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mrepstein · 1 year

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Clive Epstein’s Foreword to the 1984 edition of ‘A Cellarful of Noise’

A Cellarful Of Noise first came out in 1964 when we were all very young - Brian, too, although we never thought of him that way. It feels strange now, even a bit frightening, to look back at the original photographs and realise how young he was to have the whole world on its ear. We’ve all aged and, maybe, grown wiser since then. Brian’s wisdom came all at the beginning. It wasn’t conventional wisdom, the sort that professors or politicians are supposed to have. Brian himself would never have admitted it. Still, that’s the quality I remember in him even now, nearly seventeen years after he died. And I do - often - remember him.

In this book, I think he tried hard to be honest about himself. It wasn’t as fashionable a thing to be in 1964 as it is now. He could easily have left the whole job to the ghost writer. But, as you can see, when Brian got his proofs, he added his own personal foreword, perhaps because he felt the book as it stood was too glib. That kind of honesty - doing his best to come clean, whatever the pressure - was characteristic of him.

Even so, you shouldn’t believe all he says about himself. He wasn’t such a dunce at school as he liked to make out. He wasn’t a failure at RADA or in his family business. In Liverpool, you can still meet people who’ll tell you how hard he worked before he was famous, or even dreamed of it. He always had the knack of making people work - or over-work, gladly. He was old fashioned in a lot of ways: he believed you had to set an example.

It’s misleading to say, as some do, ‘Ah - he had money and advantages - he succeeded the easy way.’ Nothing was easy for Brian, but he made it seem so. When people first met him, all those years ago in Mathew Street, what impressed them was his professionalism. He showed The Beatles, who didn’t really care, how to have a goal and how to reach it. I only wish he’d been as certain about what he wanted for himself.

You’ve heard the stories - how Brian made The Beatles ‘respectable,’ and put them into suits and ties instead of leather. Some people say he watered down the music they were playing in Liverpool, but I can tell you that’s not right. He never interfered with what they played or pretended to be a musician. He did the hard slog around London and put up with rudeness and indifference and doors being slammed in his face. In Liverpool, in London, on all the roads The Beatles followed around the world, he stayed the same - always there, taking care of things. It saddens me to think that many of us only really appreciated him when it was too late. Perhaps he made mistakes, but who didn’t? We were all relatively young and, with The Beatles, bouncing the world up and down.

What would Brian have done if he had lived? Being Brian, he’d have been doing a lot. He’d still be on three telephones at once. He’d probably be involved in the theatre, which was always his first love. He might have become a performer in his own right. You probably didn’t know that he was negotiating for a chat show of his own on Canadian TV just before he died. I feel certain he’d be doing a lot for Liverpool, possibly in the form of a Centre for the Performing Arts. He always loved and valued the place, even though it wasn’t the kindest of home towns to him. He may have wanted to take on some of the problems which Liverpool is suffering today.

There’s no future in saying ‘if’. But you should remember people - especially when they give you as much as this to remember them by. I’ll remember my brother, in the early and the unreal days, for fun and friendship, and the honesty I mentioned, when he need not have been honest. I hope you think as I do that his character shines through this book. Brian Epstein changed the world but didn’t do it any harm. Isn’t that reason enough for history to remember him?

Clive Epstein

February 7, 1984

#Brian Epstein #Clive Epstein #A Cellarful of Noise #1984 #80s #family

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roachliquid · 7 months

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On "you have to learn the rules so you can break them"

Being an artist of various stripes (mostly writing and pixel art, but also game design, a brief stint in theatre, and recently I've been dabbling in music composition) one of the statements I have always hated the most is "you have to learn the rules so you can break them."

Of course, there are multiple reasons for this. Number one being that I have always had a problem with any authority that appears to be totally arbitrary. Number two is that this phrase absolutely gets abused by elitist dickweeds who think that taking creative risks is a privilege that has to be earned via a period of rigid devotion to The Rules(TM). But I think the biggest problem of all is that the sentence is HOPELESSLY vague.

Naturally, this pointed to the phrase being a watered-down version of advice that actually makes sense, so I decided to look it up and see if I could find its origin. In doing so, I found a couple of different versions of the phrase - one dubiously attributed to Pablo Picasso, the other very falsely attributed to the Dalai Lama - but the oldest version I was able to find is from the 1920s, in a magazine called The Bookman.

The quote appears in an article in the July 1921 issue, written by one J.P. Collins. In the article he describes a conversation he'd recently had with Edward German, and... uh. Well.

I was wrong. I mean, I was right in one respect, but I was so wrong.

You see, the original advice isn't any more useful than the popular version of the phrase - in fact, it is exactly the same. But it is given in the blatant spirit of elitism and aversion to counterculture, as seen in the quote's context:

He could not see anything but Nemesis awaiting the present fashion of hostility to tonality and form, a pose on which some mistaken moderns seemed to pride themselves. ... "The only music that can live," he said, "is the music that has the elements of beauty and health in it, and observes some kind of structure and shapeliness. ... You must put in close application and study of the best models, and you must learn the rules before you break them.(")

Or, as Chris Fleming summarized it: "Be original, but run it by us first."

So yeah! This isn't just some simplified, but ultimately well-meaning adage about the benefit of understanding why a rule exists so that you understand how it can be broken. It's just saying that "good" art follows traditional standards, and if you don't first memorize and learn to adhere to those standards, your art will have no lasting impact or purpose beyond simple contrarianism. That's such great advice! /s

So now that we've established that this advice came from a colossal douchebag who meant nothing good by it, I'm going to declare "death of the author" and take a look at a couple other versions of this quote, and the difference in the philosophies they're espousing.

First is a version popularly attributed to Picasso:

"Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist."

This is basically the same as German's philosophy, except that it was allegedly said by a cool cubist who would definitely be down with you doing whatever you wanted after you finished your anatomy classes. So that's an improvement of sorts.

And while Picasso probably didn't say this, I can understand the sentiment: If you have a certain effect you want to achieve, but you don't know how to craft your art in a way that actually leads to that goal, the only thing you're going to make is a mess. And the bigger the risk you're taking - which is actually what you're doing when you "break the rules" - the bigger a mess you can end up making if things don't go the way you intended, and the less likely it is that you'll understand how to fix the problem.

For this reason, novice artists are often advised to stick to following the rules (actually a set of guidelines designed to reduce your risk of fucking up) until they gain a stronger understanding of how to translate ideas and intention into a satisfying result.

To be clear, there are contexts in which this is extremely good advice. Not every form of art is 100% safe to experiment with; some, such as architecture, have both soft artistic rules that can be played with and much firmer technical rules that should only be altered if you're sure you can safely do so - which does require you to remember and understand the initial ruleset. Plus, even "safe" media, like writing, have technical rules that serve useful purposes like "making your work legible and coherent".

This can also be helpful advice for total beginners, who may not even know where to start with the medium in question, much less what they want to do with it - and for whom a big artistic failure would be less of a learning experience and more of an incomprehensible, confidence-crushing blow. In this context, following a ruleset is actually pretty great, because it helps them to build familiarity and confidence with the medium of their choice.

When it comes to other contexts, however, I find this advice to be misguided. One reason is because of how easy it is for an amateur artist to pick up "rules" that are dramatically overapplied at best, or pure opinion at worst - either from their teachers, artists they look up to, or even random weirdos with just enough confidence to make themselves sound authoritative. Advice is cheap, especially on the Internet; good advice is much rarer.

The other issue is that, on a practical level, learning to follow the rules does not teach you how to break them - it just teaches you not to break them, or that when you do, you need to stay as close to the rules as possible or else risk ruining your whole piece. Which is great advice in theory, but in practice, it's abstinence-only art education. People don't just need to learn risk avoidance; they need to learn how to recognize and navigate risks, or they're gonna hit a wall that they're not going to know how to work around.

On that note, let's have a look at the other version I found of this quote. This one's just completely misattributed to the Dalai Lama, its actual source being a revised version of the "Instructions for Life" chain letter. It goes thus:

"Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively."

In my opinion, this is a much more useful interpretation of the phrase. It is instructing you not simply to learn the rules, e.g. through rote memorization and practice, but to understand them, to know how and why they are used - and not because breaking them is a privilege to be earned, but because one day you're gonna have to break 'em, and forewarned is forearmed.

Of course, it still has limited applications when it comes to art. It's a good piece of advice, to be sure, but it leaves off a fact more particular to art than almost any other field - that one of the most effective ways to understand a rule, after you've got the basics down, is to break it and see what happens.

So in the end, while it's got a lot more staying power, I still wouldn't treat it as a universal rule. And that, I think, is the core of my issue with the way people repeat this line - not this version in specific, but any of them.

Because for some reason, people have a nigh obsessive fascination with pithy little phrases. We love to bandy them about as if their brevity and catchiness is a proven indication of some fundamental truth. And that's fucking ridiculous. We need to stop that.

But yeah. I definitely don't think this sentence is completely without merit. But I think that, like most catchy sayings, it's helpful to examine what it means, why we believe in it, and and what its functions and limitations are.

You might say that we need to understand the rule so we can break it.

#art #writing #art advice #writing advice #'learn the rules so you can break them'

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elshells · 1 year

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Welcome, Traveler!

Hello! Ella here, it's nice to meet you. Thanks for stopping by my blog!

I've only been on Tumblr for a couple of years, but I've been sharing original stories online since 2018, and writing for fun even before that. Mainly, I dabble in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and everything in between. If you read or write within these genres, we'll get along great. And even if you don't, hit me up! I'm always looking for another good read, and I'm pretty easy to please.

In the writeblr community, I welcome asks/tag games and am always looking for an excuse to talk about my beloved characters. Granted, it takes me forever and a day to respond to literally anything, but I'd love to get to know you and your WIPs!

If I'm not writing, I'll hop on to see what y'all are up to, and sometimes I'll chime in with whatever's on my mind. Usually late at night when I should be asleep. As one does. You know how it goes around here. If I happen to say anything hilarious, there's a 60% chance it was unintentional. I rarely think I'm funny in real life.

The bottom line is that I'm here to vibe, and if you enjoy my WIPs or just wanna be friends, please don't be shy to reach out! I'm often afraid to make the first move, but whether it's through reading my stories or my feral rambles, I hope I can make you smile!

* * *

MORE ABOUT ME

—‌Currently pursuing a degree in English creative writing and gender sexuality, and race studies, with minors in publishing and printing arts and music performance. So, naturally, I can be a busy gal.

—‌My dream is to be a published writer (looking into the indie route), with the goal to debut before I graduate. I also have aspirations to be an actor in community theatre and voiceover work, but we'll see how that goes!

—‌I've played the flute for almost ten years, and am slowly learning piano and guitar. Eventually I'd love to learn my way around a drum set as well, if I ever find the time, money, and discipline. Maybe I'll even write my own music one day, who knows.

—‌I love to swim, and I rode horses for several years. Beyond that, I'm pretty much hopeless at sports, especially the ones that involve throwing around a ball.

—‌I also draw occasionally. I haven't been that dedicated to the craft lately, so I've lost a lot of my mojo, but I hope to maybe share some art on here some day!

—‌Since my early teens I've volunteered at my local zoo and aquarium, but more recently, I've been working as a swim instructor.

—‌Like I mentioned above, I'd love to make friends! I'll talk to anyone about anything, as long as the conversation stays friendly, safe, and respectful. I won't tolerate hate in any form.

* * *

WIP MASTER LIST

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

If you enjoy a chapter, please consider letting me know by reblogging and leaving a comment! I welcome anything you have to say, so long as you're kind to me, yourself, and others. Useful and constructive criticism is always encouraged if you catch something I didn't, so feel free to share any feedback, opinions, or questions you have. I appreciate all the support I can get!

THE HARMONT HEROES SERIES —‌A fusion of science fiction and urban fantasy told through the dual POV of two sisters on opposite ends of society. This saga features mystery and intrigue, thrills and chills, and an array of LGBTQ+ characters. -BOOK ONE: Agent Ace -BOOK TWO: TBA -BOOK THREE: TBA -BOOK FOUR: TBA

EMBR OF THE EARTH —‌In the far, unknown future, our world is overrun by human survivors, robot scouts, and hostile, alienesque creatures who came from nowhere. A ragtag group of teens choose to leave the safety of their satellite and return to Earth, determined to discover what happened to planet and if there's a way to save it. -ON INDEFINITE HIATUS -The current draft is still available on Wattpad; read it here.

ENCORE —‌An eighteen-year-old girl is rescued from a mysterious deserted island as the lone survivor with an unbelievable story. Twelve years later, the girl, now a struggling musician who's still tortured by the past, is given an opportunity to go back in time to save her friends. But as the stakes and danger increase, the price may too much to pay. -A twist on the Final Girl trope in classic horror. -COMING TO TUMBLR SOON! Get started with the first five chapters here.

POETRY

Am I a poet? I don't know, you tell me!

Water Nymphs

Witches

Alley Cat

Sea Urchin

Homebody

Puhpowee

* * *

WHERE ELSE YOU CAN FIND ME

Wattpad: @ persephonehale

AO3: @ elshells *In the meantime, thanks for saying hi!*

#ella thinks #ella's writing #introductory post #masterlist #masterpost #writer's blog #wip: agent ace #writeblr #wip: embr of the earth #wip: encore #poetry blog #art blog #among many other things #thanks friends for stopping by!#ask me anything!

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musical-chick-13 · 2 months

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The workshop thing wasn't great in that respect but it wasn't that bad either because it was so clear that people were jealous when they were being harsher than the professors, who did step in at points when it veered from critiquing stylistic choices into doing exactly what people who think tagging fics on that post is okay are doing. It didn't discourage me from writing but it did solidify my decision not to major in creative writing (this is probably also why I in particular was a target: it wasn't my major, it was a hobby, but I was as qualified as them and got as much praise as they did and even one time more than them on the very first exercise of my first workshop, which probably didn't sit right with them, but only fueled me further because I am nothing if not a creature of spite).

And that's the thing too: so many people can't grasp that there's a huge difference between "this isn't for me" and "this has a lot of issues". Which to preface, unless someone's asked you to beta for them keep your mouth shut. They're doing this for free. Exit out if there are too many errors or whatever (and errors isn't even exactly the word I want but I'm exhausted and didn't sleep enough last night). Not that those people SHOULD beta either even if they were asked, honestly, because they clearly do not have a grasp on what constructive criticism actually is or how it works. You don't need a workshop to learn that either, just basic human decency and Google.

But like anyways. In the workshops I read plenty of things I just Did Not Vibe With, but were objectively very, very good art and you could tell how much care the author put into them. Sometimes things just aren't for you and the author didn't poorly execute that concept, actually.

I ran into this a lot in Performance World, too, back when I was trying to get a singing/stage performing career off the ground. There are SO many threads of that part of my life I can relate to this discussion and it would take far too long to explain them all, but there VERY much was a culture of perfectionism. Jealousy and extreme competition were incredibly prevalent, lots of "stay in your box," lots of complaining if people didn't stay in their box. Even when we were learning (or doing community theatre just to stay in practice or build up a resume), the stakes always seemed astronomically high. Someone could do a passable or even genuinely good job; but if it wasn't good in the "right" way, then it was still seen as meaningless.

For courtesy's sake, I'm putting the rest of my thoughts under a cut, because. Well. This got long. As answers by me are wont to do.

There also was a lot of "pick a genre" and "this is the only MEANINGFUL type of music/art/etc." The opera crowd hated that I liked musicals and pop music because those styles were all "stupid" and "frivolous" and "simple" (which isn't. even true, no art form is a monolith, and what those words mean is going to be different for every person, but, you know). Everyone else hated that I sang opera because it was a "pretentious art form" and "boring" and "sexist/racist/etc." (Those first two are incredibly subjective, and plenty of modern opera works exist that seeks to not uphold those forms of prejudice.) There was "if you look like [x], then you can't do [y performance type]." "If your voice sounds like this, then you can't EVER pursue ANY roles outside of this small pool of stuff because you need to know your place; if you don't, people will think you're making Bad Art." And then you, at best, get shamed, and, at worst, can't make a living.

All of this, of course, was a matter of opinion. Most of it, like you said, boiled down to the fact that people were doing things that weren't, actually, bad or untalented or ineffective--they just didn't work for people. They didn't meet some arbitrary, subjective standard that had no real, concrete, actual meaning. But when people with any degree of power start taking their artistic opinions as immovable fact, we end up with...well, we end up with the current theatre climate, and we end up with whatever is happening in fandom communities right now. (Because just as there are some people who, for insisting on a lack of constructive criticism, should not be beta readers, there are some who should not be educators or directors.)

There were a lot of reasons that I eventually stopped performing publicly/on stage. But a big part of it was that I just didn't want to deal with that culture anymore. When I made the decision to walk away, I had gotten to the point where I'd started to hate singing. My primary form of expression, of catharsis, of solace, since I was eight or nine years old. And luckily, withdrawing from a professional pursuit of art has helped me get some of that back. But I see those same issues--that same negativity, that same judgment--starting to pop up in something that isn't even meant to be for money or a career or anything other than personal expression. I see so many people getting discouraged, starting to lose the love they had for that expression. My love of art was almost taken away from me, to the point where for a very long time I couldn't even do it for fun, alone, in the private comfort of my house. And if I can do anything to prevent that from happening to someone else, I sure as hell will.

I'm glad that you were still able to get some good out of that workshop, because that's not always easy to do when the people around you are acting like that. (And kudos to realizing that you didn't want to do this as a major/career, that's not always easy to do either.) And I know I've talked more about professional art, but this is so prevalent in the way people talk about community theatre, too. Being upset that a student production doesn't have Super Stellar Voices/Acting, ragging on amateur singers just for posting a karaoke video on their personal Facebook page, expecting Met-opera-level singing quality or Shakespeare-scholar levels of acting text analysis from a group of volunteers who are spending their precious few after-work hours to put on a musical, just because they want to share that story with people. I've seen lots of comments that it's not meaningful because it's "bad." When. I've done a lot of community theatre. Plenty of it is not bad, actually. If you hate it that much, you don't have to attend a production. (Just like how. if you hate a fic. you can hit the back button.) And even if it is "bad." It's still going to be meaningful to someone. Even in a "bad" production, at least ONE of the actors or crew members will have a good time helping create it. And at least ONE audience member is going to have a good time; whether that be because they simply love theatre, someone they love is involved with the production, or because they don't care about an arbitrary "quality" measurement. And I absolutely think the same thing is true of writing, and of fanfiction especially.

If, for example, someone goes to karaoke and screams "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Mis extremely off-key and grating, because they're experiencing a shitty situation and just need some catharsis? I don't have the right to rag on them for that, I would be an asshole. If someone posts a cover for fun on YouTube of...I don't know, "Take On Me" and can't hit the high notes, but wants to pay tribute to a song they love, who the fuck would I be to take that away from them? So if someone writes a "silly" or "stupid" or oh-God-forbid "cringe" piece of fanfiction (which. AGAIN. do not have any concrete meaning because those are SUBJECTIVE TERMS) to get some feelings out or to talk about how much they love a fictional character. Well, I think if you call them names over that and try to publicly shame or harass them, then, quite frankly, you are engaging in pointless, cruel, and braincell-less behavior. And you can stay 10,000 feet away from me.

#mc13 lore #oh my god this is so long I'm so sorry #multi t(ASK)ing #amateur art #fanfiction #taking my life in my own hands by putting this in something other than just my ask tag but so be it #there have been a lot of productions I've seen or been in--both professional and not--where I thought the overall vision didn't #translate very well or I didn't enjoy it or I thought that the artistic choices people made didn't successfully do what it seemed like #they were trying to do. but you know what? I've never seen a production. not even of HEATHERS the show (which is my absolute #least favorite thing in the world). where there was not even ONE good moment. there was always someone whose voice I liked. or a line #delivery that I thought was executed well. or a joke I thought was funny or a passage that I thought was raw/emotionally resonant.#and I think you can tell where I'm going with this but: yes this is true of fanfic too.

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atticssmellgood · 10 months

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This post is literally just me ranting abt the music and art industry.

I’ve come to realize that I’m the type of person that loves to analyze the lyrics literally any song I listen to, like if I listen to a song for the first time I’m always focused more on the words than anything else. And it makes sense because I’ve always been the type to like finding the deeper meaning within any piece of literature. It’s so interesting to me when songs aren’t surface level, when it takes more than two listens to actually get what the song is about. Not only that, but it also reveals a lot about the artist in general, their views on a certain topic or what they’ve had to deal with in their lives. It’s amazing how people convey themselves through their song-writing and while that’s not something I think I could do myself, I respect it so damn much.

It’s also amazing when the artist leaves the meaning of the song up to interpretation. It allows so many more people to connect with the music, even if the message they see isn’t the one the song-writer originally intended. What I think some people who don’t understand why I love looking at lyrics so much don’t realize is just how much they matter to the songs themselves. And I mean, yeah, duh, lyrics are obviously a huge part of what makes music music but I just don’t think people realize how much of an impact they can have sometimes.

Lyrics are what gives songs their meaning, it’s what connects with people’s emotions and experiences, they’re what makes music so special to so many people. It’s what allows people to be able to feel understood when they’re alone. It’s what gives them the ability to understand themselves more.

Just think about the amount of people that are able to connect with each other through a band or a song, the amount of people that have been saved by music alone.

What other thing could you think of that is able to do what music does? That’s able to touch the souls of so many different people, no matter the background? And that applies to all other forms of art as well. Painting, sculpting, poetry, theatre, and so many other things. They’re what allow people to be people, they’re what allow others to express their ideas and views on the world around them, as well as share their experiences, good or bad.

Art is a vital part of the human experience, it’s what makes everyone special, because every single one of us views the world differently. We couldn’t live in a world without art, humans simply were not born to be monochrome.

Art is everywhere. In the clothes we wear, in the architecture of buildings, in the jewelry people make, in the makeup people wear, in the movies we watch. It’s engrained into our minds as well as our everyday lives.

Without art, without the ability to express our ideas and feelings, life would be boring, because it’s what drives us to be better and what pushes each one of us to be unique. And the best part is, it wasn’t necessarily made to impress. Even though critics exist and all that, every single piece of art is very personal. That’s why music taste is subjective, and why people dress differently.

And I hate it when people exploit art for monetary gain like some modern art. And don’t even get me started on the singers who release the same sounding music album after album just for a quick cash grab. It especially irks me when music artists exploit mental illness.

A lot of teenagers listen to music so they can express their negative emotions, to find something they can relate to, and some people see that as an easy target audience. All they have to do is sing about symptoms of depression, or anxiety, even if they haven’t experienced those things themselves. To me, those people shouldn’t be allowed to call themselves artists.

Art is not something that was meant to be mass produced.

Art is meant to be passionate, creative. Art is meant to push boundaries.

And god do I especially dislike it when people judge others for their music taste or fashion sense. NOT EVERYONE IS THE SAME. NOT EVERYONE IS GOING TO EXPRES THEMSELVES IN THE SAME WAY.

Just because YOU don’t vibe with a specific genre or clothing style doesn’t mean the other person is in the wrong for feeling differently. They have different tastes and that’s fine. people weren’t made to be put in a box, or to fit a certain standard.

And what is “normal” anyways? Because what one person might find normal, another might find strange. It’s a complete social construct and while it is necessary to keep a stable society, it can be harmful to others who are just trying to express themselves.

If you’re still here, thank you for reading my little rant lmao. This is literally all over the place😭

#this definitely isn’t deeply rooted in my hyperfixation on arctic monkeys #and how alex turner is one of the best lyricists in our generation #music and art just means everything to me #rant post #arctic monkeys #alex turner #art #music

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k00280081 · 2 years

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Artist Research: Bibiana Berenguer "Bibian Blue"

"Bibian Blue is a maestra within in the established Avant Garde fashion design scene in Europe".

'Her brand is a collective of over a decade of couture collections with identifiable pieces of "unclassifiable fashion which is both sensual yet unique, to allow her clients to ´tirelessly explore the boundaries of innovation and tradition.'" From her private workshop in central Barcelona, the evolution of Bibiana Berenguer´s brand pays respect to the binding connection of art and intuition, dream symbolism and inspiration through the implementation and application of more unconventional fabrication methods which she applies to hermeneutical patterns sourced from European art history and the Pre-Modernist movement. She takes inspiration from often diverse and sometimes juxtaposed disciplines such as painting and sculpture, theatre and circus, music and comics. Each collection within Bibian Blue is meant to evoke expressions of realities which are yet to be happen. These notions are in turn melancholic portrayals of an impending time of uncertainty. The reinvention of mythological styles such as the Barroque and Neo-Classical period ignites Bibian Blue´s passion for technological experimentation and innovative new ways of working with materials and fabric which she lovingly converges into unique, yet highly feminine and functional wearable works of art.'

https://www .forcmagazine.com/bibian-blue/#:~:text=Descended%20from%20an%20ancestry%20of,fashion%20design%20scene%20in%20Europe.

The works from Bibian that really caught my eye were from the 'Butterfly Collection'. Each of these pieces look like a butterfly's anatomy being used to drape as fabric to create clothing.

These pieces have really inspired me for the next step of my project. I want to encapsulate the idea of temporary forms and metamorphosis (which butterflies do to develop), to show how we as people are ever changing in not only emotions, but how we each grow and develop over time such as how butterflies evolve to reach the next step of their lifecycle.

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mangher-a · 1 year

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Genpact Verse

I'm gonna dance, dance, dance

Feng was born and raised in Liyue, where he got familiar with the various cultural arts. Theatre became a big part of his interests when he grew up, even if he never participated in plays or enrolled in school. Instead, he was drawn to dance.

It was his thing and he quickly became good at it and expressing himself through this art form. Another thing he loves, in addition to dance and music, is the high mountains of Liyue. He can be often seen exploring them.

With my hands hands hands

Above my head, head, head

He loves dancing in high places, feeling the wind on him, looking over the valleys, seeing the ocean stretch in front of him. The thrill of being high up also adds to the experience. When he was younger he did fall, quite a few times even, and he has a few scars from those incidents, but he has since grown far more experienced, his steps sure and steady like the mountains he loves so much.

He also likes to spend time at the statues. A place for him to recharge and enjoy a moment of rest.

Hands together, forgive him before he's dead, because

As props during his dances, he uses his kiseru pipe and a red fan. His element is Geo and he is a catalyst user. Appearance is that of a kitsune, with big fluffy ears and a tail, though at some occasions there can be three visible; the more power he uses the more tails pop up.

I won't cry for you...

Feng may come off as a diva, he demands luxury and to be treated with respect. But press his buttons correct...

#. 风眠 . tiào wǔ #basic bones genpact verse for feng!!

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braintapes · 1 year

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21, 30, 7 hehe

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

Art styles that rely heavily on linework, or a solid ink kinda style, are SUPER cool. My usual style is 'glob of colors exploded haphazardly onto the canvas' so anything involving a lot of tiny detail ESPECIALLY with the lines makes me go heart eyes. I also really enjoy cartoony, exaggerated styles. I love love love super stylized facial expressions, they're SO fun.

Some examples of artists/artwork I really like and am inspired from:

Niccillustrates has a beautiful style that features solid, largely unshaded colors and gorgeous linework/inking, which is most obvious in their Undertale fan art. Seems like they've taken down a lot of their older stuff which is a shame, this piece is one of my absolute all time favorite inspirations of mine. The little lines in everything, especially the flowers...AGH!!! Here's a more recent work! The contrast is gorgeous and I adore the shapes in this so much.

Retroautomaton's art has this overall pleasantness and smoothness to it that makes me feel like I'm drinking a milkshake, but like in visual form. Here's a few pieces I especially like. The fluidity and sense of movement in the lines/figures along with the bright, poppy colors is just!!! so lovely!!!!

ArtsyDudeJude's pieces are so EXPRESSIVE!!! The way he really pushes facial expressions in particular is super inspiring - all his original character design stuff in general is tbh. I look at linework like his and go. man I couldn't do that but it looks SO GOOD. Here's some of my favorites!

Last one I swear but I wanna mention my pal Dana, RedEyesRetroDragon on here! The way she stylizes characters is SO fun and dynamic I love it a lot. I don't know barely a thing about ygo BUT I care these guys bc of Dana's art. PLUS her inking!!!! Holy woah! LOOK AT THIS PIECE!!! AND THIS ONE!!

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated?

Hmm this is hard! Usually when I get reception on my art it's really kind and lovely and when I don't, I generally chalk it up to people just not being online/not seeing it at that time so I don't worry too much about it.

I suppose...since I draw a lot of fanart, it's easier for my original stuff to sort of slip by the wayside. So I'll use this one as an opportunity to gush a bit about this piece I did a little while ago!

People have left some really kind and sweet comments on it so I can't say it's underrated but it is my favorite original piece I've ever done. I felt clever about the caption because you can see it a few different ways - maybe 'taking form' refers to the canvas, reaching out and taking over the person. Or maybe the person is reaching IN, merging with the painting. Maybe the painting isn't taking form as in stealing, but taking form as in manifesting itself a human body. The possibilities are endless! Also I like the silly goofy expression here <3

OH AND WHILE I'M HERE. This piece is also not underrated but this was pretty cool too.

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

SO MANY!!!!! But the first one that comes to mind is photography! Photography is so cool and fascinating and while I don't think I could ever get /super/ into it, I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for the craft! A good photograph is SOOO satisfying to look at, like it's literally the art of composition and lighting!! How cool is that??

ALSO music!!! Gah I want to make my own music so badly!!! But there's SO MANY building blocks I'm finding it kind of difficult to learn. That said I have such an appreciation for people who make songs and sounds and things!! OH AND SOUND EFFECTS. EDITING. THAT'S AN ART TOO AND I LOVE IT.

Production work in general!!! To me it's art and it's beautiful and I want to be a part of it. If I could have any job in the world no questions asked, I would want to work in stage lighting. Concerts, theatre, idc, that kinda work is right up my alley. There's just something I adore about like, all the little details that go into making a production work that most people don't think about or notice because it's designed not to be noticed, but people still worked on it!!! People still put their time and effort and craftsmanship into it! <3 <3 <3

this is about to turn into a whole essay about all the different art mediums i love efjkdshajhg Sorry this is so long but i really can gush for hours about this stuff. Thank you so SO much for sending these!!!

#THANK U AGAIN #i have so much love in my heart for art #i also keep a folder full of art pieces i rly lke that ive reblogged over the years #im at almost 2000 images now and nowhere near done sorting everything

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alistonjdrake · 2 years

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The House of Ruin: The Three & Their Relationships

In my wip intro regarding this piece I called both Miko and Olaf “Justyna’s husbands” and while they are I feel like that’s not an extremely accurate look at their relationship with one another. So here I wish to examine them as a proper trio and what the state of their relationship is six years after The Night Court

What started as a shy curiosity on Justyna’s part about the D/S dynamic has turned into a bond of mutual respect and adoration. While they have extremely different backgrounds, they mostly like treating this a way to find unique ways to still relate to one another. Justyna sees Olaf as a great listener and someone she feels comfortable being vulnerable around. Olaf is usually in awe of Justyna’s sense of self, her bookish intelligence, and worldly innocence. While he could not read until rather late in his adolescence, he likes listening to her read or talk about books she enjoyed (they do both enjoy political papers but Olaf prefers hearing them during live readings vs just having banned books in his home while Justyna wants to collect any and all banned literature.) Their common interests include the theatre (Olaf likes plays. Justyna’s mother was a dancer and she grew up close to musicians and musical performances), visiting great tea rooms, and crossdressing. She doesn’t like that he still smokes though.

Petnames they have for each other:

Olaf’s names for Justyna

Puppy

Sweet girl

Garden snake

Justyna’s names for Olaf

Your Grace

Arnie

Miko and Justyna ended TNC on a very intimate friendship. They started as two close people willing to share a boyfriend and never really sat down and had a conversation about it. Miko would still prefer to go to Justyna if he has something very deep to talk about and Justyna is usually more concerned over Miko’s well-being than most others. They have similarly complicated feelings about their home country and have a deep trust and respect for one another. Their favorite things to do with one another is sit quietly in the same room, knitting, and nature walks. When Miko is feeling more Mikolaj than Mircea they may go to art galleries or discuss the importance of good silk. Justyna wishes Olaf would ask before making unilateral decisions. If there’s anything Miko doesn’t like about Justyna it’s she can’t tell the difference between listening off skills she has and bragging.

Petnames they have for each other:

Justyna’s names for Miko:

Mimi

Sweetpea

Miko’s names for Justyna:

Mutt

Cheesecake

Olaf and Mikolaj have know each other the longest out of the trio and it shows in the form of bickering and seemingly always being at each other’s throats. Their form of communication is usually Olaf saying something blunt and hard to hear, and Mikolaj throwing a tantrum until they see eye to eye. It works for them. They both are social creatures and showmen. While Mikolaj tends to second guess and fret over most things, Olaf doesn’t at all. Errands take forever if the run them as they are easily distracted by the other. They enjoy playing card games for silly rewards between themselves, being general nuisances in public, and parties/dancing (and beer).

Petnames they have for each other:

Mikolaj’s names for Olaf:

Your Grace

Bastard/Asshole/Fuckface

Honey

Olaf’s names for Mikolaj

Pig/Piggy/Piglet

Darling

The Beauty of Marriage

*And what it’s changed between the three of them.

Who handles most of the childcare: Olaf, but only because he tends to be the biggest homebody/ends up with less errands to do.

Who cooks the most: Mikolaj, due to his guilt of putting them in their current situation. But he’s not good at it so the other two end up helping regardless.

What they like to be called as parents: Justyna - Mama, Mikolaj - Papa, Olaf - daddy/dad.

Who handles the bills: Half funded by Justyna’s rich father and Olaf’s investments.

Where they sleep: They all have their own bedrooms although they usually end up in Olaf’s

#my writing #my characters #lgbt fantasy #lgbt+ characters #tnc #yes all the flowers mean something #also I realize miko and Olaf's description must make it seem like they dislike each other #they do not I promise #longpost

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watching-pictures-move · 2 years

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Movie Review | Crimes of the Future (Cronenberg, 2022)

This review contains spoilers.

On this Canada Day in the year of our Lord 2022, I decided to do my patriotic duty and support a great Canadian filmmaker. So I hopped on the subway, headed downtown to the TIFF Bell Lightbox (a theatre that's been responsible for some of my favourite moviegoing experiences, but perhaps has lost some of its luster recently thanks to increasingly boring programming choices) and handed over my hard earned Canadian dollars for a ticket to David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future. Now, this wasn't just patriotism at work, although there is a certain national pride I feel in enjoying the work of a great director who came out of this country whose work doesn't have that stench of distinctly Canadian lameness about it. (It might be hard to explain to non-Canadians, but imagine if 90% of the film and TV output of your country was centered on the most boring, tacky signifiers of national identity. Tune in to the CBC and just drown in an embarrassing flood of hockey, Tim Hortons, "aboot" and "eh".) But there's also the fact that like many movie fans, Cronenberg's work is near and dear to me.

Videodrome was a formative movie for me during my high school years, not just because it was a cold, weird, off putting movie that also kicked ass, but because it was a kind of metaphor for my cinephilia, putting me on a quest for the weirder horizons of cinema. (So yes, I'm going to blame my embarrassing viewing history over the last two years all on this one movie.) At the time it felt like I watched something truly transgressive. A movie with this collection of plot points shouldn't exist. Snuff TV, stomach vaginas, fleshy bulging cassettes, kinky redheaded Debbie Harry? The last one may have broken my brain. Why does the singer from Blondie have red hair? Also the whole kinky weirdo angle.

In that respect, Crimes of the Future offers up two characters in the same tradition, who I suspect would have similarly wreaked havoc on my cerebral functions had I watched this at a younger age. There's Lea Seydoux, former surgeon and partner of Viggo Mortensen, with whom she does a performance art act of cutting out his organs for an audience. And there's Kristen Stewart, as a bureaucrat in a secret government agency responsible for logging Mortensen's organs who not-so-secretly is turned on by all this. (An early scene has her visibly aroused as she inspects Mortensen's organs through a camera jammed inside his stomach.) She coins the movie's key phrase: "Surgery is the new sex." (Seydoux and Mortensen have scenes together that show this concept in fairly literal terms, which kind of grossed me out but I suspect will do a lot for somebody somewhere.) The former brings an innate warmth and emotion to an otherwise cold and alienating movie (is there another actress currently who is as good at looking on the verge of tears?), and the latter has a nervy delivery that provides some of the movie's biggest laughs.

Now, I suppose I should gesture towards the overall plot, which features Mortensen and Seydoux wowing the art world with their daring surgery-centric performance art. This is in the context of a world where human evolution is leading to the growth of weird and scary new organs and a corresponding increase in aggressive body modifications. Some of this seems to be a vehicle for Cronenberg to air out his thoughts on art, and one especially funny scene has a rival artist dance to techno music while covered in ears in his self-satisfied, up-its-own-ass act. This is a funnier movie than I expected, although much of the humour is of the deadpan variety. I already mentioned Stewart's comic timing, but I also chuckled at Mortensen's outfit, which looks like something a ninja would wear, or perhaps pilfered from a Yohji Yamamato or Rick Owens collection. The wardrobe of the rest of the cast is less dramatic, aside from the rise of their pants. (Yes, yes, I'm talking about clothes again.)

But there's also a political dimension, as Mortensen is working undercover for the government to infiltrate a group of subversives, although it wasn't clear to me what exactly the ideological difference was between the two parties. The movie is not interested in political coherence, and seems cagey about the nature of the government's repression, although we do get a sense of atmospheric decay from the crumbling Greek locations, presence of analog technology (which leads to the sporadic use of different film and video formats), and scenes of political operatives carrying out grisly assassinations. (There is also the frequent presence of flies, which I found a bit on the nose.) I suppose there are similarities here to the vagueness with which Videodrome sketches out its political dimensions, but that movie at least put words to the villains' ideology, giving that element a certain charge.

"North America's getting soft, patrón, and the rest of the world is getting tough. Very, very tough. We're entering savage new times, and we're going to have to be pure and direct and strong, if we're going to survive them. Now, you and this cesspool you call a television station and your people who wallow around in it, your viewers who watch you do it, they're rotting us away from the inside. We intend to stop that rot."

I haven't seen Cronenberg's last few films, but there is a sense that he was getting more respectable over the last two decades. (I'd seen A History of Violence and Eastern Promises from that period. Both quite good, but aside from a few instances of extreme violence, fairly palatable to mainstream tastes.) So seeing him go back to the biopunk sensibilities of his earlier work, the stuff that speaks to me more directly, does make the movie pretty interesting in the context of his career, and I did mostly enjoy seeing him play around with those elements. But where movies like Videodrome, Scanners and Shivers (to take a few examples) work for me and this one doesn't is that those movies had a certain cohesion and forward momentum. You enter worlds that are fairly well defined and attach yourself to protagonists who are propelled through their narratives, all delivered with a feverish, punk rock energy. (Of those movies, Videodrome has the best leading man in James Woods, whose sleazy presence gives added queasiness to the proceedings.) This movie has no real interest in making its contextual elements cohere, and kind of ambles to its climax. Also, I appreciate that we all have different sensitivities to certain subject matter, but the fact that this movie places its dramatic crux on something as upsetting as a child autopsy completely alienated me from the final section. And that the movie closes with a scene of what looks like the worst YouTube food vlog in the world meant that I was not won back before the end credits rolled.

#film #movie review #crimes of the future #david cronenberg

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myastrouniverse · 24 days

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May/2024🌘♈️Hamlet was a privileged asshole. 🤡

🌘 ☸︎ 🌽 There was a lot of misogyny in the 80s & 90s. Consider the Anita Hill case against Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill courageously stood up for ALL working women in America, when she spoke up about Clarence Thomas’ behavior in the office. I would argue, Thomas’ behavior sets a low standard. A person who sets a low standard of behavior in their place of work, has no business working as a judge in our HIGHEST COURT. (Biden the corpse bot was responsible for allowing Clarence Thomas to become a Supreme Ct Justice, btw.) Regardless of the outcome of that hearing, it sparked a Nationwide conversation about setting standards of appropriate behavior in the workplace. It is because of Anita Hill’s bravery, corporations implemented employee educational programs condemning sexual harassment behaviors; to improve work conditions for women across America. However, the degradation of our Supreme Ct has continued. Each new Supreme Ct Justice voted into office has held loyalty to corporations and foreign interests over the WILL OF THE PEOPLE. As a result of decades of laws created to undermine the freedom and sovereignty of our Nation, (The United States of America.), we have now become literal slaves -on paper- to corporations. The very lives of our people are now at risk. Corporations can virtually get away with ANYTHING, including a PLANNED GENOCIDE. Wake up. It’s time we end this madness NOW, or we literally will have no future.

🌘 ☸︎ ♅︎ Hamlet, is a cursed play. Even as a young woman I was pondering why there were SO MANY extremely BAD and misogynist productions of Hamlet set to film, especially in the 80s & 90s. I’ve read, researched and watched that play more than any other work of art. It has taken me to be extremely sick and near dead before I was able to work out and complete my MASTER WORK of that production, which if set to the consciousness of the collective; could hopefully BREAK THE HAMLET CURSE. I hope I am able to get some producers one day, to assist me in bringing my vision to life. Regardless, the MASTER WORK lives in my head, which gives me an AUTOMATIC PhD in THEATRE.

🌘 ☸︎ ♃︎ It was during some of my darkest days, I had to THINK of something to live for that would bring me joy. When I saw Yung Blud’s music videos for the first time, I could not stop laughing. For YEARS I have been trying to make a DREAM CAST for Hamlet. Watching Yung Blud’s silliness told me a great many things about the dark days to come. He maybe a little devil, but the knowledge he gave me made him an Angel to me. I see your dark and light side, Yung Blud. I see YOU. I hope you can look at YOUR DARK SIDE and LAUGH at how ridiculous you have been. Then think of it all a dream and all is well. I AM trying to send you to heaven, not to hell.

🌘 ☌ ♆︎ Bruner had a Master’s Degree from the University of Portland, I know, because I was in his Master’s Thesis project of the play: The Dining Room. Also, a rather ‘cursed’ play. I respected Bruner as an artist and a theatre director. (I did NOT respect his treatment of women.) Bruner comes from a distinguished lineage of actors, dating back to the times of Shakespeare. I suppose in my unique way, I can also tap into the teachings of his ancestors. He did teach in Battle Ground, and the Umtuck tribe people were great masters of mask theatre. I learned a great deal from him and I owe him credit for his dedication to the theater.

Trace, I owe you credit for your work as well. I loved and respected YOU. I loved your taste in the avant-garde Dadaism form of collective theatre. It was A MASTER WORK in chaos magick. You deserve a PhD for YOUR VISION. You gave me a tremendous foundation to envision my own kind of avant-grade Dada-chaos, collective theatre via social media. (I don’t approve of Robin’s personal issues!) Despite what may have been our personal moral issues, I see the divine at work in YOU. I wish we had a chance to actually collaborate on a project in a more equal and positive manner. Without knowing it, you taught me more about life than you will ever know.

Dr. Peter John was my philosophy professor. I got a B+ on my ‘Zen and The Art of Hula-Hooping’ dissertation. I would like you to PLEASE ignore my grammar and spelling issues and in exchange, I promise to hire a professional editor to review my book. With your approval, I would like my grade to be changed to an A, so I may receive my PhD in philosophy. Dr. Peter John wrote his dissertation on ‘The Truth, Right and The Good.’ I now more than ever ponder your thoughts in your book. It has certainly helped me navigate deep waters. Thank you for being you.

Lon Milo Duquette, is a HERO. Lon said it himself: I do my work so that the next generation will have an easier time understanding extremely difficult esoteric subjects. Your book on Enochian Magick is a MASTER WORK. Someone should award Lon Milo Duquette a PhD for his contribution to esoteric literature. I know YOU have feared me as your enemy Lon, but I have ALWAYS respected YOU as a teacher and as a FRIEND.

Tom Johnson. I AM very sorry our friendship was so sadomasochistic. Tom was actually a TERRIBLE improvisational instructor. He was a gifted improviser: He understood the fundamentals. He understood goal, formula and character development, very well. He studied under Del Close, in Chicago. His trouble was issues with his own ego. I was trying to teach him about diversity and community building. Notice Tom, that ‘your core’ community was the one I BUILT for YOU. You should have ALSO noticed that MY CORE GROUP never fucking progressed AFTER FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS because of MY ABSENCE. I LEARNED EVERYTHING ABOUT IMPROVISATIONAL THEATRE FROM KEITH JOHNSTONE. I lived for YOUR CLASSES. I fucking LIVED for the EGO DEATH. Long form Improvisational theatre is a study in ego death and from that you give birth to an interactive spontaneous story building problem, that must be collectively solved within a group of participants. You see how I used these formulas to create my social media theatre. I respected your work as a teacher Tom, but you never respected my work. I did love you once. I loved you because you reminded me of Elliott. Elliott and I had a similar relationship that couldn’t be reconciled. This was my way of trying to MAKE PEACE.

There are many other wonderful, intelligent individuals whom have taught me so much over the years. I have spent more time studying and learning outside of school than inside. The difference between me and others is possibly the diverse nature of the books and subjects that interest me.

I AM Kerri Hoseney, and I also studied under a PhD in Physical Anthropology (I forgot his name. Sorry.) and Tom Kenyon is a PhD in Cultural Anthropology; together we have a Dissertation on ancient healing techniques.

I highlighted this group of people because: “AN ARTIST CREATES THEIR OWN MORAL UNIVERSE” - Woody Allen. (I don’t agree with Mr. Allen’s personal moral issues.) My response to Mr. Allen: “If YOUR UNIVERSE IS IMMORAL, PLEASE KEEP THAT 🤡💩IN CYBER SPACE.”

🌘 < 🌞 I want to mention to Rob Zombie, that his wife looks and acts ALMOST EXACTLY like my friend Tonya Peterson, aka Harley Quinn. She was once a brilliant metal working artist and model, in LA. Her father was a Broadway and Hollywood actor. I’d like to think she puppeteers your wife. Would it make you proud to know Tonya has FAUGHT POLICE (This is an esoteric spelling of fought.), for nearly HALF HER LIFE? She is still a strong muthafucking bitch, despite DECADES OF ABUSE. She has no teeth, bad skin, a corpse thin body but the heart of a lion. There are more like her and they deserve protection. I felt I needed you to know that and I appreciate your work.

♀️🔺🦚 I believe, MOST theatre scholars, INCLUDING GARY BRUNER, are EXTREMELY misguided about the use of Iambic Pentameter in Shakespeare’s work. In MY RESEARCH I DISCOVERED, in the days of Shakespeare, most of Shakespeare’s monologues were set to music by his actors. Understand? An Actor in the days of Shakespeare had to memorize a great deal of plays. The more monologues set to memory for any given role, the more money actors were able to make. The playwrights whom the actors favored, wrote in iambic pentameter, because the use of iambic pentameter made it easier to set a great deal of monologues to MUSIC. The actors used old songs they knew, and filed in their minds, the monologues that closely flowed with the music. Speaking a monologue to the tune of a song, made the work flow easier for the actors and the audience. Understand? Now you also understand why Horatio speaks the speech to the tune of: FREE BIRD

🌘 ☸︎ ♇︎ Battle Ground, is a town named after a war, that NEVER happened. I trust NOW you understand why I AM HERE.

♂️🔺🎸 Yes and No. You are NOT bound to perform my Hamlet in real life. You already performed your role in cyberspace. However, I won’t let you do anything immoral in MY UNIVERSE. So, you are bound to a certain standard if you work with me. It is up to you. I believe in: FREE WILL.

Lynard Skynard - FREE BIRD (Devil’s Rejects)

youtube

X-RAY CAFE, PDX

Elliott Smith - Angeles

youtube

I think Trey is going to be okay now. Please get a grip.

#05/04/23 #astrology #Saturday #free bird #lynard skynard #devils rejects #rob zombie #Youtube #may the fourth be with you #XRay cafe #PDX #PDXProtests #portlandprotests #elliott smith #Angeles #black lives matter

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cj-writes-things · 4 months

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~Introduction Post~

Hi, I'm cj

My pseudonym/pen name is Chris Shades (cringe I know but it made sense at the time)

I identify as genderfluid and use any pronouns (including it/its and neos, I'm chill with pretty much whatever, not a huge fan of she/her but don't mind it all that much either)

🩷🤍💜🖤💙

At the time of this post, I'm 18 and in my freshman year of college as an english major

I hope to be a writer, whether it be books, poetry, songs, shows- you name it, I just love to tell a good story

I'm queer (somewhere under the bi umbrella, maybe on the a-spec, and as mentioned above, genderfluid) and neurodivergent (AuDHD and possibly some other things I haven't quite figured out yet), so homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc. will not be tolerated here

Things I'll probably post about here:

*My writing (obviously)*

**Music**

Art of various forms

Personal stories/experiences/musings

Photography- if I ever get a good camera :')

Dreams/goals

Whatever my current hyperfixation/special interest is (usually fandom-related)

Mental health, psychology, neurodiversity, etc.

✨️Aesthetics✨️

And I'd totally love to discuss/answer questions about any of those topics!

I'm also very interested in history, mythology, space, animals, theatre, and travel

*For the most part, I intend to use this blog to post fanfics, poetry, songs, and pieces of the multiple book series I have in the works

I look forward to sharing my stories with you all, but I do ask that you engage with my work in a respectful and considerate manner. If you don't like something, obviously you don't have to read it; constructive criticism is welcome and even encouraged but don't just hate-comment bc I do tend to take things very personally, and please don't ever repost without credit or use my work without permission as I do hope to eventually publish some of this stuff

(Also, I absolutely love talking about my OCs and the worlds they inhabit, so please please please don't hesitate to ask me about them)*

**I cannot for the life of me recognize or comprehend the genres and I may not be familiar with every single song or artist but I live and breathe music, I love to sing, I'm listening to music in my earbuds almost 24/7, I really want to learn an instrument (planning to start working on guitar this summer) and maybe even be in a band someday, and I'm always happy to give or receive song/artist recommendations or share specially curated playlists (including OC/series based playlists) if anyone's interested**

Fun facts:

I have a little sister and three dogs

I love the rain

I want to learn sign language

I was in a horrendous production of Alice in my senior year of high school (I played the caterpillar)

I absolutely cannot settle on an aesthetic; I love so many of them so much, so my style is kind of all over the place

I have an awful, stupid sense of humor (think dad jokes, corny puns, etc.)

Contact options:

"Ask" button under the blog title

Messages here on tumblr

Email: [email protected]

Phone number: [REDACTED]

You can also find me on...

My main tumblr blog: @duck-in-a-thrift-store

Instagram: mx.harris05

Among Us: MxHarris (username), tiemint#1852 (friend code)

YouTube Music: you can check out some of my playlists here

That's it for now I guess, I might eventually be on ao3 and/or webtoon and if that happens I'll update this with the relevant info

~Tagging~

(subject to frequent changes/updates, still in the works)

Music:

#cj's music recs

#song of the day

#cj's playlists

Warrior cats fanfic:

#love over law

#LoL Secrets (arc 1)

#LoL Truth (arc 2)

#LoL character

#LoL song

Side note: since I can only have one pinned post at a time, the love over law master post can be found here

Other writing:

#miscellaneous short stories

#common tale with a twist

#the prince × the pauper

#new blog #intro post #blog intro #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #artists on tumblr

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yegarts · 1 year

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“I Am YEG Arts” Series: Rayanne Haines

Sometimes, you don’t know where you belong until you get there. For Rayanne Haines, that’s meant showing up, doing the work, and sharing what she’s learned and questioned. It’s meant writing. And has she ever! In addition to being a best-selling author of three poetry collections and a four-part urban/fantasy series, Haines is the 2022 Writer in Residence for the Metro Edmonton Federation of Libraries, VP for the League of Canadian Poets, and host of her own literary podcast. By the looks of her next project, she’s also just getting started. Educator, hybrid author, and contemptuous doomscroller—this week’s “I Am YEG Arts” story belongs to Rayanne Haines.

Tell us about your connection to Edmonton and why you’ve made it your home.

I was born and raised on an Arabian horse farm about half-an-hour outside of Edmonton. My family still has their farm there, so I feel like I’m an Edmontonian-lifer. After leaving home and looking to find my way, I moved into the city to go to MacEwan University and have worked in various arts organizations throughout Edmonton over the past twenty-odd years. So It's always been my home, and it probably always will be.

How did your love of writing begin? Were you always a storyteller, or was it a “detour” while on a path to somewhere else?

I think that I was always a storyteller but didn’t know it until I grew older. I have, for example, very vivid memories of telling stories to my parents’ horses. So rather than being really serious about practicing for horse shows, I’d go out into the back forty and make up stories and plays with my horses.

For the longest time, I actually thought I was going to be an actress or involved in theatre—and then I ended up working in the music industry as a detour. So it took me a long time to find my way to understanding that, for me, the stories behind the music and embedded in the theatre were what I was most interested in, and I wanted to be the person writing those stories and performing pieces that I’d created. So, yes, it was always there. It just took me the longest time to understand that that’s what it meant to me to be a storyteller—to be the one writing the story.

What themes are you drawn to as a storyteller?

I’m really drawn to the lived experience of women and women-indentifying people. I’m drawn to the stories of lived experience and the narratives that we women inhabit in this society that we live in. I’m also drawn to interrogating mental health within my work and looking at connections between mental health and womanhood and the empowerment that comes along with understanding or navigating those questions.

What is it about poetry that makes it your starting point for other forms of writing?

I think that poetry, for me, lets me put limits around the chaos—and not limits in the way of limiting what we’re sharing—rather, it allows me to use structure, and form, and shape, and what we visually see on the page as much as the language that we use. And I like that about it. It allows me from these places of chaotic discoveries around mental health or these really massive conversations surrounding women's identities or queer identity to use the form of poetry to shape those ideas to further question what it is that I’m asking amongst those ideas. That capacity to use poetry to shape has actually allowed me more freedom in the questions that I’m asking—and it took me a lot longer to understand how to do the same thing within an essay form or a fiction form.

I also think that because so much of my work is personal, poetry lets me come at it from a lens that respects that personal nature and allows me to shape-shift what I want to say or question, based on how I go about putting it on the page or using my line breaks. Sometimes I can create dual or triple meaning around something just by the way I choose to shape it on the page. So there’s a lot of freedom that is offered in poetry, while also having these capacities for playing with form.

What’s been the biggest surprise lesson you’ve learned hosting your literary podcast, Crow Reads?

I think the biggest surprise for me—as a woman who talks often about the importance of inclusion, and representation, and decolonizing—was realizing just how white my lens has been. Coming from this place of being a good ally, because of the work I’m doing with that podcast and all of the diverse people that I speak with, has really highlighted that lived experience from that white lens and increased my desire or capacity to want to try to decolonize my view and to learn and question that as much as possible.

What role have awards and funding played in your career? And what doors do they open for artists?

That’s such a good question. I think that funding support has been huge for the advancement of my career. The validity that receiving a grant offers you as an artist is massive because what it tells you is that a group of people believe in the power of what you’re doing before it’s a done thing. They believe in the idea, they believe in you, and they believe in supporting your work—before it is finished. The legitimacy that that gives you as an artist is incredible because it acknowledges the work that you’re doing as having merit and importance to your peers.

That being said, I also have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it because it’s a competitive thing that we get forced into in order to be able to create. So I wish we lived in a world in which we didn’t have to rely on grants or compete against each other to do our work and receive funding. I certainly think that winning awards does shift things for you as an artist, but more than that it acknowledges the work around your craft. Speaking from a literary world, being able to look back at these awards tells me that I’ve done the work to elevate my craft to such a point that it is acknowledged by other writers or experts in the field. And for me, that’s been huge because it allows me to see myself differently—to get away from the imposter syndrome that all of us artists live with. It lets me step beyond that imposter syndrome to say that I do have value to offer others and to then go back to my community and offer that support, knowing I’ve done the work to have my artform seen in that capacity.

Tell us a little about the non-fiction collection of essays and poetry you’re working on.

The idea behind the collection is that I really wanted to pull away from form and create a hybrid text because I’m looking at the in between spaces that women inhabit when we don’t know who we are, or are questioning our identity, or our capacities around grief. My mother was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago at the beginning of the pandemic, and we were told it was not a cancer she would beat. She has now passed, so I think the genesis for the collection came from who I am now as a grown woman who needs to grieve my mother but is not allowed to grieve my mother because my mother is not dead—even though I know. So I am in this in between space. The in between space of motherhood and aging—as an aging woman, what does that look like? The in between space of academia. The in between space of my own identity—questioning my identity when I have conversations around queer identity or bisexual identity and what that means as an aging woman. All of these spaces that we inhabit or are trying to understand how we inhabit come with a lot of chaos and questioning. So the idea behind the collection was to work within that chaos and interrogate those questions in many different forms and many different spaces.

What’s your favourite way to procrastinate?

It’s a horrible way to procrastinate, and it’s social media. I’m a doomscroller. It’s not cooking, it’s not cleaning—it’s none of that. Just scrolling through the crap. I have a good friend who puts timers on her phone and locks it all up, but I can’t quite get there.

What does community mean to you, and where do you find it?

Community to me means the support of people who care about you and that you care about—both in terms of human connection and your artistry. I think I came to the arts community as a single mother trying to figure out my place in the world, and this city and community lifted me up, and held me, and helped me find my way. So, for me, that’s what it’s about—service, and supporting others, and the work you can give back in order to build a stronger community.

Where do I find it? I think I find it by showing up—and not just physically—but by showing up when someone is looking for support, or asking for guidance, or even an ear to talk to. That’s going to look different for everyone and every art community, but certainly in Edmonton and around the literary world, it means showing up for new writers and being someone who can offer supports or mentorship in a way that feels healthy, while also placing boundaries on our time and what we can give. So, for me, at the end of the day, community means showing up, doing the work, and lifting people up on their journeys.

Want more YEG Arts Stories? We’ll be sharing them here all year and on social media using the hashtag #IamYegArts. Follow along! Click here to learn more about Rayanne Haines. And visit the Edmonton Arts Council’s website to learn more about grants and awards that support YEG artists.

About Rayanne Haines

Rayanne Haines (she/her) is an educator and hybrid author. She is the 2022 Writer in Residence for the Metro Edmonton Federation of Libraries and a best-selling author of three poetry collections—The Stories in My Skin (2013), Stained with the Colours of Sunday Morning (Inanna, 2017), and Tell The Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun (Frontenac, 2021)—as well as a four-part commercial market, urban fantasy/romance series. She hosts the literary podcast Crow Reads and is the VP for the League of Canadian Poets. Her poetry and prose have been shortlisted for the John Whyte Memorial Essay Alberta Literary Award, the Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry, and the National ReLit Award for Poetry. Tell The Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun, a hybrid poetry collection that interrogates grief, won the 2022 Alberta Literary Awards, Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Rayanne is a past Edmonton Artists Trust Fund Award recipient. She’s had work published in journals and online in Canada, The U.K., and the USA. Rayanne teaches in the Department of Arts and Cultural Management with MacEwan University.

#yegarts #edmonton #edmontonarts #yegpoetry #IamYegArts #artistfeature

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alicanta77 · 3 years

Text

Boys Like This

Pairing: y/n x Haechan

Themes: fluff, angst, badboy au

Warnings: swearing, mentions of smoking, mentions of sex, sexual harassment (one drunk guy gets a bit too close)

Words: 18.8k - this was meant to be like 3k max someone save me

Tag list: @honei-n (happy birthday bubs!! ilysm and i’m sorry i’m not there to give you the biggest hug but have this instead) @lebrookestore @ch3nj1 @ridinhyuck @cacaubs @cheonsa1004 @tyongf-sunflower99

——————————————————————————

If you’re looking for the personification of the bad boy stereotype, look no further than Lee Donghyuck. His legs were clad in ripped black jeans and on his shoulders always lay his signature black leather jacket. His usually bruised knuckles were adorned with silver rings and the cigarette that hung from his lips all made him look like the typical bad boy out of a cheesy 90s romance film.

As infuriating as the smirk that was constantly plastered on his lips was, and the way he insisted everybody called him ‘Haechan’ instead of Donghyuck, you couldn’t deny that something about him pricked your interest.

Maybe it was something to do with how self assured he was, the confidence he radiated in simply being himself and being in his own skin that made people almost resent him for it. Or maybe it was something to do with how he reminded you of every boy that your mother would warn you about when you were growing up, being told to steer clear of the boys in black, they would be the ones to break your heart. Maybe it was the fact that as soon as anybody new arrives in the area, they’re immediately told to ‘Avoid Haechan, he’s bad news.’ And you weren’t the exception to the rule.

There’s just one problem, you never do what you’re told.

So when you were told to stay away from Haechan, you simply rolled your eyes and kept walking, you weren’t afraid of some bad boy. You’d moved around your entire life, your father’s job meaning you had to be prepared to pack up and travel wherever he needed you to, and, throughout your time you had heard of and come across every kind of character that there was in a high school. A few groups in particular always stuck out to you.

The jocks. Probably the most famous group and likely the first group that comes to anyone’s mind when you talk about high school. Jocks are an elite crowd, often very popular and normally find themselves very important. For them, high school tends to be the best time of their lives, sadly finding that this popularity and fear doesn’t translate to the workplace. Jocks are a large group as well, in fact, they often have so many members that they divide into sub-categories, usually by sport. You have the baseball team, the football team, the soccer team etc. and then these are ordered into a hierarchy apparently based on the importance that each team has to the school when in reality it’s down to how attractive/popular the team captain is.

Splitting off nicely from the jocks come the cheerleaders. Originally part of the same pack but grew in popularity when they adopted mean girls cliché. Therefore, in order to gain more power and dominate the school, they became a separate breed. The Head Cheerleader was guaranteed to be just as popular as she was bitchy, a stereotype that you were fed up of. What if they were actually nice people and felt as though they had to be rude cause that was what the “role” of Head Cheerleader asked of them? What kind of a place would that be? Anyway, getting back to the point, the best thing to do with this group, would be to avoid them entirely.

Then, usually the polar opposite in terms of popularity, come the nerds/geeks. You had never really been sure why this particular group was always picked on. You always thought that being smart and doing well in life was something to brag about, but then, maybe you just had weird opinions. They formed a cluster and stuck with it, whilst also managing to keep themselves to themselves. They sat at the same seats in class, the same table at lunch and never argued back. Despite their deathly awkwardness and shy behaviour, they were usually pretty good people. You just had to be willing to put in the effort to break through their shell.

Next come the artsy kids. This group can, once again, split into sub categories based on Theatre, Art, Dance and Music but that depends on the size of the school. Normally they just come under the umbrella term of the artsy kids. Very easy to pick on but are normally left alone. They’re pretty chill and mostly mind their own business, despite often being slightly obnoxious about the art that they specialise in. You swore that if one person asked you to go and see their one woman show you might punch them. You’re a broke student, why would you pay to put yourself through two hours of pretentious speech? Yeah, the artsy kids weren’t quite your scene.

Honourable mentions go to the stoners, the class clowns, the hipsters, the ‘I was born in the wrong generation’, the gamers and the punks. But there was only one group left worth mentioning.

Finally, the last stereotypical school clique would be the troublemakers, otherwise known as the bad boys and bad girls The commonalities between the two groups tend to include things like, black ripped clothing, silver jewellery, sassy attitudes and bad decisions. They never stray from their crowd, finding other groups too boring and stuck up for their taste. The cheerleaders and jocks attempt to pick on them, but it rarely works out in their favour. Instead of leaving victorious while dropping the mic, they often find themselves running back to their respective groups with their tail in between their legs. They like to either find relationships with their own kind, or play around with various people until they’re bored. Things are never too serious for this group.

So as soon as you arrived, you knew you’d need to find somewhere to fit in. You didn’t really conform to one of the many cliche groups that roamed this new school. You instead thought that people were a mixture of all of them, and shouldn’t be defined by a single personality trait, but that often wasn’t the most popular opinion. In fact, that opinion is why you often found yourself alone, wandering the halls by yourself. Sometimes people pitied you (usually the hipsters or artsy kids who tried to make you “find your passion”) but, to be honest, you didn’t mind it.

Being by yourself meant that you didn’t owe anything to anyone, and it meant that you could turn the school upside down and disappear without regretting a thing. After all, that’s how you left your last three schools.

---

You walked through the doors on your first day, to empty folders tucked under your arm as you walked towards the Principle’s office. You had barely made it five steps before some guys in a football jersey stopped you. He moved in front of you, buffing himself up in an attempt to look more impressive. You refused to speak first, instead just raising your eyebrows judgmentally.

‘So what should I call you?’ He purred, looking at you through hooded eyes.

‘You shouldn’t.’ You cut back, already tired of his attempt at flirting. You knew you had “new kid” written all over you and this wasn’t a genuine attempt, but most like rather a “welcome to the school fresher” and you weren’t here for it.

‘Trouble it is.’ The guy flirted, sending you a cheesy wink to which you could only respond with a groan and an eye roll.

‘God could you get anymore cliche? You may want to be a bit more inventive if you wanna impress me.’ With a quick tilt of your head, you turned and stalked past him to the other end of the hall, leaving the poor jock with his mouth hanging slightly open at your reply.

You felt a bit bad turning him down so intensely like that, but you also knew that if you didn’t make a strong first impression, you would be like fresh meat to them. And you didn’t want to go through that again.

---

After meeting the Principle, getting his painfully rehearsed welcome speech, then dealing with the three students who called themselves the “Welcome Committee”, you briefly stopped off at your locker to grab the text book that had been left there for you and place your empty folders there. You wouldn’t need them until your classes anyway. You picked up the textbook and grabbed a pad of paper that was conveniently left there for you as well and headed towards your Maths class.

You walked through the door, sighing in defeat as you saw you were one of the last ones to arrive. This meant that all eyes were on you and the teacher stood up and introduced you as the new student.

‘So y/n why don’t you tell the class a little bit about yourself?’ The teacher gave you a wide smile, one that you were sure was meant to reassure you but it honestly just creeped you out slightly.

‘Uhhh, sure. My name’s y/n and I moved here about a month ago.’ You sent the class a quick nod before attempting to move off to head off an empty seat at the back.

‘Ahhh come now y/n, I’m sure there’s more that you can tell us.’ The teacher stopped you in your tracks, as you let out a breath of annoyance.

‘Ok. I’ve never lived anywhere longer than a year, I like coffee and I’m done with this now.’ You quickly moved away before the teacher could stand up and make you continue. You slouched in your seat, crossing your arms and letting out another sigh of frustration.

You had just opened your books and prepared to start listening when the door swung open again. All the heads in the class, including yours, looked to see who would be walking in so late. A boy appeared, his honey skin glowing slightly in the morning sun that reflected off his leather jacket and silver jewellery. He probably couldn’t get more cliche, but he also couldn’t get more beautiful.

‘Haechan, you’re late.’ Your teacher snapped and you looked back at the boy walking through the seats.

So this was Haechan, this was who you had been warned about earlier. You remembered the annoyingly cheery welcome that this group of three had given you, yet this preppy ginger was the only one who spoke. You were sure she was a really lovely person, she was just way too excited about the first day of school to not be annoying. Anyway, she’d told you about the groups at school and made a point to mention this “Haechan”. Her exact words being:

‘Let me save you the trouble, Haechan is the last person you want to get involved with here, in any way. He puts himself as number one and nothing and no one is going to change that. It’s in your best interests to stay away from him.’

And yet, despite your absolutely minimal effort to avoid him, this Haechan was standing at the front of your class, and you couldn’t lie, you were already intrigued.

‘Yeah I’m aware.’ Haechan retaliated, his bored voice bringing you out of your memories and back to reality.

‘Do you feel like apologising?’ The teacher asked, a very forced smile on his face. Haechan turned back towards him, breathing in as if he was thinking before responding with a smile.

‘Not really, no.’ He then turned away and walked towards the back of the classroom. He approached where you were sitting, examined you quickly causing you to frown at his behaviour, before he pulled out the chair next to yours and collapsed into it.

He slouched back into his seat, crossing his arms and staring mindlessly at the front of the class, where the teacher was still sending him the stink eye.

‘Haechan, did you bring your books?’ The teacher asked with the kind of tone that told you he probably already knew the answer.

‘Nope!’ The boy replied, popping the ‘p’ and causing the teacher to obviously roll his eyes.

‘Well, maybe our new student, y/n, would be nice enough to share with you for today?’

It took everything in you not to roll your eyes at his statement. But you still shifted your textbook in between the two of you so that he could see it. Haechan sat up in his chair slightly in surprise, as if he wasn’t expecting you to actually do it.

‘Thank you y/n. Now let’s begin-’ The teacher turned back to the board and began the lesson.

After only about five minutes you realised that you had done this entire topic in your previous school. It had been necessary for you to pass the entrance exam here, so you knew all of this already. You huffed once again in frustration, dropping your pen and leaning back in your chair as you began to pick at your nails. Why would they bother to ask you to know something that they’re just going to teach you as soon as you got here?

You could see Haechan notice and begin to subtly watch your behaviour so you leant forwards to whisper to him.

‘Is there something interesting about me?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.’ Haechan replied, his voice just as soft as yours was and yet you couldn’t resist the shivers that it sent down your spine.

“Well let me know if you find anything?’ You spoke softly, turning away from him to look at the ceiling as he did the same.

‘Haven’t you been told to stay away from me?’ He asked you, not even bothering to look back towards you.

‘Oh yeah, I got that speech. The welcoming committee was quite informative about you and your personality.’ Now that got his attention. His head turned, as he looked at you out of the corner of his eye, examining your features carefully.

‘So...’ He spoke, dragging out the word as he looked at you.

‘So?’ You asked, not sure what he was getting at.

‘Why aren’t you doing as you were told?’ He questioned, leaving you to turn back to him with an amused look on your face.

‘What makes you think I wanna do what they tell me to? They look as though they have the personality of milk.’ You groaned, remembering the fake happiness that radiated off them.

Haechan couldn’t help the chuckle that came up in his throat, unable to believe just how accurate your words were. Nobody in that school would quite be able to admit that that girl wasn’t drop dead boring.

‘Well, you’re a little firecracker aren’t you?’ He smirked at you, causing you to simply raise an eyebrow in reply. ‘I think you’re gonna fit right in with us.’

‘Who says I want to?’ You smirked back, now enjoying the interaction you were having.

‘Do you want to?’ He leant in closer and you could smell the mint of his breath.

‘We’ll see. Don’t want to give away all my secrets so quickly.’ You pulled back, leaving Haechan awkwardly leaning over half of your desk just as the teacher turned back around.

‘Haechan! Not only are you not paying attention but you’re distracting y/n as well. If you’re not going to pay attention you can wait outside until you’re prepared to take this class seriously.’ He snapped, and Haechan turned to you with a surprised look on his face, not expecting you to have set him up like that. He nodded, unable to keep the small smile from his lips and stood, walking swiftly out of the door at the front.

He leaned back in for one second, just to cheekily wave at the teacher who looked as though he was about to explode and it took everything in you to stop yourself from laughing.

A couple more minutes passed before you were bored beyond belief. You were starting to think that getting your only source of entertainment, Haechan, kicked out of class wasn’t the smartest idea you’d ever had. You were halfway through counting the black marks on the ceiling when you heard a very quiet tapping from behind you, You turned around in your chair to see Haechan standing by the floor length window at the back of the classroom. He was on the outside looking in and quickly gestured for you to follow him.

He cracked the window open slightly and leant in, getting just close enough to you to whisper:

‘I’ve played your game, now it’s my turn. Your move y/n, are you gonna live up to your attitude or are you all talk?’

With that he moved away from the window, hiding behind the wall as the teacher turned around again. You didn’t want to get caught sneaking out on your first day, but you also couldn’t stand the idea of letting Haechan win. Somehow the boy was an addictive kind of annoying, no matter how infuriated or annoyed you had gotten, you already wanted more.

You waited for the teacher to turn around and quickly piled up your books, placing them on the shelf under your desk. This was your only class of the day and you were in here the next morning so you weren’t too fussed about leaving them behind.

You began to get up but your eyes suddenly caught sight of blue haired guy sitting a couple of rows ahead of you watching you. He raised his eyebrows in question, as if asking if you were going to go, to which you shrugged and he shrugged himself before turning back around.

You waited until the girl at the front had finished asking her question and, when the teacher turned back to the front to go through the example on the board again, you made your move. You quickly pushed your chair back, relieved when it didn’t make a sound and climbed out of the window. You pulled it gently shut behind you and turned to left, finding yourself face to face with Haechan.

‘Wow, for a minute then I didn’t think you’d have the balls.’ He grinned at you, pulling you out of sight of the class as you began to walk away.

‘Well as you can clearly see, I do. So what now?’ You replied, unable to stop yourself from grinning back.

‘Now we have some fun.’ Haechan said, the smile he sent you this time was the opposite of innocent and it made your heart pump.

This was someone you would enjoy causing trouble with.

---

The two of you decided that leaving the school and skiving on the first day was a bit too cliche and unoriginal, so instead you came up with the idea that, no matter what you guys did, it had to be on school grounds.

‘Interesting...’ Haechan mused, the smirk that you were already familiar with gracing his delicate features. ‘So we cause as much chaos as we like, and do what we like, but there’s a much higher risk of getting caught...’

‘Exactly.’ You clarified. ‘But we can leave for lunch though! I want McDonalds.’ You quickly added, Haechan laughing slightly at your expression.

‘Agreed. So we’ll have our fun here, then head to McDonalds for lunch. Tell you what, why don’t we leave a little earlier than the lunch break so that we avoid bumping into the rest of the students?’ Haechan watched as you nodded in agreement.

You allowed your gaze to drift around the unfamiliar halls until your eyes came to rest on the smoke detector on the wall. Suddenly an idea popped into your head. It was stupid, reckless and if you got caught you would be in serious trouble. Sounds ideal.

‘Hey Haechan?’ You began, turning towards him with a grin on your face.

‘Yeah?’ He answered, a grin appearing on his own. He didn’t know what you were planning but he knew it would be interesting.

‘Have you ever set off the fire alarm?’ You asked, raising an eyebrow as his furrowed in thought.

‘Like falsely pulled it? Yeah.’ He admitted, nodding like it was no big deal, but you shook your head.

‘No, not falsely pulled, actually set it off.’ You watched as his jaw dropped slightly and he shook his head. 'Yeah, neither.’ You told him, before looking away. He followed your gaze to see the smoke detector on the wall.

You both turned back to each other.

‘Well...’ Haechan began, a mischievous grin stretching across his face. ‘There’s a first time for everything.’

---

The alarm blared through the school as you and Hyuck laughed to yourself as the school emptied.

‘No talking!’ A teacher behind you barked, causing the two of you to roll your eyes in sync. Why you had to walk silently during a fire alarm you would never know. If the school was actually on fire you would be sprinting out of it swearing at the top of your lungs, not walking silently in an orderly fashion.

The two of you had had to find a way to set off the alarm, so you put your heads together. Neither of you had managed to come up with anything that wouldn’t get you caught, and you were about to give up when you noticed the cigarettes in Haechan’s pocket. Now that gave you an idea.

You had lit the cigarette and, with Haechan supporting you from beneath as you sat on his shoulders, managed to stuff it inside the fire alarm. You gently blowed on it, to make sure it was lit and there was smoke coming off it and suddenly the alarm blared throughout the school. You then proceeded to slip off his shoulders, him catching you easily in his arms and you both quickly moved into your respective bathrooms.

You stood by the door and counted to five before opening the bathroom door and leaving again. You’d noticed the men’s bathroom door next to you open and Haechan walked out. The two of you blended seamlessly into the crowd of students as they made their way out to the assembly point.

You had decided to hide in the bathroom for a couple of seconds so that neither of you were spotted underneath the fire alarm. You thought that if they noticed the bad boy and the new girl under the fire alarm that ended up having a cigarette stuck in it, the game would be over before it had even properly begun.

Students poured out of the doors of the school, lining up cleanly and efficiently on the sports pitches. You were standing in sections, divided by years and then each class split into lines. You faced your teacher at the front as they called out student’s names from the register.

‘Here.’ You spoke out as you heard your name, a similar call coming from your partner in crime behind you as his name was called. You turned around to face him. ‘Lee Donghyuck?’ You raised a teasing eyebrow.

‘Yep, that’s my real name.’ He replied, looking down at you.

‘So, can I ask then, why Haechan? Donghyuck’s a nice name.’ You wondered, tilting your head out of curiosity.

Haechan opened his mouth to answer but before he could, a boy who you recognised from your Maths class came up to the two of you.

‘Already corrupting the new kid Hyuck?’ He joked, a large smile on his face.

‘Trust me man, she barely needs corrupting.’ Haechan replied, laughing at his friend. ‘Y/n, this is Jaemin, he’s one of my closest friends.’

Jaemin flashed you a smile that you swore almost blinded you. You shook his outstretched hand and returned his smile with one of your own.

‘I’ve gotta say, I was impressed to see you follow him out of that window y/n. It looks like you’ve got some guts.’ Jaemin spoke, his face showing how he was clearly surprised. ‘And I’m guessing from what happened in Maths that this fire alarm may have something to do with the two of you?’

You and Haechan shared a grin and that small action told Jaemin all he needed to know. Jaemin laughed in disbelief, muttering something about how exciting the rest of the year was going to be if this was how you were acting on the first day. You couldn’t quite hear him though, your attention focused on the way that Haechan studied the features on your face, with such intensity you would think he was never going to see them again.

You spent the time making conversation with Jaemin and Haechan, getting to know the two boys, but your attention was drawn away from them when a fire engine made its way into the school gates. All the conversation surrounding you dwindled to a stop as one student asked what was going on.

‘Since there was no fire drill scheduled for today, we needed to call the fire department to determine what caused the alarm to go off.’ Your teacher explained.

The three of you looked at each other in disbelief, all of you unable to stop yourselves from giggling at the chaos you’d caused. You couldn’t help but think that Jaemin had been right. If this was day one, who knew what adventures this year would bring you? You’d never liked a place so quickly like you had here. Maybe for the first time in your life, you’d found somewhere you could actually see yourself staying.

You didn’t want to let yourself get your hopes up though. You had only been in this city a short while, and your father’s job would always mean that you had to move by this time next year. You couldn’t afford to get comfortable.

The boys watched as the firefighters entered the building, attempting to determine what caused the alarm to go off. It didn’t take long before they emerged with one of them holding a small plastic bag. A bad that you assumed that had the cigarette in. The teachers came into a small circle to have a short conversation before turning back to the waiting students.

The Principle suddenly stepped forward, immediately commanding attention from every student present as he began to speak.

‘This fire alarm was no drill. Nor was it an accident. We have evidence that it was set off on purpose and I seriously suggest that anyone who knows anything about how this happens steps forward. Do not make this any worse for you than it already is.’

With that, he turned, and made his way back into the school. An uneasy silence lay over all the students. You teacher walked back over to your group and spoke to the rest of you there.

‘Since it’s so close to lunch, we’ve decided to let you go early. But-’ They raised their voice as everyone began to move off. ‘This incident will not be taken lightly. To anybody who may have been involved, it is in your best interest to own up to it.’

You noticed their eyes were fixated on Haechan, and how they narrowed slightly. They seemed to fully believe that Haechan was involved with setting off the alarm.

‘They always assume it’s me. Whenever anything happens.’ He whispered into your ear and you nodded in understanding. ‘So... McDonalds?’

---

Haechan pulled back into the school grounds after your trip for lunch, Jaemin jumped out of the car and waved at the two of you before heading back into the building. While you and Haechan had a free afternoon, Jaemin didn’t, so, after some begging and bribing on Jaemin’s part, Haechan begrudgingly agreed to drop him off.

You turned back around to Haechan, wondering if you should propose to do something together, or if he was bored of you and had other things he’d rather be doing. However, before you had the chance to make up your mind, Haechan spoke for you.

‘I know where to go now.’ And with that he was off, driving out of the gates and off down the road. You couldn’t help but notice how good of a driver he was, always managing to keep his awareness on the road even when he was talking to you.

Haechan fumbled for something down near his feet, letting out a happy giggle when he found it and pulled out an AUX cord. He offered it to you, telling you to put something on the speakers.

You raised your eyebrows in surprise at his offer, considering he’d adamantly refused to let Jaemin play any of his music on the way to grab lunch, instead choosing to listen to the radio.

‘Already letting me choose the music? Damn, I feel special.’ You teased as Haechan laughed.

‘Just don’t play that song and we’ll be good.’ He looked over for a split second, noticing your offended face and quickly continued. ‘It’s a good song, don’t get me wrong, but all Jaemin plays is girl groups and you reach a limit of how many times you can hear a grown ass boy with blue hair sing Feel Special.’

You looked down at your phone, chuckling to yourself at Haechan’s story. You scrolled through your Spotify to find a good playlist, eventually settling on your driving music one. ‘What You Know’ by ‘Two Door Cinema Club’ started to blare through the speakers.

Haechan nodded, his fingers immediately tapping on the steering wheel in time to the song.

‘Good song!’ He complimented smiling at you as you gasped over-dramatically.

‘Ahhhh, Haechan likes my music taste! I have officially won at life!’ You placed one hand on your heart to emphasise your point as Haechan rolled his eyes, laughing at you. ‘Where are we going by the way?’ You asked, looking out of the window and realising you had no idea where you were. You were still new to the area so you hadn’t got everywhere memorised yet.

‘We’re almost there, don't worry.’ He replied, not giving you an answer in the slightest. You leaned back into your seat, accepting that he wasn’t going to tell you and just listened as Haechan began to sing gently along to the song. You were surprised by his voice, it was soothing and honey-like, the opposite of his image.

You watched him out of the corner of your eye, secretly enjoying listening to his voice more than the music.

---

You were standing behind Haechan in a quiet little coffee shop, looking at everything on the menu. Everything looked so amazing you could feel your mouth watering just from looking at the display cakes.

‘Any idea what you want?’ Haechan asked over his shoulder as you nodded.

‘I’m gonna get the Caramel Frap and a muffin of some kind.’ You replied. ‘What about you?’

‘Doubleshot Vanilla iced Coffee and a brownie. You gonna have coffee in your frap?’ He answered, moving forwards in the line as the person in front of you finished.

‘Always!!!’ You answered in a sing-song voice as Haechan rolled his eyes muttering something about you being as bad as Jaemin.

He stepped up to the counter and gave the cashier a friendly smile.

‘Hi, please can I get one large Caramel Frap with coffee and whip, one large Doubleshot Vanilla iced Coffee, one brownie and-’

‘Whoa what? It’s okay I can pay for myself.’ You interrupted him but he brushed you off.

‘Nah it’s fine, this is on me. And one peanut and banana muffin please?’ He finished the order and your eyes widened at his choice. ‘All the muffins here are good.’ He explained turning back to you.

‘Haechan I-’ You began, slightly in a panic.

‘Y/n, I told you I’m paying.’ He insisted but you continued.

‘Seriously I can’t-’ You stuttered, desperately trying to get your point across.

‘For the last time, y/n I am paying!’ He cut you off again.

‘No! I’m allergic to peanuts...’ You hurriedly told him and watched as his expression morphed into one of utter dread.

‘Oh god.’ He mumbled before turning around and almost throwing himself across the counter in an attempt to correct his order to a white chocolate and raspberry muffin. He turned back to you with the treats in his hand and gave you a sheepish smile. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay, you didn’t know.’ You laughed, looking down at the muffin in your hand that smelt absolutely delicious.

It didn’t take long before your drinks had arrived and Haechan hurried you back into his car, claiming there was one more place he wanted to show you.

---

You were sitting on a bench in a deserted area of the park. Haechan had explained that if you wanted privacy, to come down here as people normally don’t bother to walk this far. He pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket, offering you one which you refused, before lighting his own.

‘It’s always worth it though. The tranquility that you get just from being a little further out.’ He looked sideways at you, tilting his head when he saw your confused expression. ‘What?’

‘Nothing it’s just... Why are you telling me all this? I mean I was told that you were aloof, never telling anyone but a close few details about yourself, keeping everything a mystery and yet here you are. With me, someone you’ve known now for about five hours and so far we’ve skived Maths, set off the fire alarm, brought the fire brigade to school, bought McDonalds, grabbed a coffee, almost killed me and now you’re talking to me about tranquility. You just... It doesn’t seem like something you’d do with someone you just met.’ You admitted, shrugging your shoulders as you finished.

Haechan looked away from you for a second, taking a drag from his cigarette before he faced you again to answer your question.

‘Well, I guess the only thing to say to that is, not all rumours are true. And yes, you have a point, not a lot of people sit and talk about tranquility with someone they just met, but not a lot of people get into trouble worthy of suspension on the first day. And even less of those people are willing to do it with me. Maybe that has something to do with it.’

‘Tell me something, then. Which rumours are true?’ You challenged.

‘Some of them.’ Haechan admitted. ‘I do smoke, I do cause trouble, I did sleep around quite a bit, and yeah, I hurt some people in the process. And also, yes, I didn’t really care that much. But the one thing I never did was lie to anyone or give them the impression that it was ever something more than just one night. That’s why I was “unsympathetic” to anyone. They knew what they were getting into so why is it my fault that they couldn’t handle it?’

Your jaw dropped slightly, not expecting that kind of answer. You mumbled a quick ‘fair point’ and turned your gaze back to the scenery. The river in front of you flowed gently, coursing it’s own way through life, the sun reflected off the constantly moving waves, casting flecks of light to dance across yours and Haechan’s bodies.

‘But I don’t think I’m gonna be doing that again. It makes you feel kinda empty, like you’re searching for something but anytime you come close to possibly having a chance at finding it, you take it away from yourself. Do you see that up there?’ Haechan changed the topic suddenly, pointing to a cliff edge in between the trees. You squinted slightly, trying to get a look at it, but it was difficult to see through the leaves.

‘Yeah, I think so. What’s up there?’ You asked, turning your body towards him as he grinned.

‘Real tranquility. If you ever want to properly get away, that’s where you go.’ He told you and you looked back. ‘From up there you can see the whole city.’

‘But how do you get up there?’ You wondered and Haechan simply winked in response, tapping his nose twice to signal that he wasn’t going to tell you. ‘Will you ever actually tell me anything when I ask?’

‘We’ll see princess, we’ll see.’ Haechan grinned, turning back to the river but at some point having moved closer to you, so close that your legs were almost touching.

Your heart was pounding, yet you weren’t sure if it was from the nickname or the close proximity of the two of, or both. As much as you tried to convince yourself otherwise, you had a strong suspicion it was the latter.

---

Before you knew it, another month had passed in your new city and you weren’t feeling so much like the obnoxiously new kid. You knew your way around without getting lost, your professors had started to get to know you and stopped treating you like you were made of glass because you were new, and you had a good group of people around you.

Haechan had easily become your closest friend, his constant teasing covered a layer of love that it took him a while to show to you. But once he did, you were constantly smothered by his affections. And if Haechan wasn’t smothering you, then Jaemin would be. Once you got to know him, Jaemin was almost too nice for his own good, his caring and loving nature making him a very easy person to get along with. There was never an awkward moment between the two of you and already, he felt like a friend you’d known for years.

Apart from those two, you had also become friendly with Momo from your sports class, Hyunjin from Chemistry, Siyeon from History and Dino from Music. But none of them really held a candle to how close you were with Haechan.

You found yourself spending most of your time with Haechan, Jaemin often came too but you realised pretty quickly after befriending him that, wherever you were, Haechan would find a way to be there too.

Your friendship hadn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the school either. In fact, you were surprised by how quickly it had gone around that the two of you were close. The day after you had gone out for a coffee, you had walked into school to be greeted with confused stares and hushed whispers surrounding you everywhere you went.

You did your best to just ignore them, you told yourself you couldn’t care less what people here thought of you, it wasn’t as if you would be here for long anyway. Their whispers and accusations sometimes got to you slightly, but every time you finished your classes and saw Haechan waiting for you with his sunshine smile, you found all your worries melting off you.

You had always met some pretty cool people wherever you went, but you had never met anyone quite like Haechan, nor had you ever expected to. You already knew that he was something you would miss about this town when you inevitably left.

‘Bye Dad!’ You shouted through your house, a similar response coming from his study as you walked out of the front door. Even though you didn’t have class until late morning on a Tuesday, you and Haechan made it a tradition to grab a coffee together before it started.

And as you turned around there he was. Leaning out of the open window of his car grinning at you.

You smiled back in greeting, before climbing into the passenger seat, grabbing that aux cable he had offered you, and setting down as he took off.

Haechan had officially entrusted you with the music, naming you the car DJ much to Jaemin’s discontent. You were often on the receiving end of his whiny complaints about the injustice and unfair treatment he was getting.

Haechan pulled into the street that your favourite bakery was one, parking his car swiftly before you both made you way into the shop. You had arrived a little later than usual due to traffic, so you quickly approached the counter.

You leant forwards, catching the barista’s attention and gave them a smile before telling them your order.

‘Hi! Please can I have one Caramel Frap with coffee, one chocolate chip cookie, one Doubleshot Vanilla Iced coffee and one brownie please?’

The barista nodded, handing you the card machine as you quickly tapped your phone before Haechan could complain. You turned around, expecting to see him watching you in surprise, but instead he was nowhere to be seen.

The barista handed you the cookie and brownie in a bag before they moved to make your coffees as Haechan jogged into the shop.

‘Left my phone in my car.’ He explained before moving towards the counter.

‘Here.’ You said, offering him the bag which held his brownie. ‘Your coffee is on the way.’

Haechan reached for the bag slowly, confusion all over his face as he looked inside it.

‘I got you a Doubleshot Vanilla Iced coffee.’ You informed him, relishing in the way his face lit up with excitement at the mention of his favourite drink.

‘Why- You didn’t have to do this!’ Haechan whined. ‘I’ll pay you back!’

‘No you won’t.’ You said firmly, ignoring his protests. ‘I never paid you back for the first time we got a coffee together so this counts for then. Now we’re even.’

‘How did you know what to get me though?’ Haechan wondered, looking up at the menu.

‘I remembered?’ You offered, laughing at him slightly. ‘Plus you mentioned it to me a couple of days ago that it was your favourite so I thought it was safest to go with that one.’

You head turned towards the counter as your name was called, signalling that your drinks were ready. You walked over to collect them, missing the way Haechan watched you go with the softest smile on his face.

You handed him his drink as the two of you made your way back to his car.

‘Ready for class?’ You asked, groaning slightly at the thought of your history lecture that was looming.

But he didn’t reply, instead just looked at you. You tilted your head in confusion at him, wondering why he wasn’t starting the car.

‘Haechan?’ You asked and something in him seemed to wake up.

‘Hyuck.’ He corrected, turning away from you and beginning to drive away. ‘Call me Hyuck.’

You couldn’t help the small smile that spread across your face as you cruised through the streets.

‘Hyuck...’ You repeated to yourself under your breath, unaware of the way that Hyuck’s lips twitched upwards into a smile slightly as you did.

---

For the next two weeks you fully utilised your new privilege, calling him Hyuck at every opportunity you had. You also couldn’t stop yourself because every time you called him Hyuck, he would turn around to look at you with the largest grin on his face. There was no lying that both of you were happy with the rapid speed the two of you were becoming so close you were almost inseparable.

You were lying in your bed on Friday night, your chemistry textbook and worksheets from hours ago lay abandoned on your desk as you stared up at your ceiling. Your final lecture had been cancelled, so you originally planned to come back and try to get some work done. Only, once you started did you realise that your mind was just a fuzzy mess and there was no way you were going to get through it.

Instead you decided to go to sleep, hoping that some rest would help you clear your head and you’d feel more refreshed the next morning. However, your attempt to get an early night for once was disrupted by your mind and body purely refusing to let sleep take you.

You groaned, rolling over on to your side and staring at your clock. The numbers shined brightly in your face, the red 2:08am reflecting off your eyes as you stared at them. Turns out it was Saturday morning.

You were just about to give up and go downstairs to watch something, when you noticed your phone screen suddenly light up. You grabbed your phone and lifted it to your face to see a text sitting on your home screen.

Hyuck: yo

Hyuck: are you awake

You grinned at your phone, texting back a quick reply.

You: yeah

You: couldn’t sleep. why

Hyuck: come outside

You furrowed your eyebrows at that, silently moving to your window and pulling the curtains back. You looked down at your drive and saw Hyuck’s car sitting there with him in the driver’s seat staring up at your window. You made eye contact with him and he nodded towards his empty passenger seat. You held up a finger, asking him to wait a minute, and you shut your curtain again.

You quickly grabbed a pair of shoes and ran out of your bedroom, making sure to grab your keys on your way. You made your way through your house, leaving a quick note for your dad in case he woke up and thought you had disappeared, and slipped as silently as you could out of your front door, jogging down to the car that was waiting for you.

‘God it’s cold out there!’ You exclaimed, rubbing your arms to warm yourself up as you directed the heaters in his car towards you.

Hyuck raised his eyebrows at you, replying sarcastically.

‘Well, maybe if you’d worn more than a thin t shirt in October this wouldn’t be a problem.’

You looked down at what you were wearing, huffing when you realised he was right. Your choice of pyjamas, a t-shirt and jogging bottoms, while comfortable, were not doing much to battle the cold night air. You opened the door to run back inside and grab a jumper but Hyuck stopped you.

‘Don’t worry, I had a feeling you would do this, so I came prepared.’ He leaned backwards, reaching into his back seat and pulled out a hoodie of his before dropping it into your lap. ‘Here, wear this.’ He told you, quickly turning his attention back to his car as he got it started.

You looked down at the hoodie in your lap, unable to stop yourself from smiling slightly, and you whispered a quick thanks. You pulled it over your head, allowing yourself to be submerged in the soft fabric. The first thing you noticed was Hyuck scent taking over your being. You were surrounded by him and it was much more comforting than you were expecting.

Unknown to you, Hyuck found himself unable to take his eyes off you. Seeing you in his hoodie made his heart beat a lot faster than he was willing to admit, and, if he was being honest, he didn’t want you to ever take it off.

Hyuck began to drive and you found yourself automatically reaching for the aux cable. You decided to play one of your favourite songs that you hadn’t heard in a while, and soon ‘(Un)Lost’ by ‘The Maine’ gently filled the car, immediately reinforcing the relaxed atmosphere.

‘You hungry?’ Hyuck asked, and you shrugged slightly.

‘I could go for some ramen to be honest.’ You replied. ‘What’s going to be open at this hour though?’ You looked out of your window and found yourself filled with confusion. ‘Where even are we?’

‘Somewhere I like to come when I can’t sleep.’ He answered you. ‘Also, don’t worry, I know a place to eat.’

You hummed in response, trusting Hyuck’s judgement when it came to food. You had learnt that he always knew the best places. You couldn’t help the feeling of deja vu you were having, flashbacks to the time you and Hyuck first got coffee together and he refused to tell you where you were going, travelled through your head.

You stared out of the window, trying to recognise any of your surroundings, but you were on an empty road with trees on either side of you. If you weren’t with Hyuck you would have been terrified.

Eventually, he began to slow down, and you spotted a neon lit diner to your right. Hyuck drew the car to a halt and you both climbed out. He noticed the slightly nervous look on your face as your eyes darted across the dark woods surrounding you, and held out a hand. You smiled shyly, reaching out for him. The second you felt his hand in yours, you immediately relaxed and allowed Hyuck to pull you towards the diner.

A small bell sounded, signalling your arrival as Hyuck pushed the door open, and a man who you assumed was around mid-twenties appeared from the back. One look at the two of you and his face lit up into the biggest smile.

‘Donghyuck! Welcome back!’ He exclaimed, throwing his arms out to the side for emphasis.

‘Hi Johnny.’ Hyuck laughed, bringing you forwards as the tall male came around the counter to give him a hug. He pulled away from the hug and turned towards you. ‘Johnny, this is y/n. Y/n, this is Johnny, he runs this diner.’

‘Ahhhh, so this is the famous y/n!’ Johnny laughed, turning towards you. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you.’

‘It’s nice to meet you too.’ You replied, slightly taken aback at how nice this guy was.

‘So the usual?’ Johnny asked Hyuck and he nodded in response. ‘Anything for you, y/n?’

‘Surprise me.’ You said, having no idea what this place even offered, and Johnny nodded, his large smile never leaving his face.

‘Oh, Taeil is in the kitchen tonight if you want to say hi.’ Johnny said, turning back to Hyuck. Hyuck’s eyes lit up at the mention of Taeil and he turned to you, telling you he’d be back in a second.

‘Don’t rush, Hyuck.’ You laughed. It was clear from Hyuck’s expression that he hadn’t seen this Taeil in a while.

‘Tell him the order while you’re there?’ Johnny shouted, getting a shout back in reply. Johnny chuckled to himself, offering you a seat by the island and sitting next to you. ‘You know, Donghyuck talks about you a lot when he’s here.’

Your eyes shot up to his, your eyebrows lifting slightly in surprise and he nodded.

‘Yeah, you must mean a lot to him. Not only are you wearing his hoodie and you get to call him Hyuck, but he brought you here. That’s something...’

‘What makes you say that?’ You asked, sending Johnny an appreciative smile as he poured you a glass of water.

‘This is his safe space, the place where he comes whenever he wants to escape. Mainly from other people.’ Johnny gestured around him, and you followed his movements, your eyes resting on the seats, tables and jukeboxes that decorated this place.

‘I don’t get it, why would that make me important to him?’ You asked, looking at Johnny once more.

‘Well, most of the time, when you want to escape from something, you don’t bring the thing you’re running from with you. Donghyuck has never brought anyone here, not even Jaemin, and those two grew up together. So for him to bring you here, you must be something pretty damn special.’

You were speechless by the time Johnny had finished. You had been completely unaware of just how much Hyuck had cared for you. You weren’t even aware of the smile that was stretching across your face until Johnny chuckled.

‘I can see he’s special to you too.’

You looked back at him and nodded.

‘I...’ You swallowed slightly before speaking again. ‘I wasn’t expecting to care for someone this much.’

Johnny lifted up a hand, placing it on your shoulder and squeezing gently. You found the gesture surprisingly reassuring and you sent him a grateful smile.

‘For what it’s worth, you two make a good pair.’ Johnny said. ‘I’m glad he’s found someone he cares for this much.’

At the moment a laughing Donghyuck came bursting back through the kitchen doors, quickly followed by a slightly shorter male who you assumed was Taeil. Taeil looked up and saw you.

‘This is y/n?’ He asked Hyuck, who nodded in confirmation.

You stood up to greet him, placing your water on the counter as you did so.

‘It’s nice to meet you.’

‘You too, I’m Taeil.’ Taeil introduced himself, and you smiled at him.

Hyuck held up two boxes of ramen, the smell making your mouth water.

‘Shall we?’

---

You sat on the hood of Hyuck’s car and looked out over the skyline. The entire city was illuminated, the lights shining through the darkness and creating bright patterns in the night. You were mesmerised by the sight in front of you, the beauty of the twinkling lights demanding your attention.

The two of you were currently at the look out point which Hyuck had pointed out to you the day you had first met. It was a cliff edge that you could drive to, and it was only a couple of minutes away from the diner.

Your trip to the diner has been surprisingly entertaining. It was clear that Johnny and Taeil had known Hyuck and each other for a long time, but they made sure to welcome you and make sure that you felt comfortable. They wanted to know about the previous places you’d been to and any stories of your life or previous schools that you wanted to share. There was never an awkward moment, the three of them being so quick witted with their humour that you were in stitches the entire time. It felt as though you had spent the past half an hour laughing with old friends.

You didn’t know how long it had been since you’d felt an environment like that.

Hyuck was silently watching you, studying the reflection of the city lights in your eyes and wondering what was going through your mind. He eventually forced himself to tear his eyes away from you and back to the scenery in front of him. This view was normally the only that could set his mind at ease no matter what he was feeling, but after today, after seeing you interact so well with the friends he called his family, after seeing how beautiful you looked in his hoodie, how ethereal you were sat on his car in the moonlight... all Hyuck wanted to do was kiss you.

‘I’ve got to say, out of all the places I’ve lived, this is my favourite view.’ You softly broke the silence and Hyuck found his gaze wandering back towards you again.

‘Can I ask you something?’ He asked and you hummed in response. ‘How many places have you lived?’

You turned your head towards his and thought for a second.

‘Honestly... there’s been so many, I don’t think I could tell you the exact number.’ You told him. ‘I’ve moved around since I was a kid, we rarely stayed anywhere longer than one year before we headed to a new city which always seemed to be as far away from the previous one as you could possibly get. My dad’s job requires him to move wherever the company asks him to move, so we’ve never really had a choice. It’s nice, I guess, I get to see all these amazing places and travel so much already, but...’ You trailed off, unsure whether to continue.

‘But?’ Hyuck encouraged, looking at you with nothing but support in his eyes.

‘But it’s hard.’ You admitted. ‘People don’t really see how difficult it is. Everyone sees me as the lucky one, they tell me they wish they could travel like me, and see all the things I’ve seen. Someone even once told me that they wished they could only live in one place for one year before moving on, because then they wouldn’t have to worry about caring for anyone but themselves. Sometimes, for me, it really feels like that. But that it’s a good feeling. I’ve never lived anywhere longer than a year. I’ve even never lived anywhere long enough to call it home. I’ve never had a friendship, or relationship of any kind for that matter, that didn’t end a month after I moved away.’

‘You have your parents though, right?’ Hyuck asked, and you nodded in response.

‘Yeah, I have my dad. My mum, umm, she-’ You paused for a minute to take a breath. ‘She didn’t like the constant moving, she always said she found it too difficult. So, when I was nine, she decided she wasn’t going to move on with us. One night, she packed her bags, walked out the house and never came back. I haven’t seen her since.’ You confessed. You had never told anyone that, yet somehow, it felt safe to tell Hyuck.

‘I’m sorry.’ Hyuck offered and you sent him a smile.

‘It’s okay, it was a really long time ago.’ You tried to reassure him, even though you knew it wasn’t very convincing. ‘Moving like this... it’s a lot more lonely than you think it is.’

Hyuck moved himself slightly closer to you so that you were almost touching. He lifted his hand, and gently tucked your hair behind your ear before cradling your face.

‘You don’t have to be alone here. I’m going to be right beside you.’ He promised, the sincerity in his voice scaring you slightly. You knew that he meant it with every fibre of his being.

You didn’t know who leaned in first, nor did you care, but, either way, the two of you began to lean in. Your lips were almost touching when you stopped. Hyuck, noticing your movements, stopped immediately as well, his lips so close that his breath was gently fanning your face.

‘I’m leaving at the end of this year.’ You whispered, not moving away from him.

‘So we have two thirds of it left.’ Hyuck argued, his thumb gently stroking your face.

‘I’ll break your heart.’ Your voice was even softer than before, wavering slightly with emotion as your eyes fluttered shut.

‘It’ll be worth it.’ Hyuck whispered back, before you allowed him to finally close the distance.

He pressed his lips to yours, it was sweet, innocent and everything that a first kiss should be. You lifted up your hand to rest them on his wrists as he pulled away. He moved his hands away from your face and brought them down to your waist, pulling you closer and you wound yours around his neck.

You leant in again, this time kissing him with more passion. You were so overwhelmed with how much Hyuck cared for you, and how much you cared for him that all you wanted to do was show him, and this was the only way you knew you. Neither of you said it, but you both knew this was the start of your relationship, a secret kiss in a hidden place, with only the stars in the sky as your witnesses. And, honestly, it couldn’t be more perfect.

---

You closed the front door as quietly as you could, wincing as the lock audibly clicked into place. You briefly stopped to grab the note you had written for your dad before leaving and scrunched it up into a little ball before throwing it away. You then began to make your way through your house, tiptoeing silently past your dad’s room before making it into the safety of your own.

You fell into bed, pulling the covers up and smiling happily into them. No one had ever made you feel this way, and you couldn’t imagine ever feeling this way about anyone else.

There was something about Hyuck that made you want to just do things. Not in a “throw caution to the wind and cause chaos” kind of way, but in a motivational kind of way. He made you want to work harder, to fight for what you want, to always give people a chance to see the real them, to say yes more.

You couldn’t imagine what your life would be like if you hadn’t followed him out of the window on the first day. And if you could do it all again, you knew, you wouldn’t change a thing. You pulled the sleeves of Hyuck’s hoodie down over your fingers as you found yourself, once again, comforted by his scent.

It was only then that you realised you had forgotten to give it back, quickly reaching for your phone to text him.

You: i still have your hoodie

Hyuck: keep it for now

Hyuck: you can give it back to me at school on monday

Hyuck: or you can wear it

Hyuck: actually no

Hyuck: please wear it

You: i promise

You: night hyuck x

Hyuck: night

Hyuck: sleep well <3

---

You had kept your promise to Hyuck, wearing his hoodie into school and you were blown away by the amount of attention it had gathered. You would have thought that people would have more interesting things to talk about, but the main conversation topic in the corridors for the past week, was yours and Hyuck’s relationship.

Today was the Wednesday of the week after that Monday. You had a single lecture in the afternoon, while Hyuck was stuck in school until the end of the day. You had never been happier to hear the bell ring, signalling your escape from the most painfully boring Chemistry lecture of your life. You exited the classroom, laughing with Hyunjin as you complained about the hell you had just been put through.

He waved you a friendly goodbye, one which you returned before you walked towards your locker. You placed your books inside it and closed the door, making sure to lock it shut. You turned around, almost jumping out of your skin when you spotted three girls waiting for you to finish.

‘Can I help you?’ You asked, confused beyond belief as to why they were silently standing by your locker.

The one in the middle spoke first.

‘We just want to look out for you honey. Haechan is bad news, and we don’t want you to get hurt.’

You frowned at them in disbelief, wondering why on earth they were telling you this. You had never even seen any of them around Hyuck before.

‘Yeah, he’s a bad boy for a reason and we’re just worried that you're blinded by his charms. We’ve all fallen for it at some point, and we don’t want you to get manipulated like the rest of us.’ The brunette on the left piped up as you rolled your eyes.

‘Ok, this is very.... weird. Also, it’s not really any of your business, so thanks for your concern, but I’m fine by myself.’ You picked your bag up from the floor, swinging it over your shoulder.

As if a switch had been pressed, the expressions on the girls faces changed in a flash. Gone were the sympathetic looks and wide eyes as judgemental gazes and cocky smirks replaced them.

‘I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re not the golden girl. You’re not the exception to the rule, the one who’s going to be able to change him, so stop trying. You’re not that special. You’re wasting your time and you’re going to end up with a broken heart.’ The one of the right spat, surprising you with her sudden change of tone.

‘She’s right.’ The middle one took charge again. ‘He’s nothing more than a cigarette puffing, selfish asshole. Just remember, we’ll be here when it all goes to shit.’

They began to strut their way down the corridor, leaving a very confused you standing by your locker.

‘Y/n?’ A voice suddenly rang out. You turned towards the sound to see Jaemin coming towards you. ‘What was that all about?’

---

You sat next to Jaemin on a bench at the nearby park. You dragged him down the river to find a deserted area, before sitting down to explain what had happened. Jaemin had insisted that you talk him through it, not wanting you to feel alone.

‘-so they reassured me that it was going to fail, no matter what.’ You finished, staring at the river in front of you.

Jaemin didn’t respond for a minute, just watched you as you finished speaking. Eventually, he broke the silence between the two of you.

‘You know, something that comes with having a reputation like Hyuck’s, is that everyone puts their own spin on it. Everybody likes to come up with new things that he’s done or find a rumour that sounds like him and spread it. He’s been ignoring it for god knows how long, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. I’m not going to tell you how to feel, that’s not my job. However, I am going to tell you this.’

Jaemin readjusted his seating, moving so that he was facing you more. You mimicked him, turning your side towards the water.

‘Hyuck is brave, and self assured, and confident, and cocky, but, just like everybody else, he has his weakness. And for him, it’s love. He’s completely terrified of falling in love. When Hyuck slept around last year, he didn’t do it just cause he wanted sex, or cause it was a confidence boost to get those girls. He did it because he wanted company, because he was lonely. But, he could never let it be for longer than one night because then he was putting himself at risk.’

‘At risk of what?’ You asked, and Jaemin sighed before continuing.

‘Of getting attached, of catching feelings, of being vulnerable, of caring. Hyuck’s afraid of falling in love with someone because, if he does that, then there’s no turning back. He’s at their mercy, and no one will have the power over him that that person does. And that terrifies him.’

You nodded as Jaemin spoke, taking in every detail. When he finished you leaned back on the bench, this time staring up at the clouds as they passed. Jaemin had made a lot of sense and, although you would never admit it, you did understand his fear of being in love.

‘I care about him.’ You began as Jaemin looked back towards you. ‘I care about him a lot. But there’s this part of my brain that’s telling me he’s got a reputation for a reason. That this only has one ending and I’m kidding myself if I think I’m any different from the previous girls.’

‘You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re anything like them.’ Jaemin huffed. ‘And, if you’re going to think like that, if that’s going to dominate your mind, then honestly, you should spare Hyuck the pain. After everything, he deserves to actually have someone who loves him, not someone who doubts him. If you can’t see past his reputation, then it’s not fair to string him along.’

You could tell from Jaemin’s eyes that he meant every word. As soon as he said that, it was like a cloud had been lifted, clearing your vision. You leant forward, forcing him to look at you while you spoke truthfully.

‘I’m not going to judge him on his reputation. I don’t want to. I care about him, and that’s all that matters. And I don’t care about what other people think about him, because I know him.’

Jaemin nodded at you, a smile forming on his face.

‘Good.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be meeting him at yours tonight?’ He asked, looking back up at you.

You pulled out your phone, checking the time and your eyes widened. You and Jaemin had spoken for a lot longer than you had thought, and at this rate, Hyuck was going to beat you back to your house. You stood up, thanking Jaemin before giving him a quick hug and running home to Hyuck.

---

One takeaway, four movies and three deep conversations later, Hyuck had fallen asleep. You quietly closed your laptop, placing it on the floor as you climbed out of your bed. You picked up the food containers, carrying them downstairs to the kitchen as you cleaned up slightly.

You dropped the takeaway boxes into the bin, before washing your hands. You thought for a second before grabbing two glasses, which you filled up with water and made your way back to your bedroom.

When you arrived, you spent a short amount of time standing in the doorway and just watched Hyuck sleep. He looked so angelic when he slept, all the stress and worries of the day melted off his features. You placed the water next to your side, moving around the bed to place the second one next to him.

You stepped forward, lightly grabbing the blanket and pulling it up to cover him with it. You lifted up a hand, placing it in his hair and you gently stroked it. He let out a contented hum in his sleep and you smiled down at him. You removed your hand, replacing it with your lips for a soft kiss on his temple and then proceeded to stand up and move around to your side of the bed.

You lifted up the covers and climbed in. Hyuck, as if sensing the sudden weight, rolled over, his arm finding its way around your waist before you had even laid down properly. His other one snuck underneath you, unnoticed by you until you lay down and found your head resting on it. Hyuck tightened his grip, pulling you close into his chest as you were surrounded by his embrace.

As much as you loved sleeping in his hoodies, this was by far the better option. You rested one hand on his chest, the other one winding around his waist and you curled up as close to him as you could.

You shut your eyes, letting your mind drift back to the conversation you had with Jaemin earlier, and the unprovoked attack from the girls in the hallway, and, easily, you came to one very solid conclusion.

The girls in the hallway may have been talking about Haechan, the rumours, the past mistakes and the persona, but you knew Donghyuck. You knew the boy that would stay up until 2am watching movies and chatting with you about life because you couldn’t sleep. You knew the boy that pulled you closer to him, even when he was fast asleep. You knew the real Donghyuck, and you were getting very scared that you were falling in love with him.

---

Time started to pass faster and, before you knew it, another month had passed. Your father had met Hyuck officially as your boyfriend and loved him. You had met Hyuck’s parents too, thankfully getting on their good sides even though they weren’t around much. You had managed to convince Hyuck to quit smoking, something that he had found surprisingly easy. Any time you asked how he did it, he’d claim that you were more addictive than any cigarette ever could be and give you a sweet kiss. Hyuck had been the perfect boyfriend to you, caring, fun, teasing and through it all, he still felt like your best friend.

You were preparing to head off and see him today. You grabbed your phone and keys before leaving your room and jogging down the stairs. You landed gently at the bottom and began to head straight for the door when you heard your father’s voice.

‘Y/n? Will you come in here for a minute sweetheart?’

You followed his voice into his study to find his standing by his desk, his phone in his hand.

‘Dad? Is everything okay? I’m meeting Hyuck in like ten minutes so I can’t be long.’ You said, checking your phone for the time.

Your father turned around to face you, leaning backwards so that he was sitting on the desk behind him.

‘Yes of course! Sorry, I’ll try to make it quick. Would you be happy to stay here for a bit longer than normal?’ He asked, getting straight to the point since he knew you had places to be.

‘Like this town?’ You wondered and your father nodded.

‘Yes, right here. In the same town and same house. Would you be okay with staying here for longer?’ You father spoke, this time raising his eyebrows in question.

‘How much longer?’ You asked, remaining suspicious and skeptical so that you didn’t get your hopes up.

‘Well, I’ve been offered a permanent position here, and I accepted it. So as long as you like.’ You jaw dropped at his words, unable to process what he was saying.

‘No more moving?’ You asked him.

‘No more moving.’ He confirmed and you burst out into a happy laugh, running forwards to hug him.

‘Oh my god, Dad that’s amazing! I’m so happy for you!’ You gushed, pulling out of the hug to see his smiling face.

‘So you’re happy to stay here?’ He asked and you grinned back at him.

‘I think I’d be okay with that.’

---

You made your way through Hyuck’s house, stopping only to briefly wave at his parents, before arriving at his room. You could hear him talking inside, so you entered as quietly as you could. He turned around as you entered, smiling and coming towards you to place a soft kiss on your cheek before turning his attention back to his phone call. The smile hadn’t left your face since your dad had told you his news, and you couldn’t wait to tell Hyuck.

He walked towards his window while talking, clearly attempting to wrap up the conversation without being overly rude. You approached his desk, chuckling at the piles of papers and discarded assignments that lay on it. Hyuck never was one for keeping things neat. You tilted your head slightly as one piece in particular caught your eye.

You reached for it, pulling it out from the bottom of the pile and scanned the words, your heart sinking as you did. The title as the top stood out the most: “the to-DO list”.

As you read further and further down the page you saw name after name of different girls in the school, and next to them were a short list of pros and cons, and the number of points they were worth. There were even lines though some of the names with ticks next to them, which you could only assume meant that they were checked off.

You recognised Siyeon and Momo’s names, neither of them having a cross through, but you also recognised the names of the “Welcoming Committee”. They were the same girls who cornered you in the corridor to warn you about Hyuck, and you ignored them. All three of their names were on the list, and all three of them had lines through them.

When your eyes reached the bottom of the page, your heart stopped. You forgot how to breath and you felt as though time suddenly stood still. You stared at the final name, the latest addition to the list that had the highest points and a bright red line through it.

Y/n Y/l/n - 150 points

Pros: new kid, gullible, not around for long, won’t stay to cause you trouble

Cons: defensive, needs effort to be worn down, not as easy as previously assumed

You stared at your name, the tears that filled your eyes blurring it slightly, but not making it any less real. This was a game. Hyuck and his friends were playing a game about who could get the most of the girls. You were just a target to him, something to tick off his list. And he had.

You registered Hyuck hanging up the phone and you furiously blinked away your tears.

‘Sorry about that. I was trying to-’ Hyuck stopped talking mid-sentence, his phone falling from his grip in shock when you turned around with the list in your hand. His eyes shot from the paper to you again, but one look at your face told him everything he needed to know.

‘What’s this?’ You whispered, holding up the piece of paper for him to see.

You watched as Hyuck’s jaw dropped and fear and panic took over his features. His mouth opened and closed repeatedly like a fish out of water.

‘What is this?’ You asked again, articulating every word. ‘Please tell me it’s not what I think it is. Tell me that this isn’t some sick game, that- that I’m just some game to you.’

You watched as Hyuck struggled to form a reply, obviously lost for words at what was happening.

‘I swear to god Hyuck, you better tell me the truth right now or I am gonna walk out of that door and I am not coming back.’ You kept your head up, refusing to let him see how affected by this you were more than he already had.

‘Tell me!’ You shouted, your temper flaring as your patience ran thin.

That seemed to finally get through to Hyuck, his eyes snapped towards your face as he stuttered out some weak reply.

‘No- no- no it’s -it’s not what you... No y/n I don’t... I can’t explain it I just-’ Hyuck looked at you, his eyes full of desperation but you couldn’t find it in you to feel sympathy for him.

You let out an empty laugh, one of pure disbelief at your own foolishness. You couldn’t believe that you really thought you were important to him. It’s Lee Donghyuck for Christ’s sake. He has a reputation for a reason. What made you think you were special enough to break that?

You swallowed, lifting your eyes to Hyuck’s once more and realised that you didn’t know a thing about the boy who stood before you. You opened your mouth and, with a shaky voice, you spoke.

‘You know, I was told by so many people that I wasn’t the exception to the rule, I wasn’t the golden girl, I- I wasn’t the one who could change your ways or prove that you were more than just a cigarette puffing, leather jacket wearing, selfish ass hole. But, god... I really hoped I was. And for a minute there, I actually believed it... you actually let me believe it. Maybe that’s why this hurts so much.’

‘Y/n please-’ He began, reaching out for you with one arm but stopped cold at your next words.

‘Save it, Haechan.’ Your use of Haechan instead of Hyuck struck Donghyuck right to his core. You hadn’t called him Haechan in the two months since he’d given you permission to use Hyuck, instead taking pride in the fact that you were close to him to not only call him by his real name, but by his nickname. When you used Haechan, he felt as though someone had picked up a blade of ice and driven it straight into his heart.

He had no idea why this was hurting him so bad. He knew from the moment he walked in and saw that look on your face that something was wrong. He never liked seeing you upset, but watching that door slam behind you, he never would have been able to presume that him being the cause of your upset would have been so heart wrenching.

There’s something about knowing that you’re the reason that the person you love most in the world is crying, that can rip a man’s heart in two. And for the first time in his life, Donghyuck began to experience what heartbreak was like.

---

You ran out of the door, tearing down the streets as fast as the tears were running down your face. You felt small, you felt ridiculous, you felt humiliated, you felt as though you were five years old again. And all you wanted to do was run away.

The irony was impossible to ignore. Your entire life, you had hated moving. Always leaving everyone behind, allowing them to forget you and forcing yourself to forget them. Every city, town or village you had lived in, you had wanted to stay, make friendships that would last a lifetime, fall in love, grow old in the same place you grew up, but you never could. Now for the first time in your life you were finally staying in one place, a place that you were supposed to call home, and yet, you wanted nothing more than to leave it.

---

‘Ok, I’m just going to say it. You’ve done a lot worse to a lot of other girls and you’ve never had this severe of a reaction before. Why now? What’s so special about this one that she’s the reason you’re suddenly experiencing the feeling of guilt?’ Jaemin leaned forwards towards his friend, hoping to finally get a solid answer out of him.

Jaemin had received an SOS text from Donghyuck and immediately moved to meet him at the local bar. He was currently sat across from the aforementioned, watching as his friend had a mini meltdown in front of him. This was the most emotional that Jaemin had seen Donghyuck in a while, and he knew that there was something about you that Donghyuck was refusing to admit.

‘I don’t know, but when I was standing there, looking at her face as these tears began to fall... all I wanted to do was to run up to her and wipe them away. To hold her and reassure her that... that I’m going to be the one to protect her from harm, not cause it, that I’m going to be the one who she’s safe with, the one who provides her comfort, the one who...’ Donghyuck trailed off at the end leaving Jaemin unable to catch what he was saying.

‘Alright, so here’s my next question: Why didn’t you?’ Jaemin raised an eyebrow at Donghyuck’s moping figure as his head shot up.

‘Why didn’t I what?’ Donghyuck questioned, too tired and emotionally worn out to actually think through what he was being asked.

Jaemin rolled his eyes so hard that he thinks he actually saw the one remaining braincell of his that had survived this conversation, the rest of them choosing to jump ship and abandon him.

‘Why didn’t you go elephant hunting? What do you think?! Why didn’t you do all those things you wanted to? Why didn’t you tell her how much she means to you?’

Donghyuck paused for a minute, thinking back to when he saw you standing there, completely vulnerable, with all your walls down for just him to see.

‘I was scared...’ He admitted, looking up at his friend slowly. ‘I’ve never felt like this before and I don’t know what it means to do this kind of stuff and be good at it. What if I told her the truth and she didn’t feel the same? What if I scared her away when I told her how I felt? I was scared that she wouldn’t want anything to do with me if I told her I loved her.’

Jaemin didn’t respond for a second, his mind taking it’s time to wrap around the fact that Donghyuck was in love. He knew that you meant more to Hyuck than he had ever let on, but Jaemin never would have expected for his friend to have fallen in love with you.

‘Donghyuck... I don’t think you’ll lose her if you tell her you love her. But I do think you may lose her if you don’t.’ Jaemin watched Donghyuck’s expression change as the realisation of the reality of Jaemin’s words dawned on him.

‘What do I do Jaemin?’ He asked, begging to know how to get you back.

‘Do what you couldn’t before.’ Jaemin told him. ‘Tell her the truth.’

---

You could feel all eyes on you as you walked through the main gates the following morning. It was the first time you had walked in by yourself, Haechan having insisted on driving you every morning he could, so this seemed to alert people that there was something wrong.

You held your head high and refused to let them see how emotional you were, biting the inside of your cheek anytime you could feel your eyes begin to water slightly. If it were up to you, you would have stayed at home today, choosing instead to drown yourself in chocolate and chick flicks, but, unfortunately, your dad was working from home so you had to come in.

You made your way towards your locker, unable to avoid making eye contact with a couple of people along the way. You accidentally caught eyes with the trio of girls who you had become all too familiar with from their welcome when you arrived and their more recent “friendly” advice by your locker.

‘Aww hun, we tried to warn you...’ They crowded you, one of them stroking your hair and all of them effectively drawing all the attention towards you once more. ‘We wanted to protect you from this...’

You tensed up, irritated and a little creeped out by the unwanted contact.

‘Fuck off!’ You spat, pushing them away from you. They stepped forwards again, obviously trying to paint themselves as your saviours in front of the rest of the school who were watching.

‘Sweetie, we just want to help! We knew this would happen and-’

You cut them off, speaking quietly at them through gritted teeth.

‘You don’t know shit about what happened. Stop pretending like you care about me and go back to whatever it is that you do, and leave me alone.’

With that, just like it had in the hallway, the fake smiles and false pretences melted off the three witches, as they rolled their eyes at you before strutting away. Gossiping just loud enough for you to hear.

‘If she actually thought that relationship was real she’s such an idiot.’

‘I know! I mean, it’s Haechan for crying out loud, is she dumb?’

You screwed your eyes shut, resting your forehead against your locker as everyone else began to disappear from around you. You took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself and opened your locker. An envelope fell out of it as the door opened, the white paper landing on your feet.

You looked down at it in confusion, bending down to pick it up. You turned it over and examined the messy handwriting on the front. You immediately recognised it at Haechan’s and your eyes flew back to your locker, scanning it to see if he had left anything else. Your gaze focused on a bar of chocolate, which you pulled out and examined.

You nodded in disbelief. Did he really think that a bar of chocolate and a letter would make up for all that happened? When he couldn’t even look you in the face and give it to you himself? You grabbed your books, slamming your locker shut out of anger. If Haechan actually wanted to make amends, he should stop being such a coward and have the courage to face you himself to say whatever he wanted to. You weren’t going to give him an easy way out.

Before you headed to your class you stopped briefly to dump the letter and chocolate in a nearby bin, unaware of Donghyuck’s teary eyes watching you as you did so.

---

You walked into the local bar, exhausted from the long day you had just had and desperate for a drink. The bar was a college bar, but it was famous amongst students to turning a blind eye towards seniors that may not be of legal drinking age yet.

That day, you had found flowers on your desk in History, your favourite coffee waiting for you at lunch and another letter and chocolate bar in your locker by the end of the day. By this point, you were fed up with it. Everyone had been pointing at you and watching you the entire day, trying to figure out what had happened, and these gifts were not helping to keep you away from everyone’s prying eyes.

All you wanted was to just sit at a booth by yourself and think for a minute before walking home. Unfortunately, life in the form of a slightly drunk baseball jock had other plans.

‘Hey there.’ He approached you, getting a bit too close for comfort.

‘Hi.’ You greeted politely, moving away from him slightly, an infuriated sigh falling from your lips when he followed you.

‘Don’t run from me. What do you say that you and I get out of here okay?’ He purred, his face coming closer to yours so that you could smell the alcohol on his breath. You pushed against his chest, the alcohol coursing through his system worsening his balance making him take a few steps back. ‘Feisty... I like that.’ He began to advance again, making you quickly speak up.

‘Okay first of all, I just want to get a drink. Second of all, why would I leave when I’ve just arrived? Third of all, why would I leave with you?’ You turned away from him, rolling your eyes as you did so.

However, the message didn’t seem to go through his thick skull, with him pushing himself right up against you, his hand dangerously low on your back and he whispered into your ear, making your skin crawl.

‘You’ll pay for that later sweetheart.’

‘Hey!’ A different voice cut through and before you could register what was going on, an arm had wound its way around your shoulder and successfully pulled you away from the creep. ‘Back off.’

‘What do you think you’re doing, Na?’ The baseball player asked, his eyes narrowing as he noticed Jaemin pulling you away from him.

‘Spending some time with my friend, now beat it beefcake.’ Jaemin kept one hand on you, moving his arm off your shoulder but staying close so that you were comfortable.

‘Well, get in line I saw her first.’ He leant forwards to grab you again, as if you were some kind of prize that he’d won.

‘She said no.’ Jaemin said calmly, watching as the jock’s face screwed up in frustration as he lunged for you again, hitting Jaemin’s free hand as he reached out to stop the drunk from touching you.

‘That doesn’t matter.’ He began to raise his voice, the alcohol in his system fuelling his idiotic actions.

‘Allow me to explain, and I’ll use small words so you’ll be sure to understand.’ You had to stop yourself from smiling slightly at Jaemin’s words, his sass never failed to make you laugh and the fact that a couple of people in the bar had turned their heads towards the commotion made it even better. There was now an audience to watch as Jaemin obliterated the drunk baseball player in front of you two. ‘No means no. I understand that may be hard for you to understand, having taken so many hits to the head, but welcome to the 21st century you warthog faced buffoon.’

With that he turned away, making sure to keep himself between you and that jerk and guided you towards an empty booth as the jock was escorted out of the bar for uncivil behaviour. He sat down across from you and quickly whipped out his phone asking if you wanted anything.

‘I was originally planning on just getting something that wasn’t too strong but after that little experience I think I’ll take a vodka coke, thanks.’ You breathed, enjoying the safety of the booth that you were sat in.

Jaemin simply nodded, tapping away on his phone before putting it back into his pocket.

‘What do I owe you?’ You asked, reaching for your own phone so that you could pull up your mobile banking but Jaemin shook his head.

‘Why don’t you just get the next round?’ He proposed and you nodded in agreement.

‘Sounds fair.’ You trailed off after that, silence falling over the two of you as you tried to figure out what to say.

‘Thank you...’ You began. ‘For stepping in like that, he wasn’t backing down and I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here.’ You were a little shaken up by it. Guys, especially drunk guys, had a tendency to be a bit gross and over comfortable but none of them had pursued and threatened you the way that guys had today.

‘Don’t mention it. He’s kinda famous for doing that kind of stuff, unfortunately people have just come to accept it. It’s fucked up.’ Jaemin chuckled. ‘People can get so used to seeing someone harass a woman that they begin to turn a blind eye.’

‘Yeah...’ You trailed off again, not sure how to respond.

Your drinks soon arrived, a waitress placing them down on the table in front of you. You reached out and grabbed the glass with your drink in as Jaemin picked up his. He lifted it to his lips and took a sip as you mirrored his actions with your own.

‘If you were meaning to catch Hyuck, he just left.’ Jaemin said suddenly, and you sent him a tight smile.

‘I wasn’t so don’t worry about it.’ You replied quickly, praying that this wouldn’t be the entirety of your conversation.

‘He misses you, you know?’ Jaemin continued softly, watching your face for any kind of reaction as you sighed.

‘Does he now?’ You muttered, staring into the dark brown drink in your hands.

‘Yes, y/n, he does.’ The certainty and clear frustration in Jaemin’s voice made you lift your eyes up to stare at him. ‘I’ve known Hyuck a long time and there’s something about you that’s stopped him in his tracks. He cares for you.’

‘He’ll move on. He always does, doesn't he? Soon he’ll stop wasting his money on the flowers or food and find his next girl to conquer. Don’t get mad at me for figuring out what was going on before he got the chance to pull the rug out from underneath my feet.’ You argued, slightly fed up that this was the only thing you could take about. You and Jaemin had always got along well so it upset and infuriated you that you had lost that relationship too.

Then Jaemin spoke again, this time the words that fell from his lips hitting you like a truck.

'Look, the list was never Hyuck’s idea to begin with, in fact he was really against it. The day you found it was the same day where he called our group to let them know that he was burning it, “it can only cause pain” were his words. The names that were crossed, weren’t crossed off by him. This old friend of ours, someone who we don’t speak to anymore after this, he heard about your relationship and gave Hyuck the list when he came back into town. Hyuck never wanted it, he never even looked at it once since he was given it, and he certainly didn’t care about it or use you just to cross your name off it. And the fact that you think that... y/n it’s killing him.’ He leant forwards as you averted your gaze, and forced you to look him in the eyes again. ‘Y/n, I've seen him work very hard to get girls and I've seen him work very hard to get rid of girls. I've never seen him work this hard to keep one around.’

And with that Jaemin stood, leaving the drink he barely touched sitting on the surface in front of you. You stared at it, not bothering to watch the boy leave as his last words swirled around in your head.

‘I’ve never seen him work this hard to keep one around.’

---

You stepped outside, shutting your front door behind you. You had arrived home from the bar to an empty house and having not felt like cooking, you decided to get a takeout. However, the one place you were really craving was only doing pickup so you had to walk there to order and get it. You pushed on the door, checking it was locked and then turned around, only to stop dead in your tracks when you found yourself face to face with Haechan.

The two of you just stared at each other, you refusing to speak first and, even though Haechan had practiced what he was going to say about a million times on the way over, all words had now left his mind. Eventually you just gave him a tight lipped smile and a nod and made to walk past him.

‘Wait! Y/n wait, please!’ Haechan called out and you slowed to a stop, lifting your eyes up to look at him once more. ‘I, um... I owe you an explanation.’

‘Really Haechan, you don’t have to it's pretty clear what was going on. It’s chill, we’re done and that’s fine. I’m just gonna do my thing and move on like I’d always planned and-’ You shrugged before getting cut off.

‘For the love of god y/n, would you please stop acting like everything’s fine and start dealing with your crap!’ Haechan snapped, causing you to look at him in shock. ‘Look, I’m sorry I snapped but... God, you don’t have to always pretend like it isn’t a big deal. You’re allowed to be upset about things. I hurt you, I know I did. You trusted me, confided in me, cared for me and I threw it all away, and it’s okay to be hurt by that. I’m not saying that I want you to feel hurt, obviously, but... not every has to mean nothing to you.’ Haechan was pretty much mumbling by the end of it, furious with himself for shouting at you when he was here to apologise.

‘Nothing? You think what happened meant nothing to me?’ You asked in disbelief. ‘Hyuck, when I saw that list, it was like everything I had ever thought, every reason I had ever had for keeping my walls up was proved true. I know it may seem like a small deal to some people, but it isn’t to me. It isn’t, okay? You lied to me, manipulated me for weeks, months even, and I feel like such an idiot. And don’t you dare think for one second that you mean nothing to me because the reason it hurt so much is because it was you. Nobody else has the power to hurt me and heal me like you do. And I keep my guard up, I keep my walls up, even when I’m upset, especially when I’m upset, because I don’t want someone to know what power they have over me. Because... if they see how much I care about them, how much I love them, what’s stopping them from using that against me? Once someone knows about it, I don’t have control over it anymore. Once someone knows about it, my heart is completely in the hands of, and at the mercy of, the person I love.’ You ranted, the tears in your eyes gathering rapidly as you tried with everything you could to blink them away. You never told people the truth about how you felt, scared about how they would react to the real you. In fact, telling Hyuck this was terrifying.

Hyuck stared at you with wide eyes, his expression, for once, was unreadable.

‘Love?’ He asked, hope reaching out across his face as you finally managed to get a read on him.

You swallowed, the fear that you had previously been trying to explain began to bubble up as you forced it back down.

‘Yes Hyuck, love...’

‘You’re calling me Hyuck...’ He pointed out, his voice just as soft as yours.

‘I guess I am.’

‘Do you love me?’

Your eyes shot up at his question, leaving their previous view of the tarmac of your drive and instead settling on Donghyuck’s brown eyes, ones that were currently glistening with tears.

‘Does it matter?’ You whispered. ‘It’s not going to change anything. It all still happened.’

‘But it didn’t! Well, it did, but I never wanted it to happen in the first place. I never wanted anything to do with that stupid list! I told him it would only hurt people and now I’ve gone and hurt the one person that I truly love and it’s not fair!’ Your eyes widened at his words, unable to process that fact that he just said love. Hyuck began to wind his hands through his hair as he continued his angry rant that wasn’t really directed at you but rather anyone who would listen. ‘I burnt it. I burnt the fucking list but it was too late and now it’s all a mess and it’s my fault cause I should have burnt it when I first got it. I never even scratched a name off, I’ve only spent time with you this year and I only ever wanted to and I want only you now and I’m not making sense anymore and-’

‘Hyuck!’ You interrupted, stopping him mid rant as his words began to turn to nonsense. His innocent doe eyes looked into yours and you refused to break eye contact. ‘Love?’ You asked, repeating Hyuck’s question from before.

You wanted as his demeanour completely changed. He forced some air into his lungs, dropping his shoulders as he took a deep breath. He lifted his head and locked eyes with you for the thousandth time that night, yet this felt very different. There was something in his gaze that held you captive, even if you had wanted to look away, you wouldn’t have been able to. Your eyes never left his, even as he began to speak and you saw the truth in his words through his sincere expression.

‘I’m not good at this. This kind of moment, this conversation where I admit how I’ve been feeling this entire time. I’m good with music, I’m good with food, I’m good with jokes and making people laugh, but... I’m really bad when it comes to looking someone in the eye and telling them how I feel. Especially if that means letting my walls down. I’m not here to tell you that I’m falling in love with you. I’m here to tell you that... I’ve already fallen. And I was terrified of falling for you, because it was so easy. The way you always remember my coffee order, or the way you drape a blanket over me when I fall asleep on the sofa, or the way that you made me care more about my life, about who I am and how I impact others. Loving you was so easy and that’s why it was so god damn terrifying. Because I couldn’t stop myself. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop myself from being in love with you. I am utterly, hopelessly, irretrievably in love with you. More than you’ll ever know. And for the first time in my life, that doesn’t sound so scary.’

By this point, the tears that had been previously threatening to fall were now steadily making their way down his face. You knew that you looked no better, your vision was blurry and your throat was tight. He refused to look away from you, not even to wipe the tears from his face, instead, he kept talking.

‘And I know that this doesn’t change anything. You’re still leaving at the end of this year, but that’s just over seven months away. And, even though I know how it’s going to end, I want those seven months with you. I do. I want them more than anything. And I will do anything it takes to earn your trust back.’

There wasn’t a single speck of doubt in your body that Hyuck was telling the truth. This wasn’t Haechan speaking, this was Donghyuck, vulnerable, emotional and broken Donghyuck talking to you from his heart, begging for your forgiveness and understanding. You found it impossible to tear your gaze away from him, your eyes glued to his as you tried to come to a conclusion in your mind.

No matter how many times the irrational part of your brain tried to convince you this was all a trick, some elaborate scheme that will end up with you getting your heart broken, you couldn’t hear it. It was outweighed by the sheer volume of every atom, every fibre of your being screaming out for the boy you loved, for Donghyuck.

‘Hyuck, I love you... But I don’t want you to have only seven months with me.’ You began. Donghyuck’s face quickly fell, as if accepting defeat and he sadly nodded. ‘I want you to have more than that. And I know that it doesn’t seem possible, because I’m moving, but, what if I wasn’t...’ You trailed off as Hyuck’s eyes filled with hope.

‘What are you saying?’ He asked, his lips twitching as he fought back a grin. He had never wanted anything more than he wanted you to be saying what he thought you were saying.

‘I’m saying, my dad got offered a permanent position here, and he took it. I’m not moving. I’m staying here, in the only place on earth I want to stay. Because, here, I get to be with you.’ You revealed.

A second passed as the revelation sank in and Donghyuck’s face split into the biggest smile you had ever seen on him. He rushed forwards towards you, his arms making their way around your waist as your bodies crashed into each other. You wound your arms around his neck, dropping your head into his shoulder and feeling him do the same. You breathed in, savouring the feeling of being wrapped in his embrace, the place you had missed so much.

Hyuck eventually lifted his head out of your neck, looking you deep in the eyes before he leant his forehead on yours and breathed out a soft:

‘I’ve missed you.’

You couldn’t stop the smile that grew on your face, nor could you stop your reply.

‘I missed you too.’

You pulled your forehead away from his, watching as his gaze flickered down to your lips and back up again, a questioning look in his eyes. You nodded, giving permission and Hyuck wasted no time in pressing his lips to yours.

You could have sworn fireworks went off. You had never understood that saying until that very moment, but right there, you felt an explosion of love that you hadn’t known was possible. You pressed yourself into him as his arms pulled you as close as possible until there wasn’t any space between your bodies.

You both pulled away to catch your breath, yet neither of you moved away from the other at all. You stayed just as close as you had been, with Hyuck’s arms never loosening from around your waist. He couldn’t stop himself from laughing slightly, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

‘I love you.’ He laughed, provoking a chuckle out of you too.

‘I love you more.’ You replied, grinning up at him as he raised an eyebrow at you.

‘Not possible.’ He answered back, his voice softening as he leant down to kiss you once more.

Hyuck kissed you again, and again, and again. He kissed you throughout the whole night, only stopping to whisper confessions of his love or to attempt to pull you closer to him than you already were. He came with you to pick up some takeout, he also insisted on paying, but even when waiting for the food, he held you tightly in a back hug.

He pulled your legs over his on the sofa at yours as he fed you your takeout while you watched a movie together. And he kept his tight grip on you as you went to sleep, tangled up together like vines, so intertwined that it seemed impossible to pull them apart.

Hyuck never ended up telling you why he held you so tightly that night. In his defence, you never really asked, and, as much as Hyuck allowed himself to be vulnerable and honest around you, this was something that he kept as his own little secret. As his own little confession. Whenever Hyuck was struggling, he just thought back to this night and how amazing it felt to finally have the girl he loved wrapped in his arms, with the knowledge that she will still be there when he wakes up.

He had finally found someone who he loved and would do anything for, and he never wanted to let you go.

---

Not even one month later, it was the Winter Formal. The school had decided to put a monumental amount of effort into it, hiring out a local ballroom and turning it into a winter wonderland, complete with fake snow, white trees, gentle lighting and sparkly white silk hanging around the room. You would be lying if you said that your breath wasn’t completely taken away when you walked in.

Yet none of it compared to the feeling of walking in with Hyuck on your arm.

Hyuck had surprised, not only you, but the entire school it seemed when he walked in with a smart suit on, a white flower in the pocket and green tie neatly around his neck. It seemed as though all eyes were on the two of you when you entered the hall, and you were sure that Hyuck’s look was something to do with it.

Of course he disagreed. He insisted that it was all to do with the green gown that you were wearing, claiming the way it hugged your figure in all the right places and the slit in the thigh made you look like a dream. Walking out of your house to meet Hyuck and seeing his jaw literally drop was a major confidence boost. That boy knew how to make you feel good about yourself.

You met your friends at the dance, and not even two minutes after arriving, were immediately pulled onto the dance floor by Jaemin.

‘You guys look good!’ He commented, flashing you his million dollar smile. ‘Probably the best out of everyone here. ’

‘Well we thought it was best to make an impression.’ You shrugged, grinning back at him.

Just as Hyuck opened his mouth to reply, your maths professor walked past, unable to stop himself from commenting.

‘Nice to see you finally put some effort into your appearance Haechan.’

‘Thank you sir. You too!’ Hyuck replied cheekily, before turning back to the two of you with a confused look on his face.

‘Was it just me or was that a little bit weird?’ He asked the two of you.

‘Just a bit, yeah!’ You replied, laughing as Jaemin agreed with you.

The music began to slow down and Jaemin, not wanting to get stuck in the masses of couples who were taking to the dance floor, said a quick goodbye before moving away.

Hyuck gently grabbed your hand with his, wrapping his other hand securely around your waist and pulled you in close to him. You rested your free hand on his shoulder and gently began to sway to the music.

The whole scene felt like something out of a movie. The soft lights were gently shining down on the two of you, making you feel as though you were the only two people there as the atmosphere surrounded you, enclosing you in your own little bubble. You found yourself getting lost in Hyuck’s eyes as the music faded slowly into the background, the sound of your heart beating for the boy in front of you overpowering everything else.

There really was nothing that you wouldn’t do for Hyuck. And, no matter what people told you, no matter what rumours you hear, you knew that you knew him. The real him. Not Haechan, not the bad boy cliche image that he puts up everyday, not everyone else’s perception of him as the kid who didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything. You knew Hyuck for who he truly was, all the good, the bad and the ugly. You had seen him at his highs and his lows, you trusted him with your heart and you knew he would never break it.

After all these years of moving and leaving things behind, you had finally found somewhere you could call home. Only it wasn’t a place. It was a person. And you knew that, as long as he was looking down at you with that much love in his eyes, you wouldn’t need any other home ever again.

Maybe senior year wasn’t just the best year of your life as everybody says it is, but also the beginning of the rest of it.

Roll credits.

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chibimyumi · 3 years

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Lost and Wins in Adaptation

Dear everyone, as per Anon’s request, I shall analyse a Kuromyu and discuss the Lost and Wins in Adaptation. The results of your democratic votes (comments and asks) are out, and the winner is TANGO ON THE CAMPANIA! In this post I shall only be discussing character/plot influential changes, so no stand-alone comedic sketches will be included.

This is going to be a very long post because there’s just so much to unpack. But feel free to read it in bits, or skip to the part you are most interested in (but do come back later though (ÒvÓ)b). This post will include the following sections:

What makes a good adaptation?

AberHanks - Expert Glue and Filler

“Just like my family!” - One line, many messages

Grell - A Capable Career Woman

An unfortunate Sacrifice

Raw Trash Demon

Active Inclusion Midfords - Manga Fix?

Reunion and Aftermath

Afterword

I promise you the analysis will make you love TotC even more!

1. What makes a good adaptation?

2.5D wouldn’t exist without the 2D, so it is essential for any 2.5D producer to prove to the fans the producing side understood the source material using their form of medium. Changes are inevitable, but the key is that when things are changed, the core of the original needs to remain intact.

Theatre as medium’s biggest disadvantage is its strict time constraints. Whether the producers are capable of adapting a story within the time constraints without it feeling like a quickly duct-taped patchwork is what distinguishes a good adaptation from a bad one. The scriptwriters have no choice but to sacrifice parts to tell a concise story, but the art is in skillfully choosing what to yeet. The musical does need to be able to stand on its own without new audiences going “what?”, after all

2. AberHanks - Expert Glue and Filler

The most obvious difference between the original manga and Tango on the Campania is the addition of Aberline and the musical original, Hanks. In Tango on the Campania they are very cleverly employed to tie the musical together within the time constraints.

Ronald appeared before the Campania Arc, but it wasn’t before this one that he gets his own proper introduction. What the manga readers and musical-only audience have in common then, is that at this point of the story, Ronald is almost equally new. The line: “if we get to meet again, alive, that is” is a very effective way to introduce Ronald’s chipper but cynical personality. In the manga Ronald’s conversation partner was a passenger who fancied Ronald. It would have been a waste of stage time to adapt the third class setting and introduce this girl too, but skipping the line entirely would not do Ronald’s introduction justice. So the script writers cleverly used AberHanks instead, and when Ronald delivered the iconic line, the impact is still the same as in the original.

Additionally, AberHanks are supportive roles in them being police officers who help combat the zombies. The historic Titanic had a really poor survival rate, and that’s without dealing with murderous zombies. In Campania however, that’s a different story. I would argue that Aberline and Hanks evacuation efforts, along with the Formidable Midfords greatly increased the survival rate of Campania passengers.

This addition is a brilliant three-birds-one-stone move. This firstly shows that despite AberHanks being the comic relief, as the police they are not there to fool around. Secondly, by explicitly placing the Midfords along literal fighters of crime, the audience also clearly understands what the Midfords - the Chivalric order - are: fellow fighters of crime.

Thirdly, the gentleman’s code of evacuation is children and women first, and AberHanks would undoubtedly also have heeded that code. And yet Frances was there, and AberHanks never attempted to evacuate her or doubted her skill. The police and Frances fighting side by side shows the audience that even in the 19th century, Frances is recognised firstly as member of the Chivalric Order, before being ““just a woman in a huge dress””. Don’t mess with her.

3. “Just like my family!” - one line, many messages.

A very small but game-changing alternation is when Ciel was trying to convince Lizzie to remove her dress to benefit escape. In the manga when Lizzie refused, O!Ciel immediately rips the dress, saying that once dead she won’t be able to wear any dress, because death is the end of everything.

In the musical with real child actors they couldn’t very well reenact this scene, so instead they gave Ciel the line: “Everything is over if you’re dead, just like my family!”

In the musical, Ciel doesn’t touch Lizzie, which is very clever. When someone refuses to remove her clothes, it is because she feels infringed, exposed and/or unsafe. If somebody doesn’t do something out of fear, what you need to do to convince them is to minimise that fear. By forcefully ripping her clothes, MangaCiel only made Lizzie feel even more infringed.

Instead of touching Lizzie, MusicalCiel appeals to Lizzie’s empathy. By making Ciel say “my family” to Lizzie, both audience and Lizzie are shown/reminded how Ciel had tragically lost his family, and cannot afford to lose more. At that time of the musical, new audiences wouldn't know yet what Ciel had been through. So when later the Cinematic Record of Sebas started, “just like my family” also functions as an effective foreshadowing of what would later be revealed, avoiding Ciel being in a cage looking like it came from nowhere to new audiences.

One could argue that Ciel’s phrase was emotional manipulation, yes... but it was a literal life or death situation for the objective good of everyone. And besides, we all know who our Trash Lord™ is; manipulation is part of him.

Ciel had yelled at Lizzie, and immediately he turned around, clutching his chest. It was such an impressive moment because it showed how that blow Ciel dealt was a doubled edged one. Lizzie was clearly hit too, and very quickly she realised her own fault and apologised. Then the most fun part for the audience is to consider whether this was Ciel’s genuine reaction, or whether that was all part of his acting skills in manipulating Lizzie. I say both are equally likely! (Oh Reo, you brilliant little...)

I personally consider this alteration superiour to the manga original.

4. Grell - A Capable Career Woman

Per Yana’s direct request to Grell’s actor, Uehara, she asked him to portray Grell as a capable career woman because Yana admitted she failed to do so herself.

Most of Yana’s request was fulfilled simply by Uehara’s acting and respect for Grell, but there is also one tiny line added to her script which emphasises her focus on her job. “I’m dropping you!”

Nobody on the Campania had time to fool around because it was literally going down. Grell had her job to do, and yet Rian thought it a good idea to withhold information from Grell about the method of stopping the zombies. By threatening Rian whose life was at Grell’s mercy with “I’m dropping you”, the audience is very effectively shown that Grell is a no-nonsense woman, and that she knows how to get someone to talk. 👌👌👌

5. An Unfortunate Sacrifice

Some things had to be omitted to fit the stage time limit, but the most painful omission in my opinion were details in Sebastian’s cinematic record.

A really unfortunate but understandable omission was Ciel reuniting with Tanaka and Madam Red... but considering the time constraints of the musical, shoe-horning these moments in with different actors would have come at the expense of the rest of the musical. Though very sad, it is what it is.

Another omission is Sebas forgetting to spare one assassin to interrogate. In this post I discussed in detail why this omission by the movie adaptation was such a sin. Tango on the Campania omitted that part too, though as a stage medium it is more forgivable than an animated movie with endless possibilities Ò^Ó. Nevertheless it is a bit sad, because this omission takes away that the audience can see how Sebas was just so used to massacring on auto pilot, and how even Sebas himself recognises he needs to learn control.

THOUGH, I must say the musical actually tries to compensate for this shortcoming, unlike the movie. This omission of what showed that Sebas was far from perfect at the beginning, Furukawa compensated by simply being the most insincere, passive-aggressive, unprofessional, arrogant prick he could be.

The audience won’t catch a hint that Sebas used to be no more than a weapon, but they will see how Sebastyun never served a human on close proximity before!

6. Raw Trash Demon

I have already talked about how Sebastyun is a real game-changer on this blog, so I will not repeat every detail again. So here I will only address the significant changes in spoken lines that add to Sebastian’s character before he was fully trained. In this post I discussed in detail how Furukawa portrayed Sebastian’s gradual growth from raw demon to one hell of a butler. Sebas at the beginning was really butler in appearance only, as he was insolent and never knew when to shut his wondrous trap.

In stage format it would have been quite awkward to do a bath scene, so instead the creators replaced it with a wound-dressing scene. Instead of pouring hot water over the boy, Sebastyun is now scrubbing his master’s skin off. When the boy protests, rather than immediately apologising like his manga counterpart did, Sebastyun just shoves the feedback right back down the boy’s throat. “You’re making too much of a big deal out of it.” Here we see how Sebas is not there to serve his master, he’s just doing his thing because he has to.

Another line that is musical only is when Ciel’s stomach rumbled, and Sebas laughed his arse off, saying: “what an inglorious sound!” In the manga Sebas started a high-horse speech about human weakness, which was quite bold already. But he did not seem to dare straight up humiliate his master for a basic bodily need.

Sebastyun however? Balls of steel.

He humiliates his master, can’t apologise for shit, and when he says things in compliance with his master, it’s in a tone of: “well, screw you too”. Sebastyun was so bad at his job that Ciel too was given another line that wasn’t in the manga: “The preparations of a day’s meals is part of a butler’s job”.

Sebas had just criticised his master for being a useless kid, and now Ciel makes a comeback with the line: “well, you don’t even know what your literal job is, let alone how to do it.” The addition of this line is very powerful in my opinion, because it quite effectively compensates for the omitted scenes of Ciel and Sebas both sucking at their respective roles.

When O!Ciel commented on Sebas’ awful cooking, MangaSebas seemed quite willing to do his job well, and immediately offered to fix his mistake. Sebas does not apologise, but he does show that he made a mistake in not being considerate enough of Ciel’s current condition.

Sebastyun however, couldn’t apologise for shit at the beginning. Instead of showing openness to feedback, he immediately externalises by making humans the problem again, rather than his own lack of cooking skill. No wonder Ciel smashed that table with such aggression!

Another changed line is Sebas bringing his master hot milk after his failed dinner attempt. Originally Sebas did so potentially as an attempt to show his readiness to do better at his job. He explains that he does so out of consideration for the well-being of the boy.

In the musical however, Sebastyun does not say the manga line. Instead he says: “I can’t afford to have you starve to death.” I am not sure whether this was the script or Furukawa’s improvisation, but either way it perfectly shows yet again, how Sebas is not there to serve his master, but to just get his tasks over with.

This is a very short but efficient alternative way to retell how Sebas especially at the beginning was not very enthusiastic about being summoned, as analysed here from the original Japanese manga. Sebas is not like: “(UwU) gimme more orders”, he’s like: “(ಠ_ಠ) what is it this time?”

A small addition that was definitely an improvisation was Sebastyun sitting down on Ciel’s bed, and the boy pushing him away. (At the beginning of the run Furukawa didn’t do that yet. The first time Furukawa sat down Reo just moved aside and gave Sebas a nasty look.) Here it also reemphasises how little Sebastian understood of what was done and NOT done as a servant.

A final, noteworthy addition in the far beginning of their contract was Ciel saying that he acknowledges both he himself are the demon are still fakes. The boy says this line after Sebas had brought him hot milk which Ciel appreciated.

Ciel calls his butler forward in a soft tone, and Sebastyun just looked so self-congratulatory, self-satisfied, he adjusted his suit, standing all ready like: PRAISE ME! (●´ิ∀´ิ●)✨

Yeah no... you wish.

In the manga this line doesn’t exist, so Sebas is simply surprised to hear the compliment, and then his master just splashes the cold water right over him.

7. Active Inclusion Midfords - Manga Fix?

The most dramatic and influential change to the musical is the active inclusion of the Midfords. It is an entire scene that was added to the musical, so it is a bit impossible to unpack everything in this already very long post. So here I will only address the most game-changing alterations.

Yana Beaten to the Punch, strike 2 and 3?

Now many chapters later than the Campania Arc, we know that the Midfords had been the legal guardians of Ciel after the death of his family. But even before the release of the chapter, we’d see in Sebastyun’s Cinematic Record how the Midfords were very involved with their nephew. This shows how much respect for the manga the musical producers had, and how well they understood their source material that they too could beat Yana to the punch. Strike 2!

Both Midfords were present before and during the decoration ceremony. And Sebas bows deeply, thanking them sincerely for their aid all this time. Sebas cannot lie, so when he says “sincere gratitude”, it really was sincere. Alexis responds humbly, saying that it’s simply the right thing to do.

Not only did the Midfords aid Ciel in his reintegration into the world, Frances also showed the audience and Sebas she knows exactly what she is preparing the child for. Frances says she understands how cruel it is for the young Ciel to do what is expected of him, because being Earl means more than wealth and power. It is: “shouldering the burden and name of ‘the Queen’s Watchdog’.” The musical also does a great job at linking Frances’ position as the previous Watchdog’s sister, to being the legal guardian of the future Watchpuppy.

I have seen many manga readers talk about how they found Frances’ involvement insufficient in the manga, and I understand. She has a very small role in the manga, so we don’t know what she has or hasn’t done to help. But in Tango on the Campania, we do get a much clearer sense of the Midfords’ role in Ciel’s life.

Ciel was still mid-preparation before the start of the Ceremony, but Frances and Alexis had already arrived to keep a parental eye on him.Ciel is surprised, but Frances responds with: “it would set a bad example if the star is late”. Though it is but one short phrase, the script writers shows (not ‘tells’) how she is there because she wants to make sure Ciel’s decoration will go smoothly, as well as that her own role is to set an example for Ciel by being on time herself.

This is possibly a reference to what Sebas says to Frances in chapter 14, how he wishes her to be his master’s example. Except that here in the musical, it is Frances who takes this initiative, which in my opinion is the superiour way.

When Frances commends Ciel for his courage of returning to fight, Sebastian adds: “The most opportune chance for counter attack is when the opponent strikes. That is what milady Frances had taught him, the Young Master said.”

To which Frances is quite surprised to hear, and incredulously she says: “Ciel said that?” This makes one suspect whether Frances really said those words to supposedly Real Ciel. It would be very funny if Sebastian (accidentally) gave Frances a hint of his master’s real identity. I am not sure whether this is an implicit hint that Frances might have started suspecting Ciel is not the Real Ciel. Some have theorised Frances has the deepest suspicions among everyone. If that turns out to be true, then TotC might have beaten the original manga to the punch again. Potential strike three!

Another change is the replacement of Madam Red with Alexis. This one is just a very pragmatic change, because the phrase “To Ciel you are already as good as family” is very iconic and important and shouldn’t be left out. But getting a Madam Red in here out of nowhere would require time-consuming exposition. So by giving this phrase to Alexis instead, the musical effectively solves two problems in one go.

8. Reunion and Aftermath

Another addition to the original manga is the reunion on the rescue ship, just like the the movie adaptation of the Campania Arc did. After all that has happened it is very nice for the audience to see the emotional reunion and the aftermath. In the manga the Arc ended with Sebas and his master on the rescue boat, and it had a very nice, open feeling to it, I absolutely love it! 💖🚤

Audience Considerate Story Telling

To a musical-only audience (which TotC had a lot of because of the collaboration with TOHO), the opening ending might have felt a bit abrupt. These musical-only spectators don’t have the Arcs after the Campania to know for sure Sebas and Ciel went home safely, and that life would just continue. Nor would they know for sure what kind of impact the enormous revelation of Undertaker being a reaper would have on our protagonists. Had the non-manga audiences been given the same ending as the original, then it might have looked a bit like this to them.

Also considering the musical medium, any (Japanese) audience would want a satisfying finale song to wrap everything up. (Kuromyu21 not having one was a real complaint among JP spectators). And after the dramatic brawl song of Sebas fighting the zombies on that boat, you can’t very well pull another song on that tiny thing again. Okay, the song TotC did settle with for the finale song was......very disappointing in my opinion as it reminded me more of a Disney parade, but it at least had a song.

Emotional Full Circle

Despite the song being quite unfitting, the emotional reunion really, REALLY hit hard. When Lizzie says “welcome back” to Ciel, it was a perfect full circle back to what Lizzie couldn’t do 3 years ago.

In her flashback of 3 years ago when Ciel returned to her, the boy lifelessly said: “I’m back... Elisabeth”. Lizzie however never responded with “welcome back” because she was too preoccupied with something just feeling off.

In the musical reunion however, unlike 3 years ago Lizzie was fully emotionally equipped to genuinely welcome her fiancé back, and Ciel too happily responds: “yeah, I’m back, Lizzie”, using Lizzie’s preferred name.

Sebastian’s Aftermath

The reunion is but a simple addition, but it allows the musical to show the impact of such a traumatic event on the omnipotent demon butler.

The Cinematic Record showed how cocky Sebastyun was, and how he didn’t have a single worry in his life. After Undertaker had fatally wounded even the demon however, Sebas became a different person. In the finale we see Undertaker silently disappearing into the shadows. Sebastyun wasn’t even entirely sure whether Undertaker was there, but at the merest suspicion already you see him flinch and twitch. This shows how from now on Sebas has become a person who is on edge.

I mean, what’s the point of telling an event if the event doesn’t impact the story and characters, right? In this way too, the inserted aftermath scene skillfully wraps up an overwhelmingly eventful story.

9. Afterword

Well, thank you for reading this looong post till the end! As discussed in this post, TotC did a wonderful job at adapting an existing story with consideration of its audience and medium.

The largest obstacle of the theatre medium is time constraint, so the makers have to sacrifice parts. In what was sacrificed however, they more than sufficiently compensated by including parts outside the Campania Arc into the musical, without harming the integrity. This shows just how much respect and knowledge the TotC team have of the source material.

As a musical adaptation, it is an exemplary production.

Hyper Detailed Development - The Art of Kneeling

That Demon, Skin Crawling

That Butler - Punchable

Lost in Translation II - Sebastyun’s Butlernese

#Kuromyu #Comparative analysis #Tango on the Campania #Campania #Musical #Sebastyun #Furukawa Yuta #Uchikawa Reo

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