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turboacek-blog · 2 years ago

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The Love-Hate thing with XY

Something I’ve had thoughts on ever since I’ve seen more of the Anipoke community and it’s an interesting situation

XY seems to be a fan favorite series of all the Pokémon series

With XY generally being seen as one of the best from a more ranking critic review viewpoint (look at IMDb scores for example)

So why is there such a divide among fans?

1) It gets so much loved it’s hated

It’s a weird yet normal reaction

There are definitely some fans out there that praise it so much that it can get annoying

Some actually use it to put down other series which is definitely not good

And some it’s the only thing they mention which over-saturates it in the grand scheme of Pokémon discussion which can also be annoying when out of 15 posts 12 are XY stuff you can get sick of it

2) XY is the only or one of the few watched by some

I’m constantly surprised by the number of fans that have only watched XY or started with XY

Clearly, some of it is an age thing, when they were in that general age range XY was on TV so it was naturally their first series

But also for one reason or another the way XY was presented got a lot more people wanting to check it out, I don’t know for sure but apparently XY brought in a lot of viewers and it can’t be just the regular wave of kids watching Pokémon for the first time

I mention this as people are then using XY as their basis whether it’s the constant comparison to SM specifically the art style or that they never watched Original series to DP/BW so it has that affect that when you’re watching something older some things don’t look as good since it is older especially for younger viewers

3) Social Media

Social Media been around for awhile before XY in 2013

But around that time was also a pretty big boom as stuff like YouTube were getting to the point that people were YouTubers, Vine was alive, twitter and Facebook were still the general share thoughts platforms and etc

So when clips from this time are shared they were more widespread then before and since it’s more modern its less likely to be gone

For example it’s hard to get stuff from OS-DP as it was just the byproduct of being older

Not everything was digitized, and some of the stuff that was is now gone whether a website taken down, or copyright on YouTube video etc as not everything was just on Serebii and Bulbapedia

Where XY was at a time that was fortunate enough that stuff is hard to lose and copyright was better understood and etc so it was able to build up views and likes and etc

Like I saw a vid where someone who never watched Pokemon was reacting to Ash-Greninja like there's something there

4) Miscellaneous stuff

General stuff that some like but I don’t want to say is a main reason or is big enough to give its own point

Visuals: people loved how XY looked, the art style plus the animation and 3D camera

Approach: generally the most shonen of the Pokémon series and when stuff like shonen is a big hit amongst a similar demographic it gets love for it like Ash being more “mature”, him being more of a leader, etc

Romantic side plot: Serena's crush on Ash at least from what I noticed has its own community with shipping, and I can see it bringing in a lot of girl viewers as romance is a common drawing point for young girls plus it’s a general thing people can like

Preferences: some might just generally like characters like Alain over a character like Paul, which I think is just a preference thing than an objective thing, and this applies to everything naturally

5) Least amount of Problems

I have my personal thoughts on XY, some positive some negative

But I can say from a more objective/critics point of view XY has the least problems of any series

XY consistently looked great, had what feels like the least amount of “filler” episodes, had at least solid arcs for Ash Clemont Serena and Bonnie, decent rivals, a supporting cast, etc

As even though I don’t think Sun and Moon had problems it definitely got backlash from the art style change alone let alone the formula change

BW was a soft reboot so it had a negative response from existing fans

JN had production issues that had them have recaps and such plus the co-lead with Goh stuff

So when you can point to negatives for other series that don’t really apply to XY it’s easy to hold it higher

It’s like saying they all have 5 positives but XY has like 1 negative while the others have 3+ negatives. It doesn’t matter about the positives as the negatives weigh them down more

Like even though it has its weaker points if I have to grade it XY doesn’t go below a 5/10 in anything (plot, character, pacing, etc) where you can say some series do fall below that line

Like I personally don’t care for the Team Flare Arc after the league but I wouldn’t say it was bad in the slightest

So my conclusion?

XY was definitely the right place-right time series

The social media boom, plus the general improvements XY made from BW gave it a lot of fans

So now whether they think it genuinely or they just have nostalgia for it, have XY rated higher and like to talk about it regardless of how much it’s already been discussed

It’s similar to how I remember Original Series

Doesn’t matter what May, Dawn, Paul, etc would do people would still bring up Misty Gary Charizard and etc

And it’s the same with XY, doesn’t matter what the Alola Gang, Iris, Cilan, Goh, or Chloe, they get compared to Clemont Bonnie, Serena, etc, and even Ash gets compared to his XY version

But since XY is more recent and for the most part OS fans aren’t online like that they get the status of being the most vocal and etc

As someone who was older when XY came out and wasn’t around for all the YouTube and etc

They do hype up XY a little too much

But at the same time, I do get the dislike or neutralism for SM and JN, and BW

As people can not like certain aspects of XY but none really got or deserve the backlash the others did so they look better as a result of not having that issue

As if hypothetically all Pokémon series in a vacuum are 7/10’s

Things like BW’s soft reboot make it a 5/10 to those fans for example and this can be applied to all series even XY but if others have more visible issues then they get bogged down more which results in making XY look better

To XY’s credit is a feat in itself but having the least number of issues doesn’t mean any issues which are where a lot of anti’s and people that just get tired of it come from as some do genuinely think XY is perfect

Overall XY is a solid series it came out at the right time when everything surrounding it was more controversial and it was able to explode in popularity thanks to the internet

Both sides are justified as XY has its good points but the fact that it’s seemingly the most discussed and regarded series does seem a bit excessive and I sympathize with those that don’t like it for that or just don’t like that series in general

#pokemon xy #pokemon xyz #pokemon #anipoke #pokemon anime #ash ketchum #pokeani #pokémon bonnie #clemont pokemon #serena pokemon #pokemon thoughts #pokemon discussion

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theinfinitedivides · 2 years ago

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note to self do not try and watch BTS clips from SRK films at ungodly hours of the morning, your gay ass will regret it one way or another

#film: happy new year #local gay watches Bollywood.txt #this post is brought to you by me finding bloopers from Happy New Year yesterday on YouTube and having them on loop since #i cannot breathe #i open my mouth to take in oxygen and i do nothing but wheeze myself into oblivion #99.8% of the character breaks in these clips are caused by Abhishek B the rest are just cast shenanigans and SRK existing in general #part 1 and 2 of the blooper series are cursed tho istg #you have Shah Rukh about to judo kick a mf*cker (read: the cardboard bodyguard that fell down while he was passing #in one of the takes and everyone subsequently looking at him like he's lost a few braincells).#you have Shah Rukh almost spitting out his water in the first ten seconds of part 2 bc of Abhishek.#you have a very specific point in that video where for no reason whatsoever he leans in to tell Boman Irani something and just.#f*cking licks him from chin to cheekbone. Irani glitches for at least five seconds afterwards #as one is want to do after being licked by the Shah Rukh f*cking Khan.#Don flashbacks immediately show up. one of the other cast members is trying not to be the third wheel and is failing miserably #if we're honest he's more unhinged on set than on Twitter #channeling 'freedom is a thot' energy but so are you sir!!!#look here that is not very heterosexual of you #anyway i need this or else i'll talk about how the CBFC really heard everyone screaming about the saffron bikini #and decided that there was some weight to that and asked the Pathaan team to come back with edits to the songs #then again this is the same CBFC that just rescinded a certificate they gave to a Pakistani film for release in the country #and didn't give a reason as to why

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wewinbees · 4 years ago

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Techno vs Dream Duel

i saw twitter talking about the dream vs techno duel and it revived something in me im talking about it again (on here i won’t use that website but they missed a few stuff and hgnfnfn thoughts must go somewhere)

edit: putting this disclaimer at the top of the post bc its long and i didn’t realise it was technically cc neg until after posting it LMAO. basically tl;dr is duel weird, glad theyre friends now

so the big prerequisite to the duel is based on reputation. despite his channel being quite content based on mid-2019 with his new skyblock series, technoblade soon joined minecraft mondays, where he earned his reputation among the larger YT circle as a PVP god, winning 4 times and coming 1st individual more often than not. there was plenty of toxicity from other players, but the event helped his channel take off during the new minecraft resurgence. techno’s fanbase grew quickly and began to hold High Expectations for him, seeing all the times he’d won in the past

around this time, dream started his channel and actually was in MCM 9, teamed with BBH and it was one of his first big events. he ended up in 11th individual, with techno coming in 1st, though dream and bbh finished one place above him in teams.

dream established himself through his speedrunning, both challenges like the manhunts and ‘minecraft, but’ videos, and was shown to be one of the best 1.9 pvpers. and rose very quickly, hitting 1mil by the end of 2019 and growing quick through the rest of the year. he quickly became known as ‘one of the best minecraft players’, and made lots of videos with mr beast at the time, all of which portrayed him as such - a legendary minecraft player.

funnily enough, techno had an interaction with mr beast already, during MCM week 13 with wilbur, where he placed a 15k bounty on him in the final round of hunger games, announcing it halfway through the tournament, putting stress on both him and wilbur (who had 0 chance of winning Anything, by the way) and probably screwing their chances of winning. and when techno was panicking and brought it up, mr beast went “haha. anyway!” like LITERALLY he said “aren’t you the best minecraft player??” like that’s gonna stop getting hard targeted. they didn’t win, and wilbur was really cool about it, this is still one of my fav MCM POVs bc they’re so fun together despite this being like the first time they talked. but still. mr beast’s attitude with dream is already Pretty tonally different than his w techno back then

now i could only find one video of them together between this and MCC 6, Dream’s enderdragon vid which was pretty chill, but the techno vs dream rivalry was born from MCC. i didn’t join the new mcyt fanbase until around october, so i don’t know the full extent to how they were compared before this (most is just researched through youtube comments and reddit as well as just word of mouth accounts from diff ppl), but i’ve seen a little bit, specifically in a dream and mr beast collab, where dream didn’t want to go along with that, but he doesn’t Quite keep up that attitude later on. if you watch that clip, you might wanna watch a little bit after it as well, they go on for longer than a minute (which oh my god why)

at the time, techno was in the last 2 weeks of the potato war where he farmed nonstop, meaning he hadn’t practiced at All - this was one of his 3 interruptions from farming, and as a result it was his worst ever performance…. at 9th place, still coming 4th in teams, only 195 coins away from dream’s team. 9th individual is still a good score, might i add, he’s one of the only players that have never dropped out of the top 10 despite playing in 10 canon events. dream got 3rd individual, which is amazing for a debut, but this led to uh. ahha

dream made his Only Ever MCC video, the day after the tournament, to hype up the new rivalry. now i made a post about this before that summarises it, and framed it comedically so i could put it in the dream tag, but really this is a Big example of dream pushing the rivalry more than techno. and techno is shown to HATE This fucking video man. like ohhhh boy he doesn’t like it, which, yeah, absolutely fair enough!

if he made a vid out of MCC 9, dream getting 13th and him getting 2nd, and then framed the whole vid around that, it would be EXTREMELY BM!!! especially since as this point they didn’t know eachother very well, dream saying they only really became friends after techno joined the dream smp. So It’s A Yikes there. the antagonistic tweets are more obvious for that, but i know dream deleted a lot of them (which is good on him, actually)

basically, while techno absolutely added to the rivalry bc it was good content, dream pushed it a lot more, and in more of a taunty way that techno. and from what i see it was largely bc of his reputation as a New Minecraft Youtuber. he wanted to hype himself up more, and what better way to do that than taking down the old king.

i haven’t found the clip quite yet, but there’s a bit of techno talking about his reputation before dream came around, where most people said that techno wasn’t that great at PVP, but made up for it in his ‘high IQ plays and good game strategy’ and how after dream came around that was inverted, which him and everyone else in the call agreed Was Worse. he would rather be smart than good at video games. that’s not true though, we’ve all seen the potato war here, he is Scarily smart

now MCC week 7 is an event. here’s another post of mine on it, but to summarise it was SCUFFED and Dream’s team suffered bc of it and he got Kinda Toxic. threatening to log out midgame and saying the tournament was rigged in techno’s favour (which, haha, laughs in MCM). this is BAD and ended up festering some hate towards the noxcrew, which is a great way to make me personally lose all respect for anyone bc i love MCC and noxcrew and oh my god i want their hand in marriage so bad it’s my favourite ever.

but anyways, the next event is MCC 8 where they team, and THIS is where the duel was born. basically, in the team announcements, mr beast brings up the duel (see above) and techno and dream both respond. dream’s response is deleted, but he said something like “hell yes, sign me up, my middle name is down” to which techno says

now my issue with this one? based on these tweets, THE DUEL HADN’T BEEN CONFIRMED. AND IT WAS MENTIONED PUBLICALLY. WHAT. now i’m going by the assumption that it had been at least mentioned in private before this, but a precedent has been set with these tweets: mr beast wants to do it, dream wants to do it, techno does Not Want To Do It.

meaning if it never happened, people would know who backed out. so there is now Public Pressure on techno to accept this duel, for which the stakes are Insanely High, or else people will know he was the one who wouldn’t do it, making him seem cowardly and unofficially confirming ‘Dream’s better than him’. so now he basically HAS to accept

basically immediately he jumps into the training arc, from the potato war and straight into the 1.9 training. from what i’ve seen, he mainly trained with fruitberries, cxlvxn and tapl (dunno if firebreathman was there for this one?) in both 1.8 and 1.9. apparently techno had actually suggested they do all the rounds in 1.9, dream’s main version, but it was split both ways. techno trained this for it looks like most of august, and his according to friends had ended up busy enough he barely talked. this stream at 31:19 is just one example, here’s a great phil clip too, but this duel was a Big Deal!

not even bc of the money, the guys were already loaded, but because of his reputation, Because that’s what the stakes of the duel were for techno. he’s supposed to win. and as a result the pressure was insanely inproportionate. from what dream said, he thought this duel would be interesting because he wanted to know who would win, and he wanted to prove himself. for techno, it was more that he Had to prove himself

this clip from techno says it best. because this is what it hinged on. techno had everything to lose from this duel. dream didn’t have to win, he’s a speedrunner, his audience never had such high expectations for him it became a meme to say “L” when he won. he could afford to lose. techno couldn’t. and as a result, oh BOY was there gonna be stress, and for a guy who already has anxiety issues that could not have been fun

they split the money before the duel, to try to reduce the stakes a little. techno’s tweet on the image a lil bit below shows him openly admitting to being stressed, which is such a tonal difference to dream’s taunting tweets by the way, plus there’s multiple clips of him saying he couldn’t eat for a few days before the duel [at 4:15] then one saying he couldn’t really eat AFTER, all because of stress.

the mind games around the duel are interesting. apparently dream considered his big advantage to be techno’s stress. he wanted the first round in 1.8, hoping to beat techno in his own version to psyche him out for the rest of the game, he told techno that he knew the name of his alt account just before the duel started and overall thought his lack of stress from high pressure situations would be what would win him the duel. he duelled tommy, wanting to underperform apparently just bc he thought techno would see and underestimate him. Huh?

ironically, he found out techno’s alt and panicked bc techno had a 99.3 KDA, and lost the round in 1.8 and said he was nervous for a few rounds that he won in. which brings us on to Sportmanship. if you want to see for yourself watch (or just skim) these two videos. now techno is a great sport most of the time, it’s a big appeal of his content for me, but dream repeatedly makes excuses for his loss and techno’s win

that he “should have won” and got “lucky hits” and that he overall “performed better” because he finished with more health on some rounds? bro. You Lost. now from what I’ve heard the claim that “two equally matched players can 7-3 eachother depending on the day” isn’t completely untrue, which is code for i heard fruit say it once, so i trust dream on that one. but the amount of excuse making here does Not sit right for me. like i get he’s salty bc the loss, which again! Fair! but it’s just. Ehhh. take the L on that one bro

i will say, in a brief defence of dream, even though he WAS kind of a dick around the rivalry, no one knows that better than himself. he’s expressed regret about the kind of way he acted around this time, and him and techno are still friends now, and he’s straight up said losing the duel to techno humbled him, and was probably for the best.

BUT ALSO THIS VID WHERE HE HAS TO 1v1 LIKE 50 PPL AFTERWARDS FOR HIS EGO HAHA WHY DID YOU DO THIS ONE DREAM WHAT

adding later, but heres a thread from dream’s private Twitter talking about how stressful it was for him and what it felt like after losing! there was a lot of stress on both sides on the competition

as for the mr beast bias, the format of the video was meant to be karl: dream support, chris: techno support and then him as a neutral commentator. Didn’t Work Out, techno won and mr beast went ��Noooo-oh, my goodness!” and when dream was losing, he went “dreams meant to be one of the best players in the world, where is this coming from?” to which techno says “im not half bad myself”. not the best unbiased host. also techno tried to shout out calvin for help with training rod PVP and the editor put in a picture of Famed Protestant John Calvin. scammed

now the dream vs techno duel is Literally what made me a techno fan. and it’s all bc of this one clip that i saw in a compilation that made me lose it. he trained for like a full month w the best 1.9 PVPer. and NO ONE TOLD HIM?? huh???? AND HE STILL WON?? bro that’s hilarious my brains picking that one

rewatching the duel theres at least 1 obvious point where he tried to axe crit while sprinting (he comments “i miss the axe crit there and lose the fight as a result”) it is just. Wow. and im not even good at PVP or PVP analysis, so chances are there’s more i didn’t notice.

now technotwt found this and were understandably sad about the lack of support techno got. that’s not my main issue here though. this was run BEFORE the duel. it was recorded later that day, on the 27th, and then released on the 29th. that’s why i have the 2 other tweets, to show the timing. bullshit. Poll, techno saying he’s stressed and THEN recording time.

techno had to go into the duel knowing only 20 fucking percent of people had confidence in his win. WHY? there was literally no fucking need to run the poll beforehand, if it was done after the recording but BEFORE the upload, it wouldn’t have changed the content at all, But no. techno went in with a NUMBER. 20% of people. goddamn it. oh well, his dad had his back at least. technodad, you’ll never not be the coolest. i don’t think mr beast had any malicious intent w this but still makes me mad

on the subject of dads though. philza minecraft, the only man? fuck yeah bro. he had techno’s back, dude, oh my God. here’s a clip of him telling techno how hyped he was for the win (plus tommy talking about missing techno while he was gone training). while all of Dream’s friends were taunting techno w pics of bacon and pigs? PHILZA DRANK WHATEVER THIS WAS!! MY STREAMER!!

techno also had the support of like tapl, calvin, sophie, niki and plenty others, with tommy and tubbo showing their vouch when reacting to it on stream, and plenty were neutral (as seen in the poll) but the scales were notably weighted towards dream, especially in terms of content creators. techno probably knew that going in, but still must have sucked. reblogging this post w a redemptive feature of this though

extra things:

this is a must watch for this subject by the way, i linked it before but just in general Watch This One

this is very good further watching too, this guys analysis was amazing

this is funny too, but it’s quite recent and shows dream’s past the bad days of the rivalry

techno being funny in the duel

more recent, but the techno banter episode talks about a lot of the things in the post at around 4:14

i’ll also say, it doesn’t seem like there’s any bad blood between techno and mr beast or anything, like at all. as much as this post may suggest, they’ve done plenty of videos together since the duel (with one coming out relatively soon i think??) and this is all just my interpretation and part of why i personally am not a fan of the guy, but from what the fans can see they Are chill and it’s weird to assume content creators secretly hate eachother.

exactly the same thing goes with techno and dream! we know that they’re good friends now, and no matter how iffy things seemed around the duel, it is all in the past and we shouldn’t use the duel or things from the early rivalry as any kind of overruling event to judge them on who they are now. these are just my words on it all

now i didn’t clip or source Everything, bc some videos wouldn’t let me clip and i didn’t want to put a tonne of timestamps, but if you want me to hoke something specific out please let me know and I’ll put it in the replies (or the main post i don’t mind)

#EDIT if youre rbing this pls rb the og post bc i’ve added a lot of clarifications and other stuff #check out the notes tho theres good additions #this crashed halfway through making it and deleted half of it but im so pumped i needed motivation to do somehting and HERE IT IS #technoblade #mcyt #100k duel #dream critical #mr beast critical #putting those there bc yeah. Yeah it is isn’t it hahaha #dreamwastaken critical #dream neg #long post

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princessofprocrastination · 3 years ago

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Not The Same (GeorgeNotFound)

summary : you put out a song, but it attracted the wrong type of crowd and caused too many misunderstandings.

trigger warnings : threats (including death and doxing), panic attacks, taking of meds.

"you're THOSE type of fans, huh?" you read the comments on your newest song release.

and that was the start of your downfall.

you and your dad really enjoyed singing. at any opportunity you two got, you would be doing a duet.

whether that would be at at a close relative's wedding or your at home karaoke set up, you two knew how to entertain people.

though singing was your passion, you ended up being too busy with school and trying to graduate with a diploma to even think about singing again.

but you swore to make a career of your singing after high school. you just loved it too much.

but then, you didn't go to college for music, which pretty much shocked your parents and your friends since they knew your only passion in life was singing.

but you took a different direction. you still wanted to sing and you were trying your hardest to find a way to make that your career.

someday, anyway. but you needed to have a plan to fall back into in case anything goes wrong.

you were a realist, after all.

so off to college you went.

you spent long hours studying for tests after tests, sat through hours of lectures, did endless amounts of projects.

in the end, it was all worth the wait and fatigue. you graduated top of your class.

you went off to be an intern, clocked in more hours before you could fully go into the next phase of your life.

and after those long hours, you finally made the decision (with the support of your parents) to take a gap year.

but before anyone panics. your gap year was not all fun in games where you took to rest and lay in bed all day.

you took the gap year to see if the music industry fits you. to see if you even had the chance to succeed.

and if it did, you could finally have your dream job. but even if it didn't you were not going to be upset if you needed to fall back onto your backup plan.

in the duration of the gap year, you took voice lessons, and poetry classes for song writing.

and with whatever you have learnt, you took that into writing songs that you felt really relate to your life experiences.

so you spend at least a couple months writing multiple songs.

after almost 2 years, you finally came out with your first song. and it definitely got recognition. more than you thought you'd get, if you were being completely honest.

and that was what pushed you to sit your ass back on your desk to write more, and go into your makeshift studio and make the words into songs.

your parents were ecstatic to hear that you were finally doing the things you loved. and you knew you'd never get this far if it weren't for your family's support.

and so your music journey began.

it was going well for years. you were finally happy doing the one thing you enjoyed doing.

and you definitely think you were good at it. seeing and hearing the positive feedbacks from your family, friends and listeners.

you felt good.

but you lost that feeling when you came out with a new single, called ‘fan of you’.

you spent a while working hard on that song and you felt relieved when it was finally released. it was like a weight was lifted off your shoulders.

and you weren’t sure how one thing led to another, if you were being honest. at first, you received good feedback for your new songs. you even gained new listeners and your spotify rank rised.

but then it didn’t anymore.

your twitter flooded with mentions and your instagram full of tagged pictures and dms by accounts you’ve never heard of.

but you noticed a similarity with all of the spam. a guy name george. georgenotfound for short.

you being you, you looked into it. and that was when all of the information hit you. and all you had to look up was your name on twitter, and there it was, the longest thread of tweets you have ever seen in your life.

you took time to read it all, trying to make sure you didn’t miss anything crucial.

there must be an understanding. you didn’t know this guy name george. you’ve seen his face on pinterest once a while when you scrolled, yes. but you never looked into him.

this amazing person took their time to gather every bit of information there was about the scandal, which you were grateful for, or else you’d be scouring the internet for hours.

to summarise what you read, there was this artist by the name of tia jade who came out with a song a few months prior to yours called ‘just a fan.’

it was a good song, some say, and you could agree. it was professionally written and produced. but many fans of george found out that the song was about him.

not just about him, but about her falling in love with him, when she has never met him. and when his fans started to really listen and analyse the song, it got creepier.

basically, the song was about a fan falling in love with a celebrity/content creator and that they want to know them beyond their persona online.

but tia had apologised a little after the song came out, saying that she made that song based on a fan liking a content creator, and not about her falling for george.

but when you read enough of the issue, it definitely did seem like she was making that song to tell her story about falling for george. but she obviously needed an excuse to cover it up.

hence the apology.

and then you read about how they analysed your song, too.

they compared your song to tia’s and found it to have similar stories. stories about how a normal girl is falling in love with the man by the name of george, who had millions of followers on all social medias.

and if you admitted it to yourself, your song did seem to come out that way. especially if your mentality had been there. clearly your song could have been interpreted in many different ways.

you scrolled to the very bottom of the thread where there was a video of the man himself, george. he was addressing the issue.

“i don’t know how this happened twice. i thought once was weird enough, but.” he paused, focusing on building something on his screen.

“having heard of a song being about me again now makes my skin crawl.” he finished. it was short but enough to make his fans understand where he was coming from.

you scrolled further to see the replies of the thread. you wanted to know what were people saying about it.

and you definitely regretted your decision to do that.

threats everywhere. death threats, threats of beating you up, threats of doxing you. god the negative comments were drowned by the one’s that genuinely thought nothing wrong of your song.

you called you mom. this was the time you needed her advice. you needed to be told what to do. you didn’t want to accidentally trigger people.

you and her were on the phone for hours. she listened to you cried to her. she heard the painful sobs that came out of your mouth whenever you reminded yourself of what people were calling you on the internet.

she heard you cry silently on call when you saw your address and phone number being leaked on twitter.

but even through all of that, you joked around with your mom. “well, this was a hell of a way to be trending.”

you did what she told you to do. get a new phone number, stay in a hotel for a couple days while you try to settle the raging crowd of georgenotfound fans down.

in the span of a couple weeks, you got yourself a new number, a new house and a new car. you weren’t taking any chances.

you told no one besides your mom of the new changes, just to be safe.

and no, the threats did not cease. at all. these people did not have a life, constantly up in your dms, telling you to jump off a cliff or them hoping that a robber stabs you and leaves you dying.

you took your time trying to figure out a way to talk to george. or a way to speak out about this.

you didn’t want to write a half-assed notes app paragraph apologising when- first of all, you had nothing to apologise for and second, you had too much to say to fit it all in a notes app.

lucky for you, you didn’t need to start your own channel or make a sit down video on your own.

your recording label had brought up the idea of a documented series about you and how you became a singer about a year ago, and only started filming and posting the episodes a couple months prior on youtube.

so you took the series to your advantage. you pitched in the idea to your manager, to which she agreed to immediately, knowing that it was best you talked about it now.

this was how it played out on the perspective of viewers who watched that episode.

“bless you.” your producer says after you paused your singing in the mic as you stopped to sneeze.

you gave him a smile and a thumbs up from inside the booth.

the camera cuts to another clip.

the cameraman pans as they captured movers coming in and out of your old house, picking up your heavy furniture and boxes into large trucks to move into the new place.

it cuts again. this time it shows you scrolling on your phone with a focused face while your manager types something vigorously on her computer.

the camera tries to focus on your phone, and sees that you were on twitter, reading a lot of tweets under your name.

you exited the app and slide it away, going into youtube next, reading the comments on your song ‘fan of you’.

you scrolled far, clicking on some of the comments, trying to read the replies to certain comments you saw.

the camera cuts into a black screen. which then cuts again into a new scene, where you sat on your new kitchen counter talking to your mother, who sat on the chair in front of you.

your hair was up in a ponytail. a messy one. you were wearing sweatpants and a hoodie that seemed far too big on you, and your feet covered with fluffy socks.

you were nodding to whatever she was saying to you. it was clear your mind was elsewhere as your eyes were unfocused.

the scene cuts again.

you were seen on the couch, your legs were tucked into your arms and your head down, body shaking. it was obvious you were crying.

you were alone, your mother no where to be seen.

that was the first time the camera caught you crying.

the scene cuts as you were going to get up from the couch.

now, you were in the kitchen again, opening the refrigerator to take a water bottle, then walking to your room upstairs.

the camera follows behind you slowly into your room.

it hadn’t been the cleanest. there were a couple shirts on the floor, your bed undone, cups on your side table, your laptop open on your desk.

you were seen opening a drawer, taking out a small white bottle. you unscrewed the bottle and took out 2 pills, popping them in your mouth, drinking water straight away after that to swallow.

the scene cuts again.

this time, you were seated on the couch in the studio, the atmosphere dark and quiet.

your hair was more kept this time, being help up in a clip.

you were wearing straight jeans and a slightly oversized sweatshirt. you looked more refreshed this time. but it was obvious you hadn’t slept in a while because of your eyes.

your eyes that usually held a lot of happiness and joy turned dull.

“it’s been a while since i’ve spoken to a camera.” you offered a small smile. your song ‘just a fan’ was playing in the background of the clip.

the scene cuts again.

“when i released that song, i was genuinely proud of the work i had done.” you paused for a while. besides the song playing in the background, it was silent.

“but i guess the joy didn’t last very long.” the scene cuts there.

it transitioned to a collage of what people were saying about you. it showed clips of people talking about it on youtube. they even showed george talking about it.

and it cuts again.

it showed a different clip this time. a clip of your ex boyfriend and you at the beach on a picnic, that was taken by a close friend of yours.

this was when you were still in college.

it showed all the fun memories you two made while you were still together.

it showed a video of him studying in the library, flipping through his papers and scrolling through his laptop. it was clear he was hard at work, not noticing you filming him.

but then the scene cuts again. and the music turned somber.

your ex boyfriend’s grave.

it was the day you were visiting him. you sat down next to his stone, a blanket under you.

you were just staring at his stone, not moving.

and it cuts again.

“he was one of the most driven person i have ever met.” you told the camera.

“he knew when to be serious and when to have fun.” you looked down in your hands and played with your rings.

“all he ever talked about was becoming a surgeon. he worked hard in his intern years and continued being passionate through his residency.” you spoke up.

“people had only nice things to say about him. the only bad thing they would say about him is that he can be pretty uptight sometimes, especially when he was stressed about something.” you laughed a little.

“i was a huge fan of him, even when we just saw each other in the hallways. he’s just amazing. i’ve always wanted to be just like him.”

“i wanted to write a song about him but i didn’t the song to be sad.” you said.

“and that was when the song ‘fan of you’ was created.

the scene cuts there and goes into another.

you were in the recording booth again, this time, you were singing into the mic.

the camera pans to your producer and manager dancing and bobbing their heads to the beat.

the scene cuts, officially ending it with a black screen with ‘the end’ in a fancy white font.

you busied yourself with writing new songs as your name got trended again on twitter.

and george has never felt worse about himself ever in his entire life.

he watched the episode as soon as dream sent it to him.

“you’re an asshole, george.” dream sends to him, along with the link of the video on youtube.

as the video ends, he decides to read the comments, wondering what it was like down there.

it was the worse mistake he had ever made in a while.

but he knew he deserved it. he did assumed it was about him, just like the last song made with a drawing of his glasses as their cover photo on spotify.

this time, there was genuinely no reason to think that this song was about him, or anyone with a following whatsoever. he just believed what his chat told him.

sure, there were some familiarity of the character in your song and him, but the world did have 7.6 billion people living on it.

“so, here i am apologising.” george says to his camera, live. his tone was very sincere and apologetic.

“this shouldn’t have gotten this far. they shouldn’t have gotten threats at all, let alone death threats. they shouldn’t have woken up to the world knowing where they live and what their phone number is.”

“and if you’re watching. i sincerely apologise. i clearly was full of myself.” george finishes. ending the live with a small wave.

and were you watching? hell yes.

and that was the day the two of you followed each other on instagram.

he used your songs as his intros of his live, (with your permission, of course.) you showed in your documentary that you were watching whenever he was live or watching his youtube videos.

and that was the start to a beautiful relationship.

you sat on the chair, going live. you waved as people started joining. it went from hundreds, to thousands in seconds.

as you were talking and clicking on your keyboard and mouse, playing a game, you felt arms around your shoulders.

you smiled, yet continued playing.

“why are you live on my account?” he laughs.

you disconnected the headphones so that he could hear what you were hearing.

“george, you’re being replaced.” dream said on discord.

george smiles, giving you a kiss on the top of your head. “that was well deserved.”

#georgenotfound imagines #georgenotfound imagine #georgenotfound fanfic #georgenotfound x reader #georgenotfound

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spiked-tea-writing · 4 years ago

Text

and they were roommates?!

SapnapxFem!Reader

Summary: Imagine being in love with your roommate, couldn't be you.

Pronouns: She/her

Warning: Swearing

Word Count: 2.3k

A/n: I don’t watch or know anything, I just like these people and I had a concept. Also, he and Dream aren’t roommates in this for the sake of I can’t figure that out. Also also, my timeline is probably fucked but who cares

The dynamic in the apartment was...interesting to say the least

In the two years of living together, it had shifted a lot

In the beginning, you and Sapnap had been... less than cordial to each other

Both eighteen, fresh out of high school, off to college thinking that you knew everything.

There was lots of fighting, to say the least.

All of the “No it’s your turn to vacuum”, and “I swear to god Sapnap I will punt you halfway across the world if you eat my pineapple again”

The only reason you didn’t slit each other’s throats was that if the other person was dead, who would pay rent?

It was the summer before college started at the time, and you were working long hours minimum wage so coming]’/ home to an annoying prick caused a crap ton of conflict

After a few months of being little bitches to each other, y’all got piss drunk in the apartment and it all just sorta fell apart

Got that good drunk therapy, spilling your deepest secrets

(y’all were underage but shhh)

So by the time college started, the two of you had become actual friends and started enjoying each others company

A few months into the friendship, you encouraged him to post the video of “Minecraft, but it’s Raining Cats and Dogs” on a whim

Lmao little did you know what you had created (we’ll get to that later)

You mocked his train of thought constantly, laughing at the timing of it all.

“Ahhh yes, I am Sapnap, the genius who thought it’d be great to become a YouTuber while in my first year of college.”

He’d always just laugh and roll his eyes, playfully shoving you while stealing your chips.

The next few months were a haze of studying, work, and him.

It was truly a friendship of convenience since you guys were so busy, him starting his youtube career, and you working restaurants, then school on top of that, it was just easy to find friendship in your roommate.

Of course, he had his close friends which he spoke to over the internet, and you had your friends from back home, but as for college, it really was only him.

You guys had a fun time just hanging around the apartment, and it became so easy to be friends with him

And it WAS truly platonic (we’ll get back to that as well)

The best thing he brought to the friendship was his animals

You got on fabulously with Cash and the cats

They were all so cuddly and honestly loved you more than him lmao

You guys were just trying to get degrees and not be too stupid, was that too much to ask???

Well to a certain 2020, it was

The beginning of that year was great.

He was sorta realizing that he liked putting himself on social media, but on top of that, it seemed like a great start to a year.

February brought him to twitch, which you loved

You found it hilarious how he would just sorta play games and have people watch him live.

But you were incredibly supportive, as a friend, of course

He really liked it so, you tried to ignore the shouting at three am, and the loud anthems at night

Sure you’d give him hell in the morning, but why kill his fun?

March started great, as it was his birthday.

You got him a glittery lighter as a gag, but it was the perfect gift for a broke-ass college student

Then a certain pandemic came a-knockin’ on y’all’s door

It was a hard hit on both of you.

An executive decision was made that you two would stay put, but being away from your families was incredibly tough.

That spring was the birth of The SMP.

It brought him so much joy, which in turn made you happier.

The rest of the school year was a blur of zooms and test

Nick nearly killed you on multiple occasions when you made fun of the fact that he was learning computer science over the computer or made him help you figure out what the fuck zoom was since it was tangentially related to his major

“SAP HELP ME YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS ITS YOUR FUCKING MAJOR!!!”

“NO, IT’S- AHHHHHHHHH”

Yall got more than a handful of noise complaints shhhh

That summer was fill was spent trying to fill the time in weird ways

Note to self, he can’t cook (which you learned the hard way)

Yall spent so much time trying to cook and bake, then sweating off the calories working out with The Fitness Marshall lmao

As sucky as the situation was, that summer was so incredibly fun for the both of you, and truthfully the only arguments were about what music to blast

“Y/n I swear if I listen to Cosmicandy one more time I will drown you.”

“Well if I hear American Idiot one more time someone’s knee caps are getting harvested.”

(that argument was settled with Elton John.)

When school started up again that fall, something shifted

After a year of actual friendship, you guys were no longer just friends, and the tension was so thick it could be cut with a knife

You had watched every single one of his streams since day one, but within 2 seconds of his Love or Host, you felt the need to hurl for some peculiar reason

It was bizarre because there was no way you could ever like him, of course not.

Within the apartment, you guys suddenly got a lot more touchy, but only because it was getting cold with winter and all that jazz.

It wasn’t because yall were secretly in love, what is this, a romcom?

The number of times you guys woke up on the couch, definitely not cuddling was too many to count

You started sitting in his room while he streamed, definitely not watching him with heart eyes because of how excited he got

He always had a pot of coffee full and a 6-pack of monster in the fridge since he knew you ran on spite and caffeine, and definitely not so that he could spend more time with you in the early hours of the morning.

The laundry started getting all mixed around, resulting in just sharing any sweats, hoodies, or socks.

The same thing went for food.

No longer was anything labeled with a name, if it was in the fridge, it was fair game (unless there was a post-it because come on, yall weren’t monsters)

But no, y’all were just roommates, not dating, lets make that clear.

Feelings? We don’t know her.

This entire time, his friends have had to hear about you rip.

But they got front row seats to your relationship development

“OMG my roommate is the worst she ate all of the frozen strawberries”

“Y/n kidnapped Storm all day while she studied and I thought I lost the fucking cat asjvdk”

“I had to run down and talk to the landlord because we dropped a pot of pasta sauce all over the carpet and couldn’t get the damn stain out.”

“She is so nice in preparation for a family dinner zoom, she ran out to the local Filipino food place and pick stuff up.”

“Sorry I’m late I overslept and didn’t want to wake up Y/n.”

They weren’t stupid, and could clearly see how whipped he was.

Dream and Geroge teased him about it constantly.

“Woah, calm down Sap, you should probably tell her you love her before you propose.”

“Yeah Dream’s right, it’s kinda weird that you’re living together before ever dating.”

He always flushed and denied it with a shake of his head.

He wasn’t into you, are they crazy?

Quackity and Karl messed with him in more unorthodox ways

There are a solid number of clips where they are fake crying over how he’s cheating on them, and even more tweets to match

It only got worse when you met them accidentally.

He was chatting post-stream on a video channel with George, Dream, Karl, and Quackity, and just his luck, you came into his room.

Like of all the times you could walk in, it was the time he was with his five closest friends but I digress

“Yo I got some extra tips yesterday so I picked up some extra Red Bull if you want to do one of your weird all-nighter streams.”

“Y/n I’m on channel.”

“Oh shit sorry my b. Catch.”

All the guys heard was a thud and a groan from Sapnap as the six-pack hit him in the chest.

Dream was the one to recognize your name.

“WAIT IS THAT Y/N I WANT TO MEET THEM!”

You could hear Dream’s voice through his headphones

“Sap… who is that?”

“No one. I’ll be out in a sec to help with dinner.”

You could hear a British voice come through.

“Oh so we are no one now, huh.”

Another voice piped through.

“Common... ¿Qué intentas ocultar?”

You cut in.

“Your headset it shit my guy. I can hear everything. I’m down to talk to them.”

He let out a groan.

“Fine. But you’re gonna have to do the dishes tonight.”

“Deal. Now move.”

“What? No.”

“Fine bitch.”

You collapsed onto his lap, plucking the headphones off of him.

“Hello, Sapnap’s friends. I am Y/n. A pleasure to meet y’all. Can you hear me?”

You heard a series of laughs through the headset, and a voice came through.

“Yes, we can see you too. I’m Karl, it’s so nice to finally meet his girlfriend.”

A blush rose on both of your faces, and another voice came through.

“Yeah, we’ve heard lots about you. Plus we can’t see your face in that picture Sap sent us. I’m Quackity”

That remark stopped your embarrassment in its tracks.

“What the fuck? How do you guys know me? I’m not even his girlfriend? And what picture?”

Sapnap grabbed your arm to calm you down as another voice cut in, but his one you recognized as his friend Dream.

“Hey, it’s okay. He just talks about you a bit, and the picture I believe was of you holding like three cats with like a red bull can on your head.”

“Jesus fucking christ why do they have that photo??”

He looked guilty but chuckled.

“Because that photo is a damn masterpiece.”

Karl’s voice came back in with a giggled.

“Soooo, Y/n we’d love to hear about you. Specifically anything funny or embarrassing that you have learned by living with him.”

Sapnap let out a groan from behind you as you went off.

“WELL lemme tell y’all, he has no cooking knowledge, well I mean, now he does, but one time, about a year ago, I had I been keeping a pot of water boiling for about an hour, soft boiling eggs, cooing noodles, blanching bok choy, etc. but this fucking genius is like ‘oH tHe HaNdLe Is StIcKiNg OuT. LeMmE mOvE iT wItH mY bArE hAnD.’ Needless to say, he burnt the crap outta his hand and kept the bag of frozen blueberries on it for the entire night. It took me like a solid five seconds to actually help him because I was laughing.”

By the time you had finished that story, you had seen Nick roll his eyes like 5 five times while the rest of the guys were wheezing.

“Yeah, well remember the time you were trying to imitate Rapunzel after we had watched it over Zoom with my sister, and you swung the edge of the frying pan into our head and got a nasty bump on it? At least I moved quick enough to put some ice on it.”

“Ice? It was the damn leftover Slushy that I had been freezing.”

“True, but you got to drink it after, so it was a win-win situation.”

“Sap, I had a bump the size of a golfball coming off of my temple. There was no winning.”

“Fine, you’re just making me sound like such a shit roommate.”

“No that’s not true, you do all of the talking to the landlord, and you at least tried to muffle the noise when you stream.”

“I guess that’s true, but you do like 80% of the cleaning.”

“Yeah but only because you’re working. Plus in the past 6 months, you’ve made coffee every morning, AND made sure I was taking my meds.”

“Those things aren’t that hard and I do it to make sure you don’t die because I lo- care about you.”

“What?”

You heard Dream’s wheeze laugh and remembered that you guys were still on call.

“Smooth.”

You both went red, and Sap moved his arm around you to leave the channel.

The next few moments were complete torture, the two of you just sitting in silence.

You were wondering if he meant what he was about to say and he was scared that you had heard it.

He was the one to break the silence. (mind you you’re still sitting on his lap lmao)

“I’m sorry about that.”

You weren’t sure how to respond. Should you ask him if he meant it? Because that wouldn’t be that bad. Or just pretend it never happened. Nah that’d be hella awkward. Or-

“I love you too.”

“You what?”

Wow, okay your brain is being a little bitch rn, but fuck it. Balls to the walls baby.

“I love you, and I have for a while now. I just want you to know.”

You finally looked him in the eye, and he was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“Thank god. I love you, and nearly fucking told you for the first time in front of my friends accidentally. Damn, I’m smooth.”

You laughed and he smiled wider.

“Can I kiss you?”

After a quick nod he swooped in and holy hell his lips felt great. His arm wound around your waist and your hands made their way to his jaw as he pulled you closer to him.

The only thing playing in your mind was “and they were roommates”

#sapnap x reader #sapnap #sapnapxreader #sapnap fluff #sapnap fanfic #sapnap fanfiction #sapnap x you #sapnap x y/n

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mindofharry · 4 years ago

Note

tell me why i’m kinda obsessed with the idea of harry dating a well known youtube vlogger? like the first couple that comes to my mind is claudia sulewski and finneas. just the idea of him being in the background of the vlogs makes me happy. i just love it

OK IM ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED WITH THIS.

like harry’s super, duper private. so dating someone that is well known too is always a lot harder. Especially when you’re definitely more open about your life. You make youtube videos for a living, and you’re very transparent with your followers. You like them to know what you’re going through, how you solved the problem etc. you’re like the big older sister of youtube. People watch your videos because you’re relatable and real and comforting. That’s why harry loves you so much.

You both met through friends. You met glenne in late 2013, when one direction was at their peak and your youtube career was taking off. Glenne and you went to the same event and basically became best friends in 2 hours, arranging to meet two days later. The minute glenne met you, she knew you were perfect for harry.

Glenne had been on your youtube vlog a few times, you didn’t like filming with your friends around — just because you know a few them don’t feel comfortable, but glenne really doesn’t mind. she likes to take over a bit too. In 2015 your youtube was one of the most viewed channel that year and you were growing more known by the second.

“Hey, i never did introduce you to my friend” glenne said while braiding your hair. you were definitely in some sort of sex rut, you just needed to have a few one night stands, you get out there. you had been in an on and for relationship for about 6 months now — you really think it’s over.

“Now which celebrity is it?” you teased making glenne pull your hair back. “glenne!” you pouted, holding into your head.

“it’s someone”

And so glenne set you up on a blind date, not telling you who or where. She did your makeup and helped you dress acordingly. You tried to ask questions, get literally anything out of her. But she’s a tough cookie. Jeff drove you and Glenne to the place, a nice diner. Could be worse, you thought.

“Be nice, be good and please give him a chance” Glenne said, like a mother. you nodded with a teasing smile before kissing her forehead and thanking jeff. Jeff could see you and harry together. He wasn’t sure how long you guys would last, but he couldn’t deny you were perfect for harry and harry was perfect for you. You loved the same music harry did, harry watched those horrible rom coms you make glenne and jeff watch with you. It’s perfect.

You give the waitress the name and she nods bringing you over to an empty booth.

“What can i get for you while you wait, darling” the waitress asked with a soft smile. “just a coke, thanks” you say watching her walk away. Five minutes later the door opened again and a tall man walked up to the same waitress - misty is her name. You see him being brought over your way by misty.

No fucking way. harry styles?

You grinned and stood up, harry immediately going in for a hug. He recognised you from a few pictures around jeff’s house and from the internet it’s self. He might of mentioned having a small crush on you to jeff at one point.

“Hi, i’m Y/N” you say sitting down, harry sits right in front of you. God, he’s so hot. Thank you glenne, you thought to yourself. Let’s just hope, you don’t embarrass yourself.

And you didn’t. You and harry really hit it off, staying in the diner for hours. You went back to harrys home and the rest was history. 5 years, nearly 6 you and harry are together and very much happy. Glenne never lets the fact she made you and harry happen go. You get asked and of course harry gets asked about how you two met and so on, glenne just loves that she’s apart of the story. You only have her to thank for bringing the love of your life to you.

Tackling the filming was hard after the so called “honeymoon phase”. you mostly just did sit down videos in the first year of you and harry dating - story times were a big think in 2016, so that really helped too. But when you both got more comfortable with yourself relationship and eachother, work was so much harder. Harry made it clear that he didn’t want to be in any videos. Even in the background. You completely understood, boundaries are good.

When you started back vlogging again, your supporters were so happy. They missed seeing your daily life, and they definitely made that known. You let harry know that you were vlogging that day, and there wasn’t a problem.

Until there was.

You were trying to be as careful as possible, but when you went to edit all the footage - there was basically nothing you could use. Harry was in nearly every clip and even if you tried to crop him out or cut that clip down - it just didn’t look good or make any sense.

Harry had seen the state you were in when you were getting ready for bed. He felt selfish - but he needed those boundaries.

“Hey guys! i’ve decided that sit down videos are the way to go from now on, it’s just better for me and my editor at the moment. hope you guys can understand” you say from the bathroom with a fake smile on your face - you were trying to hold back the tears. Harry could hear it in your voice and curse to himself.

Harry smiled at you when you came back to bed. you didn’t say anything just climbing into bed.

You barely posted on youtube and instagram anymore. Your supporters were worried to say the least, commenting everytime harry posted wondering what was wrong. Your friends began to worry too.

They wondered if harry was really the right person for you.

After being in a small rut for about two weeks - you sit harry down, you needed him to either get with your job or.... well, you know.

“this is my job and i’m currently letting down a lot of people” you say placing your hand on his “so i either need to be ok with being in the background” you pause and look up at harry “or we need to take a break”

Harry knew it was coming. He felt stupid for keeping you from your fucking job. He was selfish, and his boundaries were outrageous considering he’s living with a youtuber. So he decided to get with it - because he’s not losing you. He never ever wants to be without you, you’re the one of him.

And so the honeymoon phase came back again. Harry became comfortable with the camera and the fans absolutely loved it. You were finally getting back to your old self - well, the new and improved old self.

“So, harry and i are off to glenne and jeffs for dinner” you say putting down the camera, it rested on your desk. “this is the fit” you say standing back twirling around in your dress. Harry comes into the office and smiles as he sees you talking to the camera. He leans against the wall, one hand in his pocket. You turned around and saw your boyfriend watching you. You sighed and took your camera and turned it off him, harry didn’t have any complaints.

“you look beautiful”

Other times, it’s just as simple as getting a drink while you’re in the kitchen or being beside you while you’re talking.

youtuber!Y/N and harry styles are endgame !!!!

#harry styles #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles imagines #harry styles imagine #harry styles oneshot #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #asks #fic #fics #fanfic #fanfiction #requests #imagines #blurbs

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stylesxreads · 3 years ago

Text

Marigold and Daises - 1

Wattpad

Marigold's POV

2013 - Freshman Year of College

"I know!" Harry's wide grin shined brightly through the phone screen. "It's so crazy, petal! Who would've thought that we would blow up as much as we have?!" The smile on Harry's face never went away as he continued to fill me in on what's been happening in his life.

Of course, I was more than happy to sit here and listen. Harry started a band and posted videos of them covering songs on YouTube. They're channel grew rather quickly. Quicker than anyone could've imagined. Harry Styles was on the rise. My Harry Styles.

"I'm so proud of you, H." I smiled, I missed him. Our daily facetimes turned into weekly facetimes, which have now turned into very brief biweekly facetimes. I couldn't be upset with him, his career was just starting to take off. Besides, we weren't in a relationship, he doesn't have any obligation to give me attention.

"I can't wait to see you so I can tell you all about it." He grinned. "When are you going to fly out and visit me, huh?" He raised his eyebrow at me. "Sarah says she misses you. It's been a while."

5 months to be exact. 5 long months away from my best friend.

"Hopefully soon. If my manager ever decides to give me time off." I pouted.

"Well, then I'll come to you. I miss you, petal." Harry sighed, a small yawn escaping his mouth.

"You better get some rest... You've got a big day tomorrow." I reluctantly said. It was already 2 AM and Harry had a big meeting with some producers tomorrow.

"You're right.." He said sadly. "Don't worry, I'll come visit you soon. I promise." He shot me a smile. "Goodnight. I love you, petal."

2020 - Present Day

That was the last time I talked to Harry. 7 years ago, Harry made a promise he wouldn't be able to keep. I never thought I would talk to him ever again. Harry never visited, never called back, never answered my texts, never said another word to me after that facetime call. He grew bigger and bigger, his fanbase grew to millions in the matter of 6 months. I knew that I had lost him.

So you could imagine my surprise when Harry Styles, international pop star strolled straight into my shop. I was frozen in my spot behind the counter, he hadn't noticed me yet as I was off to the side arranging a custom bouquet.

Harry was wearing workout clothes, like he was out for a run. He wore a loose long sleeve shirt, nike shorts, a pair of runners and a hair clip held his hair snug on the top of his head. He looked good, he wasn't even trying and he looked good.

The cashier, Mya, greeted him with a quick "What can I get started for you?"

I watched from my peripherals, not wanting to be blatantly obvious that I was staring him down.

Vanilla Latte with caramel cream - I thought to myself, wondering if his usual coffee order may have changed over the years.

"I'll have a medium vanilla latte with caramel cream." He answered back with a smile. Mya nodded her head, pressing onto the screen.

I shook my head, it's been 7 years. He probably wouldn't even recognize me even if he saw me. I wrapped a ribbon around the vase of the bouquet, nodding my head contently as I smiled at my work.

"Daniel! Your flowers are ready!" I brought the vase to the counter, shouting out the customers name. He came to the front and gushed out a thank you, applauding my work before dropping a few bills in the tip jar and leaving the shop.

"Marigold?" My feet stayed glued to the ground as the voice broke through my ears. He's seen me. Not only has he seen me, but he remembers me. I turned to my side to see Harry with his head tilted to the side, as if he couldn't believe I actually stood in front of him.

"Hi." I said simply, a small smile on my face. His mouth widened a little more when he realized it really was me.

"Oh my gosh. I can't believe it's actually you!" He smiled. "People have been raving about the new coffee shop that opened up around here." He chuckled. "When I saw the shop's name, I was instantly drawn to it. Dahlia's Daisy Cafe, a flower shop and coffee shop tied into one."

I had moved to LA a year ago, deciding a new setting would be best for me to start my new life. I needed to get away from home, there was too many bad memories, too many painful ones.

I nodded my head, keeping the awkward smile on my face. This couldn't have been more uncomfortable for me.

"This is your shop isn't it?" His eyes lit as he spoke, I nodded my head once again. "You named it after your mom." My smile altered just a little bit at his words, but nodded my head once again to confirm.

"Yeah, I sure did. She would've loved it." I smiled softly, thinking of how proud mom would be right now.

"Look, Mari-"

"Harry, your latte is ready at the bar!" Mya called out. Saved by the bell.

"It was really nice seeing you, I gotta go handle some stuff in the back." I offered him a smile. "Have a good rest of your day!" I called, heading straight towards the back without giving him the chance to stop me. I closed my office door and took a deep breathe.

"That really just happened." I whispered to myself.

I couldn't tell if I was happy or not to see Harry. I think the word to describe how I'm feeling right now is, surprised. I definitely didn't think Harry Styles would be walking into my shop today. It's been years, so much has changed.

I couldn't help but think of how much he's changed since the last time I spoke to him. His face has matured, obviously. 7 years is a long time to grow, he was a man. Facial hair pricked at his chin, he was bigger. Bigger as in muscles, his shoulders were broad and even through his long sleeve shirt I could see the muscles on his arms.

"Mari, are you okay?" Mya knocked on the door. "You've got another order for a bouquet."

I opened the door, giving her a smile.

"Sorry!" I chuckled. "Go ahead and take your break, the next cashier should be here any minute now." I dismissed her.

I walked to the front ready to take the order but was greeted with an empty shop. A single piece of paper with a $100 sat on the counter top.

Custom Order Size of Bouquet: Large Flower(s): Daisy

Personal Message:

Petal, it was nice to see you again. I've missed you. We'll talk soon.

With love,

H. x

That was it. That's all the paper said. It didn't have any buyer information, but I didn't need any to know who it was from. I knew as soon as I read the word petal, I cringed at the word. A word I used to hold so dearly, now leaves an unfamiliar taste in my mouth. Nobody has called me that in years, because Harry was the only person that called me that. He signed it H, a nickname that I had given him when we were kids that he now uses to sign every social media post, tweet, caption, you name it.

I dropped the paper back onto the countertop. He ordered a bouquet of flowers for me? I sighed, pulling out a vase and starting on the bouquet. As much as I hated that he still had this effect on me, a small smile stayed on my face the entire time I made the bouquet.

~~~

"What?!" Allison screeched through the phone. "He was there? In your shop? The Harry Styles." She asked for the 5th time.

"Yes, Allie." I groaned, running my hand through my hair. As soon as I told her what happened today, she's been in shock, not seeming to process the information I laid out for her. She was a fan of Harry, who wouldn't be? His music was everywhere, He was everywhere. Even I found myself enjoying his music and sometimes even wondering if any of them were about me. Doubtful.

"Okay, I still can't believe you know Harry Styles personally." She said in disbelief. I met Allison in college, she's been a huge support for me through some of the hardest years of my life. I don't know what I'd do without her. "Knew. I don't know." She mumbled.

"And he ordered a bouquet for you?! From your own shop.. That's kinda cute." She raised her eyebrow at me, I rolled my eyes at her words.

"I don't know what it means." I huffed. Harry had ended the note with We'll talk soon. What does that even mean? I hated how vague he was in the note. Then again, I didn't really give him a chance to talk to me in person when he was at the shop. I couldn't handle it, I was feeling too many things at once and I knew if I didn't get away from him in that moment, I probably would've broken down in front of him. That's even more embarrassing.

"It obviously means he's going to talk to you soon! Has he texted you?" Her voice was high pitched, eager to know what was happening.

"Allie, I doubt he even has my number saved anymore." I glared at her. Harry hasn't texted or called within the last 7 years, I highly doubt seeing me for a mere 2 minutes would change that.

"Hey, just give him a chance okay? If he happens to reach out, I mean." Allie tilted her head. "You were best friends at one point, don't you think that deserves a second chance? There are hundreds of coffee shops within the city and he chose to go to yours, Mari. That's fate if I've ever seen it." She gave me a toothy smile, wiggling her eyebrows at the camera.

A strained cry broke out through the apartment, letting me know baby was awake.

"Oooh, I hear my sweet little niece crying." Allie sang her words.

"Yeah, come get her." I scrunched my nose, saying a quick goodbye before getting up from my comfortable position on the couch, tossing my phone on the coffee table.

I made my way to the bedroom where my daughter cried. She sat up in her crib when I opened the door, tears still flowing down her face as small whines continued to leave her mouth.

"Hi, baby. You're okay." I cooed, bending over the edge of the crib to scoop her in my arms. "Momma's got you." I smiled, wiping her tears away and kissing her cheek.

Maybe Allison is right, maybe I should've heard what Harry had to say. I wouldn't be raking my brain trying to guess what he was going to say to me at the shop if I had listened to him. I guess it's too late now, I had no way of contacting Harry. But he knew where to find me.

If he wanted to talk, he's going to have to make it happen.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry edward styles #harrys house #one direction #harries #harry styles fandom #harry styles best friend #harry styles dad #daddry #daddry fanfiction

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lovingremus · 4 years ago

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Youtuber Sirius part 2

Because a few asked for it :)

Read part 1 here!

This is set in the future (roughly August 2021) so who knows how things are then really, BUT in this blissful fantasy world, people have been super dedicated to getting the virus under control the whole year and the travel bans etc. are lifted so this can happen!!

CW the pandemic (& long-distance relationship if you don’t like to read about that <3)

It’s been over a year of twelve-hour daily phone calls and video chats. Birthdays and holidays celebrated over Zoom or FaceTime. Hundreds of “I love you” and “wish you were here” changed over the phone.

It’s been over a year of getting to know every detail of the other, a year of sharing secrets and dreams. It’s been over a year of laughter and ever-growing love, but also yearning and tears and words of comfort whispered into the speaker in the middle of the night, when the heartache of not being able to be together got too much for either of them.

But they have found ways to feel closer to each other. Sirius orders Remus a rose delivery on the door every Friday, sends him almost weekly packages filled with lovely gifts (usually a bunch of his own clothes—Remus rarely wears anything else these days, because oh god they smell like Sirius and it’s SO good). Remus still writes music for Sirius’s videos, and a half of his other songs are about him.

It’s been a while since Sirius hit forty million subscribers on his channel and a couple of months since Remus published his first full album on Spotify. They have both been guests at late-night shows via video calls. Several articles have been written about them, both as individuals as well as a couple.

So, Sirius and Remus are doing alright, but missing each other more than anything. Still, they both understand it’s more important to be patient and wait until the situation calms down rather than carelessly run to each other. Travelling abroad is out of the question right now. So they wait, and wait, and wait. It will all be worth it, they keep saying, you’re worth the wait.

Remus has watched all of Sirius’s videos. It wasn’t even hard, after all, almost like getting absorbed into a good series. He couldn’t stop watching as soon as he’d started, skipping sleep to the point Sirius threatened to make all his videos private until Remus took a nap (this happened quite a few times). Remus could definitely understand people’s obsession, even more so as he was wildly in love, and watching Sirius’s videos brought him so much comfort, a way to spend time with him during the long hours Sirius was asleep or otherwise not available.

He watches Sirius’s London vlog every day. Seeing him walk along those familiar streets is comforting and heartbreaking at the same time. And he had been so close, about twenty feet from him that night, based on the restaurant clip on the video.

Remus doesn’t remember seeing him and feels horribly guilty for it. He can’t believe they have ever been so close, in the same room, breathing the same air. He might have even brushed past his shoulder as he had exited—he had touched someone. Had it been him? Remus couldn’t tell, and neither could Sirius, who had been engaged in a conversation with someone by the time Remus was leaving the stage.

It’s been over a year, and at the end of the summer, their time finally comes. The cases are way down almost all around the world, many restrictions have been lifted. And while it’s still very important to stay safe and careful, they can start planning. They decide to meet in London, where it all started, they both get tested, and as soon as the results come back as negative, the plan is a go. Soon, they’ll be together for a whole month.

They’ll have to quarantine for two weeks as soon as Sirius arrives, which at this point is the opposite of a problem to them. Remus doesn’t go to the airport—he could be circled by fans, which is a horrifying thought, to be honest. Not only does Remus fear a bunch of strangers breathing all over him, no matter how kind their intentions would be, he still isn’t used to being recognised like that. And to avoid that happening to Sirius either, they decide not to publicly tell about the trip until they’re safe and secure at Remus’s house.

Sirius is a mess for the whole ten-hour long flight, not even dreaming of getting any sleep. He’s excited to the point he feels nauseous, he’s fidgeting with the bracelets that Remus made and sent him for his birthday.

Remus has moved houses, leaving behind his small flat and upgrading to a nice three-bedroom apartment. His dream is to have Sirius moving in with him one beautiful day. He’s waiting outside of his home now, switching between pacing back and forth, and sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, because his legs are like jelly and just won’t carry. He almost faints when Sirius texts he’s only a few blocks away, and soon enough he sees a taxi at the end of the street. It pulls over. The backdoor opens. And there he is.

They don’t waste a second. Sirius runs toward Remus, pulling his mask down as Remus does the same to his own. They crash against each other, hugging so tight they can barely breathe. After a minute, Sirius pulls back just enough to grab Remus’s head between his hands and pull him into a hard kiss. Remus lets him, answering eagerly. They stay like this for a long time.

Later, Sirius posts an Instagram story of the two of them; Remus relaxed against his shoulder on a sofa, both smiling so happily. And the internet goes wild.

Sirius quickly puts up a few question boxes on his story, asking for video ideas and questions. They answer a bunch of them right away, and Sirius posts many cute videos of Remus grinning and blushing and hiding behind decorative pillows, and then they decide to continue later. Sirius has a massive jet lag, and Remus is just as exhausted from just feeling so much, so they go to bed early. Though not much sleeping happens until much later.

The following days are the happiest of their lives. There’s so much to talk about, whenever their lips aren’t occupied by other activities. There are so many things they want to do, even very ordinary things. Actually have a dinner date. Actually watch a movie together.

Nothing is more wonderful than hearing Remus play his guitar and sing right in front of him again, and this time, it’s only for Sirius. He plays all of the sweetest love songs, and Sirius cries and laughs and sings along.

Nothing is more wonderful than to hear Sirius talk to his camera in a low voice when he thinks Remus is asleep, telling the viewers about their day, saying such lovely things about him, and then turning back to stroking Remus’s hair as he quickly closes his eyes and pretends to be completely unaware.

Nothing is more wonderful than being able to kiss, to touch, to hear the other’s voice without the line rattling, see the other’s face from angles that don’t really show on their videos.

They film several videos over the days—a few Q&As, quarantine vlogs and a video where they switch occupations for a day, Remus learning how to handle the camera while Sirius picks up the guitar and attempts to write a song. All of them become very popular, and everybody seems to be very happy for them.

When the quarantine is over and they are allowed to go outside, they take long walks and attend low-risk outdoor events and have picnics at a park. They spend nights cooking and playing games, just doing domestic couple stuff, hoping it never ends.

It’s all so much better than either of them ever dared to wish for. They are impatient for the next time they’ll be able to meet even long before Sirius has to leave in the first place. But that dreadful day draws mercilessly closer, and they take the last week off social media, just focusing on each other.

Work becomes secondary, but the majority of their fans seem to understand. They both are more than deserving of a break, and are just too busy being in love anyway.

#wolfstar #wolfstar headcanon #remus lupin #sirius black #sirius x remus #remus x sirius #wolfstar fanfiction #my post

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saleintothe90s · 3 years ago

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438. Initial Coverage of the World Trade Center Bombing, 2/26/1993

I was nine when this happened, and I’m pretty sure I was home sick from school that day. I just remembered recently that it was on a Friday.

The main thing nine year old me took away from that day was being scared by seeing all the people exiting the building with soot around their noses during this dreary day with snowflakes flying around everywhere among the smoke.

In present day, another thing that sends shivers down me is seeing the people breaking the windows, waiting for help.

(I remember this shot so well [source])

Stupid nine year old me also thought that bombings were a common occurrence. I mean, we did have the Unibomber running around back then and PanAm flight 103 bombing had just happened a few years earlier.

Years ago, I found the news footage from that day, from CBS 2 in NYC, the only local news channel that had non-cable reception that day because their antenna wasn’t on top of the World Trade Center Tower One. 1. A baby Brian Williams is there. ABC7 from NYC also has a playlist on their YouTube Channel from their coverage.

9 things I learned from reading and watching the initial coverage:

1. At first, it was speculated that the bombing had something to do with ongoing civil war turmoil in Yugoslavia. 2

2. There was a class of Kindergarteners from Brooklyn on the observation deck at the time of the bombing. Another group of kids were stuck in an elevator for around 5 hours. 3 The kids didn’t get back home until around 7pm that evening.

(source)

3. People had to go down pitch dark, smokey stairwells, and commented that there were no alarms, no announcements, and no instructions. 4 A lady who was being interviewed by ABC7 said “we just kept following everybody else down the stairs, and everybody was going, ‘faster, faster!’ ... it just kept getting darker and smokier the further you went down.” Another said the place was a deathtrap, and that in five minutes there was already smoke on the 107th floor. 3. The World Trade Center Director, Charles Maikish said that the emergency communication systems were destroyed in the bombing.

4. A couple of hours later, there was a bomb threat at the Empire State Building. It obviously was a false alarm. I guess people weren’t taking it seriously, because check out all the people crowded around that entrance.

5. People were calling the local news channels for assistance. At around 13:52 of this clip, the news anchors tell a caller named John to not break the windows, and to stay low to the floor. Cell phones were still very out of range for most people, so I’m gonna assume while the power was out, phone lines were still working. Also, CBS2 superimposing the fdny and nypd phone numbers over footage of people having trouble breathing is unsettling.

6. 19 callers claimed responsibility for the blast in the hours following the bombing. (source)

7. 50,000 people were evacuated. Six people died, Port Authority Workers around the blast site, and a man who was in the garage at the time. It’s a miracle more people didn’t die that day from the smoke inhalation.

8. CBS News reporter Scott Pelley had some haunting words the next day:

“there is an uneasy feeling among some Americans that after yesterday, somehow something has changed. Perhaps forever. A loss of our sense of security.”

9. Honorable mention: Carl Selinger: the salad man. Carl had gone to the cafeteria to get lunch and was coming back up to his office via the elevator when the bombing happened. Carl ate half his salad while waiting, but decided to ration the rest of it just in case. It was a good thing he did, because he was trapped in the elevator for five and a half hours:

When Sergeant Timothy Farrell pried open Mr. Selinger’s elevator, he found him in the doorway, holding his salad. To this day, Sergeant Farrell said he remembers him as “the one with the salad.”

“I may have freed 25 or 35 people from the elevators that day, but how I remembered Carl was the fact that he wasn’t really physically upset, or emotional,” Sergeant Farrell, now retired, said at the lecture, which brought the two men together publicly for the first time. “He was calm, he was jocular. And he talked about how he wasn’t sure what happened — and how he had first started to eat the salad for lunch.”5

[...]

For Mr. Selinger, humor has helped. “He was after my salad! That’s the bottom line here,” he said of the moment he was rescued 25 years ago. 5

---

1. Sontag, Deborah. “EXPLOSION AT THE TWIN TOWERS: Disruptions; Manhattan Is Held in the Grip Of Traffic Snarls and Anxiety.” The New York Times, February 27, 1993, sec. New York. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/27/nyregion/explosion-twin-towers-disruptions-manhattan-held-grip-traffic-snarls-anxiety.html. // https://web.archive.org/web/20180330012332/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/27/nyregion/explosion-twin-towers-disruptions-manhattan-held-grip-traffic-snarls-anxiety.html

2. AP NEWS. “AP Was There: The 1993 Bombing of the World Trade Center.” Accessed September 12, 2021. https://apnews.com/article/north-america-us-news-ap-top-news-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-bombings-f4f1fd2b2d4b4a17b94ca7183fb65ba4.

3. C, Domenick and elieri. “LOOK BACK: Watch Archive News Coverage of 1993 World Trade Center Terror Bombing Attack.” ABC7 New York, February 25, 2020. https://abc7ny.com/3114288/ // https://web.archive.org/web/20201202035154/https://abc7ny.com/world-trade-center-bombing-1993-smoke-inhalation/3114288/

4. McFadden, Robert D. “EXPLOSION AT THE TWIN TOWERS: The Overview; BLAST HITS TRADE CENTER, BOMB SUSPECTED; 5 KILLED, THOUSANDS FLEE SMOKE IN TOWERS.” The New York Times, February 27, 1993, sec. New York. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/27/nyregion/explosion-twin-towers-overview-blast-hits-trade-center-bomb-suspected-5-killed.html. // https://web.archive.org/web/20110909150957/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/27/nyregion/explosion-twin-towers-overview-blast-hits-trade-center-bomb-suspected-5-killed.html

5. Otterman, Sharon. “Finding Resilience, 25 Years After 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.” The New York Times, February 19, 2018, sec. New York. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/nyregion/first-terror-attack-world-trade-center-anniversary.html. // https://web.archive.org/web/20180221041320/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/nyregion/first-terror-attack-world-trade-center-anniversary.html

#world trade center #1993 #1993 world trade center bombing #bombing #brian williams #cbs2 #abc7 #new york #1990s news #1990s television #new york times

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shirlleycoyle · 3 years ago

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How 9/11 Became Fan Fiction Canon

Every fictional character you can think of has experienced 9/11 in fanfiction.

A Clone Wars veteran with two lightsabers is on United Airlines Flight 93 and prevents it from crashing. Ron and Hermione get caught up in the chaos as the towers fall. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her friends watch the attacks unfold on TV from Sunnydale. We have spent 20 years trying to process what happened on 9/11 and its fallout, and that messy process can be tracked through the countless, sad, disturbing, and sometimes very funny fanfiction left across the internet.

Many of the fanfics written in the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks seemed to directly respond to the news as it happened, processing the tragedy in real-time through the eyes of characters they loved. In the absence of a canon episode where Daria Morgendorffer paid respects to those lost, writing fanfic about these characters also experiencing trauma helped fans cope.

One YuGiOh fanfic published on fanfiction.net in May 2002 could have been ripped exactly from what this writer experienced that Tuesday morning. “It started as a normal day,” user Gijinka Renamon wrote. Yugi and his friends were in school, where their teacher informed them of the attacks and sent everyone home from school.

“After reading people’s 9/11 fics, I decided to write my own, and put a certain character in it. And Yugi and his pals were my first choice,” the author's note reads, explaining the connection they felt to United flight 93 and the World Trade Center attacks. Given that they lived in Pennsylvania, and “it’s close to New York, I felt really sad about it.”

Stitch, a fandom journalist for Teen Vogue, told Motherboard that this reaction to 9/11 is not at all uncommon in fandom.

"Fandom has always been a place that positions nothing as 'off limits,'" she said. "Historical tragedies like the Titanic sinking and atrocities like… all of World War 2 show up regularly across the past 30 years of people creating stories and art about the characters they love. So, on some level, it makes sense that 9/11 and the following 20-year military installation in the Middle East has joined the ranks of things people in different fandoms turn into settings for their fan fiction."

Reactions depicted in a handful of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfics published in the weeks after the attacks ring a little truer to the characters. “Tuesday, 11th September 2001,” written by Anna K, almost echoes the lyrics from “I’ve Got a Theory,” one of the songs in the musical episode that aired in November 2001. “We have seen the apocalypse. We have prevented it. Actually, we’ve prevented quite a few. So we know what they look like,” they write, before taking a darker turn. “They look a lot like…New York today.”

Killing demons and vampires doesn’t phase the Scooby Gang, but when preventable human death is brought into the picture, it’s gut wrenching.

“What am I supposed to do…When I can’t do anything to save the world?” Buffy cries into Spike’s chest, watching the attacks unfold on TV in a fanfic the author described as being “about feeling numb and helpless.”

In “Blood Drive,” Kirayoshi writes about Buffy and her friends saving a van full of donated blood meant for victims of the attacks from a group of thirsty vampires. One Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic even takes a blindly patriotic turn, where noted lesbian witch Tara McClay helps Xander hang an American flag from the window of the magic shop to make Anya feel better.

Experiencing 9/11 as a young teenager was overwhelming not just because of the loss of life. Almost immediately after the event itself, it was as if the entirety of American culture re-oriented itself towards an overtly jingoistic stance. As we get distance from the attacks, seeing the tone of television and movies from the early 2000s is jarring, and some have gone viral on Twitter. In the world of pop music, mainstream musicians like the Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, were blacklisted from the radio while Toby Keith sang about putting a boot up the ass of terrorists. On the Disney Channel, a young Shia Labeouf reading a poem he supposedly wrote about the events. The poem concludes with the line, "it's awesome to be an American citizen."

In a world so completely saturated with this messaging, it is not surprising that fanfic authors started including 9/11 in their work so soon after the event. Even The West Wing had a strange, out of continuity, fanfic-esque episode where the characters reacted to 9/11. In some cases, it made sense that the characters in the stories would be close to or a part of the events themselves.

"For characters like John Watson or Captain America, the idea works to an extent," Stitch told Motherboard. "In the original Sherlock Holmes works and the 2011 BBC series, Watson had just returned from Afghanistan. For Captain America and other Marvel heroes, 9/11 was something that was addressed in-universe in The Amazing Spider-Man volume 2 #36. Technically, 9/11 is 'canon' to the Marvel universe."

In “Early Warning: Terrorism,” a fanfiction for the TV show Early Edition in which a man who mysteriously receives tomorrow's newspaper, predicting the future, avoids jingoism, but tries to precent 9/11 from happening. This fanfic remains unfinished; it’s unclear if the characters successfully prevent 9/11 in this retelling.

Largely in fanfic from the era just after 9/11, when many young authors were trying to emotionally grapple with it, the characters don't re-write or undo the events themselves. It's this emphasis on the reaction to tragedy that colors the fanfiction that features 9/11 going forward.

Although fanfiction authors have been writing about 9/11 consistently since soon after the event, whenever that fanfiction reaches outside of its intended audience, it looks bizarre.

A screenshot of a Naruto 9/11 fanfic on the Tumblr subreddit comes without any context, or even more than two lines and an author's note. It’s impossible to suss out if this falls into the category of sincere fanfic without the rest of the piece or a publication date, but modern-day commenters on the Reddit thread see it as classic Tumblr trash.

Screenshot from r/Tumblr

“Bin Laden/Dick Cheney, enemies to lovers, 10k words, slow burn,” one user joked in the replies, underscoring the weirdness of Naruto being in the Twin Towers by comparing it to a What If story about Cheney and Bin Laden slowly falling deeply in love.

It’s hard to tell how much of the 9/11 fanfic and fanart starting a few years after the attacks is sincere, and how much of it is ironic, and trying to make fun of the very concept of writing fanfiction about 9/11.

A 2007 anime music video (in which various clips, usually from anime, are cut together to music) that combines scenes from The Lion King with Linkin Park’s “Crawling” and clips from George Bush’s speeches immediately after the attacks feels like the perfect example of this. Even the commenters can’t seem to suss out if this person is a troll or not.

There’s no way that My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic 9/11 fanart could be serious, right? Especially if the description pays tribute to “some of the nation's most memorable buildings,” and features five of the main characters as child versions of themselves. The comments again are split between users thanking the artist for a thoughtful remembrance post, and people making their own headcanon for why Twilight Sparkle is surreptitiously absent from the scene.

Screengrab via DeviantArt

There’s Phineas and Ferb fanfic that combines a 9/11 tribute concert with flashbacks to Ferb being rescued from the towers as a baby, written on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. It jumps from introspection to lines like, “‘Quiet Perry the Platypus. I’m trying to listen to these kids singing a 9/11 tribute.’”

The author's notes make it more likely that they meant for this to be a tribute piece, but it doesn’t quite make sense until watching a YouTube dramatic reading of it from 2020, fully embracing the absurdity of it all.

“For me, 9/11 is synonymous with war. It completely changed the course of my life," Dreadnought, the author of a Captain America fanfic Baghdad Waltz that sees Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes fall in love over the course of the war on terror, told Motherboard. "It’s the reason I joined the military, and I developed deep connections with people who would go on to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. These very much felt like my generation’s wars, perhaps because people I graduated high school with were the youngest folks eligible to serve at the time.”

Dreadnought told Motherboard that although they didn't deploy, their career has kept 9/11 and the trauma from it in their mind. After seeing that people who fantasize about Steve and Bucky getting together seemed particularly interested in reading fanfiction that related to 9/11, they decided to try their hand at it.

"I had to do something with all of that emotionally, and I’m admittedly a bit emotionally avoidant. So I learned through fic that it’s easier for me to process those feelings and the knowledge of all the awful stuff that can happen in war if I can turn it into something creative," Dreadnought said. "Give the feelings to fake people and then have those fake people give the feelings to readers!"

To Dreadnought, who is a queer man, the experience of researching and writing this was more cathartic than they first expected, especially as a way to navigate feelings about masculinity, military culture, and queer identity. But they said the research they did, which included watching footage of first responders at ground zero, was what helped them finally process the event itself.

"It was like a delayed horror, and it was more powerful than I expected it would be." Dreadnought said. "When I was eighteen, I was pretty emotionally divorced from 9/11; I just knew I wanted to do something about it. So coming back to it in my 30s while writing this fic, it was a very different experience. Even the research for this story ended up being an extraordinarily valuable exercise in cognitively and emotionally processing 9/11 and all of its second and third order effects."

Fanfiction that features 9/11 provides an outlet for people who still grapple with the trauma from that day. But Stitch warns that the dynamics of fandom and how it relates to politics can also create fiction that's less respectful and more grotesque.

"With years of distance between the stories written and the original events of 9/11, there seems to be some sort of cushion for fans who choose to use those events as a catalyst for relationships—and Iraq and Afghanistan for settings," Stitch said. "The cushion allows them room to fictionalize real world events that changed the shape of the world as we know it, but it also insulates them from having to think about what they may be putting into the world."

The tendency of turning these events into settings or backgrounds for mostly white, male characters to fall in love has the unintended effect of displacing the effects that the war on terror has had on the world over. Steve and Bucky might fall in love during the war on terror, but they would also be acting as a part of the American military in a war that has been criticized since it started. Fanfic writers in other fandoms have come under fire for using real world tragedy as settings for fic before. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake Supernatural fanfiction about the actors Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki going to the island to do aid became controversial within the fandom. There have also been fics where characters grapple with the death of George Floyd that is written in a way that displaces the event from the broader cultural context of race in America.

"A Captain America story where Steve Rogers is a 'regular' man who joins the US Army and 'fights for our freedom' post-9/11 is unlikely to deal with the war’s effect on locals who are subject to US military intervention," Stitch said. "It’s unlikely to sit with what Captain America has always meant and what a writer is doing by dropping Steve Rogers into a then-ongoing conflict in any capacity."

After enough time, “never forget” can even morph into “but what if it never happened?” A 19k+ word Star Wars alternate universe fanfic asks this question, wondering what would have unfolded if someone with two lightsabers was on United Flight 93. This fic, part of a larger fanfic series with its own Wikia, considers what would have happened if Earth was a military front in the Clone Wars.

In this version of events, a decorated general who served in the Clone Wars is able to take back control of Flight 93 before it crashes, landing safely and preventing even more tragedy from happening that day. In the end, all of the passengers who made harrowing last calls to their loved ones before perishing in a Pennsylvania field survive thanks to the power of the Force, and are awarded medals of honor by President Bush.

Twenty years after the attacks, it’s painful to think about what would have happened if people got to work 15 minutes later, or missed their trains that morning. There weren’t Jedi masters deployed to save people in real life, but for some of the fanfic writers working today, the world of Star Wars might feel just as removed as the world before September 11, 2001.

Fiction serves as a powerful playground for processing cultural events, especially generational trauma. The act isn't neutral though; a decade's worth of fanfiction that takes place on or around 9/11 shows how our own understanding of a traumatic event can shift with time.

How 9/11 Became Fan Fiction Canon syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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thepriceofbeingaroseisloneliness · 4 years ago

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Kaoru at Joe Yokomizo Channel 10th Dec Translation/Notes

Joe Yokomizo Channel Special program

Guest: Kaoru (Dir en grey)

Notes before reading: This is a translation/summary of the livestream on Joe’s Niconico channel with Kaoru as a guest last 10th December. I wanted to do a full translation of it, but I messed up some of my files and the program isn’t available anymore so, in the end, I could just transcript the first 30-40 min of the program approx. and some bits. Besides that, I included some interesting parts from the notes I took.

Feel free to correct me if you spot any mistake or any confusing parts. Links or credits to this post when the content is reposted or captured in other SNS are appreciated :)

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Joe: Hello everyone, welcome to Joe Yokomizo’s channel live program in Niconico, I’m the MC, Joe. Thank you for watching! (Joe makes a brief description of how the program is going to be structured and encourages people to write comments during it!) Joe: Let’s introduce our guest for tonight…. Tonight’s guest is…. should I introduce him? Tonight’s guest is…. this person here! Kaoru: Hello, I’m Dir en grey’s guitarist Kaoru. Joe: Thank you for being here! Kaoru: Thank you! Joe: Are you feeling shy? Being just the two of us…makes you feel shy? Kaoru: No, not at all. Joe: That’s good. Some people may have realized and other may didn’t but…. the clothes we are wearing…. (Joe and Kaoru open their jackets a bit to fully shown the Tokyo Sports’ hoodie) Kaoru: It’s Tokyo Sports’ (hoodie)… Joe says he didn’t know if Kaoru would be wearing the hoodie or not, so it’s good he brought his hoodie so they both can wear it. Joe: It was a good that I brought mine….

Kaoru: (You brought it) Just in case…. Joe: Have you being wearing it?

Kaoru: Today it’s the first time….

Joe: I have been wearing it even at my house…. Kaoru: Ah, I wore it at the program (The Freedom of Expression) for a picture we took after recording…. Joe asks for comments or questions for Kaoru at the chat. Then, He asks Kaoru about how he is doing if something has changed or not…. Kaoru says he is doing as always, making songs as usual. Joe cuts him reading a comment about the beer (you can see one beer on their table, Kaoru’s beer is behind the tablet they have on the table). Joe: Beer…. the staff brought us beer before …. Let’s drink…. let’s drink our beers…. we are going be chatting for two hours more or less. They open their can and toast. Joe: This year due to Corona as we couldn’t go somewhere and eat something, at least we can toast with everyone, if you have a beer or a drink, please toast with us….. Kaoru: Yes…. Joe: So, what could we talk about now? Ah…. what did you do today? Kaoru: Today.....well….I was recording in the morning….so it was really busy …. Joe: Really busy…. what time do you get up usually in the morning? Kaoru: About 10/ 10:30…. Joe: Is that so? Sometimes, we chat through Line at 2 am in the morning….do you like doing that at that time? Kaoru: That’s possible (laughs) It’s feels rather calm at that time…. Joe: Is that so? I feel the same. Doing that before going to sleep…. sending emails and so, thinking about this or that...…..so, you said you were recording today… Kaoru: Yes. Joe: What were you recording? Kaoru: Ah, for Zaza (TheTheyday, Kaoru’s blog) Joe: Ah for Zaza, you were recording for Zaza….so I guess one day it will be uploaded there…. Today, I’m here drinking and chatting with Kaoru, spending some time with you all, so your comments are welcome……As we talked about UFOs before, should we do a survey? Like we could ask everyone if they think UFOs exists or not in a survey…. maybe we could ask them if they have seen a UFO or not. Kaoru: That’s it…. Joe: We are going to do a survey about if you guys have seen a UFO or not….is it ok for the staff, to do one?....Ah, ok, it’s going to take a bit….meanwhile….have you ever seen a UFO, Kaoru? Kaoru: There was something (I saw) that looked like one…. Joe: You had? When was it? Kaoru: When was it?.....I was overseas at the time I saw it… (People in the comments point out he told this story before and it seems that it happened in China, when they were touring there for the first time?) Joe: Overseas? Ehhhhh! It wasn’t in Japan… Kaoru: It was Toshiya who spotted it…. a stranger thing that was moving around at the sky….*Kaoru reproduces the movement of the thing with his finger* Joe: Something that was moving… Kaoru: So, I looked up and saw it……I don’t know what it was…. Joe: So clearly, it wasn’t something like a plane or so…. Kaoru: No, because of the way it was moving….. Joe: So, it clearly wasn’t something that you recognize… something like that… Kaoru: It was at night…. Joe: So, it wasn’t a living thing…. More like physical object moving for sure…. Kaoru: I think so… Joe: I see….a UFO spotted by Toshiya (laughs)…. Kaoru: There were more people there…. Joe: It wasn’t jus the two of you….. but talking about Tokyo sports, Tasai appears at your YouTube channel, right? He is at the program with us…..usually Tokyo sports covers stories about UFOs, Kappas(Japanese folklore creature)…. What else....that kind of things…. Kaoru: Fantasy stuff, right? Joe: That’s it, they usually cover that kind of fantasy things…..Do you read Tokyo Sports? Kaoru: Sometimes…. when there is something that I’m interested in….but in the past…..I would always read it… Joe: What did you like to read? Kaoru: Those kinds of things (fantasy stuff)….. They both laugh. Joe starts reading comments. Joe: The comments……”I just joined the livestream”…..ohhh welcome!, we are having a drink while chatting so, if you who are watching us want to drink with us, please join us!.....about the survey….can we go….? *Joe looks at the staff waiting for indications*......oh can we?....so, we want to take a survey about if you have seen an UFO or not….*Joe looks at the comments*….”I’m getting ready to drink”….everyone, if you want to watch the full program and the contents, you have to subscribe to the channel….you can still do it so please….also you can send us gifts (a function in Niconico, similar to Youtube)…..let’s check the comments…..Kaoru please…. Kaoru: I feel like reading comments…. there are a few… Joe: Everyone, write more comments! For Kaoru…..*Joe starts reading some comments* “I just subscribed” ohhh thank you…..”Kaoru, you are so handsome!”….”I haven’t seen a UFO or a ghost”…. Kaoru: A ghost…. I haven’t seen any…. Joe: You haven’t? I haven’t seen any ghost either but I experienced sleep paralysis once ….when I was in middle school….at home we had a prefabricated shed at the garden, I lived there ….so when I was at that shed, the door suddenly opened, a person came in and jumped over me…..grabbed me by my neck….it was a woman….I got scared but my body didn’t move…..I was internally screaming for help….”help me, help me”…. It was like that for like 10 min or at least that how I remember it….it felt like 10 min….then, I thought that she had killed me….but she was still there, she left, closed the door….I was like….what have just happened?..... Kaoru: Sleep paralysis? Joe: Sleep paralysis….I think that ghost was due to sleep paralysis….that girl that I remember….*Joe mumbles something* Sorry, just…..*he hands the tablet they have on the table to the staff, Joe is offscreen, leaving Kaoru alone for a few seconds* It’s hot here *Joe I mumbling something to the staff offscreen and then comes back taking his jacket off* Kaoru: I’m thinking about this…. the ability to sense supernatural things….I don’t think I have it…. Joe: You don’t? Kaoru: But maybe I talked about this before but, in the past, something weird happened when we were doing a shooting a clip overseas…. Joe: Something strange happened… Kaoru talks about an episode of after recording, when he got into the room, he felt as if his head was spinning in a weird way?.

Joe: Ah, the survey is ready….so, everyone, have you ever seen a UFO? Today we both are wearing the original Tokyo Sports’ hoodie…..it’s an original hoodie by Tokyo Sports in collaboration with Don quijote… Kaoru: That’s it… Joe: That’s why we both are wearing it right now…..asking you all if you have ever seen a UFO or not….we should do a research in the next The Freedom of Expression along with that Tokyo Sports person (Tasai)… Kaoru: Is he watching us? Tasai…. Joe: Ah, Tasai….I wonder if he is watching us….let’s go with the survey…..*The options for the survey appear on screen* I think he is watching us but I don’t know for sure…. People started to write “Tasaiiii Tasaiii” at the comments Kaoru: I talked to him (by phone) a while ago… Joe: Oh you did? It’s being a while since I saw him so I want to meet him soon….so, have you ever seen an UFO? We are asking this while wearing the Tokyo Sports’ UFO hoodie…..what results do you think we are going to get, Kaoru? Kaoru: I think the “No” is going to have a huge percentage…. Joe: As expected… Kaoru: Like a 70%(no)-30%(yes) Joe: Between having seen one or not, I would say “no” is going to be the most voted answer….Hiranabe…..*Joe is reading comments* He couldn’t come today….so, Kaoru’s prediction was a 30% for people who have seen a UFO and 70% for the opposite…so, let’s see it in one,two, three… *(Hiranabe used to appear in The Freedom of Expression when it was a radio program)* *The options on screen disappear and suddenly they are back with a 100% for yes, 0% for no* Joe: A 100% for yes? Ah, it seems that there was some mistake…..let’s do it again…I got scared with the results…..is everyone a fan of Tokyo Sports?....*Kaoru laughs* Have you seen a UFO or not? Kaoru saw one once when he was at overseas…. Kaoru: That’s true… Joe: Spotted by Toshiya…. why was Toshiya looking at it… Kaoru: I have no idea…. Joe: I wonder why…..the survey is again at the screen…..I’m sorry that it didn’t work before but now you can vote again…..let’s see the results…..*the results don’t appear* Ok…..OK?.....*the results appear, 23% yes, 77%no* Ohhhh…. Kaoru: That’s it…a big percentage… Joe: But a 23% of the voters have seen one….that’s good for Tokyo Sports…..that’s their target market…. Kaoru: But surely among the people who haven’t seen one, there are people who are interested in them…. Joe: That’s true, that’s true…. Kaoru: Maybe they are interested in them… Joe: By the way, I want that 23% of people who voted that say they saw a UFO, tell us where did they see it….so we can, with The Freedom of Expression, go there to check…. Kaoru: Yeah but, we can go there but having to wait for it, that’s bad…. Joe: That’s right, there is a chance that the three of us come there and nothing appears…. Oh, someone said they saw it at Chiba…..”I saw one once I was walking back from work”…..Oh,where is your workplace?....”I saw one in Miyagi”…..Miyagi….In Okinawa, Shinga….there is no one that has seen one in Tokyo?....if there is someone that has seen one in Tokyo, the two of us can go….”At Sapporo when I was going from the airport to the hotel because I was attending a Dir concert there”……”At Saitama”…..ehhhh….Saitama…where? please give us more details….there are a lot of people that saw one, but not on Tokyo…. Kaoru: There aren’t….. Joe: “Sendai”…..”Kagoshima”…..please if you have seen one, please us at the comments….So, let’s change the topic to music….this year….due to Corona, a lot of plans had to be cancelled….*Kaoru nods* Kaoru: That’s right… Joe: As expected….we are going to put on screen Dir’s schedule of this year….you will see it on screen….*Dir’s events from this year appear on screen*….In January/February, Corona wasn’t still around, it was before Corona became big…..you had an overseas tour…. Kaoru:Yes Joe: Which countries did you visit? Kaoru: Countries? Well, it was in Europe…it was about 10 days…. Joe: At that time, I heard from a interview you did that you said it but…..masks were still strange/weird at that time even at airports…. Kaoru: Yes, no one was wearing masks…. Joe: No masks at Europe at that time….but, how were the lives?, thinking about it now….it was a live with audience….and since that time…. Kaoru: It was the last one…. Joe: That’s it….how was it for you?.... Kaoru: They were good…. Joe: Berlin’s live was really good….that country especially…. Kaoru: The previous tour to this one (2018), we did a tour with lots of troubles at the lives….like the songs would have to be stopped in the middle of it and we couldn’t finish them properly….so, what we wanted to play or express at that time, couldn’t be done….so this time we did it with the feeling of revenge…we wanted that this feeling reached the people who came to see us ….so this time it was good… *Joe’s mic seems to not be working properly* Joe: So, you guys played at London one more time…. Kaoru: Yes. Joe: So, you guys could complete your revenge there this time….so, is there any episode or something interesting that happened overseas? If there is any, this time at Europe…. Kaoru: Something interesting? Joe: Like when you were drinking or so…I want to hear it…. Kaoru: Mmm…..is there any?.....mmmm…. Joe: You don’t remember? Kaoru: I remember but something that was interesting…..mmm….I don’t know if it is interesting or not….but sometimes the staff of the venue we are playing in takes a pic when it’s the rehearsal or so and upload it to the Instagram of that venue…. Joe: Yes, yes…. Kaoru: So, when I’m checking my Instagram, the pic appears and I see it….so, when I saw it…..Toshiya is in the picture!....*Joe laughs*….I was like “Eh??” when I saw it, “Is he aware of that?”…that he is in the picture…so, we got them to deleted it and then, we were in the rehearsal again, and thought isn’t it careless?.....didn’t they know he was part of the band?....like, they saw him rehearsing…. did they think he was part of the Japanese staff?.... Joe: They didn’t know that! Kaoru: They didn’t…. Joe: It’s really careless…that episode….is there any episode with Takabayashi?... Kaoru: With him?....what could it be?.... Kaoru says something they did to him? But I can get it. Joe gets shocked and asks if it’s ok to tell it, but Kaoru said it was 10 years ago, when he was a roadie. Kaoru explains he became a manager before Inoeu left. Joe: “Is Fujieda ok?” *Joe reads a comment* Kaoru: He is fine…..*Joe points at where Fujieda is, behind cameras*…. The talk about the European tour is over, and they show again the Dir’s schedule of this year on screen. Joe: Next is something all of you saw…..in March?.....yes, it was the 27th of March….a livestream of a concert….a concert without audience….what do you think about it now? Kaoru: It’s something we wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for these circumstances….we never have done it and we wanted to try….but due to these circumstances, it became part of our memories, part of the history of Dir en grey….we felt that way… Joe’s mic has fallen but he didn’t realize it, so his voice sounds so low and far away. He asks Kaoru about the reasons to do a livestream, Kaoru answers again that due to the circumstances. He says that looking at a screen while playing is tiresome even if he knew that there were people watching it, also he was nervous about it but not as nervous as when they played live cause its not the same. They (dir) want to think about interesting things they can do during these times, but not being able to do lives as they want, and create the atmosphere they want, it’s what make them not playing lives. Joe: So, in other words, when it comes to expression,as long as you can’t create the world of Dir en grey, you don’t want to play lives. A part of me, misses that sound and emotion but also knowing it can’t be done in its complete form… Kaoru: But we keep thinking about things we can do in these circumstances…. Joe realizes his mic has fallen, finally. Joe: Oh, my mic has fallen…..*puts it again properly* Can you hear me now?, the staff just told me…..well…..Tasai….are you watching us?.... Kaoru: He is! Joe: Yes, is there something you want to tell him? *laughs* Kaoru: Are you working out? Joe: Do you work out? Kaoru: I don’t… Joe: I did after a long time….I didn’t for two weeks….I didn’t train with my personal trainer for two weeks and today….he told me today to do some exercises that…..*grabs his backs and then his chest*….”Tasai, Tasai” *Joe reads the comments* Tasai is really popular….

Kaoru: The opposite of you…. Joe: That’s true….He is for sure the most popular….because everyone is typing “Tasai, Tasai”….if you have any question for Tasai….but how can I ask him?, I can message him through Line…. Joe says, then, they are going to talk about the digital release of the single. ------ People started asking in the comments if “Yamo-chan” is watching the livestream. After many comments like that, Joe looks confused and asks, “who is Yamo-chan?”, making Kaoru laugh. He explains that “Yamo-chan” is Shinya and that they started calling Shinya like that in a previous band. Kaoru adds Shinya usually watches everything so that’s why ppl are commenting that. They talk about Shinya more, mentioning the fax story Kaoru told in the livestream of May. Joe remembers that Shinya is really into board games, and suggests that they could do a board game special or something like that. People start writing in the comments that they should do it with Shinya, and others, that they should do it with “the whole band”. Joe says it would be complicated to do it with the 5 members. D.T.S appears in a comment and people starts commenting “D.T.S” “Do it with D.T.S”. Joe looks again confused and ask who is “D.T.S”. Kaoru explains that it’s Die, Toshiya and Shinya and it was something they did for the fanclub magazine. Some people start commenting D.T.S.K, adding Kaoru’s to the name lol ----- Joe and Kaoru start talking about “The Freedom of Expression”. They do a survey asking if the people watching the live stream watch it/have ever watched it. Kaoru says he thinks that “a 80% is going to say no”. The results are really good, more than 90% (I think it was 96%?) say that they watch it. Later, they do another survey asking if they are subscribed to the channel or not. There are 3 options; “Yes” “No” and “No, but I’m going to subscribe right now”. Results are again quite good, about a 85% say they are subscribed, “no” gets around almost a 9% and “no, but I’m going to subscribe right now” gets almost a 6%. Joe asks Kaoru to say some encouraging words to that people who said “no”, so they finally subscribe. Kaoru just say in a plain voice, “subscribe to the channel”, making Joe laugh. ------ Joe talks about the Kaoru interview he did for his site, “Kimi ni tou”. He says he realized how international Dir en grey was a band, cause it’s the interview on the site with more visits from overseas and the English version is the most visited on the site. The interview is also in Chinese, and of course, in Japanese, but he was really surprised of how many people read the English version as well ---- At some point, Joe leaves for the toilet, leaving Kaoru alone. Kaoru is just staring at the screen reading comments and mumbling some answers. Someone ask him to show his hands, or ask him about his haircut, very random stuff. He looks kind of awkward , like not knowing what to do. He is also watching when Joe is about to come back, and when you can hear Joe’s footsteps: Kaoru: So, that was my Top 5, yeeeeeehhh *and starts clapping, the staff joins him clapping as well* Joe: No, no…..you are lying….you are lying….*Joe is still not on screen* You didn’t do it now, I’m sure…. Kaoru: I just did it…..look at the comments…. Joe: What are they writing?.....*Joe starts reading the comments* Is that so?....I couldn’t hear it….People clapping at the comments….it can’t be….*Joe points at some comment saying “evil”* See? You didn’t do it…. Kaoru: They are talking about you…. Joe: Me?.....* he mumbles a bit and keeps reading comments*….”What an amazing Top 5”….Really???.... Kaoru: See? Joe: “Amazing songs”….is that so?....what does that mean?....*Kaoru laughs*….”Amazing”….”I expected these songs”….Did you really tell them?.... Kaoru: I told you (I did). Joe: ”I’m sorry for you, Joe”…. Am I the only one who didn’t hear them?.....”Only great songs”….”great choice”…..Could he really tell them in such a short time?....*Joe looks at the staff looking for a confirmation* He did? the staff just nodded…. ----- After Kaoru played this prank on Joe about revealing his TOP 5, now it’s his turn to go to the toilet, leaving a drunk Joe alone. Joe: Everyone, before he gets back, let’s write “sing Rokkouoroshi” (Hashin tiger’s song, Kaoru favourite baseball team)….everyone say “sing Rokkouorsohi” for me, please….I couldn’t hear it….at Tora no Ana (Kaoru’s event for his birthday)…I told him to sing it…but he didn’t….so today….using everyone’s power…..using the power of alcohol….let’s write “rokkouroshii”….this year, it seems that Haishin tigers are not doing well, also there are no events to sing it but….let’s write rokkouoroshi!!!....”Joe, you are the best”…..don’t say those things at me….this is our power….*Joe looks at the staff* I received a question at line…thank you for it….thank you everyone for sending questions to my Line….ohh someone sent a gift *a function in niconico*…..Let’s make him sing it!!!:….let’s make this wish….if he receives this request from you all…..he is about to come back so let’s make this wish…rokkouoroshiii…rokkouroshiii…..ROKKOUOROSHIIII……why did I scream?....let’s do it together…*Joe realizes Kaoru has prob heard him, so he whispering encourages everyone to write the request* Ok, let’s go….*Kaoru is still not in screen but he is coming back* Well, let’s see what do you want to ask Kaoru….your requests…I just asked everyone what they want Kaoru to do….let’s see…..Oh oh oh!....what is that?.....Everyone wants you to do that….they are writing “rokkouoroshi”!!!!! Kaoru, they are writing “rokkouoroshi”!! Kaoru: Because you told them…. Joe: I didn’t! Oh! This is amazing! Check! Everyone is saying it… .Kaoru: Because of you….it’s not the first time… Joe: Me?....oh….Beer…..*Joe holds Kaoru’s beer and checks it’s empty* He doesn’t have a beer….please bring one!!! Kaoru: This is not the first time (you tried this)…. Joe: No,no no….let’s sing Rokkouoroshi… Kaoru: Should I tell them my Top 5? Do you want to hear it? Joe: I don’t want to hear your Top 5....Rokkouoroshi…Rokkouoroshi…. *The staff brings Kaoru a beer* Joe: This year the Hashin tigers didn’t do well so that’s why you didn’t sing it but….next year?.... Kaoru: Next year….let’s sing it next year…. Joe: Next year….is that a promise?.... *They are about to toast, but Kaoru stops* Kaoru: If they win the competition….that’s what I told you at that time…. Joe: I see, so if next year, Hashin tigers win the competition, you are going to sing the full song… Kaoru: *makes a face *The full song? That’s imposible….*he turns to the other side* Joe: Well, well….wait wait….don’t turn your back to me….if they win the competition….sing just one phrase…. Kaoru: No, that’s imposible… Joe: Wait wait… Kaoru: I’m not going to sing it…. Joe: If they win the competition, just one phrase… Kaoru: I’m not going to sing it… Joe: Let’s toooooasttt…….*like toseal the deal lol* Kaoru: I’m not going to toast…..*turns his back on Joe* Joe: Just wait a bit… Kaoru: I don’t sing…. Joe: Then, what can we do?....let’s dance to Rokkouoroshi… .Kaoru: I’m not going to do that…. Joe: *with a pitiful voice* but they are asking for “Rokkouoroshi”…..*pouts* Kaoru: I’m not going to do it…. Joe puts a sad face like a small child and start making noises of complaint as if he was having a tamtrum…. Joe: But you have to do it!....somehow….in some way….next year, if they win the competition….let’s do it… Kaoru: Maybe we could do an event and gather with everyone…. Joe: *reading a comment* “Play it with the guitar”….. Kaoru: Playing it with the guitar is really tiresome…. *Joe is drinking his beer and almost spills it due to the laugh* Joe: Right now…..*reads a comment* everyone is with me, saying “ganbatte Joe!”…. “kaoru is so cute”….”in an event…”, that’s it, let’s do it at an event….next year, if it’s possible… Kaoru starts to mumble in a low voice. Joe makes gestures of dancing. He keeps trying to get a commitment from Kaoru to do it but Kaoru doesn’t accept. Joe: I’m sorry everyone, the negotiations failed. ------ After the pranks and teasing, Joe says it’s about time for Kaoru to reveal his Top 5 songs of 2020 according to Spotify. 5. X-Japan “Without You” (Unplugged) Kaoru says he has been listening to it recently and mentions that this song is part of the soundtrack of the documentary of X japan. Joe talks about Hide, and how important was his existence to Kaoru’s life. Kaoru mentions the first concert of them he went. Joe asks Kaoru what he thinks that Hide would think of him if he was alive. Kaoru doesn’t seem to want to give a proper answer and says he doesn’t know. Joe says he thinks Hide would be like “you are cute” and happy/ proud of him. Kaoru talks about when he met Hide at a restaurant (ikinari steak?) while he was eating with his manager. He talked about this in his book “Dokugen”. People starts commenting “that story is so sad”, “I read it at Dokugen”. Finally, Joe asks Kaoru what he would say to Hide if he was alive, Kaoru just says that he is not a person that it’s good at making conversation so probably nothing. 4. Merry “Fukurou (梟) Next song is from Merry. Kaoru says he heard it live and he liked it. Joe asks the name but Kaoru doesn’t know how to read the kanji and he struggles for while. He shows it to Joe but he doesn’t know either. Kaoru tries to describe it, but someone for the staff comes and tells him the title. After the description of the kanji, people were already commenting “it’s Fukurou!” and Joe reads it. Kaoru says the name of the song and apologizes for not knowing how to read it. Kaoru: I’m sorry I didn’t know the reading (of the kanji) 3. Dir en grey “Downfall” Third position comes for a Dir en grey song, which surprises Joe. Kaoru says he usually listens to their songs to remember some parts/riffs. Joe says that having so many songs must be hard to remember all of them and ask Kaoru if he does (remember all of them). Kaoru answers he obviously knows the songs but not every part. 2. Dir en grey “Rinkaku” Kaoru says he was rehearsing this song and when he was about to play it, he realized he had forgotten most of it, so he had to listen to it several times and copy it to remember. 1. Dir en grey “Sustain the Untruth ”Before announcing #1, Joe asks the viewers which song we think is it. Kaoru kind of teases about it, not saying it waiting to someone to guess it right. Most people think is going to be “The World of Mercy”, as Kaoru says he listens to the songs to practice. Joe: Why does everybody think it’s “The world of mercy?” Other comments say “Ochita no koto ga aru sora” Joe: But you haven’t played that song live yet, right? Someone in the comments gets it right. Kaoru: Yes, it’s “Sustain the Untruth” ---- One of the last things they talk about, it’s a “unexpected”/” surprising” picture that Kaoru has in his phone. In the end, it’s a picture of the Mike Tyson energetic drink “Black”, with his face and the line “Empower yourself”. And that’s all ;)

#dir en grey #kaoru #joe yokomizo channel #Joe Yokomizo #translation

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rockthistowninsideout · 4 years ago

Text

Never Too Late For A Leap Of Faith

Part 1

(Part 2)

Five times Taichi only feels the presence of Digimons and one time he actually meets them (again).

Words: 2126 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Tags: 5+1 Pairings: Taichi Yagami/OC, Sorato, Jyoumi

Inspired by this youtube video talking about how the end of Kizuna fits into the narrative of the Epilogue in 02, posted by TheDigiKnow. It’s in my opinion a thorough and yet personal analysis.

When there was a baby’s cry from the labour room, Taichi broke down in tears. He’d been pacing to and fro in the hall leading to it, but only after his wife Kana had dislodged some knuckles in his hand by holding it too tight during a contraction and he had to be treated for it. Afterwards he hadn’t been allowed in again because, and that was something he didn’t like to admit, he had been on the brink of fainting before Kana’s force had jerked him back to consciousness.

A nurse stuck her head out the door and smiled. “Congratulations, Yagami-shi, you have a son!”

Taichi wiped away his tears, smile a little lopsided, and entered the labour room. His wife Kana, whom he had met at a diplomatic meeting three years ago, looked pale and drained, but smiled broadly. She mopped her sweaty brow with a neckerchief, pushed her long black hair that looked a tad greasy after her exertions behind her ear and leaned forward to receive a kiss from Taichi. Then she pulled away the duvet that had been drawn over her to reveal their newborn son. He had chestnut brown hair just like Taichi but his mother’s bulbous nose and when he opened his eyes they were a startling clear blue.

“Most children have blue eyes when they’re born”, the nurse explained. “They’ll darken over the course of the first year.”

Taichi hadn’t said a word yet, he was too transfixed on this small bundle of life that he helped to produce and that he was now responsible for. That realization suddenly felt heavy on his shoulders but when he looked into Kana’s soft yet endearing black eyes, the very eyes he’d been mesmerized by from the very beginning, he felt the weight ease.

“Do you want to hold the little egg?”, Kana asked and lifted the bundle towards Taichi who’d been instinctively forming a cradle with his arms. Something at the back of his mind stirred to life, something about a green yard full of cribs with colourful eggs, the way it never had before when the word “egg” was mentioned, but Taichi didn’t give it any notice. Tears were running down his face again as he watched the miracle before him. With a scratchy voice he whispered “Hello Hotaro, welcome to the world.”

The first days were reserved just for them so the three could get to know each other. After the tiredness of being born had worn off, Hotaro was a very awake child. In every sense. He had trouble sleeping through, which caused Taichi, suddenly becoming self-conscious about his appearance, to use Kana’s concealer. She had taken a year off from work while Taichi went back to the office after three days. His colleagues welcomed him with a round of applause, a light blue greeting card, and a big stuffed and, for some reason, snow white teddy bear. As he looked the bear up and down, suddenly a cold breeze swept over him and gave him goosebumps. He immediately knew how he would name the bear.

“I am Frigimon”, he muttered under his breath.

***

Hotaro loved Frigimon. He had accepted the name without hesitation, affectionately calling him Friggi, and never going to sleep without him. Once Frigimon had entered the Yagami household, something had shifted within Taichi. Usually he was highly alert in his meetings but now he started dreaming away. Dreamt of a tram that didn’t need rails, of an island ruled by an evil bat-like looking creature, and vending machines in the middle of nowhere.

He also started dreaming away at the kitchen table when having dinner with his family. At some point he was so far gone that it needed a gentle slap on the shoulder by his wife. When he looked at her questioningly, she said “Muchomon”.

He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Muchomon was my Digimon partner. He vanished when I was 24 and had just finished my degree.”

“You were a DigiDestined?” Taichi’s eyes went wide as saucers.

She nodded. “It’s been a while but since you brought Frigimon here the memories have boiled up again. You should talk to your friends again, and more than just at their birthdays and about irrelevances. I thought you’d been so close? To be a DigiDestined, and having fought numerous battles, welds together – for life.”

Taichi took a deep breath. He kneaded his hands. He hadn’t wanted all this to happen – to let the contact cool down or even freeze. It had just happened. Because. Because of life, he guessed. At some point work and his little family had become more important than his long-term friends. He didn’t even know how many children Sora and Yamato now had!

He banged his fist on the table.

“Dad!” Hotaro exclaimed frightened. He had never seen his father so agitated. Immediately, Taichi regretted his outburst. He had never wanted to scare his son, become violent around him. And now he had. Because of his own shortcoming. “I’m sorry, Hota”, he quickly said, tearing at his hair. He got up, walked around the table, and lifted his son in the air.

“It’s okay”, the four-year-old said, gently touching his father’s face. “Can you let me down, please?”

Taichi complied, a bit confused.

Hotaro took his hand and led him to his room. “Sit down, Dad. I’ve found something while playing in the attic a few days ago.” He handed him a box which Taichi instantly recognized, and his heart ached. He didn’t need to lift the dusty lid, sprinkled with little fingerprints from his son, to know what was inside. But he did it anyway. Coming to light was a round pair of goggles and a smouldered Digivice. He only noticed he was crying when the first tears hit the Digivice, just like they had done many years ago when Agumon had to say goodbye.

For good.

Or so he had thought. But Digimons were reborn. He had witnessed that many times. Maybe it just hadn’t been the right time until now.

He lifted his head to look straight into his son’s open, curious, beautiful face. When also Kana had been a DigiDestined, then maybe their child should also supposed to be one. Or no, no he shouldn’t. He should choose if he wanted to become one.

They had been thrust into this world without having been asked first. They had had to come to terms all on their when they’d been mere children and the forces who had chosen them had never offered much aid. He wanted this to go differently.

He noticed that Hotaro held up Taichi’s phone. Koushirou’s name was on the display, it was already dialling. “Call him”, Hotaro said. Taichi shook his head. That kid was much smarter than was good for him.

***

“Oh!! It’s soo good to see you all again!”, Mimi exclaimed, as excited as ever.

Taichi had to dial down the volume of his computer as the audio overmodulated. But he smiled, genuinely, because he felt just the same. Before him, the screen was split into five segments, all filled with bright smiling faces.

“Jou, come over, they’re here now!”, Mimi called, her face turned away from the camera. In the background there suddenly was the sound of glass crashing on a tiled floor, followed by a stream of swear words. “Jou, I told you not to swear in front of the kids!” She turned back to the screen. “I’ll be back in a minute.” With that, her segment got empty.

Her friends chuckled. “I see you were cleverer”, Taichi pointed out to Sora and Yamato, who were sitting together in front of the camera and holding their two children on their laps. Their son had inherited Sora’s maroon hair while their daughter was as flaxen-haired as Yamato. They were both visibly bored, wriggling about on their parents’ laps trying to grab office supplies that were clearly not toys in their vicinity.

“I’m not so sure about that”, Yamato remarked, dryly as ever, as he pulled a stapler away from his son’s hands.

“Dad, have you seen my hockey stick?”, someone called in the background of Koushirou’s screen segment.

He sighed. “I thought you put it in the cabinet beside the shoe rack. You know, where it’s supposed to go.”

“I did but it’s not there. And Yui and her mom will be here any minute to pick me up for training.” The voice grew whinier and more urgent.

Koushirou bowed apologetically to his friends. “I just have to help my daughter.”

Meanwhile, Mimi had reappeared, Jou and their two sons in tow. “Hiroshi, Sasuke, say hello to Mom and Dad’s friends.” Mimi nudged them a little forward.

The older one, taking remarkably after Jou with his blueish-black hair and the glasses, hesitated but the younger one, sporting a daring chin-long bob with a middle parting, grinned and brightly said “Hi, I’m Sasuke.”

The DigiDestined greeted him back with a laugh. “Say Sasuke”, Taichi started, “does your mom and you go to the same hairdresser?”

Sasuke looked at him in surprise. “Yeah, but how do you know?”

More friendly laughter.

“My brother’s good at guessing, is all”, Hikari remarked, absentmindedly fastening her hair-clip. She wore her hair the longest it had ever been but subconsciously she itched for a cut. But her daughter always said that she looked so nice with the long hair even though Rika couldn’t stand long hair herself. Hikari had even caught her once as she had cut her middle brown hair with kids’ scissors.

“Oh, I see”, Sasuke said, tilting his head. “But you don’t look like siblings at all.”

“Sasuke!” Jou turned red in second-hand embarrassment. “Sorry, my son can be a bit blunt sometimes.”

“I wonder whom he has that from”, Takeru mused, hand held on his chin as if he was pondering a very difficult question.

“I heard you are a writer”, Hiroshi suddenly said, nervously adjusting his glasses.

Takeru’s expression turned smug. “And a pretty successful one at that.”

“Yeah, but Dad thinks you’re exaggerating at times.”

Jou turned even redder. “That’s… that’s not what I’ve been saying!”, he sputtered. “You just sometimes spend a little too much time on one detail.”

“That’s not what you said, Dad!” Hiroshi turned to his father, affronted. “I’m not a liar!”

“Of course not, my dear”, Mimi said soothingly. Then she leaned in closer and whispered “Sometimes adults don’t like the truth very much.” Louder did she say “Why don’t you two go and get your guinea pigs to show our friends, mmh?”

“Oh yeah!” They bounded off out of the frame.

“And where’s your kid?”, Yamato asked his brother.

Takeru shrugged. “At band practice. Don’t know where he got the musical talent from but he certainly has some. And no, Yama, he hasn’t gotten it from you. Because he’s better.”

Yamato dramatically inhaled. “You didn’t say that!”

“I’ve got a round of witnesses who can confirm that I just did.”

“Sorry Takeru, my connection was a bit wobbly for a few seconds. You said something?” Taichi asked suspiciously innocent.

Takeru shook his head. “And you call yourself my friend.”

Before anyone could reply to that, Koushirou plonked himself down on his chair breathlessly. “I’m back!”

“Did you find the hockey stick?”, Sora asked, glad about the diversion. She had already feared that the mood could be slipping.

Koushirou nodded solemnly. “Yes, just in time. And it was actually me who had misplaced it because I had cleaned out the cabinet and didn’t put it back.”

“Tststs, Kou. I hope your daughter doesn’t have to put with too much.”

Koushirou shook his head. “Of course not. Being a single parent isn’t easy but we have a cleaning lady who comes in two days a week and I can bring Koyuki to my parents if need be.”

Yamato muttered something under his breath which earned him a jab in the ribs by Sora. “In this house we don’t judge”, she breathed into his ear, only audible for him.

He reluctantly nodded.

“These are Tom and Jerry”, Hiroshi and Sasuke announced, diverting the tension once again.

Taichi chuckled. “They don’t look like a mouse and a cat to me.”

“We weren’t allowed to have a cat and a mouse”, Sasuke replied.

“You wanted a mouse?” Sora could hardly hide her laughter.

“Unbelievable, right?” Jou seemed to shiver just at the thought of having a tiny and cunning rodent in the apartment. And a slightly dumb but very persistent cat chasing it.

Takeru laughed, too. “Most certainly.” Then he leaned forward. “But have we just come together to get to know your pets or is there a more pressing matter?”

#digimon adventure kizuna #digimon adventure #digimon last evolution #taichi yagami #yamato ishida #sora takenouchi #mimi tachikawa #jou kido #koushirou izumi #takeru takaishi #hikari yagami #original character #sorato #jyoumi #digimon adventure 02 epilogue #5+1 fic #my stories

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