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misaverawrites · 2 years

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What If You Kissed Me? (Steve Rogers x Reader)

summary: You were placed in charge of Bucky's rehabilitative care after coming back from Wakanda, you and Steve get to know each other pretty well.

tags: mentions of rehabilitation, mentions of winter soldier!bucky, minor spoilers for up until avengers: infinity war, kind of in a fucky spot in the timeline lol don't look too closely lol, Steve saves you on a mission, kissing, she/her pronouns, description of a knife, steve knocks this lady out, non-graphic descriptions of violence.

a/n: y’all i am down bad, i started rewatching marvel movies from when i was a kid (phase 1/2) and f u c k i love them lol

There wasn't much of a reason for you to form connections in your life, it just slowed you down. That's what you'd believed as you made your way from college to the C.I.A to S.H.I.E.L.D. You'd been recruited into one of the most secret government agencies in the world and that was enough for you. Until they put you on his case.

"James Buchanan Barnes, birthdate March 10, 1917," Director Fury and you stood in an elevator, he read aloud all you needed to know, "Former assassin for Hydra, now currently works as a supersoldier for us. You will keep a close eye on him and work with him on rehabilitation. You will also have to deal with Captain Rogers and Sam Wilson, who hang around despite the fact that I damn well tell them not too." You silently nod, taking the file from the Director's hand. This was something you weren't prepared for, one of your first assignments ever being the rehabilitation of one of the most wanted men in the world, who is also an Avenger, as well as deal with his Avenger friends. You shake off the nerves as you thumb through the file once more, feeling the director's gaze on you. You look up and wait anxiously for the elevator to stop, when it does you suddenly feel hot and your stomach feels like a deep pit, you have to do this. The elevator doors open and Fury hands you a new identification card with a new clearance level that quickly sets you at ease. It read to you clear as day, Clearance Level 7 Agent. You smile softly at the new badge, pinning it onto your breast as you follow after Fury. He enters an area you'd barely even known existed as he stops in front of a room, escorting you inside.

"Sergeant Barnes, I assume your time in Wakanda served you well?" Fury says, James, nodding in turn, staying quiet. Fury looks at you and back at the Sergeant, before leaving the both of you alone. You offer a polite smile at him, not knowing what to say at this moment. "Sergeant Barnes-." You try to begin but Bucky raises his hand at you, "Call me James, please." You nod, pleased that you and he could have this level of mutual awkwardness with one another. "Welcome back from Wakanda, James." He nods as you decide to sit down with him, "So, has anything happened in your life lately?" He sits in silence, possibly deciding what he trusts you enough to tell you right now. "I found a little grocery store, near my new place. Sam's been making me try new stuff, turns out we didn't cook very well in the 40s." He jokes, causing you to laugh, "What food have you liked the most now?" He exhales a bit and sits up, "Well, everything feels overwhelmingly spicy, you know? Hydra well... they fed me what I basically ate in the army or they didn't feed me at all... I just really enjoy having the choice, even if the choice is in my face and everything." You nod a bit, listening to him talk about anything... Wakanda, his life before as he calls it, all the changes in his life, you can't help but find it all terribly interesting. You feel entranced by the things he's telling you about his adventures during the War, something you'd only ever learned about in textbooks with black and white photos and mild interest and now it was here in front of you. Until you hear a knock on the door.

"Hey, Buck... Oh- sorry." You turn around at the knock, only to see him. Steve Rogers, Captain America as he is more well known. You smile politely and stand, "You're fine, Captain, James and I were just finishing up and then I'll be out of your way." He shakes his head and the smile he gives you makes you want to faint. He was something out of a dream, he holds out his hand to shake yours, a gesture you meet. His hands are firm and large, practically dwarfing the size of your own. “You’re alright,” He says, “Do whatever you need to do.” He offers you that smile again; causing your stomach to turn over, and it makes you want to pass out in terror. This is stupid and you know it. Having a crush on Captain America, a living legend and Avenger, who is also the best friend of your rehabilitation charge, these feelings are new to you but you decide to shake them off. You were still a professional adult woman.

You continue working around the two men, watching them talk about whatever, and you can't help but steal a glance at the Captain every now and again. He's so much more different than anything you'd seen out on the news, he's human.

That's why, when you are tasked to go on a mission with him, Bucky, Sam, and Natasha, you can't help but feel nervous or even a bit useless. Two super-soldiers, a woman who was bred and raised to become a spy, a soldier who was damn good at his secret task, and you, a normal young woman who was just able to become a SHIELD agent and get placed somewhere as lucky as with Bucky being your "charge." You sigh as you pull on a bit of protective gear, turning to see Steve, who suddenly pulled his eyes away, he wasn't staring at me, you reason with yourself. "It's your first field mission like this, yeah?" He asks you as you nod nervously, it was scary enough being on a mission like this, but admitting it to someone like Steve Rogers? Terrifying. It was supposedly easy, but, with a squad like this. You knew Fury was lying out of his ass. In an abandoned warehouse that held SHIELD and Hydra secrets, you were all tasked to do a full sweep, make sure whatever rats are lying low, go down, and grab those secrets.

"Alright, well stay with Bucky and you'll be alright, I know you can handle yourself though." He gives you that smile, again and it makes you want to melt. "How do you know I can handle myself, we've never even gone on a mission." He gives a shrug and a smile, "Some people just... have a way that you can tell. You're one of them." You feel warmth on your skin and watch as the look in his eyes scream admiration. The helicraft carrying the five of you slows and the door slides open, allowing Sam to move past you two, not before shooting a look over to Steve, and dropping out, his wings carrying him over the warehouse for any recon needed on this mission. There's only a bit of time left and you exhale, trying to dispel even an ounce of the nerves bouncing around in your stomach. Steve places his hand on your shoulder, as the door opens once again, allowing you all to parachute out of the helicraft. "(Y/N), Buck, take the left side, try to minimize casualties for now. Natasha and I will take the right side, keep your comms on." He then walks off with Natasha and you go off with Bucky.

"You need to make your move." You hear Bucky from behind you, causing you to turn and face him, "What do you mean?" Bucky rolls his eyes, "I mean Steve. He likes you, you like him. Seriously, you two... Wait." There's a quiet beeping, it pulls you both from your conversation, Bucky goes after it, leaving you alone. You stay on guard but the worry overtakes you until you feel the blade of a knife, sharp and shiny, pressed against your neck.

"Shit." You whisper as you feel a woman holding you now, "I've been compromised." You whisper, trying to make it sound more like a statement than a warning call over comms. "Now, what is a normal SHIELD puppy like you doing here?" The woman asks, you simply stay quiet, maybe I can catch her leg and flip her? You think to yourself. That is until you feel yourself pushed forward onto the ground, you crawl trying to get away from her until you turn back to see Steve, covering her mouth and knocking her out with the front, more blunt side of his shield.

You slowly begin to stand up that is until he takes you into his arms, weaving his hands into your hair, "You scared me…” He breathes into your hair, holding you to his chest. “I heard you and Bucky and then Bucky said something about a trap and I-.” You pull away from him, “You heard me and Bucky?” He simply nods, and you feel a bit embarrassed, he knows about your stupid, massive crush on him. “I haven’t been in love since 1945, but, I know it when I feel it. That’s why I’m telling you, I have feelings for you and I’m so happy you feel the same.” This doesn’t feel real in the slightest, but as far as you are aware, this is the happiest moment in your life.

Steve presses his lips to yours in a kiss that makes your heart skip a beat, his hands threading through your hair and land on your hips, you’ve imagined how his lips felt and in reality? They’re better. You only pull away once you hear Sam clear his throat on the comms, reminding the both of you that you’re on a mission.

“Hey you crazy kids,” You hear Bucky snark at the two of you over comms, “Wait until after the mission?” You roll your eyes but pull away from Steve, not before kissing him one more time on the cheek. "Let's get coffee after the mission?" He asks you and you give him a wide smile and nod, "Of course, Steve." The use of his real name makes him smile at you as he wraps his hand around yours as the two of you continue on with the mission to come.

#steve rodgers x reader #mcu fandom #mcu fluff #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #captain america #captain america x reader #captain america x female reader #captain america x you #steve rogers x female reader #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #marvel #marvel fanfiction #x reader #fanfiction #fanfic

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scentofdriedflowers · 1 year

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My my what a mess of a crossover 😬 hopefully they ger rid of this showrunner next year. Imma just focus on the best scene that is the rolivia scene, because having these 2 back together, acting together elevates the show to a higher place again. Kelli and Mariska are so good together, I could watch 40 minutes of just them.

I sooo missed them having their talk in the captain office. The way Liv got her in the first 30 seconds 💀 knew it sdfghjklkjhfdsfgh -I can see it from a mile away Amanda lol- there's no way Carisi doesn't know something is up tho, c'mon if there's one person that knows her like Liv does is Sonny AND he lives with her, no matter how good she is at compartmentalize he definitely noticed something he's just probably giving her space to come to him and he's gonna be okay with it... if they -you assholes- wouldn't have deleted the rollisi scene MAYBE we would have see them talk about it a bit!

Liv was so happy to see Amanda back at the precinct, she had heart eyes lol, and happy to see her back that excited to solve mysteries, yeah she belongs there at svu nothing else makes sense. I was almost waiting on her screaming out in the bullpen 'Oi Brunoo!! Clean up the desk now! Get yourself another one, my georgia peach is coming back!' 😂

also lol their 'banter':

'anyone outwardly destructive...it starts with them'

'speaking from experience?!' 💀😬

Okay ouch fair I'll allow it lol 😂

'are you sorry you left' read it more like 'are you (dw) sorry you made her leave?'

'I love my students' 'yeah but you love all of us more' yeah she does❤ AND THAT LAUGH KELLI IS BACK I missed her laugh so much! 😭

I swear that if after all this talk she ain't coming back in any capacity next season I'll riot (who am I kidding, get her her first grade rank as detective you cowards, they promoted left and right last night -no offense to Jet I love her to pieces and she made look mcgrath like the moron he is lol I hope he leaves too I can't stand him- and Amanda didn't get anything for almost dying and all her years of expertise and solved cases since season 21?! Please, go figures) Also did they just try to compare Liv's reaction to Rollins and Stabler leaving to her future reaction to Muncy leaving?! Lol what?💀 sdfghjklkjhfdsfgh gurl please lol who write these things DG?!

Also her in Ohio with all the people around her with vests on and she gallivanting around with nothing on but her big belly guuurl 😱, if Liv would have been there she would have wrapped her in bubble wrap thrice and gave her 3 vests to put on lol are yOu KIdDiNg?! At least Fin was there. Has somebody checked on Carisi? I bet his heart rate went so high lol and his hair so greyer lol! little rollisi baby got their first adventure on tho 👍😬😄

Next season I need her to be back for my own sanity and probably Liv's lol

#amanda rollins #olivia benson #kelli giddish #mariska hargitay #law and order svu #law and order oc #svu #svu24 #svu spoilers #rolivia #rollivia

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finncomet · 9 months

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Did they believe in Santa?: Santa isn't really a thing in Ooo, so no. Only people who seem to be familiar with him are like, Marceline and Simon, aka people who were around before the Great Mushroom Wars 1000+ years earlier. Then again, it was never confirmed whether or not that was a part of human culture that stuck around in Founders' Island, but seeing as Finn wasn't raised there, it doesn't make a difference in his case. It is implied that Santa was one of the bearers of the ice crown, since he's shown in the episode "Broke His Crown".

Were they a dinosaur or rock kid?: Definitely rock kid. This guy used to eat rocks. He probably found all kinds of cool ones on his adventures, especially during dungeon crawls (underground). A lot of them likely had magical properties or curses or whatnot. That's not to say Finn wouldn't be interested in dinosaurs, but to him they wouldn't be much different from any other monster roaming Ooo, so not quite as exciting compared to how modern kids see them. Also, there was an episode where Finn and Jake randomly hitched a ride with pterodactyl? Implying that some dinosaurs are actually around somehow. Maybe a Jurassic Park type scenario.

Bugs or slimy critters?: Both? Though he leans towards bugs due to his previous life as a butterfly. Also he has a roommate who's a worm.

Do they fidget? How?: Yes, definitely. This guy has adhd. It's very hard for him to sit still too long, unless he's actively meditating. He jiggles his legs a lot, fidgets with his hands, scratches his head. Makes weird little sounds. The question is how doesn't he fidget? It gets worse when he's feeling nervous or awkward.

What were they frequently in trouble for as a child?: Well... obviously. This is Finn, he's still frequently in trouble. But it's a different kind of trouble lol. Less 'go to your room' and more 'oh my god are you trying to get killed?' Anyone who's watched Adventure Time knows. That said, his parents having died when he was still pretty young, Jake raised him with a very nonchalant 'let Finn do what he wants' attitude. So he was rarely ever disciplined.

What underwear do they like?: Uh. The normal kind??

Designs on clothing or no?: He goes for very plain and simple outfits. They get destroyed pretty quickly so what's the point.

Birthmarks?: In the episode "Crossover" he claims to have a sideways teardrop birthmark "in like a really weird place." This is obviously some kind of comet shape.

Do they have good self control?: It depends. He can, but there are situations where he absolutely does not. Many situations. He's known for being reckless, and he can't stand to be inactive if he thinks someone needs help. And he's an adrenaline addict.

Favorite franchise?: Idk... the only franchise ever really talked abt in Adventure Time are the "Heat Signature" movies, which are portrayed as some kind of ghost-story psychological thriller/horror. So I do headcanon him liking those kind of movies and stories in general.

Do they re-enact scenarios in the shower?: Sometimes, but a lot of times he's so exhausted he just completely spaces out.

Do they tell the waiter that their order is wrong?: He's not a picky eater, so he probably wouldn't care enough to say anything. If he did, he'd be extremely polite about it, try not to make it a big deal.

Stairs or elevator?: Finn's claustrophobic after what happened with Golb, so not a fan of places like elevators. He'll use one if he has to, but would much rather use stairs.

Are they an exaggerator when telling stories?: Honestly, usually the opposite. He'll just blurt out the most insane sounding life-or-death absolutely twisted scenario like he's talking about going grocery shopping.

Tagged by: @chronicparagon

Tagging: everyone!

#finnfo #dash memes

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cathalbravecog · 1 year

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idk if you already guessed it but thomas is my favorite ttcc character (totally did not draw like 15 drawings of him) and mmm uhmmm uhm what is your opinion on the good ol' ottoman?

I AM FINALLY GETTING TO THIS ASK. LET THE AUTISM BEGIN. THIS GUY BEEN ROTATING IN MY HEAD. MAYBE NOT THE WHOLE TIME BUT HOO BOY HE TAKES OVER SOMETIMES. AND U ALREADY KNOW I LIKE THIS GUY TOO. YOU AND ME. THE THOMAS WARRIORS. I MAY NOT SHOW IT A LOT BUT I CARE THOMAS A LOT. This is gonna be all over the place you will get lost here but come onto my mental illness adventure with me once more. I thought I had little to say but you opened an dven bigger tism adhd gate

I love Thomas our man SO MUCH he's literally like my second favorite blorbo in Toontown after Cathal that I can lore think about (BC HR joined Mt TTCC blorbo beasts list except he doesn't really have lore oops) I mean he's even on my phone case now, too, with other things that are important to me and he DESERVES IT

I really liked and cared about him before BUT!! this update and being able to finally see him in game myself after missing the other events... It is VERY VERY NICE and it made me like Thomas even MOREEEE

OK NOW TO ANSWER LIKE. THE OPINION QUESTION MORE DIRECTLY. He's a really fun character and as a duo with Robert he works rather well. He's ways in the background, overshadowed by his brother...(Who kind of needs him sometimes since the start of the company and YKNOW the literal guy he uh. Stands on to be level with the other Cogs. Like these guys need each other and I can elaborate on that more later) Working quietly. And yet he's quite the talker when he opens up and gets the chance to!! He's like me and a lot of people I know (I sure relate to him in this regard lol I literally state I ramble a lot in MY BIO and I DO) - more quiet and reserved people, sometimes seen as lonely... But with many things on mind, just waiting for the right people to trust to share these things with. Genuine trust or just comfort in a given situation... It's whatever but it's does also tie to another thing I wanna talk about later....or now actually

I know they state he is not befriending the Toons in the podcast - but with the way he speaks with us and his literal actions - it speaks louder than that and I think we should be allowed to make the interpretation that he is slowly gaining our trust. And I think it's a very interesting concept that the literal brother of the man behind this evil company that goes against the toons... Is befriending them. ( and literally your comic) the potential here is insane and it's more interesting than just yeah he stays true to his word he doesn't like you

It's clear that he does care - but it's true he's a very caring person in general. (then again a part of it is letting people step over him...literally. And he's aware of it and he dislikes it! Another thing I can relate to and speak from the heart about. But there's things I don't relate to and of course relatability is not all the reason why I like him... But it is a big part of it. Sorry not sorry I will project onto this man later) he does show he cares by literally closing the elevator and lying to save us from being seen... And waiting it out till the air is clear to let us in. Where he as always chats with us. Yeah they did say he just kinda puts up with it and since there's people to talk to he does ramble but... Some of the stories he tells are personal and he is aware of it. He did save you that one time and he did offer those cookies to you as well.. Even if you can't eat them. That's not even giving out the past items like some extra stock laying around he needs to get rid of...

(also I need to see if anyone reciphered those papers, already I love solving ciphers. It's an easy ceasar cipher yeah but having to rewrite this shit is that goofy fun part I did it with the papers at chips place... Idk if these r available somewhere.)

And the sweater?? Also very personal!! And like more story based as there's technically just one but ofc there's multiple players but in this case you can imagine yourself going there alone to speak with him each time as an individual... Like....the story about the extra stuff doesn't apply here this is personal.

But it is true he probably.. Does want to get rid of it. He makes a gift from the heart and it goes under appreciated. Unwanted...yeah I wouldn't want to see it either. But someone else may want it so yknow... Cutely gives it to the toons.

Like come on you can't tell me this guy isn't trusting these toons slightly, or, story wise, the toon/toons who come see him each April toons. Of course the recent one is the freshest in my mind and I only experienced the precious ones through reading the dialogue... I may miss some details of things he rambled about... But I genuinely believe with each visit he grows to trust the toons more and oh boy that could be interesting conflict... Who knows it could be brought up later with whatever board boy HQ is gonna be...plearse let us see Robert too I'm gonna implode

Anyways BACK ONTO THOMAS. I love this guy he's really nice I'd love to just sit in a room with him and exist together and sloy dwelve into back and forth rambling about stuff and I'd totally hype up his knitting... I just AURGHH. He had things going for him and these expectations... That he didn't met up to. But his brother had a plan and Thomas being well... Thomas. Not the leader type - he followed along... Because it was the best for him as who he is even if his parents wanted him to do other things

Despite the two (Him and Robert ofc) not exactly agreeing on things alwyad there's still care between them as brothers... They really are a duo!! Even if the topic is uh. A really corrupt capitalist robot company... And with Robert being preeeetty much very much so an asshole it's still just. Aurgh. Fun. Love the dynamic. Robert could just be an ass but he still cares about Thomas by some regard... I think about the time he watered Bubby for Thomas despite his hatred for the plant a lot okay

Thomas and Robert are already the most like, lore full characters (or Cogs specifically) other than some mgrs now and Atticus and Redd - but there's still so much like... Of an mysterious aura about them. We only hear about their lives and never see it... Robert we see in action in the comics - but we see him ONCE in game in a CUTSCENE MOST PEOPLE SKIP... Thomas we see in the background of the comics only speaking like... Once, I believe?? Even if he's there he's really easy to just... Not even notice. But he appears ingame and speaks DIRECTLY TO YOU. SEVERAL TIMES. for ALMOST HALF AN HOUR STRAIGHT...and he tells you a lot about his and by extentions Robert's personal life - something the comics can't tell you, and surely not the short cutscene with Robert during the directors fight

Like... They have the most lore but a lot of things are still unclear and it makes people want more answers and ponder more and it's BRILLIANT. I love it. I mean... I could rant about how a lot of info is hardly accessible in TTCC as a genuine criticism of how the game and lore is handled... But that's maybe for another day. BACK TO THOMAS SO LIKE ANYWAY- Thank you for canon aro ace character who states his opinions directly and is not forced to do it... And for fans being respectful about his identity for the most part as I can see and not... Forcing him to be romantic for ships. I avoid the fandom, mostly, specifically for reasons like this and because people scare me... So. I don't know how it really is. But an issue with aro ace characters is that even if we have a Canon one often fans will make them involved in romance for stupid ships anyway, absolutely erasing their identity. And then they bring up the "SOME AROSPEC/ASPEC PEOPLE DO DATE"... But they do this for all characters and ignore the chunk of people who don't, who just want to see themselves represented in media...im very tired of this being taken away from us as... Yknow. An aroace person myself. Thank you thomas for your swag.

Sooo.. How about some headcanons and personal things and me projecting because MOST HCS ARE JUST THAT!!!

Okay hey did you know I work with plants too? Yeah. (VERY SHITTY) agriculture school goer here.. Florist specifically.. Yeah I have no life plans for this but that's personal. Oh hey that sounds like someone I know. (also being around plants a lot makes me think abt thomas bc of association... And bc I'm spaces out 24/7 very likely thinking about my hyperfixation and the lore anyway to escape the moment. Uh I have problems OK?) Anyways...

Before I get to general projection stuff I wanna say my hcs!!

I think he sometimes carries gardening tools in his pockets and forgets about them. I do that. Forgets whole sharp gardening shears and then he needs to take out a pencil for someone, and instead he whips out something use able as a weapon. FUN!

I am not sure if it's stayed what his first knitting was ever... But whether or not this was his first or later knitting project doesn't matter - but I like to think that he knitted pot decorations for his plants!! Little pot sweaters, maybe!! Wouldn't even overheat the plants (some plants have veeery specific requirements but his ficuses should be fine) , I think, they don't give off heat for the sweater to insulate anyway, so it would really be just decorational....

And again, if the Cogs had cats I think he'd be a cat dad.

And now. The personal projection observation part... A reason why I think I like him so much is because I relate to him AND Robert. As someone who is a... Well. The anger issue filled, family failure shorter and younger sibling in my family... I can see myself in that. Some parts of the story really hit home... I'm not gonna get too personal here, but my relationship with my brother is... Rocky...been getting better though. He's very successful and I haven't done much in my life. He's the leader role. On the other hand, the dynamic here for Thomas and Robert is swapped... Thomas could've followed the success his parents set him up for, but he followed the lead of his brother instead - who his parents didn't see as good enough.

It's very different things, yes, but the things that are similar are what brings it a bit closer... Even if some things don't align well I can feel my heart sink when Thomas talks about it because. Ahaha yeah that ties to some of my biggest worries in life and it relates to me being the loser child in the family whoops

And just.. I AM. GOIGN TO EXPLODE. FUNNY HAHA CHAIR AND STEPPING STOOL THING ROBOTS. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME. I AM GOING TO EXPLODE AGAIN. I CARE THESE BEASTS I MUCH. I THINK THIS COVERS MOST OF IT. OTHERWISE I'D REPEAT MYSELF. THERE'S PROBABLY MORE I'LL REMEMBER LATER BUT THIS IS IT FOR NOW. Thank you for giving me a place to ramble about whatever in regards to a character somewhere that isn't... Me talking to myself on my Discord server on a Toontown channel dedicated to myself only. Hope ANY OF U FOUND THIS ENTERTAINING TO READ. Even if I'm. Probably.... Wrong on some things but that's okay if anyone mean to me I explode them too ok

I care the him

#Rambles #[answered]#Long post #Ottoman #ALSO I FORGOT TO COMMENT ON THE DOODLE. I LOVE IT.#I NEED OTTO PLUSHIE.#GIVE US THOMAS PLUSHIE RIGHT NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

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otakween · 1 year

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Digimon World 2 - Final Thoughts (??? Hours in)

Whelp, this wasn't as a painful ordeal as Digimon World 1 to beat, but it didn't have nearly as much character, so it's a definite step down. It was a decent zone-out game, but I got really fed up by the repetitive gameplay and lackluster storyline by the end. It's like a 4 or 5 out of 10.

Notes:

-If someone told me to give a recap of the plot of this game, I'd probably struggle. It was so poorly written and uninteresting that I gave up caring. The most confusing part was when they were like "The tamers were created by guardians" whaaa? How is that possible if they came from the human world? (This isn't me asking for an explanation by the way, I don't care).

-The FMVs (is that what you call them?) were really fun despite how short they were. It definitely elevated the ending in a way the game's usual, bland graphics wouldn't have been able to.

-The final boss had a cool design, definitely looks like he was inspired by traditional Japanese aesthetics. Didn't fully comprehend his plan (something about absorbing me? lol) but that's fine...

-Wtf were the weird attempts at shipping at the end? All of the sudden they were like "Do you like Kim or Esteena better?" and I'm like "Who and who!?" (They're both wrong btw, Sheena was best girl).

(what does she mean "oh baby," wut)

-Post-game stuff was totally useless! First I got the best digi-beetle parts which, cool, I guess? And then I went on to do the 99 floors of Tera Domain. About 10 floors in I realized "this is pointless." I didn't need EXP, I didn't need new digimon and I didn't need new money. I knew I was gonna stop playing forever after Tera so I literally just started cheating and fast forwarding to floor 99. No regrets. The only cool thing about Tera is all the rare digimon, but why would I catch more digimon when there aren't any more missions? Maybe if it was like Pokemon and you could transfer them to other games I could see it...

-Through my googling adventures I found out that there's a modded version of this game (Digimon World 2 Alternative) that's just like better in every way. Probably not gonna play it, but if I would recommend people play that instead of this.

-There are some ye olde game rumors about being able to catch Kimeramon in Tera domain. Seeing that floating around was nostalgic for me. I kinda miss the olden days of video game hoaxes. Takes me back to when people were saying your dog could have puppies in Harvest Moon.

-I saw a couple of digimon for the first time in this game. One of its strengths is definitely its huge bestiary and all the animations/techniques they put together for each digimon. If they had made catching digimon fun I might feel more motivated to hunt a few cool ones down.

You would think my next game would be Digimon World 3, but I think instead I'm going to backtrack and play some of the earlier games. I'm trying to do release order as much as I can, but this franchise is all over the place! Might play the Wonderswan game(s) next.

#digimon world 2 #digimon #PSX #video games #epsxe

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campyvillain · 2 years

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Encanto and Color Psychology

something i’ve not seen a lot of people talk about in encanto is how color correlates to the themes of the movie, more specifically the designs of the characters!!! i find this aspect of the film incredibly clever so here’s me sharing my ideas on it

color seems to be something very entwined with the family right from the start, literally - when they’re babies the original 3 kids already have the colors they come to be associated with. julieta’s is blue, pepa is yellow and bruno is green

but what really elevates the whole ‘color being a big part of the family’ is how julieta and pepa’s colors are passed down to the grandkids, and even incorporated into the designs of their respective husbands!

since pepa’s color is yellow, her side of the family wears warmer colors, and the same applies to julieta’s side but with cooler tones on the color wheel.

but the grandkids’ respective colors aren’t uniform, they aren’t the same exact shade as their parents - they’ve all got their own individual colors to distinctly reflect them and their personalities, albeit sharing the same range on the color wheel.

and their specific colors aren’t just chosen to differentiate them, though that could be a reason - but their dominant colors also line up with a lot of color psychology in really neat ways. fair warning i’m gonna get pretty in depth here lol

to put it simply, color psychology is the study of how external ideas impact and affect people’s perception of color, and how that can be effectively put to use to convey a message, idea, or trait. for example most people see green as being indicative of nature, growth, and healing because a lot of plant life is green and in a lot of cases green is used in media to indicate that something is good. its a very important aspect of character design as well, and in this case, it matters a lot with the characters of encanto.

staring with the first shade of the rainbow and going down from there, red is tied to dolores. red is a color that has a lot of connotations, but the most relevant of which is its ability to grabbing a viewer’s attention. because of its bold and bright look, statistically red is the go-to color to use if you want to catch someone’s eye. that theme may not seem to tie into dolores a lot at first glance but it does in a subtler way - since dolores’ gift is incredible hearing she’s always paying attention, and nothing, not even the sound of sand shifting, is something she could miss. red is an attentive color, and dolores is an attentive character.

next is orange, which is antonio’s color. antonio is the youngest member of the family, and as such he’s very optimistic and cheerful as most little kids his age are. he’s also very curious about the word around him and is still new to a lot of things, including his gift - the color orange fits this as it’s associations have a lot to do with creativity, fun, warmth and adventure.

camilo’s color is the closest to his own parents - it too is pepa’s shade of yellow, but a more subdued version of it thats just the tiniest bit less saturated. like pepa herself, yellow is a bright color with lots of energy. and in the same way it’s fitting for camilo, but even moreso the other connotations it has. aside from being an energizing color yellow is commonly tied to spontaneity, opportunity and enthusiasm. camilo is a laid-back prankster type who likes to live in the moment and play gags with his shapeshifting gift on those around him, so making his particular yellow less overstated than his mom’s pairs with his demeanor quite well.

moving onto julieta’s side of the family tree: we have mirabel, who shares her mom’s teal-turquoise hue, displayed on the skirt of her dress. both of those types of blue have a variety of different meanings from what i could find, but the most “universal” meanings are that teal/turquoise/aqua are colors that carry themes of good luck, communication, friendship, clarity and compassion and i just want to say that those meanings really tie in with mirabel, especially in the ending - while she may not have a gift herself, she does end up uniting the family in a way that they didn’t expect, all through getting to understand them better and communicating to them that they are more than just their gifts. even her color carrying good luck coincides w this - while bruno’s vision initially was misconstrued as her bringing some sort of ill will to the family, ultimately it was just a misunderstanding and she ended up helping the family way more than the vision led on.

next we have luisa, the strongest member of the family. her dominant color is blue, more specially a darkish indigo. this color has a lot to do with concepts of stability, trustworthiness, confidence and loyalty - all things that initially seem effortless for her to pull off but are revealed in her musical number to just be things she feels she’s pressured to maintain just because she’s perceived as the “dependable” one. blue has a double meaning here too - dark blue is a sturdy color but it’s also one that can invoke feelings of sadness or loneliness. much like her blue can be a very strong color but it can also be a very vulnerable one as well.

lastly we have isabela, the only one who’s main color changes in the film. her color, displayed most prominently by her elegant looking dress, is originally a soft, lilac-purple tone, a color indicative of elegance, grace, luxury and nobility. throughout the ages purple has always had an association with royalty and while isabela may not be literally considered royalty, her projected image of perfection and dignity over the other members of the family certainly carries that same weight. she’s the family’s “it” girl, she never has a bad hair day, and she always maintains her presence as a flawless person, up until she reconciles with mirabel. through divulging that she’s tired of keeping up an air of perfection and wishing she could just be messy and authentic, her colors become not one color, but many - she learns that she doesn’t have to conform to her family and society’s expectations and that it’s better for her to just embrace who she wants to be. her abandoning her former color scheme, one that reflected how she always felt the need to be perfect, and deciding she’ll be whatever color she feels like embodies her growth and aligns with her character development very well!

all and all what i think the overall thematic tie in with the kids all having different colors but still being on the same color wheel as those they’re related to comes down to how each one of the family members struggle with their place in the family, each one has their own things that they’re trying to work out that are wholly unique from each other and just add to how varied their individual experiences are. encanto is a movie all about that, about a wide range of people who seem like they’re going through their own difficult walks in life - but ultimately being united through their togetherness as a family, even if that family goes through a lot of hardships. that familial connection is evident in the parents passing down their colors to their kids, but their kids having their own distinct spin on their given color!

sorry if this was a bit long winded or came off as “10th grade english teacher reading way too deep into the thematic relevance of the colors of some random curtains in a house”-y but i couldn’t help but notice these connections in their designs. as someone who’s special interest is character design and is very passionate abt it, these designs were just so captivating to me and i hope my tangent properly conveyed the love i have for these designs and this movie as a whole! encantos just such a good movie both to analyze and to watch and i love it sm <3

#encanto #disney encanto #analysis

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its-me-im-coraline · 3 years

Text

Peculiar and Beautiful // Victoria De Angelis

words // 1333

warnings // angsty but also fluffy

pairing // Victoria De Angelis x GN!Reader

author's note // if you want to be on the tag list let me know besties, don't forget the 'sleepover' on sunday (yes i'll be saying it on every fucking post lol) and yeah, that. also, a little complaining moment from me, im currently in sooooo much pain, my tooth hurts, i got neuralgia on a tooth and ljajakjfa so if this seems high to you it means im on meds for that lol unlucky few days anywaaaays enjoy to revive yourselves from the teasers of iwbys video

request // yes, here

summary // Reader finds themself in a emotional rut. A few comments online, the constant youtube recommendations on how to be “perfect” have been making them feel some type of way, hiding away from the one person that can help them; Victoria

It was a consistent thing and that was the issue. The comments about what Victoria did and did not deserve, who she should be with, the constant shipping with Damiano… And then there were the absolutely random videos on youtube, indirectly telling them what and who they should become, at least according to all those people online. It took less than expected to cave into the vicious lies surrounding their daily life. Although they tried to take control over the situation the absence of Victoria did nothing to improve the rut they were in at the moment.

Her presence tends to be a reassuring thing to her lover. Words need not be spoken, all problems can be hidden, but the moment they look each other in the eye everything is resolved. Understandably, Victoria missing from the equation in the moment made matters far worse than Y/N could imagine.

The self depreciation came in waves. At first it was that they looked “off” next to Victoria, as if for some reason they didn’t please the eye aesthetically when together. It was a comment that was shared around a lot. They did not believe it at first until their brain led them into looking through all the couple’s photos… Maybe they are right, they would mumble before closing the phone and continuing their work.

After that stage came the personal attack. Why don’t I look good next to her? Must be my looks. Agh, if I didn’t look like that… Whenever they passed through a mirror or reflective surface they’d stare at themselves to see how they looked, whether they looked bad or decent. Never gave enough credit to themselves, sometimes not even believing Victoria when mentioning the beauty she was lucky enough to hold in her arms. Always something about being independent and not needing anyone to make them feel valuable due to their looks. Simple and plain stubbornness.

Victoria took not too long to notice how something was off with her lover. At first, she gave not too much attention to it, knowing how both missed each other and knowing how tired they were from work. But, as days passed by she could simply not ignore the situation anymore. She first saw something was off when talking to Y/N on the phone, seeing how they did not exactly respond to her jokes and comments as they usually would. Again, she wrote it off as tiredness, missing her, just as she missed them but it was far more than that. After a while they started cancelling some of their facetime call time, saying different things about having bad days at work and, although, she believed them does not mean she was not worried out of her mind. The more that kept happening the more Victoria kept stressing. Not few were the times she’d end up falling onto Damiano’s bed and almost crying with worry.

“Why don’t you tell them to take some time off? Reckon they said their boss owes them some time off work.” And he was right. The answer to the pair’s misery was there all along and she simply had not seen it.

Victoria wasted no time, rushing to get to her phone and arrange everything. Surprisingly enough, dealing with Y/N’s boss turned out to be the easier part of the whole ordeal. The real struggle coming to persuading them about it.

“Oh come one, cucciolo, I know you want to see me-”

“I do want to Victoria, but I can not. I have work.” Lies, lies, lies. They knew they were lying, work wasn’t their trouble in the moment.

“Dealt with! You have a few days of work. Your boss was surprisingly real nice about it.” They could practically hear the smile the beautiful woman wore on her face but they could not keep their response at bay.

“What?! What did you do?!”

“You sound unhappy…”

“I am not, but Victoria why did you do this before talking to me?”

“Because…” she sighed.

“You are tired, I miss you and you are stubborn. Plus, I wanted to surprise you. I thought it’s be a good surprise... Am I wrong?”

“No, no! It’s great. When is the ticket for?” Everyone knows Y/N can never say no to Victoria, even the girl knows of her partner’s weakness, targeting it with her adorableness at times in order to get them to do something like buy her fries or in this case take a break. But Y/N was not worried about Victoria’s influence on them, or rather not that influence. They were out of this world worried about how little time it was going to take Vic to see their insecurities, maybe she’d even agree with them, they thought.

The first night of being by Vic was pretty normal, just as it was back at home, full of cuddles and kisses and all the children shows and movies playing in the background while the bassist recited all her adventures to her lover.

“And Thomas just felt face first onto the pavement! Can you believe it?!” Y/N laughed lightly, eyes fluttering in an attempt to focus on the woman in front of them and head lazily hang on the pillow by the headboard.

“Are you feeling alright, amore?” She asked, voice soft as she caressed the other person’s cheek.

“Yes, love, just a bit tired.”

“It’s alright, let’s sleep. You had a tiring flight, I get it.” Y/N simply mumbled a thank you, kissing the blonde’s forehead before pulling her close in order to sleep.

Unfortunately, the momentary bliss did not last long. After being seen together people started talking and Y/N returned to the previous thought pattern, this time getting deeper into their insecurities. They felt like they were not enough for Victoria so, while trying to not be suspicious they started distancing themselves from her. They would avoid kisses, get away way to soon for both their liking, sleep early, sleep-in… No matter what they stayed away from too much interaction with Victoria, and she was getting sick of it.

Finding them walking down the hallway from the stairs to their hotel room, Victoria rushed to her partner, making sure to get in the room with them quickly, before they had the chance to hide away - again.

“You are ignoring me,” she simply stated, voice stern but never elevated.

“O-of course not, what are you on about?!” Voice was trembling and eyes were looking everywhere but the exasperated blonde.

“Yes -agh- yes you are! You were all over me when you came here, which I’m not complaining about, and then the next day you all but slept in the tab to avoid me! What is going on, Y/N?” The use of their name might have stung just a little bit, enough to make them talk. They always got worried when Victoria went all first name basis rather than cute pet names.

“I-” they hesitated for a second but the strict look on the woman’s face made them continue.

“People talk, Victoria.”

“About what? What does-”

“About us and you and me… It’s always how I am not a good fit and other things like that and maybe they are right.”

“You don’t seriously believe that, do you?”

“Of course I believe that! Look at you, Vic, you are perfect and me? Well, I am me.”

“And that’s exactly why we are together. Because you are you! Y/N, you being who you are is why I fell for you. Your little quirks, those strong characteristics you get insecure about are literally what make you who you are, that individualize you.”

“Really?” They asked with hesitation, fearing the chance of her lying.

“Of course, cucciolo. I love those things that make you different. Reminds me that there is no other one like you and it simply makes me longing for you more,” she praised while leaving kisses all over their neck.

“I simply love you.”

tag list: @bieberhoodforever @tabi-toast @ginny-lily @moriro-da-regina

#måneskin #måneskin fanfic #måneskin imagine #maneskin imagine #maneskin fanfiction #victoria de angelis imagine #victoria de angelis

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urproblematicfav-arsonk · 2 years

Text

I have really bad news guys

I don't like wwdits,,,, like at all??? (Spoilers I guess since I'm complaining about the whole thing lol)

I liked the movie and thought it was pretty funny but I think a lot of that had to do with it only being a movie's worth of time while the series is 3 seasons and has hypothetically "more" going on.

I'm going to be honest I didn't know exactly what I was going into with the show other then Taika and there be vampires. I saw the subway scene referenced a lot and sort of understood there was some sort of,,, something?? going on with Nandor and Guillermo and maybe that kinda fucked me over.

I kinda kept waiting for this moment to happen where this sort of cruel constant mocking and very very sad "comedy" would evolve and change into something more meaningful but it never does. Its still sad and tbh kinda upsetting till the end. Everyone makes the subway scene seem all sad but like??? Nandor was clearly lying and tbh fuck him lol.

I really did hate what was essentially 3 seasons of kicking a puppy and expecting the audience to laugh when it comes crawling back. It was funny at first in the same way it was funny in the movie but when every moment Guillermo has is undercut with just...cruelty, it stops feeling funny and starts to feel sad and deeply uncomfortable real fast. And that's like 60% of the show source of comedy.

Outside of that something I didn't like was how stagnant the series. Nothing really happens. And that would be fine if we were really going for just episodic adventures, again, similar to the movie's "nothing" plot but it obviously is trying for character/plot development and when it does come up it feels weird and out of place?? There really isn't a good mix between sincerity and comedy. Which sort of makes sense because Taika had almost nothing to do with it from a writing standpoint.(absolutely no offense to Jemaine, but that's kinda Taika's whole thing™)

Overall it was a mediocre to kinda bad experience and I'm honestly disappointed.

HOWEVER some pros to my cons since it wasn't all bad.

Matt Berry is really fucking funny. Like honestly he was one of the mains reasons I stuck around. I fucking love his delivery of anything. He somehow makes the most normal ass dialogue sound hilarious by just the way he says it.

I also really love Nadja and Laszlo's relationship. It's both really sweet and very funny at times. I really like the last very fucking weird monolog thing at the end of the last episode. Laszlo I think is probably the most nuanced and interesting character and a lot of that might literally be Matt Berry's performance elevating a meh script. I think his friendships are really nice and I love how much he cares for the people he loves. Its very Viago of him and really do love me a crybaby lover poet boy vampire.

Nadja I think could've been better but I did still really love her. She's emotional and demanding and funny and I think that's honestly great. The fucking doll is horrifying and I love her very much. Nadja screaming and running around chasing a doll while basically calling herself a bitch is just a whole Shenanigan™ 10/10.

I also really would've liked an answer as to how guy who got stuck in a shipping crate for 18 months ended up becoming king vampire government man. Like, I'm not mad about it. But how'd he do it?? How does Viago have time for paperwork when he has a werewolf boyfriend to kiss??? It must be hard and I would be into a sequel movie about how Viago got the job and also maybe a new excuse for Rhys to kiss Taika again.

Anyway 4/10, Guillermo deserved better and I'm bored now lol

#LONG POST #WOWIE #i just finished it and have feelings #the feelings are a resounding meh #but whatever i guess #i don't really care lol #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #wwdits spoilers #wwdits review #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless #laszlo cravensworth #nadja of antipaxos #nadja and laszlo

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citadelspires · 3 years

Note

P1 - Given how great you're track record's been for doing hypothetical interactions of Amphibia kids with the Duck kids and Owl House kids, let's try doing the Duck kids meeting the Owl House kids and who they'd like the best. I'll exclude Violet for this for the sake of evenening things out 5 to 5. I'd assume Luz would get along best with Dewey (both jump into adventure), King with Louie (could see em teaming up for a scheme), Willow with Huey (eh, more leftover interaction but can work)

Screenshot of second half of the ask provided. Text: P2 Gus with Webby (would totally ask each other lots of questions about their species), and Amity with Lena (both got abusive figures they stood up to and would totally talk about their crushes on Luz and Webby LOL). Would love to see you take on Duck kids and Owl House kids interactions.

First of all I’m very pleased to hear you find my track record on these posts good, they’ve been really fun to write and it makes me really happy people like them! Second I am so sorry it’s taken so long to get to this ask, it’s a really in depth one and it took a long time to write, I hope you’ll find it was worth the wait!

Aight! Oh and one last thing real quick before I get into it. I hope you wouldn’t mind me adding Violet back in, partially due to the fact I love her, but mostly because there’s actually another owl house character I think works significantly better with Louie than anyone else and I really want the chance to talk about that. Saving that one for last hehe. This’ll be another long one, writing below the cut.

Luz and Webby So I do like a lot of the possible interactions brought up by your suggested grouping but my mind went in a few different directions. I’ll start with Luz, who would fit in best with another excitable adventuring partner, as pointed out, but I think the best fit for her in that regard would actually be Webby. While Dewey would no doubt get along great with Luz, there’s a special element to the potential relationship between Luz and Webby that really elevates the potential of their friendship to another level, that being: they both want to eat a hamburger.

An aspect of Webby I wish the later seasons of the show got into a little more, but is definitely something I would consider a core part of her character, is the fact that she got held up in the mansion her whole childhood, with no opportunities to interact with the world around her, have all the adventures she wanted, and most importantly to just be seen as the kid she wanted to be. And while Luz was technically able to go out into the world, the place she found wasn’t one that was willing to see her, or give her any of the chances she longed for. Both Webby and Luz fully understand that feeling of being trapped in your own life, of finally getting the chance to break out and just doing your best to make the most of it. I think there’s a lot the two could gain from spending some time together.

(Also, to borrow the bit about gushing about their crushes but from the other end, these two would totally get sidetracked talking about their respective crushes and also trying to play wingman for each other. It’s a massive comic disaster in both cases, but somehow both Lena and Amity manage to find it endearing).

Amity and Violet Okay wait lemme explain. While the two of them don’t have a whole lot in common at first glance, I think they would genuinely get along extremely well. While a lot of Amity’s focus on school came at the force of her parents, you cannot honestly expect me to believe that girl isn’t a studious nerd on her own anyway. Heck even outside the realm of studies she throws her full dedication into literally every single thing she does. Remind you of anyone? Beyond just being extremely intelligent Violet is clever and ready for anything. She takes everything in stride and always has a plan, she can go from “we were sleeping over and you said everybody get on the plane, so we got on the plane” to “I brought an axe” in a minute flat.

I like to think the two of them would have a mutual respect for each other based on their respective intellects upon first meeting, but as they become closer friends they find they can move from more serious respect to a casual enjoyment of each other. I would go as far as to say that both of these characters really value dependability in a friend, and that they each provide a lot of that. To wrap back around to the stuff about intelligence I think Violet could provide a lot of insight to Amity as far as showing her that pursuing studies and academic heights of her own volition can be something that she can just do because she wants to, and that’s no excuse for unhealthy parental relationships. Getting along so well with someone like Violet only to see that her parents are actually really loving and supportive, that would be really eye-opening for Amity I think. For Violet’s part she could get a lot of help from Amity as far as her pursuit of the secrets of magic goes. I suspect Amity would be much more interested in the study of her magic than Violet would be able to get Lena to tolerate lol.

Bonus Round: Amity would absolutely be a senior junior woodchuck and she would love it you cannot convince me otherwise. She starts quoting the JWGB around the owl house kids and they all look at her like she’s crazy.

Lena and Willow I feel like this one might seem a little out there at first but trust me on this one. Initially Lena doesn’t think too much of Willow, being as close as she is to Webby she knows liking flowers and cute things doesn’t mean Willow is automatically to be taken lightly but she feels like she’s got a good read on her that she generally prefers to avoid trouble and turns down opportunities for violence, which isn’t really Lena’s deal. Over time Lena figures she was right about her first impressions as Willow doesn’t seem to take many opportunities to expose some hidden power, even when Lena knows the people around her kinda deserve it.

She learns to adjust her opinion when she finally does get the chance to see Willow in action and realizes that girl is more powerful than any of the other kids she’s met in the boiling aisles bar none(yes this is my genuine opinion of willow if you don’t think she could kick your ass you’re wrong). It’s at that moment where she starts to pay more attention to Willow and notices a lot more of the strength she puts into all the little things, how much she cares for everyone and everything, and it does a great deal to show Lena that maybe having super strong magic powers isn’t mutually exclusive with being kind and gentle. And maybe gentle isn’t her thing but still, it’s nice to know.

For Willow’s part she’s just happy to make more friends. Especially if the opportunity arises, as I like to think it would, when they’re close enough friends, that Lena would start to hint around asking questions about how Willow remains so casual and nice with the ability to do so much damage, and Willow takes the chance to help Lena figure out her magic a bit more, and learn how to better appreciate it as an aspect of herself she doesn’t have to be scared of. (I mean come on Lena never really learned how to do any of it except barely kind of from Magica of all people she could really use something like that).

Huey and Gus Now there are some certain things about Gus that would drive Huey absolutely nuts. His lack of primary and reliable sources for any of his information being a big one, but at the end of the day I think he’d enjoy Gus’ desire to learn in the first place. Gus would probably be a little dubious about Huey’s “sources” and “citations” but if it helped him get more info on the human realm he’d certainly go for it in the end. In that way the two balance each other out pretty well. Gus is studious and intelligent but he’s a little off the wall, he’s got a big creative streak, and he’s really excitable. Huey is really really good at facts and analysis but he lacks the strength in imagination that Gus has. Huey is able to take all the grandiose concepts Gus is able to think up and help make them actually happen. Gus has that specific brand of an adventurers soul matched up with the fact he’s not actually the type to get into danger and fights, meaning he’s able to drag Huey out of his comfort zone a little and help him reach new heights with his mind that his struggles with creativity prevent him from reaching, while managing to not make him feel like he’s actually in danger. I actually believe the two of them together could get some really incredible stuff done.

What I’m saying is that with Huey’s help Gus could absolutely complete his tunnels under Hexside.

Dewey and King Now this, this is the pair who would go incredibly well together, at the detriment of literally everyone around them. If there is one person King “I Will Rule Everything” Clawthorne should not be exposed to its Dewey Duck. Within minutes of meeting each other the two of them would immediately have so many bad ideas. Between Dewey’s insistence on being the best and most daring adventurer while putting his name on everything and going down in history & King’s trying to rule everything and everyone, the attempts to raise the stakes would be constant and the two would spend literal hours endlessly trying to one-up each other. All in one day they search for legendary treasure, discover an entirely new civilization, try to take over said civilization, create a new species just to name it after themselves, and build statues of themselves in the middle of Bonesbourough. And that’s all before lunch.

Louie Here it is. The one I waited till the very end for out of sheer excitement. I even kept the second name out of the heading thing. That’s how secretive I’m trying to be about this. See, there’s one character in the owl house that works so well with Louie it’s practically canon. Their interactions have so much potential, they each bring so much to the table, I just couldn’t Not talk about it. And yeah, I know this ask was specifically asking about the owl house and ducktales kids, but I just couldn’t resist talking about the relationship between Louie and Eda.

A con artist from another world who was so successful she became nationally famous? There’s no way Louie would pass up an opportunity like that. For his part I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already managed to set up another underworld identity in the boiling aisles, or at the very least that Eda could totally have been to the ducktales realm and heard of his one there.

Either way I’m convinced the two of them would start planning a heist as soon as they figure out who each other are. Eda is a little prideful and wants to show this kid he can’t out-con her, but Louie knows what he’s doing just as much. Honestly with the two of them combined Eda wouldn’t have to worry about losing her stand for a long time. Over the course of their planning and seeing Louie in action Eda begrudgingly gains some respect for the kid, and while Louie was definitely just using her as a learning/profit opportunity at first, he’s pretty susceptible to getting attached.

For Louie, it’s the fact that she actually respects him for being good at what he does. Even back with his family who all love and care about him and all that he still feels like most of them don’t really get what he does or see what’s special about him, so having someone who made a whole life of it be even a little proud of him feels really nice.

And of course, at the end of their heist when they finally have the money in hand, and Eda just casually hands over his half, he stares at her like she’s crazy.

“You’re just.. Giving it to me?!”

“Well, yeah. That was the deal wasn’t it kid? I mean if you really want I definitely have a few ideas for it.”

“No! Uh, no, thanks, I’ll keep it. It’s just that you really remind me of someone, I guess I was expecting something else.”

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21burritoseavey · 3 years

Text

Like Everybody Else - daniel seavey imagine

a/n: I hope you like this, i didn’t want to make it too sad lol. Also, kinda random but how many of you use :), :( or :/ in texts? cos I do. Let me know what you think.

Song: Lennon Stella, Like Everybody Else

Run fast, run away, run straight into the loneliness

It isn't only home I miss

“How's tour?” Y/n asked excitedly, taking a seat on the cushioned floor next to Anna.

Daniel smiled gently, “It’s...great.” Daniel spoke gingerly. “It would be so much better if you were with me” He continued easily.

“Aww, Dani” Y/n’s cheeks flushed bright pink at his sweet words, and she giggled timidly.

“Aww, you two are just the cutest” Anna said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. Him and Y/n chuckled lightly on opposite ends of the FaceTime call.

“How are you two doing then?” Daniel asked with a tight smile.

“We’re doing great! Keri’s gonna take us snowboarding tomorrow with your family!” Y/n spoke positively. Daniel’s eyes lingered fondly on Y/n’s. He happily relished in the feeling of love that played in her toothy smile and soft gaze.

Daniel’s blurry, muddled mind cleared as memories of past family adventures emerged at the sight of innocent kids playing in the distant snow from out the window. The snow fell as gracefully as feathers.

Daniel turned back to his phone after what seemed like ages. “That’s great. I’m glad you’re having so much fun.” He said quietly. “I miss you guys so much.” He breathed, his voice slightly wavering. The girls didn’t notice the slight sadness etched in his voice. He rushed to end the call, not wanting to fall apart in front of them. “I gotta go. I love you guys!” He rushed out before hanging up. He tossed his phone to the edge of his bunk and set his face in his hands morosely.

Like the night all my friends got together

Heard about it afterwards

Didn't think was gunna hurt so much

Daniel trudged out of the interview room tiredly. His bandmates followed close behind with faces full of energy and voices dripping in excitement. The boys’ brand-new freedom allowed for tons of new adventures in the unexplored town and while the other guys almost sprinted out of the building, Daniel wanted nothing more than to be alone with his thoughts. He pulled out his phone from his back pocket and tapped Y/n’s name on messages nearly unknowingly, like it was muscle memory. “Daniel, come on, we’re waiting outside.” Jonah called gently from a few paces away. Daniel lifted his gaze and let a small smile play on his lips as he spoke. “Yeah, just a sec.”

“Hi” He typed quickly, shuffling his feet slowly toward the elevator. His screen illuminated after a few seconds.

“Hey:)” Y/n responded. Daniel’s tense body relaxed at the simple message from his girlfriend, and he let the corners of his lips pull upwards to form a faint smile.

“What you up to?” He continued. A moment later he received a photo from Y/n and opened his hesitantly. The image loaded to reveal Y/n with a couple other friends of theirs. The dark atmosphere sparked his memory and he remembered Oscar’s birthday party. Their happy faces shone bright even in the nearly non-existent light of the club. Daniel’s smile faltered at the sight of them and he couldn’t help but feel a great amount of envy swallow his mood. He wanted them to be happy, but he wanted to be happy too.

“Daniel,” Jonah whispered sharply again. It was only at that moment that Daniel realised he had barely moved from his initial spot, and he chuckled lightly at his friend’s serious expression. He jogged over. “What’s got you so glum?” Jonah asked teasingly as they headed into the empty elevator. He turned back to see Daniel truthfully upset and his expression quickly broke. “What’s up, man?” He asked earnestly, setting a comforting hand on Daniel’s back.

“Y/n...and the others...” Daniel said simply, dropping his gaze to his pink sneakers.

Jonah looked a little bewildered. He narrowed his eyes, “What? What do you mean? Did they do something?” He rushed out.

“D-don’t worry about it.” Daniel dismissed with a gentle shrug. He averted his gaze to the sign above the door and watched it light up silently as they reached their floor.

Why if I'm doin' so well

Did I build a wall between me and the world?

Daniel was sitting up on his bunk bed, leaning against his single pillow with his legs stretched out and ankles crossed lightly. He was still dressed in his outfit - too tired of even changing into something comfier. He stared blankly at his Instagram timeline on his phone, scrolling mindlessly through photos etched with fun and adventure. The high, creaking noise of the door swinging open shot Daniel out of his faint trance, and he looked up expectantly.

“Hey, the guys and I are going out to dinner? Wanna come?” Zach asked, making his way further into the narrow hallway of the tour bus. Daniel shook his head lightly.

“Nah it’s fine” He muttered as casually as he could. He felt a swell of emotion wash over him unexpectedly.

“You sure? You said no last week as well.” Zach asked, peeking a brow at the boy across from him.

“Yep” Daniel said quickly, swallowing back the lump in his throat. He pulled a tight smile, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling in his stomach. Zach nodded gently, turning away towards the door, but just before he came to it, he looked over his shoulder one last time to Daniel. He let his eyes linger on his downcast eyes lit up by the screen in front of him before walking forwards and shutting the door behind him.

Daniel sighed in relief and dragged his palm over his face tiredly. He kicked off his shoes and watched them drop carelessly on the floor. He tugged the throw blanket at the foot of his bed closer and pulled it right up to his chin tightly, letting his eyes linger to the dark night sky aglow with city lights. He glanced at his cheery bandmates sauntering out of the bus and onto the footpaths with nothing but joy in their step. Daniel wanted to feel like them too, more than they could ever comprehend.

Been drilled in my head forever, be better, turns out

I'm just like everybody else

Daniel burnt the midnight oil often. He usually found daytime band rehearsals too overwhelming to focus. His gentle piano playing broke the serene silence of the night, coaxing a beautiful, soothing melody until it was interrupted by the wrong note, caused by the slip of his finger. Daniel huffed deeply, resting his head aggressively on the keys in annoyance. It produced a muddled sequence of notes and Daniel felt the vibrations buzz through his head. He lifted his head, slouching back on the bench. He finally felt a great swell of anxiety drown his mind. The previous, harsh critiques from Randy reverberated in his head continuously and he couldn’t get his mind to stop spinning with self-doubt.

Daniel sighed deeply. He bit his lip in an attempt to stop his frustrated tears from pouring down his face. He looked around the empty and gloomy rehearsal room and let it all go. He hid his face in his hands tiredly while he cried. The dull ache in his heart was all he could think about, but he merely let himself feel the pain he thought he deserved. A few long minutes later, when Daniel thought he’d cried all the tears left in him, Daniel lifted himself up stiffly from the piano. He rubbed his temples gently before flipping the sheet music to the next page and continuing.

Don't even go near a mirror, it’ll kill ya

Trust me, you don't wanna see yourself

“Guys” A crew member came back into the dressing room. “You’ve got three minutes.” He reminded before rushing out into the hallway again. Daniel turned back to the mirror as he adjusted the cuffs of his dress shirt again.

“Does this look alright to you?” He turned to Jack, pointing to his black and white suit.

“Yeah,” Jack laughed lightly. “It’s fire...for the five - hundredth time” He joked, “why?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Daniel started, glaring over his shoulder to Jack again. “Maybe it’s ‘cause we’re going to a red-carpet event.” He said nervously.

“Don’t sweat it, dude. We’ll be fine.” Jack reassured.

Daniel nodded. His gaze persisted on the smudged, full length mirror standing in front of him. In truth, it wasn’t just his appearance he was worried about. It was also his talent. The thought of being in the presence of A list celebrities and artists he greatly admired sent everlasting shivers down Daniel’s spine.

Fuck the noise, It's too late, It's the choices

Now I don't even wanna be someone

“Dani.” Jack called gently from across the table. “Daniel.” He said blankly after a moment.

“Daniel.” Zach’s hand slammed hard on the table causing a loud thump to echo through Daniel’s whirling mind and he looked up from his downcast gaze to his bandmates cluelessly. “It’s your turn” Zach said, gesturing to the Monopoly board set on the table.

The dim light of the lamp casted a warm glow to the lounge room. Daniel sat lazily with his legs tossed on the coffee table. Daniel’s face broke into a soft smile. “Oh right. Sorry.” He chuckled. He leaned over, picked up the dice in one hand and rolled it.

“You okay, man?” Corbyn inquired honestly, eyes flickering to Daniel.

“Yeah...you haven’t really…been here tonight.” Jonah asked carefully. His face was brimming with concern. Daniel’s gentle smile faltered, and his eyes wandered nervously before landing on his bandmates again.

“Y-yeah, yeah. I’m just tired.” He shrugged hesitantly, “don’t worry,” he added. He dropped his gaze back to the board and rested his chin in his hands.

That's nice, champagne, what a shame, It doesn't work on me

So don't go wastin' your money

Everybody in this room is too hard, too pretty, I'm tired

I just wanna be nobody

Daniel sat awkwardly at a circular table in the fancy, high end restaurant. The cacophony of polite chatter and clattering of fine cutlery filled his ears and he could barely focus on his own table’s conversation. “Daniel.” The sound of his name being called had Daniel diverting his stare to the older man opposite him. His sharp, strong features only complemented his staid personality.

“Yes.” Daniel spoke as elegantly as he could. He tried not to let his nervousness peak through his calm facade and he wiped his slightly dampened forehead with the back of his hand.

“Your managers over here tell me you’re quite the song writer.” He stated the faintest hint of a smile present on his lips. Daniel’s face flushed with nervousness. He cleared his throat with a slight chuckle and dropped his fork onto his plate.

“I try my best.” He grinned. “But yea...I really enjoy it.” He finished shyly. He washed down the tension flooding his body with a sip of his champagne.

The older man glared at Daniel before honestly saying, “you know, this opportunity is extremely selective. We only pick one applicant a year.” Daniel glanced at him expectantly, trying to ignore the tightening twist of his stomach. “There are many artists that enjoy writing.” He finished.

“I understand-” Daniel tried but he was interrupted.

“He’s a great writer, take it from me” Randy intervened swiftly. He shot a glare to Daniel before leaning his elbows on the table to converse gravely with the other man. Daniel reluctantly focused back on his nearly full plate - he barely ate because of his anxiety. He shoved a forkful of food into his mouth.

What made me think I was special? I'm not special

Turns out I'm like everybody else

This song sounds exactly like 5SOS

They are just a like 1D

Their music sounds the same

Daniel typically took criticism with grace and modestly, but this time was different. The rims of his eyes were red from glaring at Instagram comments under his music announcement post for almost one hour straight. His fingers readily hovered over the word ‘reply’, prepared to sincerely explain how different his band’s songs were and how much work went into producing them.

In the back of his mind, Daniel couldn’t help but believe their hurtful words. He set down his phone on the floor to the side in an effort to stop his mind from whirling out of control. He drew up his knees in embarrassment and hid his face against them tiredly. He let his anxiety-stricken face relax and tears flowed gently down his face.

#daniel seavey #daniel seavey imagines #daniel seavey fanfic #why don't we #why dont we imagines #why dont we fanfic #zach herron #corbyn besson #jack avery #jonah marais #the ending's a bit lazy lol

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sweetestlamb · 4 years

Text

Lighting Up Your World

Episode 17

Summary: Gang-tae and Mun-yeong continue their road trip, finding themselves and helping others along the way.

Author's note: Here is part 1 of the weekend fic updates! I tried my best to make these interesting and multilayered channeling my inner Jo Yong. The focus is on MY/GT and their healing but I also wanted them to heal others too on this journey so we do meet an OC. If I had time this could be something that continues each weekend, but work and life starts again very soon so I won’t make any promises but I had a really fun time writing this and trying to plot out the story so it felt familiar to IOTNBO with conflicts and resolutions, only they all happen within the chapter lol. Without further ado, here’s episode 17 ;) *Play “Lighting up Your World*

The mood shifts drastically after Sang-tae's departure, they're both sulky and a bit flabbergasted by his sudden decision to leave, this was their first trip as a newly fledged family, it felt monumental, like a rite of passage of sorts; but by the morning they've accepted his choice and set sights on their next location. Gang-tae lays in disbelief thinking about how much his brother has changed, how much their relationship itself, has shifted.

Thanks in part to her, his eyes land on her sleeping form, gorgeous in the low lighting of the camping van.

She had crashed into their lives like a bulldozer, hell bent on having him, but only as an object- something to capture and conquer. Somewhere along the way, despite their unconventional start; love had blossomed. It wasn't an easy start and it took time to nurture but he couldn't imagine his life without her now, their little family.

I love you Moon Gang-tae.

She loved him. Meant it with every fiber of her being, it was detectable in her eyes, swirled in the pools of her captivating eyes. If that wasn't enough her actions proclaimed her love, never turning her back on him despite his sometimes despicable behavior and words that cut her. Running back to defend him from the one person she despised the most, uncaring of her own fate. He hadn't known he could experience love like this, all-consuming devotion. Not until she entered his life.

A smile blooms on his face, it all started with a stab. He knew others wouldn't understand- Jae-su's disbelieving face flashed in his memory- but it made perfect sense for them, she who was so jagged and broken when he met her and him so complacent and selfless, saving others even at his own detriment.

I met your mother after she stabbed me in the hand. Then months later she stabbed me in my other hand.

His chuckles fill the tight space of the van, until he hears a hoarse voice, "What are laughing at?"

With a small jump he turns to face her, adorable baffled look on her face, and he sits up to better see her.

"I was thinking about us."

She looks at him deeply, searching his eyes before continuing, "And that made you laugh? Were you thinking of good things?"

"Well... I was thinking about how we met and how we would tell that story to our future son who looks like me." He responds sheepishly, heart singing at the soft look that forms on her face, that happens often now, her blushing every time he mentions their future. He makes sure to do it often, for both of them. After wrongly viewing their relationship as ill-fated, it seems more important than ever to say the words out loud, breathe them into the world and give them life. Mun-yeong and Gang-tae are destined.

He can’t help but imagine her round with his, no their child, swollen belly protruding from her slim frame, as she demands his attention and curses him for her condition. It would be as beautiful as it was terrifying.

All in due time.

After a few seconds of sustained eye contact she finally snaps out of her daze, craftily switching the subject to escape her own unease, “How are you really feeling about Oppa leaving? Do you want to end the trip and follow him?”

For a moment, he wonders who is the person and what have they done to his Mun-yeong? The woman he first met lacked empathy for others, disregarded their feelings and trampled all over their boundaries; she was a new person, reborn. No, unpeeled, showing another layer to her personality. Considerate and caring with him and with Sang-tae, even putting them first at the expense of her own desires.

Swiftly removing the blanket covering his torso, he strides toward her on the elevated bed, reaching out to caress her head, she is aptly watching his every move head subconsciously leaning into his tender hold.

With his eyes firmly locked on her own he replies, “I...am happy. I am happy that he knows what he wants to do, he finally has a dream of his own. A dream just for him. And...I don’t want to go back. When I told you I loved you, that was my promise to keep moving forward, no matter what.”

Being here, with you, that is my dream. That he leaves unsaid.

He basks in the warmth of her smile, beaming on him, shiny solely for him. His own personal sun.

“You’re so cheesy now.” She teases him playfully rolling her eyes, and he chuckles before shrugging, he’s never had a chance to be cheesy, probably has all that cheesiness packed up inside ready to come out, she is going to get it all.

Curling his hands around her small face, he draws her closer before pressing a kiss to her forehead, watching her eyelids flutter close as she sighs gently. His lips are soft on her smooth skin, nothing more than a peck, a silent thank you for being here with him. For staying.

Then he finally announces, “I know our next destination. While you were sleeping I found another spot for us.” Before she can question him he states, “It’s a surprise.”

Her groan of annoyance is music to his ears, as he rushes to the front of the van, ready for their adventure.

The sunlight brilliantly twinkles on the rippling waves of the water as he pulls up to their destination, a lake sequestered away and roughly hidden by trees and foliage, there is a quaint wooden dock leading to the watery oasis but not much less. He hums in contentment gazing at it, it is almost too peaceful to be true but they of all people deserve some peace after the hell they have been through.

Mun-yeong stumbles out of the tiny bathroom of the van, peering out the window at the view, she stares at him bewildered, “A lake?” Why did you take us to a lake?”

He shakes his head at her question, “To swim. Why else do people go to a lake?” He can hear his brother’s voice replaying in his mind, Why ask such an obvious question?

With a glare she humphs crossing her arms in a symbol that he can read all too well- I’m not doing it- before stomping away, “I’m not swimming.” He watches her back as she defiantly strides back into the small compartment.

He makes them a quick late breakfast of rice and grilled meat, scooping out a hefty amount for his grumpy girlfriend who has yet to leave the camping van. He had nagged and pleaded at the door, eager to get outside and see the lake, it was tempting especially on such a scorching day. But she had ignored all his calls, even childishly responded “I can’t hear you.” Before he had stomped away in the opposite direction, fondly irritated at her behavior.

The van door creaks open as she finally decides to exit, he pointedly does not look up, not wanting to seem too eager at her arrival after she spitefully ignored him. He pushes the food in her general direction, not making eye contact. So she sits down on the unoccupied chair to his left, he is unprepared for the breadth of naked skin he sees when she does.

With his fixed gaze on the food in his lap, the edges of his peripheral vision catch her bare legs, heeled sandals encase her foot but there is no material in sight on her legs. Just bare smooth, inviting skin.

He gulps, reaching for his water.

Drawing in a deep breath to reinforce himself, he slowly begins to raise his head, eyes traveling from her ankles to her smooth thighs, similarly naked before he stops on her torso. She is wrapped in a bathing suit, tight fitting and devastatingly distracting. The devilish suit is black and partially mesh, with her skin peeking through the stomach but solid across her breast and lower region.

His tongue feels like sandpaper in his mouth, despite his desperate swallows of water to re-hydrate his heated body. Grabbing his food, he stuffs his face with rice and meat hoping that will prevent him from begging her to let him take her back into the van and peel that suit off her and....

“I am still not swimming, but I figure I can get a nice tan at least.” She offers as away of explanation, he nods robotically, eyes still trained on the ground. Before a white bottle is forced into his vision, he jumps back in his seat, eyes finally landed on her body completely.

Unbelievable.

The glimpse he saw does nothing to prepare him for the entire picture, she looks amazing in the suit as if it was made specifically for her body, knowing her taste and monetary capabilities; the idea isn’t too far-fetched and he curses whoever gave this weapon to her. Atop the bridge of her nose sits her glossy black sunglasses, the same ones she wore when he saw her outside, a beautiful black storm cloud under falling cherry blossoms. Her hair is pulled back into a high messy bun, two braids on her side that disappear into the bun, wisps of hair that escaped the bun frame her face beautifully. In short, she looks like the cover of a high-end fashion magazine and he is at a lost for words.

His musings are prematurely interrupted by her waving something in his face, a thin container, “--Are you listening to me? Take off your shirt.”

He shakes his head, almost dropping his bowl in shock.

Only seconds away from taking another gulp of water before her request. He doesn’t miss the smirk that curls on her lips, he knew she did that on purpose.

“What? What are you talking about?” He shakily asks, pulling his thin white t-shirt protectively around himself.

She tilts her glasses down ensuring that he can see her eyes before dramatically rolling them, “You act like it’s something I haven’t seen before.”

“We’re outside though!”

“So what?” She fires back, looking at him, exasperation farrowing her eyebrows.

He breathes hard, their eyes locked in a heated battle, before he sighs accepting his fate, admitting to himself that he is not as opposed to the idea has he’s acting. Guilt settles in his stomach as he remembers the excitement that coursed though him as he realized that without his hyung, he would be alone with Mun-yeong. All by themselves, at given times no one around for miles. No one to hear their screams. The idea of being alone and unencumbered with her was thrilling.

In one fluid motion, he stands up and grabs the end of his shirt, carefully lifting it up and over his head. Standing in nothing but his slippers and dark blue swim trunks, the only pair he packed, unlike her who probably had endless suits of different styles and colors. In that way they were vastly different, he was practical and minimal whereas she was extravagant and larger than life.

Her eyes burned on his skin as she stood up as well, carelessly tossing her food on the table, before curling her finger at him in a seductively beckoning call, “Come closer.” Her voice was smoked honey, as if in a trance he found himself obeying, stepping forward a half step, “Closer” and closer he went until he stood directly in front of her.

She audaciously looked him up and down, tongue peeking out to swipe across the span of her pink mouth.

Then with anticipation thick in his throat he watched her hands grow closer to his body, creeping closer and closer to his skin and then they were finally on him.

He jolted at the cold. Jumping away from her hands.

“What’s wrong with you? I told you I was going to put sunscreen on you.” Her eyes narrow and he feels a blush cover his cheeks, at his red face she lets out a long drawn ahhhhhhhhhh before speaking, “Why did you think I wanted you to take your shirt off? Were you expecting me to do something else?” She lifts one perfectly threaded eyebrow at the suggestive inquiry while simultaneously moving back into his orbit to rub the sticky white cream into his stomach.

He lets himself enjoy her touch, deliberate ministrations into his skin, her face close enough for him to kiss and only a thread of control keeps him contained. Her hand strokes across his abs, fingers purposefully creeping into the crevices of his body before she trails her manicured finger down to his trunks, so close to where he wants her hand, panting now with anticipation, half hard just from her hand on his skin.

Then she stops.

Pats him on the shoulder with a clipped, “All done.” Impish look clouding her face, he glares at her departing back, the pep in her step; she knows exactly what she just did to him. The wink over her shoulder reinforcing his speculation.

Damn, she-devil.

When she begins to rubs the same sticky cream into her legs, slowly and wantonly, peering at him whilst she does it, his only solution is to run and dive straight into the water, welcoming the cool blanket that soothes the raging heat in his loins.

He swims alone for a few minutes, propelling himself back and forth in the shallow water, before he eventually feels the twinges of boredom creeping in, this was meant to be their adventure, he didn’t want to swim alone, imagining wet kisses and wandering hands under the guise of the water. All new experiences that he only wanted to share with her.

With those thoughts in mind, he silently vacates the water, footsteps light as he tiptoes to Mun-yeong, glowy and alluring from her spot on the lounge chair she pulled seemingly out of thin air. Sunglasses still shielding her eyes he waves his arm to see if they attract her attention, she lays motionless still, breathing steady and unhurried.

Perfect.

Now, knowing that she will not notice his approach, he creeps forward putting on his best imitation of a spy, avoiding twigs and leaves, anything that will alert to his presence. After a measured and timed approach, he looms over her, taking a moment to bask in her tranquil beauty. She is a goddess in that bathing suit and he wants to remember her face in this moment, in a few seconds she will be ravenous in his arms, clawing and thrashing. It is the perfect juxtaposition of her personality. A beautiful disaster.

Before he can second guess himself- maybe she was right and he did have a death wish- he grabs her, lifting her out of the lounge chair and wrapping her securely in his arms.

“YAH!” Her reaction is expeditious, nails scrapping across his arms as she tries to break free from his strong hold, he winces at the sharp burst of pain shaking her slightly to dislodge her, but her efforts do not hinder his mission. He laughs at her screams and threats, “Put me down! Gang-tae, I will kill you!” Gaining speed as he reaches the end of the dock, with a bounding leap he flies through the air, weightless, until they crash through the surface of the water. Water splashes onto the dock from their impact and his nose burns with the sudden influx of water, before he scrambles to the top, taking her now suspiciously limp body with him.

The sight that greets him when they burst to the surface, makes his body go numb with regret.

Her face is ashen, almost grey in hue, wet hair plastered to her skull. But what stands out most are her eyes, usually brimming with love and light for him, now sunken and packed with an emotion he never wanted to put there; fear.

He can feel how rapidly she is breathing, her body shaking like a leave under his hold as he keeps her afloat, the air wheezes out through her colorless lips as she begins to convulse in his arms, he is paralyzed under her visible distress.

She begins to keen, “Please, please, get me out. I need to get out!” The sorrowful plead that shatters into a scream breaks his heart into a million pieces, and with only a small hiccup he responds to her cries. Kicking his legs powerfully, swimming as quickly as he ever has in his life, arms protectively wrapped around her shuttering form until the reaches the bank.

It takes a moment to for her to recognize that they are now on land but once she does she leaps from his arms, whipping around and racing to the camping van without another word.

He is left shell-shocked.

Standing alone, wracking his brain to figure out what caused such a visceral reaction and not coming up with an adequate answer. Then he realizes that is not important, all that mattered now was reaching her and comforting her, those eyes would haunt him forever otherwise.

Dashing to her rapidly retreating form, he catches her arm, twirling her around to face him.

The fragments of his heart, shatter into even smaller pieces.

Twin trails of tear stream down her face, dripping off her chin before disappearing into the ground.

“Mun-yeong...” He vocalizes her voice like an apology.

She breaks the connection between their arms, turning once more to walk away and he can’t stand to see her walk away from him, not again, never again.

Softly capturing her hand again, he begs, “Please, tell me what I did wrong?”

Struggling to speak through her choked throat she replies, “I can’t right now. I just need to be alone for a bit, I’m not running away.”

Those words again.

He wants to hold on tighter, recalling how she had run away after uttering those words before, viciously slamming all her doors shut and pushing him out. She reads his face like a children’s book.

“I promise, I’m not running away, this time. So let me go, for now.”

Trusting her words, he releases her hand. Heart sinking as she climbs the stairs and disappears into the camping van. If the sun continues to shine, he is unaware, the dark clouds of shame and regret hanging over his forlorn head.

“When I was young, I had dreams of my mom drowning in a lake.”

His head buzzes at the confession, so intensely focused on the food sizzling on the grill he had missed her reappearance. Lowering the tongs to give her his full undivided attention as she bares another layer of Ko Mun-yeong.

“My dad... I thought he drowned my mother in a lake. And every night I would have dreams about her screaming for my help. Sometimes when I have those sleep terrors, I can see her above me, her body is dripping wet. I....” She takes a pause, sitting down in a chair further away from him and he almost cries at that small amount of distance she is placing between them.

But she is also wearing his flannel shirt, dwarfing her small stature, her fingers clutching it as if needing protection.

Following a deep breath she presses on, “I haven’t been in water since. I’m....scared. I’m sorry that I’m already ruining this trip--”

He doesn’t allow those words to settle in the air for a second before he’s out of his seat and crouching before her, he begs for permission with his eyes, and watches as she ruminates before nodding, with a sigh of relief he gathers her cold hands in his own, warming them instantly.

“You didn’t ruin anything. I didn’t know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I made you cry. I never want to make you cry, I told you I would protect you and I let you down. I am so sorry, please forgive me.” Tears pool in his eyes, as he presses his lips to her hands a kiss following each word of apology, anguish flooding his system.

Silence fills the space between them as he continues to kiss sweet sorries into her skin before she wrangles her hands away, placing them softly on his downward chin, lifting his head until their eyes meet.

Her dark orbs are now swirled with pain, love and something inexplicable.

“I should be asking you to forgive me, I don’t want her on this trip. This is just for us, she can’t ruin this.” Her voice trembles despite the force that she exclaims her wish.

He smiles grimly, “We can’t run from her. You once told me that trauma should be faced head on. You were right, we can’t be expected to be perfect yet. We’re only human, you didn’t do anything wrong. Thank you for coming back and letting me in.”

I love you. He thinks it hard enough for her to hear it.

A sad smile slides across her face, “You’re so adamant these days, I can’t shake you. If I tried to run, you would probably chase me down.”

He doesn’t verbally reply to her assumption, letting the resolve in his eyes speak volume instead, she has always been able to read him like a book, this time will be no different.

She appears so delicate and fragile, he doesn’t even attempt to stop himself from crouching up and pressing a kiss to her lips. She moans at the barely-there touch, hands tightening on his face as she drags him closer, deepening the kiss with a languorous swipe of her tongue. He crawls into her space, tilting his face to transform the kiss from deep to dirty, mouths opening to prod and swallow each other. Her teeth graze across his bottom lip before, pulling it and releasing it with a filthy, pop. His dick jumps at the stinging sensation.

Reluctantly he pulls away from the delicious kiss, worry for her overriding his sex drive, she hadn’t eaten since this afternoon, locked herself away since the lake incident and skipping lunch. It was more important that she get sustenance right now.

She groans at his sudden withdrawal, blindly chasing after his mouth. He laughs at the adorable image.

He presses a piece of grilled beef to her mouth instead, chuckling as she opens her eyes in doe-like surprise. He keeps that comparison to himself, she wouldn’t take kindly to him comparing her to self-proclaimed arch nemesis right now.

“Eat this. My mouth doesn’t have any nutritional value.”

Her face twists as if she is about to argue, but the booming growl of her stomach pierces the air and she blushes before opening her mouth and consuming the succulent piece of meat.

Dinner passes by in a flurry of meat and rice, as they take turns feeding each other and she teases him to retrieve meat from her mouth. They talk about the future and all the places they want to go, he hasn’t smiled this much in his entire life. As he packs up their dishes and chopsticks, he sees her stretching, pulling her body taut from the motion. He wonders if she’s wearing anything under his flannel shirt, her bare thighs taunting him for a second time today.

“I’m sleepy.”

Like a Pavlovian whistle, his body reacts to the innocuous declaration. Images of their previous night together flood his minds, slamming her into the bedroom wall as he sucked wet kisses into her neck, her legs wrapped around his waist as she sensuously grinded into his erection, her head thrown back in rapture as they imitated sex through their clothes, both hungry as they ripped through the clothes, his eyes rolling back as he slammed into her tight pussy, her nails scratching welts on his back. The sweat on their bodies mingling and drenching her luxurious sheets.

The soft click of the van door closing slaps him from the memory and it takes a moment to realize that he is now alone.

He presses down on his erection, hard, embarrassed at how aroused just a memory of her can make him.

Inhaling the crisp night air, he marches into the battlefield.

The camping can is dark upon his entrance, the only illumination provided by the stray moonlight that filters in through the tiny windows, after his quick and efficient appraisal of the confined area, he realizes that she is nowhere to be found. Strange.

Scratching his head he wonders to his bed mat, pausing for a moment before making the decision to remove his shirt, confidence dominating the usual stream of shyness that floods his bloodstream. He lays down on his bed roll, comically similar to Mun-yeong as she had beckoned him to join her on the bed. He had been a fool then, to refuse such a desirable offer, but he wouldn’t be making the same mistakes ever again.

The soft patter of her footsteps approaching causes his heart to skip a precious beat. Then it stops completely when she enters his line of vision.

Temptation.

That is the word that blares like a siren in his head as he takes her in, her hair is down in soft waves around her face, face washed clean and flawless in the light, and finally he looks at the short silk slip that contours to her every bump and curve. Spaghetti thin straps exposing edible shoulders, as the silk ends dangerously high on her thigh, lace dancing around the ends.

Jaw permanently on the ground, he watches in dismay as she barely glances at him, wondering eyes fleeting across his abs almost too fast to catch, as she climbs the stairs to her bed, her ascent making the slip creep obscenely up her thigh almost giving him a wonderful glimpse at her ass.

Pushing past the frog in his throat he croaks out, “Where are you going? I thought we would sleep down here together.”

She absently arranges her sheets, moving them out of the way, putting her body on clear display for his starving eyes. With eyes that glow in the dark she calmly replies, “Why did you think that? It was your idea to sleep separated in the first place remember?”

Yes, he remembered. When Sang-tae was still on this trip with them, she had offered for Sang-tae to take the bunk bed and they sleep side by side. But he had declined anxiously, knowing that he would not be able to keep his hands to himself if they were sleeping in such close proximity, terrified at losing control so close to his brother.

She seemed to take a malicious glee from throwing his words back in his face.

“But that was before.” He whined, “I thought you were sleepy.”

He tried to subtly infuse meaning into the word hoping to remind of their last rendezvous.

She didn’t bite.

“I am sleepy, that’s why I’m going to sleep. Good night Gang-tae.” With a quick wave, she rolled over, facing away from him as he glared daggers into her back.

Fuck.

He couldn’t see the smirk that overtook her face at his obvious frustration.

Time ticked by, or it would have if they had a clock in the van. Instead he marked time with the sounds of crickets chirping in the forest.

Chirp.

Finally he sat up, tossing the blankets from his body as he gazed at Mun-yeong’s still form, the moonlight provided enough radiance to see her perfectly in the dark. He couldn’t resist the pale glow her skin, clearing his throat he called out quietly, “Mun-yeong? Mun-yeong-ssi? Are you awake? Mun-yeong?”

His calls went unanswered.

He sighed.

Then he picked up a shoe throwing it at the wall of the camping van, the sound deafening in the silence. She jolted up, with quicker reflexes than you would expect from someone who was deeply sleeping. “What was that?” She turned to him, shock on her face.

Twisting the truth slightly he replied, “Um.. I don’t know. Sounds like something ran into the van. Probably an animal. But now that you’re awake I was wondering if you’re cold?”

There was a pregnant pause and he vaguely heard her whisper under her breath, “Ran into the van, my ass” before she spoke loud enough with the intention of him hearing, “No, I’m not cold. If you’re cold you should use Sang-tae’s blanket he left it for you.”

He rolled his eyes at her helpful suggestions, that was the last thing he wanted. So he pressed on, “I’m using that blanket too, but I’m still cold.” He gathered the blankets as he approached her bed, resembling a child fleeing to their parents room after a bad dream.

“What do you want me to do about that?” She asked, still turned away from him and that made it effortless to ascend the stairs and slide into the bed with her. His body’s weight sinking into the bed, announced his presence and she looked at him in surprise.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m cold.”

“I told you to deal with that on your own.”

“No, I want you to help me deal with it.” He pulled her into his arms, crushing her face into his naked chest. Minutely moaning at the smooth feel of her nightgown on his skin.

With a huff of dramatic annoyance, she pushed him away, turning her back to him again before saying, “Fine you can stay. Please go to sleep, just go to sleep.”

Their night at the guest house surfaces in his mind, her pleas for him as he coldly rejected her once again and begged her to sleep, suppressing his desire to take her right there and then. Karma was indeed, a dish that was best served cold.

He now knows exactly what she’s doing and why. She is serving him a taste of his own medicine, showing him how he made her feel in those moments when he wasn’t quite ready to let her in, but wasn’t man enough to voice that to her either, so he lashed out and hurt her unnecessarily.

Gathering his courage, he swallows his pride, “I’m sorry.”

Silence is his only reply.

Then with a small move, she presses back into his chest, their bodies melding from shoulder to toe.

He wraps his arms around her, humming at finally having her back in his arms. He holds his breath, waiting for the seduction to continue but she simply lays in his arms, contently playing with his fingers while he’s so hard he could hammer nails with his cock.

With a casual grip he begins to play with her fingers too, moving their hands up until they are treacherously close to her breasts, ensuring that every swipe of his thumb on her hand also collides with her nipples. Her breath hitches when he catches her erect nipple, but she doesn’t stop him.

Then he begins to undulate his hips, thrusting his boxer-clad cock into the silk of her slip, groaning at the intoxicating sensation before his control snaps like a rubber band and he surges forward, pulling her close and grinding into her with dark intentions.

She hisses at his cock’s hard crash into her ass, “Aiish you sly fox, is this why you came here?”

In lieu of responding to her obvious inquiry, he pushes his hand down the front of her gown, squeezing her breasts in his hand, harshly pinching the tight nipples until she moaned and squirmed in his hands. He pumped his thick length into her back, haphazardly catching her ass and the crease of her thighs with each rough thrust. With a punishing squeeze to her chest, he retracts his hands only to push his boxers down his hips, cock bouncing out in excitement, ready to play.

His eyes roll back at the feel of her silken gown on his hot engorged skin, precum wetting the material obscenely, as the game ends and she is as enraptured as he is, humping back into him, vigorously. Ripping her panties off from under her nightgown, he tries to plunge a finger into her moist center, but his elbow knocks into the bed railing and he groans at the hindrance. She is a panting mess in his arms now, pressing back into his heavy thrusts, his cock catching on her wet folds, as they both moan in pleasure.

“Can I try something?” Nerves prickly under his skin.

The question leaves his mouth before he can talk himself out of it. She stills at the sudden question but shakily replies, “Yes, just do it. Stop talking.”

He laughs at her impatience, jubilant that she wants him with as much vigor as he wants her. Grabbing her around her waist, he hoists her up into a seated position before sitting up too, using that leverage to turn her upside down, before dragging her onto his body and he lays back down onto the bed.

A perfect 69.

She gasps at the sudden change in position, before looking back at him from over her shoulder, “I knew you were watching porn in the bathroom. Next time, come to my room we can do some hands on learning.”

He swats her ass in retribution, “Now you’re the one talking too much.”

She smirks pressing her lips together and he can’t help but joke, “Well you don’t need to close it completely, just put it to better use.”

Eyes darkening from the proposition, she leans forward and swallows the head of his cock, wet mouth wrapping him in a squishy heaven. His hips subconsciously jerk forward, forcing more of his length in her mouth and she moans around the intrusion.

Then he looks up at the feast before his eyes, her wet and open above him, primed to be devoured by his hungry mouth. He wastes no time in licking her folds, wiggling his tongue into the moist cavern and groaning as she moans at the sensation, vibrations tingling around his cock. They both set off to wreck each other, her tongue relentless as she slurps and licks every inch him, distracting him from wrecking her. At a particularly hard suck at his balls, he shoves two fingers into her, corkscrewing immediately and giving her little room for adjustment.

He grabs her ass cheeks to pry her open further to his onslaught, twisting his fingers into her at the same time licking across her clit, pulling it into his mouth and humming at her addictive flavor.

She pulls off his cock to shout, “Fuck.” Among other expletives and it’s good that he’s not a religious man because pure blasphemy falls from her sinful mouth. He misses the feel of her mouth around him, so he thrusts up wildly catching her mouth as he fucks into her, in perfect synchronization as he fucks into her with his fingers.

She is a drooling mess above him, spit drowning his cock in a filthy river, he focuses on making her lose her mind as he feels his end growing near, tongue and fingers both hammering at her pussy, plunging, filling, worshiping.

Her body twitches violently, drawn tight like a bow, before snapping its release and her juice rain down on his waiting face, bathed in her glory.

His tongue never stops its lap at her until she keens in pain, “No more, it’s too much.” Reluctantly he pulls away, pretty swollen lips closing at his retreat, he kisses them one final time.

Without warning, she leans forward and slides down his cock, pushing past her gag until he feels himself slide down her throat and two quick fucks into that constricting paradise is all it takes to shoot hot cum down her throat, his eyes roll in the back of his head. She swallows and swallows, until finally drawing off as the abundant cum dribbles on his naked thighs, some even pooling on the sheets.

Collapsing to her side of the bed, it takes some effort to meet her eyes in their opposite positions, her head at his feet. But when he does, he sees all the love and fire he knows shines luminous in his own, he worries if this passion might just be too powerful for even them, might it burn them up leaving nothing but their ashes?

What a way to go.

He gathers her pliant body in his arms, moving her until she's sheltered in his arms, she will never have to sleep alone again, she has Gang-tae and Mang-tae. The doll now clutched tightly in her hand.

They drive for days before they come across a small town, pulling into a gas station to refill the van tank. They hadn’t yet emptied it since their first fill and he was working hard so they wouldn’t, loathing the idea of getting stranded on the side of the road with Mun-yeong. She would chew his head off.

“Be careful.” He calls out to her as she wonders into the diner adjacent to the gas station, they’d she’d grown tired of rice and grilled meat and had decided to get some food at the nearest diner. He’d told her to go ahead and get them a table, while he refilled the camping van.

He thinks about how far they’ve come on this journey, literally and emotionally. He has shared stories with her that he has never shared with another soul, not even Jae-su. Has experienced things he never thought he would be allowed to, this trip itself was a life long dream that he'd foolishly given up on but she showed him that it was okay to dream.

He didn't have to suppress his every whim or desire, was teaching him everyday that he was worthy of wanting and receiving.

With all those thoughts permeating his mind, he is completely caught off guard when he enters the diner and sees her menacingly looming over three young boys, a butter knife in her hand. "If you keep bothering her, your parents won't have children." Those are the words, he hears her utter, to children.

All who, trip over themselves fleeing from her screams of “A witch, a witch!” as they scamper back to their tables and said parents glare at the women dressed in black from head to toe, provoking their innocent children.

She smiles at them, waving with the knife still prominently in her hand. He promptly snatches it from her grip, reprimand on the tip of his tongue before a small mouse-like voice cuts him off.

"Thank you lady. Are you a princess?" Appearing from behind the shadow of Mun-yeong's body, a thin child creeps out, twiddling her fingers as she gazes up at Mun-yeong like the stars are hung in her eyes. He's never seen a child look at her like that.

"No. I'm not a princess. They weren't wrong, I'm a witch." She answers deadpan, twirling her fingers to add to the glamour.

She looks very much the part in a bellowing black dress with a full skirt and puffy sleeves, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail with a black rose pin in the front. She towers above the young girl in shiny black leather pumps, that almost gleam under the fluorescent lights. Armor back on since the lake.

He readies himself for the cries that her statement will evoke.

Flabbergasted when instead he hears, "Cool. You're the prettiest witch I ever saw."

Mun-Yeong preens at the compliment before turning to walk away, but the girl catches the material of her dress, rudely tugging it to get her attention.

The sharp eye at the hand on her dress is enough to make the girl immediately release it but Mun-Yeong peers down in question, "When I grow up will I be pretty like you?"

Without even a second to consider Mun-Yeong replies, "No. No one is pretty like me."

He watches the joy melt from the child's eye and opens his mouth to lessen the blow, take the sting off her too blunt words. But she beats him to it, "You shouldn't aspire for looks, you can't control that. Pick something you can control, like being strong so you can beat up your bullies." Her little shoulders perk back up and she beams at Mun-Yeong, his girlfriend's lip curl up at the side.

Before she walks into the diner, finding an empty table, he watches in shock as the young girl wordlessly trails after Mun-Yeong. The sight so familiar it knocks him in the heart. Just like flies to a fire, people like them were drawn to Mun-Yeong's light, the sparks that singed around her as she boldly did what you only dreamed of.

He joins them both at the table, and finally takes a good look at the little girl. She has a cute round face, rosy cheeks, her hair is pulled back in a disheveled ponytail, what stands out are her clothes, they are too put it kindly filthy. Tattered mess that hand off her thin frame and immediately the need to protect her overwhelms him.

"So what's your name brat?" Mun-yeong's deep voice breaks the silence.

"Min-jo."

He sends a warm smile in her direction, noting that her eyes haven't once left Mun-Yeong. Still he adds to the conversation, "Hi Min-jo, I'm Moon Gang-tae and this is my girlfriend Ko Mun-yeong. She writes children's books, maybe you've read one of her books before."

If her eyes were filled with adulation before, now it is tenfold as she jumps in her seat, "You write books? That's so cool! Do you like it? Are they fun? What are they about?"

Taking a sip of the water, the server brought them a few minutes ago with the menus, Mun-Yeong glances from the corner of her eye, before darkly whispering, "They're about chatty little brats who get eaten when they ask too many questions."

Min-jo's eyes widen in shock, little mouth falling into a perfect O, before her bell like giggles ring through the air, "You're so funny Ms. Witch!"

Mun-Yeong smiles back, a full face crinkling smile, at a child. Someone else's child. He is stunned into silence as he watches them converse, the kid ignoring Mun-Yeong's hint and asking her a million more questions. She even answers a few. He watches the miracle, stuffing noodles into his mouth, utterly charmed and bewildered.

When they've all finished their meals- he's still shocked at the amount of food such a small body was able to consume- he opens his wallet and places down the amount plus a hefty tip. He stands up and they follow his lead, Min-jo still trailing behind Mun-Yeong, before a voice stops her in her tracks.

"Oy! Where are you going? You know better than to bother the guests, get back here!" A woman in an apron waddles out, catching her by her arms preventing her from taking another step.

The woman bears no resemblance to the child, sharp where she is round so he wonders if that's her grandmother, before he asks the question aloud. Min-jo's head bends down until her face is completely hidden, "No. I'm an orphan I don't have anyone." Her voice is barely a whisper, lost in the wind as soon as it leaves her lips.

He watches Mun-Yeong tense at the word, eyes shifting back and forth between the two. Three orphans in one diner, the world's saddest story.

He wonders if that was what drew the girl to them in the first place. Destiny. Then he remembers what he overheard. Definitely destiny, Mun-yeong showed up when she needed someone to help her.

If someone shows up when you need then, I call that destiny.

Mun-yeong sniffs at the tears that are pooling in the child’s eyes, her own eyes dark pools that reveal nothing.

"That's no excuse to feel bad for yourself, you can't control that either. Stop following me and learn how to be a leader, then one day when you're older you can make your own family. I did." Her words are matter of fact with no warmth yet he sees the hope they ignite on the child's face, her eyes large in wonder. Pride washes over him like a wave.

Mun-Yeong turns to leave, before promptly stopping and returning to the girl, bending down to meet her at eye level, "Tell those bullies that a witch gave this to you and if they tease you again it'll turn them into frogs." She unpins the black rose pin from her hair sliding it into the young girl's messy hair, her little hand comes up to touch it in wonder.

Tears swimming in her innocent eyes.

Without another word, Mun-Yeong leaves in a whirlwind of black cloth and witchy flair, and he watches Min-jo watch her, her seemingly cold words had been exactly the balm this child needed. He bids Min-jo farewell, bowing at the older woman who takes the young girl's hand, maybe not her biological grandmother but clearly she cares for her. He hopes they let each other know one day, their true feelings.

Love should be shared and acknowledged, unless what's the point of loving?

"You made her feel better."

She looks up at him from her place on the chair, passively, "I told her the truth."

He noticed a long time ago that she doesn't quite know how to respond to compliments, begs for them but once she receives them she quiets down as if taken back by their presence.

"You did really well Mun-Yeong, I'm so proud of you." Instinctively her head comes forward seeking his hand and he happily strokes his hand across her head, amazed by the woman he loves. He impulsively presses a kiss to her head as well, breathing in the floral aroma clinging to her hair.

That night as they lay together, no facades this time, she walks right over to him and slings into his arms, demanding that he stroke her head to help her fall asleep. He concedes happily. Too tired to try for anything more, he resolves to do it tomorrow. The thing that has been on his mind since he told her that he loved her.

He's going to ask her.

What's the point of having all this love and not showing her?

#its okay to not be okay fic #its okay to not be okay #psycho but it's okay #ko mun yeong #moon gang tae #kdrama #kim soo hyun #seo ye ji #episode 17 #weekend event #fluff #smut #self-discovery #part 1 #meant to be 5k each #this ended up being 7k #I can't write anything short anymore #my details need details lol

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celiabowens · 4 years

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Book recommendations, Literary Fiction edition(?)

A companion to this post (which should be updated, at some point lol)

Short Story Collections:

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield: grotesque and disquieting collection about women and their experience in society, how they view and perceive their own body and desires. Pretty strong mythic, magical realism, body horror elements in here.

The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks: fascinating collection in which Sacks reminishes some particularly odd stories of patients who had to cope with bizarre neurological disorders.

Home Remedies by Xuan Juliana Wang: a collection focused on the Chinese millennial experience. Stories about love and loss, family, immigration and the uncertainty of the future. (also there’s an extremely beautiful short story about a pair of Chinese divers that broke me forever!!!)

Bestiary: The Selected Stories by Julio Cortázar: unforgettable selection of short stories that mix surreal elements to everyday life and apparently ordinary events. Would also recommend All Fires the Fire by the same author.

Novels:

How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang: one of the biggest debuts of 2020, it follows two recently orphaned children through the gold rush era. An adventurous historical fiction piece that focuses on themes like gender, identity and immigration, this is one of my favorites 2020 reads so yeah, I’d really push it in anyone’s hands to be honest.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent: historical fiction inspired by the last days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in the 1820s. A quite bleak, but beautiful novel (the prose is stunning).

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave: historical fiction novel set in Norway in the 17th century, following the lives of a group of women in a village that recently (barely) survived a storm that killed all of the island’s men.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead: the 2020 winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The book follows the lives of two boys sentenced to a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. A bleak, but important book, with a shocking final twist (side note, I’ve been recommended The Underground Railroad by Whitehead as well, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. If you’re looking for something quite peculiar, if a bit less refined when compared to The Nickel Boys, The Intuitionist is a quite odd pulpy noir set in an alternate NY about...elevator inspectors *and racism*).

The Leavers by Lisa Ko: haunting book about identity and immigration as the main character is apparently abandoned by his own mother (an undocumented Chinese immigrant) during his childhood. Mainly a story about living in between places and constantly feeling out of place.

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa: when everyone would probably recommend Murakami (not much against Murakami besides his descriptions of women and their boobs), I suggest checking out some of Ogawa’s books. The recently translated The Memory Police, published in Japan in the mid 90s, is an orwellian dystopian novel set on an unnamed Island where memories slowly disappear. Would also really recommend The Housekeeper and The Professor, a really short novel about a housekeeper hired to clean and cook for a math professor who suffered an injury that causes him to remember new things for only 80 minutes.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, following a son writing a letter to his illiterate mother. The book seems quite polarising due to Vuong’s writing style (his poetry background is really quite clear and the book doesn’t really follow a regular narrative, rather than portrays events and memories in brief flashes), but I loved it and I’d really just recommend going into it without knowing much? It’s a beautiful exploration of language, family history, trauma, sexuality and more.

Exist West by Mohsin Hamid: this book was fairly popular when it came out (in 2017 I believe) and was often incorrectly marketed as magical realism. Hamid’s book is a brief and quietly brutal journey with a few fantastical elements, following a couple trying to escape their city in the middle of war, as they hear about peculiar doors that can whisk people far away. The doors are, of course, a quite effective metaphor for the immigrant experience and the book does a great job at portraying the main characters’ relationship.

Family Trust by Kathy Wang: this has a really low rating on goodreads which...wow i hate that. Family Trust is a literary family saga/drama about a Chinese-American family residing in the Silicon Valley. It’s often been compared to Crazy Rich Asians, but I believe it to be more on the literary side and definitely less lighthearted.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: historical family saga (one of my favorites tbh, I’m absolutely biased, but this book deserved more hype) set in Korea and Japan throughout the 20th century, following four generations of a Korean family. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of the prose, the book has really great characterisation and absolutely fascinating characters. (I’d suggest checking out eventual TW first, in this case).

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker: another recent read, The Silence of the Girls, while not faultless, is a pretty good retelling of The Iliad, narrated through Briseis’ perspective. The prose can feel a bit too modern at times, but it provides the reader with some really strong quotes and descriptions.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: and also Little Fires Everywhere by the same author, to be honest. If you’re looking for really really good family dramas, with great explorations of rather complex and nuanced relationships? You should just check out her stuff. Vibrant characters, good writing, and some superb portrayal of longing here.

Nutshell by Ian McEwan: i’m starting with this one only to grab your attention (if you’ve even reached this part lol, congrats), but McEwan’s one of my favorite authors and I’d recommend almost everything I’ve read by him? Nutshell, specifically, is a really odd and fun retelling of Hamlet...told from the pov of an unborn baby. But really, I’d also recommend Atonement (of course), The Children Act, Amsterdam? All good stuff.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles: I’ve read this book this summer and, while I’m still unsatisfied with the ending, I’d thoroughly recommend this? The novel follows Count Alexander Rostov, who, in 1922, is sentenced to a lifetime of house arrest in the Metropol, a luxurious hotel in the center of Moscow. A singular novel, funny and heartbreaking at once, following a vibrant cast of characters as they come and go from Rostov’s secluded life.

Human Acts by Han Kang: from the bestselling author of The Vegetarian (which honestly, I thoroughly despised lol), Human Acts focuses on the South Korean Gwangju uprising. It’s a really odd (and at times grotesque) experimental novel (one chapter is narrated from the pov of one of the bodies if I remember correctly), so one really has to be in the mood for it, but it’s a really unique experience, worth a chance.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon: sort of a really chunky historical adventure novel following two artists in 1940s/1950s NY, who create a superhero and use him to wage a one man war on the Nazis. A bit slow in places (the pace can be uneven at times and the book is quite long), but an enjoyable novel that does a pretty good job when it comes to exploring rather classic themes of American contemporary fiction: the American dream and the figure of the artist (I think there’s a particularly interesting focus on how the artists navigates the corporate world and its rules) and their creative process.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: this is a pretty classic rec, the book really got a lot of hype when it came out? It’s a dystopian-ish novel set after civilisation’s collapse, following a post-apocalyptic troupe (of Shakespearean actors). It’s a really odd, but surprisingly quiet book. Not sure if a pandemic is exactly the right time to read it, but I thoroughly recommend it.

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng: I feel like this book is extremely complex to summarise to be honest. In short, it’s a book set in Malaya at the end of the 1940s, following a woman who, after surviving Japanese wartime camps, spends her life prosecuting war criminals. But truthfully this book is about conflicts and contradictions and in particular about remembering and forgetting. Lovely prose.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: and also The Goldfinch. I’m sure no one really needs me to introduce Donna Tartt?

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton: quite cerebral mystery set in New Zealand in 1866. Honestly you have to be a patient reader who enjoys novels with a pretty complex structure to like this, but if you’re into this sort of challenging read...go for it? It’s a book of interlocking stories (with 10+ pov and main characters) with a really fascinating structure based on astrological charts, which provide insight to the main characters’ traits and personality as the mystery unfolds.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham: ok...do not watch the movie first. The Hours is an incredibly difficult novel to describe to be honest: it begins by recalling the last moments of Virginia Woolf’s life, as she’s writing Mrs. Dalloway. The book focuses on three separate narratives, each one following a specific character throughout a single day of their own life. Goes without saying that I’d suggest being familiar with Mrs. Dalloway itself first though.

An Artists of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro: not one of Ishiguro’s most famous works (most start reading his work with Never Let Me Go or The Remains of the Day), but probably my favorite out of those I’ve read so far. The novel follows Masuji Ono, an artist who put his work in service of imperialist propaganda throughout WWII. Basically a reflection and an account of the artist’s life as he deals with the culpability of his previous actions.

Stoner by John Williams: I feel like this is an odd book to recommend, because I don’t think someone can truly get the hype unless they read it themselves. Stoner is a pretty straight-forward book, following the ordinary life of an even more ordinary man. And yet it’s so compelling and never dull in its exploration of the characters’ lives and personalities. Also, I’ve just finished Augustus by the same author, which is an epistolary historical fiction novel narrating some of the main events of Augustus’ reign through letters from/by his closest friends and enemies. Really liked it.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien: back to integenerational family sagas (because I love those, in case it wasn’t clear lol), Do Not Say We Have Nothing follows a young woman who suddenly rediscovers her family’s fractured past. The novel focuses on two successive generations of a Chinese family through China’s 20th century history. While not every character got the type of development they deserved, the author does a good job when it comes to gradually recreating the family’s complex and nuanced history.

There’s probably more but I doubt anyone’s going to reach the end or anything so. There’s that lol.

#book recs #book rec #litblr #2020 reads #all the typos are my own LOL #also i didnt put here philip roth or auster #but tbh #i dont think anyone needs me to rec them???

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jippy-kandi · 3 years

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Digimon Adventure: 2020 – Episode 22: The Unbeatable Blue Sagittarius (Review)

Thoughts on the twenty-second episode of the Digimon Adventure reboot series.

This was objectively a pretty decent episode. But I didn’t like it as much as I should have, because I found myself rolling my eyes at Takeru a lot, lol.

Oh, Takeru is psychic! Well, he’s telepathically linked to a feather. New OTP alert! :P

Now that Takeru is actually saying more than two words, I really don’t like his new voice. It sounds too much like a little girl. And Patamon. And I just don’t like it. I don’t find Takeru as adorable as I did, back when he never spoke, lol.

It was nice that Gabumon had a moment to tell Takeru that he’d protect him until Takeru got his partner digimon . . . but of course you would? :P If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be a good digimon, Blue Sir.

I actually don’t like this version of Takeru shown here and the last episode. He’s way too brave (and it’s not believable). He’s just super brave . . . at eight. Actually, I could argue that every one of the kids has the Crest of Courage, lol. Taichi, your position is now redundant, so be afraid. XD;

Sora’s profile picture for text messages is a vase with flowers. How cute!

Just lol at the copies of the people going into the elevator . . . are the animators really that lazy/poor? Also, if you think that was way too many people to actually fit into an elevator, you need to see commuters being squished into trains in Tokyo. XD;

The fight scenes in this episode were pretty good though. Props.

DarkKnightmon looks cool. I can totally see the full-on Digimon nerds loving this episode just because of him. :P

That shot of WereGarurumon looking down at Takeru as he saves him actually looks like he’s about to attack him, lol. What a great animated expression there. /s

Takeru jumping off DarkKnightmon to fall quite a distance to a floating block is just utterly ridiculous. Compare this insanely brave, acrobatic Takeru to the OG Takeru who tripped over a rock or something, and had Taichi help pick him back up . . . and that trip wasn’t even a life-threatening moment. This is! NO, REBOOT, NO.

Takeru should have died a hundred times over in this episode and the previous one. You will not convince me otherwise.

Gomamon and Palmon’s reactions to Jou and Mimi arriving were adorbs.

There is just no way Takeru (and Yamato) could hold themselves up by the strength of their legs . . . they would totally fall into the miasma at that angle. I know, I know, if I wanted realistic situations, I shouldn’t count on Adventure 2020. It just looked so awkward though! :P

Yamato to Takeru: “If it could’ve been helped, I’d rather not have dragged you into this.” Cute. But was it worth the entire floating block/miasma scenario to have this moment? No. The whole thing was silly.

Again, Yamato obviously benches. And so does Takeru. XD;

It was a nice change for WereGarurumon - and not his partner - to be responsible for the new evolution. And WereGarurumon: Sagittarius Mode looks a lot cooler than MetalGreymon: Alteros Mode. How dare Toei!

Poyomon! Thank god that was a fast rebirth and they won’t be dragging it out. :P

So, we are now officially one-third of the way through the series - if the 66-episode run is indeed true.

But I think the series started off stronger than where it is now . . . I enjoyed the first few Omegamon episodes a lot, and episode 8 was excellent, as was episode 16. And I thoroughly enjoyed all the Sorato episodes because I’m biased.

But Toei really needs to get the kids back together soon, because the trio of Taichi-Yamato-Takeru isn’t cutting it for me. I want my gang back together!

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure 2020 #takeru takaishi #taichi yagami #yamato ishida #sora takenouchi #review #screenshots #spoilers #takeru fell pretty quickly for me lol

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kaibacorpintern · 4 years

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yuugi and kaiba... platonic... maybe a lil angst like kaiba doesnt know how to have friends and yuugi just accepts him as he is and kaiba can be a kid for once.. for the minific prompt pls? :) thank u.. luv ur blog btw

just thought you should know that when i read this prompt i instantly turned into this and wrote almost 5,000 words. it’s a little angsty and about friendship, but it’s also about loneliness and food and depression, with a few jokes peppered in here and there. DSOD didn’t happen but atem is alive, because i say so. i want kaiba and yuugi to be friends so freakin’ bad.

long story short: i went nuts. thanks for the prompt!!

***

Every day, little by little, Kaiba looked greyer. The lines of his shoulders slouched. The hollows under his eyes deepened, like holes being dug in the dirt, on hands and knees; a slow, miserable burying. To hear him speak was worse. Yuugi heard his voice from thousands of miles away, like he was on a different continent, a different planet, and the light of every thought was crossing the staggering empty silence of space. It terrified Yuugi, to think of Kaiba as fading, that someone who raged with all the thrill and fury of a storm could slow down like this. But he was fading.

“Hey. Are you alright? You seem down lately,” Yuugi tried, on one of the rare mornings where he caught him alone in the elevator, on his way up to the game design department. With no one else around, he usually felt emboldened to drop the act: not an employee with his boss, maintaining proper deference, but someone who’d known Kaiba for a very long time, and knew him like few others did.

The glass-walled elevator whirred as it rose. Kaiba stood there with his arms crossed, impassive, his back to Domino. The city streets unfurled below them.

“The elevator’s going up, Yuugi,” he said, after a full seven seconds of silence. A weak dismissal, by his standards, made even weaker by a toneless delivery.

“Sure. But - ”

With a polite ding, the elevator opened onto the game design floor.

“You’re running late,” Kaiba said, nodding him pointedly out the door.

“Bro, I’m fifteen minutes early,” Yuugi said.

“Don’t fucking ‘bro’ me, ” Kaiba snarled, with all the sudden, twitching ferocity of a nervous dog. Yuugi smiled and slowly backed out of the elevator, his palms turned out, long enough to make his point: he'd come in peace. Kaiba frowned at him, bristling, until the elevator doors started to close. The last Yuugi saw of him, before they touched together, were a pair of blue eyes, their fiery energy winking out like a popped spark, falling shut with a sigh.

At his desk, Yuugi toyed with his phone for a good ten minutes, ignoring emails and his coworkers’ good mornings, his thumb hovering over Mokuba’s contact info as he rehearsed in his head. Hey, how’s Stanford? You enjoying your classes so far? Making friends? Of course you are. Great. Well, so, I’m calling because I’m worried about your brother -

A call like that would put Mokuba on a plane within an hour, honestly. But maybe Mokuba would want to know. Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe if he left his first quarter of college and returned to Japan, just because his brother had a few bad nights or something, Kaiba would punt Yuugi off the top of the building.

Maybe Atem? The only person Kaiba ever “talked” to about anything, if pummeling each other with card game holograms could be called a conversation. Which they did.

YUUGI What’s eating Kaiba? Is he alright?

He stared at his phone a while longer until remembering it was the middle of the night in Egypt. He put his phone away, put Kaiba out of mind, and got to work.

***

Atem texted back mid-afternoon.

ATEM I don’t know. Go find out

YUUGI Okay but i’m not you lol he won’t tell me. even with a duel

ATEM GO

ATEM FIND

ATEM OUT

YUUGI OKAY I'LL DO MY BEST

ATEM And tell that stuck-up bastard to answer his fucking phone one of these days

Odd. Kaiba never ignored Atem.

YUUGI I’m on it

He finished work late, packed up his things, and headed downstairs to the lobby, moving quickly to catch his train. He had most of a mind to save the Kaiba question for later, go home, and flop face-down on his bed until he roused himself enough to pick at leftovers. The elevated metro station was awash in a crisp dusk light, the navy purple night descending on the day’s final line of gold. His train was coming in three minutes; the next on the same line in thirty-four. He'd just made it.

If he stood at the far end of the platform, craning his neck, he could see the long strip of windows at the top of the KaibaCorp tower. Dark. Kaiba had gone home early. Yuugi frowned, biting his lip, as his train arrived.

He let it go, jostled and swaying in the flood of people flowing in and out of the carriages. The next train took him far from home, flying with sleek electric ease through the glittering glassy black monoliths of the city, and into the leafy, overgrown estates beyond the far edge of town.

***

Kaiba's estate was a brisk walk from the last station on the line, along the side of a road without sidewalks, and through a tunnel of trees that laced their branches together over the road. By the time Yuugi got to the gates, his feet aching in his sneakers, night had fallen. The trees were thick with shadow and wind, whispering to each other in fairy tale voices. It was the kind of night that urged people into their homes, with the doors locked, away from the ancient things that lurked in the undergrowth, wild and forgotten and stronger for it. He was relieved to reach the gates, on the edge of the illumination around Kaiba's mansion, held in the center of the light like a toy castle in a snow globe.

The gatehouse was empty. A security camera peered down at him from the top of a wall, nestled in a thick swell of vines. Ignoring its glossy little eye, Yuugi studied the door in the wall beside the gates, pushing more vines aside to find the keypad. If he called ahead, the chances of Kaiba buzzing him in were next to nothing. They were next to nothing on a good day.

YUUGI do you know the key code for the door?

ATEM 445241474F4E#

ATEM that took me literally years to get

ATEM go around the back. he won’t open the front door

YUUGI you're the best <3

He tapped in the code, carefully. What if he got it wrong? Would a trapdoor open up below his feet? With his back to the quiet road, and the dense, rustling woods on the other side, he swallowed his laugh.

The door opened with a faint click. Yuugi slipped through and began the long walk up the drive to the mansion, sneakers crunching the gravel underfoot. On either side of the drive, the lawns were pristine, every petal of every flower and every leaf on every hedge perfectly in place, holding the poses nature’s hand had fixed them in with effortless ease. Somewhere across the grass, shrouded in the night, came the distant murmur of a fountain.

The mansion itself was an ugly, graceless brick of a building, so rigid and square in its design that its position in the center of this wooded estate seemed an oppressive intrusion. Per Atem’s instructions, Yuugi skirted the front, with its twin dragon statues and Roman columns and imposing front door, and went around to the back, padding silently through the grass. Like the top of the tower, the windows were dark. Every glance through the glass, checking for life, made him feel like he was looking into the bottom of a well, deep and cold and watery, a tomb for hopeless wishing.

At the back of the house was a large patio, with a view of the sprawling grounds, which rolled downwards in a gentle slope, all the way to a line of trees. There, the grounds gave themselves back to the wild. Even on a shivering night like this, it was easy to imagine what the patio was like in the full splendor of high summer, drenched in sunlight and everything shimmering in golden-white heat.

A thin light cast a hazy cloud onto the patio through a pair of sliding glass doors. Yuugi stopped, halfway across the patio, questioning himself for the nth time that night. And if he was overreacting? So what if Kaiba was in a mood? Kaiba was always in a fucking mood. Yuugi had no doubt Kaiba would thunder at him for a while over the arrogance, the audacity of his presumptions or something, and then throw him out by the scruff of the neck. Oh, god. The embarrassment burned in his face already.

Yuugi firmly shoved his own feelings aside. He was a gamer - a gambler - by nature, and he’d learned enough over the years to bet on his own instincts. He gamed it out, in his head, shuddering into the warmth of his jacket as the breeze rolled through him:

He checks on Kaiba, and everything is fine: he goes home feeling awkward and Kaiba avoids him at work for the next three weeks. Acceptable outcome.

He does not check on Kaiba, and everything is fine: he goes home, and the whole night gets written off as a weird, secret little adventure. Acceptable outcome.

He checks on Kaiba, and everything is not fine: unacceptable, but now someone knows. Acceptable outcome.

He does not check on Kaiba, and everything is not fine: Unacceptable outcome.

He stole towards the sliding glass doors. They led into a glossy modern kitchen, as pristine as the grounds, and full of clean, gleaming surfaces. It was completely free of clutter like mail, or keys, or coffee mugs, or any of the other odds and ends that usually piled up over the course of normal days. A bowl of flowers sat on a kitchen table in a breakfast nook, starting to wilt. At the end of the kitchen island was a bowl of fruit. A still-life painting split in two.

Sitting at the island, perched on a bar stool, was Kaiba, his head resting in his folded arms atop the counter. His face was mostly hidden in the crook of his elbow; through the limp tangle of his bangs, Yuugi saw his eyes were closed. His black leather satchel leaned against the leg of the bar stool. The rise of his back as he breathed was slow and subtle, the only thing that convinced Yuugi Kaiba had not turned to stone in his seat. Asleep?

No.

A small blue light rose up from Kaiba's phone, lying on the counter. One hand slowly unfolded, silenced the call, and refolded itself. A gesture that made less than a ripple across the still water of this tableau.

Awake.

Lifelessly, doing nothing. Not even staring into space, but retreating into the space behind his eyelids, a space Yuugi knew intimately well: shallow and lukewarm and wordless, a space for letting hours and days drift by, uncounted. It had been a long time since he’d visited - not since he’d solved the Puzzle - but it was a space he never wanted to revisit. It was a space that stayed with you for the rest of your life, once you’d been there, and yet a space more distant than the farthest star in the universe, beyond the boundaries of both light and love. A place of perfect solitude.

Quietly, carefully, Yuugi tried the handle of the sliding glass door and found it unlocked. He slid it open.

Kaiba startled, pulling himself upright as though yanked by a puppet string on his neck. He turned to Yuugi, still and alert, not quite comprehending. As he understood who stood there, the pieces clicking into place, his eyes hardened in his pallid face, speechless, furious.

“Before you say anything,” Yuugi said, as Kaiba opened his mouth, “I have a story. Let me tell you, and then you can kick me out.”

“This is my fucking house. I can kick you out whenever I damn well please,” Kaiba snapped.

“It’s more of a puzzle, actually. I don’t think you’ve ever solved this one,” Yuugi said.

Kaiba looked at him sideways, now more confused and suspicious than alarmed.

“And if I solve it?” he said, because ah, yes, of course, stakes. Nothing ever for the joy of it.

“Bragging rights.”

“If I don’t?”

“Nothing happens,” Yuugi said.

They stared at each other. Yuugi ventured a smile. Did he dare walk in? He was still standing on the threshold.

“Fine,” Kaiba said, a word more like a sigh. “Come in and tell me your stupid puzzle.”

***

Every house has its own particular smell, its character, its self-contained story about those who call it home. Yuugi took off his shoes, setting them beside the glass door, and frowned. Kaiba's smelled like clean linens, a touch of dust, cool air. A muted smell with no character. He didn't know what he expected. Something else, something thick and wet and heady, like oncoming thunder, or concrete after rain.

On this side of the glass doors, the kitchen was even more exquisite, temptingly so. He knew, from his lusty late-night Internet searches, that the knives in the wooden block alone cost more than several thousand dollars. Untouched! He refused to let them go to waste. Such things were more beautiful when they were held and used and loved, doing what they were made for. And despite the marbled silence, the thin white lighting, this was a house, not a museum. Yuugi dropped his backpack on the floor next to an empty bar stool and turned to Kaiba, who was sitting upright, hands atop his thighs, watching him.

“Uh - do you have anything to eat? I haven’t eaten since lunch,” he said, slinging his jacket over his backpack.

“No. Every night I just plug in and recharge,” Kaiba said dryly. “I believe that’s called a fridge. Those have human food.”

Yuugi bit his tongue, hiding his smile as he went around to the other side of the island. At least Kaiba was still capable of snark. He opened the massive fridge - sparse offerings, sparsely touched - and rooted around, not quite sure what he was looking for between the limp carrots and slabs of smoked salmon. Only the cheese drawer yielded interesting spoils, unspoiled and exotically European.

“The pantry?” he said, nodding at the door next to the fridge.

“Presumably.”

Yuugi found a loaf of sourdough bread on a shelf in the walk-in pantry - a fucking walk-in pantry! - and returned to the counter with his haul: the bread, the butter, a wedge of Gruyere, and a brick of Emmental. “I’m making a grilled cheese. You want one?”

“If it makes you happy,” Kaiba muttered.

“It does, yeah,” Yuugi said, unsheathing one of those glorious, mirror-polished knives from the wooden block. He rolled up his sleeves and attacked the cheeses with relish. “So - the puzzle goes like this. You’re fifteen years old. You’re small for your age, underweight, painfully shy. You get shoved around a lot at school. Before school, after school. Whenever, honestly. No one really sticks up for you, although you try to stick up for them, when you can, and no one really talks to you, because you live in your own little world. Your head’s always in the clouds, and you get really excited over a lot of things no one else really cares about.”

As he spoke, he unearthed a frying pan and set it on the gas stove, slicing off several pats of butter. As they melted, soft and yellow-white, he carved several slices off the loaf, shuddering with secretive pleasure at the fresh crunch of the crust.

“Next time, just bring me your high school diary,” Kaiba said.

Yuugi snorted, buttering the slices and laying them carefully into the pan, where they began to sizzle. He draped the slices of cheese on top. “So you can read everything I wrote about you? No thanks. Anyway. You have one friend, but she’s not always around - her family travels a lot for work. So here you are, a bullied, lonely little oddball, and one day someone gives you a gift. A puzzle.”

“A puzzle in a puzzle.”

“Right,” Yuugi said, pressing down on the slices of bread with a spatula. The butter crackled and spat; a thick, warm smell wafted through the kitchen. “And if you make a wish on the puzzle, it grants your wish when you solve it. So you make your wish, and you solve your puzzle. You know the rest.”

He turned back to Kaiba. “Now I’m here in your kitchen, making you a grilled cheese. So. What did I wish for?”

To his credit, Kaiba was taking it seriously, offering no snide comments about magic or wishing, leaning forward with his arms folded again on the counter. Yuugi let him study him, eyes narrowed and thoughtful, knowing he was running back through all eight years of their shared history, doing the math.

“Well, no one shoves you around any more,” Kaiba said. “Not even me, judging by the fact that I can’t even get you to leave my house. I should’ve known better than to try.”

“Ooh, a compliment. Thanks, I’ll treasure it forever,” Yuugi said, grinning, flipping the sandwiches. Melted cheese oozed from the sides. The bottom slices had toasted to a golden brown. His mouth watered. “Plates?”

“Up and to your left.”

Yuugi opened the cabinets and, standing on tiptoe, eased out two matte black stoneware plates. Fancy.

“You wished for strength,” Kaiba said.

Yuugi slid the grilled cheeses onto the plates and severed them in half with the spatula.

“Nope,” he said, leaning across the island counter to set the steaming grilled cheese in front of Kaiba. The semantic point that his friends and his strength were one and the same seemed irrelevant. He was speaking to Kaiba. He needed to speak in Kaiba’s language. “Strength wouldn’t have solved anything for me.”

“You just said you were getting shoved around - ”

“I wished for friends, Kaiba,” Yuugi said. “Yeah, I was tired of getting shoved around. But I was even more tired of being alone.”

“I - “ Kaiba cut himself off, pressing a sigh through his nose with a tight, pinched expression. Within seconds his face soured. “You make a wish on your magical little trinket, and you get just what you always wanted. How fucking fantastic for you - ”

“Don’t do the aggressive-aggressive thing, it’s not cute,” Yuugi said. “And don’t test me, either. You and I are way past that. Just look me in the face and tell me, honestly, you want me to leave.”

Kaiba turned that ferocious blue gaze on him, silent.

Yuugi waited, holding his gaze.

Thin, languid tendrils of steam rose from their melting grilled cheeses and folded away.

“Don’t tell me you think of me as one of your magic wish friends?” Kaiba said.

“There’s nothing magical about our friendship, no,” Yuugi said, and to his delight Kaiba snorted with amusement. “Now eat, before it gets cold.”

***

They ate, the evening quiet of the kitchen magnifying every fried, crunchy bite. Yuugi had hoisted himself onto the bar stool next to Kaiba, congratulating himself on a well-made grilled cheese. He would’ve made it work even without the expensive knives.

"Don't tell Mokuba," Kaiba said, dabbing at crumbs on his plate with a greasy scrap of bread, "or Atem."

"Don't tell them what?" Yuugi said.

"How you found me. On hour six of staring at a wall.”

"I won't," Yuugi said.

"They don't need to worry about me. I can take care of myself," Kaiba insisted.

"You can, but are you?" Yuugi said.

"Mmh," Kaiba murmured, resting his elbows on the counter and his chin atop his laced hands. “Don’t tell them that, either.”

His eyes rolled sideways, his gaze drifting around the kitchen, through the arched doorway, through the rest of the house, where all the lights were off. Yuugi slid off his stool and selected two pears from the fruit bowl, heavy with ripeness, rinsing them in the sink.

“Did... something happen? Did you get in a fight?” he ventured. “Atem says you’re not answering his calls.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Then what?”

The kitchen swelled with silence.

"They left," Kaiba said finally, as Yuugi considered how to cut the pears. A basic wedge cut was too childish. "And I told them to go, enjoy it, make the most of it. They have their own lives to live. Mokuba must've asked me a thousand times if I'd be fine without him if he went to California, and I said yes, go, because I don't need him around. I'm fine. And there's no point in getting angry with someone for leaving if you don't need them in the first place."

The effort must've been massive, Yuugi realized, slicing into the pears, to keep the anger at bay. To dig into the wound and wrench the thing out whole, raw and throbbing, without duels or rubbled islands, and without the help of the people who loved him the most. No wonder he looked so exhausted, so limp; no wonder he was again sinking towards the counter, arms folding, his head dropping like there was a hand on the back of his neck, guiding him down with animal docility.

“How long have you been feeling like this?” Yuugi said.

“What the hell do you know about it?” Kaiba said, semi-muffled by his elbow.

“It feels like there’s this dark little pit in yourself that you can’t stop digging,” Yuugi said, “and when it’s deep enough, you’re gonna curl up and bury yourself at the bottom and sleep for a year. Right?”

Kaiba said nothing, heaving another sigh.

“Sit up. Eat this.” Yuugi thunked a plate of pear in front of Kaiba, each slice wafer-thin, almost translucent, dripping with light. Kaiba dutifully pulled himself up and removed several slices of pear, with jenga-like precision, careful not to damage Yuugi’s artful pinwheeling. “Well?”

“I always feel like this,” Kaiba said, a startling confession, all the more terrifying for the blithe, dismissive tone with which he confessed it. “So what if it’s a little worse than normal? I’ll find my way out of it.”

Yuugi leaned over the counter, hands clasped atop it, business-like.

“I have no doubt in your ability to get out of this,” he said. “But I don’t think you should do it alone. See, I don’t want you to leave, either.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah?” Yuugi said. “I challenge you to a duel. My deck’s in my backpack. I have some new strategies I’m dying to test, and you’re the only one who makes me really fight for it. How about it? Wanna duel?”

Kaiba exhaled, resting his elbow on the counter, his cheek against the back of his hand. He plucked out another pear slice, not eating it; instead just letting it dangle from his fingertips, watching a tiny pearl of water roll off the edge and break apart on the plate with monumental indifference.

Watching him, Yuugi allowed himself a brief, private moment of grief, for Kaiba, knowing he wouldn’t want it, and he’d be insulted if he knew. To have your heart broken by what you love was one thing; to swing from love to hate was another; but to stand still and feel your love go, leaving nothing in the hollow it left behind, was the worst.

With a light flick, Kaiba released the slice of pear, his gaze drifting again.

“No. I’m tired of fighting,” he said sullenly, so dull a sound that Yuugi sucked in a breath, two dueling thoughts colliding with concussive impact in his chest. Good, stop fighting, why don’t you finally get some rest, and the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and shout no! keep fighting! I know you’re in there!

Kaiba lifted his head, looking at Yuugi with an air of steeling himself. “Okay. What... what do you want from me?”

Yuugi almost laughed, but caught himself. No good things came from laughing in Kaiba’s face.

“Other way around,” he said, drawing a circle in the air with his finger. “This is about what you want from me. Whatever you need. Whatever you want.”

Kaiba frowned, thinking.

“Do you seriously believe the magic of the Millennium Puzzle helped you make friends?” he said.

"Um. Well, it was more like a domino effect, you know? A chaos theory, butterfly hurricane kind of thing - “

“Magic had nothing to do with it. It was all you,” Kaiba said, with more heat and passion than he’d shown in weeks. “But you have to understand I’ll never be your ‘bro’ - ” couching the word in air quotes, a disdainful pair of twin finger twitches - “and I’m not one of your little pals, like Jounouchi, or whatever. That’s not who I am. That’s not how I do it.”

“I know,” Yuugi said. “Listen - ”

“I don’t - ” Kaiba huffed and scowled at the counter, at his blurred, misty reflection. “I prefer to handle things on my own. I always have. I don’t - know how - ”

“Kaiba.”

Kaiba looked up, shoulders stiffening, his face tight and stricken.

“I know,” Yuugi said. He let that hang between them until Kaiba’s shoulders had eased out of their anxious coils. “Don’t worry. I’m not adding you to the group chat or anything. I don’t expect anything from you except the occasional bitchy comment, and maybe a good, boisterous laugh, from way deep down in your chest, like when you draw Blue-eyes in a duel. You know, the ‘I got you now, fucker’ laugh.”

Kaiba laughed - a laugh at half-power, lacking his usual trumpet blare of triumph, but a laugh nonetheless. “You are an oddball.”

“Birds of a feather,” Yuugi said smugly, and checked his phone. It was getting late. “Okay. I think I’ve bothered you enough for the night - ”

“You’re not bothering me. Are you taking the train back into the city?”

“Yeah.”

“What line?”

“Red line,” Yuugi said, and was struck by an idea. "Why? Somewhere you wanna go?"

"I'm in the mood to get out of the house for a while," Kaiba said. "It's too fucking quiet in here without Mokuba."

Yuugi fixed him with a look. "Yeah, so one of the interns was telling me about a new arcade that just opened off the Ishibashi station. I was gonna go after work with the guys to check it out some time, but..."

He didn't even need to finish the thought. Despite his best effort to hide it, something hopeful had bloomed across Kaiba's face, rich and warm. It made Yuugi ache to see that look, and to wonder what he would've wished for at fifteen, freshly cast from the forge and still hard and brittle and white-hot with rage, burning everyone who touched him.

"Get your coat, let's go," Yuugi said, and Kaiba almost sprang off his bar stool. "Wait - finish the pear. I cut it fancy for you and everything."

Kaiba rapidly ate the pear. "The grilled cheese was excellent, by the way."

"Really?"

"Yes. If you come back and make me another, I'll make all the bitchy comments you want."

Yuugi laughed. "Deal."

***

ATEM did you talk to him?

Yuugi leaned against the polished wooden edge of the pool table, his thoughts whirling in his head lazy and kaleidoscopic. He was halfway through his third beer. They'd gone through air hockey. The racing games. The shooting games. Foosball. Kaiba had spent fifteen minutes at the claw machine, winning a plush Kuriboh for a middle schooler and pressing it into her hands with a firm explanation of how the machines were rigged against her.

Then they'd found the pool tables, in a dim little corner, the green felts shining like tropical islands in a shadowy red-brown sea under the hanging lights. Yuugi was still smarting from the whipping, which Kaiba had delivered with almost careless ease, drink in hand.

"Yuugi. Look," he said, leaning over the table, aiming the pool cue at some bizarre constellation of pool balls, his long shadow falling across the felt.

"Give me a sec," Yuugi said, and swiftly rescued Kaiba's sweating old-fashioned from the edge of the table.

YUUGI ya. now he's showing off

YUUGI trick shots at the pool table

ATEM so he's fine?

"You're not looking," Kaiba said, lifting his head. "Look."

"I'm looking," Yuugi said.

The cue moved smoothly between Kaiba's fingertips as he aligned his shot - sleek, frictionless, silent - with a quick, sharp thrust he sent the pool balls smashing into each other, cracking like lightning across the table and vanishing into the pockets. The last ball rolled towards the last pocket with slow, melodramatic flair, teetering over the lip, like it knew exactly who had struck it, and what kind of show it needed to put on.

It dropped in, clattering into its fellows at the bottom of the pocket.

Kaiba laughed, triumphant, glowing with youthful glory, catching the victory by his hip with a yank of his fist.

YUUGI he will be

"Did you see?" Kaiba said, turning to Yuugi. The lines under his eyes were still there; the seams that held him together, pulling apart. Those would take some time to repair.

But for the moment he was radiating with energy, beaming, star-like in the dim electric gloom of the arcade. Not hidden in the blackness of space, but brighter for it. Despite it.

"I saw," Yuugi said.

#shark-platinum #fanfiction #rivalshipping #it's not romantic but it gets the tag because *ben wyatt voice* its about the dynamic

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aer-in-wanderland · 3 years

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구미호뎐 | Tale of the Nine Tailed - Lost in Translation EP02

Back by, possibly not popular, but certainly very enthusiastic demand: my sister’s and my continued adventures in mistranslation and cultural subtext. You can find EP01 here. Buckle up and settle in for another monster post because, wow, a lot happened in this episode. Contains spoilers.

Prologue

We open with a sweeping view of Baekdudaegan as Yeon narrates about his past as the god who presided over it. For context, Baekdudaegan is the biggest and most famous mountain range in Korea, taking up an enormous swath of the Korean peninsula (to the extent that it’s often referred to as its ‘spine’ or ‘backbone’). So Yeon wasn’t lying when he said he was a ‘major’ mountain god. ;)

Yeon: You could say these were my Leeds Days. I was the master of Baekdudaegan, a mountain god who controlled the wind and rain,* and a gumiho who was, from the start, of a different caliber than the mongrel foxes you see in Hometown of Legends. ...Or, I was.”

[*Note: Can also be taken to mean ‘the natural elements’ in general.]

When Yeon refers to his ‘glory days,’ the term he uses is ‘Leeds Era’ (리즈시절). Originally a sporting term for the height of a footballer’s career, in Korean, the expression has come to be used to describe a person’s bygone glory days. The modern figure of speech (complete with English loan word) makes for a funny counterpoint to the Yeon we see on screen and recalls the mint-chocolate loving American TV show enthusiast we’ve known him as so far.

The other modern reference he makes is to Hometown of Legends (전설의 고향), which has been the title of numerous dramas and movies (1977-2018) centered around Korean myths and legends. This is basically the equivalent of an alien referencing the X-files. Overall, the narration serves to remind us just how modern our gumiho has become and clashes humorously with the visual onscreen.

Yeon’s above narration concludes with the first appearance of little Ah Eum, who immediately proceeds to pet the mighty master of Baekdudaegan as if he were her pet dog pfft (thus the ‘....or I was.’)

As an aside, tvN released some backstory information revealing that Ah Eum had gone to find Yeon in order to pray for rain. Which means she pet him in spite of that lol We also know from the past-life sequence in episode 10 that she had actually been warned never to venture anywhere near his mountain because a 1000 year old gumiho lived there. It’s almost as if her guardians don’t know her at all...

For anyone keeping track, Ah Eum uses banmal with Yeon from the very beginning. We find out why later. As a princess (even one who had been discarded), she’s used to outranking everyone around her and therefore speaking almost exclusively in banmal. To be fair, with her temperament, Yeon being a 1000+ year old mountain god probably just wasn’t enough to get him an automatic pass from her. Point for Ah Eum/Ji Ah character continuity.

Yeon: If I could rewrite* my past just once, I would return to this moment without hesitation. So that that child could never find me.

[*Note: Literally, ‘A/S my past,’ which I’m pretty sure has its roots in computer usage. So again, thoroughly modern vocabulary from the former master of Baekdudaegan.]

We transition from young to grown Ah Eum with a sweep of the Red Umbrella. According to tvN again, this umbrella was actually a gift from Ah Eum to Yeon, and it’s also the same umbrella Yeon still carries everywhere. It’s somewhat poetic, then, that it was this umbrella that lead Ji Ah to him. So, a meaningful item on multiple fronts.

Yeon: Some called it, ‘the scandal of the age that shook Baekdudaegan.’ To think, a mountain god who had given his heart to a human... Nowadays, it would have felt like a disciplinary hearing, but I didn’t care a whit. I liked her [presence] permeating my woods.

As you might have guessed, this love story ends in tragedy. Someone stole her life. Once she crossed the River of Three Crossings, I would never be able to see her again. I couldn’t hold on to her, but nor could I bear to let her go...so I resorted to abusing my power.

The BGM playing as Yeon narrates the ending of his tragic story is ‘The Parting at the River of Three Crossings,’ which I think of as the epic love theme of TotNT alongside ‘Sad Fate.’ Why do I keep mentioning the BGM? No reason, other than that it interests me. ;)

On a linguistic note, Yeon’s line, ‘Someone stole her life’ caught my attention from the first time I watched this due to his unusual usage of the word ‘life.’ Korean has multiple words for ‘life.’ The one that would typically be used in this context is ‘moksoom’ (목숨), which I think of as having the nuance of one’s life force. So to steal one’s ‘moksoom’ would mean to kill them. Instead, he uses ‘insaeng’ (인생), which is more like the life one leads. To steal someone’s ‘insaeng’ sounds more like a case of identity theft. As we find out later, that actually is what Imoogi did, and this hinted at that linguistically.

I’m not sure how well this translated, but the gesture of Yeon kneeling is both epic and heartbreaking. Kneeling is a very weighty gesture in Korea, so for Yeon to use his godly powers to freeze the very River to the Afterlife only to kneel and beg for one last moment with Ah Eum is just... It’s a momentous enough gesture for Taluipa, the ultimate stickler for rules, to make an exception and grant his request.

The fox bead: In Japanese lore, a fox’s bead is often akin to its life force, but that’s clearly not the case for Yeon. In Korean lore, fox beads are sometimes called ‘the treasure of a fox’s lips,’ since the bead is supposedly located within the fox’s mouth (and can thus be stolen/gifted with a kiss). Some tellings claim that someone who swallows a fox’s bead gains understanding of all things and phenomena in the universe, while others say they grant the bearer’s wishes.

Yeon continues his narration, describing how he’s encountered women with Ah Eum’s face over the centuries, but that none of them were her. For anyone interested, you can find my hot take on that here.

Okay, can we please have a spin-off of Yeon hunting down folklore monsters in Japanese-occupied Korea Gaksital (2012)-style?

Fun fact: Based on some of the still cuts they released, there was actually a deleted scene in which Yeon pulled the late-Joseon era Ah Eum look-alike aside, checked her for the fox bead, and then erased her memories. (And by ‘fun’ I mean, ‘why would you delete that??’)

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Iconic.

Fun fact: Lee Dong Wook picked this as the most memorable line of the drama due to it’s thematic echoing across multiple episodes.

On the topic of the tranquilizer, there was a deleted scene in episode 1 in which Ji Ah very openly 'borrowed’ it from Shin Joo’s vet clinic because she already suspected Yeon was a fox: fox fur, Fox Ridge... She was taking a pretty big gamble though since he’s not exactly your average fox.

It’s worth noting that Ji Ah doesn’t say she was ‘looking’ for Yeon (although she was, because she’s a go-get-‘em kind of girl); she says she was ‘waiting’ for him. I took this to mean she was waiting for him to return and make good on his threat to kill her (since, not only had she not forgotten, she’d been actively sticking her nose into anything remotely supernatural or unexplainable), at which point, presumably, she planned to turn the tables on him.

Episode 02 Title Card: I’ve Been Waiting for You

For anyone wondering how Ji Ah managed to get Yeon back up to his penthouse, apparently she told the security desk her boyfriend was drunk and boldly took him back up in the elevator (presumably with help) haha

Possibly coincidentally, Yeon’s first line to Ji Ah when he regains consciousness is the same as his first line to little Ah Eum: ‘Do you want to die?’ (minus the sageuk speak)

Ji Ah’s line, “I wouldn’t be sipping tea here if I was worried about that,” would more literally be: “If I valued my life, would I be sitting here drinking flower tea?”

Lol Ji Ah. “Want a cup?” is such a classy power play.

Sub: “After the stunt you pulled, you’re actually offering me tea?” Ha. Also, what Yeon literally says is: “You pulled that variety-esque stunt, and your next line is what? ‘A cup of tea’?” ‘Variety’ here is an English loan word meant in the sense of ‘variety shows’ (ex. Running Man or 1 Night 2 Days), though to my knowledge, no one has ever been tranquilized on one.

The following exchange was littered with enough small things I would have changed that I’ll just translate the whole thing here for reference:

Ji Ah: When a man and a woman have that level of physical contact, don’t they usually also drink tea or eat meals together, too? These days, the whole pure and noble act doesn’t go far.

Yeon: Whether it does or not, when you’re at a disadvantage, isn’t it considered common courtesy to come [to the table] having put aside either your pride or your self-esteem [i.e. at least one of the two]?

Ji Ah: Listen until the end before you determine who’s at a disadvantage.

Yeon: (Nodding) In exchange, if my thinking still doesn’t change, you’ll pay the price for having tested me.

Ji Ah: Price?

Yeon: Your sight (literally ‘eyes’). I’ll be taking your eyes that have seen what they shouldn’t have.

Ji Ah: Deal. (literally, ‘call’ as in poker)

Rang & Yoo Ri Crash a Funeral

In the off chance you were wondering why this is basically the only time we see Rang driving Yoo Ri and not the other way around, it’s because Yoo Ri is ‘in character’ as the daughter of a major conglomerate and wouldn’t be expected to drive herself if there was another person in the car. In Korea, there’s a whole code of etiquette around who sits where in the car.

Instead of ‘Lee Rang-nim’ the subs have Yoo Ri addressing Rang as ‘sir.’ That just strikes me as so distant and cold...

To my thinking, this scene was peak ‘Hoket-dan.’ It was nearly the same level of over-the-top campy as some of the old supervillains. If I’m being perfectly honest, I was worried at this point that Rang’s character would turn out to be equally 2D. Joke’s on me though, ‘cause this later became a hilarious character quirk when Sajang says to Rang, “It can’t be that you came to enjoy watching me die?” and Rang responds, “I love doing that! Look, I even brought popcorn. I even go about visiting funeral homes and stuff on purpose.” lol

Ji Ah’s Gamble

Okay, but Yeon actually took her up on tea haha I love it.

Subs: “So you’re a fox that’s pretending to be human.” The word they use here (and throughout the drama) is ‘doongap’ (둔갑), which is literally ‘to assume the form of.’ Unfortunately, there’s no verb in English that neatly conveys that, so this gets subbed a lot of ways. I’ve mostly been translating it as ‘transform,’ but that’s more properly ‘byeonshin’ (변신). Sometimes with translation, the best option still isn’t great.

It’s also worth noting that this is actually not what Yeon is doing here, since he sees those sorts of tricks as beneath him. Yeon is a cheon’ho; his human form is his own.

Sub: “What a lame reaction. A normal human being would scream...” More literally: “What kind of reaction is so lacking in sincerity? Generally, if [you’re] a human, I should at least get a scream...” Again, both ‘reaction’ and ‘scream’ are in English, and, somewhat humorously, Yeon uses the verb + juda (주다) form, implying he was hoping to elicit a scream with his reveal pfft

Sub: “No. I knew something like you would exist somewhere out in this world. I started directing a TV show about urban legends so I could catch you myself.” This is mostly fine, but what she says more literally is: “No. I knew something like you would exist somewhere in this world. In order to catch [one] myself, I buried my bones in a TV show about urban legends.” To ‘bury ones bones’ means ‘to devote oneself entirely to’ and implies more drive and dedication than in the sub. The subject is once again omitted, so she could mean Yeon, but I think she actually means ‘things like Yeon’ more generally.

Yeon’s line to Ji Ah when she asks him about their long ago encounter was subbed as: “I followed the smell of blood, and I ended up saving a little kid. But I can see that she’s very ungrateful.” I would translate this as:

Yeon: I smelled blood and followed it, and ended up saving some little girl (lit. young child), but now I see that that child is trying to repay a favor with enmity.

The expression Yeon uses here, to ‘repay a favor (eunhye) with enmity (wonsoo),’ is a common turn of phrase. It’s the Korean equivalent of ‘biting the hand that feeds you,’ or ‘repaying good with ill.’ Considering eunhye has actual consequences for Yeon, he doesn’t seem all that put out.

Lol Something about Lee Dong Wook’s delivery of Yeon’s line, “So you lost your parents...” reminds me of the Oscar Wilde quote: ‘To lose one parent may be regarded as misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’

Sub: “I’m not threatening you. I’m taking my chances.” This should be: “You’re mistaken. I’m not threatening; I’m gambling.” This turn of phrase is rather clever in Korean since ‘threat’ (협박) and ‘gamble’ (도박) are only one syllable off. In terms of the subs, while ‘gambling’ and ‘taking my chances’ are similar on the surface, they’re different enough in nuance that I would consider this a mistranslation. ‘Gambling’ implies an informed, calculated risk, whereas ‘taking my chances’ gives the impression of improvisation and leaving everything up to luck.

The Funeral Parlour

This scene is Rang in a nutshell. I actually don’t have much to comment on linguistically, but it was definitely an important scene for establishing Rang’s MO and motivations.

Shin Joo & Yeon

Yeon and Shin Joo meet up at the ice cream parlour to debrief on the situation with Ji Ah, and it’s cute how Shin Joo is more indignant over what went down than Yeon.

Subs: “It’s like we exist to repay people for their kindness.” This has been grossly paraphrased due to lack of cultural context. His line is literally:

Shin Joo: It’s not as if we’re magpies meticulously repaying our eunhye! Geez, how long do we have to be bound by that sort of premodern contractual relationship?”

This is another Korean folktale reference, this time to the story of The Grateful Magpies. I elaborated on it a bit here.

Yeon: “It’s old-fashioned but romantic. And it's also a fox’s dignity.” ‘Romantic’ here is the French loan word ‘romang’ (로망). In contrast to the English ‘romantic’ (which is also used), ‘romang’ is used to refer to ‘anything marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized.’ ‘Dignity’ could also be translated as ‘grace of character.’ Yeon’s preoccupation with style/swagger/dignity is enough of a recurring theme (and occasional joke) that it features in his character profile.

For anyone keeping track, Shin Joo refers to Ah Eum as ‘Ah Eum agasshi.’ ‘Agasshi’ meaning ‘miss’ or ‘lady.’

Shin Joo’s line is subbed, “Does she bother you?” but it should be: ‘Does it bother you?’ where ‘it’ refers to the fact that Ji Ah so closely resembles Ah Eum.

Sub: “I’ve seen tons of people who looked like her for hundreds of years.” It’s actually not ‘tons of people,’ but ‘a couple’/‘several’ over the course of hundreds of years. Let’s be honest, people as pretty as Jo Bo Ah just aren’t born every day. ;)

Yeon’s line may be overly blunt, but it’s sweet that he calls Shin Joo, ‘Shin Joo-ya.’

Back over to Ji Ah. The way this scene suddenly switches from sentimental to horrifying is great. I also like that it’s unclear when she fell asleep. The boundary between reality and unreality is as blurred for the viewers as it is for Ji Ah, and it leaves us with a similar sense of disquiet.

In case it wasn’t already clear, it’s the tooth on this skull that leads Ji Ah to Eohwa Island. She sees a skull with an identical tooth in the news and goes to investigate.

Afterlife Immigration Office

LOL Hyeonuiong briefing the newly departed on death via powerpoint is hilarious. The powerpoint reads: ‘A Guide to Hell for the Dead, Presenter: Hyeonuiong.’ The red sigil on the right bears the characters ‘十王’ (the Ten Kings), so I guess this is an official, Afterlife-approved slideshow. heh

Side note: I’m impressed with the way this show seamlessly shifts between genres. We went from emotional to creepy to funny without it feeling forced or jarring (or at least, it didn’t to me).

The powerpoint (complete with webtoon) continues cheerily: “Hell! What is the Afterlife?” / “The 10 Types of Hell.” pfft Who made these slides? Whoever they are, point to them.

Subs: “You know King Hades, right?” WOW This is bordering on cultural whitewashing if you ask me. This should be King Yeomra (aka King Enma). He’s one of the Ten Kings of the Afterlife, and quite arguably the most famous.

The sub here says Taluipa is Yeomra’s older sister, which is understandable since the antiquated word Hyeonuiong uses (누이), doesn’t specify older or younger. We find out in the final episode, though, that Taluipa is actually Yeomra’s younger sister. As far as I’m aware, this is not part of the original lore.

Lol Yeon being a drama king: “I’m going to take revenge! Thanks to her, my obligatory military service has already gone on for 600 years~!” (You’re not fooling anyone, sir)

“No way! A man’s hair is his life! My red-brown...” Fun fact: It was actually Lee Dong Wook’s idea to make Yeon’s hair red-brown, both as a nod to him being a fox, and to give him a more otherworldly look.

Why do the gods keep saying reincarnation is random when everyone we see reincarnated kept their face??

‘Oh my god” lol Watching kdrama characters react in English never gets old. Possibly because there’s something exaggerated or overdramatic in the conscious decision to use English instead of Korean.

A++ response from Yeon. I saw something going around to the effect of, ‘this show really just said love is love,’ and I love that. Point to the writer.

The BGM here is once again ‘Thread Rings.’ Given where it keeps being used, I’m fairly certain they’re somehow related to Ji Ah/Ah Eum... (So I guess there actually is a reason I’m paying attention to the BGM ;p). Lee Dong Wook just disclosed the behind the scenes scoop on the rings in his latest VLIVE.

This bulgasari is such a mild-mannered person. Like Shin Joo, he calls Ji Ah ‘PD-nim’ and speaks politely and deferentially.

Not for anything, but I really liked Jo Bo Ah’s delivery of Ji Ah’s line, ‘I saw a corpse.’ Her little mannerisms really sold Ji Ah to me as a person and not just a character.

Bulgasari: “That dream, can you sell it to me? I want to play the lottery.” In addition to the concept of symbolism in dreams, Koreans also have a common notion that dreams can be bought and sold. It’s funny, though, when you consider he’s probably just planning to eat the dream.

I love whenever Taluipa calls Yeon, ‘Yeon-ah.’ She’s normally so prickly that it’s notable when she's affectionate. Also, seeing as Yeon is older than 95% of our characters, there aren’t many who might address him like this with the affectionate diminutive.

Heh, Yeon refers to Ji Ah’s favor as a ‘civil complaint.’

When Yeon asks Ji Ah for her parent’s times and dates of birth, what he’s actually asking for is their ‘saju’ (literally, ‘four pillars’). You can find my explanation here.

The Snail Bride

Bok Hye Ja: “It’s the first time he’s brought someone (literally ‘a person’).” Normally this would mean, ‘it’s the first time he’s brought a guest,’ but in this case, I’m fairly certain she means, ‘it’s the first time he’s brought a human.’ ;)

“I won’t ask you to understand.” This was another exchange that made me love Ji Ah. I found her frank and sincere apology refreshing.

On a personal note, I loved watching Yeon recalibrate his estimation of Ji Ah in this scene. And it was also a scene in which viewers got to recalibrate their impressions of Yeon. Yeon is feigning indifference, but he makes a point of asking after Ji Ah’s feelings, which is not insignificant. It’s also in sharp contrast to what we’ve seen of Rang so far.

Oh my gosh, THAT PUFFBALL DOG (and it’s name is Bean-ie) XD

Minor detail, but where did Shin Joo get his necklace? Wait. OH MY GOD. Shin Joo is the Aquaman of TotNT. Yeon gets to be Batman and Superman rolled into one and Shin Joo’s power is that he ‘talks to fish animals.’ Dead.

Lol Ji Ah watching Yeon eat. I feel like this is a running joke. In the tales, gumiho notoriously eat people’s livers, so seeing him eat normal food must be a bit eye-opening.

The text description for Shin Don was left untranslated in the version we’re watching but it reads: In A History of Goryeo, there’s record of Shin Don, a monk from the time of King Gongmin’s reign (1351-1374 C.E.), having been an old fox.

Subs: “Is it true that the monk of Goryeo Dynasty was a fox?” Us: ‘Yes, the one monk in all of Goryeo and for all of Goryeo. Guess he’d have to have been a fox in that case.’ This should probably have been translated as: "So then, Shin Don...is it a fact that the Goryeo monk Shin Don was a fox?”

Ji Ah: “Oh my god.” heh

Do You Really Want to See It?

Wait, they walked all the way from Insadong to Digital Media City? Okay, this is one of the (few) pitfalls of being fairly familiar with Seoul. Sometimes it’s really obvious when two locations don’t connect and then it pulls me out of the drama. I think we’re supposed to believe that the Snail Bride is in the vicinity of Ji Ah’s broadcast station, seeing as her team are lunchtime regulars, but the the two neighborhoods are nowhere near each other.

Yeon’s line in the subs here is: “A. I’m a busy man. B. We may currently be living in the same world, but there is a big difference between where we come from.” Personally, I would have translated this as: “Firstly, I haven’t got that much free time. Secondly, we may be unavoidably living mingled together, but the world I belong to and the world you belong to are incontrovertibly different.”

Subs: “Those who got a peek at my world ended up going crazy or dying young.” More literally: “In the past, there have been those who got a glimpse of the world’s secrets. Well, most of them either went mad or had their lives cut short.”

Minor detail, but Ji Ah’s response subbed as: “I don’t care. I’ll stay out of your way. Just don’t disappear.” should more literally be: “Just don’t disappear from my sight (lit. ‘from before me’).”

The sub on Ji Ah’s line here reads: “She (Sae Rom) and I both had nightmares.” What she actually says is: “Me and my hubae also had nightmares,” meaning that she (Ji Ah) and Jae Hwan had nightmares in addition to Sae Rom. Which is why Yeon refers to them as ‘contagious’.

Okay, is it just me, or does LDW look exceptionally unreal in this scene?

Bulgasari

I’m not familiar with the actor who plays the bulgasari (pretty sure he’s a new face), but he did a great job making his movements uncanny here. The firey CG effects are fun too.

Heck yeah! Yeon sure knows how to make an entrance. Seeing as how he instructed Ji Ah on what to do, I’m pretty sure he was there the whole time......show-off.

Once again, I’m digging the fight scene underscored by ‘The Uninvited.’ I would happily watch an entire series that’s just Yeon and Ji Ah solving supernatural cases and hunting down baddies who disturb the peace.

The Smirk™ XD I’m 90% sure this was another LDW ad lib.

Lol Yeon. Subs: “Really? Then am I the jerk here?” More literally: “Really? Then I guess I’m the only bad guy, huh?”

On a linguistic note, the bulgasari speaks to Yeon in old-timey speech, once again playing up their mutual identity as creatures of lore.

It’s only at this point that, prompted by Ji Ah, Yeon finally reveals the bulgasari’s identity. This is accompanied by a brief chyron telling us that they appear when the world is in disorder, and Ji Ah supplies that they eat nightmares.

To elaborate a bit, bulgasari are one of the better known Korean creatures of lore. There are two different sets of hanja for them: (bulgasari 不可殺伊 ‘can-not-kill’) and (bulgasari 火可殺伊 ‘fire-can-kill’), which explains why, depending on the telling, they’re either un-killable or only die by fire. In traditional lore, feeding them metal makes them grow larger and stronger, which, while not the case in TotNT, is probably what inspired the coin-gobbling.

Subs: “Yes they are especially fond of broadcasting studios, which are packed with people. Eating metal reveals their true identities.” That subtitle went a bit sideways. It’s not that they like broadcast stations in particular, but crowded places like broadcast stations. So it should read: “They like places with lots of people, like the broadcast station, and if you feed them metal, they reveal their true colors.”

Okay, Yeon’s line that’s subtitled as, “The hostage will answer,” is more literally: “Hey, hostage. Try answering me.” It’s worth noting that, while he calls her ‘injil-bun’ (injil = hostage + bun = the polite word for a person), he’s still speaking to her in banmal, so he’s once again being cheeky.

It’s taking some license, but I would translate Yeon’s question to Ji Ah here as: “In this moment,* what exactly can you do other than rely on me to save you?” which is essentially what he means. [*Note: literally, ‘at this timing,’ and once again, ‘timing’ is in English.]

We get a series of short scenes lining up some of the side characters who will become our key players on the island: the fisherman find the severed head, Ji Ah grills Detective Baek about the case, and Rang approaches Pyung Hee with his usual devil’s bargain pitch. I didn’t really notice anything here that I think is important enough to the central plot or characters that it’s worth commenting on (especially given how massively long this post is already), so I’m just going to call it good and move right along. ;)

Pfft I definitely wasn’t expecting the bulgasari to be literally chilling in Yeon’s freezer (not that he had a choice). This is somewhat interesting given they’re typically thought to be weak to fire, not ice.

Subs: “I’ll die even if I tell you where he is.” More literally: “Whether I die in this way [by Yeon’s hand], or that [by Rang’s], it is all the same.”

Brother Complex

Sub: “Don’t even think of hurting her.” More literally: “Just try touching one hair on her head.”

Oh my gosh Rang’s face ㅠㅠ This was the first time I felt Kim Beom really got to display his acting chops in this role, and boy, was I glad to see it. This was also when I knew Rang was going to make me cry.

Yeon: “You’re acting like this because you lack affection.” The expression Yeon uses is ‘aejeong gyeolpip,’ which literally does mean ‘affection lack/want/absence,’ but I would have translated it as ‘affection-starved,’ since saying Rang ‘lacks affection’ could also be interpreted to mean Rang is incapable of expressing affection.

Yeon: “Why’s that?” Lol Lee Dong Wook. Also, this one line is cheekily in polite speech.

Subs: “Just because of a woman you gave up your position as a mountain spirit, left the mountain, and you even...” More literally: “Just because of one mere human woman you gave up your position as a mountain god, turned your back on the mountain, and..!!”

Yeon: “Yes, I know. I even abandoned you.” Rang-ah~ ㅠㅠ I recently received an ask as to whether or not I believed Yeon had truly abandoned Rang, which I answered here.

Oof, Yeon giving Rang advice as an older brother. In Korea, nagging is seen as a sign of affection. You may recall Ji Ah was very excited for her dad to nag her about her boyfriend in episode 12.

Sub: “You crazy fool.” Rang literally calls his brother a ‘michin nom,’ ‘michin’ meaning ‘crazy.’ ‘Nom’ is a pronoun that, depending on how it’s used, can mean anything from ‘guy,’ to ‘jerk,’ to ‘bastard.’

Sub: “I don’t need to know.” Actually: “There’s no need [for you to tell me].” The two are subtly different. Yeon’s saying he’ll find out on his own, not that he doesn��t want to know.

Fun fact: Kim Beom said in his script reading interview (before they started filming) that he was a bit worried about his onscreen dynamic with Lee Dong Wook because, while Rang has to hate Yeon, LDW is a hyung that KB likes so much in real life. What a cutie.

We cut briefly over to Ji Ah on the phone with Jae Hwan, asking him to look after Sae Rom while she chases down the skull lead.

As an aside here, Ji Ah calls Sae Rom, ‘Kim-jak’ (short for ‘jakga,’ meaning ‘writer’). In Korea, it’s common to refer to someone by their role or title. This might indicate distance, but Ji Ah’s shortening it makes the term familiar and speaks of their camaraderie. In the subtitles, this has become, ‘Ms. Kim,’ which is oddly distant given their frenemyship.

The Island

Is it just me, or does it feel like there should have been a scene here explaining how and why Yeon came to be on the boat? I’m assuming it got deleted due to time constraints, but I feel like it was needed.

Pfft The way Ji Ah pops up from behind Yeon, cutting comically into the dramatic shot of Lee Dong Wook’s windswept profile + BGM was great.

In case it wasn’t already apparent, Kimite patches are used to alleviate sea sickness, so this is further undermining the mood of a second ago haha

Yeon’s line is subbed: “I’d like to keep it to myself,” but this should more literally be: ‘Let’s each work individually/play it solo.’

Sub: “No, thank you.” What Yeon actually says: “Hard pass.” hahaha (Literally: ‘I’ll immediately/urgently decline,’ but tonally, ‘hard pass’ is closer).

The subs have Yeon’s line as: “You need to be careful what you pay attention to.” I would have translated this as: “If that’s the reason [you’ve come], go back. You mustn’t recklessly lend an ear [to such things].” His tone and phrasing are both surprisingly gentle.

Subs: “My guts keep telling me, that this is a very suspicious combination.” Well, my guts keep telling me, that this is a very suspicious sub haha I would have translated Yeon’s voiceover as:

Yeon: The same boat...the same island...a woman with the same face as that girl. My instincts speak to me relentlessly, telling me there’s something amiss about this combination.

Pfft The contrast between Ji Ah's dismount from the boat and Yeon’s.

Lol Yeon’s ‘excuse me’ was totally rude

For the record, from the moment Yeon sets foot on the island, he speaks to everyone in banmal. That’s bad form towards any stranger, but it’s especially rude considering their age. Sure, Yeon’s way older, but they don’t know that.

Ji Ah mouthing “What?” in English haha

Yeon clocking the effectively creepy villagers. Turns out the right BGM and camerawork can make anything creepy. Point to the director.

Settling in on the Island

Ji Ah’s line subbed as, “I thought you didn’t want to be involved,” should more properly be: “I thought you just said we should each play it solo?”

Yeon’s line is similarly mis-subbed as: “I changed my mind. Don’t let it bother you.” What he actually says is much ruder: “I’ll do what I want! Butt out.” Which explains Ji Ah’s affront heh

Lol Yeon walking right in front of the camera. Anyone who has ever had a pet recognized this moment.

I love how Yeon is being completely tactless and insensitive but then grudgingly course-corrects when Ji Ah glares daggers at him.

Fisherman (subs): “It gives me a bad feeling in my mouth.” Excuse me, what? haha The line is: “The more I think about it, the more it bothers me.”

Lol Ji Ah: “In the documentaries I watched, they say digging holes is your speciality” (complete with digging gesture).

Fun fact: Ji Ah blocking the way with her leg and Yeon burrowing under it was something Jo Bo Ah and Lee Dong Wook came up with themselves. Ji Ah’s line was scripted, but I’m nearly positive Yeon’s comeback of, “Burrowing is my speciality,” was an ad lib by Lee Dong Wook. Once again, casting Lee Dong Wook is the gift that keeps on giving.

WAIT. Subs: “You can’t go.” / “Borrowing is my specialty.” Hahaha What even? Cheon’ho Lee Yeon: professional mooch.

The way we then cut to Yeon ‘burrowing’ into a freezer of ice cream is just perfect. Point to the director.

Once again, Yeon is talking to all the village elders in banmal.

“You have a terrible service mentality.” pfft

OH. Ji Ah’s response to the misogynistic fisherman is just A++

Her line here is literally: “Oops, I’m afraid I’m overflowing with ‘jeong.’” ‘Jeong’ (情) can be a little hard to translate. It literally means ‘emotion’ or ‘affection,’ but the way it’s used linguistically can be a bit complex. The sub here was: “I’m afraid I was too generous,” which I actually think is pretty decent. The turn of phrase in Korean though, using the word ‘overflowing’ while over-pouring on the man, made her response doubly witty.

Hah. I love the way Yeon just raises his eyebrows when he comes out of the market and spots her.

Subs: “How dare a witch from outside come here and...” He actually calls her a ‘michin nyeon’ meaning ‘crazy bitch,’ so the line is: “Crazy bitch, where do you think this is that you dare...”

Ji Ah’s line that begins, “If you’re going to hit me...” is just SO great. We stan (1) queen.

Subs: “Nice. You’re tough.” This is a bit hard to translate. Yeon’s line is literally: “Oh~ What ggang is like this?” ‘Ggang’ can be translated as ‘guts,’ ‘tenacity,’ or ‘persistence.’ Naver dictionary describes it as: ‘a personal trait found in one who never gives in, when put in whatever difficulties,’ which is so spot on for Ji Ah. I might approximate this as: “Woah~ Just how gutsy are you?”

The way he's just like, ‘I approve. Here, have a shikhye~’ is mildly adorable. Did you buy that for her, Yeon, or were you planning on having two but decided she’d earned one? haha

Ji Ah’s response is equally great. The sub says: “That was nothing.” which isn’t a bad option for a subtitle, but what she literally says is ‘saesam-seureopge’ (새삼스럽게), where ‘saesam’ means ‘now? at this point? after all this time?’ So she’s basically saying, ‘You’re bothering with that observation, over that little stunt, after everything else you’ve seen me do?’ haha

“I plan to mooch off of you as much as possible.” Pfft I love how Yeon actually moves to stand behind her just to underscore the point. That’ll be Lee Dong Wook again.

Wow, these are some sketchy old people.

Subs: “People aren’t the only ones with eyes and mouths.” What he actually says is, “Are people the only ones with eyes and ears?”

The Forest Spirit

Wow, the lighting in this scene is just A++ Point to the lighting team (or is that just natural? It feels almost too pretty to have just been natural).

I was too distracted by Lee Dong Wook to notice the first time, but Ji Ah’s face when Yeon shushes her is great haha

On a linguistic note, this scene is one of the few in which Yeon code switches to archaic speech as he’s addressing the tree spirit. It’s the linguistic equivalent of him putting on his ‘mountain god’ hat. (He still speaks to Ji Ah normally, though).

We cut briefly to the mudang (shamaness), and I’m sorry, I know this is a traditional way of speaking, but it always makes me laugh because it’s so over-the-top.

The spirit addresses Ji Ah as ‘agasshi,’ which would be strange if she was actually a modern young girl, but makes sense for a spirit who’s at least 600. Overall, it helps to remind viewers of her supernatural-ness.

Yeon telling Ji Ah she did a good job is so cute. I feel like they’re rapidly becoming a quirky tag-team duo and I’m 100% here for it.

Mudang: “His body returned to shore before his head did! Your father!” This line was explained in the backstory collection.

Okay, the mudang needs to dial it back like 10 levels here.

Possibly just me, but Yeon swatting the air with his hand as he peers into the cave struck me as vaguely fox-like.

Minor detail again, but the chyron here is subbed as ‘Jangsansa Cave.’ It’s actually ‘Jangsan sagool,’ not ‘Jangsansa gool.’ ‘Sagool’ is written with the characters 蛇窟 meaning ‘snake hole.’

Lol Yeon freezing mid-motion when Ji Ah tells him to stay put. That is 110% Lee Dong Wook’s sense of humour. Praise the drama gods for Lee Dong Wook - this show wouldn’t have been half as fun without him.

Fun fact: This cave is actually intimately tied to Ah Eum’s past with Imoogi and the story of how she came to be his ‘bride’ (read: sacrifice). I translated the tvN description here. I actually think this was fairly important information, so it’s a shame it wasn’t covered in the drama.

Sleepover with a Gumiho

When Ji Ah asks Yeon why he’s insisting on staying at Pyung Hee’s, his response is subbed as: “I have my reasons.” This is more properly: “You don’t need to know.”

Sub: “We don’t eat that crap!” Yeon’s line doesn’t have a subject, but this should properly be: “I don’t eat that crap!” We know from Yeou Nui that some gumiho in this world actually do eat liver.

“Heard of the Chinese liver fluke?” Ha. Yeon literally says ‘kan distoma,’ i.e. ‘liver distomiasis’ or ‘liver fluke’. While there was a well-known outbreak in China, it isn’t inherently Chinese. There’s a Korean word for it too (간흡충), but once again, Yeon opts for the loan word, adding further humour to the gumiho disavowing liver consumption - for health reasons, no less pffft

The BGM playing as Yeon sees Ah Eum in Ji Ah is once again ‘Parting at the River of Three Crossings.’

Bok Hye Ja’s line to Shin Joo is subbed as: “He went to the island to find this reincarnated girl?” The word she uses is actually ‘gakshi,’ which is an antiquated word generally meaning ‘bride’ (as in ‘the Snail Bride’), but it can also just mean ‘young woman.’

For the record, the Snail Bride speaks to Shin Joo in banmal, who speaks to her in jondaetmal

Shin Joo: “Contrary to how he looks, he’s the devoted type, after all.” Et tu, Shin Joo?

Shin Joo’s line is subbed: “As if that’s a good thing,” but I would have translated it as: “Romantic, my foot!”

Sub: “At least once in our lives we come across that one person we want to give our lives to.” This should be: ‘risk our lives for.’

Sub: “I won’t ever devote myself to love. My goal will be to protect Mr. Lee.” Actually: “I won’t ever risk my life for love. I’m going to protect Lee Yeon-nim!”

“Well that can also be called love, can’t it?” Thank you for this, Show. I know some people think TotNT champions romantic love above all else, but I simply don’t agree.

When Yeon checks Ji Ah again for his fox bead, the BGM playing is once again ‘Thread Rings’

I love how they did the CG on whatever is happening with Yeon’s powers here. I would have loved to have gotten more of an explanation of the fox bead and its powers (and Yeon’s, for that matter), but alas.

I love that Yeon tucks Ji Ah in even after re-confirming (or so he thinks) that she isn’t Ah Eum. It was important to me that he came to like and appreciate her for herself before learning that she was, in fact, his lost love.

Morning on the Island

Ji Ah wakes to find Yeon gone, the blanket tucked around her, and her expression tells us she’s onto him: sure, Yeon can be a grump, but he’s also a complete softie. heh

Yeon is, once again, talking to the elders in banmal. Why do I keep mentioning it? Because no matter how many times I see it it’s still funny.

Okay, Lee Dong Wook has this way of pointing at things with his entire arm that I find ticklish. Yeon ends up coming across like a petulant child. On a cultural note, in Korea, pointing at people like this is considered impolite.

Yeon dangling the ginseng behind Ji Ah as extra incentive pfft Wild ginseng can be massively expensive in Korea (on the order of hundreds of dollars), so this is actually a very effective bribe.

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate that Yeon woke up before dawn, and, instead of going back to sleep, went into the mountains to hunt for wild ginseng, then set about using it to bribe the elders into answering Ji Ah’s questions for her. Entirely of his own accord. Like I said: softie.

Side note: Lee Dong Wook’s eyebrows are working overtime in this scene and I’m honestly a little jealous.

The newspaper Jae Hwan finds at the library is dated August 13, 1954, which Ji Ah immediately recognizes as having been just after the Korean War (if you’ll recall, this is when the forest spirit told them something ominous had come to the island).

This newspaper is actually really cool. You can see how, in the past, Korean newspapers used a lot of hanja in addition to the phonetic hangeul, similar to modern Japanese. The headline reads, “Headless Corpse, Discovered on Eohwa Island, Investigation Hits Dead End.” (頭 없는 屍身, 漁花島에서 發見, 捜査迷宮으로).

Okay, to be honest, this final scene - absent the extra context given in the next episode - made me question Ji Ah’s smarts again. I wondered why she was chasing down the clearly unstable guy just to question him, but it makes sense once you know she meant to warn him his life was in danger.

As usual, Yeon knows how to make an entrance. Cue ‘Gumiho’ theme.

Yeon stopping when Ji Ah tells him to never stops being satisfying.

The BGM playing as we cut over to Rang is ‘The House of Ghosts.’

Okay, those shots of Thirsty and Hungry were full-on horror movie and I actually kind of like it? I never watch horror as a genre, but for some reason, I found I missed this spooky element when it dropped out of the later episodes.

Oh, I like that Yeon went and made her a poultice. Very ex-mountain god of you, sir.

“Long time no see, Lee Yeon.” Iconic. And creepy. I love the attention to detail Jo Bo Ah displays in the difference between how she acts Ji Ah vs. Imoogi. Imoogi’s voice is higher pitched, and gives off more of a loose-cannon feel compared to Ji Ah, who speaks in a lower, more grounded tone.

Sub: “It’s me. The person you’ve been waiting for.” Imoogi literally says: “It’s me. That thing you’ve been waiting for.” This is obviously a big clue since normally one wouldn’t refer to oneself in such a way. It also reflects the fact that, unlike Terry-Imoogi, Jimoogi perceives no value in Ji Ah herself. (Yes, I call Ji Ah-Imoogi ‘Jimoogi,’ and sadly, no, I didn’t come up with it).

Yikes, Jimoogi tracing Yeon’s face was all menace and zero cute. Point to Jo Bo Ah.

Boy, this show really knows how to make an exit.

Blue Mooooooooon!! The guitar (bass?) riff is just so catchy.

And that concludes Episode 2. Thank you to everyone who commented on the first one. If not for your encouragement, I probably wouldn’t have continued. I also genuinely enjoy hearing from people, so send me your thoughts! This is a weird, unprecedented mashup of a live reaction post, behind the scenes info, and detailed language and culture notes, and I’m still learning how to balance the three. Your feedback is always welcome.

I’d also like to take a moment to credit my sister, who, in addition to weighing in on a lot of the translations, is also the chief researcher and fact checker for these. I, meanwhile, am in charge of bad jokes and snark. I mentioned before that these take longer than you might expect, but it’s really true. The time we spend watching the episode is actually the least of it, and as much as I enjoy them, they are a huge time suck.

So. This is what I’m going to do. If you’d like to see more of these, or if you enjoyed this, or if you’ve enjoyed any of the translations or commentary or whatnot I’ve been posting recently, please consider buying me a coffee. If you follow the link, you can buy me a $2 cup of virtual coffee. I’ve never done this before, but I’ve decided to give it a try. It’ll help me to gauge how much interest there is, and, possibly more importantly, it will help me to justify all the time haha. If and when I’ve established there’s enough interest, I’ll proceed with Episode 3. ;)

#tale of the nine tailed #totnt #lost in translation #구미호뎐 #kdrama #korean language #korean culture

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