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dourpeep · 3 years

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i have even more ideas now...

what about like the moment you open up about your relationship with kazuxiao the fans who were already seeing that happen were celebrating and on both of y'alls insta or something is where you announce and it's like a picture of all 3 of you chilling together or something

and then when they finally appear on a variety show they're just questioned throughly and they talk about how you guys meet and what they like about you

ok but the moments where you just feel sort of insecure since being an idol is hard and you're technically dating your seniors and you're just hit by the antis who are against yourself relationship so you lock yourself in your room in your dorm by yourself to cope. your roommate (can be whoever) contacts them both and they immediately come over and come in and offer soft kisses and soft murmurs of reassurance that they'll never leave you and that everything's gonna be ok.

side note i can see xiao just being a whole meme without realizing?? for like variety shows he's just known for his dead pan expression and then i can see him being so competitive on shows like running man..mans ripping tags left and right, while kazuhas just hiding in a weird spot or something

kazuha on the other hand i can see him being a troll, he likes to mess around with the hosts of the show and manages to mess up some of their plans, he also likes messing with his group members, where xiao likes to say that kazuha looks innocent but is a part of the devil line with venti

onto albedo i can see him like answering questions in his vlive and fans realize that a lot of his songs are more romantic and sort of pining?? and they're asking where the motivation is from. he answers that it's just something that he saw recently so he felt motivated (it wasn't the fact that he had realized that he was 100% in love with you)

but like all of this mans inspiration comes from you, he's had multiple songs dedicated to you before your relationship was even open to the public, and when your relationship finally does, it just clicks for fans and it suddenly makes sense, your ship name trends worldwide for the day

but how you and albedo met, i can see both of you guys being in the industry already and you guys are sort of know each other but it was for a one time off collab with other artists involved so you didn't really talk with each other. like i said before albedos a solo artist while i can see you being a part of a popular group already. but then both of your companies decided to do another collab and especially picked you two since you guys already worked on a collab before.

at first it was like awkward since albedos really socially awkward but then things click when you guys start writing the song together. everything just matches so well?? and you guys just compliment each other?? and that's when you learn of albedo just staying at the studio so late so you often bring food. this leads to you guys getting closer and albedo even stops his work just to talk to you more. when your song comes out and everyone is waiting for the stage, there's just so much tension?? but the good kinda and everyone is awed by the song and the vocals coming from you and albedo.

i can also see the both of you guys appearing on variety shows together too, like appearing on a show where you two travel to another place and experience the culture there, with albedo being your tour guide and showing you all the famous places (one of the many times where fans were awed by his research and knowledge) and then if you guys were to appear together again after you guys reveal your relationship, a lot of the times they show idols as they wake up, they'll see you and albedo being clingy af to each other.

on another side note, albedos totally a troll on variety shows, he likes messing around with the hosts and other contestants since a lot of the time he's not really interested in the show itself, it's more for publicity. however, when he first appeared on a show with you fans noticed that he actually seemed interested for once and that's where your ship name started.

albedos totally a golden child tho, he's like basically perfect in everything so a lot of the times variety shows don't catch him slipping, however the one time that he did was when you were mentioned, the clip of with his ears bright red was trending for a couple of days :)

GIVING ME SO MUCH GOOD FOOD THANK YOU ANON

I think that this covers everything hehehe so I won't add to-

wait wait I put it all under the cut b/c it's a lot again-

Okay okay but like for the 'announcement' picture, what if it's like those photo booth pics (but like each picture you need to scroll through like on Insta) where it's cute and wholesome! The three of you are having fun wearing some silly glasses or hats, doing peace signs or finger hearts....and the very last photo is the three of you sharing a kiss- or, at least trying to.

It's sweet, a little silly, and most of your fans take it really well! After all, they can see the chemistry that you share and can't deny that the three of you would have a good relationship.

As for the insecurities of dating your seniors, Kazuha and Xiao are quick to knock back any of those worries. They love you so, so much and hate the fact that something like that makes you doubt for a single second. If anyone ever tries to bring it up, you know that they're going to immediately quip back.

Naturally, you're roomed with Venven :D He's technically an up-and-coming after he stopped doing idol stuff for a few years, so not only does he know the ropes, but he's also one of your biggest fans and biggest supports (outside of Kazuha and Xiao).

Though he's silly and light-hearted, he's quick to recognize when things are serious and need handling.

So as soon as he sees that you're not doing so great or if he notices the comments on your posts are going in a bad direction, he speed dials Xiao and the two of your boyfriends are right at the door in under 15.

Not only are they fast about it, but they have all your favorite snacks, a movie or two, some popcorn, and a ton of love and affection because they'll be damned if their love is going to be affected by some asshole's comments about their love life! What do they know anyway??

Actually this all could work too if Kazuha and Xiao are part of 4NEMO-

Hmmm

That'd cause so much more ruckus- not only is half of one of the most popular idol groups are taken, but by the same person??? And each other??? Man, that's wack.

BUT THE GAMESHOWS

Xiao would most certainly be super intense with those. He just can't help it--competition drives his blood and makes something snap in him. He's dead serious about doing well, regardless of the game. I actually have never watched said game shows, but--

Like...he's out for blood. No one is safe. Not even you or Kazuha if you're on opposing teams, though he'll be a bit more gentle. Maybe even with the hint of a smile while you have an expression of utter shock at the fact that he's just so fast-

Or if it's not a game show and instead you're doing some sort of idol group activity with a few others to get to know each other?

Someone suggests ping pong and, knowing how competitive Xiao gets, he's pitted up against Tartaglia and man. That's scary. There's no doubt that someone would clip the video and make it into an overly-dramatic retelling complete with music.

Hilarious.

As for Kazuha! He'd be a bit of a mish mosh! He enjoys poking fun at others, and he's so sly! Those poor hosts don't realize that he's goading them on, but sure enough--he is. Who knew that his charming smile and mild-mannered attitude could be so devastating?

But even then, he's mostly wholesome! There's a lot of little clips, mostly of your doing, of him in a 'kiss the chef' apron getting caught off guard while cooking something up. The videos aren't great because you're giggling while recording and he ends up placing the ladle down calmly before wrapping you up in his arms. Half the video ends up being the two of you laughing and joking while it's pointed at a weird angle towards the counter.

Sometimes it'll point just right and you'll get a half-blurred view of Xiao sitting at the kitchen island with his reading glasses perched on his nose and book forgotten. He tends to get up and join in for a few smooches before reminding Kazuha of the food that's still cooking.

Albedo!! He absolutely is the golden child. He's fantastic handling things under pressure in a cool, calm manner. Handsome, charismatic, incredibly smart--man's hit all the stops and just keeps going.

It's not until it comes out that the two of you are together that his cool façade (hardly one, though) falters and at the mere mention of you, he'll go soft. There's a tenderness in his eyes, a small smile on his lips, and his blush? Absolutely adorable. How can anyone object when he's obviously so in love with you?

And the idea you mentioned with the two of you traveling and experiencing stuff together sounds so cute (':

He particularly enjoys exploring new cuisine, so expect him to feed you some food from his plate-

There's also a few times where you two have gotten lost in the new places, more because you're both so busy taking in the sights to realize you've taken five wrong turns- But then you make it into a whole adventure, foregoing the map and deciding to wander around. What better way to discover and learn about somewhere than getting lost and wandering?

You find quite a few hidden gems this way since otherwise you'd be hitting more popular areas!

Wait- do they really show idols waking up???

Ahh regardless, Albedo's definitely a cuddler. He loves it, can't get enough of it. It's not often that he gets a good night's rest, but with you it seems like he's fully recharged and ready for the day! It's cute too because it doesn't matter--big spoon or little spoon, you on his chest or him resting on yours. Even a few times with you facing each other with your hands intertwined.

I also agree that Albedo would mess with the game show's hosts and contestants. Not only would he, but he'd be entirely smug about it (after all, we need to have that #smugbedo going on).

No doubt, there's been times where the cameras even focus/zoom in on him where he's sitting because he's got that smirk on his face.

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ganymedesclock · 3 years

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These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user.

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist.

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you’ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

#disability #writing ruminations #readmore

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charmedseoull · 3 years

Text

The Aftermath of Fanfiction Authors with Reba Interview

Before You Read the Interview

I contacted Reba after she posted a Reddit thread titled “When a fic becomes too popular and the author deletes their account and/or work. Explained.” on a throwaway account. We discussed details of the interview during December over email, then started the interview in January. This interview is not associated with a project and is its own independent work. Reba has chosen to remain anonymous.

She provides insight on potential reasons to why fanfiction authors abandon their work from the perspective of a fanfiction reader. She also answered general fandom questions and questions about herself so readers could understand her background.

Charmedseoul is a BTS-focused anonymous historian who documents fandom history using Fanlore. If you would like to be interviewed to help document perspectives in fandom, please contact her on Twitter @charmedseoul or on Tumblr @charmedseoull.

Parts of this interview have been edited with links to Fanlore and Wikipedia pages for understanding. Any information in [brackets] serves for further clarity for readers and elaboration of information.

Now presenting the interview with Reba, long-time fanfiction reader and participant in fandom:

When did you first join fandom culture?

I joined fandom culture in 2014. I feel like fandoms really peaked during this time. [Presence of SuperWhoLock and other Tumblr specific fandoms.]

What fandoms are you in? How have your experiences in them been?

I will be honest and say fandom culture isn’t for me- so I can’t say I’m active in any fandoms (I’m just a silent consumer) but growing up I was a fan of music artists mostly; Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande… I loved the IT 2017 movie adaptation for a long time (I still do), and early 2020 is when I got into BLACKPINK, then BTS. My experience with all of these has been good, and maybe that’s because I don’t see any of the drama and arguments online- but I don’t regret any of my past interests because they all made me happy at one point in time.

What do you like about fandoms?

What I like about fandoms is how happy it can make an individual; getting excited for a new music video, smiling at behind the scenes photos… it can bring someone a little joy if they are having a bad day.

What do you dislike about fandoms?

I don’t like stan culture at all; fandom drama, arguing on twitter with strangers to defend an artist who doesn’t even know you… it all seems toxic. While I'm sure healthy stanning does exist, I don't think it's easy to achieve at all.

How long have you been an ARMY? What are your opinions about the fandom? How has your experience in the fandom been?

I became an ARMY in early 2020 when Map of the Soul: 7 was released, so only a year. I really do like the fandom; ARMY is the only fandom I’ve seen where there are so many fans worldwide of all different ages, and that just shows how BTS and their music really is for everyone. There is so much BTS content that there’s never a dull day, so my experience in the fandom has been enjoyable!

Did you ever leave ARMY and take a break then come back?

I’ve never left ARMY, that being said, I’m a newbie and haven’t been here for long.

When did you first start reading fanfiction?

I have been exposed to fanfiction since 2014, but I wasn’t in any fandom back then and started reading fanfiction in 2017.

What do you think the purpose behind fanfiction is?

We mostly read for entertainment but there is definitely a purpose to fanfiction, as for all art. Fanfiction is a great thing for both reader and writers, it can be an outlet for many people, a way to experience things that you don't have a chance to experience in your own life. It also can be a good base ground for people who want to start writing, or for someone who finds reading huge paperback novels difficult. Fanfiction is so easily accessible, you can pull up a story to read or share your work at the press of a button.

As you’ve read fanfiction over the years, do you feel like anything about fanfiction has changed?

Yes! Fanfiction is taken a lot more seriously now, people who write fanfiction treat it like an actual novel with plotting and editing- the quality of fanfiction in general is a lot better. Fandom ships have also changed; when I was a teenager Harry Styles fanfictions were crazy popular, now the fanfics that seem to be more popular are BTS! So that just shows when music evolves, pretty much everything else does too.

As a reader, how do you view authors?

I'm always amazed by fanfic authors because they practically write whole novels for free. Writing can be such a personal thing, and it does take talent; there is a story the author wants to convey, and when a story is told in a beautiful way, it leaves a lasting impact on the reader. I’m sure that must be a euphoric feeling for the author- it means they told their story, and they did it well.

Do you think many other readers share the same view as you?

No, not at all. There are readers out there who don’t really think about the time and effort authors put into their stories. I’ve seen readers expect so much, and criticise something so little. It’s sad- people should be able to write whatever they want, writing is supposed to encourage creativity. Authors shouldn’t have to fear backlash for doing just that. Being creative.

Why do you think so many authors delete/orphan their work after it gains popularity?

When a story gains popularity- it attracts good and bad attention alike. Unfortunately the negative affects us a lot more, it’s just human nature. While authors do put their work out there, I don’t think they are ever prepared for their stories to become so popular. I am sure it is overwhelming and that’s why authors feel the need to distance themselves from it all and delete/orphan their work.

What stories prompted you to start thinking about why authors delete/orphan their works?

I read a story called mixtape (IT movie) and I was around long enough to see chapters be uploaded each week. I also saw the struggles the author went through when their fanfic began to rise in popularity, which eventually led to the story being completely deleted from the internet. So I thought this could have been a one-off since I hadn’t read many fanfictions. I then moved onto BTS fanfiction and decided to read the most talked about ones first, only to see a lot of them were by orphaned accounts (so not just a one-off occurrence!). House of Cards by sugamins was the one that got me thinking, I thought “why would somebody not want to be associated with this amazing writing?!” That’s when I began to do some research and stumbled across your interview with the author!

How do you think backlash for a work harms an authors mental health?

An immense amount of feedback, positive or negative, can take a toll on one person. A lot of authors can be reserved people and they write because they are passionate, as an outlet or just a hobby. So when their work does receive backlash it can be very upsetting- it could make them doubt their reasons and capabilities and affect an author so much they might stop writing all together.

How do you think some authors manage their mental health and not delete a work?

This is a hard question because everyone deals with backlash differently. I know some authors who are not bothered by backlash and they choose to ignore it and move on with their day, and then there are other authors who are more anxious and have to put a lot of measures in place to protect their mental health; from your interview with sugamins they explain how they didn’t want to destroy their work, just distance themselves from it, so that’s always an option.

Taking time away from social media and getting enough rest, it is important to not neglect your well-being. Finding a way to cope when you feel low; animals tend to ground me and improve my mental health- they are loving and don’t judge you for who you are. Maybe you cope by talking with friends, or listening to your favourite song. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it helps.

At what point with mental health do you think authors start to consider deletion/orphaning?

I think an author starts to consider deleting/orphaning their work when it completely consumes them. It is not healthy to be fixated on something that is no longer bringing you happiness, you need to let it go. If you are an author reading this, just know you are not your feedback, it doesn’t define your existence, okay? Fanfiction should add to your life, not take away from it.

Why do you think some readers invade an authors privacy?

Sometimes, people care more about the author than the work they have created. So when a fanfic has deeply touched a reader and helped them through so much, they want to reach out in any way and tell them so- this can be invasive if the reader is not careful about their approach.

How do you think authors manage this privacy invasion?

Stopping it before it happens; not using your real name, having a separate account for writing, don’t link social media accounts in your works etc. If privacy has already been compromised and a reader is making the author uncomfortable, then disabling comments on their works, making a new social media or changing their accounts to private would be smart. Just knowing how to keep safe online.

At what point with privacy invasion do you think authors start to consider deletion/orphaning?

When you are at risk of being doxed. I think when readers are going as far as finding authors’ personal accounts and messaging their friends- anything along those lines is scary and the reader is going from a supporter to an intrusive stranger real fast.

Why do you think anonymity is important for fanfiction writing?

When your full name is attached to everything you do, people have a very easy way to get back to you. This is why authors keep an anonymous profile, and it is important readers respect that. Most authors don’t want their family, friends, employer etc to see that sort of stuff. It is completely okay to remain professional and keep fanfiction writing separate from personal life.

Do you think fanfiction writing should stay free? Do you think authors should be paid for their work?

I do think fanfiction writing should stay free on the sites they originate from (AO3 for example). However, if the author wants to take their work elsewhere to earn money then I don’t see an issue in that. I am glad you mention copyright law with fanfiction in particular because the author of mixtape (the fanfiction I mentioned earlier) tried to self publish their work while keeping canon names, the author tried to justify it as a parody work and everyone was so concerned that they reported the book until it got removed. I have seen stories on Wattpad become published books to purchase, however, the names had been changed to original characters- I think this seems like a much more logical move to avoid any legal repercussions.

As a reader, how has an author’s work connected with you personally?

I have had works connect with me on a personal level, one in particular is Somebody To Love by LOVERVMINS (orphaned). My standards are impossibly high after reading that fanfic and I don’t think I will ever come across something so beautiful again. Somebody To Love is a taekook fic that was uploaded to AO3 in 2019, the author ended up deleting all their works but thankfully left this particular story up. I was immediately captured by the incredible writing and unique plot; the story of two lovers who were never meant for each other, but destiny found its way anyway… I apologise in advance for how long this summary (with spoilers) is, but I think my thoughts are proof of how this story has connected with me so much!

(Spoilers for Somebody to Love by LOVERVMINS. Please feel free to scroll to the next bolded question to avoid spoilers.)

In this story, Taehyung is a successful lawyer while Jungkook is just a student, despite the difference in status and wealth, they are intrigued by one another from the very start. After meeting Taehyung, Jungkook is left feeling confused about himself, the internalised homophobia is strong to begin with but as the chapters progress Jungkook goes from someone who is afraid of society and what people may think, to strong and outspoken. Taehyung plays a fundamental part in this, because if Jungkook were to never meet Taehyung, he wouldn’t have realised who he really was, he wouldn’t have been brave enough to discover his sexuality and fall in love in a time where it was so unaccepting. Taehyung is bold and confident on the surface, giving little regard for anybody other than himself, but his concern for others soon changes after he meets Jungkook, he becomes a better man. He could have had his heart desires- but Taehyung was no longer selfish from those few months he spent with Jungkook, so he stayed with his wife to be a good father.

Taehyung makes Jungkook promise him he will find somebody to love (hence the title), and he does, Jungkook finds somebody to love and he is happy- Taehyung finds this out when they unexpectedly meet a few years later, this is the final time Jungkook and Taehyung see each other… but knowing Jungkook is happy, leaves Taehyung happy.

There are different kinds of love, some last forever, and some just for a chapter of your life. It is clear Jungkook was Taehyung’s forever. And I don’t think Jungkook’s love for Taehyung ever went away, he just found another kind of love like he had promised. Jungkook had to live his life; he couldn’t wait for Taehyung, to leave his marriage in the unforeseeable future, or watch him raise his kids from afar, this shows that even if society were accepting, their circumstances were too far gone- if only they met sooner, or in another life. It makes you imagine a world where they could have been together, it makes you think beyond the story even when it’s ended.

It has been a month or two since I read LOVERVMINS work, and I still feel a pang in my chest every time I think of Taehyung’s letter for Jungkook in the epilogue.

Why do you think others think they have the right to know an authors personal information?

I think in this day and age, everything about a person is on show, so people just expect that sort of information from you. Authors appreciate feedback- but they don't know the reader, their family or what they do for fun. Vice versa. You only see a small glimpse into the authors life, and the stuff you see is what they feel comfortable enough to show. That should be enough.

Do you consider writing an art form?

I do consider writing an art form. Writing is like painting an image in the readers mind. I think it is better than visual art because when you are reading a story, not everyone is going to envision the exact same thing, it is up to the imagination. I think that is what makes it so beautiful- we all collectively love a story, yet, we somehow interpret it differently.

Why do you think Archive of Our Own is the ideal platform for fanfiction writing?

I think Archive of Our Own is ideal for fanfiction writing because they give you many options with your work so you are comfortable- it is easy to remove comments, delete an account, or orphan works while keeping your account etc. It is important authors get control of what happens to their work if they want to leave and go in a different direction.

Do you think other fanfiction writing platforms like Fanfiction.net and Wattpad are ideal or lacking?

I think Wattpad is ideal for younger audiences; it’s more visual with book covers and the layout in general is more appealing, I also feel like the stories on there are targeted for pre-teens. When I first got into fanfiction, I did start on Wattpad because it was easier to navigate. I look back now though and do think it is lacking in terms of quality, a lot of the stories are written for shock value and don’t really make much sense because of that. It is hard to find a story on Wattpad that ticks all the boxes (but not impossible). Wattpad also had a breach with data last summer and everyone’s emails got pwned so that made a lot of people move to AO3. I have never used Fanfiction.net so unfortunately I can’t speak for that one. Overall, AO3 has much more content, you can find a story with ease once you know how to use the site.

How has fanfiction writing affected the people in your personal life?

How did you find out that your sister is writing fanfiction?

My sister wrote a Harry Styles fanfic in 2014 which gathered around half a million reads on Wattpad, she got comments from people telling her how much her fanfic has impacted their lives pretty much every day. My sister and I are close and we share the same friends, I noticed when we would have sleepovers she was always on her phone and never paid attention to the movies we were watching. I think all the numbers did affect her for a moment and it wasn’t until my sister started her exams that she realised she had to put her concentration into those to pass, that’s how she came to the decision to delete the story. I asked her recently if she regrets deleting it and she told me she doesn’t at all, she now looks back and doesn’t think her writing was good back then. So I think that shows authors do know what they’re doing and what is best for them in the long run.

My sister had a one direction fan account on Instagram that had 100k+ followers (insane!), she was always open with her interests and I found out she started writing fanfiction through that account.

What personal reasons do you think authors have for deleting/orphaning works?

The list is endless; maybe the author wrote the story in a bad time in their life and they want to delete it because it reminds them of that time, they could have left the fandom, or they simply do not like their story anymore- they grew up and know they can do so much better. It is okay for an author to grow apart from their work, it shows they are growing as a person too.

Why do you think authors get backlash from writing dark themes?

I think authors receive backlash from writing dark themes because it can be triggering for some and can bring up unpleasant memories.

What do you think are the responsibilities of an author when writing dark themes?

A safe bet would be to tag anything relating to abuse (physical, emotional, etc), mental illness (eating disorders, self harm, suicide, etc), graphic violence and rape/sexual assault. That’s what comes to mind. And if a trigger occurs only in a certain chapter, then having an additional warning in the chapter notes would be helpful.

What do you think are the responsibilities of a reader when reading dark themes?

If dark subjects are included in the tags, don’t read the story if it could trigger you. It is as simple as that. People decide to read the fanfic then get mad at the author for triggering them. I am not trying to insult anybody who has triggers, maybe they read a story and their specific trigger was never mentioned in the additional tags… this is what the ‘chose not to archive warnings’ box is for, with this option, it is handled in AO3’s FAQ that major tags are not necessary. In shirt, this means there may be triggering content in the fic that is not disclosed by the author. Plus, there is usually a pop up banner before you click on a story which reads ‘this work could have adult content. if you proceed you have agreed that you are willing to see such content’. There are so many warnings, you can’t miss them. It is a case of reading at your own risk, you can’t blame the author if you do not like the result.

Do you think authors are facing too much pressure from readers about what themes they write?

I do think authors face unnecessary pressure with the themes they write; they are put on such a pedestal that when they write something that isn’t what the audience want, they receive a lot of negative criticism. Authors, no matter what themes you are writing, there is no need to worry if you are writing for yourself and putting out the content you set out to create.

Why do you think authors write dark themes?

Dark themes are simply an exploration of difficult emotions along with unpleasant events or consequences. Authors write dark themes because it serves a narrative purpose. And authors don’t have to be ‘dark’ people or experience all of these unsettling things to write such content.

Why do you think readers read dark themes?

Dark themes are not for everyone, I personally don’t think there are enough dark works out there. I read dark themes because it interests me more, I want to know how the characters are going to cope with the consequences, or heal from the trauma. Other readers might prefer dark themes for the graphic content, this is fine too. Fictional violence is not real- we all know this, so there is no reason to be terrified.

Why do you think so many authors want to have their work get popular?

People may disagree, but I think it has a lot to do with validation. Subconsciously, authors want people to like their work- a rise in popularity means readers are seeing the authors work, and hopefully taking enjoyment from it. This isn’t a bad thing as long as you realise validation does not equal self-worth. There are people out there who write and do not gain much attention, but that doesn’t stop them from posting their work anyway.

Do you think a work’s popularity is important?

I personally don’t. I read a range of fanfictions- some are super popular, others are not. It is the content I am more interested in, not how many hits/views it has.

Should we judge authors for deleting/orphaning their work?

Not at all! I am sure authors have thought long and hard before coming to their decision.

How should we view situations where authors delete/orphan their work?

For a reader, it can be upsetting when authors delete/orphan their work, especially if there is no possibility of reading that story again. However, we need to show compassion and view the situation from the authors perspective; gaining popularity on a fanfic isn't as pleasant as it might seem, it is much more complicated than that. A lot of feedback, both good and bad, can be overwhelming. Mental health is important, and if that means distancing yourself from something so popular, then it must be done. Privacy can be compromised, people in your real life might find out you write these stories and not be accepting, or readers become invasive which is a scary situation to be in. And a mixture of personal reasons, people are allowed to grow and change and want to distance themselves from things they are no longer proud of.

What do you think authors should be aware of in case their work does get popular?

This is a good question… I think authors need to be aware that with good feedback, also comes bad feedback. You cannot please every single person on this earth, but that is not your job- so do not take it personally.

Do you have any last messages to readers of this interview?

I want to thank you in particular, Charm. This interview is probably the coolest thing I’ll ever get to do for the BTS fandom and I’m so grateful that our paths crossed so we could create this interview together. You are such a kind soul and it has been a pleasure from start to finish.

For the authors reading this interview; I am just a reader, but I do understand how it can be hard for you to continue on when you are going through so many struggles readers don’t get to see. Just know you are appreciated, and you are supported no matter what you decide to do with your works in the future. Having popular works shouldn’t feel like a burden, there are blessings hidden in there- you have made readers feel a rollercoaster of emotions with your talent, you are able to engage with readers around the world, and you have created a beautiful story from nothing… you did that!

For the silent readers like myself: let the authors of your favourite work know how much you loved it (in a respectful way) before it is too late! I so wish I had the chance to tell the author of Somebody To Love how their story broke my heart then healed it again. Treasure the fanfictions you love because they very well could be gone tomorrow!

Thank you for reading this interview. Further below are reminders and information about this interview and Charmedseoul’s Fanlore projects.

Reba has chosen to remain anonymous. No social media or information about her will be released publicly.

This interview was conducted through email from January 31, 2021 to February 1, 2021 with Reba’s consent and protections under Fanlore’s Identity Protection policies and the posting website’s privacy policies. Unauthorized reposting of this interview is forbidden.

Due to the casual nature of this interview, repost of this interview is strictly prohibited. Linking and sharing is appreciated. Translation and unauthorized repost of this interview is forbidden.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them.

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #fandom #fandom meta #fandom interview #fandom interviews #fanlore #charmedseoul #charmedseoul interviews #fanfiction #fanfiction author #fanfic #fanfiction meta #fanfic meta

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themelodicenigma · 4 years

Note

I saw one of your earlier posts and I wanted to ask you something. In your experience are people who prefer a noncanon pairing more likely to interpret everything about a story and characters through the lense of shipping? Or is this is just as common in groups who prefer the canon pairing?

It’s both ways, really.

Though, the important factor isn’t really about whether the characters spoken about are actually romantically involved in the story or not—that’s an important backbone of the shipping phenomenon in fandom. People can (and do) ship characters even if they’re not canonically dating and/or have romantic expressions. I’m speaking on the more cognitive approach of the individual that can affect them no matter the canonical standing. So the “shipping lens”, as described as discerning interactions between characters with the inclination or bias of a paired ship, easily can (and does) affect someone’s observations of what’s happening contextually even if there are/aren’t romantic tones in actuality.

(more below)

For example, a lot of SoKai fans insist that Sora and Kairi sharing the Paopu Fruit is the equivalent of a marriage proposal between them. While this can be seen as essentially just subjective, fun fluff coming from fans for the observance of Chikai/Oath being placed on Sora and Kairi, you will see some people will legitimately argue this as something that is actually present within the context and corresponding subtext.

It isn’t.

And it’s things like that is what I meant in that other post you’re probably referring to.

There’s like, a fine-line difference between an understanding that two characters are romantically involved in some way in the storytelling vs. simply shipping them as part of the mindset of this term by fandom culture. While they’re not mutually exclusive (i.e. understanding it on an objective level but also being active as a “shipper”), there is still a separation in what can be expressed when engaging in certain conversations.

I’m not much of a shipper anymore. I believe very strongly in trying to gain an objective level of understanding as possible when analyzing/researching the truths or plausible truths from the merit of the presented context/subtext. After that, do I form an opinion. If I show to support certain pairings, this is mainly from my understanding of the story as opposed to what is typically associated with shipping culture, like the do or die “OTP” attitudes and whatnot. I typically take what is presented. There are a few exceptions, however.

For instance, I would say I legitimately do ship Aqua/Terra. Though there are contextual reasons that led me to supporting this preference, I will also never hesitate to tell someone that there is no actual, cohesive romantic context/subtext between these two characters yet. Even though I have much interest in getting more expression and past context of these two (they need it, but that’s something for another time), I don’t let that get in the way of my recognition of what IS there, or for what is most plausibly expressed from that. They’re probably one of few that I would say that I ship—honestly they’re the only ones, other than maybe Roxas and Xion, but that, along with Namine is much more complicated in even just simply understanding what’s being done in the context right now.

Anyway, as tired as I am of certain fandom phenomenons, I’m not like, saying shipping is bad inherently. People just need to be more conscious of how they speak and think on things, self evaluate their own understanding of material before entering certain conversations. It’s okay to have a conversation gushing on your personal musings of character relationships or expressions with others—that’s a large part of what shipping culture is. But, there’s a line, and a lot of what would be considered critical thinking or even common sense is sacrificed at times for that culture. Interpretation still plays a role in understanding things that aren’t presented blatantly as truths, but one can control how much subjective nature is put into that thought process, and shouldn’t stop them from making the distinction themselves between a fact, a plausible truth, opinion, and whatever meets in between all three of those things.

#kingdom hearts #shipping #fandom #sokai #terraqua

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calligraphist-artemisia · 5 years

Text

Instinct (Part 1/3)

Summary: In which the paladins are unprepared for the strength of Keith’s instincts and Pidge is taken off guard by her own feelings. Pairings: Keith/Pidge; background Shiro/Curtis

Also posted on AO3 (note: I no longer post to fanfiction.net)

---

Part 1

There was a small, brown package on her desk.

Her desk, in her family's private quarters, and further locked behind a passcode that few people knew.

Pidge frowned when she saw it, barely able to take her eyes off of it as she shrugged out of her casual jacket and hung it on a hook near her door. She'd only been away for an hour, attending another meeting to address the fact that technically Katie Holt never attended the Galaxy Garrison, never mind her instrumental role in freeing Earth from Sendak's control before going on to stop Haggar from ripping apart every reality.

No, no, none of that really mattered once the war was over and the Garrison was placed under the control of the Worldwide Leadership Council, whose proclaimed goal was “peacekeeping” for all of Earth.

Pidge scowled.

Millions of people displaced from their homes, exposed to the cruelties of a ten-thousand year old war, and they were most worried about their public image.

She hated politics. She especially hated them when it stood in the way of her doing anything useful with her time. So what if she'd hacked Garrison records at fifteen, enrolled herself under a false identity, and launched her own personal investigation in the wake of the disappearance of the crew on the Kerberos Mission? They should be thanking her for exposing such a flaw in their system!

Okay, maybe that was too much, but if she hadn't illegally attended the Galaxy Garrison as Pidge Gunderson, she never would have witnessed Shiro's return with Hunk and Lance. They never would have been there to help Keith escape with him. They never would have found the caves where the Blue Lion was hidden for so long. They never would have gone to space, awoken Allura and Coran, and freed so many different planets. Earth never would have been prepared for the invasion.

Pidge would never try and claim full credit for saving the universe, it was fully a team effort, but she knew she played a pivotal role.

She shook her head gently, clearing herself of negative thoughts. She had a mystery to solve and it was much more deserving of her time than dwelling on the way things were being run in the past few months.

Pidge cautiously approached her desk, searching the package for any clue about who could have left it there. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and on top was a tiny note card bearing her name in vaguely familiar handwriting. She found herself relaxing at that. It was unlikely to be a threat if it was someone she knew well enough to recognize their handwriting.

She was careful not to jostle the package as she picked it up and began peeling away the wrapping. With no indication of who it was from, she let her mind wander to the different possibilities, based on who she'd given her personal code to.

Hunk and Lance were out of the question. The last she'd heard from Hunk, he had made it back out to the Dalterion Belt with his band of chefs (and Shay) and was seeing what food sources the various asteroids and planets in the area had to offer. Lance was busy with the small farm he ran with his family and was always quick to tell her when they were in the area to visit Veronica.

Shiro wouldn't go out of his way to sneak a package into her room when he could just pass it off to anyone in her family or give it to her directly. It just wasn't the way he liked to do things.

Keith was equally as unlikely, though she had to admit, she had no idea where in the universe he was currently located. Once it became clear that Earth was safe, he took up Kolivan's offer to lead a team of his own in peacekeeping efforts. He called when he could and sounded completely wrung-out whenever they talked, but there was a deep-rooted pride in his voice that spoke of how much he was enjoying his work.

It had been a while since she last heard from Coran and Romelle, who were both working hard at establishing order and blending cultures of the past with those of the hidden colony on the newly restored Altea. It was tough work and Coran often despaired at how much of their history was lost. Sometimes he'd send something to Pidge (bypassing all Garrison channels) either for her to research or as a gift, but always with a long note of explanation.

Maybe it was Matt, who knew how much her frustration was starting to get the best of her. He liked to surprise her with little gifts now and again, but like with Coran, he always signed his, if he bothered to wrap them.

Her parents then. Except not, because even they would have signed it or given it to her directly.

Pidge stared down at a metallic green box as she fully pulled away the paper. There was a simple latch on one side and hinges on the other, so she cautiously opened it up, prepared to shut it if there was anything weird or dangerous.

Hair pins.

At least a dozen of them, in an array of colors and styles; some practical and others more ornate, meant to be used as decoration rather than holding hair in place.

Looking over the box and wrapping one last time, Pidge determined that whoever it was from, they were determined to remain a mystery.

She'd just have to wear them in order to show her thanks.

---

Everything was a mess.

Shiro groaned as he received another message requesting a meeting to review Pidge's “questionable” standing in the Galaxy Garrison. He'd spoken openly about his feelings on the subject a number of times – just as Admiral Iverson and Commander Holt had done, as well as many others who knew her – and he didn't see why they needed him to repeat himself for a fifth time. They had it all on record! All they had to do was play any of the last four meetings or read the minutes from them.

But if repeating himself would be what allowed Pidge to get back to the work she loved without being scrutinized over her every action, he would do it. Again and again and again.

That didn't mean he couldn't be annoyed by it.

“Don't they have better things to worry about?” he asked bitterly, more to himself than his current house-guests, one of whom was sitting at his kitchen table eating leftovers.

Kosmo woofed quietly from beneath the table.

“Are they still complaining that I didn't go through the proper channels to dock on Earth, or whatever it was?” Keith asked. “Because we already explained why that wasn't possible.”

“Although highly amusing, I'm not sure Zethrid telling the port administrators to shut up and do their jobs correctly is a proper explanation. Why did you leave it up to her anyway?” Curtis asked, sounding amused. He neatly placed a plate on the drying rack and then reached for the next one, running his soapy sponge over the surface.

Keith shrugged. “She needs the practice. And I figured they'd give us some new bullshit excuse about why we can't dock again, which meant my best bet for smoothing things over was going straight to Iverson. He may not be my biggest fan, but at least he takes the time to listen to my requests instead of denying them from the start.”

Curtis's smile dropped and he looked immediately to Shiro, whose frown was firmly in place. “So we were right. They've escalated restrictions on entering and exiting Earth.”

“What am I missing here? Restrictions are common on every planet,” Keith said.

“Which is why we didn't fight them at first,” Shiro agreed. “You haven't been here since the Worldwide Leadership Council took over operations and have been forcing harsher and harsher restrictions to pass. The official word is that they're afraid an influx of new technologies and cultures could lead to the start of a fourth world war, but...”

Curtis crossed his arms over his chest. “They're clearly targeting the Galra. At least primarily, but there are others who have been affected.”

“Anyone of Galra descent tend to make people uneasy. Its understandable, but not when they're denying entry to known allies. We couldn't have won the war without Kolivan and the rest of the Blade of Marmora, but it seems that all it's taken is a year to forget all of that. Then there's this whole thing with Pidge...”

Keith snapped to attention. “What's wrong with Pidge?”

Shiro was slightly taken back by Keith's quick interest, but it was a chance to rant about another situation to someone who wasn't already in the loop, so he quickly summed up everything going on with Pidge, watching Keith's expression grow more thunderous by the minute.

“She's a hero and they're treating her like some kind of criminal,” he growled, fury in his voice. “No one cared about her age or any of that when we were busy fighting in a literal war, but now it's over and they think they can cast her aside? How can they do that to her, Shiro?” His anger broke, giving way to something Shiro rarely heard from Keith, except when he was concerned about someone he cared deeply for.

“We've been trying to work it out for months, offering any idea that could appease them and let Pidge join Commander Holt and Matt on the Defense Program, but we've made no progress,” Shiro said. “All that's done is had them restrict her time in the classroom labs even more.”

“We think they're trying to force her out. They want to cover up that they were bested by someone who was fifteen when she hacked the system.” Curtis voiced the (until then) unspoken opinion shared by everyone involved.

Keith was quiet for a moment. He reached under the table to pet Kosmo as the massive wolf nudged his leg for attention.

Shiro and Curtis gave him time to mull it over. It was a lot to take in on a normal amount of sleep, and it was clear from the bags under his eyes that Keith clearly wasn't getting enough rest.

It seemed not even Kolivan could train out the way Keith tended to broadcast his emotions, easy to read for anyone who cared enough to pay attention. Shiro could see the emotions playing out across his face – the anger on behalf of the youngest paladin, frustration, the furrowed brows of wonderment, and then stubborn determination.

Keith had some sort of plan formulating and Shiro couldn't wait to hear it.

Shiro gestured for Curtis to sit down with them at the table. (Why he felt the need to clean them every time he came over, Shiro did not understand. The plates were fine. Shiro could do them after he left, but no, Curtis insisted--)

“How quickly do you think they'd give in if I refuse to leave until she looks over the ship we arrived in?” Keith asked them.

“It's unlikely they would at all. They'd insist that you use one of the Garrison engineers and if you refuse that's grounds for imprisonment, no matter who you are. But... we could try?” Curtis sounded unsure of himself and Shiro couldn't help but reach over and squeeze his hand.

Keith raised an eyebrow at the action, but said nothing. Shiro was sure he'd be questioned later, once Curtis was gone for the night.

Curtis continued, slightly emboldened by the comforting gesture. “It's no secret that they don't like that you bypassed protocol and landed here, but they may be more willing to go with what you want if you extend your stay by other means. Like, say, a vacation?”

Shiro quickly caught on. “Not as a pretense, Keith. Contact Kolivan and tell him you're all finally taking some time off.”

“Going to tell me I look like shit next?” Keith asked.

“Not in those exact words, no.”

Violet eyes stared him down from across the table and then Keith tipped his head in acknowledgment. “I know the others would appreciate a vacation, even if they'll complain at first. I have eight others with me and they'll all need someone to show them around.”

“We have volunteers for just that,” Curtis said. “And I think I already know who can show Acxa around. She and Veronica got along well when we were all on the Atlas together. I don't know about anyone else though.”

Shiro was absolutely not volunteering to watch after Zethrid or Ezor.

“So, we take a vacation and on the last day make the request for Pidge to look over the ship?” Keith guessed.

Shiro nodded. “It might help if there are any repairs that need to be made.”

“Oh, like our communications system? Since somehow the Garrison couldn't hear us until we were already coming in for a landing, despite the fact that Kolivan, who is lightyears away, can hear me perfectly?”

“Best not mention that last part,” Curtis advised. “But yeah. It's even better, since Pidge enrolled herself in the communications program when she was here. Regardless of how she ended up in the Garrison, they can't deny that she studied the exact thing you need fixed, and she was good at it.”

Maybe it would work.

Shiro didn't have many positive things to say about the direction things were heading with the stranglehold the Worldwide Leadership Council had on the Galaxy Garrison, but it was more of a chance for Pidge to do something than they'd had in a while.

They just needed to be careful.

---

Even when it was just the four of them, dinner was not a quiet affair for the Holt family. There was always someone talking about the work they'd done that day or a new discovery that was made or even just something funny that they'd seen or heard.

Colleen wrapped up her enthusiastic description of a new variant of Juniberry she helped cultivate and while Sam launched into a round of questions, Matt leaned over to Pidge with a grin on his face.

“You know, Keith arrived today.”

Pidge looked up from her food, already more interesting in what her brother had to say than the ongoing conversation about plants. “Really? Is everything okay?”

“According to Shiro, he's here for a vacation with his team, and the first person he asked about is you,” Matt said, his grin growing wider.

Pidge knew that tone. It was the same one she and Hunk used when teasing Lance about his crush on Allura. She rolled her eyes, not for one second falling for his attempt to get her flustered. “Other than Shiro, I'm the only other person he knows is on base. It doesn't mean anything.”

“What doesn't mean anything?” Colleen asked.

“Nothing,” Pidge and Matt said in unison.

Colleen narrowed her eyes as she watched them pretend there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. After a moment, she went back to her conversation with Sam, though neither Pidge nor Matt dared to bring up the topic a second time, knowing their mom would hone in on it in a heartbeat.

Pidge was thankful that Matt knew better than to involve their parents in his teasing. Their mom would definitely take it seriously, and while their dad would accept it as a joke at first, the more Colleen treated it like a genuine thing, the less he would see it as the teasing that it was.

The last thing she wanted was for them to insist on supervision while she was around Keith. How embarrassing would that be?

“So how's the Defenders Project going, Matt?” Pidge asked, changing the subject completely.

“You know we're not allowed to talk about it outside of the labs,” Matt said apologetically. “But without going into too much detail, it's going a little more slowly than we'd like. There are some new restrictions being passed on what goods can be brought to Earth and by who, and until they work out all of the details, we can't get in the equipment and materials we need in order to continue.”

“Seriously? What are they thinking?”

Sam set down his fork, turning his attention to their conversation. “In a way, it does work to our benefit. We have more time than expected to run checks and extra tests to ensure everything will work the way it's meant to.”

“Except that all we can do is run simulations, which can't account for the differences that Altean tech makes when combined with our own,” Matt pointed out, sounding bitter.

Colleen cleared her throat. “I think that's enough work chatter for tonight.”

Pidge and Matt exchanged a glance, silently communicating: “What else is there?”

“Well then, how about a little good news?” Sam asked. “We have officially been granted permission to host a festival celebrating the liberation of the galaxy from Galra control.”

“Wait, really? Dad, that's awesome!” Matt cheered.

Sam nodded. “I need you all to keep this a secret for now. They won't be making the announcement for another few days, since they're finalizing the location and central theme, so no talking about it to anyone else.”

His family was quick to agree to that and the rest of their dinner was spent trying to guess what a Garrison-run festival would be like.

---

Pidge woke up in high spirits the next morning and, after breakfast, slipped into her comfiest clothing with the intent of finally sitting down to binge the new show Rizavi hadn't shut up about for weeks. With the longer pieces of her hair pinned out of the way with two bright green clips, she flopped down on her bed and reached for her remote.

“Katie, you have a visitor!”

She tried not to groan as her mom's voice rang out, loud and clear. She swore if Rizavi was at the door, waiting to drag her and Kinkade off on another crazy adventure that was sure to land the three of them in Iverson's office, she was going to run away and join Lance on his farm, just to have a moment of peace.

Okay, maybe that was a little extreme.

Pidge would hate living on a farm.

She bid goodbye to her relaxing day in as she slipped on her shoes and grabbed her small purse, knowing it was best to be prepared when it came to Rizavi. The other girl wouldn't give her a chance to speak, let alone grab her things. (Honestly, she loved that Rizavi included her in outings, she just wished the pilot knew how to slow down sometimes – a sentiment shared by Kinkade.)

Pidge took a deep breath and opened her bedroom door. “Ri-- Keith?!”

Standing near the front door was Keith, his black hair tied back in a short ponytail, looking mildly uncomfortable in what she assumed was clothing borrowed from Shiro. (The cuffs on his pants were rolled up, for one, and the t-shirt with Godzilla on it had been a gift from Matt.)

Keith smiled softly when he saw her. “Hey, it's been a while.”

Pidge found herself smiling back. “Too long. Welcome back!”

“Did I come at a bad time?” Keith asked, gesturing to her bag.

Pidge glanced down to see what he was talking about. “Oh, no! No, you're fine. I kind of thought you were Rizavi. She likes to drop by unannounced when she has free time and I've learned its better to be prepared before I open the door. Do you want to sit down?”

Keith shook his head. “Actually, I was hoping you would go out to the city with me. Shiro was going to take me so I could pick up a few things, but they called him and Curtis in for some meeting this morning. He suggested I ask you.”

That was not a request Pidge expected to hear from him, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go shopping with Keith.

“I'll go, just let me grab Matt's keys,” Pidge said, turning away to grab her brother's passkey from its spot on the counter. She knew he would be down in the lab all day and wouldn't mind her borrowing it. “Mom, I'm going out with Keith!”

“Have fun, dear!” Colleen called back from elsewhere in the apartment.

Keith looked at her curiously as they left, moving out into the hallway and towards the exit. “Why do you need Matt's keys?”

“It'll get us into the garage so we don't need to take the shuttle or ask anyone else to drive us,” Pidge explained as she slid the card into her purse. “Technically I'm not supposed to have one, but the guards don't care as long as I'm careful and get back on time.”

“And here I thought I was the rebel of our team.”

Recognizing it for the joke that it was, Pidge teased back: “worried that I might steal your crown?”

Keith glanced down at her. “Depends. Do the guards really let you leave with a car or does it involve more sneaking?”

“Sneaking at first, but now they know me by name,” Pidge admitted. When he smirked at her, she rolled her eyes. “Well, alright then, King of the Rebels, what's the best story you've got?”

Keith took a moment to think about it, studiously ignoring the stares they received as they walked the halls.

Pidge figured they must have made an interesting sight. Her, the daughter of Sam and Colleen Holt, walking around in starry leggings and a too-big shirt that fit more like a short dress. And then him, almost a stranger to the Garrison after his time away, dressed in clothing equally as ill-fitting.

“I stole Shiro's car once.”

Pidge nearly stopped dead in her tracks. “You didn't!”

“I did,” Keith said with a nod. “He came to my school to talk about the space program and he brought this portable simulator so my class could try it out. I... I was difficult then, is the easy way to put it. Didn't get along with anyone. Didn't want to.”

Pidge had a sarcastic comment ready, but there was something about his tone of voice that had her hold her tongue.

“Anyway, all it took was one stupid comment and I needed to get out of there. Saw Shiro talking to my teacher and figured it was a lost cause anyway – the Garrison wouldn't want some troublemaker like me even if I did give it a chance. So I stole Shiro's car.” Keith shrugged as though it were no big deal. “I got caught, of course, and would have spent the night at a juvenile detention center if it weren't for Shiro speaking up for me. Even after all of that, he said I should apply to the Garrison. And the rest is history.”

Pidge let silence settle between them. She knew that he and Shiro were close, but it was the first time she heard the story of how they met.

“I, uh,” she paused for a moment to recall what they were talking about before. “I ran away from home and joined the Garrison under a false name. How's that for rebellion?”

Keith chuckled. “Not bad, but I punched Iverson and then ran away to live in a house in the desert before he could give me an actual punishment.”

“Wait, wait. Let me get this straight; you stole Shiro's car and you also punched Iverson? And Lance says I have no people skills!” She threw up her hands in defeat.

“So does this mean I'm still the king?”

“For now,” Pidge responded and for a moment had to wonder just what kind of challenge she'd accidentally initiated. But then they shared a glance and broke out into laughter over the whole thing.

They spent the rest of their walk just catching up on what they had been doing for the past few months. Keith spoke of the planets he'd seen and the people he helped, all the while keeping Zethrid and Ezor from terrorizing everyone with their playful antics. Pidge deliberately avoided her issues with the WLC, instead focusing on her personal projects and stories of Bae Bae running rampant through the base.

“Luckily, Iverson thinks she's hilarious and the MFE crew basically adopted her as their mascot, so she's living the best doggy life,” Pidge said as they reached a door to the garage. She took out the keycard and pressed it to the scanner so they could enter.

After a quick glance around to confirm there was no one around who would cause problems for them, Pidge held out the keycard to Keith. “It's your pick.”

Looking confused, Keith took the card. “My pick?”

“I know it's been a while since you last drove here on Earth, and I thought you might like to while you're here,” Pidge said with a shrug. “I normally drive one of the standard sedans, but the choice is all yours today.”

Keith took a moment to look around. There were all of the standard off-road vehicles favored by the Galaxy Garrison, built to handle the harsher terrain of the desert, but there were a surprising number of smaller cars mixed in, likely due to the expanded staff in the wake of the invasion.

Somehow, Pidge wasn't at all surprised when Keith gravitated towards the newest model of their Hoverbikes – one capable of switching between street and off-road modes. While it wasn't red like the one he drove while rescuing Shiro, it did have bright splashes of orange pain set against Garrison gray.

He climbed on first, checking over the controls and getting a feel for the bike, but soon he held out his hand to help Pidge up. While she got settled, he dug through a latched compartment until he found two pairs of goggles and handed one back to Pidge.

“Ready when you are,” Pidge said, carefully sliding them on over her glasses.

Keith took her words to heart and started the bike, which came to life with a humming purr and lifted up off the ground. He carefully guided it through the garage, hyper-aware of Pidge's light grip on his waist.

Pidge waved to the guards when they stopped at the main gate to scan the keycard one last time. “We'll be back by curfew!”

She squealed as Keith sped up on the other side of the gate, sliding her arms fully around his waist so she felt less like she would fly away at any second. Her hair whipped around her face, stinging slightly, and she pressed closer against Keith's back, using him to block the worst of the wind. Her heart pounded in her chest at first, but calmed down by the time they reached Plaht City.

Keith pulled into the first parking lot they found and miraculously found an empty space to pull into. Once he turned off the bike, he helped Pidge slide down and she laughed a little breathlessly, a massive grin on her face. He watched her pull free the hair pins and try to smooth out her hair, realizing after a few seconds that he was staring, and then joined her on the ground. He pointedly looked away, taking in the changes that they city had gone through.

The rebuilding seemed to have gone well, though there were still a few skyscrapers under heavy construction deeper in the city limits. What really caught his attention were the colorful tents lining the streets, full of goods from all over the universe, and arranged in a way that they didn't block any of the brick and mortar shops who had also thrown up bright banners to entice people inside. All of it did restrict the flow of traffic, however, leaving just enough street space for bicycles and a new trolley system to travel both ways. (Keith supposed that if an emergency vehicle needed to get through, there was enough space as well.)

It was an entirely different Plaht City.

“So, where to first? Or do you just want to walk and pick places as we go?” Pidge asked.

“I just need clothes,” Keith said, warily keeping his eyes on the crowded streets. He swallowed, wondering if he was really up for being surrounded by that many strangers, even with Pidge there to watch his back. There were too many unknown variables for him to be comfortable with.

Pidge seemed to pick up on his worry, because she nodded and said “I know a few good places, so it shouldn't take us long to find what you want. We'll just go until you're satisfied with what you've found.”

The two set off down the street, Keith following Pidge and hoping that she was right. After being in space for so long, he felt grossly unprepared for dealing with large crowds – even with his current peacekeeping tasks. At least with that there were only a few locals he needed to talk to, usually the leaders and those they brought with them to help transport supplies.

Keith kept an eye out for any threats and ways to make a quick escape if it came down to it. He didn't realize he was doing it until Pidge softly called his name.

“We don't have to do this today, you know,” she offered. “You just got back. We could ride around the desert or something.”

It was a tempting offer.

Keith shook his head. “Maybe once we're done, but I don't want to keep borrowing Shiro's stuff.”

“Not a fan of Godzilla? More of a Mothra kind of guy?” Pidge asked teasingly.

Keith couldn't help but chuckle at the silly direction their conversation turned. It did wonders to help him relax and he wondered if Pidge was doing it on purpose. “I think giant monsters are more Shiro's thing. I'm more into cryptids. Local legends. That sort of thing.”

“So not Mothra, but Mothman. Got it.” Pidge grinned up at him, pleased by her own joke.

Keith wasn't going to let her have all of the fun. “Let me guess, you're a Bigfoot fan?”

“They are the classic cryptid, with variations all across the globe, and you can't go wrong with that. Besides, I can appreciate that they've made a game out of teasing Bigfoot hunters over the years,” Pidge said.

(How was that a real conversation they were having? It was surreal.)

“Well, now that I know you've secretly been a nerd this whole time, I have to show you this place Matt and I found. You'll love it!” Pidge excitedly reached for her hand, tugging him along as she began walking faster.

Keith increased his stride in order to keep up with her.

It didn't take long to reach their destination, which was a small clothing shop tucked away in a corner next to a salon and a pizza place. Pidge pulled him inside and cut straight to the back of the store, where Keith quickly discovered the reason for her excitement.

Specialty shirts, separated by their subject matter. Cryptids were all lumped together and sorted by alphabetical order, with a miscellaneous category for any that were more rare. Across the back wall was an even larger section labeled 'Area 51'.

Keith didn't know where to start.

Pidge let go of his hand and laughed gleefully as she dove into the nearest rack. “This is where Matt and I did our holiday shopping. Ooo, look!” She held up a shirt with a picture of a purposefully pixelated image of the Loch Ness Monster.

He snorted in amusement and Pidge went back to her search. While it wasn't a place he normally would have picked to do shopping at, he figured he could at least get a shirt for Pidge, as a thank you for joining him. It was with that goal in mind that he joined the searching, holding u anything interesting for Pidge's approval or disapproval, and laughing at some of the more bizarre (and sometimes inappropriate) ones they found.

They each bought a shirt before leaving, and it was with high spirits that they set off to accomplish the rest of their mission.

Pidge was an interesting travel companion. She could talk about nearly anything and didn't always expect for him to have a reply, but it wasn't idle chatter. She knew a lot about how the city rebuild was going and which parts had been left mostly untouched, versus what had to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. More importantly, she did know the shops of the area.

By the time lunch rolled around, he had a decent set of clothes that would last him through his week vacation. After the last one, they grabbed a meal from the food trucks in the area and ate as they walked back to the hoverbike.

“Pidge, thanks for coming with me,” Keith said sincerely. “I'm sure you had other things you wanted to do today and I really appreciate it.”

She slowed down a little, staring up at him with a furrowed brow. “I can do those things anytime, you know? But you're only here for a little while and I'd give up a full week of work to spend time with you.”

Keith felt his cheeks heated up and he looked away from her, hoping she didn't notice. He struggled to find they right response without letting his own feelings spill out. “You, uh, might regret saying that when I tell you I'll be here for at least a week.”

“You are?” Pidge asked in surprise. “That's awesome! And okay, I slightly take back what I said before, because I know you'll want to spend time with Shiro too, but I really did mean it. I... I've missed having you around. More than I thought, actually...” She trailed off, lost in her own thoughts and clearly not expecting an answer.

They ate the rest of their meal in silence, tossing their trash into the proper bins once they were done,and then there was no more talk as they drove the thirty minutes back to the Garrison.

#voltron #kidge #kidgemas #fanfiction #background shurtis #post season 8 #galra courtship #mostly canon compliant #Instinct

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wtfy-cyzj · 6 years

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*SPOILERS* CYZJ Subbed Ep. 9 reaction

Episode 9 is finally out with subs, so you know what that means: another play-by-play reaction text post! And it’s another 2-hour episode, so we’re back to the super long format.

As with previous installments, each major section of the show has a header so you can scroll if you’re looking for something specific. And, of course, spoilers and foul language kinda come with the territory.

Mission reveal and song assignments

Another two performance mission assignment – picking the third finalist pair and then establishing a ranking for the finalists – because they just gotta be ranked going into the finals *rolls eyes* - I could rant about how much I wish the producers would stop pushing the competitive aspect of the show while talking about it being about “breakthroughs”

Hao’s little goddamnit-esque laugh when the 1v1 mission is announced :/

Anybody else get the feeling Victor’s the reason Eric & JC are worried about the other team picking their song? Like Hao might give them something out of left field because he wants them to show a new side or because he thinks it suits them, but not to torpedo them – Victor, however, seems a bit of a wild card

…! I seriously thought Eric had the card down the front of his pants for a moment there!

Aw, Hao’s smile is so sweet – I already knew Eric/JC got to do one of Eric’s songs – that little “you’re welcome” bow & Victor being totally checked out makes me think that was all Hao’s doing

So, yes & no – I expected Victor to at least playfully push to mess w/ the other team – he seems kinda disengaged though

Wait, is that Hao’s handwriting?! I was admiring it when Eric first revealed the card – I know people who only know English who don’t write that nicely – kid’s definitely an artist

“How can I not be satisfied with my own song?” XD

Aw, that was really sweet of Victor to say he hopes they don’t mess w/ the song too much

I love that when Victor asks “by who” Eric & Xiao Wu both go “Drake” w/ a very soft “duh, who the fuck else” feel – and then Hao gets stoked when they start singing it

Yes! I’m so glad Jiacheng said that about Hao & Victor’s performances not being them together! I thought it about the last 2 performances, but since I didn’t really see anyone else talk about it, I wondered if it was just me. Plus there’s the whole cultural disconnect & not being part of the target demographic that added to it. It’s good to see someone who’s in the thick of it with them recognize that same thing

I want to talk about the warm fuzzy feelings I get from Eric & Jiacheng being so thoughtful about their choice and how this reinforces my desire for the show to stop leaning into the competition narrative, but Eric mimicking both Hao & Victor is too cute

I love that Jiacheng doesn’t know how to process Eric’s goofiness for a second – same Xiao Wu, same

Aw, the doodles!

Hao’s “don’t say anything” is great! – take a stand & make Victor dance!

“Okay fine, alright, I’ll dance. I’ll dance” – damn straight!

Second mission reveal

“Sprint Out” Attack? And that means…?

Meh… Another drawn out process to pick a collaborator? - it was cute w/ the ladies but since I haven’t seen anyone talking about the guests and the tease at the beginning of the episode was blah, I’m not really looking forward to it

Trying to ignore the elevator talk and not roll my eyes too hard

Meeting the musicians

Oh dear god, Yanan is so fucking cute watching Liron Man play! – tell me someone’s giffed that doofy expression and weird little wiggle! *heart eyes*

Ooh, Liron Man’s got a great smile – has nothing to do w/ anything but I couldn’t leave it unremarked upon

“The sound produced is very cute […] like a tortoise who lost its soul” – say what now, Yanan?! – that does not seem like a “cute” sound, sir!

Once again, being thoughtful and aware of the other contestants – brownie points to Jun

I’m so glad dude knows some Chinese! We don’t need another person stranded behind the language barrier even if it’s just one episode

Apparently, I love the pipa and didn’t even know what it was – now that I have a name, research will be done!

“My mother’s profession is also in the pipa” – poor girl stepped in it! XD

Here I was thinking they reacted much better than with the previous lady guests, but no, still shy as fuck

I realize that as an apparently internationally-recognized musician, Wangtao probably plays the clarinet in ways that I never could imagine – unfortunately I took band from 7th through 9th grades, including marching band, so I cringed when I saw what he plays – and I immediately had to go look up this Eddie Izzard bit because my brain wouldn’t stop going “clahr-en-ahrt” and “WEzul WEzul” until I did

Watching Jun & Yanan discuss their options is a really interesting look into their personalities – “are we choosing calm or movement?”

“You decide” – brave words, Jun – I wonder where this fell on the timeline of Yanan deciding to leave the show

It’s not going to be a famous Western artist, Samuel – it’s never going to be a famous Western artist – sorry to burst your bubble, kiddo

Bahahaha! For all Zhennan’s “leave us a good one” in the elevator, Jun & Yanan picked the most obvious choice for the kiddies – …yes, I know I’m an asshole for finding that so funny

…Does Zhennan’s shirt say “same shit different day”?!

They completely lost that whole “working w/ musicians will be hard” thing real quick

“I feel like I tortured little kids” XD

Someone’s setting himself up for a headache confusing jazz with jazzy, especially when picking a classically trained accompanist

It’s really cute seeing Eric & Xiao Wu being a little awkward with the pipa player after they seemed to calm with the previous female guests – they both barely look at her

I love arrogant!Eric, especially when he’s immediately replaced by embarrassed!Eric – I am, however, more than a little creeped out by the cartoon bull being blown around by, what, an umbilical cord?!

Aw, Jiacheng immediately defends his “arrogance” *heart eyes*

Wait, did Xiao Wu’s lyrics sound bad? Eric said it could “be a little better” so maybe the phrasing was awkward, but the translation of “lately, I’ve been scared of sleeping alone” grabbed my attention and made me wonder what prompted those words

They’re dorks and I love them

Poor Hao being left to talk to their musician alone

…! I totally blanked that this could be Minghao’s first chance to really do a traditional Chinese sound – aw, yay!

Hmm, Victor really agreed to do purely traditional? I guess “purely Chinese” doesn’t have to mean traditional instead of modern

And then we flash back and I stand corrected!

Performance day

Wait, they’re not gonna show how they chose the performance order between MH/Victor and Eric/JC?! I feel so cheated! thank god

Minghao & Victor are up first – 1v1

“I’m always ready!” *heart eyes*

Hao accidentally proposed confessing to the other contestants XD – just because you think something is meaningless doesn’t mean it really is!

What’s cuter: Hao’s reaction when he realized putting in the other contestants’ names wasn’t the best idea or Hao’s reaction to the thought of name-dropping exes?

I love MH’s logic! Victor’s trying to downplay any romantic intention behind calling out a female artist by saying it’s about respect & admiration, so Hao throws out Jony J & Gong Ge - if it’s about respect & admiration he’s not wrong, but Victor’s face says otherwise – I laughed so hard I had to stop the video and go calm down by doing a load of laundry

I’ve gotta say, as someone who liked both JJ & GG from the beginning & still really likes them and as someone who started watching specifically for Minghao, I love that he brought them up again and in such a positive light. Fans can – and do – hate on them, but he’s got every right to continue to look up to them. He’s the one who was directly affected by their actions, yet he continues to admire them and voice that admiration. I don’t get how people try to drag them on his behalf when he says things like this.

Aw, it breaks my heart a little that Victor thinks making the song about the show is “limiting” their creativity – Hao’s had a lot of fun and had made connections on the show that he obviously values – how is making an ode to that a limitation?

I love when Hao speaks in English – it always surprises me how rich & deep his voice is – like I usually chalk it up to being an artifact of the language, but it’s genuinely appealing – does that make sense? Just me?

Am I the only one who thinks changing the names to their own makes it about self-doubt, not narcissism?

Victor’s so American!

I feel like Victor having to dance is a little bit of karma for being a pain in the ass >:D

That little intro clip is adorable!

Aw, Victor did MH’s 8 hand sign!

Overall thoughts: I loved that! It wasn’t perfect, but I think, after Clap, it was Hao’s best performance by far. He definitely had fun and loosened up with Supernatural in ep.8, but this was a whole other level and I think a lot of it was from actually playing w/ Victor during the performance. I love that they switched it up and Victor had the vocal parts; he’s a talented singer so it was nice seeing him step out of the rapper role. And I was really impressed with Hao’s English. A lot of times, non-English-speakers do odd things with their emphasis on words, but he was pretty damn spot on. It makes me wonder just how fluent he actually is since we don’t see him speak it much beyond simple phrases. The one thing I wasn’t entirely feeling was Victor’s rap. It felt a little rushed? Cramped? It’s understandable since he’s working within a pre-existing song, but it did stick out to me. I don’t know why Victor was worried about dancing. That bit was less choreography and more conscious swagger, if that makes sense, and he pulled it off swimmingly. I wish they hadn’t cut to the audience during Hao’s dance break because it was my favorite one he’s done so far – less artistry and more simple fun. Can we take a moment to thank Eric & Jiacheng for making this gem happen?

“And we were constantly laughing at Victor’s attempt at dancing” – Eric! I’m glad he finally has someone else’s dancing to pick on but also smh

Eric & Jiacheng’s 1v1 prep and performance

Aw, Jiacheng gushing about the comradery on the show and wanting to help each other show their best sides XD

The idea of them singing acapella is actually really cool – if anyone on the show could pull it off really well, it’s these two

I love that Xiao Wu seems to throw out more English the longer he’s w/ Eric – he’s gaining experience and confidence in other areas – why not English, too?

Back to Eric’s crush on Dilireba XD

Aw, JC says they got close – of course they’re (probably) going to in a situation like this, but it’s cute that he’s talking about it – I know I’ve said it before, but I love that he’s so open with talking about stuff like that

Xiao Wu really looks like he’s about to cry reading those comments – and then Eric ruins the moment telling him not to cry

I already saw @bathtubofdonuts’s post talking about them incorporating the fan comments in the stage but seeing them get to that point is so sweet

Wait, so why is it important to tell us the screenwriter lady is in the audience? Was it the OST for her drama?

Aw, Hao’s so touched already

I was starting to worry the editing was going to lose the comments to those close-ups

It’s not weird to comment on how pretty Jiacheng’s hands are, right?

Wah! JC’s teary-eyed!! I was already tearing up – don’t make me cry!

Ah, okay, so she helped Eric write the song

Overall thoughts: I was sniffly & teary, but I managed not to cry. That was beautiful. This is why I was worried when they were talking about making a more impressive set design in ep. 8. They do simple so, so well, and they really don’t need a bunch of extras. Just having that one element of the comments playing behind them was so gorgeous and impactful. I’m really glad that they didn’t have accompanists on stage with them because they’d just be a visual distraction. I know I’ve talked about it in previous reactions, but the combination of their voices is incredible. I doubt Eric has ever sung a sour note in his life, and I wish Jiacheng knew how gorgeous his voice really is. His little power vocal moment toward the end? Ugh! So good! I’m gonna keep saying how happy I am that they got to work together because of this show.

“I feel that this bundle here is trembling” – I’m going to be so sad not to see this sweet kid after the show ends! TnT

1v1 performance results

Nooo! I know what’s about to happen – I’m not ready for the angst!

Poor Jun looking so nervous over there w/o Yanan

I hate this fucking setup so much. I’ve said that I think the way Jony J left the show was probably at least partially prompted by the production staff. Knowing that Jun was given options after Yanan left and that, for all his extraness, Jun is super shy, I have a hard time believing the production staff didn’t go, “So you don’t want to be in the running anymore and ~play by the rules~? Okay, so how about we make it look like there’s gonna be an elimination then you come out and dramatically withdraw? Wouldn’t that be awesome!” Jun’s never been my favorite because his playfulness can come of really childish to me, but I highly doubt he would put Minghao this scenario again for funsies.

Having seen translations of this weeks ago when the episode aired, I was not prepared to tear up. It hurts to see Hao so freaked out again and try to pull Jun back bodily. And seeing the distress on Jiacheng’s face as he says “no!” at him, my breath caught in my throat. Ugh! I’m seriously starting to cry watching JC panic more as Jun compliments them all. X(

Oh god that whole bit after the interview section was… weird. It’s pretty obvious the way Eric & Jiacheng are smiling in the background that things were cleared up. But that audience reaction… It’s so cold? This weird sort of idea that idols “betray” their fans is something I’ll never understand in kpop. (This is taking into account all the chaos that happened because of Jun’s decision, not just what made the edit.) Disappointment I get, but there’s no compassion for the grace he displayed in a shitty situation or relief that he’s going to continue performing. This whole situation was made so much worse being in front of a live audience.

The interviews after Jun’s reveal are so sweet, but why does it feel like a memorial? It’s just shy of saying “in loving memory of Wen Junhui”

Top 3 ranking performances

I love when the show has to blur someone’s phone because it’s not the sponsor phone – it’s usually Samuel, but this time Eric’s the culprit

And there’s the performance order ceremony

Minghao, Victor & Lian Pieru (pipa) are up first

Interesting thoughts about the Mechanical Era – it seems like Peiru’s a good match for Hao

So the interview thing is the only lead up we get? I don’t want to episode to be 3 hours, but they’ve got such an interesting story they want to tell and Peiru seems like such a character, I was really looking forward to the preparations – now I do actually feel a little cheated

Overall thoughts: I may have actually liked this performance better than In My Feelings. It wasn’t as entertaining, but it was a cool concept that was executed really well. I’ve gotta say before I go on though, I’ve seen people complain about the editing of other performances, but this is the first one that’s been distracting to me throughout. :/ If I didn’t know before going in that Victor was supposed to be the narrator, I don’t think I would’ve gotten that. The harsh stage whisper sort of effect in the beginning comes off kind of judgmental and, well, harsh where I was expecting more of an impartial observer style narrator. I wish his character had either done less interacting (to be an observer) or done more (to show his investment in the storyline and justify the judginess). It was a nice change of pace to see him being subdued while Hao was the higher energy partner. Hao’s rap in both performances this episode was great. They felt more natural and less stylized, which I really dig. He also showed his vocals more here than I think he really has in a while. At least it was more impactful than past performance. I would love to see a purely vocal song from him – no rap, light choreo – because he does really interesting things with his voice and we don’t get enough of it. [I just got a flash of him singing w/ Susu O.O] The choreo was impressive even if the edit made it hard to get the full effect. The end was great with the angry faces and the final little trill of the pipa.

It weirdly warms my heart to see them acknowledge they’ve been kind of at odds in their partnership up til now

Eric, Jiacheng & Lian Peiru (pipa) perform second

Uh, does Jiacheng’s overcoat have Donald Duck smack in the middle of a traditional tapestry?!

Not gonna gush about the VCR, but these two are so damn cute

We don’t even get an interview lead-in for them?! >.<

Ooh, pop-style pipa is really cool…

Somebody put Xiao Wu in a musical please - even my theatre-hating ass would pay to see that

Aw, Liron Man reacting to them uwu

Overall thoughts: I really enjoyed that. It was soft and sweet, and of course their voices are amazing. The set design was really pretty with all the florals. For some reason, thought, for most of the song Eric seemed strangely pulled back? Maybe it was because Xiao Wu was still on a high from the previous performance and the pipa is so distinct, but his parts just got overpowered to my ear. It was still beautiful.

Huh, Samuel really hasn’t gotten much screentime in this episode, even for reactions

Zhennan, Samuel & Wangtao (clarinet) are up third

Maybe it’s because he’s a good bit older, but I really appreciate the way Wangtao talks about Zhennan here – at least I assume he’s referring to Zhennan since Samuel seems pretty cool with being a kid – it doesn’t soften me to him, but it’s a needed reminder that his bravado may be more façade than arrogance – still find it annoying though *shrug*

Anyone else have to look up what an elaphure is? – it’s a Père David’s deer

Excuse me, mister clarinet man, don’t make me start thinking clarinets are sexy – I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that I’m probably gonna look up your music but that’s just taking it too far!

Overall thoughts: For anyone who thinks I’m just going to shit all over this because it’s Zhennan and Samuel, you’re wrong. I actually kind of dug that. It’s not really my bag, but I don’t dislike it at all. First off, the stage design is impressive with that cube setup. It’s really interesting having Wangtao on top of it (but also, get off the tall thing!). I would love to see a fixed cam of the performance to get the full effect. I really liked Zhennan’s solo in ep. 2, so seeing him go back to that sleepy, almost lazy delivery style is really nice. I’ve complained about him leaning too hard into his imagery (or did I cut that bit because I was being an ass?), but it was used beautifully here. Samuel really impressed me. His rap style still sounds a little like he’s trying to be someone else, but it didn’t sound awkward this time. It’ll be really interesting to see where his style goes as he comes into his own. And these are his best lyrics yet. Yes, I snorted at the LeBron reference in the otherwise whimsical song, but I really liked the honestly and depth. The dance break was beautiful and a nice escape from the more stock mainstream choreo Samuel’s been showing us. He does hip hop well, but I’m glad he gave us something more contemporary here and showed off his range. If I have a complaint it’s that Samuel’s voice gets lost in the “I don’t want” bits. I wish they’d at least brought him forward so you hear him more, or better yet, given him something a little more ornate to weave around Zhennan’s more drudging sound. His little vocalization before ZN’s final part was a pleasant surprise, and I would’ve liked more of that. They’ve made the best use of the accompanist so far, too. The whole thing was lovely and haunting and understated. Of all their stages, I think this performance has been the most effective in delivering the message they wanted to get across.

Jun & Liron Man (handpans) are up last

Why are the lead-ups getting shorter?! We’re going straight into the performance with no interview or VCR. I get that he’s not eligible for votes anymore, but I still want to see something, man

Total Pure Moods vibes here – fun fact: I wanted that CD so badly that both of my (divorced) parents got it for me for Christmas that year – I was a weird kid

Aw, is he singing along with Jun?! So cute! *heart eyes*

…off the tall thing, please…

Overall thoughts: If you’d told me before this that I would eagerly watch a Jun solo three times in a row, I would’ve laughed in your face. His style just isn’t for me usually. And yet, I watched this three times in a row (I zoned out and just listened to first time, watched the second, and read the lyrics the third). Thank you, Yanan, for picking the handpan. I never would’ve thought the distorted ring of a handpan would complement Jun’s very unique vocal quality as well as it does. This is the most at ease we’ve seen Jun on the show, and I don’t mean relaxed or confident. It didn’t seem at all like he was performing or was “on” but like he was singing for the sheer personal pleasure of it. After his stress in previous episodes, it was so good to see. As for the song itself, I have no fucking clue how to describe it. It reminded me of the weirdest things without really sounding like any of them. I mentioned Pure Moods, but also The Little Mermaid and “What Is Love” – as in the song from A Night at the Roxbury (listen to it, young’uns, and be confused). There were others, but I’ve blanked because that last one was a little too wtf.

“He was definitely enjoying it, really” – you know it’s true when the guest is saying it

Wait, no contestant reactions even?! Why are we getting robbed of the good stuff in this episode, goddamnit!?

Points reveal for the finals

This is for the ranking going into the finale – plus starting points which seems weirdly unnecessary?

Hao & Victor got 66 votes – why so low?

Xiao Wu & Eric got 73 – better but still really low considering the stages & past scores

Zhennan & Samuel got 72 – why so low?!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad my boys are leading, but they all gave incredibly good, polished stages and those scores really don’t seem to reflect that. I mean, they’ve given out 80s before – are the panelists given criteria or is it purely a matter of preference? – the contestants all look a little disappointed with the scores, too

After show nonsense

“passionate teens Zhou Zhennan and Samuel, gentle warriors Wu Jiacheng and Zhou Xingzhe, mood players Xu Minghao and Ma Boqian” – I don’t know why those labels amuse me so much but they do

I’m glad we get to see Samuel & ZN react to the handpans because they were so cute with the other instruments

Damn, Samuel really is a quick learner

Did he mean to play Eric’s song? He’s definitely got a bit of an artist crush on Eric, but that’s adorable if he was trying to play it. And impressive that he did it well enough on something he just learned how to get a sound from that the others recognized it!

My personal rankings

MH & Victor

Jun

Eric & Xiao Wu

Zhennan & Samuel

Usually picking my rankings is super easy. My favorite and least favorite have been leagues away from the others, but I really liked everybody this week :D

And now, another long wait until the subs come out for the finale...

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flydotnet · 5 years

Text

Tears of Venus

VRAINS Rarepair Weeks 2018-2019 - Day 10: Soulmate AU/Hanahaki

Summary: The first time she heard about the disease of unrequited love was when she was browsing the Internet for some stories to read while waiting for a pirated movie to download on her laptop. It seemed to just be a legend, a trope used by fanfiction writers and mangakas to have some tension, death stakes and angst for their characters’ relations. It was a way to add weight to a situation that, otherwise, may not have had it. This trope, because of its widespread character, was referred to “Hanahaki”. It was merely something to make people’s imaginations work and to break hearts in anticipation and suspense. It was all fiction even if, would she pay attention to probably false witness accounts, some said it was an actual thing, albeit very rare, and whose only cure really was reciprocated love. Ah, as if.

(Or: Ema doesn't believe in urban legends, and it bites her back)

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS Ships: Hireshipping (Ema/Akira), background platonic Ema & Aoi

Wordcount: 4.5K words

Notes: Realizing I'm writing these characters borderline OOC hurt more than it should have. (but hey at least it'll still be more accurate than most DSS-centric depictions of Yusaku and Ryoken amirite)

Y'all saw it coming, I saw it coming, everyone saw it coming, and I'm really proud of bring 4.5K words of Hire Hanahaki angst-H/C-whatever onto the table. This story is a weird mix but it was a blast to write, holy shit, I love angst and I love Hanahaki. But like I'm probably the one who proposed it in the first place for the event's prompt list so... Yeah. That has to be the longest oneshot I've ever written in one sitting.

Also, you'll quickly find out why this fic has a name that has nothing to do with flowers... at first glance.

Event hosted by @vrainsrarepairweeks

AO3 version available here.

The first time she heard about the disease of unrequited love was when she was browsing the Internet for some stories to read while waiting for a pirated movie to download on her laptop. It seemed to just be a legend, a trope used by fanfiction writers and mangakas to have some tension, death stakes and angst for their characters’ relations. It was a way to add weight to a situation that, otherwise, may not have had it.

This trope, because of its widespread character, was referred to “Hanahaki”. It was merely something to make people’s imaginations work and to break hearts in anticipation and suspense. It was all fiction even if, would she pay attention to probably false witness accounts, some said it was an actual thing, albeit very rare, and whose only cure really was reciprocated love.

Ah, as if.

It’s when scrolling through the Internet again that Ema remembers about Hanahaki. She has heard rumours about someone in Den City being afflicted by the curse of flowers growing in their lungs because their beloved doesn’t love them back. It has this sensationalist character to it that makes people instantly intrigued: of course that’d reach her ears and that only sceptical and boring people would ignore it.

Thinking of overly-rational people who tend to see things the boring, practical and down-to-Earth way, she wonders what Akira would think about that. Aoi would be at least intrigued, considering her favourite Monsters are partially based on flowers (Lilybell, Holly Angel, Narkissus, Bella Madonna, Nightshade…), but her brother would most certainly dismiss it as yet another irrational legend. Oh well, it’s funnier to imagine his dismissive reactions to it rather than Aoi’s developing teenage curiosity.

As such, she can’t help herself but mention these in a meeting they have for a new mission he’s giving her for, admittedly, a generous sum of money. If they were near her birthday, she’d see it as a gift: as it stands, it’s probably to be sure she doesn’t go to see if she can extort even more money from businessmen with little hacking knowledge (as it stands, Akira does have some and used to be better than her at it: his knowledge just caught all the dust around the place as soon as he could stop hacking to survive, or so she thinks at least). To be honest, when it comes to their personal relationship, she’s better off getting a bit less money but ensure she can tease her hirer about his awkward side.

“Have you heard about the person in the city who has flowers in their lungs?” she asks him as she thinks back to that story going across Link VRAINS and other social media outlets.

He doesn’t reply immediately, but when he does, it’s just as she expected him to do: “Hanahaki isn’t real, Ema. It’s just rumours going around.”

“I figured you’d respond that. You’re predictable, you know?”

He reddens at the insult before they part ways to go on their merry day and tasks.

Still, it’s quite the heavy tip for what’s that job is worth. It’s simply making sure an AI chip doesn’t go rogue again in his boss’s back. It’s not risky, it’s not the worst he’s asked her to do, and yet he’s paying her extensively. Did he get a rise in his salary or something? Or is it Aoi’s way to thank her yet again for all her services? In both cases, it’s unnecessary and, for once, she doesn’t feel like accepting this big sum. Well, why does she find it so weird? Maybe Akira just overestimated what the job was worth because of all the “doing that in the back of the big boss of a gigantic company” gig.

When she gets paid for it, merely twenty-four hours later, the payment has even more of a tip joined to it, along with what seems to be a virtual present. Okay, that’s it, Akira is really overestimating his missions’ worth and wanting her to stay here. Fine. He better not make such a fuss about it anymore: that’s embarrassing to see him dig his grave even deeper all by himself. She accepts the tip anyway, thinks of what perfume or makeup set she could by herself with it because the ones she has already start to grow old, and settles on something glittery for once.

The rumours precise themselves in the following days. The city now knows who the poor, poor sickie is: a man, presumably old enough to feel love but still young enough to worry himself over romance of all things. That’s all there is to it, but at least people have a precise noun or pronoun to use on that guy. Ema stays alert of it: it’s amusing to see all that speculation for something that has so many chances to turn out to be yet another urban legend spread through the streets and posts on social media. She never expected manga to have such an important cultural impact.

She starts to talk about it with Aoi over the net, the teenage girl being interested in what this is all about. Ema runs her through all she knows about it, from the little things she once read online to what is currently the consensus on today’s legends. A question then comes from Aoi who hesitates between believing in it for its Romanesque nature and doubting it because her brother taught her to be doubtful of everything she hears (even his opinions, but she has forgotten to do that for the most part), an interrogation that should have never interested Ema as much as it did: “Do we know what type of flowers it is? I’ve heard depending on the species that it can be a hint with flower symbolism”.

Frankly, Ema doesn’t know anything about flower language or symbolism because she simply never buys flowers for anyone. The only times she does are when visiting her late father’s grave: she simply does like her mother does every time and put there a bouquet of forget-me-nots. Kengo has a slightly other idea of what to put on there, but she hasn’t taken the time to research it either. They have never discussed it yet: she gives him the time to recover from the idea that they are, indeed, brother and sister and should probably stick together even if he always wants to work alone.

The rumours come to her again when Aoi brings these up herself in their little conversation. According to a few, differing versions, this affected person has yellow carnation, anemones or daffodils growing inside their lungs. Quick searches on the Internet confirm Ema in her idea that this is all an urban legend spread among teenagers and people in need of sensationalism: really, flowers symbolizing unreciprocated love, deadly illness or rejection? Come on, this is too cliché to be real, too much like a poorly-written shojo manga to be happening in her plane of reality. She tells Aoi about that, how artificial it all sounds, how everything is way too much of a coincidence, but the girl still believes this may be happening near her while not giving much details aside from that.

She takes another mission offer from Akira in a green-grassed parc in the city where cherry blossoms punctuate the floor and sky. He seems to not do so hot: if she isn’t mistaken, he’s usually not this pale and doesn’t have such dark rings under his eyes. Considering the recent crises at SOL Technologies which are, undeniably, partially caused by her doings, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to work overtime. He always manages to find a way to run himself to the ground anyway as if he was a fatigue addict. God, she’s glad she didn’t turn out to become a workaholic like him.

He coughs here and there, and that’s when he can’t keep it inside anymore, as he explains to her what it consists in this time. It’s eerily similar to last time, with too much money at the key again, and yet another element that shouldn’t be here: the way he slips in compliments on her capacity and resourcefulness, on how he’s grateful for her to always accept his mission offers. (That last part is wrong: she explicitly remembers turning down one or two offers in the past, and once of them recently on top of it). A sudden excess of gratitude coming from a man who never speaks about himself and his feelings simply gives off a wrong vibe on her? Does he want to seduce her or something? Because that won’t work. As it stands, Ghost Girl doesn’t do romance.

The noise of the ever-going, omnipresent rumours soon inform her of even more details she isn’t asking for. The sick man is in his twenties, working for a company and, as they say, never revealed being infected with the disease to anyone. There is no clear evidence to support these claims, albeit she slowly starts to think about how this description fits Akira more and more. On the other hand, there are a ton of other men in their twenties working for big companies in this city who wouldn’t want anyone to know they’re coughing up flowers of everything a human being could cough out. That’s just unbelievable because of how ridiculous and impossible it sounds.

There is still one picture that doesn’t live her mind. When she was leaving their meeting spot, she swore she could see him bent in half with a hand against a tree, coughing she guessed loudly. While this doesn’t exactly correlate to the rumour in its very details, the coincidence of this urban legend going around and a sudden striking coughing fit like that is still numbing at her mind from time to time during the day. Maybe she should wait for more information about the rumour’s sick man to confirm if this has any chance to be the case.

Well, she’s starting to believe it herself, and she finally understands for the first time was Aoi was willing to consider the possibility of the “Hanahaki Case of Den City” as it’s called to be real. The irony never stops.

Soon enough, before she ever expected it to in fact, she learns of a new aspect of the rumour: the man affected by the case of Hanahaki works for SOL Technologies. Is linked to it a witness account by a secretary of the man who swore she had seen him cough more and more often, along with finding a tissue filled with wet and sometimes bloodied flower petals in his paper bin. That is one coincidence too much: that description would match Akira’s to the point she is certain he’s the basis for it. Maybe that secretary is the original source of the rumour’s more precise details. She has to be for such tiny precisions and descriptions anyway.

It starts to somewhat link inside her mind. He did look ill when they last saw each other, with how pale his skin was and how bad his coughing sounded at times. The more logical explanation – the one he’d take, in fact – is that he simply caught a bad chest infection somewhere, and it has around ninety percent chances to be the case. But then… He wouldn’t be afraid to not being able to thank her enough would it just be an infection like that, wouldn’t it? He sounded like he was going to go soon and never see her again. With how big her latest pay checks from him have been, she doubts it’s because he wants them to part ways.

She gets a text message from “SOL Zaizen” on her phone right as she is about to ask Aoi if she has witnessed anything wrong with her brother. As soon as she opens it, she notices something has to be seriously wrong.

No matter what the offer is this time, she is going in-person to meet him and “discuss” the “matters”.

When she arrives there, Ema gets her breathing stolen. Her footsteps are slow despite how much her mind is racing: he looks even worse than the last time, with a mask on the lower part of his face and deeper dark rings, a sickly red barely visible under the white of the mask, and her heart starts racing because he just seems to be doing terribly. She, however, cannot bring herself to run. How did he even get out of his house in that condition? The world may never know, after all.

“What the hell happened to you?!” is what manages to exit her throat as she walks up to him back against the wall.

“It’s complicated, really… I’ve also got a confession to make: I didn’t want to see you for an offer,” he replies with coughs interrupting his words every ten seconds or so, she isn’t sure, but it’s intense and almost frightening to see.

Ema crosses her arms and waits in anxious anticipation for whatever he has to tell her.

“I’m… not sure of how I should go off about it,” he tells her in full honesty, hand in front of his mouth and the other arm around his chest, “so please excuse my abruptness.”

“You haven’t responded to my question, but go on, I guess.”

“I… I’m not sure how long I’ll last for, so… can you promise me to keep an eye on Aoi and Hayami for me?”

“Hayami is your secretary, right…? Wait, what the fuck are you going on about?!”

Akira gives her an excuse of a smile in return. There really is something wrong with this man.

“A… terminal illness of sorts, let’s put it that way… Which brings to something else I wanted to tell you…”

She cannot tell if his face actually is redder by the minute or if it’s just her noticing how ill he truly is.

“I… I may very well be in love with you, Ema…”

Her world stops and shatters before her eyes. There isn’t a lot of people who truly matter to her in this little sphere of hers: her mother, her late father, her half-brother Kengo, Aoi, perhaps Playmaker for saving her life… and Akira. They have grown closer with the years and it’s only now that she realizes how much he does matter to her and how terribly she is receiving this. A terminal illness, so suddenly, for a man who isn’t even thirty yet? This is… this is awful.

And he’s revealing right here and now why he was being generous these past few days. He knew he was going to die and, perhaps, wanted to please her one last time. She can barely handle the first part of the news: the second is finishing her off. She wants to cry, to deny this as lies, but she knows better than this from Akira: he has never been as dramatic as her, down-to-Earth. For him to tell her all of this, it has to be true and urgent.

Her breathing gets caught in her throat and she cannot find the strength to answer.

Ema externally freezes despite the storm taking place in her skull. Time has stopped and everyone else has disappeared from her consciousness as she helplessly stares, unable to move even a finger, at the man whose breathing suddenly gets worse and whose chest seems to squeeze before her widened eyes.

“I…” She attempts to respond. “I don’t know what to say…” She admits to him and herself all the same.

“It’s fine… I expected this to be sudden and shocking…”

Before he can finish speaking, another coughing fit takes a hold of him to the point of forcing him to uncover the bottom part of his face as to spit something.

Everything shatters when Ema gets to see what’s coming out of his mouth or, to be exact, his lungs.

Flower petals.

Hanahaki is real.

An entire flower tainted in dark reds and smelling like spring and iron.

The Hanahaki Case of Den City isn’t just a legend, and he is the one they were speaking about.

And it’s all because of her.

She swallows a sob back as he puts back his mask and looks at her, eyes glassy and almost unfocused, tempted to look away in shame. This is tragically real, tragically close to home. Fuck this! Fuck this so much, from Hell and back!

“I… I’m sorry for this, very much so, Ema,” he tells her as he goes from supporting himself with an arm against the wall to doing so with his back leaning against it instead.

She timidly picks up the entire flower and tries to identify it.

“It’s an anemone,” he attempts to state very calmly, as if to ease her back into what she’s used to, but it’s all a failed façade.

Ema then remembers what she read online and what Aoi told her before: anemones are a symbol of death, illness and forsaken love depending on cultures. She can distinguish a faint blue hue to the one she has in her hand.

“I have to go,” he suddenly tells her in a faint and groggy voice, starting to lose his capacity to speak, “please take care, Ema…”

“I promise I’ll watch over Aoi for you, then,” she tries to look stoic when she just wants to cry. “Please… take care too, Akira,” she continues and ends her sentence as her legs finally move and take her away from the scene.

Another timid, sad smile.

Her mind blanks during her trip back home on her bike, but as soon as she reaches her flat, all her tears fall from her eyes and trail on her cheeks. She pathetically lets her helmet go, takes off her shoes and lets herself fall onto her bed. She is causing another person’s death without ever meaning to, and one she cares about on top of it. Fuck. Akira deserved better than that kind of cruel and unusual death.

But there is nothing she can do about it, isn’t there? It’s uncurable and terminal unless feelings are returned, and there’s where it stings. She doesn’t love him the way he loves her: she has prevented herself from falling in love with anyone as to protect herself from heartbreak and ex-partner drama. She cannot respond back and that’s what is killing him.

This is all her fault, all her goddamn fault!

She’s surprisingly dramatic and heartbroken about it, for someone who has already lost her father to an illness. She remembers being torn and extremely saddened for a few days following his demise, crying after him even, but she cannot for the life of her figure out why this is also such a tragedy with Akira. They’re friends, at best. Shady friends making unwritten contracts behind everyone’s backs, but friends and that’s it.

That’s surprisingly hurtful to hear herself think.

She needs to calm down and think the situation through. Panicking and choking on her sobs isn’t going to make anything better. She gets up and paces in her flat, trying to piece together every fragment of her feelings she can decipher as to paint a global picture of her part of the situation. It’s a giant mess she’s facing with all the disdain she can have towards herself for never cleaning it up before today. Clean your room, they said.

There is no denial that she does care for Akira enough not to want to seem him go so early. Wait, early? That means she wants to spend more time with him, just like friends do. So, they’re friends, that’s for sure. Comparing to her other friends, she finds herself thinking more of what she felt towards now ex-partners… In a way, when she was surprised to hear him confess his love to her, a part of herself seemed to have rejoiced, or rather, to have been relived. That doesn’t make sense with all the sorrow she feels! Why would she be happy to be the reason why he’s dying young after spending so long trying to survive in the streets with a six-year-old under his wing?!

…Oh.

Ema smashes her fist into a wall she finally, finally understands everything. Of course, of course that had to turn out to be denial all along! If she was so broken, so glitched out when learning of his upcoming death and how she was its cause, it was because she had, all along, wanted to be the cause of this. Well, not that way, but she was hiding her feelings to herself to avoid heartbreak again. If nobody could love her because she was shady and prone to backstabbing, when why should she allow herself to fall in love with others?

And then came in Akira, and everything fell apart because that illness, eventually, means nothing. It has no place to be because she has just learnt how things truly were: he’s in love with her, and she’s in love with him, and it’s all going to go down the sewer if she doesn’t do something soon. She has the power to change the tide, to prevent his early death. She needs to act, quickly.

She gets out her phone and gives him a last meeting time.

The meeting happens the day right after, and she can guess by how he didn’t have any issue to respond “yes” to her pleas that he has been given an illness break by SOL Technologies (hah, surprising). To be fair, if Ema had made sure her motorcycle was all charged up, it was to ensure she could make it quickly to the hospital or the Zaizen flat in case everything would fall apart. As it turns out, she sees a familiar room and an even more familiar face come out of it.

Instead of waiting next to the tree where he asked her for the first time to do a mission for him and where he told her he loved her, she runs up to him in a worried hurry. Despite his bittersweet smile and his ever-so polite “Hello, Ema”, she feels how fragile he is in her arms, how she feels like she’s handling a crystal statue who matters so much to her, a statue she has fragilized by her own hands without meaning to. She has, after all, never truly wanted to destroy people, merely play with them and maybe be a bit mischievous. She wanted to be Aphrodite, to play with men and their desires and their capacity to spend money on her, not Death and her scythe reminding people of how feelings can suck.

But she’s no goddess.

Won over by the one naïve about love guy she’s met, that’s what she is.

They sit down on a bench, his head on her shoulder because she’s afraid he won’t stand on his own in his spot of the bench if he doesn’t have some support, his unnatural body heat piercing through her clothes. That’s ironic to say the least. Despite how simplistic it seems to say three words to someone, she’s still hesitant and doesn’t know how Akira, the always-stiff man with zero skill in romance, has managed to pull this off. Her pride vanished the moment she knew she was killing him from the inside: she has nothing keeping her away from it, except maybe her guilt that doesn’t waver.

“How many days do you have left?” she asks instead, out of concern and morbid curiosity as to tell herself that, maybe, later, she’ll be able to be cocky about how narrow she saved someone from his death.

“They told me a week at most, probably less” he replies with his voice even weaker than yesterday’s, a petal exiting his lips. “I didn’t expect you to call me again so soon… My doctor will be mad to learn that I’ve come outside to meet up with you… Haha…”

Why does he everything he say or do break her heart, these days?

Ema looks down, her sins facing her directly in the face.

“Akira, I’m not sure how I should tell you this knowing what’s going on with you,” she continues as earnest she could be. Her pride really ran away on her.

“It’s fine… I’m glad I didn’t scare you away yesterday… You seemed so shaken…”

“You’re not allowed to worry for me when you’re about to die, you… fool.”

Insulting the dying isn’t very cool either, Ema, you should know that.

“What I mean is that I have to tell you something too personal for it to be said on the network. It’d break its meaning.”

He sighs. She can just feel how weak his breathing has become over the past weeks through this single exhale and how barely audible it is. Declaring her love to a shadow hurts.

“It’s fine if you can’t do it anything about it… Just protect Aoi for me…”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

Despite his heavily weakened condition, she can still see how surprised he is to hear her say that. He should know better than anyone else that Ghost Girl can do anything. She excuses it for today, forever even, and holds her hand in his.

“I wish I could have been more dramatic than this, like I usually am, but this is an urgent matter and I won’t let you slip away from me so easily when it’d be easy to win against the illness,” she starts rambling almost as a way to shield herself from her own words.

Funny enough how curing his Hanahaki case seems so easy all of a sudden. She glances at him to see his eyes desperately trying to focus on her.

“I love you too, Akira.”

There is a single, then a couple tears exiting his eyes as she finishes to tell that, and he somehow finds the strength to grip her hand as he coughs out what she guesses to be the last anemone to ever reside in his lungs without rotting away. She doesn’t know how the flowers in his lungs are going to fade away, but that’s not what matters for now.

She enlaces him from his side and pulls her against her own body, feeling the fever disappear in moments, breathing starting to sound normal again. He looks exhausted from fighting the illness, she is herself tired from crying and panicking, the smothering anxiety and fear of death soon to come taking their toll on them both.

“Could you… stay over for the night?” He asks her as he’s falling asleep. “The driver must still be here…”

“My pleasure,” she answers. “Let’s get there before I have to carry you like my bride to bed.”

As she carries him on her shoulder again, they leave behind a trail of pale blue petals smelling like copper and iron. The last one people will ever see, she hopes. The last ones she’ll see for sure.

End Notes

Writing about Akira almost dying is my new specialty.

#vrains #hireshipping #hanahaki #vrainsrarepairweeks #my writing

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maryisis · 4 years

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A “coming out” post...

I am choosing to participate in a global “coming out” movement called “Thank you Plant Medicine”(TYPM)- (from the website: This movement was born as a response to the stigma in society about the use of psychoactive plants and therapy-assisted psychedelics.We dream of a world where these substances are free from stigma and discrimination, for personal and collective healing.We are organizing a global wave of gratitude for February 20, 2020, calling on people to “come out” with their stories of healing and transformation on that day, using the hashtag #ThankYouPlantMedicine. www.thankyouplantmedicine.com

I would first like to preface by saying that the use of psychoactive/consciousness altering plants or fungi is NOT for everyone and by sharing my perspective I mean in no way to persuade or promote it. Okay? Okay.

At the young and seemingly fearless age of fourteen I learned through reading some books and magazines about how a person could consume specific kinds of mushrooms and totally alter and explore their consciousness, and perhaps other dimensions of reality (this was before internet use was widespread). I was utterly fascinated and being the curious and hungry-for-the-meaning-of-life young teen that I was I decided to seek out these magical fungi. It didn’t take me long to find them, with the help of a more experienced person who knew how to find them in the cow pasture.....(Panaeolus cyanescens). I had only read about effects from various books and articles but I really was not prepared at all for what I was about to experience. After consuming who knows how many mushrooms (not very smart...) about 20 minutes later I began to feel my senses becoming highly elevated and intensified. The intensity only grew stronger and stronger, to the point of becoming totally overwhelming with surging feelings and emotions and then also altered perception to the point of only being able to see vibrant pulsating rainbow dripping rootlike formations filling my vision. I had no idea how to navigate this unknown realm of feeling and perception, yet I rode it out meeting the experience with utter awe. Then, I started to feel some background trepidation at how I was supposed to return home in such a state, with it being a school night and all...long story short I made it home safely with my tripper “boyfriend” at the time and he informed my parents what we had done, much to their dismay at seeing their daughter in such a state. I somehow floated up to my room where I spent the remainder of the experience laying in a bed that I felt I was continuously sinking into, watching the trees dance outside my window. I had deep insights that night into the personal truth of my being and regard the experience as a sort of “rite of passage” out of my childhood self. That was 25 years ago. Now in retrospect- had I known how the brain develops, I probably would not have done such a thing...I think there’s something to be said for the importance of having your brain fully developed before altering the brain chemistry ...yet I’m pretty sure I ended up alright and I can’t say I regret any of my use of mind altering substances (ok-except maybe a couple of times....lol). As I said before- I was a very curious soul, and it didn’t take me long to realize that the “Just Say No” propaganda campaign that I grew up with was more than just a war on drugs- it was a war on consciousness. How we got to this point of “mind control” is something to ponder.

My relationship with psychedelic plants/fungi has changed a lot over the years and I would say that the major shift happened about 19 years ago when I participated in my first plant medicine ceremony. Finally- I got a taste of what my soul has been thirsting for- Ceremony and experiencing the sacred and divine aspects of existence. Rewind-I lived most of my life in a community and area where Cannabis was freely and frequently used recreationally. I also began using cannabis in my teens- in a non-intentional way- not to say that I didn’t have meaningful experiences in that non-intentional context- However I have learned that intention, ritual and/or ceremony can greatly enhance the benefit in the communing with these “entheogens”- a term I like to use which translates literally as “becoming god within.” When I realized the extent as to which the society in I lived tries to govern our lives- to the point of having laws that make NATURE ILLEGAL- I felt very passionate about RECLAIMING MY BASIC HUMAN RIGHT- to explore my consciousness. When I saw peaceful and kind people I knew facing jail time and/or having their houses taken away because of growing cannabis, it deeply disturbed me. And so my motivation in “coming out” comes from this place within, that believes that it is morally WRONG that plants and fungi that have awesome potential healing value are illegal. Anyone who does their studies of scientific research as well as historical/cultural studies will learn how much value the plant of Cannabis, for example, has for healing. The endo-cannabinoid system of the human body is proof that humans have evolved, in close relationship with this plant. And of course HEMP, which is the non-psychoactive cannabis species has a plethora of amazing uses which would greatly help our society and environment if it were more widely embraced and cultivated.

Thankfully “the times are a changin!’” More and more studies are being allowed and funded, the laws of the land are starting to change in many places and more and more people are beginning to learn about and honor the deep inherent value of these natural plant medicines. These are exciting times and yet we still have a long way to go! And it is my perspective that we need these plant medicines now more than ever so as to help with the healing of humanity on a spiritual level- to awaken us out of the materialist mindset trance of scarcity, unworthiness, fear and disconnection from nature. The fascinating scientific studies are showing us how the chemicals in these plants and fungi work on the brain, in beneficial ways to help people heal with ailments such as depression, PTSD and anxiety. The healing potential of these plants and fungi have been known for thousands of years to various indigenous cultures, who have kept such wisdom alive throughout the millennia through their initiated healer lineages. It is very important to honor the traditions and lineages from which the traditional ceremonial use of these plant medicines originate from because it is these people that have the deeply developed relationship with these plants and understand them in intimate ways which most western psyche’s do not and I dare say cannot (unless immersed in the studies and apprenticing with these traditional plant medicine healers.) And so while these are hopeful times with potential healing that these plant medicines present our deeply troubled and sick society, we must be mindful that our own egoistic tendencies don’t get the best of us. I have been working with powerful plant medicines for over 20 years now and I am still most definitely a humble student on the path of healing...still learning the delicate process of surrender to the inexplicable healing powers of these plant teachers and the wisdom teachings and deeply meaningful insights they bestow.

Personally, most meaningful and valuable to my own life, of which I have received from my relationship with plant medicine teachers, namely Ayahuasca and Psilocybin mushrooms, has been my feeling of CONNECTION- Connection to Nature, to Spirit, to everything! In my expanded states I can see clearly how my thoughts and actions affect those around me and the whole. In working with these plants/fungi I naturally gravitated towards living a more healthier lifestyle- being careful of what I choose to consume physically or mentally. Unhealthy habits steadily and easily fell away. A significant healing aspect of these plant medicines is how they have the capacity to disrupt our conditioned thought patterning- which is a very good thing because much of our behavior and thought processes are governed by our habitual patterning- which keeps us very limited in our perception and what we are capable of experiencing. This can lead in turn to depression, addiction, frustration, and other mental and physical ailments. As we are learning with the exciting field of neuroscience, our thoughts, emotions and perceptions are closely linked and work in a cyclical way. This leads me to honor the ways that these plants have helped me to develop my visionary abilities. One of the most powerful visionary perceptions I have had to date through Grandmother medicine was the experience of perceiving the ALL, underlying state of UNITY- it was an ineffable experience- impossible to put into words- but made a very deep impression on my life and perception of reality. I felt completely liberated from all fear and filled with AWE, totally absorbed in the interconnected matrix of all creation. One more thing. Being a singer and musician- it has been a profound gift and one of my greatest joys to sing my prayers and songs while in communion with plant medicine, in ceremony. I am so deeply grateful for all the plant teachers in my life- they are so dear to my heart and my relationship with each continues to evolve in mysterious and miraculous ways. Deep bows of reverence and respect.

One of the main ways I have integrated the visions and insights that I have received from these plants/fungi is through music. I have always been a musical person, since before I could even talk I was already singing. In my life today, Music is a central aspect and purpose of my incarnation. I feel inspired to add here that the wisdom of the Yogic path has also played an equally important role in my evolution- I was introduced to the path of Yoga also at 14, which has helped me immensely on my journey with its ancient and very relevant wisdom teachings of self realization. I have also always had an interest in the healing plants and started studying herbal healing in depth in my late teens. I have many healing plant allies that I work with on a daily basis.

Above photo with a Chacruna plant, the pair to the Ayahuasca vine, which contains DMT- the potent visionary molecule, belonging to the “Tryptamines,” indolealkylamine molecules, which evoke release of Seratonin and Dopamine. DMT is present naturally in the human body, especially in the gut. But only when paired with a MAOI (Monoamine oxidase inhibitor), which is found in Ayahuasca vine, can this molecule actually have its effects. The MAOI that are in the vine are classified as Beta-carbolines. These very special molecules are Harmine and Harmaline. Below is a photo of Ayahuasca vine Banisteriopsis caapi. Interestingly, when the molecule of harmine was first discovered in the vine, it was called “telepathine,” because “of the reported effects of Ayahuasca among the indigenous users, including: collective contact with and/or visions of jaguars, snakes, and jeweled birds, and ancestral spirits; the ability to see future events; and as the name suggests, telepathic communication among tribal members.”(from wikipedia)

Harmine can also be found in Syrian Rue seeds (Peganum harmala) as well as in Passionflower leaf (much lower amounts.) My experiences with Syrian Rue seed (extract) have been very significant actually, while it isn’t really psychedelic all on its own, I highly value the medicine that it is for calming the mind, increasing serotonin and inducing flow states of consciousness. It also creates energetic sensitivity and increased psychic(”telepathine”) ability. It ALSO is a powerful anti-parasitic- amazingly and much to my shock it rid my body of parasites! Thankfully it is NOT ILLEGAL(except in Australia where its controlled). The studies on Harmine and Harmaline are very promising and are shown to have significant healing properties, such as anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer actions. I’m very enthusiastic for the healing potential of Syrian Rue and Ayahuasca vine!

One last thing before I close this share and it has to do with integrity and sustainability. The way I see it is that these plants are coming into prominence in our society right now because they are very much needed for our healing. We are facing various levels of existential crises, and I see these medicines acting like the white blood cells of this earth, to help us humans heal our sickness and reconnect to our sense of purpose and belonging to this world (not the world belonging to us, for our use/abuse). However, we cannot continue to take and take without giving back- that sort of behavior is how we’ve gotten ourselves into this imbalance within ourselves and the planet. It is my prayer and vision that those who are called to plant medicine path, do so with the intention of healing themselves so that they may be of service to the healing of the WHOLE. (There’s a lot more that could be said here about safety, the ceremonial container and the facilitator/shaman/medicine healer that creates the ceremonial container.I would recommend this article for this specific topic). Each person has their own unique calling and purpose in which they can serve the whole and that is for each soul to discover within. We start by healing ourselves...that is the key- because our individual healing ripples out. The healing light and love that we cultivate within shines out to inspire and awaken light and love in others. Our own inner harmony will reflect to the outer world. When we live our lives from a balanced place of “right relationship” and reciprocity, as a result we cultivate more integrity and mutual respect. We must integrate the wisdom we gain into daily practices that anchor more loving kindness and compassion because that is what is needed on this planet.

Thanks for reading!!

#thankyouplantmedicine #plantmedicine #healingplants #visionaryplants #decriminalizenature

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disappearingground · 5 years

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Interview: Jenny Lewis on 'The Voyager', True Love, and her Musical Sisterhood.

Coup de Main October 6, 2015

INTERVIEW: JENNY LEWIS ON 'THE VOYAGER', TRUE LOVE, AND HER MUSICAL SISTERHOOD.

By Shahlin Graves

There’s a red panda toy on-stage tonight - undoubtedly a first for Sydney’s Metro Theatre (after the show, bemused Australian venue staff take photos of it on their phones). The 'lil panda sits proudly, surveying its surroundings - star-spangled rainbows and bouquets of fresh flowers - looking on as JENNY LEWIS and her five-piece band impress the heck out of an adoring audience.

Jenny Jr., The Panda, (as named during our interview at soundcheck / photos here) looks how I feel - equal parts ecstatic and reverential. When the last decade of your life has been soundtracked by all of Jenny Lewis’ albums, this kind of silent shout-out is like the bucket-list item I’ve always wanted to become reality, but just didn’t know.

Hours earlier, while writing a postcard addressed to New Zealand, Jenny tells us an anecdote about her time on Mumford & Sons’ stopover tour: "I just did this Gentlemen Of The Road festival show, and they have postcards pre-stamped backstage for the artists, so that you can send a postcard to someone - but I just sent postcards to myself, and I sat there for hours writing poems on these postcards about the Jersey Shore. I don’t know if that was their intention, putting them there."

Jenny Lewis is my spirit animal - she’s unashamedly unapologetic, the epitome of big sis wisdom, and a good human; like the very best kind that exists. Whoever said that you shouldn’t meet your heroes, has obviously never met Jenny.

"Can we embrace? I feel like I need to hug you after that," says Jenny post-interview, and the feeling is wholeheartedly mutual.

"...for me, it’s all on the table. My work, it comes from my soul, I’m never writing for someone else. I write from that feeling; so there are no rules."

COUP DE MAIN: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today! I grew up listening to Rilo Kiley, so this is such an honour! And in celebration of your existence, as tribute, we’ve bought you a lolly-lei made out of snacks. JENNY LEWIS: Oh my gosh, you guys! Are you serious? Thank you! What are these snacks? Milk bottles?! Thank you, I’ll need these later.

CDM: Selfishly, I’m so happy that you’ve got some Rilo Kiley songs on your current set-list - I don’t think Rilo Kiley ever came to New Zealand, so this is like the end of a long wait for me. JENNY: No, and we didn’t make it to Australia. Blake [Sennett] has a fear - or had a fear - of flying, so I think that was one of the reasons why we didn’t make it in the end. It’s a long flight, it’s quite a commitment - but that’s what drugs are for. <laughs>

CDM: Well, so that you have a super good reason to come visit NZ next time you’re in this part of the world, we’ve adopted you a Red Panda from the Auckland Zoo back in New Zealand. JENNY: WHAT?! This is the best interview I’ve ever done. This is the cutest little guy ever! This is Jenny Jr.? Because I have a purse - it’s like a little mouse-purse, and I call him Gary - and I wonder if Jenny Jr. will fit inside of Gary?

CDM: Jenny Jr. and Gary can be friends! JENNY: Yes! Perfect.

CDM: After working with Ryan Adams on your latest album and then touring together, it’s rad that it just so happened that you’re on the road together again here in Australia. Is tour-Ryan any different to studio-Ryan? JENNY: Ryan is pretty consistently himself, but the coolest part about travelling with Ryan is that he travels with a pinball machine in a road-case. So backstage, there’s always pins to be played. I was never a pinball fan until I started making 'The Voyager' with Ryan, and now I’m a pretty... I can’t say that I’m very good at it, but I really enjoy blowing off steam.

CDM: Can you beat Ryan? JENNY: I can’t beat him at anything. Maybe I could beat him at making a better Grass-Fed burger or something, but that’s about it.

CDM: Girls can do anything, Jenny. Keep practicing. JENNY: Yes! But he’s a pinball fanatic. I’d have to put in a couple years - I don’t have the time to play that much pinball.

CDM: While in NZ last week, Ryan made national news after he helped rescue an abandoned kitten that he found in a cemetery. Is that a normal kind of life-event for Ryan? JENNY: Really?! Did he really?

CDM: Ryan was the #1 Trending Topic on NZ Twitter with #CemeteryCat. He was roaming a cemetery one night, happened upon this abandoned kitten, then rallied our entire nation to try and help save/adopt it. JENNY: Did he just happen upon the cat?

CDM: I assume he was staying at the hotel opposite the cemetery. JENNY: Amazing! We’ve unfollowed each other on social media, so I don’t know anything about #CemeteryCat. <laughs>

CDM: 'The Voyager' album opens with 'Head Underwater', in which you sing, "Looking out on my life / As if there was no there." A year on from the album’s release, do you still feel that disconnect with your past selves? JENNY: No, and I think that line is about the past even in the song. Like, this is what happened to me and I’ve come through it. By the end of the song, that is no longer the case.

CDM: When you look back on your life, do you visualise your past selves as Matryoshka Russian nesting dolls? Or more like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle that fit together? JENNY: That’s a good question. I think more of the Russian dolls, because that little you - that little innocent girl - is always in there somewhere.

CDM: The line, "If for just one second it helps us to remember that we like each other the most" in 'Slippery Slopes', is one of my favourite lyrics on the album. It’s so unashamedly unapologetic, which isn’t a typical narrative for female musicians in this day and age. Why do you think pop-culture stereotypes tropes of female fidelity and infidelity, pitting 'good girls' against 'bad girls'? JENNY: That’s a big question and I think that everyone’s sexuality is their own - you’re on your own path and there’s no right or wrong way to do things. I’ve been in a committed long-term relationship, and that has ebbs and flows, as any long-term relationship does. But it’s funny, 'She’s Not Me' from 'The Voyager' [album], some people have assumed that I’m saying, "She’s not me, she’s easy," as if she’s promiscuous - and that’s not the point of the song at all because I would never say that about another woman and I don’t judge women by how they choose to carry themselves in that regard. But really, it’s just about someone who’s a little easier to live with than me. <laughs> She’s easy; I’m a little more complicated, it’s a little more difficult with me.

CDM: Another of the album’s important takeaway lines, is of course, "There's only one difference between you and me / When I look at myself, all I can see: I'm just another lady without a baby," in 'Just One Of The Guys'. Do you feel frustrated with society’s gender constructs? JENNY: I do, but that line in that song is-- well, it changes from night to night, but on most nights, it’s light. It’s not entirely heavy, and I think that it’s okay to talk about those things in your work. I think there are pressures... like, you have to choose between your career and having a family - you can do both, or you can choose neither, or it’s okay to define yourself through your work rather than other humans that you’re creating.

CDM: I don’t really read album reviews unless it’s research-related, so I only read The Telegraph’s review of 'The Voyager' this week. They said, "Given Lewis’s age and retro-musical instincts, major stardom may now be beyond her grasp, but if you like your pop music grown up, she’s up there with the big boys." Every word of that sentence makes me livid, from them putting an expiry date on your career to the 'big boys' idiom. Do you think that music journalists would be judging these songs in the same way if they were Rilo Kiley songs? JENNY: I don’t know... because if they were Rilo Kiley songs, if my band were still together, I’d still be a 39-year-old woman writing pop songs. I didn’t actually read that review when it came out. <laughs> I was reading an interview recently with Meryl Streep and she said something really interesting. She said that when she turned 40, the only parts that she was offered were parts to play witches in movies. <laughs> So if someone like Meryl Streep feels it, I certainly feel it. But what she’s done, and she’s continued to do amazing work, is she’s also created a writer’s workshop for women over 40 - and it’s specifically for women over 40. So I think that kind of journalism... it will always exist, but I don’t let it affect my work.

CDM: In Kim Gordon’s book, 'Girl In A Band', she says: "For high-end music labels, the music matters, but a lot comes down to how the girl looks. The girl anchors the stage, sucks in the male gaze, and, depending on who she is, throws her own gaze back out into the audience. Since our music can be weird and dissonant, having me center stage also makes it that much easier to sell the band. 'Look, it’s a girl, she’s wearing a dress, and she’s with those guys, so things must be okay.'" Do you agree or disagree with those thoughts? JENNY: Well, I think that’s why we play indie-rock. Because we don’t necessarily have to subscribe to that. I can only talk about my own experience, and in the way that I’ve presented myself as a female up on a stage with my band or with Rilo Kiley... and I grew up and I was extremely shy - I was a tomboy until I was in my mid-twenties - and when I started feeling more comfortable-- like if you look at early Rilo Kiley photos, I was in jeans and t-shirts, and then I started becoming more confident and just feeling more attractive. And so I started wearing dresses and I started wearing hotpants, and it infuriated some of the people in the audience - some of our hardcore fans - as if I had sold out. But really what was happening, was I was growing up and coming into my own and feeling more comfortable in my own body.

CDM: Because what you’re wearing totally affects the quality of your music. JENNY: Right! But it’s so funny how no-one ever said anything about what Blake was wearing - if he had a moustache or not, or long hair or short hair, or shorts or Tevas, hat or no hat. But suddenly somehow the quality of the music declined because the length of my pants got shorter. So it’s absurd. But again, you embody your own femininity and sexuality in your own time.

CDM: 'Love U Forever' ironically voyages from the bliss of young love, to "the feeling of hell in a hallway" when a relationship is no longer shiny and new. Do you believe in true love? What does true love mean to you? JENNY: I do. I think you have to believe in true love. I think practical love is also a part of the equation, and it takes work to be in love, and I think standing in love is something different than falling in love - and I think that’s the ultimate goal. You meet a lot of people that fall in love very quickly and obsess and then it sort of ends, but just the idea of standing in it is different.

CDM: Through Rilo Kiley, Jenny and Johnny, and now 'The Voyager' album, you’ve documented your relationships in a public way over a series of albums. It would be easy to dwell on the negative aspects of that sharing, but what have been the upsides for you personally? JENNY: I learn about myself through my songs. And sometimes I write things that I don’t understand in the moment - I write songs because I have a hard time expressing myself in my own relationships, so a lot of times I’ll write something and then three years later I’ll truly understand how I felt at that time. So for me, it’s all on the table. My work, it comes from my soul, I’m never writing for someone else. I write from that feeling; so there are no rules. I never tell myself what I’m not supposed to write about. But talking about my relationship, that’s different - if I’m giving an interview, I think you want to keep some things for yourself. But once you start making rules about what you can and cannot speak to, then you could find yourself in trouble.

CDM: Do you think it’s more important to move forward or move on? JENNY: Move forward. Because, do you ever really move on? I don’t think so.

CDM: In the Rilo Kiley song, 'Love and War (11/11/46)', you asked: "Can vanity and happiness coexist?" Over a decade later, have you found an answer for that question yet? JENNY: HA! I love that line. That line is so funny, I really thought about it for so long. I think that I probably wouldn’t write that line today, because the hope is that you become more comfortable in your own skin as you get a little bit older. But if I could tell my younger self anything, it would be like, 'Don’t worry about it.' Like a 22-year-old Jenny Lewis, 'Don’t worry about it. It’s fine. You look great. Don’t worry about it.'

CDM: You worked with Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij on 'Completely Not Me' last year, for the 'Girls' soundtrack. He’s such an extreme perfectionist, that seems like it would have been the opposite studio experience of working with Ryan Adams who is so primal and instinctual? JENNY: It’s a completely different style of working. Ryan is all analogue - yeah it’s all instinctual, but he is also a perfectionist if he has an idea about the song itself. He doesn’t let the musicians dwell on the process, but he’s very specific about what he wants to hear. Rostam is in a digital world, so things change when you’re not even in the room. But working with both of those guys I learned so much, and I actually am working on a song with Rostam right now - we just started writing something together and I always love working with him.

CDM: You’re so super all about the sisterhood. From having Z Berg perform with you on Jimmy Kimmel Live, to playing at Haim’s Sam Jam benefit show and also having the Haim sisters appear on-stage with you at Coachella this year. As sort of the Patron Saint of Valley Girl musicians, do you feel like a proud Mom watching Haim take over the world? JENNY: How do you know all this stuff?! This is great! <laughs> I am so, so proud of them. I’ve had so many amazing musicians in my band over the years, Este and Danielle Haim, Blake Mills who’s amazing, Natalie Prass was in my band last year... so I’ve seen so many people go on to do really amazing things after spending a little time in my band. I’m so lucky to have people for a short amount of time. And I’ve learned so much from the Haim girls; I’m so incredibly proud of them, and I’m always there if they need me. They were actually over at my house a couple of weeks ago and were talking about songs and writing. I’m always a resource - if you’ve done time in my band, I’m always here for you.

#publication: coup de main #album: the voyager #year: 2015 #mention: songwriting #person: ryan adams #song: head underwater #song: she's not me #song: just one of the guys #mention: meryl streep #mention: love #song: love and war #person: haim

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aesarctic · 7 years

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Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

It’s been a while since I’ve written a full-scale review. Sorry, guys!

Read on Goodreads

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

FOR THE SUPER NON-SPOILERY PEOPLE: Ready Player One is definitely a book that I'd read the back cover to. Maybe that's not your thing, but I find that some books are better going in knowing nothing, and some books you need to know a bit about. This is one of the books that I'd definitely read the back-of-the-book-blurb. I can tell you right now that any spoilers you may think are in it aren't actually spoilers. This book is also definitely five-star potential. Don't be put off by my four stars. FOR THE NON-SPOILERY PEOPLE (hidden for the SNSP): Expanding on what I said up there, anything in the back-of-the-book-blurb that you may think is spoilers is said within the first chapter. It's not even labeled "Chapter 1." It's labelled "Chapter 0." You're fine to read it. I really liked the concept of this book, and I when I finished it, I felt accomplished, but I also wanted more. Shout-out to Mark Vaders (mjvaders) on Spotify for a Ready Player One playlist of every song mentioned in the book. That's super cool. https://open.spotify.com/user/mjvaders (The User) https://open.spotify.com/user/mjvader... (The Playlist)

FOR THE SPOILERY PEOPLE: I have five pages of notes, front and back. Let's go. The book opens on chapter 0000. It's a slow introduction, the main points being: 1) The OASIS is a thing 2) The creator, Halliday, died and made a scavenger-hunt-like contest 3) It's been five years, and no one has found the first key. Until now. But the thing is, it gives us the entire video. Why can't we have a summary of the video? It took me a while to get hooked into the book because the video wasn't the most fun to read. I'd also like to note that this was the only time footnotes were used. Why didn't we get more of those? Why were they necessary? Why were they necessary for only that specific chapter? I'd also like to note that there are a lot of sections in this book that reads like a history lesson, and I'm not sure these are necessary. I'll get to that later. I was not alive in the 1980s. In fact, Halliday is two years younger than my mom. There were so many 80s culture references that probably went over my head, but I was surprised at how many I caught and understood. I've watched a few of the movies mentioned (though, I personally am not a StarWars fan), and I've heard some of the music, and I've played a few of the games. Call me cliché, but I always go straight to the Pac-Man machine in arcades. Either that or Skee-ball. My favourite mention, though is at the very end, when they mention Voltron. (Pages 332 and 336 in my paperback copy). June 10th of 2016, a remake of Voltron was created, and I definitely watched it when it came out. Then I watched the 2011 remake, and a good amount of the 1984 original show. The only one I have not watched (and like to pretend doesn't exist) is the 1990s version. Anyway, anyway, I like Voltron. At the beginning, we get this nice glimpse into the real world, featuring Aunt Alice. She took Wade's laptop, and I still don't understand why he didn't scramble to hide it when he heard her coming. He said he had backups, but he also mentioned it was a pain to redownload everything. I would have tried to hide my laptop. One of my favoruite settings in this book was Wade's secret hideout. I love how he rigged it, and I thought that was super cool. I was very upset when he left it. It also confused me when the Sixers didn't realize he was in there? They said they had proof he hadn't left the trailer in three days, and that proof was video, right? How do they not have video of him going to his hideout? Or at least exiting the trailer? They said they saw him enter the trailer, but they didn't see him leave? I predicted that someone would find it, but no one ever did. Props to Wade. I had a hard time imagining the OASIS. I should be imagining real life, since the graphics are that good. I could have at least imagined a Skyrim-looking game. But, nah. I imagined something more like Overwatch. Art3mis. I should have known she'd become a little more important in the story, but as he was ranting about her blog, I literally wrote "I hope she doesn't have a big role" and I did not like her. Aech. I pronounced this as "Ache" at first, but Wade corrected us. I did not follow that. I should have, and I tried, but I still said "Ache" in my head. As someone who gets their name mispronounced a lot, I should have known better, but I did not and I am ashamed. I didn't like Aech at first. Eventually she grew on me, and I was incredibly mad when Wade totally dissed her for Art3mis. Ugh. I hate romance stories like that. I hate romance stories in general, but this one was bad. I hated how Art3mis was set up to be his girlfriend. No thank you. I like the setting for this book--meaning how the Real World was set up and how that affects the OASIS and why the OASIS is used because of it. I mean, I don't fancy the idea of a Great Recession, but it's a cool concept in theory. The copper key was found on page 84. This book has 372 pages. At least, that's what it is in my copy. That seemed really early for me, especially since he immediately knew what the phrase on the copper key meant, and I was worried that the book would have something strange happen at the end after all of the keys and gates were found. Luckily there was nothing wrong at the end (besides an unnecessary romance) and the book was dedicated to the scavenger hunt. Thank the gods. Speaking of immediately knowing what the message on the copper key meant, he described where the first gate was, and it's a game, you know, so my immediate thought was that the game wouldn't be there and someone had stolen it and there'd be some complication. No. Of course, we have to meet Art3mis. Kill me. I like the fact that Wade wasn't the first one to find the temple, though. That's cool. He was just the first one to complete it. "I wanted to propose marriage." --page 93 K I L L M E When he figured out the message on the copper key, Wade says, "I didn't think it would matter which copy of his hometown I went to..." and I thought that it would. I thought that it would totally matter, and he'd have to go through however many worlds looking for the correct game, and the game wouldn't be there, and he'd have to track it down, or something. It was weird reading something that went so right on the first try. He also totally skips out on school, which he had previously mentioned that he needed to attend to not get into trouble. I've attended two high schools, one that requires 24 credits, and the one I'm currently at requires 26. I currently have 24 credits, so theoretically I only need to pass two classes that total up to two credits, right? Wrong. Schools tend to require a certain amount of credits in each subject--I did a research project on this my sophomore year. I still need to take two language arts classes and one science class. Some schools require four credits in language arts, science, and math. Then three in social studies. That's what I've seen most often. How much did he double up to accomplish being able to flake his senior year? You only have a certain about of blocks per semester/trimester, and in today's world we can take more with online classes, but his school is an online school. How did his credit system work? If anyone has any input or corrections to make, please feel free. I don't know everything. Wade mentions that it was a "beautiful Midwestern Day" and as someone who is from the Midwest, I'd like to ask where? Okay, so Wade signs something with the acronym "MTFBWYA" on page 127 of the paperback. I know I'm dense, but what does that stand for? Why is he signing so many contracts and giving people models of his avatar? Doesn't he want to stay as secret as possible? Doesn't that mean not letting people know what you look like? I love Wade and Aech's friendship! At the beginning, anyway. Wade didn't want to tell Aech any of the information, and she was totally chill with that. She understood and they stayed best friends. At that moment, anyway. I'm salty. How did Wade not predict that recording would be prohibited in the place he met with Sorrento? I thought that the comic book stack falling over was a Sixer. I was ever so wrong. If they recreated Ludus to make Ludus II, wouldn't that also have the tomb with the copper key? There's a huge amount of time where Wade didn't mention Art3mis' blog, and I felt that that was a bit out of character. He was checking it all the time before all of this. The next time we get an update on it is after Art3mis dumps him, blocks him, and stops posting on her blog. Speaking of Art3mis, I still think that their friendship and romance developed in a very strange way, and I definitely don't like it. I hate that she replaced Aech. The author made a huge point that we have no idea what Art3mis looked like. I felt as if this was way too built up. Wade is a lot like Frank Zhang from the Heroes of Olympus series, by Rick Riordan. SPOILER: He totally buffs up, and I feel as if it's erasing a bit of diversity in a way. END SPOILER Some points from my notes: -Art3mis is clearly way smarted than Wade -My aesthetic is doing research to play Pac-Man -I love that Aech found the key while Wade was playing Pac-Man I felt as if the trophy place that Wade checked out should have clicked for him a lot sooner. He had that knowledge. He even had the knowledge of Zork. Why didn't he skim through his journal the minute he didn't understand the next clue? That would have gotten him there a lot sooner. This book has a very good balance of dead characters. I appreciate important characters dying. It makes the story interesting. So Wade had that one job, but we never see him going to it after that initial time. What happened there? So Wade makes this entire plan to sneak into the Sixer's place, and readers are left in the dark. It's so weird reading, and a lot of my notes say things like, "This plan had better be good." When Daito died, Shoto handed over that weapon the three of them earned. I knew in that moment that that was probably the entire reason those characters existed, and I was a little upset. I laughed at the phrasing "101 IOI Plaza" There were four people: Wade, Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto. Three people were needed. Obviously someone was going to die. So does "P.S." stand for "postscript?" I was told it was "personal secret." Don't believe everything six-year-olds tell you. Marrow: *appears* Me: HE KNOCKED OVER THE COMIC BOOKS Me: *turns the page* Wade: HE KNOCKED OVER THE COMIC BOOKS Turns out Halliday and Marrow were in a love triangle, and things ended because of it. Ugh. Aech and Wade are friends again, by the way! That's good! And we end things with Art3mis and Wade, and I want to die. So, around the area where Wade was finding the copper key, I was beginning to realize that this book is a lot like The Raven Cycle series, by Maggie Stiefvater. Warning: TRC spoilers from here on out. The Raven Cycle is set up like a scavenger hunt, but complex and very real-worldly. In fact, one of the things I love about TRC is how complex, 3D, and life-like the characters are, and how 3D the plot is, and the settings are set up fantastically. Anyway, the story has a lot of history to it, in a way. One of the main characters, Gansey, is on this hunt for a Welsh king who lived centuries ago. History, right? But we don't get a lot of that history. We get the basics: "There is a dead king somewhere. If we find him, we get a wish." In Ready Player One, there's a dead game maker, and if you can follow the clues, you get the prize of money. It's a really similar plot--I'm not sure I'm conveying how similar it was in my mind. Anyway, in Ready Player One we get a lot of unnecessary history that I felt could be summarized like I just did. Maybe not quite like that because Ernest Cline is writing a book, not an informal review, but you know what I mean. The history wasn't interesting to me--I didn't need to know Halliday's backstory. Not really. I just needed to know that he was rich and someone was going to get that money. By following clues. The history bits really annoyed me, and I'd go on, but I think I've ranted enough. Next I'll get into the character differences and writing styles, and it goes on. Basically I did not need to read all of that history, and I'm citing a different series as my evidence. THANKS FOR READING

#Ready Player One #Book Review #RPO #Review #Ernest Cline

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yesterdaysdreams · 6 years

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Mandi’s Fireplace and Media Center Makeover

Last June, I moved into a basic suburban home straight out of your favorite ’80s teen movie in every way. Okay, so someone did us the favor of removing tired wallpaper and painting everything tan and brown. But we loved how much the peculiar floor plan exactly fit our particular needs, and I was really taken with this grand living room. It didn’t exactly look like a grand space when we moved in, but I saw its potential for the fireplace of my dreams, and was enamored with the tall ceilings complete with skylights and weird sofit-clad nooks on the walls. (You can see the plan of our first floor in this blog post.)

The living room has finally undergone its transformation, and I’m so excited to share the process with you! We now have a bright space with a beautiful stone fireplace that accentuates the high ceilings. Below the fireplace is a long hearth, worthy of any mid-century masterpiece, but still fitting in with our ’80s home. We aren’t shy about the fact that we watch TV, and I decided to show it in all its glory, since this is the family room in our home and hey, our family likes movie nights, and sometimes movie days!

When I first drew out the plans for the fireplace wall makeover, I had planned to build shelves above the TV, as well as the shelf you can see below it. I wanted to wait until our TV was installed to see how the space would feel, and was surprised that I felt it was perfect without shelves above the TV. Maybe that will change someday, but we are building a shelving wall in our study, so I can’t imagine that we would need any more book storage. I do like how minimal it feels, allowing other areas of the room to shine, like the gorgeous stone fireplace!

From the moment I first saw this space, I knew it needed a stone fireplace that went all the way up to the ceiling. Since there was already brick in place, we opted to use a stone veneer, rather than demo the brick or waste square footage by using large stones. In fact, after doing quite a bit of research, I settled on using manufactured stone, called Cultured Stone by Boral. It looks like real stone, but it is 1/4 of the weight of full-thickness stone, and since it is a veneer, it is not as thick either. You can purchase corner pieces to achieve the look of a thick fireplace, but since our plan was to do some drywall work next to the stone, we didn’t end up using corner pieces. I selected the Old Country Fieldstone in the Summit Peak colorway, and used a sanded grout with a wide mortar set. I was thinking I’d like to use an overgrout style, but my husband vetoed me and we met halfway. Check out the dramatic before and after below!

Above is a cellphone picture of me in my excitement after the first day of Boral stone installation. I had considered doing this project myself, and know that I could’ve (hear me roar). But since we were taking on so much work elsewhere in our home, I decided to hire someone to do the work, and I’m so glad we did! My friend Jeremy Miller did a great job. He added a moisture barrier and metal lathe to the drywall section of the wall above the old brick fireplace, and then covered everything with a coat of mortar. It took him two days to place the stone and fill it in with sanded grout. We chose a white grout, which when mixed with the sand makes an off-white color. I liked the contrast and also wanted it to tie in with the hearth and walls around it.

But let’s take a step back to when we first got the keys to our house! I had made all of the plans for the space while waiting for our mortgage to close, so I confidently began demo in the living room on the very first day of homeownership! Out came the carpet and baseboards, down came the mantle, and out came the old cabinets. I had originally planned to remove the platform inside of this media center nook, but when I pulled up the carpet, I saw that the platform beneath was actually the subfloor that went under the walls, not a platform that was built onto the subfloor. Then I pulled up the subfloor to discover plumbing pipes, electrical conduits, and vacuflo tubes going through the space. My plan was foiled! The platform had to stay.After an afternoon of frustration with The Platform That Came To Stay, I came up with a plan B I liked even better than plan A! I decided to embrace the platform and build it out on the front to meet the depth of the hearth. I decided to create a mid-century style hearth that extended all the way from one wall to the other, to be covered in concrete for a sleek, minimal look that would tie in with the floors and walls, allowing the Boral stone fireplace to take center stage. (More like stage left, but you get the idea …)

After we built out the platform, we covered it with sheets of Wonderboard that we screwed into place with Rock-On screws, and then I prepped the area for a couple of coats of Ardex Feather Finish in white. Prepping simply involved putting fiberglass joint tape between boards and where the Wonderboard met the brick of the fireplace. This step prevents the concrete feather finish from cracking as the structure shifts with house settling and temperature/humidity changes that affect the wood structure below it.

Ardex feather finish is a material typically used as a floor leveler or to repair subfloors before laying the finished flooring material. But it’s become a trendy finish for countertop refinishing and other home DIY projects with a modern flair. The technique I used on the hearth is actually the same process that was used in the old ABM studio house countertops to cover the formica countertops. On the left side of the fireplace, I was smoothing the Ardex over Wonderboard. On the right side, I was smooshing it into the spaces of the brick.

Ardex is a lot of trial and error, but I learned to only work with small batches at a time, because it sets up quickly and becomes very difficult to smooth out. After about 30 minutes, I went back and scraped off any majorly uneven areas, such as the globbyness around the front ledge of the hearth. I absolutely couldn’t get photos of this because I was working along and also working against the clock with the Ardex.

White Ardex is very difficult to find in my experience, but you can order it some places online. I would try calling around in your area to see if you can buy it locally to save on shipping costs. I didn’t have any luck here in Canton, Ohio.

Now for the nook where this very ’80s midwestern media cabinet used to reside. Of course, some of us older folks remember when TVs used to be monstrosities. In fact, until I graduated high school, my family had one of those huge cabinet televisions that was an actual piece of furniture with a dial on the front. A DIAL. When I designed the new space for our flat-screen TV, I knew I wouldn’t need the depth required for an older television, but ironically, I wanted enough room for my turntable and receiver. So my dad (who has done all of my drywall work for me—thanks, Dad!) moved forward the back wall so I had just enough space to build a shelf for my vintage record equipment and a shelf for my speakers and albums.

After the drywalling was complete, I built supports for the chunky nook-style shelving using 2x3s, as shown below. I attached the supports to the rear wall and side walls after making sure there was enough room to comfortably fit my records, and of course making sure the shelf support was level.After the supports were anchored into the wall, I attached the front 2×3 and covered the supports with 1/4″ plywood. I planned out the support size so that the 1/4″ plywood would make the front of the shelves flush with the drywall around it. After nailing on the plywood, I did a lot of sanding to compensate for any unevenness in the plywood, then I primed, wet sanded, and painted the shelves to match the walls.

I had planned to take more process photos of the shelf-building when I built the upper shelves, but since I decided not to do upper shelves, I don’t have as many photos as I would’ve like to have shared. Feel free to ask me any questions about this process in the comments at the end of this post!

Because we will be using a 2″ sound bar mounted to our TV (situated at the bottom of the TV) and a wireless subwoofer, I decided to keep my record player on its own speaker system. I actually bought “new” vintage speakers that perfectly fit in with my record shelf, and have drilled holes in my shelf to connect all of the wires out of site. Also, since we built the wall that the TV and shelves are on, I added electrical outlets behind my turntable and receiver, as well as behind the television. And when I said I added, I mean Dad added. (Thanks again, Dad!)

So there she is! I finished up the hearth just in time to decorate for Christmas. I’ll be sharing more of the before and after of this space very soon! Check out the list below to find out where everything is from, and stay tuned for the full reveal! – Mandi

Living Room Materials and Product Sources:

Wall paint: Benjamin Moore’s Super White Fireplace stone: Boral Cultured Stone Old Country Fieldstone in Summit Peak Wall tile: Home Depot Flooring: Lumber Liquidators engineered bamboo White Ardex: eBay Rug: Lulu & Georgia White Chairs: 1st Dibs Coffee Table: Chairish Sofa: Welles sectional from Joybird White side table: LexMod Vase, floor lamp, and art are all vintage.

Credits // Author and Photography: Mandi Johnson. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.

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foursprout-blog · 6 years

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This Is The Fun Way To A Meaningful Life: 3 Secrets Backed By Research

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/this-is-the-fun-way-to-a-meaningful-life-3-secrets-backed-by-research/

This Is The Fun Way To A Meaningful Life: 3 Secrets Backed By Research

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Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here.

***

Sometimes we all feel anxious. Sometimes lonely or disconnected. Sometimes unhappy, and maybe even a little crazy. You know what might fix all of this?

Would you believe me if I said… a war?

From Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging:

The positive effects of war on mental health were first noticed by the great sociologist Emile Durkheim, who found that when European countries went to war, suicide rates dropped. Psychiatric wards in Paris were strangely empty during both world wars, and that remained true even as the German army rolled into the city in 1940. Researchers documented a similar phenomenon during civil wars in Spain, Algeria, Lebanon, and Northern Ireland. An Irish psychologist named H. A. Lyons found that suicide rates in Belfast dropped 50 percent during the riots of 1969 and 1970, and homicide and other violent crimes also went down. Depression rates for both men and women declined abruptly during that period, with men experiencing the most extreme drop in the most violent districts. County Derry, on the other hand—which suffered almost no violence at all—saw male depression rates rise rather than fall.

Hold on a second before you send me that angry email. I’m not really suggesting war as a solution to any of our emotional ills. God forbid.

But, that said: what the heck is going on here? Wars are supposed to be bad, right?

Why are people feeling less depressed, less crazy, less violent and less suicidal when something we can all agree is horrible and life threatening is happening around them?

Because war and natural disasters force people to unite together. To help others. To act as a community.

From Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging:

“When people are actively engaged in a cause their lives have more purpose… with a resulting improvement in mental health,” Lyons wrote in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research in 1979. “It would be irresponsible to suggest violence as a means of improving mental health, but the Belfast findings suggest that people will feel better psychologically if they have more involvement with their community.”

We need a community to feel good. And community is something we sorely lack in the modern world. Sadly, we often only feel it these days when forced to.

From Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging:

Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.

Many of us live alone. We’re often surrounded by strangers rather than family or friends. We communicate by text rather than face to face. We hire a service instead of getting the help of a buddy.

These are new developments in the existence of Homo Sapiens. And while efficient and effective, they don’t contribute to the feeling of community we all need to feel whole. So it’s no surprise that empathy is dropping:

A recent study at the University of Michigan revealed a dramatic decline in empathy levels among young Americans between 1980 and today, with the steepest drop being in the last ten years. The shift, say researchers, is in part due to more people living alone and spending less time engaged in social and community activities that nurture empathic sensitivity.

And when you feel like you don’t belong to a group, health and self-control plummet. If that doesn’t register with you maybe that’s because when you feel disconnected, your IQ drops too:

When people’s sense of social connectedness is threatened, their ability to self-regulate suffers; for instance their IQ performance drops (Baumeister, Twenge, & Nuss, 2002). Feeling lonely predicts early death as much as major health risk behaviors like smoking (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008).

I know what some people are thinking: But I have friends. Got a bunch of ’em, actually.

That ain’t the issue, Bubba. We’re talking about a community. A group. A band of brothers. A syndicate of sisters. Your fantasy football league. Your sewing circle. Your drug cartel.

But they’re all relationships, right? Maybe the difference isn’t clear. So what’s the difference?

Well, I’m so glad you asked…

It’s All About Danish Churches

Research shows Denmark is home to the happiest people in the world. (Hamlet was, apparently, an exception.) And pretty much everywhere, religious people are happier than the nonreligious.

Both are due to being in a community. 92% of Danes are part of some kind of group:

The sociologist Ruut Veenhoven and his team have collected happiness data from ninety-one countries, representing two-thirds of the world’s population. He has concluded that Denmark is home to the happiest people in the world, with Switzerland close behind… Interestingly enough, one of the more detailed points of the research found that 92 percent of the people in Denmark are members of some sort of group, ranging from sports to cultural interests.

And the happiness effects of religion?

We find little evidence that other private or subjective aspects of religiosity affect life satisfaction independent of attendance and congregational friendship.

Membership has its privileges and we ain’t just talking about smiles. Seems like everybody is yakking about “grit” these days. (Apparently, the subject of grit promotes grit, but only when it comes to talking about grit more often.)

What promotes that resilience? Groups.

Belonging to groups, such as networks of friends, family, clubs and sport teams, improves mental health because groups provide support, help you to feel good about yourself and keep you active. But belonging to many different groups might also help to make you psychologically and physically stronger. People with multiple group memberships cope better when faced with stressful situations such as recovering from stroke and are even more likely to stay cold-free when exposed to the cold virus.

And if happiness and resilience aren’t enough for you, let’s talk about the ever-popular benefit of not dropping dead:

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, did a meta-analysis of 148 studies and concluded that a lack of social support predicts all causes of death. People with a solid group of friends are 50 percent more likely to survive at any given time than those without one.

Okay, groups are good — to say the least. But maybe the local bowling league doesn’t seem that appealing…

(To learn more about the science of a successful life, check out my new book here.)

So how do you start your own little community? What’s it take to form a group of friends and get all those wonderful benefits? Here’s what the research says:

1) Regular Meetings

Drinking Tang once does not make you an astronaut. And one get-together is not a community; it’s a party.

If you don’t have regular, consistent meetings, the thing is probably going to fall apart and you certainly won’t get the bonding, trust and all them good “feels” that you’re wanting.

Two of the biggest boosters to overall well-being are exercise and religious attendance. It’s because both give consistent, scheduled benefits:

We suggest that while major events may not provide lasting increases in well-being, certain seemingly minor events – such as attending religious services or exercising – may do so by providing small but frequent boosts: if people engage in such behaviors with sufficient frequency, they may cumulatively experience enough boosts to attain higher well-being.

It’s comical when you think about it. We have set work hours. Hair appointments get scheduled. But often when it comes to relationships — you know, that one thing that pretty much every variety of religion, philosophy and scientific paper all agree makes life worthwhile — that’s the area where, ehhhh, we just kinda wing it… Does that make any kind of sense?

Priorities, people, priorities.

Seeing friends and family regularly is the equivalent of making an extra $97,265 per year:

So, an individual who only sees his or her friends or relatives less than once a month to never at all would require around an extra £63,000 a year to be just as satisfied with life as an individual who sees his or her friends or relatives on most days.

So make a plan. Set a schedule. Once a week, once a month, whatever. But consistency is key.

(To learn the 3 secrets from neuroscience that will make you emotionally intelligent, click here.)

Okay, you’ve got a schedule. But who is coming? Time to play recruiter. For a solid group, what kind of people do you want to invite?

2) Who makes you feel good? Whom do you admire?

You want people who make you feel good. Yeah, I know. Obvious. But it’s worth repeating.

You know why old people are so happy and mellow? The research shows it’s because they’ve deliberately pruned their social circles over the years:

Other studies have discovered that as people age, they seek out situations that will lift their moods — for instance, pruning social circles of friends or acquaintances who might bring them down.

Often times we include people because we “should” and this can lead to problems. Spending time with fake friends — or “frenemies” — is worse than spending time with real enemies:

Friends that we feel ambivalently about raise our blood pressure more — cause more anxiety and stress — than people we actively dislike.

And you want to have people in the clan who you admire. People you aspire to be like. Because you are going to become similar to the people around you — like it or not.

The Longevity Project, which studied over 1000 people from youth to death had this to say:

The groups you associate with often determine the type of person you become. For people who want improved health, association with other healthy people is usually the strongest and most direct path of change.

When I spoke to Stanford professor Bob Sutton for my book, he told me his #1 piece of advice to students was this:

When you take a job take a long look at the people you’re going to be working with — because the odds are you’re going to become like them, they are not going to become like you.

Who do you like and who do you look up to? There’s your squad.

(To learn the seven-step morning ritual that will make you happy all day, click here.)

Alright, we know you want to be surrounded by people you want to be like and people you feel good around. So what’s the next step?

3) Struggle, Help, And Celebrate

So what’s your group gonna do? Hopefully something you all enjoy. But if you want to accelerate the bonding process, make it something with a touch of struggle to it.

Sports, games, volunteer work, or building something all qualify. I’m not saying you all have to get together to have an Amish barn raising… but it’s not a terrible idea, either. Do something interactive and struggle a bit:

Anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas (say that three times fast) found that groups that went through “high-ordeals” bonded far more than those that went through “low-ordeals.” Struggling together made people closer. This is why fraternities haze. Why soldiers feel like they are kin.

And help each other. You surrounded yourself with people you admire, right? Great. They’re gonna rub off on you. But there’s almost always a way for you to give back and bring value to their lives as well.

And this may surprise you but the people who live the longest aren’t the ones who receive the most help — they’re the people who give the most help:

Beyond social network size, the clearest benefit of social relationships came from helping others. Those who helped their friends and neighbors, advising and caring for others, tended to live to old age.

And after you struggle, after you’ve given and received help, celebrate your successes. It’s no big shocker, but leading happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky has shown that sharing our achievements with others and celebrating boosts well-being:

Sharing successes and accomplishments with others has been shown to be associated with elevated pleasant emotions and well-being. So, when you or your spouse or cousin or best friend wins an honor, congratulate him or her (and yourself ), and celebrate.

(To learn the 4 rituals from neuroscience that will make you happy, click here.)

Okay, we’ve covered a lot on what your little group needs to survive and thrive. Let’s round it up and see how this plays out in the long term…

Sum Up

You can build a great group by:

Consistent get-togethers: Leaving happiness to chance is an excellent way to be unhappy. If you can make a dentist appointment, you can make an appointment to enjoy “Game of Thrones” together every week.

Recruit people you like and people you look up to: If you don’t like anyone and think everyone is beneath you, create an Antisocial Narcissists Club. (Nobody will come but everyone will think they deserve to be the leader.)

Struggle, Help and Celebrate: Build or make something. Engage in friendly competition. Help each other. And when you succeed, party like rockstars.

Nobody wants deathbed regrets and everyone would like a good life.

When people are dying, what do they regret the most? Coming in at #4 is: “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” A group is a way to solve the problem efficiently and on a consistent basis. Oh, and it’s a lot of freakin’ fun.

How do you live a good life? Well, The Grant Study has followed a group of 268 men for over 80 years. They have learned a lot about what does and doesn’t make for a good life.

George Vaillant led much of their work. He was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response?

That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.

So make a plan to get together regularly with your community…

Waiting for the next war is just so lazy.

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The post This Is The Fun Way To A Meaningful Life: 3 Secrets Backed By Research appeared first on Barking Up The Wrong Tree.

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foursprouthappiness-blog · 6 years