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lovestruckay · 3 years

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Request: "Hi there! Loveeee your writing for Fire Force and was wondering if you could do headcanons (SFW and NSFW if that's ok!) for Akitaru and a fem s/o for celebrating birthdays or holidays?"

Pairing: Akitaru Obi x Fem!Reader

A/N: Happy birthday, Obi! I’m a little late but I made up for it by making this 2.5k words, haha. NSFW content is below the cut, it’s mixed in throughout instead of separate! I used these HC as a way to talk about some of the days I celebrate personally from the Wheel of the Year - eight holidays that celebrate the spring equinox, the summer solstice, the autumnal equinox, the winter solstice, and the four cross-quarter days between them.

Akitaru loves the holidays. He’s the kind of person who plans celebrations a month in advance, sometimes even longer depending on what the special occasion is. He’ll put out decorations, bake pastries, cook whole meals, and even throw parties where he’ll give mushy speeches.

You think he leans into celebrating even more for the sake of the rest of Company 8. Nearly all of his companions had come from troubled backgrounds or had lost their loved ones and he was always clear that the Eighth was their family too. Akitaru is the father figure of their ragtag company and he takes that role seriously. Not just in protecting them and guiding them but in doing the little things that family did - like celebrating holidays.

So, when these special occasions roll around, you better get ready because this man is not just celebrating for the fun of it but because it’s a way to bond with you and the rest of Company 8.

The Holy Sol Temple has generic, catch-all versions of all the seasonal holidays. With the Temple worshiping a Sun God, their holidays are centered around solar events like the solstices, the equinoxes, and the cross-quarter days between. December celebrations are all bundled up into the Winter Solstice, Ostara and Easter became the Spring Equinox, Samhain and Halloween became the Autumnal Cross-Quarter Day, and so on.

Even though these combined holidays are the most frequently celebrated, the pre-Cataclysm holidays still exist and are still celebrated. It is on a much smaller scale though so this makes celebrating these holidays a much more meaningful affair. If you celebrate a particular day, whether it’s because of tradition or your heritage or something else entirely, Akitaru is excited to learn and be a part of something so important to you.

Valentine’s Day is one of his favorite holidays because it’s a celebration he gets to spend with the woman he had fallen madly in love with - you. He likes that there’s a holiday dedicated to your love for each other and he tends to go overboard with making sure you know how much he cherishes you.

Akitaru is really cheesy about showing you how much he loves you. He always starts the day by waking up before you and sneaking into the kitchen so he can make you breakfast in bed. He’ll cook your pancakes in the shape of wobbly hearts and there will be a protein shake there with your orange juice. He has covered your entire bathroom with sticky notes, each note containing sweet messages he had written throughout the year about how much he loves you. You have a hand bound book on your shelf filled with pressed flowers and love notes that he had made for you one year.

He once hired a skywriter plane to write your initials in a heart in the sky. He loves you so much that it turns him into the corniest, sappiest man on the face of the planet.

He takes the Firefighter Calendar very seriously and he’s absolutely playful and confident enough to wear something sexy for you as a surprise. If you surprise him by wearing some revealing lingerie, he will spend the rest of the night absolutely worshiping you and showing you how beautiful you were.

Akitaru is such a big man but he can be so delicate that the tenderness he touches you with makes your breath catch. But sometimes he forgets his own strength, especially when you’re wrapped up like a present, and he tears the wrapping paper. You know better now than to expect whatever pretty lingerie you buy to survive the night.

He makes sure that you can’t get out of bed when he’s done with you and that works out great for him because, guess what - dinner in bed is on the way.

The Spring Equinox mornings are always spent outside basking in the nice weather and the warm sun as you plant new flowers in the cathedral garden. You spend the afternoon spring cleaning your home, sweeping behind all the furniture and packing up winter clothes. The afternoons are spent painting eggs and hiding little gifts of candy and sweets around the cathedral for the rest of the company to find.

Every year, the Autumnal Cross-Quarter Day (or Halloween as most call it outside the church) is a day-long affair. Mornings are spent carving Jack-o’-lanterns and baking cookies decorated with icing in the shapes of skulls, bats, and spiderwebs. During the afternoon, you’re putting out last minute decorations and filling bowls with king-sized candy bars for the trick-or-treating children that stop by the Fire Force cathedral.

Somehow, Akitaru is always able to convince everyone at the Eighth to dress up in costumes. He especially loves doing coordinated outfits with you, like Frakenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein or a werewolf and a vampire. One year, he was able to convince the entire company to dress up as zombies and you all spent the day making zombie noises at each other and giggling.

If you like getting a little scared for Halloween, he'll take you to a haunted house or a haunted trail where he will inevitably be clinging to you by the end of the experience. If you get chased by the workers wielding fake chainsaws at a trail, he will get so scared that he will literally scoop you up into his arms and run away.

If you’re more interested in staying home and spending time together, you’ll nestle up on the couch together with a bowl of candy and some of the pastries you had baked earlier and binge watch horror movies. He has absolutely no talent whatsoever for video games - you swear the man can’t even figure out how to hold the controller half the time - but he will happily cuddle you and cheer you on if you wanted to play some scary video games instead.

Once you two are alone, Akitaru can’t seem to get his hands off of you. He thinks you are so beautiful every single day but there is something so alluring to him about you dressed up. If you’re wearing one of those revealing costumes, his eyes are glued to you the entire day and, once he can finally get you away from everyone, he’s tearing it off to get to the sweets underneath.

He is very sensitive to the fact that winter holidays can be very personal to a person depending on their background. Most people in Tokyo celebrate the Winter Solstice but there are people who still celebrate the pre-Cataclysm holidays. Whichever holiday you want to observe, Akitaru wants to support you and celebrate with you.

You want to build an altar for Yuletide? He’s bringing home pretty rocks and little trinkets he found that he thought you might like to give as offerings.

You want to light a menorah for Hanukkah? He’s cleaned off a special spot in the kitchen window for the candelabrum.

You want to decorate a tree for Christmas? He’s driving around looking for a pine tree he can cut down for you.

You want to decorate the house for Kwanzaa? He’s singing with you as you both hang brightly colored kente and he’s memorized all seven core principles to talk to you about during the week.

You want to host a dinner for Las Posadas? He’s in the kitchen helping you make tamales and he even stuffed and hung two piñatas - one for the new recruits and the other for you both and the rest of the company.

When it comes to gifts, Akitaru is really good at picking out presents for you. He always listens when you talk and he makes sure to remember when you talk about things that you like. He’s the kind of guy who will buy small presents throughout the year and stow them away in the back of his closet until the winter holidays roll around.

He’s extremely easy to buy gifts for, he loves the traditional “dad” gifts. Get this man some brand new winter socks, a new jacket to replace the coat he got too muscular for, and some new underwear and he is happy. If you give him something a little more exciting in addition to his gifts, like taking off your robe to reveal you’re wrapped up in a bow, he will gladly unwrap you and give you a present of his own.

For New Years, he likes to host a little get together with Company 8 to celebrate. You all make a big dinner and maybe even get a little tipsy before going up to the roof to watch the fireworks. You sit in chairs you had set out earlier, Akitaru settling you into his warm lap instead, and watch in amazement as Company 1 puts on their yearly fireworks show in the sky over Tokyo.

When the show reaches its climax and the clock rolls over to midnight, he kisses you.

Whether you’re drunk on a little alcohol or just the excitement of the night, sex on New Years Eve is always fun. It’s so easy to be yourself and to feel beautiful with him - he is such a light hearted and openly loving man - but tipsy sex is always full of smiles and laughter interspersed with little gasps and moans. There’s no shame and it just feels good to be complete with the man you love.

On Lunar New Year, he is taking you out to shop for new clothes and he’s helping you give out cards and gifts. He makes sure to buy a bag of sweets to leave as an offering once you clean the altar at home later that day. In the evening, he’s once again in the kitchen, helping cook eight different dishes for the reunion dinner with a communal hot pot always being the centerpiece of the meal.

Akitaru loves the holidays but his favorite celebrations are the ones for you two specifically: your birthdays and your anniversary.

For his birthday, he just wants a small get together with the rest of the company and maybe a couple friends. He is still as ridiculously easy as ever to shop for, just buy him new exercise equipment and he’ll love it. He works out so much that he wears down and breaks his equipment and he’s always excited to try a new machine.

He especially loves it when you surprise him in the bedroom with something new. If you teach yourself how to deep throat his impressive size, he’ll be wrapped around your little finger for a week straight. If you give him the remote to your vibrating panties while you’re out getting dinner, he’ll break down halfway through your meal and pull you into the bathroom to make you see stars. You never need an excuse to experiment in bed but it’s always fun surprising him with something every year.

For your birthday, Akitaru will always ask you what you want instead of trying to surprise you. He doesn’t want to overwhelm you with a party if you don’t want it and he doesn’t want you to be craving more if he plans for a day at home.

If you want to go out, he'll take you to the amusement park for games and roller coasters (one of which he couldn’t even ride because the safety harness didn’t fit over his muscular body). If you like the outdoors, he’ll take you on a hike through one of the nature preserves and lead you to a picnic he prepared for you. If you like to dance, he’s taking you out and trying his best not to step on your toes.

If you want to stay in, Akitaru will buy you a copy of the newest video game you had your eye on and will order pizza so he can watch you try to beat it in one sitting. He’ll spend the morning baking and decorating a cake from scratch and it comes out incredible. He’ll give you a massage and his almost too strong grip feels so good it sends shivers up your spine.

On your birthday, he is in the palm of your hand. Whatever you want to do, anything you want to try, he is so eager to please. He’s an open-minded man and there really aren’t many things that are hard passes for him in bed. He isn’t particularly well versed in the kinky stuff so he’ll need a bit of an explanation sometimes but, once he understands what you want, he will gladly give it to you.

Without a doubt, your anniversary is Akitaru’s favorite holiday of the year. He loves that your anniversary is a celebration of your bond and a reaffirming of your love for each other. He’s honestly just as dramatic on this day as he is on Valentine’s Day - if not more so - and he will come up with the most cheesy, romantic ways of telling you he loves you.

Sticking to tradition, he took you out to a fancy dinner one year to a restaurant with a dress code and no prices on the menu. Even with the overly formal atmosphere, he was still his usual boisterous self throughout the dinner and his sunshine smile puts you at ease. The dinner was spectacular and, even if you normally hated stuffy environments like that, his happiness is contagious and you feel comfortable.

On your anniversary, he makes it his Sol given duty to fuck you until you scream when you cum. He makes it a point to give you the best orgasm of the year, making you finish over and over until your pleasure climbs to a high that has moans shamelessly spilling from your lips. You absolutely cannot walk the day after your anniversary so, every year, you take not only your anniversary off but the day following as well.

Akitaru pays such close attention to your moods and your likes and dislikes when it comes to the holidays throughout the year and tries his best to make you happy. At the end of the day, he just wants to be with you and for you to have a good time.

After all, he loves you so much he wants to spend the rest of his life making happy memories like these together.

#akitaru obi #obi akitaru #akitaru obi x reader #obi akitaru x reader #obi x reader #akitaru x reader #fire force x reader #fire force #enn enn no shouboutai #fanfiction

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aces-of-the-center-court · 4 years

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hello dear anon! thank you for the request and for loving out first date headcanons! I’m really glad you enjoyed it, it’s one of my favourites. :) we apologise that this took so long, it was quite difficult to write because I had to do my research for the date spots but I hope this turned out alright. I hope you enjoy :)

- mod sunny.

first date with iwaizumi & sugawara

Sakusa Kiyoomi: Home Date

He would ask you out for a date at his house, thinking it would be the best possible spot – no outside germs or crowds

To his house?? On the first date?! You would be flustered at first but later realise the reason behind the date location and mentally punch yourself for having such impure thoughts

When you go over to his house, you would make sure to bring a small gift (after making sure to sanitise the surface of it ofc)

Once inside, you would ask for directions to the washroom to wash your hands where you would realise that he keeps his things very tidy

You both would then settle down at the living room and decide to play board games, where the two of you would just chill and have fun together instead of making it more competitive

A few games later, you two would then cook up something to go with the movie you rented

You would make sure to tell Sakusa that you had already sanitised the cover and disc before bringing it over, and he would mutter softly about how he trusts you about this since you two have an understanding for hygiene

You would both move to his room for the movie, seated closely next to each other, but not yet touching; it would be slightly unnerving – both your hearts would be beating loudly against your chests despite it not being the least bit intimate

By the time the movie came to an end, you two would have only remembered half the movie as you were both too conscious of the proximity between the two of you and the fact you were in his room

Before leaving, the two of you would clean up the spot you were both seating and he would offer to send you home but would take detours in order to spend more time together

To be honest, he wouldn’t want to separate from you, but he would not say it out loud since he wouldn’t want to be seen as selfish

Strolling in the park, the two of you would exchange some conversations and share comfortable silence, just enjoying both of your presences

He would probably be okay with your touches as he’s comfortable with you since your habits of staying clean helps too, but still not very likely to extend to kisses or hugs during the first date

“Be careful on your way back.” He would say quietly when you two arrive in front of the station and wave you goodbye before you leave.

Oikawa Tooru: Disneyland Date

He would pick you up early from your home, so he gets to spend more time with you during the travel from Miyagi to Tokyo

“You know, there’s a myth about going to Disneyland for the first date…” You would bring up nonchalantly on the train ride to the amusement park, referring to the legend that couples who go to Tokyo Disneyland for the first date would be destined to break up

Ah… Of course, Y/N-chan would have heard of such myths too… Bearing a troubled smile, he would respond, “Mm. I know of that too. Y/N-chan, do believe in it? I don’t.”

“Apparently, if the couple share a kiss within the park, their relationship will last longer… that’s what they say too. What contradictions, I wouldn’t believe such things.”

“Y/N-chan…” He would look at you with tears in his eyes, touched. Did you want to kiss- He would then knock himself out of it, “That’s right! I can’t believe people actually believed in that. Let’s have a great time, the both of us.” He would flash a charming smile at you

During the long ride – from Miyagi to Tokyo and to Disneyland – the two of you would nap on the train with your head lying on his shoulder and his on yours

Upon arrival, Oikawa would be making loud excitable enthusiastic noises while you would be equally excited despite not reacting as openly as he would

After purchasing tickets, Oikawa would pull you along to the gift shop by the entrance to procure adorable matching headbands and trinkets and would snap a selfie of the two of you wearing it – it’s something he had always wanted to do

Checking the lines at the attractions, you two would go to the popular attractions with lines that would never seem to die down first – according to both your intensive research

During the rides, the two of you would be seated close while enjoying the rides or grabbing on to each other for dear life

Afterwards, you two would grab some snacks, where Oikawa would be taking a lot of selfies and pictures of the food, before heading for the afternoon shows and parade

Throughout the date, there would be a lot of natural physical touches, sitting close together on the rides, hitting him on his arms when he does stupid things that made you laugh, and holding hands to make sure the both of you do not get lost in the crowd

While waiting for the rides, there would always be something to talk about – the pictures and videos that the both of you took, discussing about the rides etc.

Right around sunset, the both of you would try canoes for a cruise ride. The view would be stunning, but Oikawa would be staring at you the entire time and trying to sneak a picture

For dinner, you two would have it at the banquet hall while discussing the long day and how you guys would be so tired you can sleep immediately after reaching home

Although he doesn’t believe in myths, he would still be quite wary of it, so during the night fireworks, he would call you softly and lean in for a kiss in front of the Cinderella’s castle

Perhaps sleeping immediately from the fatigue of the long day is no longer an option now as the you would probably be too red in the face from thinking about the kiss to sleep.

Kageyama Tobio: Aquarium Date

After his thorough research and advices that he received from his upperclassmen (mainly Sugawara), he would decide to invite you to the aquarium at Sendai

He would be rather nervous in the beginning, wondering if he prepared everything necessary but would also be excited about seeing the aquatic creatures

At the aquarium, the two of you would be fascinated by the school of fishes swimming in groups, the stingrays, rockfishes and others, which would mean many photographs and videos taken by the both of you

He would not be able to hide his enthusiasm – in an animated way, with lots of ‘wow’ and ‘woah’ from him, he would be openly captivated by the fishes that did not seem to dislike him despite how close his face was to the tank

Kageyama would slowly start to loosen up and relax throughout the date, except when you would unexpectedly grab on his hand of course

Physical contact would be rather natural with you leading it e.g. grabbing his arm to bring him to the next exhibit – his heart would beat unnaturally fast when you do and he’d lose focus of the sea creatures

He would realise that he seemed to be having the most fun and would find it embarrassing that he lost control of his enthusiasm; but when he sees you having fun observing the fishes, he would be relieved and forget about the fishes for a moment while watching you – he’d then snap out of it and tell himself to stay cool in your presence

You two would make small conversations when walking to the other tanks and discussing about the animals – how some fishes look dramatic and scary, cute and small – comparing the fishes to some of his teammates

“This fish looks like Tsukishima, looks like it has a scowl on its face.” Kageyama would compare, watching it closely with his face almost touching the glass, eyes squinting. You would try to suppress your laughter at his antics but would agree with him

A machine that can project your colouring of sea creature on a screen next to it would pique the interest of both of you, hence would try it out without a second thought

The two of you would be so amazed after watching your very own sea creature creations swimming in the screen and would proudly take pictures of each of your masterpieces

Up next would be the dolphin show, where the two of you would be so engrossed in the show that you both forget to take videos and you would later mention about how you regret not capturing the moment

After the aquarium, you two would stop by a small family restaurant to have your meal, looking over pictures and videos together while talking about the sea creatures and the date

On another note, Kageyama would now have a selfie of the both of you which would become his phone screensaver from now on.

Miya Atsumu: Laser Tag Date

The both of you would have agreed on meeting in the late afternoon at the laser tag location

Would then decide to play against one another for the first round, then team up for the next round

He would entice you with a bet where the loser would have to listen to the winner for the rest of the date; your competitive self would not let this opportunity slip

In the first round, you would play lone wolf – while assessing the situation and protecting yourself from the rest of the players, you would try to look for him to shoot him down

He would also play lone wolf instead of forming alliance with others because he knows that’s how you would play and wants it to be a fair fight

He would enjoy seeing you play seriously while having fun but would also want to take you down so you would be at his beck and call for the rest of the date

The two of you would be too focused on taking down each other that when you finally spot him and was about to shoot, someone else eliminated you first

Looking at board, you would see your name being the one who was out, but the next instant, Atsumu’s name would appear just below yours

The two of you would be annoyed, not be able to settle the scores would set the fire in your hearts even hotter

The next round, you and Atsumu would team up as planned and discuss attack and defense strategies. With great chemistry, the two of you would brutally take down the other players smoothly and emerge as the winner at the end

Feeling refreshed, the both of you would go for dinner at somewhere simple. It would be a casual yet refreshing meal, he has quite an appetite so he would order a lot to eat

During the meal, the two of you would enthusiastically discuss moments during the laser tag round where you both won and put off the bet until the next time

“It’s thanks to me that we won, I helped defend your back!” You would claim, but he’d retort, “Nah, it’s my aiming that helped take down our opponents.”

“Okay, end of argument. We make the perfect team – and the perfect couple.” He would conclude smugly, knowing your heart would skip a beat at the last part of his statement

Before the date ends, he would make sure to leave a peck on your cheek. He would then grin smugly as he flirts, “Make sure your lips are ready for mine on our next date.”

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popwasabi · 4 years

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The monster of “Shin Gojira” is government incompetence

I know it doesn’t feel like it but we’re just three months away from March again.

It’s been almost a year now since the beginning of quarantine, when the world had to be shut down due to the escalating nature of COVID-19 and things have…largely only gotten worse.

In the US specifically.

On March 13th we had 2,204 cases of COVID in the United States and a total of 49 deaths. Today we have 14 MILLION cases across the country and currently 274,000 plus deaths. To put that in perspective we have nearly as many cases of COVID in the US alone as there are people in the cities of Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago combined and we’re experiencing a 9/11’s worth of new deaths every day.

This is not even to mention the economic strain the pandemic has put the country under. Lockdowns and quarantines, without supplemental income to bolster those losses have led to closures, massive unemployment, people running deeply behind on their rent, and crushing debt for many if not buried in medical costs from being infected. Common people are trying their best to navigate a year unlike any other and are largely floundering with little to no help in sight.

And all this can be chalked up to one culprit in particular: our government’s incompetence.

(Remember all that fuss made about “breadlines” in the global south back during grade school?)

From the beginning when this virus first reared its ugly head in 2020, not enough was done to prepare the country for what would come next. Call it hubris or American Exceptionalism, but our government just was not taking it seriously as the President boasted cases would just “disappear” after late February and our leaders largely pretended it either was a) not a big deal or b) would never be a big deal.

Nearly nine months later senate Republicans still think another massive bailout for the nation’s richest coporations is the way to go, all while giving us $1,200 band aid for our troubles.

And make no mistake, the Dems have hardly been guiltless during this crisis themselves.

(“It’s a biiiiiig club, and you ain’t in it...” ~ George Carlin.)

As we see other countries largely find ways to navigate around COVID and create a safe environment where some normalcy can be maintained it becomes increasingly clear to anyone who isn’t a psychopath that the US has grossly mishandled this threat from the beginning. It’s a slow moving disaster that could’ve largely been avoided if our leaders gave a damn and it feels increasingly like we’re all just going to get the virus at some point because there’s virtually no structural safeguard in place to protect us.

This lamenting of the futility of our government’s response to crises is the central theme of one of my favorite monster movies of all-time; “Shin Gojira” (or “Godzilla Resurgence” for American audiences). Directed by “Neon Genesis Evangelion’s” own Hideaki Anno, “Shin Gojira” tells a similar story of a literal slow-moving disaster in the form of titular atomic fire lizard rising from the Pacific Ocean to decimate Japan once again and how the government poorly responds to it.

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For most Americans, Godzilla is something of a joke as a movie character.

He’s Japan’s version of King Kong, a great fire-breathing reptile for thousands of random Japanese to scream “AAAAHHH! GODZILLA!!!” at while a man in a rubber suit knocks down model buildings for two hours. For several decades, he was even a bit of a superhero for children; the good monster who fought bad monsters like King Ghidorah, Gigan, and Hedorah.

The newer American remakes by Legendary Studios have not done much to change this perception. In these films, Godzilla is again depicted as a “titan” for the people doing battle with the bad titans set with people in mo-cap suits duking it out in front of greenscreens that create elaborate cities for the monsters to stampede through.

It is just not that deep to most people and who could blame them? Godzilla is cheap popcorn escapism for most audiences and most of his films see him as such.

(“Wait you mean to tell me this isn’t serious theater??”)

But Godzilla has a much darker origin, however. 1954’s original “Gojira” isn’t some cheap monster flick; it’s an allegory for the atomic bomb and the terror it brought upon the people of Japan. At the time of its release the Japanese hadn’t really reckoned with what happened in WWII, it was a source of deep shame and horror and it broke the spirits of many back then. After an atomic bomb test accidentally radiated the crew of a Japanese fishing boat in 1954, director Ishiro Honda became inspired to create the King of the Monsters after Japan’s own government largely mishandled the fallout. The film was a huge hit and Japanese audiences were moved by the dark allegorical nature of the story.

With “Shin Gojira” Anno brings Godzilla back to this grimmer tone. He was inspired by the events of 2014’s Fukushima nuclear plant disaster and how the Japanese government once again failed to act in a major crisis. Through his 2016 film, Anno aimed to depict the slow moving nature of a developing disaster quite literally with the character of Godzilla and how a crisis can only get worse and worse if left largely unchecked by those tasked to protect us.

(Hardly Hideaki Anno’s first forray into movies about crises, of course, but that’ll be for another write-up. Stay tuned...)

Godzilla begins in “Shin Gojira” as a small, destructive, but ultimately killable lifeform as he appears in the waters off Tokyo Bay. His beady, soulless eyes, tadpole like form, oozing putrid toxic blood everywhere through his malformed gills are pretty gross and Anno directly references Fukushima as the beast creates a tidal wave as he makes his way toward land in the opening sequence.

Meanwhile as Godzilla causes horrific damage to the city in this small (comparatively to earlier films) but powerful form, the Japanese Government tries to put an end to it. But as they try to address the escalating nature of the problem, bureaucracy gets in the way at every turn. Through the use of fast cuts and dark humor, Anno creates his own “Dr. Strangelove” set of scenes as Japanese politicians scramble from one board room to another to weigh options in cold math against the very real people who are fleeing for their lives as they debate with one another. Anno, doesn’t go out of his way to depict anyone as explicitly the villain here, but he does make it very apparent that when government officials refuse to accept the reality of a crisis people die. In a scene that is played partially for laughs, that feels all too relevant and frankly on the nose now, the Prime Minister addresses Japan on TV by assuring the people that there is “no way” Godzilla can make landfall and everyone will be safe. Moments later he is interrupted on live TV as Godzilla has in fact made landfall.

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(Yea and he’s one ugly motherfucker in this movie too...)

Early in the film though, as Godzilla has done already immense damage in his adolescent form, Japan’s government has a chance to kill the monster once and for all by mobilizing the Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF) a move, that if you are not familiar with Japanese politics, is rife with concerning optics. The moment comes where Japan’s government can pull the trigger and kill the threat once and for all but in another, darkly humorous, turn of events decide not to as some nearby citizens who could be caught in the crossfire become a hazard for the JSDF. Godzilla goes back into the sea from there and Japan is left to pick up the pieces.

In the early months of the COVID lockdown, things appeared to slowdown. From about April to June, those states that took the virus seriously at the start saw some plateauing of the daily cases. While hardly a victory, things at least appeared to be going in the right direction. Then inexplicably in July a bunch of states declared premature victory and began reopening back up in certain areas such as gyms, salons, and some restaurants. I wouldn’t say we had the virus on the ropes but we were trending generally in the right direction (though nothing was really being done about loss of employment and cancelling rent and evictions, of course…). So, in a moment when the government could’ve kept trying, mostly at least, to do the right thing they failed to keep going and pull the trigger.

And just like in the movie, COVID (ie: Godzilla) came back stronger and even worse than before.

(Again, just the ugliest motherfucker...)

After the JSDF failed to kill Godzilla in the opening act, the big guy returns later on in the movie having evolved into his more indestructible final form. Where the JSDF’s weapons may have had an effect before they find their tanks, helicopters, and other military hardware have no effect on Godzilla now. It is too late to stop what is now inevitable. Godzilla walks literally through it all, causing waves of destruction with each step and Japan’s government watches in horror as they lament their failure to stop him when they had the chance.

This failure comes to its ultimate head in the final moment of this sequence when Godzilla revs up his dorsal fins and unleashes his horrifying atomic breath. It’s more powerful than anything he has done previously and absolutely wastes Tokyo in a brilliant display of raw destruction that is honestly one of the best most terrifying sequences in Kaiju filmmaking ever.

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Godzilla is best used in cinema when he is a titan-sized walking metaphor for the destruction that happens when governments fail their people. Where the recent American Godzilla depicts him as a force of nature, like a walking hurricane, Ishiro Honda and Hideaki Anno see him more as a vengeful God coming to punish the wicked for their sins or, in the case of the government, their incompetence.

If COVID is a metaphor for anything this year, it is a microcosm for a wide range of problems that go unaddressed for too long by our leaders and only given notice when it’s far too late. Climate Change continues to get worse and worse each year as I am quite literally choking on ash as I type this due to yet another wildfire in the California area. The riots that erupted over the summer and continue to go on in response to the gross militaristic, overfunded, and racist structure of law enforcement in this country are the result of decades of not doing the right thing to curb the problem. The reason we are by far the worst equipped first world country to handle this crisis right now is quite literally due to years of gutting our social safety net, slashing our wages, and privatizing our health insurance.

Though there is a wide range of Japanese specific politics in the film, “Shin Gojira” is an unfortunately timeless film for people who have suffered from leaders who fail to act in moments like these. It shows what happens when our government drags its feet on transformative legislation and actual measures that can save lives. It criticizes our leaders for choosing to save themselves in the moment, with performative optics, over helping their own people. It argues that the results of bureaucratic red tape and bad politics will always end in disaster for its citizens. And most relevantly it states that governments have a duty to stop a crisis in its infancy before it’s too late.

“Shin Gojira” is a perfect monster film for the year of COVID and distressingly accurate to the way the US has mishandled this crisis from the beginning. Everyday, more and more people suffer and die because our leaders have failed to act in an unprecedented time, whether it’s the usual suspects who think any government social service is “cOmMuNiSm” or the feckless cowards who twiddle their thumbs and shrug each time a conservative tells them “no.”

We are far past the stage where this can be solved the easy way anymore and though there are still many proven ways to help the common people right now, it unfortunately feels like 2020’s Godzilla cannot be stopped…

Yea, things will totally get better in 2021, guys...

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luki-fanfic · 4 years

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Dr. Stone Fanfic: Crossed Your Mind - Part 1

Yes I know, it’s not KHR. But I’m liking this fandom and it’s proving frustratingly effective at distracting me from my other works, so bear with me.

WARNING: suicide of OC, and some minor manga spoilers (end of the stone wars)

—

“Remember Gen, you must always give them enough reason to doubt.”

It’s the mantra his grandmother had uttered every day, before he’d head to school. They’d lived on the outskirts of the town, inside a traditional Japanese home, and the family bitterly held on to every acre around them they could find, no matter how good the offer that came.

It was so isolated, you could almost pretend you were the only one for miles.

Almost, anyway. And Gen enjoyed the quiet. It certainly didn’t last long when he had to walk into town, and sound started to echo in his head. While the citizens and his fellow classmates kept their voices low and polite, their inner voices were no such thing.

‘God, when is he going to call me?’

‘Okay, so if I get A Meal today and the C Meal tomorrow, maybe I can afford two B meals-’

“Ugh, I’m so not ready for that test today. I’m so screwed!”

‘Dammit, I’m going to be late again!’

Gen winces and resists the urge to cover his ears.

Physic powers are a real burden sometimes.

—

In a place like Japan, filled with overpopulated cities, telepathy is not so much a gift as it is a curse. It normally runs down his mother’s side, but Gen happened to be one of the lucky males to have it passed down. While movies and comic books might suggest to the common man on the street that having real life super-powers would be cool, Gen will quite happily tell them otherwise.

For one thing, it doesn’t turn off. It’s a sense, as much as sight and taste, and Gen’s only saving grace is that his own seems to be limited to hearing range at the moment. His grandmother hears significantly further, and his mother…

Well, she’s not hearing much of anything any more. But it had been far.

His father does the best he can, raising Gen with his grandmother. For someone without mind-reading, his father had been a rock. A psychologist, who worked regularly with police, and had studied ESP as a hobby. It’s how he’d met his mother, and his days spent analysing witnesses and criminals made him a natural at reading people.

“If I didn’t know he couldn’t read minds, I’d honestly think he could,” his mother had told at age five, in one of her better moments. “He knew everything I was thinking just from a smile and a twitch of my hand.”

She wasn’t wrong, and it’s quite frustrating to grow up when both of your parents are impossible to lie to. On the plus side, they couldn’t lie to him either, and his younger memories are fully of happy moments.

Unfortunately, those became a lot less when his mother’s gift spiked.

—

It gets worse in your mid twenties. That’s the one thing that seems constant. While the radius remains almost tolerable through childhood and the teens, by 25, the mental reading spikes. How far varies, but both his mother and grandmother had been brutally honest on what his future entails.

His grandmother is the only one in the family with the gift to make it past thirty for generations. And she hasn’t left this house since she was 23. Not even the threat of bombs during the war had pried her out. She’d tried to get her daughter to do the same, but she’d ran off to university, positive she could handle it.

At first, she’d been fine. She’d studied, she’d met Gen’s old man – who found her ability fascinating, and could keep up with her despite his lack of it. They’d been married in six months, and Gen came along a year later. When he was two, they learned he’d inherited his mother’s gift, and celebrated his luck.

He was five when his mother started screaming, with the entire city suddenly pounding into her head, and they’d all packed up and moved to the house in the forest while her sanity bled out her eardrums.

Her mother had seen it coming, and tried to help traditionally. Meditation, and long walks into the country. Gen, his mother and father, would spend their weekends hiking in the forest, camping in the wild, trying to find areas that were isolated enough to make his mother’s headache tolerable. Gen is not the outdoors type, but he appreciates the lessons as things he’ll need to learn for his own safety. If he’s honest, there’s something soothing about the wild – while it frustrates his father, he likes to take off his shoes and wander barefoot when he can. It genuinely makes him feel at peace.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for his mother. The trips only help so much. Japan is a populated country, and it’s nearly impossible to find yourself outside of civilisation. While Gen might find it quiet, neither woman ever finds true success.

His father had tried to help her through modern means. Reduced his hours and thrown himself into parapsychology. Prescribed any medication that might possibly help. Sometimes it did. But she kept getting stronger. Sometimes, the voices were so loud, she couldn’t even tell who was saying what. Her mental state is so bad at times, his father sometimes thinks to himself she might have genuinely developed schizophrenia. Which is a dangerous thing to think in a house of telepaths.

On the worst nights, his mother will attack his father, both with her fists, and her words.

“You hate me!” she screams, hands trying to claw at his father’s face.

“I don’t, I love you!” his father screams back, pinning her hands down.

From his room, Gen just turned and fell into bed, burying deeper into his pillow, pretending that would drown out the words not being spoken.

Once upon a time nobody in his family ever thought to lie.

But that was a long time ago.

—

If there’s one thing Gen’s ability has taught him, it’s this. Everybody lies.

It’s a universal constant. A lot of people don’t even seem to know they’re doing it, but you can’t hide your true feeling from him. He learns quite young to never trust a smile, or a tear. He sees and hears first hand someone uttering words of affection while screaming abuse in their head, seen teachers feign affection for eager students when they’re mentally begging them to vanish so they can go drinking.

‘I like you.’

‘It’s no trouble at all.’

‘It’s not that impressive, really.’

‘Gen, I promise, I’ll never hurt you, my baby boy.’

Lies. Lies. Lies.

—

When Gen was eight, he woke up to hear his mother singing in her head. A happy, ditzy tune, that almost made him hopeful that today was a good day. That this set of drugs had finally calmed down her hysterics. In the back of the house, he can hear his grandmother thinking something quite similar, and they laugh to themselves at their need to be hopeful. It’s a thought that stays with them, right up until his mother’s musings cut straight out, leaving frightful silence.

His grandmother screams out loud. Gen doesn’t, merely jumping out of bed and running towards his mother’s bedroom.

She’s in the cupboard. She’d used a scarf. Gen thinks it might have been one he gave her for a birthday, once upon a time. His grandmother tries to usher him away, but the same thought is going through her head.

His father was away during the incident, and after the funeral, starts looking at Gen differently. He doesn’t say why – he doesn’t have to. Gen doesn’t need telepathy to know that his father has suddenly realised his son has a bomb trigger in his head, and his police work falls to the wayside, focused completely on looking at psychic research, looking for something, anything, that might save him. Gen leaves him to it – it means they speak over phone while he travels, and it keeps things quiet and less depressing at home.

His grandmother has always been the bulk caretaker for him, and that definitely doesn’t change when his mother passes. If anything, life becomes easier, because they don’t have to worry about her episodes. A thought that makes both of them feel overwhelmingly guilty, so they never mention it.

To recover, his grandmother teaches him meditation and yoga, ways to calm his mind, and digs out decks of cards to show him tricks. Given their natural talent, some of ancestors were known in the magic circles – when the world was smaller, and their skills not quite as strong – they worked as magicians, or magicians assistants. She’s happy to give Gen a hobby that keeps his mind of…well, his mind. Playing the magician is what allows their family to survive in this modern era - a way for people to explain away their uncanny ability to know all.

Then, his grandmother dies when he’s fourteen, and he’s the only voice in his head for now.

—

When he turns sixteen, he moves to Tokyo, and gets an agent.

His father thinks he’s an idiot. Begs him to reconsider. In this day and age, Gen can still be home schooled, and go to university online. He can have an entire life without ever having to leave their little corner of the world.

Gen is mature enough to admit he might have a point – both of them understand that he has a very tight deadline on his life. But he wont live like his grandmother, caged in her own house for her own sanity. And his mother had done everything right and still ended up the way she did. Why spend years studying for a job he might not have the mental faculties to do in a decade? If that’s his inevitable fate, he’s at least going to enjoy the time he has left and spend it being rich and adored.

Knowing that people lie, is his strength. Knowing precisely what they lie about, is something he can use. While his father might suggest using it to better society, Gen won’t take the risk. Too many dark and dangerous people to interact with, and the concept is still laughed upon in a lot of enforcement agencies. Entertainment is far safer – he won’t even be the first in his family to use his skills this way.

The term is ‘Mentalist.’ An entertainer who feigns mind reading or other psychic abilities. His grandmother had taught him some family methods and the basic card tricks, so he has a pretty good base to start on. A natural talent at mental tricks, and long, painful hours in a cheap apartment, trying to block out his neighbours voices until he can manipulate a deck backwards and forwards, get him his first gig. His attractive features, and a knack for knowing just what to say, get him his first TV performance.

A year later, and he’s doing full on shows to a sold out crowd. Up to a thousand people, all watching him. All loving him both in their applause and heads.

It’s a drug. A beautiful, wonderful drug that makes up for living in one of the worlds most over populated cities.

Granted, there’s always a few that don’t enjoy it. Gen takes pleasure in trying to seek them out whenever he needs an audience member to help him. The ones that are looking for the trick – Gen does try to keep his act within the realms of possible most of the time. There needs to be some way for people to guess how he does it, but every now and then, he’ll show off. Get the biggest disbeliever in the room on stage, and mentally take him apart. The look of shock, of horror, and astonishment, as this simple being had their entire world view shaken. When the revelation that they can’t tell anyone because they won’t be believed crosses their mind. It’s a beautiful thing - Gen thinks he’s personally made at least a dozen sceptics full on psychic believers by this point.

On one occasion, it’s another celebrity. He’s been booked for a special on exceptional young Japanese citizens, and he’s there for both his psychology and magic credentials. The piece was fairly run of the mill, with one exceptions – a teen by the name of Shishio Tsukasa.

Although ‘teen’ is a bit of stretch – muscles like that shouldn’t be possible on someone that young. He’s attending as an example of psychology in fighting – how the state of mind can improve anyone’s abilities. During his own display, Gen can’t deny he’s impressed. Tsukasa’s mind is calm, and focused, and terrifyingly powerful.

But he also doesn’t believe in magic. He looks over Gen with the usual polite respect that one in the media masters, but his dismissal of Gen’s talents rings clear as day to him.

As such, when the show cuts for a break, and the two of them are alone in the green room, Gen hides a vicious smirk behind a glass of water, and gets to work. After a few moments of quiet contemplation, trying to block out the voices around them and focusing on Tsukasa’s own thoughts, he’s ready to go.

“How is dear little Mirai?”

The reaction is beautiful. He waited until Tsukasa was drinking, and he has to fight back the smirk as the taller teen chokes on the liquid, hand trembling as he drops it to glare over at the mentalist.

Gen gives an innocent smile.

“It’s quite an impressive feat, to soldier all those medical bills on your own. For what it’s worth, I can completely sympathise.”

That’s not even a lie. Throwing yourself into work, desperately putting money together to help a family member that has no hope of ever getting better?

Oh, Gen can definitely sympathise. Tsukasa however, doesn’t seem amused.

“How do you know about Mirai?” he asks, voice low. Gen completely understands – the teen has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep his little sister’s state out of the media. There’s only a handful of people who know the Strongest Primate High Schooler even has a sibling.

“It is my business to know, Tsukasa-chan,” Gen offers, leaning back and resting his hand on one cheek. “I make a point to know everything about everyone I deal with. You’d be amazed at the secrets I know.”

“Is that a fact?” Tsukasa asks, body tense, and Gen grins.

“My dear Tsukasa-chan, my entire career is built on reading people,” he says. “I am young, I am pretty, and I am new to the game. On the one hand, it works for my brand, but on the other, people always think they can use me for their own good fortune. If I don’t learn how to manipulate, how to get into the heads of people, I’d never survive.”

He flashes Tsukasa a dark smirk.

“I’m sure you understand this as well as I do. This world is not fair one, but if you know that, you can still come out on top.”

Tsukasa stays silent, but gives a nod of comprehension, and Gen settles back, satisfied that the indifference in the fighter’s head has been quite firmly replaced with respect.

—

A few months later, Gen is sporting a new black and white hairstyle, and is running through a stage performance to a regular audience. It’s a small crowd, and there’s nobody he can pick up that’s not genuinely enjoying his act, so there’s no need to psychologically gut anyone in the finale. Everyone seems happy, and he’ll give them the best show he can to reward that.

Next week, he’ll probably show off, because his father will be attending. Right now he’s in America, attending some medical conference. Gen has only seen the man in person since he left for Tokyo three times, but they call regularly. He’d come to see Gen perform twice, and once come just to yell at him, having taken great offence at Gen’s ‘psychology’ book, especially considering Gen hadn’t even finished High School – but Gen could have seen that coming without psychic powers. No doubt, he’ll roll his eyes when Gen publicly dissects the biggest sceptic in the crowd for his finale, but then he’ll laugh, and take his famous son out to dinner, before going over the newest research he has in how to keep Gen’s mind sane.

Gen looks forward to it. Even though he already knows his father has no faith whatsoever that they’ll find a cure in time, no matter what words he might offer.

He’s just completed his final act, one of the more standard ‘magical’ aspects of his performance, where he escapes from a box stabbed with knives, basking in the approving minds, when something dark and ominous hits him like a sledgehammer.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.’

‘Am I dying? What is this!’

His smile falters as the voices scream inside his head. But before he can process the danger, his arms stiffen, his vision vanishes, and he has nothing left but the voices.

Oh god, there’s so many…

‘Is this part of the act? I don’t like this!”

‘Mom! I want my mom!’

‘Can anyone hear me! Help me!’

‘Please! I’m scared!’

‘HELP!’

He wants to scream. Wants to run away from this darkness and their screams. But he’s as frozen as everyone else.

Has it finally happened? Has he succumbed to his family’s curse? He’s only 19, he supposed to have time left…

But there’s no answer, and the crying, sobbing, frantic minds don’t let up for hours. But eventually, they start to quiet, and Gen becomes even more alarmed when he starts to realise he can pick out individual voices – the crowd thinning for unknown reasons.

It should be comforting, but with nothing to see, hear, smell…those voices are the only thing keeping him sane. He cries every time a voice tapers off.

‘Stay! Come back!’ he begs in his own head. ‘Don’t leave me alone!’

He doesn’t know how long it takes for the last voice, a young woman whose last thoughts are of her fiancé, to drift away. But the time after is horrifying. He’s never been so alone. There’s always been someone on the edge of his head. This silence is terrifying.

So, when his own mind starts to drift away, its nothing but a relief.

—

Several thousand years later, he meets Shishio Tsukasa again. The teen is even more impressive, and the army of stone behind him does not fill Gen with confidence. Neither does his mental state –and Gen suddenly becomes exceedingly grateful his father would have been in America and is far, far away from him.

He is given clothing, which to his surprise is slightly more elaborate than everyone else, and based on traditional Japanese garb. It’s the style he’s admitted in interviews and TV appearances to being his preference, and it doesn’t take much to realise he’s being buttered up. Better clothes to elevate his position in Tsukasa’s new world. The girl who made them is torn between being happy at making something creative, and being terrified of Gen’s existence. She knows exactly why Gen’s been revived, and she’s not happy about it.

Granted, Gen also knows why he’s been revived, but he can’t tell Tsukasa that. Any more than he can tell him the one called Senku is still alive. At this point, he’s not even supposed to know the scientist’s name, so he stays mum.

He’s given a tour of Tsukasa’s kingdom, the strange caves utterly alien to him. It’s difficult to imagine that this is where Tokyo once stood. Or that this simple little cave holds the key to their revival. It’s there that he finds something truly phenomenal. The date.

Tsukasa had told it to him, but he was still wrapping his head around the concept of what happened that it didn’t register. But here it is, written on a tree, plain as day.

Gen’s reeling. Someone was awake during the petrification? The whole time? And stayed coherent enough to keep track of the date? Gen had stayed conscious longer than everyone because he had mental stimulation, and even he’s still iffy on exactly how long he was functioning. The mental feat this must have taken…

He laughs long and hard in his head when he realises Tsukasa has revived him to track Senku down. A man Gen suddenly realises he has to meet, no matter what.

So he plays along, trailing after Tsukasa, acting the role of shallow egoist, looking at his options and realising Tsukasa was his key to success in this new world – the person Tsukasa, and most of the modern world, believed he was – looking over Senku’s abandoned hut, and being directed to where Tsukasa had once left a strange blonde girl, only to return and find her missing.

Gen is given a fortnight to hunt down Senku or the village, or Tsukasa will send out a rescue team. He’s rather surprised that Tsukasa is willing to let him go alone, but then again, a more censored version of his family’s hiking trips have also made it into his biography, so perhaps it’s just rationing resources. And it does make Gen’s plans so much easier.

—

Once he’s stepped into the forest, and Tsukasa’s mind is no longer close enough to be heard, Gen immediately kicks off the primitive shoes he’d been offered, and sits in the crook of a tree to process what’s just happened.

The world is so quiet. That’s the first thing he truly registers. Now that he’s out of the Kingdom of Might, and away from the half dozen people up and running, it’s truly alien at how quiet his head is. There is nothing but the sounds of wildlife in his ears, and not a single stray thought in his mind.

He hasn’t been this alone in years. It’s kind of soothing…normal people don’t know how lucky they are, to have this every day.

But as much as he’d love to bask in this quiet, he somehow needs to track down this now infamous ‘Senku’ over untamed wilderness, and figure out a way back without issue. While he has some outdoors experience, he had modern clothing and supplies on hand, and there’s no markers to help him out, or minds to pick up.

Thankfully, Senku and his blonde friend didn’t do much to cover their tracks. They’re faint from time, but he does manage to follow a trail, finding an old campfire, and then wheel tracks. He also stumbles across a hot spring, which he admittedly spends a day at before moving on.

Between marking a trail, and his wrong turns, it takes four days before he comes across civilisation. A beaten mud path that’s probably used by hunters, and when he follows it, he picks up the sound of an instrument, too melodic to be natural. A few minutes later, he rests at the top of the hill, grinning at the village on the water.

The grin gets wider when he picks up an amazing smell too. It’s not perfect, but that’s definitely ramen. And the idea of eating something he didn’t have to gather himself is too good to pass up.

When he walks out of the forest, he settles on a grouping of rocks, just out of sight. A passing glance at the locals make it clear his getup will stand out like sore thumb, so he needs to stay in observation mode.

Most of the village are hoarded around a bamboo cart, and everyone’s thoughts are filled with only one thing. How phenomenal this strange food is. They’ve never tasted anything like it.

But there’s one mind that’s running at a frantic pace. Gen’s almost taken aback – it’s practically speaking another language compared to the more simplistic thoughts around him. The owner is going over the components of ramen, a string of insanely long chemical components, and most curious of all, counting seconds almost subconsciously.

Gen smiles.

Hello Senku.

Now, how to approach? The last time Senku met a fellow modern man, he was supposedly killed. Gen can’t imagine he’ll be received with much trust. Gen himself has gone and put together makeshift armour just in case the reaction is more extreme than he expects, so he should expect Senku to be at least that paranoid.

He’s still mulling it over, when an utterly adorable slip of a girl wearing a watermelon on her head hands him a bowl of ramen. She’s so focused on handing food out, she doesn’t even seem to realise he’s not a villager. Or perhaps that mask is obscuring her eyes?

The ramen itself is…well it’s a painful example of why MSG is in so much food, but the sensation of eating something cooked, that’s been even a little bit processed, is a glorious feeling. The general aura of delight and joy surrounding him definitely sweeten the bowl too. One girl even thinks about how they should stretch the rules to get the stranger into the village if he cooks like this.

The teen that can only be Senku is starting to slow down at his cart, and the crowd is dispersing in order to eat, so Gen makes his move. Something that will get Senku’s attention, but wont appear threatening.

“This ramen is making me wickedly thirsty,” he says with a smile. “A cola would be great…”

#Dr. Stone #Dr. Stone fanfiction #Asagiri Gen #not on AO3 because I have enough projects without committing to this little distractor

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neonnhoney-rec · 4 years

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Kim Taehyung

Here are a few taehyung recs, most of them I’ve read and love, some are in my TBR. Tbh most of them are smut, but some are fluff and angst mostly angst. I will keep updating this woop woop.

I hope you enjoy tehee!

Buzzed- @junqkook

you spend weeks sulking after having sex with your best friend, but a party changes everything.

863 tokyo centre- @becomingbts

Not much of one, just Taehyung fingering you on a bus at 2am

Hush, hush- @becomingbts

Taehyung makes sure you don’t focus on your insecurities during your first time. To do this he blindfolds you, leaving you slave to your now heightened senses so you ignore your racing thoughts.

Headcase- @becomingbts

Movie night, blankets and hands. What more could go wrong? Oh right, possibly getting caught and all. Well, too bad Taehyung couldn’t care less about that.

Request: taehyung wants to cuddle but you leave- @minyoongimakesmefeelthings

Of lace and lust- @hobidreams

friendship rule number one: don’t imagine how amazing your best friend’s cock would feel inside you. except that’s all you can think about after accidentally discovering taehyung’s kink for panties. specifically, the lacy ones you’re so fond of wearing.

Cheeky- @guksthighs

“Want some vanilla?” Taehyung groaned before he pulled you up by the hand you were offering and took a bite of it, his gaze piercing yours before his hand was on the small of your back and he pulled you into a kiss tasting like vanilla and salt.

Tae gets jealous when you go on a date- @minstrivia

says it on the tin

Let’s marvin gaye- @minstrivia

it’s valentine’s day. and it’s due time he shows you how it feels to make love.

See you- @gimmesumsuga

Taehyung notices you at a concert, and can’t help but want to see you again.

Slowdance on the inside- @floralseokjin

Taehyung has liked you as long as he can remember. He’s unsure when the line blurred from friendship to romantically, but it’s about to get a lot worse when he’s forced to watch you date his friend, Jungkook…

Under the taeble- @functioningishardforme

getting a little handsy under the table

Four’s a crowd- @guksthighs

As a birthday present your boyfriends Jimin and Taehyung take you for a special stripping show, little do they know how attracted you’ll be to the officer and the acts you’ll be performing to win this new man’s heart and cock.

Playing to win- @tayegi

Taekook friends-with-benefits threesome/porn without plot nonsense

Sapphire- @writingseoul

playing video games with tae ends up a little differently then you thought

A freindly favour- @baeseoul

you help tae out before his date

baby,baby- @hobiwonder

When you’ve run out of savings to continue on to the last semester of your Bachelors - you take an unorthodox route. Helping a desperate couple have a child and getting paid for it? Heck yeah. But what do you know - it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

Talk- @taehyungforreal

Finals week is kicking your ass, thank goodness you have a friend to help you relieve some stress. It’s a great arrangement, as long as no one finds out… as long as you don’t catch feelings. What could go wrong?

Clair de lune- @taehyungforreal

being rewritten at the moment

Sore loser- @kingsuckjin

It’s game night with the maknae line. You team up as always with Jimin and Jungkook to beat your best friend and crush, Kim Taehyung. It’s all fun and games until this time he gets mad and decides to play a little game with just the two of you alone in his room.

Plan V- @taesbetch

When y/n can’t seem to find love she turns to her playboy best friend to help her find someone to lose her virginity too. However, fate has other plans

Breath of spring- @cupofteaguk

he works with color all day, but you just might be the brightest thing he’s ever laid his eyes on.

Corruption- @95boysbe

DOM tae takes your virginity

Laundry day- @hobidreams

taehyung discovers the surprise you left for him.

I belong to you - @jessikahathaway

you have rare blood, a deadly secret in the world that's run by vampires. Your family learns the risk the hard way and when your taken away to the highest ranking vampires in the world, your shocked at the decision you have to make, but its okay as one vampire in particular takes your fancy.

Obsidian- @kpopfanfictrash

The world of magic is divided into dark and light, witches and warlocks, choice and fate. You’re a prodigy of light, a witch who works within the police force. You’ve heard of Taehyung in passing, spoken in whispers as the warlock of dark who has the world holding it’s breath. All this changes on the night you’re assigned as security for a mysterious singer named V and you come face to face with Taehyung himself. What happens after that might be fate. (so good guys)

Silk and skin- @kpopfanfictrash

You and your boyfriend, Taehyung, are playing a game of truth or dare when a very distinctive kink emerges from the fray.

Drawing darcy- @kpopfanfictrash

Tae loves taking random photos of you secretly, and one day when you’re looking through his phone you find out

Impatient- @bxebxee

You are honor-bound to do your duty as a princess and marry for the good of the kingdom. Marriage, like many things in your life, is meant to serve a purpose. But you know you should be grateful because there are far worse fates than being engaged to marry Prince Taehyung.

Coming home- @taetaesource

Taehyung as a single parent. He was looking for a babysitter to help him raise his kid and then he met you.

Heart is where home is- @gukyi

somehow, when you woke up this morning, you didn’t really picture yourself falling in love with the attractive, well-read traveller sitting next to you on the plane, but a missed connection and an alarming amount of hand-holding later, you find that you both get a lot more than what you paid for.

Can you see my pulse- @rohobi

You fell in love with Kim Taehyung during Medical School. Now living totally different lives in completely different hospitals, you’re pulled together again as if by fate during a code black when someone plants a bomb in your hospital.

when you least expect it- @johobi

You’re in love with your childhood friend, Taehyung. The problem is, you treasure your friendship with him far too much to ever risk losing it. Oh, and he’s quite the Casanova. At your wits’ end with feelings you can no longer hide as diligently as you once did, you ask him to set you up with someone, anyone, in a last ditch attempt to avoid a heartbreaking conversation.

Electric lovers- @submissive-bangtan

An epidemic breaks out. The world is plunged into chaos. One giant corporation seizes its chance and puts you into quarantine, promising to heal the symptoms you begin to show. Just before you agree to undergo the crucial surgery, an android named Taehyung reveals the truth about the illness to you. A truth that makes you want to escape with him.

Babysitter- @kz-i-co

You were visiting home for the weekend to find out that your parents have hired a new babysitter. (jjk version aswell)

Shy lover- @squishyjiminnie

You’re popular and he’s painfully shy, he acts like he hates you but what if he thinks a lot more of you than you think?

Tempting- @kinktae

Y/N is an angel and a good one at that. She steers clear of the seven deadly sins, especially lust. She is out performing her duties when she runs into a demon. Luckily for her, that demon, Taehyung, doesn’t seem to buy into that whole “Angels and Demons are sworn enemies” idea. But unluckily for her, Taehyung just so happens to be the very embodiment of sin. Especially lust.

Or, “For someone who is meant to be so pure, you sure are dirty, angel.”

Who cares- @floralseokjin

what happens when Taehyung falls for someone who’s already taken? Can he control his feelings or will they take over and render him powerless? In the end is it all her fault or his…?

Wings- @bangtangurlarmy

He tells to nobody in particular as to why he is on Earth.

Third boy is the charm- @sangsanghaebwa

With Namjoon as your sweetheart roommate and Jimin as your adorable bestfriend, who you openly crush on, things still somehow remained easy, until Taehyung entered your life.

Fifteen minutes- @btssmutgalore

you don’t do dates - all you give guys is fifteen minutes to see if they can impress you, and Taehyung’s fifteen minutes have just started.

The counselor- @dom-joonie

You’ve been feeling a bit…depressed. At your friends recommendation, you go to see a counselor, but…he’s a lot more than you expected.

Enemy- @btssmutgalore

Taehyung may be cocky, but he has every reason to be. After all, he never gets turned down by women – at least not until he meets you.

Pluto- @katobobato

y/n has always had a knack for getting herself into trouble. She is no stranger to danger, what with being a member of one of the biggest gangs in the country. Not only is she a member but she is dating their leader, Jeon Jungkook. Things get heated, however, when she is abducted by a rival gang that hopes to use her as a way to get to Jungkook. Will her kidnapper, the ruthless Kim Taehyung himself, be able to subdue the snarky gangster or will she put up a fight to the end?

“134340?“.

Begin again- @writtenyoongi

things had been tough since your divorce from yoongi, you were still heartbroken over losing him whilst trying to balance being a single mother and providing the best you could for your daughter. when kim taehyung enters your life you start to learn how to love again, but the beautiful man is not without his own source of heartbreak.

Curious- @honeymoonjin

Taehyung confides in you and your boyfriend Yoongi that he might be bi, and the two of you offer to let him experiment with you to find out.

Upstream colour- @honeymoonjin

welcome to the first Upstream Colour drabble! please do not read this until after you finish UC, which is available to read here. Word count of this is 426. Mentions of sexual content, non-explicit. Otherwise it’s just fluff. Taehyung x reader

Somebody else- @jamaisjoons

yoongi doesn’t want you anymore. but he can’t stand watching you with someone else.

Multiverse- @jungkookiebus

what if…what if you found a tear in the universe? in a world where parallel universes seemingly don’t exist, there appears to be an overlap. what you had previously believed to be a haunting has now turned into something else, something tangible. everything you thought you knew about reality is about to be upturned and crumbled like a house of cards.

Stealing the bite- @wildernessuntothemselves

In a world populated by the supernatural, witches were the most despised and mistrusted of creatures. Everyone desired to make use of their powers but no one was willing to be seen openly conferring with them. And so there came to pass a heinous practice: Small covens of witches were isolated and kept under wraps in every kingdom, to be utilized when needed, and kept under close watch to prevent them from rebelling. Growing up in a kingdom ruled by werewolves, abuse and scorn were a fact of life, but you were determined to put an end to it. You devised a devious plan to gain power, and it involved a certain prince.

Clandestine- @ditzymax

As a professional assassin, Kim Kinsoo has many shrouded secrets in her life. Some of them she shares openly with her loving boyfriend, but there are other things he must never know…

Insomnia- @hobiwonder

this is being rewritten

Dirty dishes- @jaysdimples

when your boyfriend can’t seem to keep his hands to himself so he stirs up a little trouble in the kitchen while everyone else is a few feet away in the next room

Dalliance- @jvnghxope

The Association sends you to your first mission alone and you encounter a Pureblood ⎯a race you believed were extinct⎯ who is in the mood to play.

Freak- @kissmetae

your crush on your best friend was obvious and so was his. but as you took the next step together things turned out completely different. an accident caused an unbreakable bond and you found out about the secret he had kept from you for so long. a secret that put you in danger, forcing you to run away from him.

but the bond brought with it more than you both thought... to put it charmingly, your blood thirsty lover was thirsty for far more than just blood and the world you once knew turned into something completely different

Lavender flowers- @kissmetae

it all started when your boyfriend starting showing weird and abnormal behaviour...

at first it wasn't anything beyond the ordinary but as it gradually got worse and worse you were getting really worried...he couldn’t sleep and kept waking up in the middle of the night. but one morning was worse than others... and it would be the start of new encounters and a big change for both you...

Freedom- @tayegi

fleeing form your wedding you get into a little trouble with a certain vampire

Hung, open the door- @gotmetalkinginmysleep

You’ve been keeping the boys awake with your moaning for months thanks to Yoongi. Tae and Jungkook want to find out why.

The doms next door- @tatertotthethot

in which you unknowingly accept the offer to become a tattoo model for the two, sexually-crazed men next door.

Once bitten, twice shy- @pbandjk

You met Taehyung in college and he convinces you to move to his hometown with him. The town is nice, Taehyung’s friends are great, and you get along with everyone except Jungkook. You can’t seem to figure out what you’ve done to make him not like you, and why did you care so much? Also, why did none of them ever get cold?

Push your buttons- @littlemisskookie

You return to your childhood home in an attempt to uncover your past, despite the fact it seems as though everyone’s determined to keep it hidden.

Sehebon- @httpjeon

you find yourself on izo huen, home to the sehebon. luckily for you, you’ve arrived at an interesting time.

Thursday night- @sinsforjeon

You do a lot of things on a Thursday night but what you were doing right now was something you weren’t used to, not that you were complaining.

Flower arrangements- @iq-biased

From the moment you met Taehyung, his flourish for life drew you in completely. It wasn’t long before you fell head over heals for the tattoo artist who was so wrong for you, it felt right. But your story hasn’t always been an easy one, and just recently it’s become a whole lot more complicated…

Overworked and sequel- @iq-biased

A stressful weak teaching has you turning to your colleague for help.

Wrapped around- @jjkfire

Freshman year was a mess and sophomore year doesn’t seem to be looking too good either. You know boys like them are no good for you but maybe they’re just your kind of type

Summerboy- @koyamuses

In the mid-July heat, you find yourself unable to tear your gaze from the pool boy, whose skin glistens beneath rivulets of water as he sets about to clean your pool.

The talk- @kittae

A drabble series where Taehyung is a successful artistic erotica actor but has to expand his areas of expertise in the rapidly evolving world of adult film. Lost and inexperienced in everything that doesn’t involve classy settings, flattering lighting and romantic scripts, he basically has to start from scratch to make it in the online porn community. As a highly demanded A-lister in that community, you take him under your wings (or better yet, between your legs).

Always together- @kittae

having a romantic night with your life long lover and friend

New tricks- @geniuslab

When your newly adopted puppy turns out to be a lot more work than you expected, a cute dog trainer comes to the rescue. You soon become friends, but you begin to realize friendship might not be all you want.

Try my luck- @drquinzelharleen

When your sister passed away a few years ago you took in her two kids, Yoongi and Jimin. You were happy to do it. Now Jimin was going into kindergarten and you were so worried. But when Jimin comes home talking about his new kindergarten teacher, Taetae everyday. You start to wonder who this man is. Turns out he was just what your little family needed.

Slip through the seams- @deerguk

your locomotion is not that of a normal human being, rather it is to extent of physically being able to transport from one place to another. normally, your seams slip you into locations that you are familiar with, but when you unexpectedly happen upon the apartment of Kim Teahyung in Seoul, south korea- your ability that you have always deemed a curse begins to feel more like a blessing in disguise

Lucy- @gamerguk

after reading a few more titles of the videos you’ve uploaded, taehyung has come to the conclusion that you’re the hottest fucking dumbass he’s ever seen and so desperately wants to fuck.

The roommate- @jjungkookislife

y/n is desperate to find a place to live in her city when her best friend, jimin suggests she moves in with his friend Jungkook (poly au)

Addicted to your touch- @jjungkookislife

spending valentines with your boyfriends

change- @junghelioseok

a kind, handsome stranger makes you question your deteriorating relationship

Heaven- @pjm-com

Being an angel who is dating a demon wasn’t easy in your community especially when everyone weighs in.

Petals- @katobobato

Every day the same boy with fluffy brown hair steps foot into y/n’s flower shop. He never buys any of the flowers, no, he just takes his time inspecting them all, taking in the heavenly scents. One day, however, he doesn’t come in. y/n wonders what happened to him until she bumps into him on her way home, surrounded by dying plants.

“The flowers get sad when you don’t look after yourself“.

Dick and go- @jeonggukingdom

It was all shits and giggles when you and Taehyung were desperate seniors in High School, having no idea what to do with your lives, wondering if you’d ever find a decent job or even graduate in the first place. It is not so funny anymore when you come home from the big city to enjoy your vacation time and you find his sex-shop right in front of the house you grew up in when you were a kid. “If nothing works out I’m just gonna open a sex shop and call it something obnoxious like ‘Dick on the Go’ or something with a stupid zucchini logo flashing on top of the building.” He had said one time. Shit, you had no idea he actually meant it.

All that is gold- @winetae

As a college student struggling to make ends meet, Taehyung resorts to a less than ethical method to satisfy his appetite for expensive treats. The last thing he wants is for you to find out how he acquires the Gucci in his closet… however this proves to be difficult when you are his roommate.

↳ or : Taehyung is a sugar baby and somehow thinks he can keep this a secret

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putschki1969 · 5 years

Text

Wakana LINE LIVE ~ Summary

Title: Monthly#6 o’clock Radio LINE LIVE [2019/09/26] Download link: !Click me! (some hiccups here and there) All credit goes to my friend @mowskyuu ( @sky_emi on weibo) The entire episode (including all the other segments) can also be found on Bilibili (in higher quality). All credit goes to VOCALOIDの生放送

Notes: As always, be prepared for a long read (keeping things short is not my forte). You better get yourself a cup of tea and some cookies. Without further ado, let’s get started. 〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)-→

We start out with our hosts Daniel and Rina introducing the program schedule. Wakana will have a special appearance in the guest corner. Rina was very hard to understand at first, I think her microphone didn’t work properly. Turn up the volume during the first few minutes or so. Be sure to lower the volume in time or you will have a heart attack when Wakana finally joins the hosts. The audio is still pretty bad afterwards so you will have to adjust your volume a lot. Ahhh, Wakana looks so pretty with her navy dress and her gorgeous long hair. It’s been a while since we have seen her with her hair open like that. It has really grown a lot!!

Since this is Wakana’s first time on the show Daniel is providing a short introduction. The usualy stuff. Born on Dec 10, from Fukuoka, Studied music ever since she was 12. Took part in all kinds of events since she was 17. Moved to Tokyo and joined the FictionJunction project. Debute as part of Kalafina by singing the theme songs of KnK. Recently started her career as solo singer with her single debut in February 2019. Just yesterday her live blu-ray got released. Daniel points out that he is also a Sagittarius, he was born on Dec 16. Then they get to the main topic of this episode. Something that Wakana is currently into. Wakana chose to talk about “gyoza” because she ALWAYS loves to eat them. She will never get tired of them. She even goes as far to create live goods related to gyoza. This shows how strong her love for gyoza is. Daniel wants to do a test with Wakana to find out what kind of Gyoza Type she is. Wakana is very excited to do the quiz. She is super curious to find out what type she is [Go HERE to find the test]

Q1: You really wanna eat gyoza but you already have plans to meet someone you like later on. What do you do?

Have some gyoza as you normally would

Just eat a tiny bit of them

Eat gyoza with garlic

For an extra kick add a lot of garlic to your gyoza

Decide not to eat any gyoza

Wakana goes for answer #5. She would rather not feel bad about the smell when she meets someone. She could always go for vegetable gyoza that won’t make you smell bad but then again, if she has a bad craving for gyoza she has to eat them with a LOT of garlic.

Q2: Before heading to bed you turn on the TV and realise an interesting movie is about to start. You have to get up early in the morning. What do you do?

Watch a bit and go to sleep

Watch it while constantly dozing off

Watch it to the very end

Immediately fall asleep

DVR it and go to bed

Wakana goes for answer #4. She hardly ever watches TV. Usually she watches stuff online on Netflix or something. She tends to watch about three films every day, she has her own schedules. And once she is done she immediately goes to sleep. Sleep is super important after all. She worries a lot if she doesn’t get enough sleep.

Q3:Do you see yourself as a hot or cold type?

More of a cold type

More of a hot type

100% a cold type

100% a hot type

Neither

This question is giving Wakana quite a bit of trouble. Also, the answers are taking super long to appear. Wakana works her magic. And she eventually goes for answer #2!!

She doesn’t see herself as a complete “hot” type but she is definitely not the “cold” type. She always gets hot super fast and super sudden. And she gets easily over-excited/hyped when she is talking with others. Also when she is together with her colleagues or having lunch/dinner with someone, her conversations tend to get heated quite quickly. Daniel is kinda surprised because he didn’t get that impression of her. Wakana says that all the fans who have known her for a long time will surely understand. We have seen how she acts after all...so it’s really not a surprise for us.

Q4: Do you have a strong personality?

Very strong

Considerably strong

A little strong

Not very strong

Rather weak

She goes for answer #2 again. She believes herself to have a somewhat strong personality. Right now she wants to try a lot of different things, she listens to so many different artists and gets inspired. Then Daniel remembers that there is another host so he finally starts including her as well. XD But only for a few seconds. And her microphone is still wonky...

Q5: How do you interact with your friends?

I socialise a lot but nothing serious

Just a small number of friends with a strong bond

I put all of myself into my friendships

I keep my distance when socialising

I have no friends

Answer #2 AGAIN. She really likes to spend quality time with her friends, like going to dinner and having a nice girls’ night. She also likes to do Ghibli meet-ups with all her friends who love Ghibli just as much as her. On to the final question.

Q6: Rate your own positivity from 1-5! Wakana goes for the highest rating. => 5. She has a very positive outlook on life. She always tries to look straight ahead and make the best of it. But of course there are some regrets here and there despite all the positivity. Sometimes she can get a bit cranky and negative. For example, when she fails to get enough sleep or forgets about it. She tends to get really annoyed with herself at times like that. She will make sure not to forget about her sleep again.

Daniel says he isn’t the positive type and he would rate himself as 1. Rina on the other hand also goes for 5 just like Wakana. Wakana is happy about that.

Drum rolls for the result. Wakana can barely hold it in, she is so excited to find out which type of gyoza she is.

Wakana is the Plenty of Garlic&Ginger Gyoza Type!! Wakana is not surprised about the garlic. A unique personality with a strong commitment to your own personality. Very honest and straightforward, many people will be attracted to that sort of personality. Imagining you were a gyoza, a garlic and ginger dumpling is really the best fit because it has a great kick to it and it is very popular. You may not always leave the most pleasant aftertaste (Wakana’s “noooo” is so cute here, she is sad to hear that!) but you always leave a strong impression and people will remember you longer after an encounter. Overall Wakana is happy with the result since she really loves to eat this kind of gyoza. She likes things that have a kick to it. Such an interesting quiz. Turn out that Rina did the same quiz and she had the same result. Wakana is happy they are matching. They even have the same hairstyle today with the open hair and parting in the middle. Daniel is the Boiled Gyoza type. Wakana mentions that she recently talked about boiled gyoza in her fan club magazine. They are soft and yummy and juicy. Anyways, everyone should try the quiz too! It’s a lot of fun!

We then talk about how Wakana doesn’t only love eating gyoza, she also really enjoys to make them. Back in May of this year she visited her older brother and his family in Australia. She helped his wife make gyoza for all of them. It was fun to make them in a place that’s so far away. They bought the gyoza skin at an Asian store and then made them together. They were super yummy. Her niece helped too. Rina happened to make some gyoza too the other day. Wakana is impressed. Daniel adds that he recently went to Gyoza no Ohsho which is a popular restaurant chain focusing on gyoza and Chinese food. Wakana hasn’t been there in a long time and wants to go as soon as possible. Rina went to a place called Gyoza Yasubee or something. Wakana also wants to go there. She wants to go everywhere. If it went her way she would be throwing a gyoza party tomorrow. Everyone is invited.

Time to introduce the gyoza goods Wakana has created for her fan club event.

First we get her lovely bag which can be worn in many different ways. Then we have her gyoza plate. She added the characters/kanji of her name to make it more personal. Then we have her GyoZame shirt because she loves both gyoza and same (sharks).

And the stickers of course. Fans are commenting that they have bought all the goods and love to use them. Wakana thinks her shirt is super cute [it really IS!!] A fan requests a slightly burned version of the gyoza bag. So that it looks like a proper pot sticker. Wakana then shows the inside of the bag which is cute and soft.

Daniel notes that Wakana often posts gyoza on her instagram. These pictures are all taken with her very own camera - Wakame. Rina is also a big fan of cameras. Wakana is once again happy to find someone who enjoys the same things. And she is sorry that Rina is getting sidelined all the time. Wakana’s brother seems to be quite the professional when it comes to camera work. Apparently he takes pictures of make-up and for that he needs some super fancy lenses. It’s very complicated and she doesn’t really understand all the details. Camerawork is very hard.

Now we are getting to all the promotional stuff. Nothing interesting here. First they introduce Wakana’s Blu-ray which got released yesterday. They provide a sneak peek of the limited edition. Daniel shows a few pictures from the booklet. Due to the exaggerated reactions of Daniel Wakana tells us that there are no sexy pictures in the booklet even though it might seem like that if you just judge from the noises Daniel is making. They talk a bit more about the contents, the setlist etc Wakana talks about loving Spitz and Miyuki Nakajima. She loved singing Jida during her tour because at that time Japan transitioned from Heisei era to Reiwa era. She felt like it was very meaningful to sing a song like that. That Tokyo performance was actually her final Heisei live.

As we know, Wakana is currently working on new releases. She loves this sort of work. Exploring different genres, finding new kinds of music for herself. This process makes her very happy and she always looks ahead to discover something new. Because she is super positive as we have learned already.

Some promotion for the December lives. As she just mentioned, she is working on a lot of stuff and she hopes that we will get to hear some of it very soon. Sadly, the final greeting is cut off. Last but not least a very patchy Kinmokusei from the live. Consider it a sneak peek for the Blu-Ray. Her performance is lovely. I hope it gets you hyped to watch the release!! Edit: Be sure to check out the Bilibili version to listen to the song in its entirety.

#kalafina #wakana #video #summary #line live #gyoza #wakana is a precious cinnamon roll #and a garlic ginger gyoza

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shinobi98 · 5 years

Note

Sansa Stark (Got), Steve Rogers (Marvel) and Shima Renzo (Ane)

I hate you, sis. Now I'll be forced to think of something nice to say for all of them😂😂

1) Favorite thing about them

Sansa: Despite what everyone says, I liked her when she was in King's Landing. Despite the position she was in, she stood up to Jeoffry in different occasions.

Steve: His fights are always enjoyable to watch. I like his fighting style and the choreographies.

Shima: He's funny. And I liked him in the Tokyo Saga.

2) Least favorite thing about them

Sansa: How she doesn't give a fuck about her siblings and family dying. I don't remember her reaction to Robb's death, but she doesn't care for Ricokn one bit. She doesn't care for her mother either. She's more shocked by the way her father died than anything else. She doesn't worry for Arya when, for all she knew, she had been killed or kidnapped.

Steve: Civil War. He was so stubborn and stupid. Divided the Avengers because he couldn't compromise, not even a little. And then has the nerve to blame Tony in Endgame??

Shima: He doesn't have a real motivation to do what he does. He betrayed his friends' trust, put his classmates in danger and works for a terrorist organization that wants to destroy the world... Just because he wants to have fun? I hope they'll give us a better explanation but, as things are now, it's really annoying.

3) Favorite line

Sansa: I'm a slow learner, it's true, but I learn. Though it's not a meaningful quote, it summarize her character arc pretty well.

Steve: I'm gonna need a raincheck on that date. The whole dialogue is a real tearjerker.

Shima: Everyone, thank you for trusting me until now but in the end this is as far as I go. Well then, farewell. It makes me hope there's gonna be a big confrontation when they meet again, he won't just go back as if nothing happened like the first time.

4) BrOTP

Sansa: Jon. They work well together and care for each other, I enjoyed when they teamed up, right up until Dany came along and everyone became straight up toxic (but that season was not canon anyway, right?)

Steve: Sam. Sam's always there when Steve needs him, even though he's barely better than an average human and fights supersoldiers and aliens. And Steve trusted him with his shield and Cap mantle.

Shima: Rin. He didn't care that he was Satan's son and treated him normally pretty soon - even though I'm not sure whether this makes him a good person or just too lazy to hold a grudge lol.

5) OTP

Sansa: Theon. I wish it was endgame and, tbh, I hardly think Sansa has another nice ship anyway lol.

Steve: Peggy. Although I hated Endgame's ending too. That think made no sense and almost ruined this ship for me.

Shima: I don't ship him with anyone tbh. If I have to pick someone, I'd say Kamiki, but it's hardly an OTP.

6) nOTP

Sansa: Jon. I really don't like incest and the amount of people that ship them in the fandom had me fed up with this ship for good, since they are both blood related being cousins and grew up like adoptive siblings/thinking they were siblings.

Steve: Tony. I would barely call them friends, shipping them is too much of a stretch since they can only argue - if they were a ship, it would be the most toxic thing ever.

Shima: Bon. Just no, please. Besides, Bon deserves better than this bastard.

7) Random headcanon

Sansa: She's a good queen and her people love her. She's taken many advisors and listens to them before making a decision, not wanting to end up being a terrible ruler like Joeffry was.

Steve: He had a hard time adjusting to 21-century technology and though he would be happy after he went back, but truth is he now misses technology dearly and always reaches down for his phone (for music, internet, calls, camera - anything) before realizing he doesn't have one. And he will reference something from the future while talking, just to be met with confusion from whoever he's talking to. He never thought he'd have trouble adjusting to the 60's, and he's pretty surprised about it.

Shima: He'll end up fighting Beelzebub, King of Insects, and then we'll find out he was lying about his fear of bugs as well.

8) Unpopular Opinion

Sansa: The fans either worship her or hare her, so she's either depicted as a Mary Sue or as if she's as evil as the Night King, no one seems to understand that she's just another character that has some shitty subplots, bad ideas and was selfish and bitchy from time to time and she also had good moments and that the fact that she doesn't fight doesn't mean she's useless or a bad character.

Steve: the fact that he could pick up Thor's hammer was the stupidest thing ever. Completely unnecessary and only done because of fanservice. How could anyone have liked that bit? Meh.

Shima: I don't know how people feel about him, but I assume it's unpopular to think he doesn't deserve a redemption arc. He's a morally gray character thar might ultimately fight for the goodies, but please don't pull out a shitty romance or sad backhistory out of your asses and explain what Gary Stu he actually was and how he suffered every moment he had to pretend he was with the Illuminati.

9) Song I associate with them

Sansa: Jenny of Oldstones by Florence + The Machine (not Pod).

Steve: Star-spangled Man With a Plan. Duh.

Shima: You're Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring.

10) Favorite Picture of Them

I think this is everyone's favorite ahah.

Steve risking his life to save his friends and people in need was what Cap was supposed to be. I feel they lost his true essence in the later movies

Shima's, became that a picture I saw shortly after I started the anime and that's how I spoiled myself he was Illuminati. Also, he looks like a dork and sounds like an ass, so it's the perfect picture for him.

#Got #Aoex #Mervel #Avengers #Steve Rogers #Captain america #Sansa stark #Game of thrones #Ao no exorcist #Blue exorcist #Ane #shima renzou

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1kook · 6 years

Text

crisis averted

❀: Chanyeol x (F) Reader

summary → The doorbell rings not even ten minutes later, and you buzz him up without even checking the little screen to see if it’s actually Chanyeol. But who else would show up at your door past midnight? → friends to lovers, sexual content (smut) → 5.2k

this isn't proofread lmao mobile users: there is a read more inserted but it doesn't work unless the post is reblogged so I'm sorry if you have to scroll through all this! :(

for reference x!

Chanyeol was in the middle of what was probably his third mid-life crisis when you’d first met him, his hair a pastel array of colors that seemed to reflect the tumultuous state of his emotions. You’d been alarmed at his appearance, never before seeing someone as mismatched as he’d been, his very obviously buff figure hidden beneath a multitude of loose clothing, his boyish facial features thrown for a loop whenever he spoke in that deep tone of his. He was constantly changing, balancing between the happiest person in the universe, and the biggest crybaby ever. But his emotional state wasn’t due to some traumatic event that had occurred to him, like the death of a loved one, or a break-up more severe than any drama writer could ever imagine, but it was simply because he wasn’t sure whether or not he turned the stove off that morning.

In short, Chanyeol was an enigma, a perplexing being whose preferred choice of action always contained the most complex solution, even when the simplest answer was available.

Perhaps thats why it’d been so easy to befriend him during college, with the way he fluttered from group to group, seemingly finding something to relate to within everyone he ever met. Chanyeol had become the planner of your group outings, mostly the instigator of all those weird three a.m. adventures, and though your friend circle seemed large, he’d always found a time to sneak in a little conversation between the two of you. Of course, he’d done that for everyone and his never-ending kindness was what had made him such a lovable character among you all, one of those guys that you remembered way after college as the life of the party, and, in most cases, the one that ended up a deadbeat crackhead.

Yet Chanyeol was different in the sense that he had high hopes for his future, dreams that eclipsed any possibility of him becoming a failure. He was dead set on his career as an architect, putting aside his pride to even attend tutoring for that mathematics class he was falling behind in. His determination to succeed in life was so strong, that it was no surprise he did end up in the career he wanted, and had even advanced through different promotions all within your first year out of college.

The way he’d slithered his way into your life after graduation was also confusing.

Though you’d still kept in touch with the majority of your college friends, he seemed to be the one that stuck out the most, his presence nearly inevitable in your daily life. It wasn’t anything too major, not like his clothes were in your house, but just tiny things, like how he’d somehow managed to sneak his copy of Tokyo Drift into your movie collection, or the annoying habit of his to line up all your shoes every time he visited. It was those little gestures that seemed to stand out the most in your apartment, and eventually, you weren’t the only one that noticed.

“Did Chanyeol come over?” Jongdae called from the kitchen, where he was supposed to be grabbing the two of you a bottle of water. You hummed in response, your attention primarily focused on the paperwork before you. Your current occupation was as an elementary school teacher, and though you loved working with kids, their handwriting was absolutely atrocious, and the only other person willing to strain their eyes for two hours straight happened to be your best friend.

“Yeah, he dropped by yesterday,” you responded, handing a sheet over to Jongdae as he dutifully returned to his spot on the floor by the coffee table. In exchange, he handed you the water bottle, and you barely cracked the lid open when he dove into his interrogation.

“He loves bothering you, doesn’t he?” He teased, and you could only offer a half-hearted shrug, gulping down the water instead. Jongdae nudged your side, and you slowly lowered the bottle, raising your brows at him as if he was saying something useless. He was, but he’d smack you over the head with a throw pillow if you said as much.

“Don’t you think he comes over a little too much for someone who’s just a friend?” He sighed, and you blinked.

The thought had occurred to you multiple times. Chanyeol’s visits were often, probably at least once a week, more frequent than Jongdae’s, and he was supposed to be your best friend. You didn’t mind them though, as his presence seemed to calm you in a way no one else’s did. But you could see why Jongdae had his suspicions, and from an outsiders perspective, it did seem like Chanyeol was a nuisance to you, and the fact most of the stories you shared about him included Chanyeol being a bit overbearing didn’t seem to help.

But you knew Chanyeol in a way Jongdae didn't, despite you all being college pals, and you knew he wouldn’t understand that Chanyeol wasn’t bothering you for the mere fact he wanted someone to annoy, but because he cared about you, and valued your friendship enough to check up on you. There was also the fat he brightened your day when he’d pop in, even if his stay was only for a few minutes with the sole intention of grabbing a water in the middle of his jog. He was naturally friendly and nurturing, and the sight of him sprawled across your sofa as you reheated leftovers, waiting to hear about your week, was so ingrained in your mind already.

You weren’t exactly sure when Chanyeol had morphed from ‘that one guy’ in your group to someone you found yourself relying on, even when nothing was wrong. Since your first introduction, he’d had two other midlife crises, the first one making him impulsively dye his hair a flaming red color, but he was your friend so you were mandated to be there for him whenever another minor inconveniences occurred in his admittedly fast-paced life.

Chanyeol’s hair had been that fiery color when your dirtbag boyfriend had dumped you two weeks before graduation. You remember the way you’d bumped into him as you climbed off the bus in front of your campus, and how he’d dropped his grocery bag in an attempt to comfort you. You’d barely known each other then, and the sickening crack his carton of eggs had made as he pulled you into a soft side hug had sent you into a spiraling panic.

But Chanyeol hadn’t minded, he even walked you across the campus until you reached your dorm building. It was the first instance you’d found yourself leaning for him, any sort of reservations you’d had before flying out the window as he saw you to your dorm, and even went as far as waiting for you to wash your face and crawl into bed, before shutting the lights off and promptly leaving.

“He’s my close friend,” you drawl when you realize you’d left Jongdae hanging for too long. He eyes you as if he wants to ask more, but you beat him to it. “You’re the one who said I should be nicer to him,” you point out, and revel in the defeated sigh he gives in response.

Jongdae stays a while longer, but once the sun begins setting, he leaves. He’s been working weird shifts at work lately, so you don’t beg him to help you any longer, and even wrap up some of the homemade gelatin you’d made yesterday for him to take on his way out.

You’re left alone in your thoughts for the rest of the night, until Chanyeol texts you around midnight, and you contemplate ignoring it as you open your retainer case, face freshly washed and hair pulled away from your face. You’re beyond tired, and tomorrow’s Saturday, so you can sleep in for as long as you want; you want nothing more than to collapse right now.

But your curiosity gets the best of you and you find yourself setting aside your retainers in favor of reaching for your phone, swiping a finger across the screen until your messages open up and your faced with a challenge.

chanyeol [12:13 pm] we have a problem.

You can feel your last peaceful exhale leave you like the ocean’s pulling tide in the early morning hours, Chanyeol’s text burning itself into the back of your eyelids as you let them flutter shut. You can’t stop the palm you raise to your face, your pointer finger massaging your temples as you begin considering how to go about this. You could easily ignore the message and tell him in the morning that you’d already been asleep then. He was familiar with your sleeping habits enough to believe such a lie. But there’s also the possibility that Chanyeol really is in trouble this time, and not going through another minor inconvenience that even a toddler could easily get around.

___ [12:15 pm] what is your problem?

He responds right away.

chanyeol [12:15 pm] our* problem

chanyeol [12:16 pm] i’m coming over.

You nearly slam your head against your vanity. Leave it to Chanyeol to deprive you of your sleep. After the week you’ve had, you have to talk yourself out of strangling him the second he shows up. It’d only taken him five minutes to ruin your night so it’s only fair.

Pushing your irritation aside, you go about your apartment, picking up the stray socks here and there, and even doing a light sweep of the place. You weren’t kidding about your week, so it was natural your place had taken a little extra hit from your growing stress in the form of scattered cookie crumbs and misplaced shoes.

The doorbell rings not even ten minutes later, and you buzz him up without even checking the little screen to see if it’s actually Chanyeol. But who else would show up at your door past midnight? As you walk past the front door, broom in hand, you unlock the door before continuing down the hall to return the broom to its rightful place in the spare closet.

Chanyeol bursts in without knocking, a habit of his that had terrified the living daylights out of you when he'd first began visiting you. You don’t think much of it now, and don’t even flinch at his clambering as he tugs off his shoes, trailing your way back to the front door to greet him.

“Hey,” you say and all is calm for exactly a quarter of a second, before Chanyeol’s entire face goes up in flames. You’re immediately startled, and don't waste time ushering him inside as he struggles out a greeting that is only half comprehensible, his flustered state worrying you the longer he stutters about. “Jesus, Yeol, what happened to you?”

Chanyeol’s looking every bit the abducted civilian as he sits awkwardly perched on your couch, his brown eyes hidden behind the thin glass layer of his spectacles. Suddenly, you notice the soft hues of his hair, peeking out beneath the brim of his hat. Without much warning, you snatch the accessory off his head, greeted by the sight of his wavy hair colored a pastel shade, similar to the it’d been when you first met.

“I-I can explain!” he exclaims, snatching the hat back out of your grasp to stuff over his hair. He’s visibly a mess, and you can already tell he’s going through another one of his crises just by the way his gaze flickers between you and the potted plant behind you.

“Oh, dude,” you breathe, trying to chance another peek at his hair, which he dutifully avoids by clamping a palm over the top of his hat, holding it down firmly. “You’re going through some shit, aren’t you?” You plop down beside him, criss-crossing your legs as you turn to face his tense figure.

“You have no idea,” he whines, before slumping into the couch, long arms spreading over the entirety of the back. His hair makes him appear way tanner than he normally is, the soft pinks and purples curling around his ears where the hat doesn’t exactly cover.

You know you should feel sympathetic, but you can’t help the snort that escapes your lips as you stare at Chanyeol. He’d been so put together last week as he’d rambled on and on about some new project at work, and how awesome Sehun’s birthday party had been. He’d just finished moving into a new apartment too, one that allowed him to finally reclaim his dog from his family home and live with him. From an outsider’s perspective, Chanyeol couldn’t possibly have anything to complain about, especially with the life he lead now.

Carefully, you tug the black hat off his head, and when he doesn’t protest, you begin running your fingers through his newly dyed hair. You’re surprised he hasn’t begun balding, especially with the rate he changes up his hair; it’s unusually silky for someone who pours way too many chemicals into it.

“Wanna talk about it?” You hum, and his eyes flutter shut beneath your touch. He sighs, and you can already tell he’s going to dive into the venting of a lifetime right now. Hopefully, you can derail his stress enough that he doesn’t impulsively dye his hair another color tomorrow. By the way he’s slowly dissolving into a puddle beneath your fingers, it’s possible.

“They wanna build a villa,” Chanyeol murmurs, head tilting just the slightest in your direction. “A fucking villa,” he repeats, and an unamused huff leaves his throat. “Can you believe that, ___? He contracts me for a bachelor pad, and after we’ve finally hammered out all the stupid little details he spent months crying about, his fiancée says she wants a fucking villa.” He groans, and you run your nails against his scalp, until his agitated grunt melts into a soft whine.

You nod along, even though his eyes are shut, but you know he can feel your sympathy as you toy with his hair. “But it gets worse!” He shifts, so his head is pressed into the couch cushions and turned your way, his body slowly becoming one with the cotton beneath him. “Apparently, Toben can’t be in the complex backyard until I get him spayed, which, I could’ve sworn he was, but apparently he wasn’t!”

“You should take him to Minseok’s clinic,” you suggest, voice quiet compared to his loud tone as he continues on complaining over you. You don’t mind, and just listen for a few more minutes as he tells you everything wrong with his life, including how he’d gone to dye his hair a dark red, only to hastily decide on the pastel mess it was now, without considering the fact his work dress code only called for moderately natural hair colors. Now he’d have to go again before Monday to dye it black or brown (’or something! I don’t know!’) again.

You’ve long since abandoned combing through his locks, and instead chose to pick at a stray thread on one of your throw pillows, listening intently to everything he said. He rarely had moments like these, where every single thing seemed to get on nerves, but you yourself had plenty. And he was always there for you, so it was only just that you did the same for him.

By the time Chanyeol’s irritation is reaching its end, he’s basically cursing everything, even things that don’t have any correlation to his current distress. “And also, I haven’t vacuumed the living room carpet in weeks, the bathroom soap is about to run out, and I haven’t gotten laid in three fucking months now,” he whines, eyes screwing shut as his lips push out into a pout.

He seems settled after that, his ragged breath slowly turning into a soft sigh, until he’s completely cooled down from his blow up. “You should vacuum while Toben’s at the vet,” you say afterwards, brushing a stray hair behind your ear as you lean into the couch, one hand propped on your elbow.

Unconsciously, your fingers stretch out to toy with his hair again, but this time, his eyes flutter open. “And there’s definitely an unopened hand wash under the sink,” you add as you recall the tangerine scented bottle you’d seen last week when you’d all gone over for game night at Chanyeol’s place.

He sighs, leaning into your touch. He looks ridiculously soft in this state, and with his hair array of pinks and purples, the occasional baby blue peeking out, he looked almost heavenly. “You can’t have such an easy solution for everything,” he huffs, an though his comment is sarcastic, his tone is lighthearted. You give a noncommittal hum at his words, and his brown eyes slowly find yours. The glint in his eyes is different then, nothing like the jittery mess that had walked through your door. “What about getting laid?” He teases, the corner of his lip curling upwards.

You roll your eyes. “Just go to a club, or something,” you reply offhandedly, before turning away from him to stretch your cramping legs out. Chanyeol shifts, and when you sit back again, he’s sat up now.

“What if I don’t wanna go to a club?” He pushes, running his fingers through his hair until it’s pushed away from his forehead.

You shrug. “Then go to a brothel.”

Chanyeol huffs out a cackle, which you ignore in favor of watching the way his lips pull tight around his smile, and his Adams apple bops as he throws his head back. When he’s done, he turns his gaze back to you, and for the first time, Jongdae’s words ring in your mind again.

You shoo them away quickly though. “You have too many problems, Yeol,” you point out, and he chuckles again, though this time it’s more muted and less as amused.

“Yeah,” he muses, eyes trailing over your face in a way he’s never really done before. He’s eyeing you again, which you try to ignore, but when your gazes meet, suddenly you feel taken away at the intensity of his stare. It’s as if you’re suddenly realizing your situation. Alone with a man on a Friday night, both of you gazing at each other too deeply for people who are just friends. The sudden realization startles you into looking away first, eyes landing on the papers scattered across your coffee table.

A hand presses to your thigh, bare due to the length of your shorts. “My biggest problem,” Chanyeol murmurs, and your eyes instinctively snap back to him. He grins, his chest rising as he takes in another heavy breath. “Is you.”

“Huh?” You question, and for the first time, you feel nervous in front of Chanyeol. You feel unsure of the way he’s gazing at you, at the way his fingers press into your thigh, and the way he looks like he belongs there, nestled inside your apartment as if he’s always been there. Perhaps he does, you think, as your eyes slowly trace down his face until you catch yourself staring at his mouth, his lips turned upwards in an arrogant smirk you rarely see on Chanyeol.

He leans forward then, and your body betrays you, letting him press against you until he has you between his warm body and the armrest of the furniture. “You’re my biggest problem, ___,” he sighs, his mouth suddenly pressed against your neck, and you can’t help the tiny gasp that fights its way out of your throat.

“I-I don’t understand,” you breathe, though your hands curl their way around Chanyeol’s shoulders, and can feel the twitch of his muscles as his hand trails up your side. “Chanyeol,” you gasp, when he suddenly presses a kiss beneath your ear, and your faithless body arches up into him.

“God, ___” he says against the skin of your neck, and you jump when you feel his hand pull against the back of your thigh, slowly encouraging your legs aside until he’s cradled between your legs. “I come over here all the time, take you out to eat whenever you want, and I even buy you makeup shit that I don’t even know anything about,” he huffs, and nips at the vein in your neck. Your breath stutters and you find yourself melting under his touch, similar to the way he had been earlier when you’d brushed your fingers through his hair.

“I’ve been trying to win you over for the longest time, love,” he murmurs, his mouth on your neck getting bolder with every word he says. He pulls away only for a moment, brown eyes meeting yours as he quietly says, “you stress me the fuck out.”

You can’t help the snort that leaves your throat, and the blindingly bright smile Chanyeol sends your way is enough to make your heart tap dance in your chest. “Yeol, you’re the worst!” You huff, rolling your head back until it’s over the curve of the armrest. He seems weirdly complacent as he watches you war with yourself, all your past theories suddenly bubbling to the surface.

Jongdae was one hundred percent correct in his weird assumptions of Chanyeol, and though a deep part of you always knew he was way too touchy for someone who was just a friend, you hadn’t believed someone as marvelous as Chanyeol could be interested in you.

He doesn’t let you drown in your past self doubts for long before he’s resuming kissing along your neck, his lips slowly inching their way up. “Do you know how annoying it is having to watch you whine about how no one likes you every weekend,” he murmurs against your jaw, where he’s making quick work of reaching your lips.

“Shut up,” you whine, arms twining around his back to finally pull him closer. “Just kiss me before I kick you out.”

Chanyeol complies, pressing his pink lips to yours in what is your first kiss with him. He’s a disgustingly good kisser, and for a moment you kick yourself for letting him wander off with random women at parties, women who’d gotten to see another side of him, when you could’ve been seeing him in this light, hearing the sounds he makes as he pushes against your core. “You’re so pretty, baby,” he chuckles when he pulls away, cheeks adorably flushed and lips sinfully red and plump. God, do you really hate your own obliviousness.

Though he pecks your lips once more, he soon begins working his way in the direction he’d come from, lips pressing to your neck at all the right spots, leaving you a panting mess beneath him. The shirt you’re wearing only works in Chanyeol’s favor, and he crumples the over-sized material in one fist, pulling it away to expose one side of your neck.

“Ch-Chanyeol,” you pant when he shifts against you, and something brushes against your core. Your hands dig into the back of his own shirt, fisting the material under your tight grasp.

He hums, his hands finally releasing you to push up your shirt instead, long fingers tickling up your skin the further he goes. You’d tugged on a lacy bralette when he’d first announced his visit, too lazy to tug on a real bra but not bold enough to let the girls swing in his presence. Apparently, none of that mattered now as Chanyeol’s fingers traced along the soft lace of the only article keeping his hands from your hardening nipples.

He pushes your shirt back, and leans away just the slightest to stare at the cute lace that hugged your skin. “Wow,” he breathes, flashing you another one of those dopey smiles. There’s a bow sewed into the center of the garment, a dainty little thing that sits in the valley between your breasts, and you know what he’s going to say before he says it. “You’re like a present.”

You pinch his bicep, though he probably doesn’t feel it through all that muscle because all Chanyeol does is laugh, obnoxiously loud for someone currently making out. But it’s endearing in a way you never thought sex would be, his hands stroking up your side as he gazes at you intimately. “Hurry up,” you tell him, deciding the best way to get him back on track is with more skin. So you tug the shirt over your head, and make quick work of disposing his own.

“Relax, baby,” he says once you’ve managed to wrangle him out of his long sleeve shirt. There’s a new tattoo on his clavicle, a date that you hadn’t seen before, and when you point it out questioningly, Chanyeol’s only response is, “I love my mom.”

“Of course you do,” you murmur, before pulling him by the neck to kiss you again. He does so without complaint, and repositions himself above you until he’s somewhat on his knees, somewhat lying down, his skin on yours scorching.

Chanyeol’s hand is already under the soft material of your bra, fingers toying with your hardened nipple, when he decides he needs to kiss you again, surging forward to sloppily press his mouth against yours. His tongue is all too skilled as he licks into the hot inside of your mouth, and you know he has that stupidly dopey grin on from the way you occasionally feel his teeth press against your lips. “Stop it,” you quietly whine, fingers knotted in the pastel tresses of his hair.

“I can’t help it, baby,” he replies, and you have a hard time swallowing the moan that builds in the back of your throat when he finally frees both your nipples from their clothed cage, only to capture them between his fingers. “You look so cute right now.”

Before you can point out his cheesiness, he’s manhandling you around the couch, until you’re seated in his lap. The dark shorts he’d shown up in have shifted from all the movement, until they’re clinging dangerously low on the dip of his waist, all taut muscles on display before you. He taps your arms, urging you to raise your arms, before he’s pulling the bralette over your head, and you’re left in the same state of dress as him, a feat he doesn’t let last long.

Chanyeol helps you shimmy out of the cotton shorts you’d been wearing, and when you’re finally seated on his lap in only a lacy little underwear you’d bought at a Victoria’s Secret sale, he takes you in. His hands are as wild as he is, tracing over your shoulders and down your spine, a ticklish feeling that makes you unconsciously arch into him, pressing your breasts a little too close to his face. Chanyeol doesn’t mind, and had you not sat back down onto his lap, he’d have leaned forward to lick at your nipples.

When he’s satisfied with the mapping out he’s done of your body, he lets his fingers trail between your legs, running one lone finger over the little dip where your folds meet. Your body twitches, and you bite down the moan building in your throat. “C’mon, ___,” he murmurs, lips pressed to your neck as his fingers continue their ministrations. “Tell me what you want.” He presses one finger against your clit, and you gasp, throwing your head back in pleasure.

“Y-You,” you stammer, already feeling the last traces of control leaving your body as you submit to him, body completely malleable under his touch. “I want you, Yeol,” you whimper, and you reach your hands out towards him in a last ditch effort to stabilize yourself. One hand digs into the taut muscles of his shoulder, while the other tangles itself in that bright head of his, your fingers buried between strands of pink and purple.

“Really?” Chanyeol grins, and before you can respond, he’s pushed aside your underwear and has one finger gently prodding at your slick pussy. His finger now halfway submerged inside of you, he presses a kiss against your neck, where a thin sheen of sweat has accumulated. His finger twists inside of you, and you're vaguely aware that he’s knuckles deep, as he adds in that low voice of his, “you like my fingers, baby?”

You nod, your lip bruising between your teeth. He’s only got one finger inside of you, yet you’re already a withering mess in front of him, thighs quivering with every curl of his digit, your whole body jolting when he brushes his thumb against your clit.

Chanyeol continues on fingering you, basking in the sounds you make, and the way you cry his name when he brushes against the sweet spot inside of you. You’re sweaty and gross, but the way he glances up at you like you’re an ancient goddess makes your heart thud faster until you can hear the blood rushing in your ears.

He slips another finger in to properly scissor you, and you nearly weep from the sensations coursing through your body. “Faster,” you beg, voice hoarse from all the incoherent babbling you’ve been doing, but Chanyeol complies, twisting his wrist hard and fast, until you’re pushing down into his fingers, desperate for more.

“Look at you,” he says, lips sucking at your collarbone. At this point, you’re contributing equally as much as Chanyeol to your impending orgasm, rutting against his hand like an animal in heat. He doesn’t seem to mind as he kisses along your damp skin, sucking marks against places you know will be hard to cover up, but in the moment you don’t seem to mind. “You’re making such a mess,” Chanyeol sighs, and when you glance down, his hand is glistening with your own pleasure.

Your orgasm is slowly creeping up on you, and your body feels ridiculously weak, your mind in an even more frazzled state from all that’s happened so far. You fall forward, burying your face against Chanyeol’s neck as his hands get faster and your hips get slower.

“Yeol,” you pant, and his hips unconsciously thrust up into your core, drawing a long moan from you. The sound only seems to work him further, and you’re suddenly aware he’s been holding himself back in favor of pleasuring you first. “It’s so good,” you tell him, lips flush against his skin, you tongue languidly licking at the spot just beneath his ear.

His makes a sound to let you know he’s listening, fingers curling inside of you as you continue whimpering against his chest. “Please, Yeol,” you whine, suddenly grinding your hips forward until his hand is trapped between the two of you and his covered cock is rubbing against your folds. “You make me feel s-so good.”

It doesn’t take much longer for you to finally release, the combined sensations of his thumb rubbing against your clit and his rock-hard outline against your lower lips enough to turn you into a whimpering mess before him, his name rolling off your tongue like honey, until your hips stutter against his, and you briefly fall into a placid state between his arms.

When you come to again, the feeling of his raging cock beneath you is enough to make your legs tremble again, but Chanyeol doesn’t let it go any further just yet.

“You were so good for me, baby,” he murmurs as he presses soft kisses along your shoulder, before grabbing your chin between his fingers to press his lips to yours. His mouth is still as hot as it was before, and you melt into his touch, running both hands through his light hair and tugging until he’s moaning against your lips, his hips slowly stirring beneath you.

You pull away with a loud pop, quickly pressing your lips against the corner of his jaw, and sucking a light bruise onto the hot skin. “Well,” he sighs, voice airy, “that solves one problem.”

You bite down hard, yet Chanyeol still laughs.

#park chanyeol smut #park chanyeol imagine #pcy smut #pcy imagine #chanyeol x reader #chanyeol smut #mine #whew boy i wrote this all in two hours #a bitch is struggling!!!#my eyesight!!! none existent #exo fic

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mst3kproject · 6 years

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909: Gorgo

I was surprised that Crow and Servo behaved as if Reptilicus was their first non-Japanese giant rubber monster movie… but then, it had been about twenty years and the bots didn’t spend it re-watching the old episodes like I did, so I guess I can forgive them. You’d think they’d remember all that Dorkin’, though.

A volcano emerges from the ocean, damaging a salvage vessel crewed by identical English guys. They put in for repairs at the unfriendly Irish island of Nara, where something shady seems to be afoot. Something shady is, but it doesn’t really matter because the subplot comes to a sudden and premature end with the appearance of a giant finny-eared sea monster! Our heroes – a guy named Sam, played by William Sylvester, and another guy whose name is not Sam, played by a guy who looks exactly like William Sylvester – decide that the obvious thing to do is to capture this beast and take it to a major city. It’s not like anything could go wrong with that.

I’m not sure why this movie needed the aborted subplot about the Viking treasure, because nobody comes out of that looking good. Finding treasure in the UK is like finding a body – you have a legal duty to inform the local coroner. Somebody from the government will then come and assess what you’ve found, and offer right of first purchase to any interested museums. If the museums can’t afford it (which is very likely), it will be returned to you to dispose of as you please. The law is intended to protect items whose historical value may be greater than their monetary value (like the tray-jurr chest in The Thing that Couldn’t Die).

Having done this research throws a slightly different light over the whole to-do with the treasure. If Sam and Not-Sam had threatened to report the treasure to the authorities themselves, they’d still have been bullies but they’d have been doing their citizenly duty. Instead they decide to steal from the criminals, knowing that the latter can’t complain about it without exposing their own wrongdoing. Well done, movie, there’s some likable heroes right there!

Besides British treasure laws from the 60’s, the other thing I looked up for this review was Lemon Hart, which is seen in a big background advertisement in the Piccadilly Circus scenes. Apparently it’s a type of rum. I wish I’d known that before I watched the movie, and I’m disappointed it’s not an ingredient in @colleenrants ’s Gorgo.

Before I did that research, my first reaction to Gorgo is that this is another movie that looks terrible. Maybe it’s just the decaying film stock but the whole thing is dark and washed-out to the point where the only noticeable colour besides a dull blue is the pink of flabby British faces that haven’t seen the sun in six months. The bluescreen work is dreadful and so are the miniatures, and where black and white stock footage is inserted they didn’t even bother to tint it… which makes me suspect that the film stock was awful to begin with.

My second reaction was that for all Leonard Maltin calls this “kind of a British take on Godzilla”, this movie is not Godzilla. This movie is King Kong. The main characters put in at an island inhabited by unfriendly people, where they find a giant monster. A victim is offered up as bait to lure the creature in and capture it, and it is then taken to a big city, where it causes mayhem among major landmarks as the army tries ineffectually to stop it. This is exactly the plot of King Kong, with William Sylvester in his little diving bell as Fay Wray!

When you look at it this way, there are a few layers of interest in the movie using an Irish island. The islanders in King Kong were stock savages. The ones in Gorgo are isolated fishermen… but for the last couple of thousand years, ‘unwashed barbarians’ is exactly how the English have perceived not only the Irish but the Scots and the Welsh as well. These peoples have been treated in the same way as the English treated conquered Africans and Americans, forced to learn English and with their own languages and cultures outlawed (notice how the characters in Gorgo take the speaking of Gaeilge as a sort of insult). Naturally this has led to large parts of the British Isles being troubled areas full of angry people, but we don’t really notice this in the Americas because we consider them all Brits.

So here’s Nara island thinking they’ve hit the jackpot with their Viking treasure, and then in come our mighty English heroes to do exactly what the English always do – steal what the Irish believe to be rightfully theirs. It’s even worse than that, though, because these intruders are indirectly responsible for the destruction of the entire community! They take baby Gorgo away, and a few days later the angry Mama shows up to look for her offspring. As usual, the arrival of Englishmen in boats is bad news for everybody they meet, both people and wildlife.

Having destroyed Nara Island, however, Mama Gorgo then turns her attention to London. The entire British military cannot stop her and she just marches right in to take back what is hers. When I was looking for this week’s bonus material, I happened across a post by @redmenaceofficial suggesting that the movie is an Irish revenge fantasy. That actually works pretty well, as we see Mama Gorgo destroy several icons of the British empire, including Big Ben and the Tower Bridge. In terms of psychological impact on the English people, this would be like tearing down the Statue of Liberty (which a giant monster did do in Cloverfield, but we didn’t get to watch).

Another level on which this works is the ending, which is actually a pretty surprising one for a monster movie. Taking their cue from the endings of The Indestructible Man, Night of the Lepus, Killdozer, and heaven knows how many other films, the military decides to electrocute Mama Gorgo… and it doesn’t work. She walks right through it, breaks Baby Gorgo out of his pen, and takes him back home to the ocean! Maybe this is just meant to be sequel bait, but maybe it’s also a statement: the entire might of what was once the most powerful nation in the world cannot stand up against this creature. Mama Gorgo has conquered the conquerors and taught them humility.

The third interesting thing about this ending is that it completes an evolution that’s been going on since Baby Gorgo was captured: although in his first attack on Nara Island, Baby Gorgo is treated as a monster, by the time the end credits roll he has become a suffering victim. This happens somewhat to King Kong as well, but that’s a product of hindsight, in an age when we’ve come to think of gorillas as gentle forest-dwelling creatures instead of savage hairy beasts. In Gorgo it’s intentional, as voiced through the character of Shaun, the little boy who wants to see Baby Gorgo returned to the sea.

While we may find an ape an inherently sympathetic creature due to its resemblance to a human, a dinosaur is much harder to anthropomorphize – especially a fire-breathing, city-smashing dinosaur! When we first see Baby Gorgo attacking Nara Island, where he is driven away by fire, our sympathies are with the frightened Islanders. Likewise when the much more powerful Mama Gorgo comes to destroy the place. By the time Baby Gorgo gets to Battersea Park, however, where he’s held back by flamethrowers as he’s put into his pen, we have come to see him as an abused and caged animal, something that deserves to be free. The movie manages this shift without giving the creatures anthropomorphic faces or body language, which is quite an accomplishment.

It’s definitely more convincing than Sam’s character arc, in which he comes to realize that he has treated Baby Gorgo badly and gets drunk and tries to let the creature out! I’d respect him more if he realized he’d treated the Nara Islanders badly, but nobody seems to care about them. They’re just Irish, right?

I have remarked before that Asian monster movies seem to have a lower standard of believability than western ones. This is true even of very recent entries: compare Legendary Pictures’ 2014 Godzilla movie to Toho’s 2016 Shin Gojira. It is certainly true of Gorgo. While Japanese kaiju eiga of the 60’s were cartoony and colourful and didn’t care too much about scientific plausibility, Gorgo is staid and reserved and gray-blue. Even the scenes of panicking Londoners seem weirdly low-key, perhaps because they’re narrated by a somber newscaster who spends so much effort coming up with poetic descriptions of what he’s seeing.

At the end, Mama and Baby Gorgo wander off into the ocean to look for Tokyo, London is in ruins, and I think Sam and Not-Sam get married and adopt Shaun. Maybe it’s the fact that there’s only two women with lines in the whole movie and they only get one each… maybe it’s the fact that Sam and Not-Sam spend the whole movie side-by-side and later take joint charge of young Shaun, much like the two guys raising the kid together in Godzilla vs Megalon. I don’t think I’m making it up this time. The movie really is pretty gay.

#mst3k #reviews #gorgo #60s #antiimperialist kaiju

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firebirdsdaughter · 6 years

Text

FINALLY!...

... I found a Zi-O raw!

More thoughts below! Warning: this is ESPECIALLY long! (please do not feel at all obligated to read the whole thing)

Sougo driving the bike off the road and then ducking beneath the curb to hide from Geiz reminds me of Emu, in full golden-dreadlock mode, hiding behind a corner from the people-turned-bugsters and peeking out like a little kid.

The small twelve year old--er... Sorry, sixteen year old--is playing hopscotch w/ the dead guy. That they just... Left there? I guess Geiz popping up did distract everyone.

And... As I suspected, he’s back. Well--suspected bc preview images, but... Ya know.

Woz! That actor is having a lot of fun and I appreciate it. I’m wondering if they had to do that scene multiple times bc he had trouble pulling the hood up smoothly.

The fact that he disappeared from the outside the temple just to appear immediately at Sougo’s house is both unnecessary and hilarious.

Also: ‘I Woz-proofed my house, but he still got in!’

Aw, Geiz is a good boo. I guess maybe he and Tsukuyomi were going back to find Another Build when... Another Build found them.

And another aw, she’s worried about him! They’re cute. I love friendship.

Oh! Baseballs this time! Does that mean he found a Best Match?

And Sougo’s here! Yeah, thinking about it, saving his life is probably one of the best things you could do to make Geiz pause about killing you--given that future you tried to kill him, it’s an antithesis, so... Did that make sense?

On that note, I think Woz told him were they were/that Geiz was fight Another Build? I know he said Geiz’ name while invading Sougo’s house. Where was Junichiro in that scene, anyway?

Ken!

On that note, apparently Sougo is vaguely okay at baseball.

Oh my god, the dramatic music, and then the damn eye shine... If we could have seen Geiz’ face, I’m sure it would have been ‘WTF???’

Oop! He Rider Kicked! Congrats on the first one, Sougo! Though... It may not have stuck.

And then he just runs off, in full transformation. Oh, my baby, my loser. Well, Geiz and Tsukuyomi can keep it busy so there are no new victims.

Wait. Did he just run... All the way to Nascita? I guess... I guess they’re in the same city? Huh. ... Do all KR series take place in the same city? Is this all just supposed to be Tokyo? ... No, that can’t be it.

I love how he just kinda tried to dive into the fridge.

Aaaaaaand.... Here are the dorks! Wait... Shouldn’t Misora and Souichi be here? Eh, maybe they couldn’t get the actors back (or couldn’t afford to w/ everyone else they were planning/wanted to bring back).

You know, while I do mostly agree that maybe they coulda waited an ep before diving into the Build cameo, I think they may have been trying to use it to establish the ‘schtick’ of the season so to speak (at least the beginning schtick--like how w/ Build it was ‘find and fight Smash’ and w/ Ex-Aid it was ‘find Bugster Virus patients’) using a Rider that, as it had just finished, everyone was already familiar w/. Though in regards to that, obviously they start w/ Build bc he’s the most recent. But the point is, I’m thinking it may have been meant to be the ‘tutorial’ or ‘introduction’ incident of the series. I could be wrong ofc, and like I said, I do think would probably have behoved them to wait an episode, I think I get why they did it this way. That... May have made no sense. I’m sorry.

God, even in this small scene, the chemistry between these two remains amazing. Glad Eiji and Atsuhiro seem to be having fun.

So... I accidentally paused it at a moment where Sento looks like a scared rabbit and Ryuuga looks like he’s being protective. Cuties.

Also, I guess the Time Jackers are stealing the powers long-distance? Speaking of Evil Cutie Baby Boy (that’s his name, right?) there was a shot in the trailer of him freezing Build and Cross-z in time to harass Sougo. Wonder if that’s in this ep? (it probably is, and then I’ll be too lazy/stubborn to delete this bullet point later)

Oooooooo! And we get Geiz’ Rider Kick! That was interesting!

The teleporting Ride Watches strike again! Seriously, who made those things? They get around faster than mosquitos! ... Maybe.

So... What, it just had to get double-Rider Kicked, or just Rider Kicked twice to die? I am the confused.

Pfffft. Sento and Ryuuga screaming when they realise they’re hugging. Well, half hugging.

Oh! So... Something just rewrote time? So Sento giving Sougo the Build Ride Watch in 2018 creates a stable time loop for something that’s going to happen in 2017, which 2018 Sento remembers bc it’s his past, but that Sougo doesn’t understand bc it’s his future. Time travel.

Wait... Are we just completely nixing Sento’s actual first meeting w/ Zi-O? Bc even if it’s from Sougo’s future, it’s from Sento’s past (the movie), and the Sento of now should remember it. Maybe. Though maybe that got retconned so he forgot. Again. Time travel.

Oh! It did come back! Wait... Why did Sento and Ryuuga’s memories change when Geiz kicked it? Or... Maybe they just ‘reset’ like that every time it’s destroyed, and then when it respawns they get rewritten again. Or maybe talking is a free action.

Aw, poor Geiz has Rider Kicked too many times and worn himself out.

Oh. So they have to use the power of the Rider that the power was stolen from to destroy it?

Sougo correctly identifying Geiz as his secondary and handing him the Cross-z Ride Watch. Love them.

Speaking of which--have I mentioned I love Geiz?

I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know I said I would stop doing that. I just really love secondaries, okay!

Geiz is taller than him and he’s gonna be the grumpy big brother and it’s cute! Fight me.

No, no, again, please don’t. I’m a mess rn, I’ll cry.

Aw! They ran Fast Like Sonic together! I think Sougo saving their lives is what’s making Geiz willing to work w/ him temporarily--not to mention the, er, Another Rider attacking people. Geiz is a good boy. But I’m sure he’ll get more hostile again once the situation is over.

It’s is Time Majin! I feel so deceived.

Oh! Hey, it’s the Best Match Boys again! Can they transform? Maybe. I honestly don’t care anymore. Not in a negative way, though. I’m more not bothered bc I’m enjoying this--if that makes sense?

So the format seems to be--they meet the Riders somehow (be it in the past, or in the present). A Time Jacker, meanwhile, goes back in time and creates Another Rider. So what our heroes have to do is find the Rider in the present and fix their memories--even temporarily--to get the Ride Watches from them and create a stable time loop of some kind, then go back to that time period (again, if they’ve been there before) and destroy the Another Rider there to set things to rights. So maybe more like the Riders are lending them a portion or piece of their power rather than it being ‘taken’ or anything, and they’re not really effecting the original flow of the previous story, just adding a scene were ‘monster that wasn’t a MOTW showed up and then some time traveler folks did, too.’ Ofc we’re only part way through the ep, so there could be other effects, I don’t know yet.

OH. MY. GOD. Another Build sees Ryuuga and then just... GLOMPS him. And shouting ‘BEST MATCH!’ While Sento just kinda is like ‘WTF?’

But oh boy is he probably gonna be mad at Ryuuga for rejecting him...

I guess the guy also got... Connected to Build’s memory somehow? Bc he was able to identify Ryuuga as Cross-z w/out any outside clues, and I don’t think it was common knowledge? After all, he was still a wanted criminal at that point, right?

Oh! They can transform, but it’s glitchy as hell. I see... But why is Ryuuga being glitched? I get Sento being effected, bc Another Build is, well, right there, but there isn’t Another Cross-z, so what’s happening w/ Ryuuga?

Well, either way, it’s still nice to see Cross-z’s original suit again. Shoulda said that last ep, too. That was a damn good suit. Glad they were able to keep it active, even just for these few eps. Might get scrapped after though. Still grateful, however.

HE EATS THEM???? OH GOD. HE’S ORGANIC. HE’S ORGANIC BUILD. HIS FACE MOVES. HE’S NOT IN A SUIT HE IS THE SUIT I AM DISTURBED.

The other dork boys! Are here! Yay!

Ah! Evil Cutie Baby Boy! Also, hey, there’s that scene I was talking about. No, I’m not going to delete that bullet point out of spite. Spite for what? Don’t ask me.

Geiz is like ‘... Oh. You.’ at Uhr. Like, that’s his expression. I love it.

Meanwhile, Sougo has no clue what’s going on.

I should note that I don’t actually know if Geiz knows who Uhr is, bc he didn’t say anything like Tsukuyomi did w/ Woz. I just drawing conclusions from my reading of his expression.

This boy has the cutest damn smile I wanna hug him to pieces I’m dying here. He’s clearly a shit but he’s got such a baby face and he’s just a kid and I’m feeling parental for evil murder children someone help me.

I thought only Schwarz could freeze time, though? Well, maybe he can just doing over a wider area for longer.

Well, Sougo’s response to Evil Cutie Baby Boy seems to have won him some points w/ Geiz... You’re doing a good job making up for your poor communication in ep 1, honey.

Actually, one thing that bothers me about Uhr’s appearance is that the strand of his hair w/ the feather in it (that all the TJs have--yes, they’re TJs now) just cross right across his forehead and never moves and it’s kinda distracting.

Aw, look, boys, you’re already synchronised in putting your Drivers on. Ya’ll are gonna be friends whether you like it or not!

Four Riders, no waiting!

Oh, no... They got de-Ridered!

Well, we now know that Sougo can’t swim, I guess. Or... Maybe just not in the suit? Also, awwwww, Geiz pulled him out.

Woz here on par w/ Kogure for unexplained abrupt entrances. If there’s a crossover between Zi-O and LuPat, I really hope there’s a scene where they do it to each other or something.

Sougo looking around like ‘Ah! Where’d he come from!’ is really funny, too. He even looks up at the damn sky.

Also, I’m just gonna assume he’s got a Time Majin hidden somewhere. Unless there’s another way to jump through time they haven’t shown yet.

He did it!

Ah, so this is the memory that Sento had earlier.

Oh and, hey, Woz smiled! Not sure if that was a good thing, but he’s got a nice smile.

And... There he goes again.

Oh, wait... Are we gonna get Geiz’ reaction to Woz? Admittedly, Tsukuyomi only got to act surprised and ask what he was doing there (and got no answer), but Geiz hasn’t seen him yet. Does he know him, too?

Okay, I’m really liking the trend of people ignoring Woz’s speeches to do other things. Like the first time when Sougo was wondering at his transformation, and here where Sento whispers to him. It’s funny and I hope they keep doing it. I’m also hoping one day (if Woz shows up to do this every time Sougo gets a new Ride Watch) that some day someone (probably Geiz or Tsukuyomi) is gonna shove him aside or at least tell him to shut up and he gets offended. Double funny if they cover his mouth.

Sento and Ryuuga just watching the math move slowly along. Sento doesn’t seem pleased. Ryuuga just looks confused.

Oooooh! I see! Now this adds to the formula. They give the Riders the Ride Watches in the past, so that they carry them w/ them and it... I dunno, learns about their power, or is just there and ready in the future present/when they’re needed. And that’s why Sento and Ryuuga had them in their pockets! Rest of the proposed format still holds.

Eh? Katsuragi? Though... His personality doesn’t seem different at all? And he’s still on good terms with Ryuuga... And... I don’t see how what happened there would change him into Katsuragi? Maybe... Something went wrong w/ the Another Build power return? Plus, when Sougo went to see them at Nascita earlier in the ep, it seemed like he was Sento then, didn’t it? I could have sworn Ryuuga called him that? So it’s not actually that big a change? I’m confused.

Geiz is just like ‘Tsukuyomi, I literally saved him earlier, I think it’s pretty clear I’m taking a pausing from being terminator for the moment.’

Hm. So he’s going to try and investigate why the alterations are happening? So maybe he figures it out and that’s why Sento is still Sento in the present? You know what, I’m not gonna worry about that stuff, it’s just gonna give me a headache.

Oh god, he comes downstairs and they’re both in his house, I love it. I guess Geiz saw the sign at some point, and when he decided to hold off on the killing Zi-O plan was like ‘oh hey, that could be useful!’

Tsukuyomi, nailing the fake introduction. Geiz here being a grumpy bear (though he still nails the fake introduction, just as a grump). I love this so much.

Sougo has the ‘I just woke up’ excuse for any nonsense he might accidentally say.

Tsukuyomi denies the handshake and Geiz is just like ‘hi, I’m gonna threaten you now’ (I assume that’s what he’s doing).

And then Geiz and Tsukuyomi reacting to the food (I guess it’s not what they’re used to--can’t tell whether it was a positive or negative reaction though).

Oh, hi Woz! are you the narrator?

EMU! So you’re a full-on paediatrician! Good on you!

Excited for next ep! Looking forward to seeing my grouchy emo surgeon son and his gamer ray of sunshine again! Seems he’s calling Emu ‘paediatrician’ instead of ‘intern’ now, hee hee. More primary-secondary friendship, give me more, MORE! Ahem. I also just really loved that particular relationship and I hope they get friendship interactions. Though I don’t think there’s been a Brave Ride Watch? Maybe there has and I missed it.

Sorry for the long post! Imaginary cookies and a hardy handshake for anyone who actually read to the end.

...

......

... Have I mentioned I--JK.

#Kamen Rider Zi-O #LONG POST #i'm enjoying myself #i admit though i never think too hard about these things so #(by these things I mean the logic of Toku--esp when it comes to time travel)#(I think everyone knows I can sometimes think too hard about my opinions about things #i'm really sorry i'm trying to not get over-emotional about fictional tv i really am)#excited for reluctant friendship on the part of Zi-O and Geiz #Sougo's gonna grow on him #and they'll probably all three learn from each other and Junichiro #also really excited for Hiiro and Emu next ep #even if it's small #that 'Why did you want to see me paediatrician?' line confirms they at least speak #i hope for friendship interactions #on both their parts and w/ the new team #i really do like this #i really really do #...#......#Have I mentioned I love Geiz?#Timey Wimey Rider #VERY LONG POST

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kimonobeat · 5 years

Text

aiko bon “Profile Interview” Chapter 6 (3/3)

ーWhat songs did you contribute to the CD, aiko?

aiko: 3 songs: “Ano Ko e (For Her)”, “more&more”, and “AB-Gata no Futari (Us Two Type AB People)”. “Ano Ko e�� ended up being one of the B-sides to “Rosie” later on. “more&more” is also a B-side on “Sakura no Toki”, but I sang it with a completely different sort of bossa nova vibe. Then there’s “AB-Gata no Futari”, which I haven’t included on anything yet. The key of that song is super duper high for me to sing, now. “Once a week I call him out of love~ Even though I’ve never said the words ‘I like you’ out loud~ I call him~” I used falsetto to sing that entire part.

ーYou were just fine singing in that key at the time, though?

aiko: No, it was still pretty high for me even then. (smiles wryly) But singing songs in a high key gave me so much status back then. All I did was write songs in super high keys because it made me so happy to hear people go, “Wow, that’s so high! Amazing!” For example, “Aitsu wo Mukaseru Houhou” starts off with me singing on the CD, but the old version actually started with me libbing some high notesーyou know, “Yeah yeah yeah~”, that sort of thing. It was super high-pitched. I tried to sing it again for real and was like, “Huh!?” (laughs) “AB-Gata no Futari” has this nice jazzy sound to it. It’s a song about how these two people whose blood types are both AB fall in love. It only takes them 3 hours to fall in love, but half a year to express their feelings to each other. I’d love to sing this song again.

ーHow did you arrange those 3 songs? Did you form a band for it?

aiko: They were all really simple, I sang accompanied only by a piano. Like, one of my friends from music school played the piano for me, and I sang.

ーAnd then after that was your very first indies release, “astral box”, which was your first solo work.

aiko: Yes, that’s right. We recorded it in this studio in Machida named Dutch Mama. It was called Dutch Mama because it was in Machida. Get it? Dutch Mama, Machida, Dutch Mama… I-I’m sorry, that was rude. (laughs) That mini-album had 5 songs on it, including “DO YOU THINK ABOUT ME?”, “Hikari no Sasu Ashimoto (Where the Light Hits Your Feet)”, and “HOW TO LOVE”, all of which have yet to make it onto any of my major label CDs. I’ve released the other two, “Power of Love” and “Kiss de Okoshite (Wake Me with a Kiss)”. The director, Mr. Chiba, said I absolutely just had to release “DO YOU THINK ABOUT ME?” right this moment. That said, he’s said that about a lot of songs by now. It’s like, “So Chiba, when is ‘this moment’ exactly?” (laughs)

ーBut since you were writing songs constantly after your talent agency president told you to, I’m guessing it wasn’t that much of a struggle to come up with songs when he asked you to make an album?

aiko: Uhhh, I think I had about 15 at that point. I was painfully slow at writing songs back then compared to the pace I go at now, so I think that was about how many I had in stock. Of those, we chose a few and then Shimayan (Shimada Masanori) recorded the arrangement digitally on a keyboard. I think I might’ve been a little bit nasty to him when I first met him. I mean, that was pretty much the first time I ever had anyone arrange my songs, and it really surprised me when he added all of these different sounds to songs I’d based around a piano. When he asked me what I thought about the arrangement, I didn’t give him very many positive replies. “How come this sounds Chinese?” I’d say. “I don’t get what that sound’s for there.” At the time, I pretty much hated everything about it.

ーWasn’t that the height of MIDI music, though?

aiko: Yeah, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the way it sounds. I was also sick and tired of it because everything under the sun had a MIDI arrangement back then, so I was like, “Wait, MY songs are all gonna have a MIDI arrangement too!?” I had a pretty strong reaction to it. But even though I thought I hated all things MIDI, when we worked on my 2nd indies release there were other times when I thought, “Wow, I had no idea it could sound like that… Cool!” My hate for MIDI arrangements totally vanished right then and there. I still feel like I caused Shimayan a lot of trouble because I just couldn’t accept it the first time. (laughs)

ーDid recording the vocals go smoothly?

aiko: I sang them all so seriously. We recorded 3 songs a day, or something like that. Now that I think about it, it’s pretty incredible that we were able to record so many! We went at a pace of 3 songs a day, choruses and all. I sang the same song over and over and OVER again because I didn’t know I didn’t have to, like, sing the song all the way through. I was so serious about all of themー”I sang a lot today and got it recorded.” (laughs) When I listen to it now, I can’t help but be bothered by the fact that I can hear the pitch wobble here and there, and that I’m not keeping the rhythm well. I’m able to keep a rhythm and sing on pitch now, but not I wonder if I’d be able to sing so animatedly now. It’s so complicated. I feel like I’m asking for too much, you know?

ーSo how was recording as a whole?

aiko: It was fun, but definitely exhausting. You see, I was commuting from Osaka. I still had my radio jobs in Osaka so I came and went in-between. Seeing a CD come together bit by bit made me so happy, though. You know how you get a sample of the cover and such before the CD is complete? I remember putting it in a color CD case. I put the back cover in the case and was like, “Wow, so that’s what it’s gonna look like!” That made me so happy. We did talk about that cover looking like it had blood all over it though. (smiles wryly) I also didn’t know anything about the ‘eye’ in ‘eye make-up’ at the time, so my eyebrows were bushy, I’d never worn mascara before, and I absolutely hated curling my eyelashes with an eyelash curler. ...Man am I being super harsh. (laughs)

ーYou the followed that up by releasing your 1st indies single “Hachimitsu (Honey)” roughly 5 months later, and then your 2nd indies mini-album “GIRLIE”.

aiko: Right. It all happened so fast after I released “astral box”. And I was really exhausted because I was still commuting from Osaka to Tokyo like always. Of the 5 songs on “GIRLIE”, I’ve released “Ijiwaru na Tenshi yo Sekai wo Warae! (Mean Angel, Laugh at the World!)” and “Rosie” after signing to a major label, as well as “Hachimitsu”. I still haven’t released the 2 songs “Inu ni Naru (I’ll Be a Dog)” and “Sasenaide (Don’t Make Me)” since going major, though. But man oh man, the cover for “GIRLIE”... just yikes. (laughs)

ーI don’t think it’s that bad.

aiko: I haaate it. For real, I do. It’s almost kinda funnyーlike, who is that even? My face is so chubby. (laughs) I made the pants I’m wearing in that picture myself; I cut my hair all by myself too. A friend came over to my house and gave me that bushy perm. We didn’t even use rods to curl my hair, we used pencils. That picture is just SO embarrassing…

ーDid you get the offer to debut under a major label with the movie theme song “Ashita (Tomorrow)” around the time you were working on “GIRLIE”?

aiko: I think so. We talked about it sometime in April, and then I debuted in July. I thought I would just be participating as the vocalist at first, though. I was really shocked to find out that I’d be releasing as a CD under the name ‘aiko’. For real, I was like, “...Wait, what!?” It wasn’t my songーwell, I wrote the lyrics myself, but they had a lot of requests. They said things like, “Kids are going to be listening to this” and “Don’t use difficult words, please”, which I whined about. That was the first time I’d ever listened to a composition and written lyrics for it too, since I tend to write songs starting with the lyrics first. Because of all that, I wasn’t really sure how to feel about it. In the end, I sort of just did it because the president of my talent agency said I didn’t have anything to lose by doing it. I didn’t care much either way. To be really honest, I didn’t have a clue. I honestly had no clue whether to OK it or not…

ーSounds like you were having a hard time making a decision. It wasn’t even a song you’d composed.

aiko: Yeah, exactly. And when I went to record it, there were people chit-chatting in English to each other, talking about the equipment, and I didn’t get their Tokyo sense of humor at all. It felt like I was in a foreign country. I slept in the corner of the studio with a knitted hat pulled all the way down past my nose. (laughs) They were very painstakingly detailed about choosing which take to use for like, the chorus, so I had to sing the same parts multiple times. It left me so beat that I almost had to hold onto the music stand to stand. Part of it was because I wasn’t used to being in the studio yet, I think, but that was also a pretty demanding recording.

ーBe honest, how did you feel when “Ashita” was released?

aiko: It didn’t really sink in. It didn’t feel like I’d ‘debuted’ at all. It didn’t even feel like it was ‘my’ song. I thought it was just going to be a one-shot thing. A little after I’d made my debut, people at [Pony] Canyon were telling me all the time that they honestly didn’t know who I was. (laughs) I was still living in Osaka, and the only information they had on me was this tiny A4-size flyer. Apparently they weren’t aware I existed even after I’d debuted. The Canyon people in Tokyo of all places were saying, “aiko? What’s that? Oh, she’s debuted? Who is she?”, which meant the locals definitely didn’t know who I was. We did a campaign to help with that, but even then we only went to Okayama and Matsuyama. I went with someone from Canyon since it didn’t cost me anything, did our campaign, ate some food. And then on the way home that person said, “I need to go to another campaign event. You think you can make it home on your own?” I said yes and took a plane home by myself. (laughs)

ーThat sounds like a pretty sad story.

aiko: But then FM OSAKA worked really hard and put “Ashita” on power rotation. There was also this guy over at FM Toyama named Kawakado. He was close to someone named Komorita who promoted my song a lot, so it was played heavily there too. It sold some copies thanks to those 2 stations. It sold maybe 20k or 30k copies in Osaka and Toyama, which got the Canyon people in Tokyo to go, “Hm? What’s this all about? Who’s this aiko girl?” And then it wasn’t a one-shot thing anymore. We started talking about signing a contract. I really feel like FM OSAKA and FM Toyama putting the song on power rotation was huge for me. FM OSAKA in particular really supported me.

ーWere you still the DJ for “Count Down Kansai Top 40” at FM OSAKA when you debuted?

aiko: I was. I even said “I made my debut!” while I was on air. (laughs) The time frame was changed to Saturdays late at night from 2 AM until 5 AMーa promotion! (laughs) The show had to be put on hold every now and then to check the broadcast equipment, but since I was generating some numbers, they decided to give me a live broadcast from 2 to 5 AM on Saturdays. I started getting more and more faxes and emails.

ーSince you’d just debuted at the time, right?

aiko: Right. The radio station was really supportive. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the radio station. That’s how much they all supported me. It felt like I had a bunch of moms and dadsーit still feels that way.

ーIt still feels like you have so many people supporting you, from the radio, to your fans, and all the various members of the staff, you mean?

aiko: Mm-hm. So many people have shown me so much support.　I’m able to continue releasing CDs by… by selling a few copies here and there. I see that now.

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#aiko #aiko yanai #yanai aiko #aiko bon #translation #chiisana marui koujitsu

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nightglider124 · 6 years

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Japan: My Trip

Thought I’d put together a little photo diary of my two weeks in Japan because why not and I just like to share with my tumblr pals.

Read on to find out what I got up to.

Sunday 13th May

This was the day I flew out to Japan. I packed my bag and was ready to leave at 11am UK time. I’m not gonna lie to ya’ll, I was an emotional mess, leaving my family behind.

You should know, I’ve never been on a trip without my family and I’ve never been out of Europe. So, going out to Japan with just my best friend was a big thing for me. So, was pretty tearful and then my mum like burst into tears; she’s a worrier.

Anyway, my dad dropped me off at the airport to meet my bestie and we did all the boring airport stuff and soon enough, we were on the plane. The sky is ridiculously pretty at different times during an overnight flight or at least, a flight that crosses different time zones.

Pretty uneventful. I mostly ate, slept and wrote chapter 1 of CTD: Bound.

Monday 14th May

So, I arrived in Japan’s Narita airport at 11am.

Then I went up and grabbed my suitcase as well as going and grabbing my pocket wifi - Something that is tremendously helpful if you go to Japan. I don’t know what it’s like for you guys but in London, I pretty much have wifi anywhere I go whereas in Japan, it wasn’t as easy to come across; at least not for free.

The pocket wifi was a godsend. It can connect up to 10 devices and it lasts all day long when fully charged. Now, there were a couple times it tapped out but you just need to turn it off and turn it on again.

It cost about £60 for 2 weeks but if you’re going with people, it works out better. Me and my friend split it so we only paid £30 each but very worth it.

But, yeah, defo recommend this for anyone who is going to Japan. It was a big help, especially when needing to look up locations and/or directions.

Next, we went and grabbed our Japan rail passes which look like so:

This was probably the best thing I bought for Japan. Not even joking.

Even if you aren’t going very far, this thing helps so much. It’s a pass that allows you to use any trains that are owned by the JR company which is a fair amount that helps you get around Tokyo and surrounding districts. Note: You have to buy it before you fly to Japan and take the exchange form that comes in the post with you to Japan. You exchange it at the airport and they give you the passes above. Just make double sure your passport has been stamped because otherwise, they won’t let you have it.

Anyway, this was £310 for 2 weeks but again: WORTH IT. It does depend on what you’re doing but me and my friend were out and using transport every single day. We also went far. We went to Hiroshima, Kyoto and Osaka - All covered by the passes. And for example, £310 is basically a return ticket to Kyoto so you are already making your money back.

So, we picked these up and using them, hopped on the shinkansen (bullet train) to Shinjuku (Sound familiar, Titan fans? Yes, it’s the ‘roughest part of town’ according to Robin in the Trouble in Tokyo movie). It took about an hour and then we checked into our hotel which was: Shinjuku Prince Hotel.

It was a really nice hotel actually. The staff were friendly and spoke really good English. I recommend staying here; it’s right in the heart of busy Shinjuku and was only 5 mins from the station. We booked a deluxe twin room because two rooms worked out more expensive and it was not too shabby at all. I didn’t actually take any pictures so I snubbed some off google.

Anyway, we were running a little late and we had tickets to the Studio Ghibli museum so naturally, I was freaking out because the website expresses that they are strict on being on time for your slot. I nearly had a breakdown because... dunno if ya’ll remember but I had a right time trying to get a hold of these tickets. They sell out so quickly it is unreal. Anyway, our slot was 4pm and they only allow you to be 30 mins late.

We arrived at 4:50pm and I was close to tears as I ran into the park it’s situated in. I was so annoyed and so scared they weren’t going to let us in. But...

They did!! The guy was so sweet; I think he could see by my face how much I wanted to go inside. He was like all smiley and was like it’s okay, go on in. I was like THANK YOU JESUS. Here are some photos:

They don’t allow photography inside to preserve the magic of visiting. And honestly, it was so nice inside. It felt just like a Ghibli movie and seeing the animation process and the short film and the original drawings... it was all so amazing. Being a Ghibli fan makes this 1000% better but it’s still great for people who aren’t as into it. My friend isn’t really into Ghibli movies but she thought it was still pretty cool whereas there was me in like awe over all of it.

Anyway, we stayed there about an hour and as you can imagine, we were frazzled af. We were tired from the flight but I wanted us to force ourselves to stay up so jet lag wasn’t as much a problem.

After, we made our way back to Shinjuku where I took some pics from my hotel room:

Then we grabbed some McDonalds which was literally just across from us; something quick so we didn’t starve. I facetimed my family, showered and fell asleep.

Tuesday 15th May

So, the first full day we were there, it was a more chilled, sightseeing day. Nothing too taxing and we felt a lot more refreshed after a proper sleep.

First, we went and checked out the Tokyo Imperial Palace which was really pretty but we couldn’t go inside. It was mega hot the entire time we were in Japan; I thought I’d die. I hate the heat.

And because I was out in the heat all day and didn’t think to put suncream on... yeah, you can see where this is going...

More on that later, because then we carried on to the Yasukuni shrine which is just down the street from the East Gardens of the palace.

The shrine was cool and everything was so pretty; very tranquil and peaceful.

In the afternoon, we headed over to the Sunshine City mall in Ikebukuro where I forced my friend into the Pokemon Centre Store which was LIT.

I was fucking excited, ya’ll. I got some really cute stuff too. Got myself some Mimikyu chopsticks, an Eevee tail key holder, a Pikachu glasses case, a Pikachu makeup bag and a little Mimikyu figure bc Mimikyu is a fave and I have no cool stuff with it on.

I also got my brother most of his souvenirs in here because we have loved Pokemon since the dawn of time. I mean, we’ve fallen out of it in recent years because all the new gen pokemon etc... we’re more for the original pokemon and original series and games. Seriously, when kids come up to me like, do you even know Pokemon I’m like bitch step back you don’t even KNOW. It’s like I got a Pokemon CD for my brother and it had a japanese version of one of the songs from the first movie and we were like screaming. That film man, don’t even look at me.

Ahem... the Pokemon store was so wicked but mega expensive like shit son. Glad I took so much money with me because I NEEDED IT.

After the Pokemon store, we went down a level to the Studio Ghibli store where I didn’t get as much stuff as I thought I was gonna.

But, I got a Spirited Away fan with No Face on it, a Totoro and No face figure as well as a Totoro bib and hat for my niece.

Then we went and had fooood where I noticed... I was extremely sunburnt... Like in the below pic, you can’t see it that much because it hadn’t really come out full pelt yet.

Pls ignore my hamster face but see my chest? Burny burny burnt burnt. I got back to the hotel later that night and I had the shakes where it was hot and all the heat was there rather than all over. It was horrible.

I’m lucky I decided to wear full on makeup that day otherwise my face would have gotten buuurnt. Well done, Estee Lauder foundation, well done.

But yeah, it wasn’t the best end to the day because then I was all uncomfortable and my skin was sensitive and I was mad at myself for not putting on cream so then I got all upset and cried but I think I was still tired from the journey too and I was overwhelmed but yeah; kinda sucked.

Other than the sunburn, I also didn’t pack shorts for under my dress so my thighs rubbed and were in agony as well as my vans gave me like 4 blisters on each foot so I couldn’t walk or at least was in extreme pain when I tried so getting back to the hotel was a damn hoot.

Besides all that, it was a pretty good day!

Wednesday 16th

This was the day we trekked all the way down to Hiroshima which is like a 5 hour journey by train. We had to take two trains but it was actually not too bad. It certainly didn’t feel like it took that long to get down to Hiroshima.

One thing I will say about longer train journeys; remember to reserve a seat. Some like the one from Narita Airport are reserve only so you have to reserve a seat for it. But, others don’t need it and have “non reserved” cars but mark my words, if you’re travelling on these trains at a busy time, it really pays off to reserve a seat. We didn’t for Hiroshima and whilst we found seats for the 3 hour part of the journey; on the second train, we had to stand for like 45 minutes because there were no seats and then even when we did get to sit down, it was separated so yeah; book your train seats, people.

Once we arrived in Hiroshima, we hopped on a ferry which took us to Miyajima island. It’s about a 10 minute journey and once again, it’s covered by the JR pass. I loved that thing to death not even kidding.

Here’s some pictures I took on the ride over:

This island is home to the big red Torii gate that people may know of. I picked up some cute souvenirs and ate katsu. And there were even deer roaming around the place! A couple got married too whilst we were visiting and it was so nice. Again, it was mega hot so I was dying from that aspect but otherwise, I could live on this little island.

Unfortunately, we spent so much time at the island; we didn’t get round to doing the two other things we had planned which were seeing Hiroshima Castle and the Atomic dome memorial. I was kinda bummed by not seeing those but the last train was at 5pm and we weren’t staying the night so we had to get said train. It was okay though; it’s something to add to the list of things to see when I eventually revisit.

We got back at about 10pm and then it was lights out because we were exhausted.

Thursday 17th May

This was another sightseeing day that was fairly local considering we were pretty tired from Hiroshima still.

We traveled over to Asakusa which has the lovely Senso-ji temple and shrine. It was really cute, the walk up to the temple is lined with all these little shops and souvenir like places which have charms and fans etc. Really nice.

Inside, they do this thing where you pay 100 yen and you shake a metal box that contains lots of sticks with numbers on. When you bring out a stick, you find the number it matches and you bring out the fortune. You get a good fortune, regular fortune or bad fortune. I got myself a regular ol’ fortune XD.

But, they also have this rack so that if you get a bad fortune, you tie it to the rack to rid yourself of the bad fortune whereas a good or regular one; you would carry it with you.

Other than that, we hung out and then went back to our hotel for a while before heading out again to check out the nightlife of the area. Everything was mega lit up and was so nice. We went and grabbed dinner and also went and got crepes. They were a m a z i n g. Like they were so good ugh.

After that, went back, showered and slept. Pretty uneventful day; just being touristy.

Friday 18th May

Again, more sightseeing on this day. We went and saw the Tokyo Metropolitan Building and looked out over Tokyo.

Then, we went to the Meiji Shrine.

Aaand lastly, we went to Shibuya for the evening.

Yes, those are people dressed as characters from Mario Kart driving in the streets of Tokyo. This place was crazy. XD

After seeing the crossing scramble that is so infamous, we trekked back to the hotel and fell asleep.

Saturday 19th May

This day we literally went on trains all day to collect stamps. In Japan, they do these things called Eki stamps which are stamps you can find at stations, museums, shrines, tourist spots etc.

I haven’t got any pictures of mine but i got like 50 of them whilst I was in Japan. Going on one train line at all the stops got me like 30.

We had nothing else planned on this day so my friend suggested the collecting stamps XD.

Sunday 20th May

This was one of my two absolute favourite days whilst I was there. It was the day I went and saw Mt Fuji and went into Aokigahara forest.

It was approx 2 hours from Tokyo but we’d booked a tour instead of trying to do it ourselves. It worked out a lot easier. When we reached the highest point you can go to on Mt Fuji, by vehicle anyway, we had 30 mins to sightsee. We took pictures and went into the souvenir shop etc.

My god, it was so frickin’ cold up there. Obviously. We were high off the ground like shit, it was freezing. But, pretty pictures.

We then went caving in an ice cave that is iced over all year round and is not usually open to the public.

After that, we were taken back to Shinjuku where we grabbed food and went back to sleeeep.

Monday 21st May

We went to Kyoto on this day. We managed to see all we wanted to as well but then again, Kyoto was only a 2 and a bit hour train ride away.

When we got there, we saw the Fushimi Inari Taisha.

They were pretty but boy, was there a lot of people. I had to wait for so long to get pictures with none of very few people in it.

Then, we headed over to Kinkaku-ji which is this golden temple.

Again, very pretty.

Lastly, we checked out the Arashiyama Bamboo grove which was pretty also.

After that, we headed home to our hotel. We had an exciting day the next day.

Tuesday 22nd May

TOKYO DISNEYLAND, BITCHES.

I was excited and I can see why people hype Disneyland up. No matter which one you visit, there is this big sense of nostalgia and magic. It was unforgettable and wasn’t half as busy as some theme parks get here. But, I suppose we did go on a Tuesday.

Would hate to see it on a weekend.

The mike melonbread was delicious <3

Disneyland catered to the childish side of me and I loved every single bit of it. <3

Wednesday 23rd May

On this day, we visited Osaka which is about the same sorta time out from Tokyo as Kyoto is. Again, not too much going on. We checked out Osaka Castle.

And then, we checked out Dotonbori which was also very cool.

After that, we headed back to Tokyo. There wasn’t too much we were desperate to see in Osaka and it was raining which wasn’t the nicest.

Thursday 24th May

Last full day meant Harajuku and Shibuya for shopping day. I haven’t got any pictures but omg we went and did those purikura photo things? They are hilarious. It was funny doing them but even looking at them; they funny XD

I bought a bunch of stuff for myself as well as my family as souvenirs. It was funnn.

Friday 25th May

The day I flew home to London :(. I was sad to leave Japan but I was really happy to be coming home. No matter how much you may call your country a shit place, there’s no place like home.

Omg, I went over my bag weight limit with all the stuff I bought. I’m allowed 23kg and my suitcase was 27kg -.-

I paid £65 for that extra weight because I was not about to be that person who opens their suitcase in the middle of check in trying to decrease the weight XD

Pretty straight forward afterwards. I flew home and when I got to my house, my family let me have reign on dinner so we got KFC.

So, that is what I got up to in Japan. I loved every minute I was there. It is so very different than London and it has much more beauty than any city I’ve been to has.

I can’t wait to go back someday and I encourage anyone and everyone to go there. It is something else! <3

Thanks for reading if you made it to the end! I appreciate it ^.^

#night in japan #night wants to travel #nightglider124

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xyliane · 6 years

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I just realized where we are rn in HxH is about Aug 2001. So now I am wondering if Togashi will have a special event corralating to 9/11 and I'm worried.

let me preface this response by saying I’ve been in research paper spiral for the last four months due to my impending advancement in june, and your question provoked a knee-jerk reaction that led to a 4h-long research spiral by someone whose specialty is absolutely not japanese foreign policy and nationalism.

the tl;dr version here, and then the explanation for it under the cut: I don’t think that’s going to happen. for one, they’re currently on a boat headed to Big Murderous Landmass (unless kurapika and co sink the whale). they’re not in yorknew/nyc. also, japan’s perceptions of 9/11 and the media representations of it are not as pervasive as american or even broader western collective trauma. while togashi is unafraid to address contemporary social politics, I don’t think he’s going to correlate a particular event to 9/11. he’s more concerned with the failings and strengths of humanity, as a whole or in parts, and might reference particular events to get across a greater point, not draw direct parallels.

now, a cut, and then several hundred words on 9/11 as a moment of collective trauma, japanese militarism, and media perceptions. it is 4000% nerdier than this ask expected.

I don’t think togashi is going to include a 9/11 parallel in a large part because of how japanese media, and anime in particular, addresses japanese communal trauma, and how togashi uses moments and evocations of these in his stories (at least, yyh, and hxh, although level e has its own quirks). namely that japan really doesn’t deal with 9/11 like americans do–but they absolutely have other traumas that make their way into anime, manga, and other media.

the thing is that, while 9/11 is absolutely a moment of international trauma (I work in india, and people there are highly conscious of it), the moment that hit the US was very different in other parts of the world. I’m old enough to remember the whole “where were you on 9/11,” itself a sort of marker of solidarity and belonging within the trauma that kind of unites people around a time. the plane crashes were broadcast everywhere in the US, and no one didn’t see it. but we got it live, fed right to the tvs in our classrooms at 8am. and america didn’t get attacked by foreigners before, not like this–problems existed “out there,” not in nyc, for however many times it’s been destroyed on film. (we have our own homegrown terrorists, but that’s a whole other can of worms.) and when it did happen, the country as a whole kicked into a jingoist gear on top of the collective trauma of someone murdering a bunch of americans. freedom fries. they were a thing.

it’s probably important to note here that media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. we’re perpetually influenced by things that happen, whether they’re collective and historical memories, personal experience, or social trends. we get our references and jokes from somewhere, and they sink into our brains and affect what we put out into the world. trauma does this more effectively than most things. trauma elicits a search for meaning, whether it’s a question of “why did it happen” or “why did it happen to me/us?” sometimes we find a meaning in the disaster, and sometimes we don’t. but it marks us and connects us (Halbswach 1992, Updegraff et al 2009). and it affects us for a long, long time.

in japan (and again, I’m not an expert on this), 9/11 is a moment of international trauma that marks japan’s re-entering into the international military sphere, but also economic flux. of the approximately 3000 people killed in the twin towers attack, 316 were non-american, including 26 japanese nationals. japan joined the war coalition almost immediately, and spent billions of USD to support the “war on terror,” while also dealing with things like shohei koda’s beheading in 2004 or the kidnapping and release of 5 journalists and anti-war NGO workers the same year, which arrived back in japan only to be ostracized for “causing trouble” for japan, with accusations that they had “got what [they] deserved” (x, x). the effect on the news media in japan was of increasing conspiracy theories and warmongering, while simultaneously wary of tensions with china, north korea, and taiwan. basically, japan politically and militarily had a lot of pots on the fire, and was feeding yen to the american pot real fast. the japanese SDF pulled out of central asia in 2007, and it’s still a divisive subject from the papers I read, but it’s more about the military than 9/11. 9/11 is not, for example, the topic of a j-drama directly or indirectly. shohei imamura’s short film “japan” in the september 11 (2002) anthology is a parable set during world war ii, although he’s much more famous for his palme d’or wins and a film about hiroshima (black rain, 1989). and uh. apparently pokemon black and white has a reference to ground zero in their map of not!nyc?

japanese media’s collective trauma in anime is often the deep personal connection with the atomic bomb, or terror attacks and natural disasters on japanese soil. which makes sense: humans will generally latch onto things that affect us personally, whether it’s a cute puppy video shown to us or an act of terrorism we watch on television. for the US, we were–and still are–being forced to confront our place in the international community (hero, victim, villain, collaborator, all of it–and americans are not very good at shades of gray) through the “war on terror,” and it comes out in everything from comic book movies like bvs directly evoking 9/11 while cavill!supes ruins buildings to kill zod, to the rise of partisan tv news. but we don’t evoke nuclear war or radioactive waste with the same reaction that japan does–there’s a lot of fear of the bomb in the 1950s and 1960s, like with dr. strangelove and them!, but it’s centered less around the impact of the bomb and its literal or metaphorical nuclear fallout, and more on the fear of the other or an outsider destroying good ol’ american culture. or giving us superpowers. (personally, the closest I think american art and literature ever got to japanese sentiments is with a canticle for leibowitz, which focuses on the cyclical nature of human failure and how the past becomes changed through the present.)

(please read a canticle for leibowitz, it changed my life and only grows more potent with age.)

for japan, the dropping of atomic bombs on nagasaki and hiroshima provides a similar and long-lasting moment of national trauma that’s been preserved in public policy and popular culture. and it’s not just grave of the fireflies or barefoot gen, anime that address the bombings through direct reference. the bomb transforms into concerns about nuclear destruction and environmental fallout, with kaiju like godzilla rising from nuclear waste. osamu tezuka’s work like astro boy is in direct response to the abuse and use of technology and hope for humanity’s future, and naussica of the valley of the wind is a fantasy post-nuclear bomb situation blended with hayao miyazaki’s love of humanity and nature (x, x). I think it’s worth noting that both tezuka and miyazaki personally experienced the 1945 bombings. miyazaki was 4, and one of his earliest memories is fleeing utsunomiya’s bombings. tezuka, at 16 and working in arsenal factories during the fire bombing of osaka, later wrote kami no toride (1977) about his personal experience, which served as both autobiography and condemnation of the vietnam war.

of more recent stuff evoking trauma, naoki urasawa actually uses 9/11 as a moment in billy bat, as part of getting to questions of humanity and modernity and technology and progress. other anime dealing with terrorism, like GITS:SAC, the “brain scratch” episode of cowboy bebop, and of course urasawa’s 20th century boys, locate terrorism not through 9/11 (and the underlying racism and not-us-ness) but more often with these japanese cults like the ‘aum death cult that carried out the 1995 tokyo subway sarin attacks, and the changing landscape of terrorism in japan. we could point to shinichiro watanabe’s zankyou no terror (or terror in resonance? iunno) as a potential 9/11 parallel, and I think it’s got the 9/11 connections, but watanabe himself places it closer to the 1995 terrorist attacks. he even commented how much “darker” zankyou no terror is than the film he was influenced by (the man who stole the sun (1979)), directly citing the 1995 attacks as one reason the last 30 years have impacted japanese understandings of terrorism. more recently, there’s also been connections to the 3/11 disaster with kimi no na wa, where shinkai explores his perennial theme of personal connection across space and time via a form of natural disaster. outside of anime, there’s also a growing body of literature on 3/11 and music, which is super interesting and well worth a look if you’re interested.

fwiw, I think it’s interesting that both urasawa and watanabe are explicitly interested in western and specifically american culture, but through a japanese lens. and not the sort of “japanese lens” that leads to the americas of g gundam or yugioh, which are The Most American Ever, but a more nuanced representation that explores technology, human connection, and modernity. which is the sort of lens creators should try to do when engaging other cultures, at bare minimum. (/soapbox)

trauma isn’t often addressed directly, but allegorically or displaced: lindsay ellis has a great pair of loose canon episodes on 9/11 and how film evokes collective trauma. while she doesn’t talk about anime or japanese films, she uses bollywood as a way to talk about indirect expressions of nationalist trauma. in the second video, she suggests that, for countries like india working through their own terror attacks with mumbai in 2008 (the 26/11 attacks), it’s easier to use other countries’ or places’ or–I would suggest–fantastical trauma rather than directly address it. so bollywood used 9/11 to understand its own trauma. not everyone does this–and a lot of times, I doubt it’s done purposefully, at least initially. but it’s there implicitly, informing decisions of artists and content creators that sometimes doesn’t get revealed until placed under a critical eye. it’s why editing and getting outside or sensitivity readers is important! for japan, the parallels aren’t to other countries, but fantastical situations in japan with Very Heavy Symbolism ranging from akira’s totally-not-a-bombs to kimi no na wa’s processing of the 3/11 disaster via comet.

as for togashi, he uses world events and figures as ways of exploring his own interests (yu yu hakusho has multiple “wow capitalism suuuuuuuuucks” subplots with yukina’s arc and the dark tournament, plus the very anti-war/anti-hate/anti-capitalism/”humanity sucks but people [kuwabara] can be amazing” sentiments of the chapter black tape; while hxh’s chimera ant arc has both a-bomb parallels and north korea/china references on top of killua’s soapbox about how corrupt and terrible governments can be). the parallel between “humanity sucks” and “people can be so very good” threads throughout togashi’s work. but it also uses a very buddhist understanding of rebirth and reincarnation to get these points across, whether it’s the unconditional vore love of pouf and youpi giving themselves to rejuvenate mereum after he’s nuked or the reincarnations of former humans as ants. but all of it connects to togashi’s personal experiences of things happening to and by japan, whether it’s the invasion of and tension with taiwan, the boom and bust of the economy, or the militaristic push by parts of the government under koizumi and abe. that, layered on top of the trauma that informs a lot of japanese media, makes for a fascinating playground togashi is more than willing to dig into.

I suppose this is all a very, very long-winded way of saying that while it’s possible togashi could include a 9/11 parallel, I don’t think it’ll be tied to some september 2001 date in the hxh universe. if he uses it, it will be 1: through a togashi/japanese lens; 2: unattached to a particular date; 3: layered in dialogue with broader war and terror issues togashi’s interested in exploring.

if you’ve made it to the bottom: holy crap congrats, hello, talk to me about anthropology of media. and if you’re somehow still interested in more, here’s an brief list of sources I used on top of the ones explicitly referenced in the post:

Baffelli, Erica. “Media and religion in Japan: the Aum affair as a turning point.” Working paper, EASA. 2008. (media-anthropology.net)

Broderick, Mick (ed.). Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film. Routledge and Kegan Paul International, 2014. (google books)

Deamer, David. Deleuze, Japanese Cinema, and the Atom Bomb: The Spectre of Impossibility. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. (google books link)

Japan pulls troops from Afghanistan (npr, 2007)

Japan ends ban on military self-defense (time, 2014)

Japan’s 10 years since 9/11 (al-jazeera, 2011)

Krystian Woznicki (September 1991). “Towards a cartography of Japanese anime – Anno Hideaki’s Evangelion Interview with Azuma Hiroki”. BLIMP Filmmagazine. Tokuma Shoten. (archived here)

manga responses to 3/11 (nippon.com, 2012)

Saft, Scott, & Yumiko Ohara. “The media and the pursuit of militarism in Japan: Newspaper editorials in the aftermath of 9/11.” Critical Discourse Studies, 3(01), 2006. 81-101

#hxh meta #japanese history #nuclear memory #symbolism #I'm so sorry #japanese media #9/11 #26/11 #3/11 #all of the references #THIS is what I do for fun #...#sigh #long post #talk tag #Anonymous

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vinniehatesyou · 6 years

Text

heart to break.

i found the video, and the thing is - it’s not the video that broke my heart. it was filmed before we even knew each other. i can’t really be mad at what happened before me. we all have a past.

but i could tell you’re trying to fill the void. let me love you. let me fill the void that only true love can. but yet you’re pushing me away so hard.

months ago, we were in your kitchen, naked - in Stockholm. we were making dinner when you started.

“i don’t know why it’s so difficult with you. i love kissing you. holding you. being with you. i just don’t know why i can’t get hard.” you clamored.

“do you think it’s because you have feelings for me?” i asked.

“i don’t know what I feel for you. i don’t know why i’m not sick of you yet, or why I feel this way.”

“have you ever had sex with someone you’ve had feelings for?”

“no....what does it feel like?”

“it’s different. good different.”

You went for a cigarette on your balcony as I finished chopping the onions exactly like how you instructed me to do - first horizontally and then vertically.

you came up from behind me and put your arms around me, crying. I could feel your tears on my back.

“thank you for coming into my life. i never want to lose you.” you sobbed.

“don’t cry. i’ll never leave you. whatever happens, even if we don’t end up together. you’ll always be dear to me.”

that night it changed. that night everything worked like it should. everything was perfect. i thought maybe we had finally fixed your Madonna-Whore complex.

Then I left for New York.

And when I came back to you three months later, you were disgusted by my touch. You pulled away and pushed me off every chance you got.

You broke my heart that night. My first night in London. I flew across the ocean for you, and you broke my heart.

“I think with time I just because sure I didn’t want to be with you. I know myself and I’m a super sexual person and I just have no sexual attraction to you.” you said.

“Walk me through this, because the last time I saw you you were crying in my arms and now you’re telling me you’re not sexually attracted to me and that you don’t even want me near you? I worked out non-stop for the past three months so when I saw you again I’d be buffer than I was before! You even noticed it!” I said.

“Thing’s changed. I can’t help but feel like I led you on. Maybe I just thought you were so endearing how much you wanted me, that I could try but...”

“Fucking walk me through this Jimmy.”

“I thought what we had was really special, and then as the summer wore on I thought about you less and realized that you weren’t that special.”

“What the fucking hell. No. I don’t accept that. It’s you and me! In the end! It’s you and me!”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I just don’t want to be with you.”

“No. Get over your fucking self. We have baggage. We all have baggage, you just don’t want to work on unpacking yours.”

We went to bed, next to each other. The way we would sleep for the rest of my nights there with you.

The next day was your birthday. It was abysmal.

My heart had just been broken, and now you were upset that I was quiet.

“I hate it when you’re quiet. Please talk to me.” you begged.

“I’m just processing. I’m okay with saying goodbye to you on Sunday, but let’s try and make this a good weekend at least okay?”

The day dragged on. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I saw you looking at me from the corner of my eye, your eyes watering. Would I care if you cried now? I don’t know.

We went to the museum, we had lunch with your friends, I bought you that Calvin Klein coat you wanted so badly. I took you to a Michelin Star restaurant. On top of my original birthday present - a ticket to Tokyo.

We were supposed to go together, remember?

We tried to clear the air but we couldn’t.

We got into bed.

“Goodnight!” you grunted.

“What is it Jimmy? Just tell me.”

“Today was awful, I know I just hurt you but it makes me hurt to see you like this.”

“Well then that’s a Catch 22 isn’t it? Don’t be selfish. You’re telling me to stop being sad so you can feel better about yourself. You just fucking dumped me and I’m still sleeping in your damn bed.” I quipped back.

“I don’t know what’s worse - the dread of having you near me or the guilt I would feel if I asked you to leave.”

I started to cry.

“I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t! Everything I have ever done was to make you happy! You said you needed space, I gave it to you. You said you weren’t done being single, I let be free. You wanted that fucking Calvin Klein coat - I bought it for you. So you know what? You figure out which of these you can live with and I’ll do it. I’ll try and find a place tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry. It came off wrong, I didn’t mean it like that.” you apologized.

I went to bed.

The next morning you turned over.

“I’m sorry I put you in this situation. Because I was in it too. I know what it’s like.”

“Tell me about that, Jimmy.”

“I went to New York, and a guy kicked me out. I had no where to stay, and then angel saved me.”

“Who saved you?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“You did.”

“That’s right. I gave you a place to stay when you had no where else to go, and the irony is no that you’re kicking me out after I saved you.”

I got ready and left for the day. I didn’t want to be around you, and I know you didn’t want to be around me.

I went to meet up with a friend and walk around Selfridges when I got a text from my sister.

I began to cry profusely.

I quickly found my way to the Korean dessert shop we went to that first night I arrived, on our double date with Willis and Ailton.

There in the corner, I facetimed with my mom and sister. I began to cry uncontrollably.

“He was different, He was like Alex.” I sobbed.

My family knew what that meant.

“We know. We felt it. You haven’t been like this about a guy since Alex. We’ve never seen you cry in your adult life, so we know the kind of power it took to break a heart like yours.”

I went back to the house, shortly before your party guests arrived.

We did a line of cocaine and smoked a cigarette on your balcony.

“What did you do today?” you asked.

“I went shopping, facetimed my family, cried in Selfridges.”

“Tell your mom I’m sorry.”

“Tell her yourself.” I quipped “You can tell her at our wedding, about the time you broke my heart when you were 27.”

“You’re so sure it’s me - why? I think you like the idea of me, or that we’re good on paper.”

“I could go on about why I want to be with you, and just you. But not tonight. For the record, we’re not good on paper. We just make a cute couple online. Joey Kim and I are good on paper. You and I are good because you make me a better person, and deny it all you fucking want but I’ve changed you too.”

The doorbell rang and people started to come in.

You began your duties as party host and left me to the sidelines. I didn’t care, I can handle my own in a crowded room. I didn’t work in PR for nothing.

I met Nathan, a former fling turned friend.

“It’s not you, you know. It’s him.” Nathan whispered.

“What?”

“It’s Jimmy. He has blinders on right now, he has a one track mind and can’t see what you’re offering. I know you see the crack in his wall. I know you’re sitting there waiting for it to come down. It’s no way to live your life - but know that you mean something more to him than any guy before. I’ve heard about you from the beginning. You’re different, yes. But you can’t wait for him.”

I felt comforted, but still broken.

The night wore on and we ended up at that club. 4 of your friends made their move - telling me how attractive I was, feeling me up, and eventually going in for the kiss.

I did it just to make you jealous. But I suppose you didn’t care.

The party moved to Matt’s house, where we all got so high. You, in particular, dropped out.

I had had enough, I was taking you home. It was 8:30 AM. the party was over.

Unable to walk, I hoisted you over my shoulder and carried you out to the Uber, you throwing up on the way.

You put your head on my lap and held my hand.

“Thank you for treating me like a Princess.” you slurred.

“When will you realize that I’m your White Knight? When I told you I loved you, I meant I would love you unconditionally. Despite the shit-storm you put me through, I will always protect you.”

I carried you up the stairs, put you in bed and took off your clothes. I crawled in next to you and wrapped my arms around you. For once, you didn’t push me off. You held me, wedging yourself into my nook. I always loved how perfectly you fit in there.

Then the high wore off, and you pushed me away again.

My phone went off.

“How as last night?” Nathan texted.

“Um.”

“Want to get lunch and talk about it?”

“I’ll be there in 20.”

Nathan and I went some local diner he loves, where I poured my heart out. About our entire relationship from start to finish and all the troubles along the way.

He had a lot of insight, including the fact that we never really had a chance to start normally. we were long distance from the start which puts a lot of pressure from the beginning. Or the constant need for attention and validation. But his most poignant question left me speechless:

“Do you think he can’t see you sexually, in addition to emotional commitment, is because you’re Asian?”

I wanted to say no. But, you did grow up in Stockholm, the only Chinese kid in a sea of white blonde masses. You only moved to London a year ago. You lived your life among all whites. I didn’t know.

I left and went home, and saw you and some of your friends. We hung out for a bit until they left and you and I were on the couch watching movies. I moved my arm around you and you whined.

“What the fuck Jimmy?”

“What are you doing? Don’t cuddle me. There are friends I just don’t touch! I don’t touch Olaf!”

We got into it. We hashed out everything, I was leaving tomorrow and didn’t want to do it then. We talked about your change of heart, why it happened, what happened. I told you why I believed why you were the one, and why we should try again after you’ve unpacked some of your emotional baggage. And most importantly when we live in the same city.

But then I asked the question that had been on my mind all day.

“Is it cause I’m Asian?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” you said.

I don’t know who I felt. It was a fair response. It was an honest response. But it was also an answered filled with self loathing and lack of self worth - which made everything so clear. Your behavior towards me, the video I found, your weird comments about my ex’s being so attractive that you felt flattered you were in their league.

“You need to fucking unpack that shit.” I demanded.

“Don’t try and cuddle me tonight.” you said.

“I’ll try not to.”

The morning came, and my flight was in the afternoon.

I put my arms around you and slid my hand into the waistband of your briefs. I stroked you until you got hard and removed your underwear, and proceeded to work my mouth down to your ass.

“Are you saying goodbye to my butt?” you asked

“I’m going to miss it.”

I slid two fingers in until you told me to stop and turned over. I asked to blow you and you rejected my offer.

So we just lied there - naked in each others arms.

“Don’t ever fucking tell me like I’m Olaf ever again, cause you and Olaf would never get as far as you and I just did. Also, you’re able to get hard - so what the fuck Jimmy?”

“I haven’t cum in 4 days and I’m always horny in the morning.” You replied.

‘Why are you fighting so damn hard against me? Why are you pushing me away?”

It got quiet.

“I believe you when you say you love me. Your love is so selfless.” you muttered.

“I won’t stop loving you. But I know you need to figure out how you love. So fall in love, and figure that out. And when you’re ready to be loved by me, I’ll be back for you. I’ll give you everything I promised - the fancy measuring cups, the guesthouse for your mom to live with us, and our two kids making fun of our outfits.”

You began to cry. I could see your pillow damp with tears.

“Don’t cry.”

“I’m just thinking about how much love I could give to a child.”

“One day we’ll know together.” I kissed you and we got up. I was running late for brunch.

By the time I came back I had packed up and was ready to leave. You gave me a hug goodbye.

“This isn’t goodbye” I said. “I’ll see you again. I know I will. Unpack some baggage and I’ll be back for you.”

You nodded and kissed me.

“Be good to your mom, she loves you.” you said.

"I will, because one day she’ll be yours too.” I replied.

You pulled me in tightly. I begged for one last kiss - you were reluctant but gave in.

I came back to New York. My feelings were all over the place. I was broken, but I realized it was not me. You’re so complicated. You’ve got tons of baggage. I know we just scratched the surface, but this is a journey you have to take yourself. I can only hope you grow out of this, or you learn to love yourself. I know your parents are difficult. I know your trauma.

If we accept the love we think we deserve, I hope you know that you deserve love. And if I should be so lucky, to provide that for you one day.

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bluerene · 6 years

Text

river, part three [starx]

Hellooooooo

Finally wrapped up part three! Phew, got a little lost in writing it, especially because I want the characters to feel real and I don’t want to get wrapped up in too much plot. I wanted to get this out of the way before I put up Chapter 5 of Liability, so that I can continue editing and writing with a clear conscience <3 Parts one and two are linked here and at the bottom in case a refresher is needed.

take note of the following: stubborn laptop + late writing = formatting issues. bear with me, edits shall be made. Story is post-tokyo, sans kiss, slightly aged up Titans...lots and lots and LOTS of love for @fireflyxrebel who never fails to gush and fangirl and make me cry with her insanely kind words. Show her some love, she’s written some pretty incredible fic. <3 <3 <3

I invite and appreciate critiques, requests, reblogs, and reviews! even the tiny ones :) <3

without further ado, part three, my friends.

A couple of days passed and I was still a little lost on how to plan the date. I was out of practice as it was, it had been a while since I’d had to put in the effort to impress a girl. And I don’t mean that like, “I’m a fucking champ at getting laid without even trying”. I honestly have no idea where to begin.

It couldn’t be outside; we would meet too early in the day and I wasn’t about to greet her maskless. That ruled out a picnic or a restaurant or the movies. I couldn’t take her to the botanical gardens or go stargazing on the beach.

I didn’t think it would be a good idea to bring her back to my place. She’d probably kill me anyway, thinking that I was presuming.

Eventually, I settled on an old planetarium that was partially in the process of being remodeled. Construction had been halted for about a month already, due to some issues between the co-owners. Didn’t matter to me, I had a spot and I had an idea.

Starfire and I hadn’t talked much since our conversation a few nights ago. She wanted to keep our communications lowkey and preferred that we text at night when the other Titans weren’t around to peek over her shoulder or express interest in who she was speaking with. It made things easier for us both, especially because I worked long hours during the day. Not that she knew that piece of information. If she did, she’d never quit on the little redemption story she’s trying to write me into.

I could picture her, gorgeous eyes wide, our hands clasped together, asking me why I did what I did. If I ever let it get there, I wouldn’t be able to resist telling her. And that was something I wasn’t willing to risk.

I thought about not going on the date. Never giving her a time or place, or worse, blowing her off completely. Prove to her I’m as terrible as I want to be. Kill the hope she has for me.

But it’s Starfire. I could never do that to her.

I kept thinking about all of our interactions over the years, brief and non. The first time I had her pinned to the wall, her expression shifting from confused to furious before I could finish my suggestion. The night we found ourselves trapped in a LexCorp vault, her fingers gripping my arms as we were squished into a corner, surrounded by various menacing devices. Her look of wonder when I caught her from a nasty fall a few months back, the surprise in her eyes when she realized I wasn’t Boy Blunder.

Jesus Christ, I was totally gone, wasn’t I?

Fuck.

I had a job I needed to do that night. I’d trip an alarm and get her attention, pull her aside and tell her the whole thing was off. It was stupid of me to suggest in the first place. And it was stupider of her to accept.

I preferred to not compromise the assignment, but she’d already made it clear that it was difficult to sneak out at night. Once the Titans finished patrol, they returned to the Tower and went into total lockdown. If a window or door was opened or broken, Cyborg would get the alert. That had been news to me, and I realized that their security had probably been heightened since the theft of the suit and everything else that followed.

That evening, I broke into a private laboratory. Wasn’t too heavily guarded, I counted five, maybe six security officers stationed around the perimeter of the building, and three patrolling the halls inside. Lots of cameras, but I could mess with the feed by transmitting an older tape on a loop to the surveillance room. I was careful not to use my belt while I made my way to the main lab. There were energy sensors set up all over, designed to bring attention to any odd bursts of power that might be expelled across the premises. I fucking hate scientists sometimes.

No confrontations occurred. A+ for me. I made it into the central lab with ease, keying in the numbers my client had instructed me to use. It was a circular room with several stations, each one cluttered with tools and paperwork. Red lasers crisscrossed the area, but there were little pockets of space around the tables. Towards the back of the lab, there were wide glass windows mounted on the paneled wall, but it was too dark to see what was behind them.

“Here we go,” I muttered, cracking my knuckles and shaking out my hands. One run, not too challenging.

I leaped forward, careful to avoid the scarlet lines that cut through the air. Every action was precise, my hands and feet never lingering on the ground for more than a few seconds. I used the momentum of each handspring to push myself forward, each jump allowing me to twist through the air, clear of any obstacles.

I stumbled a little when I landed, bracing myself against the wall, relief washing over me when I realized I hadn’t tripped any alarms.

I ran my fingers along the grooves in the wall, pulling gently to see if any would budge. There was supposed to be a door to the main office somewhere…

I heard a faint click, and the panel I was gripping hissed open. Sweet.

I was in and out pretty quickly. My day job taught me some pretty cool tricks, including how to hack an “impenetrable” firewall. I accessed the desktop and downloaded several encrypted files onto a pair of flash-drives I’d brought with me. One for the client, and one for me, so I could see what I’d gotten myself into. Shut down the computer, slipped out of the office, closed the door - easy. Getting the Titans here, isolating Starfire, and keeping what I came for - that would be hard.

I darted through the lasers, flinching when the klaxon alarm screeched. I shoved the door open and hit the center of my belt quickly, teleporting to the roof. And then, I waited.

----

I had been lying on the sofa with my legs hooked over the side, deeply engrossed in a romance novel when the Titan alert rang. I glanced up, unsurprised to find Robin glaring at the console.

“Red X,” he said scathingly, turning to address the rest of us. I did not listen to what he said, my eyes immediately finding Raven’s.

I did not wish for X to come to any harm. Perhaps I was being foolish, but I would feel I had failed him if I did not follow through with our arrangement.

My anger flared for a moment - it was unfair that he had not even considered my offer, or at least avoided thievery prior to the date.

“Clorbag,” I grumbled, crossing my arms.

“ - all of us, so Starfire and I can go instead.”

I snapped to attention, “What?”

Robin shrugged, “Nothing was reported stolen, so I don’t think all of are required for this one. You and I can bring him in. It’ll make up for Monday night.” He gave me a half-smile when he said that, quiet butterflies awakening in my stomach. I rarely felt that way around him anymore.

“I do not think-”

“Awwww, ain’t that cute,” Cyborg grinned, nudging Beast Boy, “takin’ down criminals together.”

“I would like to go alone if that is okay,” I said meekly.

Robin tilted his head, confusion evident on his face, “What? Why? Starfire, you can’t go without backup.”

“I will be brief, I promise, I would simply like to have the ‘words’ with him.” It was not a lie, I planned on speaking with him, although it may not have been what Robin thought.

“Red X does go pretty easy on her,” Raven added helpfully, “if you want, I can go with. Keep an eye on her.”

I disliked that phrasing, but I was grateful for her assistance.

Robin pursed his lips, “I don’t want-”

“We do not have the luxury of time,” I interjected.

He sighed and hung his head, “just go.”

I nodded and flew to Raven’s side. Moments later, her powers engulfed us, carrying us to the location Robin had instructed us to investigate.

“Alright,” she said upon arrival, placing her hands on her hips, “what do you want me to do here?”

“Accept my humble gratitude with a hug and keep the security officers busy while I find X.”

She rolled her eyes, “The second one I can do. Save your hugs for later. Keep him out of trouble.”

I did not smile - it seemed that he could not help but get himself into trouble time and time again.

Raven spoke with the guards, which allowed me the opportunity to fly around the building. I could not find any broken windows or weaknesses in structure, which made me wonder if he had left the building at all.

As I floated higher, I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye.

Of course he was waiting on the roof.

I landed softly, allowing energy to flood my eyes with fury. This was truly disappointing to find.

He had been peering over the edge cautiously, but once he was aware of my presence, he shot up and faced me, a hand hovering in front of his belt. He relaxed when he realized I was the only one.

“Starfire.”

X’hal, I cannot explain how much I enjoyed hearing him say my name. It was strange, there was a gentle lilt to his tone, a soothing quality that calmed me. My eyes dimmed slightly, but I did not relinquish the blaze completely.

“Red X.”

“You sound unhappy, beautiful. Am I not what you wanted?”

I was taken aback by the bitterness in his voice. I had only heard it once before, on an occasion I doubt he even remembers.

We were battling the Hive Five. I had been knocked out of the air, and in my panic, forgot to fly. I still relied on Robin, back then, and often put myself in his way in hopes that he might catch me.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I neared the ground, bracing for the impact that never came.

Arms had caught me. I had touched his chest and quietly murmured, “Robin”. I felt him chuckle, and in a low voice, whisper, “not quite, Cutie.”

My eyes opened to find my savior was someone else entirely.

“Red X!” I squeaked.

He set me down gently, and in the same tired, bitter inflection, replied, “Sorry to disappoint,” before shimmering into the midst of the fight.

It hurt to hear him speak that way.

“I am disappointed that you thought you could continue to commit crimes, despite our-”

“Agreement? Starfire, you made this happen. You pushed me into it. I didn’t want a date,” he said sourly.

I raised my eyebrow, “this was not your goal? Then please, X, explain the flirting. Explain the constant requests. Explain the kindness you show me, the compassion you show only me.”

“I’m teasing, cutie. It’s what I do. I mess around. I steal, I cheat, I lie. Get over it.”

His words sounded rehearsed and detached. I had been on the receiving end of such words before.

“I do not accept that.”

He shrugged, “your problem, not mine. See you around, cutie.”

I growled and launched myself at him, throwing my arms around him as his fist hit the center of his belt.

He yelped in protest, but it was too late.

We landed in a tangled mess on soft carpet, my hands still gripping him tightly as he fumbled around in the dark.

I loosened my hold and rolled away from him, feeling my surroundings until I found a wall. I leaned against it and rose.

“Where are we?”

He cursed, but did not move to turn on the lights, “my apartment.”

That interested me.

“Oh, wonderful. Perhaps now you will be willing to sit and talk.”

“Nothing to discuss. You’re leaving.”

“You think so?” I asked, stretching my hand out hesitantly. I found his arm and curled my fingers around his hand.

“I’ll make you leave,” he said tonelessly, removing his hand from mine. He moved closer and settled his palms on my biceps, wary of holding me too tight.

“I would like to see you try,” I retorted.

He made a little noise of frustration and dropped his hands, “Jesus, Starfire, why are you being so difficult? It was stupid of you to ask, it was stupid of me to accept. Let it go. I can’t be what you want.”

“Cannot or will not?”

“Does it matter?” He asked incredulously, “Bottom line, nothing’s different. This...whatever, never happened.”

“But you wanted it to.”

“Of course I did,” he exploded, backing away from me, “how could I not? But I’m not an idiot. You can’t be around someone like me. You can’t make me change, you can’t ‘fix’ me or make me think you’re interested in me so that you get what you want. Heroes and thieves don’t play nice.”

“You have,” I pointed out, trying to ignore the pain his familiar words brought me.

He let out a bark of laughter, though it was clear he found no humor in this, “you got me there, cutie, that changes everything.”

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the faint shapes of the furniture surrounding us becoming more evident to me.

X was leaning against a...couch? An armchair, it seemed, once I squinted. I kept my distance, drawing circles on the wall behind me absentmindedly.

“I am more than just a hero,” I said finally, “I have heard your words before. All this talk of being one thing...humans are so much more complex than that.”

“You’re more than just a hero,” he agreed, “but beautiful, I am what I am.”

“Not without purpose.”

“What is it with you? Give it up already,” he snarled, “why do you trust me so much?”

“You have had too many opportunities to hurt me and my friends. Instead, you have protected us. Protected me,” I paused, “I will not push you to be ‘fixed’. Trust means I must have faith that you are doing what you must.”

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“I still want the date.”

He tilted his head, “what?”

I gave him a tiny smile, “I have often heard the phrase ‘do not mix business with pleasure’. I should not have coupled my heroic agenda with my personal agenda. Our date shall commence as planned, with no talk of you joining the Titans.”

He shifted uncomfortably, tugging at the collar of his suit, “Ah, cutie -”

“You have already admitted you would like to date me. Is it so farfetched to think I could feel the same?” The words spilled from my mouth before I could stop myself. I flushed, thankful for the darkness.

He stiffened and fell silent. I could almost see him working through my words, deciding if he should believe me or not.

“No,” he said finally. I was relieved to hear amusement trickling into his tone, “I guess not.”

“Wonderful. Please take me back to the laboratory, now,” I stretched out my hand expectantly.

He took it and tugged me into him, settling his arm around my waist, “anything for you, beautiful.”

We landed on the roof of the building far more gracefully. He released me from his grasp quickly, laughing quietly when I stumbled into his chest.

“I am not used to chemical transportation,” I said apologetically, blushing yet again.

“You should get going,” he said, jerking his head in the direction Raven and I had come from, “your teammates are probably wondering where you are.”

“That is likely. I thank you for your honesty tonight. I shall see you Saturday,” I lifted into the air and glanced around for Raven. I was certain she sensed my disappearance and return, and would no doubt be very cranky and concerned.

“Starfire,” he said quietly, pulling on my ankle gently.

I frowned and dropped beside him, “yes?”

“Don’t kill me for this,” he breathed. He flipped up the bottom of his mask quickly, revealing a smooth, square jaw and a mouth that was quickly pressed to mine.

[end of part three] part two part one

#starx #starfire #red x #teen titans #fanfic #raven #robin #beast boy #cyborg #blue writes #YOOOO PART THREE #river

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