#trc theme: future

[koushirouizumi]

{T.R.C} ~ Ch. 229 ~ S A K U R A & S Y A O R A N + T S U B A S A L I & T s u b a s a - h i m e

"In which we CAN ALL E X I S T

T O G E T H E R"

{Cap's by Me} (Please ASK to Use)

[littledreamling]

Ten Books To Know Me

Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.

I’m considering myself tagged by @that-banhus and @fancy-rock-dove!! I sadly suffer from Gifted Kid Burnout Syndrome currently engaged in a very time-consuming course of study which means I haven’t read a single book from cover to cover in about two years (and I stayed in the YA genre for far too long because it’s easy brain candy) so I’m sorry to say that none of mine will be fancy or sophisticated or longer than about 300 pages. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reminiscing back on some of my childhood favorites that shaped me and some of the series that sustained me throughout my life since!

The DragonKeeper Chronicles Series by Donita K. Paul - I wasn’t raised religiously but I devoured these books like there was no tomorrow. I adored Kale and Bardon and Dar and their whole host of dragon friends (Wizard Fenworth my beloved). If you can stomach or ignore the fairly obvious Christian themes, I highly recommend them for a bit of brain candy.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - this was the first classic book I ever read and it captivated me endlessly. It was the only school book I actually finished and enjoyed. Stories within stories, creator vs creation, voyages that you undertake knowing that you can never go home, this book has it all.

The All For The Game Series by Nora Sakavic - this series comes with a pretty heavy trigger warning for anyone interested in reading it. Centered around a made up sport and a kid on the run from the mafia, it’s dark and intense and drew me in like no other series ever has. Fans of the series will often proudly proclaim that the books make no sense, that the made up sport is confusing at best (absolutely incomprehensible at worst), and that not enough trigger warnings in the world will prepare you for what you’re about to dive into and I fully endorse all three statements. I also fully believe that these books helped me revolutionize how I view relationships between traumatized people (relationships that may not seem healthy to those not involved but are built on a strong foundation of trust and consent), how a good story should end, and showed how healing looks different for everyone. It’s not a book series I recommend lightly but I wholeheartedly recommend it. Proceed with caution.

Six of Crows Duology by Leigh Bardugo - I couldn’t ever get invested in the Shadow and Bone series, but I couldn’t put SoC down. Even now, I can’t explain why it enthralled me so much except to say… morally grey characters are hot, no matter what gender they are 👀

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater - rounding out the trio of book series that are often mentioned in the same breath (AFTG, SoC, and TRC), The Raven Cycle is a fabulous series centering around four rich boys and the girl who had always been taught to hate them. There’s magic and prophecies and car racing and an enchanted forest and ghosts. It’s a very rich story so every read-through gives up more secrets than the last time you flipped through it.

The Genome Odyssey by Euan Angus Ashley - A sharp veering turn from the previous books, this book helped to shape my passion in my (hopefully) future career. It tells the story of the genome, from its discovery to present day, and how it’s been used to diagnose previously unheard of and incurable genetic diseases, saving countless lives in the process. The author personally worked on every project detailed in the book and every chapter packed such an emotional punch that I had to put it down several times. A must-read if you need to be reminded just how good humanity can be.

The Martian by Andy Weir - This is a relatively recent addition to my ‘favorite books’ shelf but I read this like my life depended on it. I laughed, I cried, and my faith in humanity was restored. I was raised with the same style of dry wit and dark humor that the main character uses to keep his hopes and spirits up while trapped on Mars so reading his inner thoughts often felt like I was catching a glimpse into my own head. I know I’m late to the bandwagon but better late than never. A fantastic book that deserves a reread in the near future (as soon as I have time 😅)

Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby - When a queer couple is killed, their homophobic ex-con fathers meet at the funeral and vow to find who killed their sons. Over the course of their journey for revenge, they start to better understand their sons, each other, and themselves. A book about healing overcoming repression and toxic masculinity.

Redwall by Brian Jacques - an oldie but a goodie. Oh to be a small mouse eating fresh-caught fish and defending your abbey against rats. Every single detail of this story was so masterfully laid-out and described. Reading the first scene never fails to make me hungry and the entire book sweeps you away from beginning to end.

Where Hope Comes From by Nikita Gill - I had to sprinkle in some poetry to the list. This is an anthology of poems written during the Covid lockdown detailing the author’s struggle with despair and eventually finding hope again, even in the most mundane of scenarios. It carries a strong message of positivity while stressing the importance of allowing yourself to feel “negative” emotions too. An excellent read for any poetry fans open to free verse or anyone struggling with their own despair.

As always, I’m not sure who to tag so I’m throwing it open to @aquilathefighter, @virgo-dream, @mathomhouse-e, @ladymegana, and the rest of the Dreamling Nation server! Please tag me, I need book recs!

[crimeronan]

one of the most helpful frameworks for analyzing the theme differences between the raven cycle and the dreamer trilogy is that in trc, magic was a metaphor for love; in cdth, it's a metaphor for chronic illness

but knowing what we now know about bryde has made this. so fucking funny to me

bryde: magic fucking hates us ronan, part of a group of literal soul-bonded friends who are all only alive because of how much magic fucking LOVES them: bryde: ronan: bryde: ronan, who is also ill with nightwash and self-isolating and struggling to stand on his own and giving up on his hopes for a future and backsliding in every way that matters: oh no yeah. that Fucking Tracks

[incorrecttrcquotes]

Hi!

Quick question, I've meaning to read the Raven Cycle series, but I'm not sure bc I don't know what it's about, so could you give a quick description about the content if it's not much trouble, please??? Without spoilers.

Thank you!!

"What is The Raven Cycle about?” is a great question that, as anyone in the TRC fandom knows, is borderline impossible to answer! Here is honestly the best, shortest description I could give you that I still felt represented the series reasonably well:

Contents of The Raven Cycle, plot-wise: A girl named Blue is fated to kill her true love if she ever kisses him. On St. Mark’s Eve, the spirits of people who will die in the coming year appear to people with psychic abilities, which Blue does not have. Nevertheless, one St. Mark’s Eve, she sees the spirit of a boy named Gansey, and the only reason a non-psychic would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve is if they’re your true love or if you killed them, so... you can do that (pretty simple) math. Gansey is a rich student at a local all-boys boarding school, and he’s on a quest to find the tomb of the medieval Welsh king Glendower, who he believes is actually just sleeping and can be woken up by the right person. Along for the ride are Gansey’s classmates Adam, Ronan, and Noah, who all have secrets and storylines of their own. Despite this entire plot description being about Blue and Gansey, Adam and Ronan are equally important characters and there’s a very strong case to be made that Adam is the closest thing the series has to a central main character. Also, the series is much lighter on the romance than the premise makes it sound—I mean, there is romance, but much more time is spent on the characters’ friendships than anything else. Other characters include (but are not limited to) a house full of psychic women, a rotating assortment of rich boys of various levels of douchiness, a hitman with a heart of slightly battered gold and also clinical depression, a robotic bee, and a sentient forest.

Contents of The Raven Cycle, emotions and theme-wise: Yearning, both in the romantic sense and in the sense of wanting something more out of life. Classism. Trauma. Making your outsides match your insides. Emotional repression. Cars. Murder. Dreams. Magic. Catholicism. More cars. Nature. Friendship. Myths. Agency. The many different ways to be a person. Doing things entirely for the #aesthetic. Being seventeen and feeling like you’re on the cusp of your entire future but grieving the concomitant end of childhood. Having a to-do list for the summer and thing one is figuring out your sexual orientation. Family. Homecoming. How physical locations take on lives of their own via the memories we form there and the emotions we connect them to. What it means to be a king. Cars one more time for good measure.

Contents of The Raven Cycle, trigger warnings-wise: physical and emotional abuse, alcoholism, drug use (not by any of the main characters), internalized homophobia, gore, unreality, parental death.

I hope this covered all the bases you were looking for! The series genuinely is so hard to describe because the beat-for-beat plot description is completely divorced from what the books are actually like.

[girl4pay]

This might be a big question but what would be the ideal way for the raven king to have ended in ur opinion. Bc it doesn’t make sense as is and thematically falls apart I feel but I can never quite figure out what the actually most narratively satisfying thing would be

lets get married. okay keeping in mind i haven't read the series in full in a couple years my core issues with trk are: i think gwenllian was criminally misused, i think adding in laumonier and blue's dad made very little sense and i think doing the gansey noah and cabeswater deaths back to back the way they were was a terrible way to handle a climax. you don't need blue's dad and you don't need laumonier. too many random new parents and men who are absolutely vestigal. gwenllian should be blue's mentor, you focus the piper plotline completely on a professional antagonism between her and henry's mom who can act as the antithesis to piper's greed and recklessness. the grey man is the reader's familiar link between Crime and Magic here, so you can still have him face the challenge of his old life threatening his new life by having to forge an alliance with seondeok to take down a shared threat. 

gwenllian as blue's mentor would come with a similar but almost opposite effect to persephone's mentorship on adam: blue isn't getting stranger, she's getting angrier. this witch who knows what she is keeps getting mayo in her hair and her teachers don't understand her and her family is being evasive and the boy she loves is going to die. also a demon is clouding her perspective, but she doesn't really know that yet. more adam and blue scheming to keep gansey alive. more research and bugging relatives and desperately looking into rituals while it becomes clearer to the reader that adam is losing his agency and blue is losing her clearsightedness. gansey's panic attacks begin to attune themselves to the moments where noah is not himself as well. his chest hurts, he can't breathe - it feels like something is sucking away at his heart. at the same time adam is still trying to help ronan with waking up the dreams, and blue is getting closer to gansey and henry, trying to imagine a future that feels like her own when she has the weights of her confused identity and her fate hanging around her neck. 

i would have ronan and gansey's relationship blow up here: between the hospital and aurora's death, maybe after his birthday party, ronan finds out - probably through declan, to add insult to injury and even more fucked up brother resentment - that gansey is trying to buy him a diploma. actually definitely just after the night of truth bullshit for prime outrageousness lmao. it goes nuclear. blue is, catastrophically to gansey, on ronan's side. adam is, infuriatingly to everyone, judgmentally neutral. things progress as they were except instead of henry getting kidnapped we get a very reluctant henry passing a message to tgm - things have progressed past the point that is acceptable with piper, and his mother wants to meet. also the visit with gansey's family is tense - they love her and henry, and they just can't understand what's gotten into gansey, who's distracted and snappy, and when helen confronts him, he blows up at her, saying a lot more about his worry for ronan and his fear about what will happen to him than was revealed in the initial fight. they're siblings, their relationship can handle it, but there's still an overarching sense that she doesn't really understand, because gansey is still holding his real fear of dying close to his chest. 

cut to auroras death and the grey man having to leave maura with this tragedy to join seondeok - a king, joining a king, doing what needs doing, instead of just a continued trope about being made for violence or whatever that was. there scene with ronan at the bmw goes more or less the same. gansey goes off on his own because he feels isolated and like the burden of fixing all this lies on his shoulders, gwenllians weird witch pep talk goes to blue instead. here is where you would insert cool fun shit about what being a mirror actually means! all of them reunite as in canon, ronan and gansey reconcile after ronan is like you dumb motherfucker i need you here you're my brother and gansey says some self sacrificing shit and blue and adam make it clear without Making It Clear they are going to stand by him, because they still don't know he knows he's going to die. 

here is where we reach the core difficulty: i think the death kiss is incredibly stupid and i don't know how i would write around it. i know how i would finish trk from here, but the kiss curse would not show up at all. i like the kiss curse as a concept but it just doesn't make any sense in the narrative of agency trc constructs and i think it limit's blue's storyline. so without considering the kiss curse: as the demon hijacks adam and tries to use blue as an amplifier to spread to other ley lines, everyone realizes the stakes. everything cabeswater has touched, everything the ley line has touched is at risk, and the ley lines are ALL CONNECTED. blue and adam have been skirting around the realization that the demon and cabeswater are like mirrors the whole book. you can't have one without the other. there is no corruption without something to corrupt. the way cabeswater focuses the ley line for ronan is how the demon has been getting power too, but it's a self contained loop, consumption instead of guidance. kill cabeswater, kill the demon. gansey asks it, realizing in a way they others don’t seem to that he and cabeswater are linked, and the others act. there's a little giving tree moment between ronan and cabeswater, which will surely not contribute to any farreaching survivors guilt that might show up in a sequel series. here is where blue being a mirror comes into play. when neeve was trying to see farther than she could, she used a mirror and it sent her there. the demon is trying to consume beyond it's bounds. a mirror sends it inwards. here blue sees the moment of violence that birthed the demon, and she's terrified and it's tragic. it's a very bildungsroman moment of grief and terror of what will come after for everyone. death of the child birth of the man etc. noah, perpetual child, gets laid to rest with cabeswater, but without cabeswater the ley line floods. here is where gansey dies: without noah fighting his hardest to keep him going, because noah loved him, because cabeswater needed him, his heart simply stops. here is where blue kisses him, because it doesn't matter any more, because he dies even though she didn't, because she's seeing without the demon clouding her for the first time in what feels like the longest time and all she can see is grief. shit gets magically weird with adam and ronan too, and it's henry who grounds them all, who is used to enforcing practicality on the unknown to keep himself safe. with his help the three of them dream something to save gansey. ta da! 

i feel like this would also feed much better into the theme of the dreamer trilogy of like opening ley lines etc bcus trk completely glosses over what happens to the ley line without cabeswater there, and adds to it making sense that ronan thinks opening the ley lines is a good idea - he saved gansey with it! what more could he do! whereas adam felt overwhelmed and out of control and spends the next year trying to construct and repair his own real life conduits and safeguards on the ley line as ronan builds lindenmere. what are your thoughts did i miss anything that you were like absolutely not hate that need it to be gone

[kulluto]

okay here are some of my thoughts on trc: 

- the ending kind of gave me a headache but i think for the most part i understood it. as best as someone can understand all of that

- my standards for the found family trope are now through the roof and i don’t think any manga can compare in terms of that. sorry but they’re literally the found family of all time

- the main characters learning to forgive themselves for what they considered “unforgivable” mistakes or things that were beyond their control (i mean most of the events in each of their backstories happened when they were like. 6 years old) that they still felt guilty about was one of the best themes in the manga. forgiving themselves by being forgiven and understood by others.. healing from the past by changing the future.. so good

- vampirism is for gay people

[olreid]

howdy ej I just wanted to say that I for one love the trc posting :D not sure if you're finished MI yet in full but I look forward to more of ur thoughts :) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

HELLO yes i did finish it, we got it on tuesday night and i finished it yesterday morning and now my roommate is reading it ! my thoughts were like. WOOOOO abandoned museums, mirror-based horror, nightmare doubles, fucked up time, [joan voice] dreams of ghosts and ghosts of dreams, the way we’re doing like. frankenstein but make it homosexual ya roadtrip of the apocalypse? declan has a line somewhere in there after he meets ronan and bryde about like. how much power dreaming is for any one group of people to have... we are DISCUSSING what it means to bring people into being both in terms of being a parent with j.h. / hennessy and aurora / ronan as we saw at different points throughout mi and in terms of the dream/dreamer relationship... what does it mean hold power over people in that way and what gives you the right to decide how or whether they live, but also what do you owe to them as people who are intrinsically dependent on you... also i like that we now have bryde and also the moderators (???) as antagonists who are also dreams trying to gain some sort of independence from dreamers as a foil to matthew/jordan etc.... anyway more random thoughts: DECLAN IS IN THE MOB NOW??? weeping 4 hennessyyyyy and the house of dreamer kids and both her and ronan being “dreamers who were kids not that long ago” and that DREAMER MOM with her nice mirrors and how when she put her hand on his cheek ronan like almost broke down which made me feel sooooo normal and then she DIED a chapter later??? absolutely not i had to put the book down for like two hours. also ronan pov referring to gansey as his “old friend” rather than his extremely current best friend for life and future partner.... a wound to me personally. RONAN’S CELL PHONE EARRING. declan screaming his face off from under a pile of dreamt animals including “a boar the size of a minivan”... rights!!! im mostly still thinking about the first and middle parts of the book bc i literally can’t touch the last part emotionally dkjgkdf like now ronan thinks declan and adam teamed up to kill him???? im SICK. good for hennessy tho. also side note carmen is so nuts first mission on her own she’s like so yeah i’ll be underwater breathing through a straw until i either freeze to death or decapitate someone with a sword. questions? can’t believe she was surprised that didn’t work. anyway i’m sure i’ll have more thoughts about themes and plot etc later but for now i’m still like. emotionally hungover and processing so this is where im at <3

[kd-holloman]

Writerblr (Re)Introduction

I've seen quite a few writerblrs do some re-introductions posts lately and since I have been pretty inactive for the last four months, I thought I should do one too!

Hello, everyone, I'm K.D. Holloman. I like to read and write a little bit of everything! I'm always looking to make to writer friends, so feel free to reblog, introduce yourselves, and tell me about your WIPs!

I only write one project at time because if I try to do more than that, my brain gets overwhelmed and nothing gets accomplished. With that being said, here are my WIPs (if you would like to read snippets / learn more click on the title). Please let me know if you'd like to be added to any taglists!

The Traveler's Gift

Rating: M for violence, language, crime, etc.

Summary:

Louis Mahoney has always considered his ability to teleport a gift. Amid a battle for power among Chicago's most nefarious mobsters, his "gift" transports him from 1923 to present-day Chicago.

Trapped in an unfamiliar era, Louis learns the mobster scene is still alive and well when he is kidnapped for his superhuman abilities. Just when things look bleak and he's nearly given up hope, he's given a choice. He work for Chicago's most notorious mobster, Rick O'Shea, or die.

After agreeing to work for O'Shea, Louis is forced to bear witness to a true injustice and makes a promise to himself to take O'Shea down for good. However, his plan for revenge is sidetracked when he ends up under the watchful eye of the mobster's most dangerous weapon, a volatile and murderous young man known as The Reaper.

TTG is a 76k speculative fiction novel with LGBT themes. I queried a few agents, but ultimately decided the novel would be too complicated for an agent to market and have decided to self-publish it once it's ready.

Currently, TTG is waiting for me to save up enough money for a cover design and formatting before publishing.

The Reaper's Curse

Rating: M - Violence, language, crime, etc.

Summary:

Slater O'Brien and Louis Mahoney are paired up together with a common goal. They're going to take down Rick O'Shea. The problem is they can't do it alone and after years of making enemies, everyone who could possibly help would rather put Slater in a grave instead of offering extending a helping hand. With his powers on the fritz and backed into a corner with nowhere to run, Slater and Louis agree to work together with an unlikely ally.

Getting the best of O'Shea isn't the only mountain Slater and Louis will have to overcome. Slater is going to have to allow old wounds to heal and open himself up to people from his past, even if he's afraid of putting them in harm's way. Louis will have to come to grips with the terms that he may never return back to 1923 and he may be stuck in the twenty-first century forever.

As you can see, my summary is still a work in progress. TRC stands at 67k in its second draft. I'm hoping to boost that number up about by 10k or so in the future. I started re-writing it a few weeks ago. I basically scrapped my previous drafts and started from the beginning. I'm not plotting this draft. I'm going to see where the story takes me.

Oh, Hell

Rating: T+ - Mild language, violence, blood, scars, demonic and angelic possession, mentions of death, mentions of abuse.

Summary:

The only thing Israfil wanted when he was cast out of Heaven was to have his wings back. Now that he has them, he just wants to be left alone. He makes a few friends and seeks solace in a small college town in the middle of nowhere called Wakefield. Thanks to the help of a few local witches, Israfil is able to hide from his brothers in Heaven if he stays within the towns protective wards. His reclusive life gets a little more interesting when he lets his best friend, Tabbi Depraysie, talk him into attending Wakefield College.

Young witch, Tabbi views college as the start to a life of independence. Though, it’s a little hard to prove she’s ready to blossom as an adult when her Aunt Maggie has her under her watchful–and seemingly all-knowing–eye. When a spell book with the potential to bring Hell to earth goes missing, she’s determined to prove that she isn’t a child any longer.

For as long as she can remember, Nyssa Dean has the voice in her mother from her past-life in her head. It convinces her that Wakefield is the place she needs to be if she wants to be together again. The cost? Learning that fellow freshman, Israfil Jones isn’t who he seems to be and intentionally opening a portal from Hell.

Oh, Hell is an urban fantasy novel with an intended forty-five chapters. I'm still on the first draft and it is currently on hiatus.

[memecatwings]

that person saying they’re only reading trc for the romance?? i’m going to hunt them down for sport. do the complex non-romantic relationships and feeling that all of the characters hold mean nothing??? what about the plot??? hello is anyone in their skull??? maybe i just can’t fathom reading a book for a ship but wtf

trc has more about loving your friends than it has about romance and it has so many complex non romantic relationships and dynamics that are so interesting the romance makes up a very small portion of that series and focusing on That instead of the themes about grief addiction depression abuse identity classism fear of the future or CARS even just seems super reductive like trc is so complex with so many different parts to read it just for the romance is :/

[meimi-haneoka]

LOL....Chapter 42.

I mean, I might have become quite boring by now because ALL the chapters I use these shocked gifs, but.....I can’t help it, every time the chapters bring some shocking factor!! XD

Let me just start this reaction post with one happy announcement:

Remember my battles against illegal early spoilers on the internet? How it hurt the fandom (because people who wanted to wait for the official release were forced to avoid social media or block stuff) and the franchise as well?

Well, I’m glad to announce that chapter 42 has been the first chapter ever to not have any early spoilers leaked before the official releases, ever since Clear Card started in July 2016. It took almost 4 years and a revolution by the hands of CLAMP to obtain this result (with the early release of chapters FOR FREE on the official website in 6 languages).

Beware, I’m not celebrating just yet because next month we may get spoilers circulating again, but this chapter was really nice to be discovered all together, legally, without hurting anyone? It was a nice feeling and since it seems we might be approaching the finale, I think it’s important that we enjoy these chapters all together in a proper way.

Well, after this introduction, let’s delve into Chapter 42 of Clear Card!!

Kaito is a walking dead man

I loved the color splash page. It always makes me happy to see Akiho and Sakura together, but this time the theme is a lot more serious. This is getting intense and the color page reflects that. This is also the first black background in a while, I always loved illustrations with black background even in the old manga.

Sooo last chapter we were left with Sakura overthrowing Kaito’s time magic and still conscious and moving. And shocked to see Syaoran and Kaito fighting. Of course Kaito needs to put a patch on this, because he knows Sakura is that powerful, but he doesn’t want her to know any of this, so he starts to “attack” her with time magic, I believe? And prince charming cleverly thinks that he might better call forth the strongest Sakura Cards in the deck, just to be sure to protect Sakura adequately. Even Kaito recognizes that was a wise move. Sakura is more confused than ever, behind the spirit shield formed by Light & Dark.

Syaoran is so fucking fed up with this that he demands to know why Kaito is here in Tomoeda. He candidly admits that he wants Sakura to produce the new Cards. Syaoran is like “No shit, Sakura’s already been producing a shitton of cards” “But she hasn’t produced the one I want”. When Syaoran asks which card that would be, Mr. I-am-an-asshole-and-I-know-it replies “If I told you that, I fear you’d get terribly angry”

Guys, the glare Syaoran gives Kaito after this one is like.......death sentence. The amount of rage accumulated in this short kid is frightening. Syaoran might be cool and composed, but y’all remember his temper at the beginning of the old manga, right? That wasn’t “just because”, it’s still part of his personality XDD he was taming his rough sides of his personality for Sakura, but for Sakura he’s well ready to pull them out at any convenience.

Meanwhile, we aren’t sure if Sakura is listening to the heated conversation or not, but I think she isn’t because she keeps shouting “what’s going on?? What happened??” even after Kaito straight up said he’s after her Cards. Seeing her struggling and reaching from behind Light & Dark, who are restraining her, is kinda.....giving me TRC war flashbacks. Yes. You might have seen the tweet that is making me earn lots of “WHY CINZIA”, but I’m like this, I’m an ugly bitch who needs to suffer in company. I’ll make a separate TRC/CCS comparison post after ages, for this. XD

The highlight of the chapter

Kaito reveals that he knows that Syaoran came back to Japan after his mother had a divination of the future that he absolutely needs to stop. And, at that moment, ladies and gentlemen....

IT’S HER. THE STAR OF THE CHAPTER. THE ONE THE FANDOM DREAMED OF SEEING IN THE MANGA.

LI YELAN-SAMA.

This is a huge thing because a character that was exclusively in the anime canon-verse (even though that line has been more and more flimsy lately) appeared in the manga too. Syaoran’s mother, and the Li family in general, were often mentioned both in the old and new manga series, but CLAMP somehow were always careful to never show any graphical portray of it. Now, finally, after so long, we have Yelan appearing in the manga too, and she’s exactly like her anime counterpart. Regal, elegant, beautiful. I was literally trembling with excitement when I saw her!! It was.....gosh it was huge.

But one has to wonder: how the hell does Kaito knows about all this stuff? How much did he investigate on the Li family? It’s kinda easy to imagine when he could do that: for a period, Akiho and Kaito lived in Hong Kong. Right before coming to Japan.

We get, thanks to Kaito, the confirmation that nor he, nor Syaoran, were born with the gift of seeing the future. Kaito can, if he follows all the steps, see some glimpses till a certain degree, but nothing comparable to someone specialized in divination art, let alone a yumemi. Here it is, the cursed term so dear to CLAMP, indicating the ones who can see the future in dreams. Kaito says that Sakura can indeed see the future playing out in her dreams, but it’s a future far from being set in stone. She’s basically a beginner yumemi, with confusing and fragmented visions, I’d say. But when she will grow up, she will be a fully fledged yumemi. Kaito says that it’s for the strong people to decide how the future will go. And here we find again the thematic so dear to CLAMP, the future and the choices made to let it go in a direction, or another one. Kaito starts to call forth the Tina Rie Triax spell. Syaoran is like “the hell I’m letting you get away like this” and is preparing to counter-attack with Raitei Shorai, when The Queen™ decides she had enough and screams “NOOO!”, calling her staff on the spot and activating her power towards Syaoran, switching places with him! She literally forced him out of the picture and took his place!! 

The Queen takes agency

LOOK AT THAT FACE! LOOK AT IT WELL. It’s the same determination she had in this scene:

I knew we would see the results of that determination. When she saw the boy she loves risking his life with someone who was attacking him, she took agency and went to the front row.

You can’t keep Sakura in the sidelines like that.

Kaito is quite suprised by the move. Maybe because he doesn’t understand love or because he didn’t think she would take agency. Either way, Sakura is pointing her staff at him, the same way Syaoran was pointing his sword at him moments ago. You don’t mess with this child, Kaito.

And he must certainly know, because he mutters “That’s too bad” and rewinds time, basically chickening out of the picture. XD

Sakura is back with Tomoyo, Akiho, Sonomi and her father, but she knows something is wrong, and she walks away from them for a while to give birth to a new card!! TRANSFER is the name, and it’s the power she used to switch places with Syaoran. The fact is, she doesn’t remember nor she understands why the hell this card is here. 

While at home Kaito thinks to himself (smile always present but blatantly a mere mask) that he needs to hurry up or he’ll be in a fucking big mess because Sakura resisted his time-stopping magic and the Clear Card survived the time rewinding, Sakura at her own home is a nervous wreck. She calls Syaoran because she has the feeling she saw Light & Dark, they don’t remember, but Syaoran confirms that he feels something is off and has the feeling someone made them forget something. Sakura closes the call promising that she would inform him of anything that would come to her mind, but as she inadvertently knocks her Clear Cards off, they all fall facing backwards, save for one: BREAK.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how Chapter 42 ends. Leaving us wondering why Sakura is making this dismayed face. She’s either taking it as a bad omen, or she’s remembering what she saw when she captured BREAK, and what caused the birth of the card in the first place. Not only a soulless Akiho talking nonsense in a pretty dress, but also her boyfriend under the robe of the Mysterious Cloaked Figure. Seemingly about to hurt an unconscious Akiho. That is still an open wound in Sakura’s heart, and it’s pretty clear here.

Guys, what can I tell you, this chapter has been a mixture of wonderful surprises, painful TRC recalls, frustrating time rewindings that show us how Sakura and Syaoran are slowly realizing and fighting Kaito’s fuckery with time....I know a good chunk of the fandom doesn’t like this give-and-take-away, it always seems like the final battle is here, but we are tricked everytime. And yet, I do believe that once the story will be over, and after some time we’ll go back to read Clear Card, the time rewindings will show clearly how gradually Sakura was able to overcome and overthrow Kaito’s magic: first it was a finger, then it was an unexplicable sadness, now a new card and the impression to have seen things, and a general uneasiness because something feels off. The kids were even capable of realizing that they were made to forget something. I bet this graduality will feel more interesting and exciting when we’re not forced to wait 1 month between chapters.

Let me know what you think, too!

[koushirouizumi]

{T.R.C} x {H.O.L.I.C} ~ YUUKOs "STOPPED TIME"

BONUS:

{Cap's by Me} (Please ASK to Use)

[mikeshanlon]

Happy Pride! .... Like... more than halfway through the month lmao sorry, better late than never ig! I’ve compiled a list of some of my fave LGBT+ books, as well as a few I’m planning to read for pride/in the near future. Please feel free to reblog and add some of your own recs, especially for the sexual and gender identities that are lacking in my list!!!!!

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz: This beautiful, wholesome coming of age novel is pretty popular on tumblr and with good reason! It’s set in the 1980′s and follows Aristotle, aka "Ari”, as he grows up an tackles with his identity-- he feels like his story is written by someone else, that his path is not up to his control. Whether this is due to his complex relationship with his family, or societal expectations/stereotypes of Latinx men, or the fact that maybe his friendship with Dante might be more than that, and that kinda terrifies him. (Rep: Gay, Latinx, (I believe this is own voices) Warnings: it’s been a minute since i’ve read this but i believe some racism, internalized homophobia, and an instance of violent transphobia)

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston: LGKNLKNGRG okay this is truly one of my favorite books of the year so far and part of the whole reason i wanted to make this. This is a New Adult Contemporary romance set in sort of a like... parallel America where a woman won the presidential election. We follow The First Son, Alex Claremont-Diaz, who’s charming, smart ass, genius icon. Him, his sister June, and their best friend Nora are easily marketable and loved by the public for the most part, but when Alex and his rival Prince Henry of England get into a public spat at a Royal Wedding, Alex and Henry must pretend to be friends to patch up relations and public image for his mother’s re-election campaign. Eventually their fake friendship turns real, and then becomes more as they get to know each other, Alex and Henry begin a secret romance that we follow over the course of the re-election year. This book is fucking HILARIOUS (like I have so many tabs for funny moments and i was trying to be restrained), but it’s just so. Like full of love and hope and it’s so beautiful???? It’s definitely political escapism from our current situation in America but still deals with current issues such as racism and homopboia, etc, but gives the reader hope for future progress. Alex and Henry’s relationship is so fun, and sexy, and beautiful and the friendships are so iconic and Alex’s journey with sexuality is... chefs kiss. Also like. Casey McQuiston mentioned that she listened to Texas Reznikoff by Mitski a lot while writing this in the acknowledgments so. what more do you need... (Rep: Bisexual (Own Voices), Gay, Biracial-- Mexican/White (Own Voices), Warnings: Racism, homophobia, mentions of a past sexual harrassment/assault. Since this is a New Adult, there are smut scenes. I wouldn’t say it’s like. Super explicit or anything but there is sex, though it’s often during Important Moments of their relationships so it doesn’t feel like p*rn-- again the sex is happening but its not in hella explicit detail or anything or for the same goal as say an erotica. P much proceed with caution if it’s not ur thing but it’s not too wild!)

Blanca y Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore: This is sort of a Snow White/Rose Red and Ugly Duckling retelling following two sisters, Blanca and Roja, who’s family curse destines that one of the sisters will be trapped into a swan’s body, never to be seen again. (So this is magical realism lmao). We also follow two boys, Page and Yearling, who were wrapped up in the magic of the nearby woods, but have returned to society. Page is a gender queer trans male, and his whole arc that was so beautiful and made me cry, but in a good way (also warning that I’m cis so like. I would love to hear what gender queer trans individuals think about the rep in this book bc I cannot really attest to it.) This book is really about sisterly love and love in general, with all the complexities that come with it. (also wlw grandma’s who grow apple’s it’s p iconic) (Rep: Latinx-- colorism plays a huge role in the story as well (Own Voices), Gender Queer Trans, Queer (Own Voices) Warnings: Some transphobia, racism, and abuse). (I believe most of Anna-Marie McLemore’s books are magical realism and have some Latinx and queer elements to them as well)

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller: god..... This (gay ass) novelization of The Illiad is just so tragically romantic and beautiful... We follow Achilles and Patroclus as they grow up and grow closer, and eventually fight the Trojan War. There are so many beautiful quotes and scenes but like. You will most likely cry so keep that in mind eklrgerg. (Rep: Gay Warnings: Violence, there’s like..... a weird r*pe/homophobic scene)

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: YA Fantasy set in a world where there are three castes: Moon-- the highest caste, demons with animalistic features in a humanoid form, Steel-- humans with part demon physical features and abilities, and Paper-- fully human, the lowest caste. We follow our protaganist Lei, who despite being a Paper caste, has beautiful golden glowing eyes that end up garnering attention from the Demon King. She’s stolen from her home and forced to join The Paper Girls-- a group of paper caste concubines in training at the palace. As she tries to find a way to escape, she ends up falling for one of the other paper girls, Wren, who might be just the key to freedom. I love Lei and Wren’s relationship and I’m excited to see it play out in the sequel! (which i believe ngan said will introduce more LGBT characters) (Rep: Asian (Own Voices), WLW (I believe this is Own Voices as well). Warnings: As their role as concubines suggest, a large part of this book revolves around the patriarchy using women for power and sexual assualt/rape. There are no explicit rape scenes-- though they do occur ‘off screen’, however there are a couple attempted sexual assault scenes that I believe could be p triggering. This book is also largely about the Paper Girls taking back their power, and I don’t believe these scenes are done for shock value, however please proceed with caution. Subsequently, sexist and patriarchial views are present within the authority, though shunned by Lei, however there’s a lot of internalized sexism and objectification among some of the other Paper Girls.)

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell: I probably don’t have to talk about this one much since it’s super popular, but in what is like essentially Harry Potter but like gay and wholesome, we follow Simon Snow, the Chosen One who’s actually not that good at magic, his best friend Penelope, and his roommate and arch nemesis that’s totally a vampire but won’t admit it, Baz. (Except Baz is, like, totally in love with Simon and Simon’s just too dumb and wrapped up in his own shit to realize it). Truly just,... an iconic enemies to friends to lovers story that unfolds as the three of them try to uncover a mystery surrounding Baz’s late mother. Ik some people have found it confusing bc it’s sort of like starting the Harry Potter story off at book 7 and only getting some background info along the way but honestly I really enjoyed that lmao. Also there’s a sequel coming out this fall, Wayward Son. (Rep: Gay, Some POC rep. Warnings: not rlly any i dont think??? There’s  like. some Homophobia lmao bc we can’t have a gay book without it.)

Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins: This is a cute YA contemporary following Millie Quint who, post being cheated on by her best friend and wanting to have a fresh start, flies to Scotland to finish off her senior year at her Dream prestigous boarding school, joining a handful of other girls as the first female class in the institution’s history. Plus like. Cool Rocks and Scotland. Only problem is that her roomate is sort of a bitch and also the Princess of Scotland who she totally just told off. So yeah yet another royal gay enemies to friends to lovers with a dash of and they were roomates LMAO. This book could be like.... a bit cheesy and rushed but overall it was cute and like...... The Cover.... (Rep: Bisexual, Lesbian, Warnings: Some homophobia. Also this is a companion novel to Prince Charming but you don’t have to read that first, there’s just some references to the couple in that book as the Prince is well.... The Princess’ brother and where they end up so if you don’t wanna be spoiled read that first ig!)

The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman: I talked about this some in this post, but I feel like I did kinda a shitty job so. A YA fantasy/paranormal series about the descendant’s of the town’s four founding families-- Violet Saunders, Justin Hawthorne, Harper Carlisle, and Isaac Sullivan (the most iconic one). The latter three have lived in Four Paths their whole lives, protecting the town from The Gray-- p much the Upside Down from Stranger Things lmao, using powers specific to each of their families. Violet and her mother move back after Violet’s sister died in a car accident, and she’s thrust into helping save the town as the Gray grows more restless and having to uncover the secrets of her family as well as all the history brewing between the other three. The Stranger Things and Riverdale comparisons are p valid, (but like. Riverdale in the sense of small town secrets and a bunch of tense history that the kids don’t really understand and must uncover, and some like love triangle but..... not Rlly Love triangles just a mess of ppl being like oh shit i like this person and this person.... Bisexual Chaos if u will... not like. The I’m cuckoo bananas for u let’s go get high and play dungeons and dragons and smash in a bunker LRGKJRLKGJ), the Raven Cycle comparison’s are kind of a stretch, I can see the abstract comparison’s if i squint but like. Don’t go into this expecting TRC lmao. I really enjoyed the theme of grief throughout this book and seeing the powers unfold (and one of the dynamics a lot) and while not perfect the series has a lot of potential and like. Bisexuals. So. (Rep: Bisexual (two mc’s are bi and say the word!!!!!!!! As well as some secondary characters), Disabled (one of the mc’s is missing one arm from the elbow down). Warnings: Grief, Violence)

The Gentlemen’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee: Also talked about this in this post and did a better job there, but to sum it up it’s essentially a friends to lovers, bed sharing, road trip au with a dash of magic but set in the 1700′s! There’s also a sequel/companion, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy that I have yet to read but it follows Monty’s sister, Felicity, and I believe goes more in depth with her identity. (Rep: Gay, Black, Disabled, Aromantic, Asexual, Warnings: Period typical homophobia/biphobia, racism, ableism, sexism)

Simon vs. The Homosapien’s Agenda by Becky Albertalli: Like. I don’t think i really have to explain this one LRKGJJRG but added it just in case. YA contemporary following Simon as he e-mails another gay student at his school and falls in love. (Rep: Gay, Black, Jewish, Warnings: Homophobia)

All For the Game Trilogy (The Foxhole Court, The Raven King, The King’s Men) by Nora Sakavic: If y’all have been on my blog at all you know i’m back in aftg hyperfixation mode after another reread lmao. Is it a lil messy is it a lil dramatic... yes. but i love it!!! We follow our protagonist Neil Josten, who’s been on the run from his crime lord father, The Butcher of Baltimore, since he was young. After his mother dies on the run, Neil finds a new place and adopts yet another identity, and ends up playing high school exy (a made up sport but like we’re barely here for the sports lmao), something he used to play as a child. Despite playing a new position, he attracts the attention of the PSU Foxes, who’s coach David Wymack specifically recruits players with a troubled past to give them a second chance. Neil really shouldn’t sign-- it goes against everything his mother told him, it puts him at risk of being in the spotlight for his father’s men to find him, and puts him on the same team as Kevin Day, someone from his past that knows his true identity. Still, something draws Neil to joining the team, to finally try to live instead of just survive. UGHHHH like truly this book just makes u fall in love with all the characters and the beautiful and broken found family that develops over three books and one of the most iconic and amazing (ha....) slowburn relationships ever.... Also if i recall they’re super cheap on iBooks (at least when i bought them, the first book was free and the other two were $1.99). (Rep: Gay, Demisexual, POC, Warnings: MAJOR trigger warnings for like. everything bc all the foxes have fucked up pasts. But the biggest ones are probably rape, abuse/torture, and substance abuse)

Six of Crows Duology (Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom) by Leigh Bardugo: Idk how much I really have to talk about this bc it’s popular but I am physically unably not to reccomend this duology bc its just. So. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. The most barebones summary is that this is a YA Fantasy about six people coming together to perform an impossible heist. This is truly like...... a masterclass in developing characters and has one of the best m/f ships i’ve ever read... But also since it’s on here there is some gay shit going on, 3/6 mains are Not Straight and there’s a cute m/m couple! Also you don’t have to read the Grisha Trilogy to read this but u can if u want (I have yet to). (Rep: Bisexual, Gay, Disabled, POC, Warnings: Again these ppl have fucked up pasts, biggest are PTSD, past sexual abuse)

The Raven Cycle Series (The Raven Boys, The Dream Theives, Blue Lily Lily Blue, The Raven King) by Maggie Steifvater: Again i don’t think I really have to explain this one but like. In case you haven’t read this series it’s truly iconic..... Idk even how to explain this LKGJLJRG just like magical realism wonderfulness and found family and amazing relationships and shit.... (Rep: Gay, Bisexual, Disabled, Warnings: Abuse)

The following are books I plan to read for pride/in the near future. I can’t wholeheartedly reccomend them obviously, or fully detail all the rep/warnings, but I’ve heard some great things about these books and a lot of them have representation that the first part of the list is lacking, so I figured I would add them! (Also if I use ‘queer’ that’s because that’s the only label I have been given by the authors or reviewers, or the characters identify as queer)

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman: To my knowledge this is a really emotional YA coming of age/college story that has to do with like. A podcast? Idk a lot of people love it and side note I’ll be suing B&N bc they NEVER have it relkj (Rep: Bisexual, Demisexual, I belive Latinx.)

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand: I believe this is a YA horror-ish novel where there’s a monster stealing girls on and island. (Rep: I believe all three main girls are queer Warnings: Since this is horror im assuming. Horror stuff LMAO)

I Wish You all The Best by Mason Deaver: A YA contemporary romance about Ben who comes out as non-binary to their parents and gets kicked out, and moves in with their estranged sister. They soon are taken under the wing of a senior named Nathan Allan and begin to fall. (Rep: Non-Binary (Own Voices), MLM/Queer, Black (im assuming from the gorgeous cover lmao. Warnings: Misgendering, homophobia, anxiety, depression)

Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno: YA Magical Realism about Georgina, who has yet to inherit the magical powers that have been passed down her family, including her twin sister Mary who, unlike Georgina, is coming into her powers. (Rep: Lesbian, Queer, Aro/Ace, Warnings: Rape and sexual assault, underage drinking, animal death, drug use.)

[crimeronan]

Does Ronan realize he’s turned into Kavinsky? Or better question, do you think the parallels to Kavinsky in MI were intentional on Maggie’s part? Because unless you’ve read every book since TRC, she makes no reference or gives no context to Kavinksy. Or could this be Maggie’s way of writing more of a Kavinsky like character after she swore she wouldn’t write any more of his character? I think MI Ronan is who he would have maybe turned into faster if he’d chosen Kavinsky in TRB. Maybe, MI Ronan wishes he had...

oh now HERE'S a question i'm ready to sink my teeth into, coming off my second read. (first read was to feel all my feelings, second was to analyze the story as a whole)

mi spoilers obviously

100% yes, i think the parallels are intentional.

but i don't think we can talk meaningfully about that without exploring how HENNESSY is a kavinsky parallel.

for the sake of brevity i'm gonna just. give an overview of a lot of thoughts that could all have their own very long meta posts

(ok putting it under a readmore bc it still ended up semi lengthy)

we're introduced to hennessy in cdth as a suicidal, partying, chain-smoking, bitchy forger who dreams real people and doesn't appear to care about the consequences. there are plenty of things setting her apart from kavinsky, which are made clear as the story unfolds, but this choice of introduction makes the parallel striking & Definitely intentional

her relationship to ronan is in many ways a rovinsky with the power dynamics reversed: him teaching HER to dream, rather than the other way around

it's also about as dysfunctional as rovinsky is because ronan is 1) projecting his own anger at himself onto her 2) unable to think clearly around his fear of being left alone if she dies 3) just. ronan

when mi opens, ronan is protecting her from her trauma, but it's not sustainable. she wants to be able to function independently of him; he doesn't understand why she can't just accept she's going to be fucked-up forever. something he considers irrefutable fact

projecting!!!! again!!!!!

ronan's not in a healthy place at the start of mi but he becomes significantly less healthy as the book goes on. isolation has never been good for him. as the story unfolds, he and hennessy just make each other worse. neither is in a place to support the other the way they need to be supported. both are choosing not to reach out the way they need to

what i find interesting about their parallel negative arcs in this book is that both of them take their own piece of kavinsky. and in doing so end up with diametrically opposed goals. hennessy gets to a point of "i don't care about anything anymore, not even jordan" & ronan gets to a point of "nothing is real, i'm gonna burn everything down"

do i think ronan realizes he's become more like k than he might have ever been before? not consciously. it's one of those things he can't let himself think. kavinsky didn't care about the consequences of his actions, didn't care about who he hurt, didn't care about the future. ronan, on the other hand, is serving a Purpose. there's a reason behind all of his actions. he's telling himself that it's about matthew and other dreamers and other dreams, and partially it is, but it's also about how he's sick and just wants a solution that's easy

even as ronan's trying to destroy the world he's telling himself that he can keep people safe - keep the dam from going down too fast, keep the lines from being dangerous, keep hennessy safe from her dreams. it's all bullshit. he can't control any of these factors but he has to believe he can. he's going to pieces

aside from the morals and a life purpose, though, he's just gotten a lot worse. isolation is fucking with his head; so is bryde. if ronan went with kavinsky in dream thieves, i can definitely see him blowing up all his meaningful relationships and fucking everything up forever. this book truly was a treat for everyone who's wanted to see what ronan lynch would look like if he let himself go

(it's me. i'm everyone)

but in terms of narrative, ronan's parallels to HENNESSY matter Much More thematically than his parallels to kavinsky. there's no need to introduce k-related backstory for foil/theme/characterization/etc purposes when hennessy is Right There

hennessy and ronan are both their own ghosts of kavinsky. and so the way they destroy each other in mi is like. STUNNING in its execution. god bless

[completeoveranalysis]

TRC Translation notes Volume 18 (Chapters 133 - 140)

Even more incredible translation notes from the wonderful @giniroangou? I got you covered!

Highlights include: acid punk chapter cover mysteries finally solved, soul/body separation foreshadowing, oaths!, Lantis and co. actually becoming competent, character motivations making sense, intentional ambiguities, fun chess vibes, and Sakura’s heart breaking in slow motion.

Chapter 133

Cover page - Per the art book commentary, the panels in this picture were intended to be things the characters either threw away or decided they no longer want.

p.8 - The word “kokoro” comes back here, this time translated as “mind.” The description of Sakura’s body as a “vessel” is from the original text. There’s definitely been a theme of the mind/heart/soul being a separate (though not necessarily unconnected) entity from the body running through both the plotline and the language the characters use.

p.10 - As in previous scenes, the original text preserves the distinction between the two Syaorans by only placing Lava Lamp’s name in quotation marks.

p.14-15 - There were no exclamation points in these lines originally, which I feel implies more of a defeated tone.

p.19 - Yuuko’s line here isn’t necessarily about creation, though it could be interpreted that way. In the original text it’s, “For the sake of two futures.”

p.20 - Yuuko says that it is both the price Lava Lamp and the others paid, as well as their hearts (“kokoro” again) that will ensure Watanuki doesn’t vanish.

p.24 - The wording in the translation was a little confusing, but I think the concept got across. Just in case, Yuuko explains here that worlds are able to endure precisely because everything maintains a balance. If a world loses that balance, it will fall apart.

Chapter 134

p.35 - Sakura’s lines have been mistranslated here. She’s asking if Fai is hiding what he really wants to do because she said she was going to go. Essentially she’s worried that Fai is prioritizing her desires over his own, that he would have made a different choice without her influence.

p.36 - The original nuance is a little different in a couple of Fai’s lines. He says to Sakura, “I’m a wizard who can’t even heal your wounds, but will you allow me to stay with you?” As a side note: the English “wizard” is the actual word Fai uses to refer to himself - it’s written in katakana as the reading above the kanji for “majutsushi”/“mage.” (I feel like this has come up before, but… it’s been a while.)

p.37 - Just to clarify how this line appears in Japanese, “My only Princess” is written in kanji in a much more formal manner than Fai would normally use (我が唯一の姫君) with the reading above in katakana as “Vi la princia” (ヴイ・ラ・プリンシア). Additionally, the entire phrase is in quotation marks, enhancing the impression that it is an established oath of some sort.

p.38 - Kurogane could be referring to one thing or to multiple things that have changed - the word in Japanese is non-specific.

p.39 - I’m not sure why there’s a “But” in front of Kurogane’s line in this translation, since this follows directly off of his line from the previous page. It should be more along the lines of, “I guess it’s okay to make more than one promise.”

Chapter 135

p.51 - Sakura’s thank you feels super extreme in the official translation, but originally all she said here was, “Thank you.”

p.53 - The promise Fuuma mentions is presented in contrast/in addition to the jobs he does for Yuuko - after describing his payment process to her he says, “Well, I made another promise too, though.”

I interpreted Fuuma’s last line here not as a reference to the needs of the group, but to the fact that they’re probably going to have a hard time getting Sakura’s feather back from Seishirou.

p.62 - Yuuko says she’s going to purify the egg before she passes it on.

p.65 - Yuuko isn’t talking about a single unchanging feeling here, but saying that people’s true feelings cannot be changed.

Chapter 136

p.74-76 - Fun fact: The “READY…. GO!!” on these pages was originally written in English.

p.79 - Eagle remarks that BOTH Sakura and her pieces are incredible. The word for piece is written with the kanji used for shougi and chess pieces and the like (駒) but the reading is given in katakana as the English word “piece” (ピース).

p.81 - The point Geo’s making here should be that all three “pieces” DON’T seem to be amateurs.

p.82 - After pointing out Fai’s defensive technique, I’m fairly certain Lantis is saying that it seems unlikely Fai has always fought in that style.

P.84 - Lantis doesn’t describe them as “useful,” but as “masters” (of fighting).

Chapter 137

p.97 - The translation covers this up a bit, but Fai’s first line here is expositional - he’s just saying that they know there’s a feather in this world, not really asking about it. He is also still referring to Syaoran as “Syaoran-kun,” they just missed the honorific in the English version.

p.110 - I just want to drop another quick reminder here about Lava Lamp’s speech style, because the translation doesn’t do it justice at all. What’s been translated as “You too. Please get some sleep yourself,” was not actually a polite request. Lava Lamp refers to Kurogane directly as “you” (“anata”) and ends his sentence in a casual imperative (“yasundekure”). Despite the father/son vibe in the preceding scene, he speaks to Kurogane as an equal.

p.111 - Once again, there are quotation marks around Kurogane’s name when Fai says it, so it’s even more in-your-face in the Japanese version than the italics of the official translation.

Chapter 138

p.115 - Fai’s line is a bit less clear-cut in the original text. This is another case where there are no pronouns used, so from the line itself you can’t tell whether he’s speaking for himself alone or not and you also can’t tell whether he’s vowing to keep the whole group from getting hurt vs, say, just Sakura. However you choose to take this line is up to the context of the scene and how you view Fai as a character in this moment.

p.116 - Clow doesn’t ask if Sakura is looking at the ruins - she offers that information herself.

p.117 - Sakura’s description of the ruins is a little different in her original line - she says that there may be precious items from the country’s past buried there. (The word she uses for what might be buried is “mono,” which could be either singular or plural, but plural seems the most logical in this situation.)

p.118 - The word that’s been translated as “that special someone” is “daisuki na hito” in Japanese, which can mean, “The person you love,” but also alternatively, “Someone you love.” It doesn’t necessarily imply a romantic partner.

p.121 - A couple little tweaks here: The word “eye” has quotation marks around it in the original text. It could potentially be plural or singular, but given the context and the quotes singular seems more appropriate. Clow doesn’t specifically say anything about a message, just an inability to reach (so this could refer to a message, but also to feelings, to someone reaching out for something, etc.) He speaks only of a desire to protect, rather than a need or the actual act occurring: “But even so, you want to protect (insert missing pronoun here).” Basically, Japanese is the ideal language for a scene like this, because its ambiguity gives many of these lines a versatility they don’t have in English and allows them to apply to multiple situations at once, as you discussed in your liveblog.

p.123 - Again, the implication that protection is an obligation wasn’t in the original text. Lava Lamp is stating what it is he’d decided: To protect no matter what.

p.124 - Another punctuation tonal shift here: instead of “Sakura!” this was originally “.... Sakura.”

p.127 - Fai’s original line is a bit less flippant than the translated version, just, “Those look like they’d be painful if you hit them.”

Chapter 139

p.141 - “Becoming lost” is one way to translate this line, but it might be more natural to say that Sakura is hesitating or wavering.

Chapter 140

p.161 - Just for fun: the original text on this page is kind of wild aesthetically. “Checkmate” is written in katakana, what’s been translated as “black team” is just the word “black” written in kanji with katakana above it giving the reading as “black” in English, and then “WIN!” entirely in English.

p.162 - Fai’s lines on this page are spoken with more certainty - he’s not supposing, just stating facts. He describes Lava Lamp’s experiences as, “He’s lived through the same days as Syaoran-kun.”

p.169 - Significantly (maybe?) there shouldn’t be any quotation marks when Mokona says “Syaoran” here. It feels less alienating this way.

p.170 - Kurogane actually asks if Mokona is planning to drink the whole thing, bottle and all. I-is she trying to send it to Yuuko?

p.171 - Sakura’s line here isn’t, “I know!” but “.... I know.” (Once again, I’m not mentioning nearly all of these punctuation differences, but when they seem to drastically change the tone I can’t help pointing them out.)

p.172 - A couple of Sakura’s lines were changed in the translation. She originally says that even if Lava Lamp served as Syaoran’s basis, she knows that “just like those we’ve met in various worlds up until now, his appearance is the same but he’s a different person.”

p.173-174 - Since this was apparently confusing (and partially mistranslated) Sakura says here that each time she sees similarities between Lava Lamp and Syaoran (and there are many) she can’t handle it. Each time she notices these things she can’t help lamenting that the person in front of her isn’t her Syaoran.

[rksakura]

FINALE, EPISODE 7 🔊: fiesta (solo) + nillili mambo ( lyrics + lines ) | group performance with 💖 sakura, woojin, daniel & zuho! coaches @rkxjinki, @junerk, @rkjinwook! mentions: @rkxkikwang, @yuzurk, @rkxminhee, @rkpwj, @danielxrk, @rkchwev, @rkmason, @rkzxh, @hyojinrk, @rkyuri​, @rkchoutzuyu trigger warnings: mild levels of anxiety.

this is the final performance.

one more episode that'll determine everything and where she'll go, whether she gets signed or not. 

faces being eliminated could be a high possibility as well. the thought of anyone of her teammates being eliminated makes her feel uneasy. while sakura is a complete ray of sunshine with a heart of gold, she still sticks to the honest side. this is a competition, she's against her friends who she doesn't want to lose either. while the tensions are at its highest stake, she has to see the positive outcome in this. even til' now she tenses at times, she does a wonderful job hiding it away from the camera which is a good advantage to her. that's because she's learned to smile through hard times but the adrenaline on the stage also excites her, the experience that made her develop into a better performer came from this opportunity.

she couldn't be any more grateful than to have a chance to broaden her connections, meeting the coaches wasn't intimidating at all. just like before, sakura makes bento boxes for her team and the coaches before the day ends and preps the meals accordingly to day-by-day. she was one who prefers homemade meals over going out despite her being a huge foodie. nothing beats the feeling of home sweet home. spending time with the team, she's gotten to know them more. it helps to know what they like with their dishes, sakura does her best to adjust to as they requested. hojung, jinki, and jinwook are coaches that she can ask feedback from comfortably without hesitating.

moments in the training room aren't simply singing, dancing, or rapping but conveying creativity and sharing ideas before all of them picked a final song. there are underlying doubts that reside in her when she hears that the tempo is following with hip-hop brands, she can't help it but reflects on her social image, a girl filled with aegyo and unique tone to rapping but she still feels it doesn't suit her. she's mentioned it to zuho, sitting down at the highest peak of a building to look over the dark skies. she's been wanting to receive feedback from the coaches, so she asks and they tell her that she needs to believe in herself more. sakura couldn't agree anymore. she's the type of person to motivate herself but can't do it all alone, encouragement from peers gives her the push that she needs to carry on.

the writing sessions with daniel are fun. at first, the impressions with sakura that she rubs off as a gentle, warm-hearted and that she might not be into all that with rapping, but she's been interested in song-writing for a while. this stems from her interest in poetry, writing haikus were her favourite past-time as a child. there's nothing but empowerment she feels from rapping, especially when it derives from her own resources. she's intrigued by his creativity levels, they're out of this world and she's sure to inform her teammate about his talents.

somewhere in the day, she's chatting with yuzu and notices that she's able to attend the live show with minhee. when she hears the good news, sakura instantly smiles and promises she'll work harder for the both of them. plus, she couldn't let the rest of her team down if she doesn't practise her facial expressions. the uneasy remnants remain trapped but she overrides that by giving practise her all. she needs to work on how she emphasizes certain words in korean, taking the time to memorise the lyrics as it's majority hangul than english. pronunciation is keycore, she couldn't make an embarrassment out of herself knowing that netizens out there could be out for her life. sakura has to be prepared for anything. she works hard in what she believes in, music is basically the air she breathes for.

most of all, she doesn't leave out to be there for her beloved ones. including mason and it honestly broke her heart when she heard the results from the last episode, but she doesn't mention it as she doesn't want to upset anyone. sakura can only wish him the best of luck and she does every time, rooting for mason and supporting his decisions. she even lets him know that she's afraid of not making it through when she's been this far and she's always listening to his stories within the industry. she takes a good time to hang out with her childhood friend and it breaks the concerns overwhelming her temporarily. she's overthinking but being side-by-side with her friends relieve any trepidation.

sometimes, she wants to ask yuri if she can stay over and have a sleepover with yuzu before all of this mga stuff happened? she wonders, will she lose everything if she did win and sign the contract? her friends are everything to her. sakura doesn't want to forget anyone or have herself be forgotten. she hasn't been able to see kikwang and tzuyu and it does run in her mind, bothering her to the point she'd write handwritten letters for them she'd give later on.

she doesn't ever forget her roots. ever.

it feels lonely without hyojin when he’s not around, sakura loves his company over. she wants to keep going on but she can’t help but think to send a text through, wondering if her good friend was alright after seeing what recently happened in the last episode. sakura doesn’t do so well dealing with loss. not that she’s a sore loser but when the ones she cares for experience such a thing.

the big day comes shortly. she wakes up from her bed with enough sleep to get on with her day, packing all the lunches she's made for her team the night before. there's also her hygienic duties, brush her teeth and fix her hair as well as eat her breakfast before she sets out to her designated destination. once she gets there, sakura enters the mnet building, greeting everyone familiar to her. waving her hands all around the place and wishing them the best, the energy pill is her, that roots for everyone! she feels that's the best energy she can give out. she's got everything packed carefully in her backpack, switching over to the outfit and her makeup's already done. the theme of the performance is interesting, different than what she usually does.

jinwook's birthday comes along, she brings mini mochi ice creams for everyone, including a pack for jinwook himself! celebrating birthdays gets sakura cheery, it makes her genuinely happy as it's someone else's important day and a nice day to celebrate with everyone. this week has been quite eventful with everything lining up with her school and volunteer work schedule to, but sakura feels that it's an escape, that's why going out and celebrating holidays make a great hangout. she sings happy birthday to jinwook, both in japanese and korean.

the choreography isn't hard to learn, but the focus on this episode seems like it was revolving around dancing than anything else but that's her weakest, that doesn't stop sakura from working around her barriers. she doesn't use that as an excuse to let laziness guide her. in fact, she uses it as willpower to take the challenge. she sees this as something she wants to overcome, something to be better at so that way in the future, she's overall a consistent performer. the sphere practise room is peaceful from what she remembers. the concept that she's been given is a trc-based but the doubts aren't bad anymore, sakura has all she needs. the right environment, the swagger of her own even if it doesn't suit the rappers from the original song. it's better to tweak it up to her own style rather than copy someone else anyway.

without vernon, it doesn't feel right either. a missing piece of the puzzle; another number down, a presence that her team is missing. she admired him for the tips she's learned from him in the rapping department, specifically. it's rare for sakura to meet rappers and when she does, she's sure to exchange information to keep in contact. she's met a couple more faces being in seoul. traveling around the world from youth, sakura's lost touch with a lot of friends that she was close to. she made sure that wouldn't happen as often present day. 

at least, she can rely on daniel with performance criticism and critiques.

he’s right. the song is enjoyable as long as she doesn’t break her concentration. she asks zuho again and again, what defines sakura’s swagger? she’d receive the same words to be herself and not force it. she did have an individuality, an enigma to her soul when it comes to being up on the stage. she’s going to show that off.

when she’s sitting next to her team on her assigned seat, it’s not much longer until her full name is called up. miyawaki sakura. she’s assigned to take a section of the mash-up, matching her own epitome is the song solo by jennie from blackpink. she’s small bits here and there researching trc’s trends a couple nights ago, keeping notes up in her bulletin board as she read over them during rehearsals. the song’s quite powerful, so much that it eventually grew on her. she found herself playing it on repeat during her commute times. she presents a polite bow to the contestants and the judges that will be evaluating them.

before the song begins, she’s wearing a pair of sunglasses and posing for the camera as the lighting gradually increases, lenses lock on the team. she throws them off as the music starts playing. woojin starts with the opening lines and sakura dances along to her formation, movements sharp as she’s highlighting on her dancing. she’s practised so many times that she’s memorised the moves efficiently. daniel, zuho, and woojin sing through their lines and when sakura reaches her’s, she doesn’t find herself breathy thanks to the techniques she’s learned. jinki also helped in that aspect too, taking deep breaths before any performance is the way to go. it keeps her breath control in check as well as her anxiety levels.

when her lines come up, she holds the microphone firmly in her hand and starts singing. it’s not anything too hard, she holds a nice melody with her sweet tone. it’s easy on the ears but not aggressive that it seems like she’s overshadowing her teammates. sakura didn’t want that at all. she wants everything to be a fair win.

bichi naneun solo bichi naneun solo

i’m going solo lo lo lo lo lo i’m going solo lo lo lo lo lo

she rolls her body to the melody, keeps up with the same energy with her lines and dancing to make sure she doesn’t look subpar. she shares this segment with daniel. she has a big smile on her face as she looks over her teammate and winks, posing up two peace signs as she’s delivering a wave of charisma with her profound valor.

geot gachi ttaekkaji geunyang sarado dwae geu malhaneun neon sujeosujeo georyeo nan saraminde so what~ sing it loud like

bichi naneun solo

invariably, her australian accent shows with any of the english lyrics. her signature trademark is her multilingual abilities. she transitions it well back to korean, then switching to english. by this, she can use a unique ‘switch’ with her rapping or singing flow. her voice is a tool, a part of her she can control than let any of the fears control her. it’s an instrument like what her choir teacher told her back in high school during her cheerleader days.

bichi naneun solo i’m going solo lo lo lo lo lo i’m going solo lo lo lo lo lo

the mash-up seems like a fast-tempo song, she’s somewhat surprised that she’s able to hold off on her own because if the current her was the same sakura from a year ago, she wouldn’t even have the ounce of confidence to be on this stage without trembling or shaking. anxiety doesn’t go away just like that, she has her moments too but she didn’t work hard for all of this to go to waste.

she’s jumping on the stage with a bright smile on her face as she winks at the camera again! she picks herself up to hit the dance moves duly, providing an excerpt of her rap.

give me more give me more geonjohan sok keun bul jipin neo gudeojin du bare tto hoheuphae anim michilgeol ganjeolhi gajgo sipeo neon allokdallok son japgo nun gamgo ipmajchwo neomgyeo baton

the cute charm remains (it’s never going away, isn’t that what everyone knows her for?) but sakura also wants to indicate her chic colours, she’s not reliant on her ‘soothing sound’ at the moment but wants to leave an unremarkable impression to the judges so that her name’s written somewhere out there and she’s not just another pretty face on the screen that seems talentless. that’d be the last she’d want to go by. to get to the top, she must survive her way to the bottom and fight her way to become a rising phoenix.

give me more

she’s learned how to harmonise with her team too! sakura didn’t know too much about in-depth singing features but it’s essential if she wants to sound good and hold a note. she doesn’t sound off-key and not too horrible but still isn’t at the peak where she can belt out high notes like the others do. jinwook and jinki have strong pipes which is why she asked for some pointers on her vocal control and the consistency of it. her vocals are soft, thin and sometimes airy but she isn’t doing adlibs so sakura holds a strong tune.

yongseohaejulge

the boys possess loads of charisma as well which compliment the entire performance, she can really rely on her team without a doubt to win this. it doesn’t even have to be first place but sakura’s one to appreciate the beauty regardless of the situation.

sunglasses are on at the end, she’s forming a v-shape with her fingers underneath her chin as she poses.

she’s given a lot of her energy but it doesn’t stop there. the song closes but another door opens. this was the most complicated piece she’d spend a good time on, endless nights and days of playing owl so that she didn’t stutter with her words. but like the last song, the sound of it was also energetic! she found a way to work around it.

pirates, argh matey and all. wooden boats and parrots as props in the setting. she thinks it’s an amusing concept, not one that seems typical of her but once she takes off the sunglasses, an eyepatch is revealed and she throws the sunglasses to the audience if someone wanted to catch it. daniel opens up with his rap and it’s the part where he wrote his own lyrics. she’d proud of his achievement and his ability and it expresses in her eyes whilst performing in the stage.

she jams to the melody of zuho’s swagger voice, he’s popping off as well and sakura’s happy for her best friend. it feels like there was nothing to be stressed over the entire time, not when she has zuho by her side to support her through tough times. she cherishes his company, doting on him a lot of the time. sakura keeps up with the movement of the dance, making sure to keep a friendly smile on her face!

aight~! jakjeonghago nawara  sarammada jeongsin nagan holiday igot bunwigin yeoreumbada  geollijeok georineun witdori taruihae eosuseonhage beongjjiji mara yangchigisonyeon gachi  sabangeul jeonjeonhamyeo Blah Blah donghaedo naega daibinghamyeon adamhan puljang joeda baksallaera click clack boom pow

being the only girl in the group felt scary at first but she’s aware that the boys have her back when she’s in trouble and they don’t bite at all. sakura’s the type of person to give people the benefit of the doubt. it often ended well for her as most people didn’t take advantage and don’t break her trust. there are a few cases but not many to the point she’d lose the spark of her generosity.

she’s doing what she loves on stage, living the dream. being able to rap freely, proving people wrong—not to judge by her looks, to see the soul with eyes. she lets the boys shine in the spotlight while following the formation of the dance.

(this is real b.b) (we be big pimpin)

baksuchigo sondeureo igeon baiking taljinhal ttaekkaji gyesok syauting bbbbrrrrrrrr~!

not one song but two, this was a lot and she’ll be tired after but it’s worth it.

she doesn’t have much longer. the song’s going to end soon. sakura doesn’t want to think about the countdown but enjoy and breath in the moment of the song. she takes heavy deep breaths but keeps the microphone away from her mouth so there’s no feedback. when it’s her time to shine again, sakura sings the last bit of her lines effortlessly.

nilliri rarara nilliriya nillirimambo nilliri rarara nilliriya nillirimambo nilliri rarara nilliriya nillirimambo

woojin closes the song. when the instrumental stops playing, she’s out-of-breath but thanks everybody for watching them. including the viewers, judges, and contestants. prior to leaving the stage, sakura takes a courteous bow on the stage.

adrenaline gushes through her system, it’s not leaving yet as she’s still going to root for the others, watching the remaining time of the mnet global auditions. she has to stay to see what the results are. regardless, watching the process of elimination is nerve-wracking. at least, she can enjoy the rest of the other performances and see what everyone else has to show off!

she didn’t calculate that she’d make it this far but being on this taxing and demanding show has polished a lot of her skillsets that she probably couldn’t do on her own with the help of her peers, friends, coaches, teammates, and any words she’s received from the judges about her musicianship.

she’s come a long way down this road. she’ll have to call her mother and father once they’re back from their business trip so she can catch up since it’s been a while she hasn’t contacted them. she’s been slacking in communications but she’s doing the best she can with the limited time she has.

[rkjisoo]

✫ ·  *  ˚ ♡

three non-consecutive and special days in the lives of kim jisoo and park chanyeol ―

@rkpcy

backdated 12/25 !

he’s never been one to think ahead, has always been the type to jump into things without thinking, the only exception being the path he’s taking toward fulfilling his goals and dreams. but after meeting jisoo—after coming to adore her, her smile, her laugh, the way her lips form into a taut line when he goads her, the way her voice sounds when she scolds him, the warmth that fills him whenever she’s near—he finds himself planning more and more things ahead of schedule, birthdays, holidays, couple dates. they’re all imprinted into the crevices of his mind, counting down the days until they arrive.

coming up with gifts for her birthday and for their hundredth day had been fairly simple. they were so close together in dates that he decided to go with a theme; that left coming up with a christmas gift a much more difficult task, so much so that he ended up asking ariel to help him choose something. in the end, he decides to go with something simple, tying it in with the rest of the gifts that would come later. he just hopes she still likes it.

at the stroke of midnight as christmas eve turns to christmas day, chanyeol scurries out of the trc building, still bound by his contract and schedules as a trainee. it’s far too late now to make a surprise entrance into her apartment, and although he’ll miss the scolding he would have gotten if he’d done it anyway, he doesn’t want to wake her when she’s got an early start in the morning as well. so, instead, he leaves the small gift basket hidden away behind a potted plant, its location sent to her in a text for her to find in the morning. inside is a blu-ray and/or cd collection of all her favorite musicals—rent, hamilton, and les miserables—all wrapped up in a his first ever hand-knitted scarf, a skill he learned in a panic and, as one could tell from the overall aesthetic of the scarf, has yet to perfect.

finally, hidden among the folds of the scarf, a tiny box rests, inside of which is a simple rose gold necklace, upon which hangs a tiny pendant in the shape of a moon. it’s a reminder of the night he’d taken her away to a nearby beach and asked her to be his under the light of the moon. he swears he can still hear the crackling of the fire every time he thinks of it.

when he gets home, as a present to himself, he facetimes his mother and brothers as soon as he gets home, wishing them a merry christmas eve, and tells them all about the girl he’s met and the reason behind the stars in his eyes.

backdated 12/31 !

their one hundredth day arrives far faster than he ever imagined; it hardly feels like time is passing at all, especially when every day with her feels as fresh and exhilarating as the first.

when he’d first planned the trip to the beach, he hadn’t realized the date of their one hundredth day would fall on new year’s day, but it feels almost poetic, because a new year means new adventures, and every day is one with her.

in all the past twenty-two years of his life, a new year’s kiss at the stroke of midnight had never really crossed his mind. sure, he’s heard of them before, had been berated by past girlfriends for being missing at that crucial moment when the ball dropped at the two hands of the clock met, but it’s never really held any sort of importance to him. but just like everything else in this relationship, the fact that he now has a sense of urgency about the matter makes no sense at all and all the sense at the same time.

so he pulls a little trick at the end of the day. for the first time in his almost year and a half of training, he hatches a plan that would allow him to leave early. a (badly) faked stomachache, the kind of whining and griping not even a mother could love, and a promise to stay extra hours the following day, he leaves the trc building with less than half an hour to spare before the clock strikes twelve. most of those minutes are spent making the commute from yongsan to dongdaemun, and the rest trying to get the timing just right.

with seconds to spare before the new year starts, he calls her cell phone, praying it’s enough to wake her if she’s already asleep. when she picks up, he informs her of his current location outside of her door, and waits, constantly checking the seconds tick down on his watch. he’s becoming antsy, hurry up constantly recurring over and over in his head until he hears the familiar click of the unlocking of a door.

time’s up.

as soon as the door opens and she appears in front of him, he reaches out and grabs her by the wrist, pulling her in close to him, his free hand coming to wrap tightly around her waist. he wastes no time, sparing a split second only to grin to himself before he presses her lips against hers in the first ever new year’s kiss of his life. he makes it last, reveling in the moment, lingering in it, pulling her closer still as if there’s any more space to be filled. when he finally pulls away he’s breathless, that same old boyish grin on his lips as he looks down into her eyes.

“happy one hundred days,” he breathes, the reveals the envelope stuffed into the inner pocket of his coat. inside are two tickets to a musical he’s never heard of for saturday night. he doesn’t give away the contents, merely drops a hint as he says, “wear something nice. i’ll dress up, too.”

three words go left unsaid from fear of the unknown and a promise to be uttered in an unforeseeable future.

backdated 01/03 !

with her birthday only two days after, he has to make some adjustments to his gift-giving schedule. on the actual day, he texts her at exactly midnight as he finishes up his schedules, putting in even more hours than promised due to the fact that there’s a big performance coming up and he has to spend as much time as he can working on his dancing. that weekend, when they meet up for their date at the musical, he presents her with a bouquet of flowers and begs for a rain check on her gift, making sure to tell her that he already has it prepared and hasn’t forgotten.

after the musical is over and they’ve gotten into his car to head home is when he changes directions. he offers her a blindfold, asks her to trust him like she did before they took their “impromptu” trip to the beach. the ride will be a lot shorter, he insists, and it is—it’s only a few blocks from where they’re currently sat and takes but a few minutes to arrive, still, he insists on her keeping the blindfold on as he leads her to a building that’s usually filled with people, now empty save for the two of them.

after a walk through the downhill slope of the audience section and up the steps of the stage, he finally pulls the blindfold from her face, revealing their location in an unused theater, the both of them standing center stage, spotlight focused only on them.

he has an old friend to thank for this, his old boss at the restaurant, whose brother-in-law manages the theater. it’s a lot smaller than the one they’ve come from, but it’s elegant, decorated in a simple but dignified manner. “the stage is all yours,” he says as he remains behind her, his hands falling form her face where he’d removed the blindfold down to her waist, wrapping his arms around her as he rests his chin upon her shoulder. “i know there’s no one to see you right now, but in the future, all these rows will be filled with people who adore you.” he pauses, a small chuckle escaping him. “not as much as i do, naturally.”

he pulls away, though he doesn’t lose skin contact as he grabs a hold of her hand as he stands a few inches away from her. he takes her in, all of her beauty, her grace, hereverything. his heart is so full, and he knows he’s so lucky to have her in his life. with a grin as bright as the spotlight that dulls in comparison to her glow, he asks, “so what’s on the program tonight, grammy-winning, emmy-winning, world famous actress, kim jisoo?”

✫ ·  *  ˚ december twenty-fifth

christmas eve was melancholy; packed with exhaustion and being away from the people she holds dearest. traditions fell away the moment she was no longer able to go back home to be with her parents and thus far, new ones are yet to be forged. it’s a difficult task though, when all the people she wants to spend the holidays with are just as terribly busy. this is why her expectations for christmas day itself were as low as it were the day before. if things were perfectly morose the day before christmas, who is to say that the twenty-fifth itself would be any different? the only difference would perhaps be that her mother would call multiple times throughout the day, with her missing each one as she’s holed up training.

although when she reaches for her phone by the bedside table, catching sight of a message from her boyfriend, it feels as if everything suddenly blazes into life. like a child on christmas morning ( although a hundred times more subdued and definitely with class ), she hurries out of bed to look behind the designated potted plant. an unusual place with which to hide a christmas present at but she’s not complaining. she relocates to their couch, sitting as the presents lay daintily on her lap.

she fishes out the scarf first, smiling softly as her fingers tread through the soft material. the handicraft, while not perfect, was undoubtedly his and therefore something an aspect of it that she gets to treasure more. despite her need for perfection, she loves the small gaps in between that shows how well he worked on it. wrapping it around her neck, she reaches for the cd collection of three of her most favorite theatre musicals with an even bigger smile. of course he remembers what they were, considering that she must have already talked his ear off about how much she loves these three at this point in their relationship. putting them aside, she mentally takes note of how they must watch and listen to all three together because what is his own gift if he doesn’t get to enjoy it as well? finally, she reaches for the box. opening it carefully and letting out a small gasp when she sees what is inside. jisoo understands immediately. the moon means so many beautiful things for them – the night having accompanied them during their most special days. the fact that he got her jewellery is already meaningful enough on its own but the symbolism around his chosen design makes her feel everything tenfold. she clasps the pendant between her fingers, looking down on it with every bit of fondness shining in her eyes.

throughout the rest of the day, there’s this aching feeling of missing him. of wanting to rewind back to that day when they were just messing around in his kitchen building gingerbread houses. that felt like the true meaning of christmas then – spending it with the people you love and sharing only the happiest of memories together. jisoo resigns herself to pushing the thought aside because the ache was turning into an impulsive feeling and she does not really have the liberty to come to him, much less make a call. instead, she promises to just make up for it with her own christmas present and during the next time they see each other. the promise leaves a resounding beat across her heart.

✫ ·  *  ˚ december thirty-first

it is the most unfortunate thing that they are not given any leeway throughout the holidays. to be dismissed from training a few hours earlier would have been a subpar gift, but because of everything raging on at the moment it is as if they’re not even given a moment to breathe enough as it is. still, she makes do with what hours she had left before the new year rings – dressing up nicely and taking out a nice bottle of champagne as the new year countdown show plays soundly on the television. it is not quite the lavish new year parties she would have been invited to back home, but she’s happy. 

as she sits on their couch, she wishes strongly that he was around. maybe this whole watching for the clock to strike twelve would have been more enjoyable with chanyeol to quip about the most unnecessary things yet still be capable of bringing a smile to her face. it was also meant to be a much special countdown to the new year, as they would be celebrating their hundredth day together. while she’s not normally the type to celebrate these things, she feels it holds meaning when it’s celebrated with him; a milestone for a relationship she never imagined would have happened in the first place. one that constantly brings her happiness unlike any other.

she sips on her glass mindlessly, watching the television as they reach the final sixty seconds of twenty-eighteen. when her phone rings, she’s startled back to reality and she picks it up with a smile on her face when she sees who’s calling her. confusion colors her features when he informs her he’s outside their door, rising from her seat, she places her glass on the table before she makes her way to their door.

“i thought yo-” her words were cut short when he takes her in his arms and presses his lips to hers. she recovers quickly from her confusion, returning his eager kiss with as much enthusiasm of her own. she smiles unconsciously, pushing closer to him and effectively brandishing what little space exists between them. when he pulls away, she laughs a little, eyes shining with the unconcealed happiness she feels. 

“happy one hundred days.” she smiles, tiptoeing forward to press a modest kiss on his cheek. curling a hand on his hip, she looks down on the envelope he takes out of his pocket. “i suppose there’s no point in asking what this is about because i’m positive you won’t tell.” shaking her head, she looks up at him again. “but whatever, i’m already sold when you said i should dress up.” 

comforted by his warmth and his presence, she leans closer, wrapping her arms around his taller frame and pressing her ear exactly where she can hear his heart. “happy new year, you fool.” there are more that she wants to say but she lets them be swallowed by this specific moment. besides, she believes firmly that some actions show more than words ever could.

✫ ·  *  ˚ january third

she’s normally the type who fusses over her own birthday; being materialistic and self-centered enough to realize that this is the only day of the year where she is given the freedom to celebrate her own existence. it doesn’t matter that this means she’s growing older because she doesn’t see ageing as anything of a bad thing. simply put, she just adores having the attention all to herself.

yet this year’s celebrations have consisted of a fancy dinner out with the girls and some cake and drinks at home – nothing too grandiose as it perfectly encapsulates how she feels about turning twenty-three. it was nothing like those big birthday parties her mother insists on her having every year and no expensively useless presents were given out. it’s just her and the people she loves and cares about.

throughout the day, she tries not to miss him too much knowing that they’ll be spending the weekend together anyway. she thinks about him in between fleeting moments though; when she’s about to blow the candles on her cake and when they’re wrapped in the ensuing silence of dinner amongst many others. that is why when the weekend comes, she’s a little more than enthused. with a stylish winter ensemble and her heart on her sleeves, she’s ready to go.

jisoo did not expect a musical, of all things and she’s elated when she’s finally given the chance to watch this production of a gentleman’s guide to love and murder. it’s unbecoming of her but the smile on her features throughout the show has little to do with the humor of the show but more because of the person beside her. even if she’s pretty sure she’s become some sort of a menace when she went on this tirade about musical theatre and the beauty of the production throughout the twenty minute interlude.

when they leave, she’s filled with this euphoria and she’s solemn in her happiness. just when she thought it’s all over, he hands over a blindfold and she quells her anxieties as she puts faith in her trust of him when she puts it over her eyes. it is a little disconcerting not knowing where they’re going but the heavy beats of her heart doesn’t erase what she feels. 

as she grips his arms when they have arrived at the supposed location, she tries to catch a feel for wherever they are. coming short of any plausible guesses, she inhales shortly before her blindfold comes off. the sight that greets her then leaves her breathless, wide eyed in surprise but filled with marvellous wonder. 

“oh my god,” came her first reaction. she looks at him, brown eyes almost filling with tears as her affection for him overflows. no one has done anything like this for her before and it grips her heart over the notion that he thoughtfully decided to give her a present that is perfectly reminiscent of her dreams. her passion.

suddenly, it is as if she’s grasping for the right words to say. in fear that she would confess something she’s not quite ready to say, she simply smiles, lays a hand by the crook of his neck, presses a kiss to his jaw, then a soft yet short one on his lips. “thank you so much, this means a lot to me.”

she never thought that he would ever come to mean so much to her, but she cannot imagine her life without him in it now. for whatever reason, the world decided to bring them together and how wonderful her life has changed since. so when he asks her to sing, she chooses a song that she believes perfectly encapsulates what she feels for him. in so many words she says what she longs to say but not quite and she hopes he can feel it in his heart as strongly as she does.

“we were strangers, starting out on a journey,”