appearance during the Vitamin C arc, flashback where she met Josefumi and her son Yoshikage. The timeline at the time should be around 2010, because a chapter earlier (50), Yoshikage talked about Iwakiri, a baseball player who was taking a year off since 2009 due to an injury. Then Josefumi and Kira Yoshikage took action to steal Locacaca's branch until afterwards headed to a scene with Holy.

JJL chapter 51: Vitamin C and Killer Queen – part 2

In other words, a year ago (2010), Holy was already in her early 50s! And her face here definitely looks younger than her face when she debuted for the first time. We can argue that perhaps her older look in present time (her debut) was caused by her strange illness, as people who are sick often appear older than usual.

But in Holy's most recent appearance in chapter 92, she looks much younger than her age:

Her wiki page also agrees and has described her appearance that she still having her ‘youthful look’:

Holy Joestar-Kira’s wikia page

So, here is the breakdown:

Hirose Suzuyo (Yasuho’s mom)’s debut in chapter 8, aged 44, she is older than she looks.

Kira Holy Joestar’s debut in chapter 14, aged 52, she looked her age.

Kira Holy Joestar’s appearance in chapter 51, aged 51, she is older than she looks.

(Higashikata) Caato’s debut in chapter 55, aged 52, she is older than she looks.

Kira Holy Joestar’s recent appearance in chapter 92, aged 52, she is older than she looks.

The mystery is why Araki changed Holy's appearance from her initial debut? Why does she become younger than before? Did he do this on purpose or is this purely due to his evolving art?

The Hidden Rock Woman and The Red Herrings

What is ‘female rock-human’ in general?

They are indistinguishable from (carbon-based) female humans.

Their life span is ±240 years (just like the males).

They can be older than they look (just like the males).

They need to hibernate (just like the males).

Their gestation period is 6 months and give birth in the spring and summer.

They rarely (if ever) have affection for or a parental relationship with their children.

Their babies have an average body length of 28 mm and weight of 15 grams.

They can procreate with human males.

As Araki has brought up about the existence of rock-human females in chapter 99, coupled with the possibility of reproduction with (carbon-based) human males, readers have created various theories about them.

(Higashikata) Caato

The most popular theory nowadays is about “Caato as the rock-woman”. Since the beginning, this female character is often hyped as the character who will play a major role, mostly in antagonist side, be it as the main villain and (now) as ‘the rock-woman’.

I think there are a lot of made-up theories and far-fetched reasons created by her supporters, problems regarding the theory of "Caato as the rock-woman" have been mostly explained in my previous post:

Is Caato a Rock-Woman?

Even so, I myself have not dared to confirm that Caato can’t be a rock-woman. However, my post there was more to show how forced, flawed and ridiculous the theories made by her supporters. I am worried that this would be 'the case of bad writing' so I also hope that Araki would not make it happen.

But if Araki is going to make Caato a female rock-human in the future, I hope that he can provide a nice explanation with a story that makes sense and is not forced. Still, I think to make Caato a rock-woman will be the most complicated choice.

We never saw the signs of Caato as a rock-human. In her flashback, she had already behaved very different from the rock-woman, she was shown as a doting mom, she really loves Jobin and took care of him, in contrast to rock-woman who abandoned her newborn baby. She didn’t want Jobin to get hurt, she almost cried (see the beginning scene when he climbed a tree), she was very worried about him. Unlike the rock-women, Caato certainly has affection to her children.

Then we’ve also seen how her children grew up like any normal human in contrast to the bizarre growth of the rock-humans:

We still don’t know what happens to the baby born from reproduction between human males and rock-women? A human babies, rock-babies or crossbreeds?

Then with the four children of Norisuke IV and Caato, we also have to begin questioning again about what Jobin, Hato, Joshu and Daiya truly are? Are they half rock-humans, fully rock-humans or just regular humans? The problem is: we’ve been following their characters and there is absolutely no hint that these four were somewhat different from regular humans.

If the crossbreeds are somewhat different than the normal humans, then Araki will need to further develop not just one, but “four characters!” to show how they slightly differ from normal humans. Then if Jobin is a half rock-human with Mitsuba as regular human female, is it possible for Tsurugi to be born then? This will also be a problem that must be resolved in the story.

As rock-humans need to hibernate, how is he going to show that Caato need it too? Or perhaps she is fighting it off? A Caatofag has theorized that she uses Locacaca to be able to do that, as her son Jobin has access to the fruit, this kinda makes sense. However, there are many plotholes in this theory that need to be explored.

The fact that Caato became a model prisoner and was able to perform the penal hard labor for 15 years should be contradicting the idea of her as a rock-woman, but a Caatofag uses Locacaca as the reason of why she was able to do that, because in chapter 32, Yotsuyu was able to cure the dog Iwasuke of the rock-disease by feeding it a piece of a it. But what about Aishō? The member of Damokan Group did not use Locacaca to fight off his hibernation, he still needed to hibernate and that was the cause of his break up with his (then) girlfriend.

Besides, if Caato fights off her hibernation to hide her status as a rock-woman, she should have done it since her marriage to Norisuke IV, as her (then) husband just found out about the existence of rock-humans after the death of Yotsuyu.

This meant that Caato should have used Locacaca long before she was incarcerated. Then if she already used it during her marriage to Norisuke IV, it should include the flashback in chapter 64 as well, when she cured Jobin of the rock-disease using equivalent exchange on Higashikata’s land. Why did she use her late mother-in-law’s method instead of Locacaca (which allegedly in her possession)? Isn't Locacaca the fruit believed to be able to heal the rock-disease?

Then supposed that the rock-disease that has befallen the Higashikata family is the result of reproduction between human male and rock-woman, Caato as ‘a rock-woman’ can’t be the cause because the disease has already existed since several generations before and had afflicted the daughter of the first generation of Norisuke (I), Higashikata Rina.

We have seen how Caato handled the family curse in the past (chapter 64) and in that scene we did not see any hint of her as ‘a rock-human’ and her relation with the curse. It will be convoluted and redundant to have Caato reappears as a rock-human and involve her in Higashikata’s family curse once again. In short, Araki will need a lot of build-up to make Caato a rock-woman.

Kira Holy Joestar

Then, there is Kira Holy Joestar. If Caato becomes a candidate for secret rock-woman due to her youthful look (and various wild speculations), then Holy also deserved to be a candidate for the same reason.

Unlike Caato, in which her knowledge regarding Locacaca and her connection to the rock-humans are still pure speculations, Holy is already closer to both of these things (Locacaca & rock-humans). She has done scientific analysis on Locacaca and also knows about the rock-humans organization (Head Doctor gang and Damokan Group).

However, making Holy a rock-woman is probably more impossible than Caato because she is a descendant of Joestar family with very clear lineage too.

Johnny is clearly not a rock-human while Rina, she could be a descended from a rock-human (if that is the reason for the existence of the ‘rock-disease’). Holy can’t be a full blooded rock-human, but she can still be a crossbreed or a descendant of a rock-human.

By looking at Joestar family tree, it is still possible to make Johnny's son or grandson to marry a rock-woman. The rock-woman could be Elizabeth or Suzie Q, but I am more inclined to have Elizabeth as ‘the rock-woman’, she could be a little callback from Lisa Lisa in part 2 with her youthful look and how Lisa Lisa was made to abandon baby Joseph in the past. This can also be a nice parallelism to the rock-women's nature in abandoning their newborn baby.

In addition, Holy as a descendant of rock-human/crossbreed can be served as a nice reason of why the Head Doctor gang used Holy as their test subject.

Unfortunately, unlike the rock-woman, Holy also has affection to her children, even to other children whom she did not give birth to. However, if the speculation is only limited to "Holy as a descendant of rock-human", then this is still possible, because her traits might have been mixed with normal human’s traits.

Another problem is that Araki also has to build up Holy’s children, Yoshikage and Kyo, that they also have to descend from rock-human. However, they are still easier to build-up than Caato's children, as Yoshikage is already dead and Kyo rarely shows up.

If Kira Yoshikage is descended from rock-human, then Yoshikage who has turned into Josuke will make Josuke (the main protagonist) a part of rock-human as well. This can be an astonishing parallel if both Josuke and Tooru (as the main villain) are somewhat rock-humans (suppose that Tooru will be the main villain).

The next problem is about the existence of rock-disease that has befallen to the Higashikata family. If the crossbreeding between a human male and rock-woman was the cause of it, why didn't the curse fall on Johnny's descendants? It only ever struck his wife Rina in the past. Johnny's method in 1901 might have succeeded in protecting his descendants from the curse.

Holy's illness which was initially thought to be a part of family curse is apparently the product of illegal experiment. Therefore, will it be possible if Holy is a descendant of rock-human?

Hirose Suzuyo

Lastly, there is also Hirose Suzuyo who is still attractive at 44 years old, despite being several years younger than Holy and Caato, her youthful look should also be a consideration as well.

I think making Suzuyo the secret rock-woman would be the easiest choice compared to Caato and Holy. Out of the three characters, she has the least development and this instead becomes her advantage.

Caato and Norisuke IV have divorced and this is often used as an excuse by supporters that their failed relationship was caused by one of them (Caato) being a rock-human.

Caato is not the only person who has been divorced, Josefumi’s mother Kiyomi and Yasuho’s mom Suzuyo have also been divorced. Therefore, Suzuyo could have the excuse that her divorce from her husband could be the result of an incompatible relationship between a human and a rock-human.

JJL chapter 71: Hairclip of the Qing Dynasty

Chapter 46 told that “95% of rock-humans are Stand users”, Caato and (allegedly) Holy are Stand users, but what about Suzuyo?

Maybe yes maybe no, but the way she dressed when she debuted for the first time in chapter 8 could be a typical Stand user’s style:

Thanks to her limited appearance, it’s not difficult to suddenly turn her into a Stand user.

The only problem is that Araki (again) has to build-up Yasuho, the main female protagonist as a rock-human descent, but is it possible?

There is one particular incident in chapter 94, as Yasuho has snuck into Higashikata's house, Jobin caught her and flushed 「Paisley Park」 down the toilet, breaking both Yasuho and her Stand’s body in the process.

JJL chapter 94: The Wonder of You (Your Miraculous Love) – part 11

Seeing how her body was in the process of breaking apart, some readers pointed out that there is a resemblance to the rock-humans' body while breaking apart.

JJL chapter 32 & JJL chapter 42

Others simply assumed that Yasuho's breaking body is the effect of her breaking Stand as well.

I am also more inclined towards the second opinion, in which her body is breaking apart simply because of her breaking Stand. But the interpretation of this picture is still free, so it would be easy for Araki if he suddenly wants to decide that the reason of Yasuho's breaking body is due to her being a part of rock-human.

It is also fortunate that we have not seen normal humans and their Stands break apart like Yasuho and her 「Paisley Park」.

Perhaps, making Yasuho a part of rock-human could be the reason why Tooru dated her. I've always felt there must be something behind this. Tooru as the person behind HD gang can't possibly date Yasuho without reason.

Even though they had broken up, Tooru is still eager to to rekindle his relationship with Yasuho, but chapter 97 proves that his reason for that was not simply that he still loved her. There must be something that he wants from her and will take advantage of her.

But back to the issue of the origin of the Higashikata’s family curse, if the crossbreeding is the cause, why doesn't it befall to Yasuho too?

Once again, it is fortunate that we got the flashback of Higashikata Rina as the female affected by rock-disease. She became symptomatic as adult, in her late 20s. Yasuho is a female and she is still 19, it is possible if the rock-disease had not yet befallen her (suppose that she is a crossbreed).

The real problem is that Suzuyo has also shown that she cares to her daughter Yasuho, again, the opposite trait with the rock-women.

JJL chapter 24 & JJL chapter 71

Though she is not on Holy's level… or the level of Caato to Jobin, at least she is trying to show her love to Yasuho.

Then how about her job? Being a single mom should have demanded Suzuyo to have a job to support Yasuho and her life. We've never seen what kind of job Suzuyo has, we've only seen in her debut that she brought a man home from a club. Was this part of her job as a hostess or she simply had fun?

In her flashback of chapter 71, we have seen Suzuyo who was currently receiving a call, was the phone related to her job?

Suppose that it was related to her job, “Oh really? Sounds exciting, I’ll write that down”… an idea? Or was it a new job offer? Freelancing?

It is very fortunate that it is still very hard to determine of Suzuyo's actual career, Araki just has to give her a career that is suitable for rock-human if he wants to make her a rock-human.

Crossbreeding and developing affection in rock-women(?)

Apparently, these three women share the same problems, that they have affection for their children, the opposite trait of rock-women in chapter 99. The mother who had more of a similar nature to rock-women is (actually) Kujo Kiyomi, Josefumi’s mother. She almost left a drowning Josefumi, though the guilt overcame her in the end.

JJL chapter 52: Vitamin C and Killer Queen – part 3

Even so, Josefumi still felt that his mother had abandoned him. Could it be that she abandoned him again after the drowning event and that’s why Josefumi had a lot of respect for Holy as his mother figure? Or maybe it was only to that particular moment, but it was so engraved on Josefumi's memory that he hated his own mother?

And also remember that Kujo Kiyomi has been divorced. Too bad we never saw her again in her middle-aged, but I believe that if she will reappear, she will have that 'youthful look' like any others.

Regarding Caato and Suzuyo, suppose that they are rock-women, it is possible that they may develop affection for their children as a result of their copulation with human males.

To be honest, I think that Caato's role is more of a comparison to the other Higashikata mothers, so it would be too much if she is a rock-woman as I explained in my previous post.

However regarding Suzuyo, I think that her efforts to take care and love Yasuho are like a rock-woman learning to be a 'mother'.

JJL chapter 24: Paper Moon Deception – part 2

Perhaps it is just me, but Suzuyo’s response in that scene is a bit weird. She offered Yasuho to cook for her while playing video games, something that pretty normal in family dynamic. But then, Yasuho declined and said she was just going to go out again. Annoyed by her daughter response, she brought up Yasuho’s annoying attitude and likened her to her ex-husband (Yasuho’s father).

When Yasuho remarked that she was in a rush and didn’t have a time to be lectured her, Suzuyo out-of-nowhere brought up whether she wasn't motherly to Yasuho, something that I think was not quite related in a conflict. Because I have also experienced a similar conflict with my mother, but she wouldn't suddenly bring up of her being motherly and just straightly scolded me.

It was as if she said that “I’m trying to be a good mother for you, because I’m not like the other rock-women out there.”

JJL chapter 71: Hairclip of the Qing Dynasty

Her bad-mouthing her ex-husband (Yasuho’s dad) felt like she was trying to keep Yasuho away from her father. Besides, her words also indicate possessiveness towards her daughter.

Rock-humans in general have little to no relationship with their children, unlike (carbon-based) humans. So maybe Suzuyo is trying hard to get close to her daughter Yasuho while trying to keep her away from her father, because (perhaps) in her perspective, a close relationship between fellow humans will always be easier to achieve compared to the rock-humans.

Conclusion

At first I thought that ‘the youthful moms’ in JoJolion is just a deliberate artistic choice on behalf of Araki to make the characters more attractive, but what if it turns out to have a purpose?

Added with the recent chapter (99) which hinted the existence of rock-women, what if Araki wanted to make us wonder, is it true that currently there is a rock-woman among his characters? Which one?

I don't know why but I feel that possibility may lie in some middle-aged mother characters that look younger than their actual age. I also became suspicious, why Araki changed Holy’s appearance in chapter 92, that she significantly looks younger than when she debuted?

Especially with the reemergence of the theory about Caato as a rock-woman which becomes popular once again.

Of course I am more certain that a rock-woman will appear in the form of a flashback which will explain the origin of Higashikata’s family curse. It would also fit into the plausible theory of ‘reproduction’ that has been created by u/Mamezuku on reddit. But what if a rock-woman would appear in the present time as well? Who is she? Will it be Caato?

Of the three candidates I suspect, Caato will be the most difficult choice and requires a lot of build-up (and possibly retconing here and there). Holy highly unlikely will be a full blooded rock-woman, but it’s possible to make her a descendant of a rock-human and the build-up will be slightly easier. Suzuyo (Yasuho’s mom) will be an unexpected choice but she will be the easiest and least complicated to be built-up, the only big challenge is about the build-up of her daughter Yasuho as a crossbreed.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojolion #rock humans jojo #suzuyo hirose #holy joestar #kaato higashikata #jojo meta #jjba part 8 #art evolution #kira holy joestar #kiyomi kujo #jojo's bizarre analysis #rock women #jjba meta #holy joestar kira #caato

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pellicano-sanguino · 4 years ago

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A while ago I wrote that I was reading through an anthology of lesbian vampire stories to find a good one to read to White Rabbit, and that I was disappointment in the lack of lesbians and the amount of het sex and rape forced into the stories. I was especially disappointed because the authors of the anthology were women and they should know better.

Well, I have now finished the anthology and the rest of the stories.... kept disappointing in one way or the other.

One story told of a woman who gets lost in the Amazon rainforest and is hunted and seduced by a vampire that lives there. The concept is good, a fascinating and a rather unusual setting for a vampire story. But the writing is very confusing and kinda pretentious and the sort of realism that thinks in order to captivate the true reality one must focus on all the disgusting things and describe them in great detail. Like, I feel every other sentence is TMI fest of going into the condition of the blisters in the main character’s feet or of all the bugs scampering over her when she stumbles and falls. And when we finally do get into the vampire bit, it’s just vaguely described and kinda weird and surreal and... I don’t know, like from a completely different story. I suppose the change in writing style is supposed to symbolize the main character being under the vampire’s hypnosis or something?

The odd writing style makes this a very tedious read for someone whose native language isn’t English, because most of the I sure am reading words but fuck if they make any sense. For example, the author talks about a person as if she’s there and it took me a long time to realize this person is NOT there, but is... a ghost? A memory? A flashback into past or future? The main character’s imaginary friend/named sense of purity or some other symbolic shit? The author clearly intended this to be a story that you need to read several times to understand what happens and piece together the cryptic text. Hahaha nope. I am done with this pretentious fuckery.

Next story is... sigh... taking place in a gay club that is also into heavy BDSM. Because of fucking course that is how the hets see lesbians, to them homosexuality is a just a kink. Not only do we get descriptions of very brutal, bloody non-con sadism, we also have to read about men doing it (with women, of course. What, were you expecting gay men in this gay club? Or lesbians in your lesbian vampire anthology?). I know not all lesbians are actively grossed out by dicks but rather just completely disinterested in them, but still... why would you write a story about a lesbian vampire and force the reader to read three - three! - detailed descriptions of a mens’ erections.

Boy, are the writers of this anthology pissed that they did not write their lesbian masterpieces in our modern times when identity havers are vigorously attempting to redefine lesbianism as “non-men being attracted to non-men.” Today, the authors could write all the dick sucking, male orgasm centered het sex they want and still call it lesbian sex as long as the penis-bearer doesn’t identify as a man. They no longer need to try to sneak in the het sex and then write some half-assed plot about them disgusting gay women.

Though, to be fair, I don’t think it’s just the het sex these writers want to force in their lesbian stories. They specificly want to write about rape, questionable consent and painful sex. And I have a theory on why.

When analyzing why some people are hell bent on putting certain elements in their vampire story, one needs to figure out why they were originally drawn into writing a vampire story in the first place. What is it about the vampire as a creature that fascinates them? What sets the vampire apart from other supernatural creatures is their parasitic nature. You take away the blood drinking and you could replace the vampire character with something else and not have it affect the plot in any way. However, surprisingly many people who write vampire stories aren’t that interested in the blood drinking (much to my disappointment) and more into the power imbalance this diet creates between vampires and humans.

Relationships between a vampire and a human have a massive power imbalance, even when the vampire isn’t the kind that has super human strength and other special powers. If a vampire does not drink blood, they will perish. This simple fact forces them to be at best harmless parasites, at worst dangerous predators. Even with civilized vampires who get their blood from butchers, blood banks or who use synthetic blood substitutes, the special diet of a vampire cannot be ignored when they interact with humans. Imagine a civilized vampire like this stranded on an island with some humans - no one can blame them for stealing blood from the humans for survival in such a scenario. No matter how kind, how sworn to be friendly to humankind, the very nature of vampirism makes it so that humans and vampires can’t coexist together as if there is not a power imbalance in place.

Some writers are very into this power imbalance. The act of drinking someone’s blood, even from a willing donor, is an act of parasitism. The human is harmed, their skin is pierced, their blood is drawn and their body will suffer consequences for it, even if for some donors those are mild. The only one walking away from the act having benefited from it is the vampire. You can romanticize the act, you can give the vampire powers to make their bite painless, you can make the human the one who asks for it, but the act remains the same. A human is wounded and will suffer from minor blood loss, the vampire takes from them and gives nothing in return.

I admit, the blood drinking is what draws me to vampire stories. I am fascinated by the concept of a creature that is by its nature forced to become parasitic. But unlike creatures that eat actual human flesh, the vampire has the option to choose between becoming a predator or becoming a parasite. The ability to be civilized, or pretend to be civilized, with humankind creates interesting emotional bonds between a vampire and their victim/host/donor.

However, I am not interested in making blood drinking a metaphor for sex. It just does not work.

A vampire’s very survival is depending on them securing a bloody meal regularly. No one’s survival is depending on them getting laid regularly, no matter what rape culture advocating men crying about sex being a basic need and a human right want you to believe. No one has ever dropped dead because they didn’t have sex. And that’s why the blood drinking as metaphor for sex is flawed.

So, because the nature of vampirism demands that there must be blood drinking, that there must be harming of another living creature and stealing away a part of their body (blood is a liquid organ, consisting of living cells, drinking blood is an act of consuming living tissue), naturally people who are turned on by the idea of harming others or of being harmed and who are into non-con, would find the vampire as a concept fascinating. To them, a vampire attacking a human is equally arousing as fantasizing about rape, the idea of being bitten so deep that your blood is spilled as exciting as their other sadomasochistic kinks.

Bottom line: I get why people want to put so much sexual violence in their vampire stories. I hate it and wish they didn’t, but at least I see what motivates them to do so.

Ahem. Back to the anthology.

The only good thing about the gross BDSM story is that there is an actual lesbian sex scene in it and that it makes blood into a plot point. Too many vampire stories just ignore the blood drinking and do it off screen, or have it be completely meaningless to the characters and story. Admittedly, the way blood is used in this story isn’t anything new or super interesting but at least they remembered to put some actual real blood drinking lesbian vampires in their lesbian vampire story. * sarcastically side-eyes the other stories*

After this we get what I consider the strongest story in the anthology. It’s still not particularly good, but the bar is set low, so yeah. This is a rather long short story, a scifi one, about a vampire and a single human sharing a space ship for a long journey, during which they start having casual sex and the human eventually learns about the vampire’s real nature. The characters aren’t that interesting, but the concept of a vampire in space is a fascinating one. I was disappointed that the writer didn’t make the endless darkness of space a place for the vampire to be free from the fear of the sun and instead still makes her react badly to some kind of day to night cycle (it’s space! There is no sun in immediate vicinity! Why would you react badly to “oh well, back in Earth it’s sun time by now”?). Another fascinating part is that this vampire doesn’t steal blood from the human in the traditional method, but instead, um... performs certain sex act to her when she’s on her period. And this is the reason why she always insists on a female crew member.

Unfortunately not even this story is free from rape. The vampire tells her backstory, about how the man who turned her also raped her. Fortunately she does not describe it in detail but.... why must there be a rape in every single lesbian vampire story? Also, the sex scenes were a bit underwhelming, the vampire being very strictly stone butching the whole thing and not letting the human touch or pleasure her in any manner. Sigh. I know there are lesbians like this, but I can’t help but be reminded of the hets asking “so which one of you is the man?” Also, I wish I could read more lesbian romance, more flirting, more seducing and less of this no-emotional-bonds meaningless-fucking casual sex.

The last story is another pretentious one, this one even worse that the Amazon rainforest story. I... think it’s about a vampire... chatting with her parrot that has human-like intellect? I have no fucking idea what is going on. The writing is filled with snooty people talk and fancy words that no one uses in real life and it pisses me off.

“The parrot stuck its head on one side, began its swaying little dance shuffle, and gave a convincing rendition of “Viens poupoule.” It had nothing against lesbians and had been an admirer of Natalie Barney’s ever since a migrating cuckoo told it of the time Natalie, dressed only in a white nightgown, had herself delivered on Renée in a coffin full of enormous lilies. In its decadent period, when it has insisted on dyeing its feathers black and wearing World War Two dog tags round its neck, the parrot had even fancied itself Natalie’s ornithological opposite number, but John’s new slide rule, whom it was courting at the time, refused to attempt a Renée Vivien impersonation. That sour, unimaginative instrument had declared it had nothing whatever in common with the young, blond-haired poet, that anyone who could discern any points of comparison between any mathematical instrument and a blond-haired poet was certainly a surrealist, if not worse. The parrot had got a lot of satisfaction the day John came home from the university and declared, “With the mass production of the pocket calculator, the slide rule is dead.”

I’m gonna make a guess and say that the chances of an audience that enjoys this kind of pretentious fuckness aren’t going to be the target audience to look for their fancy-ass prose in a lesbian vampire story anthology. Just a guess.

I did find this bit funny, though:

“- - - Renée died in 1909, Natalie in 1972, but you have recently received messages from each. How is this possible?”

“Post took a long time,” suggested the parrot, ignored as usual.

You know, I could get behind the idea of a story where a lesbian vampire confides her adventures to a smartass parrot with a human intelligence. You know, if it was an actual story with actual plot and not this fake deep stream of consciousness word diarrhea “ask me what it means, ask me what it all means” garbage.

Well, if nothing else, reading the anthology through reminded me why I had forgotten most of these stories.

#vampire #lesbian

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